Whether you are operating at the strategic level or working in product development, I would bet my life-starting morning cup of coffee (a great Mexican roast from Conscious Cup in Crystal Lake, IL) that your organization faces more opportunities than it can possibly deliver.  The extreme of this situation is Project Gridlock, a phenomena that I’ve observed in mature technology firms where the demand to support and enhance legacy offerings collide with the need to modernize or create new products to grow the business and stay-ahead of competitors.

Make no doubt about it, anything with the word "Gridlock" in it is uncomfortable, and this goes double for the project environment.  Symptoms include: constantly shifting schedules, a never-ending battle for resources and the general feeling that everyone in the organization is running around rearranging deck chairs as the ship is sinking and the band playing.  Another symptom is the role of Project Manager being reduced to one of schedule jockey and meeting organizer.

The organizations that I’ve observed in a state of Project Gridlock struggle in two key areas: how to break the gridlock by improving and limiting project selection and how to eliminate existing projects in process.  Learning how to say "No" and how to say "No More" are two of the most difficult lessons for a maturing organization.

I participated as one firm solved this problem and I observed from the outside looking in as another firm imploded under the weight of too many projects.  Here’s what made one work and the other fail:

-The firm that broke the back of Project Gridlock recognized that in the absence of any reasonable strategic filter, most projects seemed like a good idea on the surface. They set about and succeeded in creating and communicating an organization-wide strategy and execution program that offered much-needed criteria and processes for accepting and canceling projects.

-The firm that failed had developed such an inbred culture of selling development commitments to make sales that all sense of strategy was lost in the never-ending chase to fulfill.

-The successful firm, armed with a clear strategy and set of project filters, engaged in a relentless Project Review and Evaluation process and eventually "cleared the deck" of non-strategic activities.  Unneeded deck chairs were eliminated and the rest were bolted down. This was more than an administrative exercise, and it ultimately required the executives to visit clients being impacted by project cancellations and conduct some extremely uncomfortable discussions with these distraught customers.  Most customers were ultimately appreciative of the personal approach that the firm’s leaders applied to delivering bad news, and opted to remain clients. 

–The firm that failed, attempted to solve its problems by outsourcing, but failed to recognize the whole new set of project management, cultural and administrative issues and activities required to make outsourcing work.  The result of this effort was to increase the gridlock, reduce the flow of projects reaching completion to a trickle and increase costs.

–The successful firm also engaged in selective outsourcing, but recognized up-front that to make this work, they would have to invest in project management and improvement in communications practices to deal with time zone, geographic and cultural differences. 

-The successful firm succeeded in institutionalizing its new strategy program by revamping core communications, decision-making and compensations systems.  As a result, everyone understood their role in executing against strategic priorities, and everyone had the knowledge and vocabulary needed to ask the right questions and conduct the right discussions.  The change to compensation systems ensured that the firm was putting its money where its priorities were.

The bottom-line:

Saying "No" to new projects and "No More" to projects in process are difficult for the best of firms and impossible for organizations without a clear strategy and the supporting processes.  The participants in strategy-starved organizations have no context for decision-making and unless that context is created, are destined to founder and likely sink while the crew focuses on constantly rearranging the deck chairs. 

Armed with the context of strategy, project portfolio management is still a difficult task requiring unceasing commitment from the executives and constant vigilance at the project management level.  If you are currently running around with a deckchair in your hands, it’s time for you to look at the captain and officers and start asking the strategic questions.