I was talking with a relatively new but successful project manager and he said something that took me back. His comment, "I am not sure project management is for me, I mean I am just losing my skills." As I questioned the comment it was clear that he did not value the skills that he was developing compared to those skills of his previous technical role. This conversation is one I have had before and comes up frequently when we talk about how project managers contribute to the success of projects and why a project with a proper project manager is more likely to succeed. My answer:
So what does execution look like?
If you go to an artist, and you ask them about a piece of work they are working on they are likely to tell you, "it is not done until it is done". How do you know when it is done? "I will just know." Well as a project manager, this is never the correct answer.
Execution is the ability to organize around a goal and lead someone (like this artist) or a team to what is considered completion (finished work).
Execution sounds easy, but if you look at the artist example, they don't even know what the finished result will look like. And what happens if you have 30 artists with 100 pieces of work and then they need to put it all together at the end? Most of you are probably already thinking about how to break the work down. Creating a blueprint or a plan for how each of the 100 paintings will go together perhaps creating a "theme" to help guide the work to ensure that it will all go together. Perhaps you are thinking of all of the requirements gathering questions you would ask like what colors, due date, or budget. If you are thinking about any of these things, you are practicing your execution skill.
Executing is:
In Ram Charan's book, "Execution: The Discipline or Getting Things Done" Ram says that, "70% of strategic failures are due to poor execution of leadership..." As a project manager, you are the leader for the project and the one affecting change in this statistic. This is your value statement to an organization.
Here are just a few of the benefits that businesses get out of executors:
Execution is a valuable because it is how visions are brought to reality. Organizations value this because timely arrival of strategy can make or break their company and as company dynamics are changing this is becoming more valuable.
It used to be just being in a market was enough for a company, but now companies are charged with creating new markets and products. This type of thought leading work fits nicely with the artist reference above. As the creative aspects in products and business continue to grow, the need for executors will continue to grow as well. If you can come in and apply your execution skills to ensure a specific product is first to market or that a new efficiency gets into production before the competition, businesses are looking for you.
As a project manager, Execution is your skill!
So what does execution look like?If you go to an artist, and you ask them about a piece of work they are working on they are likely to tell you, "it is not done until it is done". How do you know when it is done? "I will just know." Well as a project manager, this is never the correct answer.
Execution is the ability to organize around a goal and lead someone (like this artist) or a team to what is considered completion (finished work).
Execution sounds easy, but if you look at the artist example, they don't even know what the finished result will look like. And what happens if you have 30 artists with 100 pieces of work and then they need to put it all together at the end? Most of you are probably already thinking about how to break the work down. Creating a blueprint or a plan for how each of the 100 paintings will go together perhaps creating a "theme" to help guide the work to ensure that it will all go together. Perhaps you are thinking of all of the requirements gathering questions you would ask like what colors, due date, or budget. If you are thinking about any of these things, you are practicing your execution skill.
Executing is:
- Organizing the work in a logical manner
- Sizing the effort and understanding the requirements
- Keeping yourself and the team focused on the end goals
- Delivering value to the customer and business
- Enabling the teams to succeed through any reasonable means
- And sometimes... getting out of the team's way
In Ram Charan's book, "Execution: The Discipline or Getting Things Done" Ram says that, "70% of strategic failures are due to poor execution of leadership..." As a project manager, you are the leader for the project and the one affecting change in this statistic. This is your value statement to an organization.
Here are just a few of the benefits that businesses get out of executors:
- Shorter time to market
- Smaller but more valuable deliverables
- Features more closely aligned with the needs of the customers
- Less waste and rework
- Better alignment to strategic goals
Execution is a valuable because it is how visions are brought to reality. Organizations value this because timely arrival of strategy can make or break their company and as company dynamics are changing this is becoming more valuable.
It used to be just being in a market was enough for a company, but now companies are charged with creating new markets and products. This type of thought leading work fits nicely with the artist reference above. As the creative aspects in products and business continue to grow, the need for executors will continue to grow as well. If you can come in and apply your execution skills to ensure a specific product is first to market or that a new efficiency gets into production before the competition, businesses are looking for you.
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