It’s All About People

Posted by Ty Kiisel in Ty Kiisel: Strategic Project Management

For a group of highly technical people in a very technical discipline, the message of this years Gartner PPM Summit was, "It's all about people." It's all about the people who work on project teams and how we interact with them.

These few quotes are from my notes and represent only a taste of what was said over the last three days. I hope you'll forgive any slight inaccuracies:

"Build a culture where you can have hearts and minds, not reports." —Donna Fitzgerald, Gartner

"Social tools allow us to capture all our intellectual property and share it throughout the organization." —David Held, Yum! Brands

"We wanted to share ideas more organically..." Michael Stratton, Boeing

"Those closest to the work should be allowed to make decisions." —Matt Light, Gartner

"All the employees need to know their priorities and how their contributions contribute to the strategy." —Matt Light, Gartner

"All projects are not the same and all work is not a project." —Audrey Apfel, Gartner

"The younger generation doesn't use email—it's all about texting and mobile technology." —Mark Langley, PMI

"All project management is people management." —Tom Peters

I have come home with an even greater appreciation for the importance of the role people play within our project teams. As important as process and method is to ensuring that projects are successful, it's the people who do the work—it isn't the process. As project leaders, our role is to successfully lead the members of our project teams as we manage the process. Quoting Lou Gerstner, Tom Peters suggests that the culture we create on our teams "isn't just part of the game, it is the game." And he takes it one step further and suggests, if you don't like it, you need to find something else to do.

When leading people, he suggests "...personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all success comes."

I have to agree. I imagine as I go through my notes and think about the things I have learned over the last couple of weeks in London and San Diego I will write more about these concepts.

What are you doing to improve your ability to work with the people on your project teams?