Schwalbe P.380 - Chapter 9, Ex 3
Read Douglas Ross's article "Applying Covey's Seven Habits to a Project Management Career" or another article that describes the seven habits. Summarize three of Covey's habits in your own words and give examples of how these habits would apply to project management.
Habit one: Be proactive
Covey suggested that a project manager should be business oriented, have the ability to anticipate and foresee problems before they surfaced, take action before things escalate. They also have the courage to do something beyond the norm, be confident and determined if they belief that it will benefit the whole.
To be proactive in project management, the company must not be conservative. The management need the wisdom to accept new ideas and innovative ways of doing things. It takes a very solid foundation to make decisions that might have tremendous effects on the outcome, but not much can be referenced from existing examples. Therefore rich knowledge, experience, sensitivity, and communication skills are all important characters of a project manager, besides being creative. And Covey believed that a proactive project manager can also stimulate his/her team members to break away from self-constrains, and grow together with the project.
Example
Many marketing executives may have heard about the story of selling shoes to a third world country, where no one is wearing shoes. To see this as a niche market, or the battle yard of Waterloo, the Project Manager must be very open-minded to investigate if there is the chance of a profitable business. The questions in his/her mind could be:
- Is the subject (shoes, or a new product/service/procedure) really in need?
- Why is that no one does this before?
- What are the critical success factors?
- What is the alternative?
- What is the opportunity cost?
- What is the risk?
- How much will we afford to lose?
- Where is the bottom line?
...... There would be a long list of questions that the Project Manager need to consider him/herself, or to go through brainstorming with his/her team. This situation may not only happen in developing a new market, but at all stages of managing IT projects.
Take another example, customers seldom have a 100% clear idea about what they are expecting from the result of a project. Project manager should get a clear understanding of what the customers need, instead of what they want. S/he needs to think ahead of any possible problem or changes that could be raised by the customers during project development, then proposes them ideas or options even before the project starts. This proactive habit not only helps project planning, saves time and cost on possible changes, but also enhances customer satisfaction at the same time.
Habit Four: Think Win-Win
Covey stressed that the success of a project is dependent on the interrelations and behavior of people, in most cases thinking win-win is the best choice. However, there could be conflicting situations that a win/lose paradigm is necessary. The target is to gain as much winnings as possible on the overall result.
Example
Some Project Managers might use incentives or rewards to promote productivity of team members. But conflicts of resources may hinder the performance of individual worker or department. Take for instance, a project needs testings at various stage, that require its own staff to be the testers to get the sample results. If it is possible to group different tests together, share a common section with the minimum testers, it will reduce time and cost of the project as a whole. Project Managers need to emphasize overall achievements (win-win) that should out-weight individual success, and to reward "sacrificing (lose)" team members as well. Sometimes return of investment is not obvious, Project Managers need to anticipate the long-term result to see if a temporary win/lose solution is more appropriate. For example, a customer may require extra work done on a finished project, without paying extra money. In the long run if the customer is likely to return for more business, the Project Manager should consider to do the extra work this time for the goodwill of the company - this is win-win thinking.
Habit Five: Seek first to understand, than to be understood
Covey stated that active listening is very important in communication with team members and all stakeholders. It is done through listening carefully to other people's words first, then summarize and rephrase what we heard in order to clarify we get the exact message across. Schwalbe further described it to be empathic listening, which is even more powerful in forgetting your personal interest and focusing on understand the speaker.
Example
In coordinating a project, the project manager will need to communicate well with all concerned people, include his/her team members, the client, and the higher management. If a project falls behind schedule, the manager has to look for the cause of delay, most probably need to ask the responsible team member(s) what problem has happen. Would there be conflicts in assigning resources? Would there be changes unexpected? Would there be difficulties that need extra attention? Is the team member(s) having some tough personal issue that makes him/her hard to focus? If a client keep changing his/her mind, have we tried to listen and find out what s/he needs, instead of what s/he wants which might not be well-presented from our own perspective? The habit of active or empathic listening can help the Project Manager to see a clearer picture of what is happening or what will happen, and put it under his/her own control.
Reference
Schwalbe, K. (2006). Information Technology Project Management (4th ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Thomson Course Technology.
Ross, D. (1996). Applying Covey's Seven Habits to a Project Management Career. PM Network. Retrieved October 17, 2007, from
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