Staying Out of the Project Bermuda Triangle
Balancing the Governance Triangle
Project managers know well the Iron Triangle of scope, schedule and budget. We are all familiar with the way that a poor balance ricochets around, weakens the other corners and ultimately degrades quality. But poorly balanced pylons of Responsibility, Authority and Resources will topple the governance triangle just as surely. Poor management of this triangle will cause a project to disappear without a trace leaving most people mystified about what really happened and why.
To define the terms here, authority is the power to direct fulfillment and includes accountability as used in the RACI model. Responsibility is exactly as it is in the RACI model; it refers to the work assigned and where stakeholders are expecting it to be performed. And resources are the same financing, time, and skilled people encapsulated as “budget” in one corner of the PMI’s favorite metaphor mentioned above.
Responsibility without authority or resources is the project manager’s lot. You have to beg for every dime every month, and you’ve little or nothing to say about anyone’s career or bonus but you need them to put in ten hour days. You don’t even have the right to pull the plug if it gets too dire.
Resources without responsibility or authority is a recipe for waste and inefficiency. A guy I know *cough* once spent $10,000 on clip art for his graphic arts department, who wouldn’t touch it since it appeared to supersede their jobs. Which, it’s true, were all replaced by PowerPoint a few years later.
Authority without responsibility or resources creates a situation in which one is pounding on the table and demanding change, writing white papers, issuing plans and commissioning work that doesn’t happen. People pay attention to the responsibility and resources a manager wields to decide whether he needs to be taken seriously. Be careful of people calling themselves Thought Leaders. They may have or be trying to acquire authority, but have no ability to follow through on their directions (not me; that’s why the “dot”).
Resources and responsibility without authority is challenging, and often how things ultimately get done. Lacking authority, a project manager works with soft power, using persuasion, horse-trading and charisma to accomplish her aim.
Responsibility and authority without resources is a nightmare if the situation persists, but it’s how things usually start. A need is recognized and someone assigned. If the need is properly understood executives may put someone in charge of it with the requisite authority. But that person is often expected to fulfill the need out of their existing resources. Getting the new project means they have confidence in you, you’re the problem solver, someone to look to. No one likes to stand up, having received that vote of confidence, and say okay, which one of my other responsibilities should be pushed on to the back burner in favor of the new project? Instead we turn the temperature up in the frog’s bath another degree or two: ask staff to juggle the new tasks, put some things off a bit and stay a little later in the evening. But the situation is also the one most likely to be proceed to balance, if you can use your authority to acquire resources.
Resources and authority without responsibility is a relatively stable governance imbalance (hence all the more common). No one with resources and authority for a project is going to give them up voluntarily, especially if they’re not fully responsible for delivering. Many firms are on the lookout for these cases, and pay small armies of MBAs to ferret them out by analyzing governance models and rewriting compliance structures.
There may be many reasons why a project looks good, such as visibility within the organization, development of a strategic expertise, or interesting technology. And when we evaluate it, savvy managers that we are, we may look at the scope, anticipated schedule and proffered resources to decide whether we can deliver the expected quality on time and within budget. However it’s wise to go a little deeper and evaluate the assignment based on the other triangle to know whether there’s any reasonable hope of success. The famed Caribbean nemesis proved to be a statistical phantom derived from the sheer volume of boats and planes in the area. It turns out if you have that many people sailing their boats and flying their planes in one area, some of them are going to mysteriously disappear. There are always risks with any project and we’re never going to be successful with every one; but it’s still a good idea to check the radio and the life jackets before you weigh anchor in Bimini.
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