If you want to be better than the rest, you have to be different from the rest

Most PMOs, most organisations are structured to make as many Project Managers as possible, as average as possible. That's a problem.

Think about your organisation and what they require of you as you deliver your projects. Do they have pro formas for how you do things? Do they have pre formatted templates for status reports and governance packs? Do they have standards for how to run particular ceremonies?

Let's say they don't. What happens instead is Project Manager 1 asks Project Manager 2 how they capture risks, run governance, report status, etc.

When we all converge on a standard way of being, of behaving, of acting, then we all converge on a standard level of performance too.

How average do you want to be?

Stop trying to be average

First, break free. Whilst there is some advantage in codifying behavior - it allows insights, comparisons and allows execs a standard way of understanding a project, the unintended consequences are not worth it.

The definition of average is “the typical value in a set of data”. If typical is the same because you're all being made to follow the same process, or do the same thing, then everyone is average.

Plan your project, record your risks, manage your issues, work hard to get tasks delivered, answer the 20 questions every day that come from stakeholders, report on progress, repeat. Isn't this what everyone does? That's why it's average.

You might think that this is what is expected. You might think this is standard. I disagree. I think this is average.

From average to better

So what does better look like?

• Better is delivering the value, quicker and for less cost than anyone thought was possible

• Better is fixing the organisational impediments that make projects take longer and cost more than they should

• Better is solving problems before they even become problems

• Better is stakeholders not asking you questions because they knew what they needed to know before they thought of the question

• Better is telling people the truths, shattering organisational myths and creativity that leads to productivity no one has ever experienced here.

If no one in your company achieves this definition, doesn't that provide an additional proof point that you've converged on average?

How to get better

Better is based on principles instead of standards. Principles define an outcome that is expected, not a “how” things are done, or a “what” must be done, but a “why”. Principles give you room to express, room to be different, room not to be average.

Let me give you an example by sharing some of my principles.

1. The only work that is done, is work that contributes to the outcome.

2. People operate at their best when they are given freedom to make their own choices.

3. Anything that can be done to improve delivery, we have the power to do.

4. We don't do things because they are expected, we do things because they add value.

What could your project be like if it delivered on those principles? Better than average?

To be better than average, you have to trailblaze. You have to make your own way, make your own rules and be different. You can never be better than average trying to do what everyone else does.