Remarkable Project Managers - Gen Leslie Groves

Throughout the ages there have been project managers who, through their flare for organizing work, drive, and leadership, have led some of the world's most remarkable achievements. This article looks at one such extraordinary person, the leader of the Manhattan project. The Manhattan project is my personal favorite in terms of demonstrating project management skill because it contains all the elements required for a remarkable effort. It delivered a product that changed the world, it met a challenging deadline, and it was done under some very trying circumstances.

The Manhattan project was successfully led by General Leslie Richard Groves. General Groves had previously managed the project which built the Pentagon, a significant achievement on its own. The project had actually been started in 1941 under the name "S-1" and was being managed by a civilian project manager, Arthur Compton. The S-1 project was charged with delivering fissile materials, with the ultimate goal being a nuclear weapon. The project had already engaged most of the famous scientists who would produce the bomb for General Groves, but it was decided to change the scope and deliverable of the project to a nuclear weapon. With this change came a demand for a military project manager who was experienced in large industrial projects: General Groves

General Groves succeeded in resolving several issues in just two days which had stymied the project for months up to that point. He was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General immediately thereafter. In fairness to Compton, Groves had military backing and authority that Compton didn't. Exercising the authority that his position provided is not what makes his accomplishments remarkable. It is the way in which he exercised his authority, and even exceeded it.

To give you some idea of the project's introduction to Groves, let's look at his first 10 days on the job. He assumed the role on September 17, 1942. On September 18 th he purchased 1250 tons of high grade Belgian Congo uranium ore and had it stored on Staten Island. On September 19 th he purchased 52,000 acres in the Nevada desert, the future home of Oak Ridge, the future site of the Manhattan Project. On September 23 rd he was promoted to Brigadier General, and on September 26 th he received the highest procurement level in America. Now you can imagine the impact this whirlwind of activity must have had on a team used to seeing Compton tied in red tape and rendered pretty much ineffective.

Groves was considered by his friends to be pushy and over-bearing. He was generally hated by the scientists who formed the core of his project team, but Groves wasn't interested in winning popularity contests. He wasn't given the project to become popular with the scientists; he was given it to push the scientists to deliver to the utmost of their abilities and then some. He was given the project to succeed.

Although the project team actually peaked at 175,000 members, the core group was the scientists and mathematicians whose intellectual efforts were responsible for producing the plan which harnessed the power of nuclear fission for the bomb. The scientists and mathematicians were the best and brightest in the world and included such luminaries as: Robert Oppenheimer, Philip H. Abelson, Hans Bethe, Niels Bohr, Sir James Chadwick, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Otto Frisch, George Kistiakowsky, Ernest Lawrence, Philip Morrison, Seth Neddermeyer, John von Neumann, Rudolf Peierls, I. I. Rabi, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Stanislaw Ulam, Harold Urey, and Victor Weisskopf. Five of these folks had won Nobel prizes in their field and 3 more would go on to win Nobels after the project. The advantage of having this talent on the team is obvious; the drawbacks may be less obvious. These men were all used to being leaders in their own countries and spheres of influence. Now they were suddenly being treated as just another member of a team and there was resentment at the change

Richard Oppenheimer had some success leading teams of scientists during the S-1 project so General Groves made him the team lead of the scientists and mathematicians on the Manhattan Project. Groves worked on developing a good working relation with Oppenheimer so that he could hand off responsibility for the scientific work to him and concentrate on overall project goals and objectives. He did this by taking responsibility for the fissile materials program away from the Manhattan team and handing it off to the Dupont and Kellog corporations. By this time the pressure to deliver the project as soon as possible was about as intense as it was possible to get. The Germans were working on a nuclear weapons program as well and it was obvious that the first team to succeed in producing a usable nuclear weapon would have a tremendous advantage in the war. Groves responded to this pressure by crashing the schedule. He ordered construction on the fissile materials plants to begin before the drawings had been completed! How could he possibly begin construction before the construction team knew what they were building? Groves went with what was known about the plants at the time: their foot prints and the site preparation work. This approach to building plants was relatively unknown at this time and you can bet that Groves needed all his pushiness to overcome resistance to proceeding this way.

On October 15, 1942 (remember that Groves has been on the job for less than a month at this point) he makes Oppenheimer responsible for sub-project Y, building a central laboratory for weapon physics research and design. The site for this project was Los Alamos, New Mexico, the site where the first nuclear weapon would eventually be built.

Without getting into the details of how nuclear weapons are produced (I have no idea), the project required the team to produce three key deliverables: the fissile materials required for bomb making, a working bomb using those materials, and a weapons delivery system. By December of 1942, the team working on fissile materials had produced the combination that they deemed suitable for bomb making. At a certain point, the mixture of uranium oxide, uranium metal, and graphite will produce materials capable of achieving a "critical mass". Critical Mass is the smallest amount of fissile material necessary to achieve a chain reaction.

Plutonium is an essential ingredient in the process of nuclear bomb making and in January of 1943 Groves acquired the Hanford Engineer Works, 780 acres on the Columbia River, Washington, for the project. He immediately organized the construction of plutonium production at the Hanford site, and a uranium enrichment plant at the Oak Ridge site. He organized the construction of a graphite reactor at the Los Alamos location to provide experimental quantities of plutonium at the same time and by November of that year they had their first success with a small quantity of plutonium. It wasn't all smooth sailing for the project by any means. The first attempt at large scale uranium enrichment at Oak Ridges failed completely in the fall of 1943. Groves responded immediately by changing his project plan to completely rebuild the facility. That same fall, work was begun on project Alberta, the sub-project that was to produce the weapons delivery system. This sub-project included weapons delivery tests, modification of existing aircraft to transport the bomb, and training of the flight crews to fly the modified aircraft.

The plutonium production and uranium enrichment sub-project experienced numerous false starts and restarts after the first failure in Oak Ridges. Along about this time the numerous challenges the project faced, in addition to the numerous failures must have made the project appear almost impossible to Groves. I'm sure that at this point, he didn't know for sure whether it was possible to succeed or not; after all, Groves wasn't a scientist himself. He did know two things: the Germans had not succeeded in producing nuclear weapons and he had the best team and best resources his country was capable of giving him. His pragmatic approach to the changes the project faced kept the work moving forward. He must have had his moments of doubt. We've all been there - we're right in the middle of the most difficult, complex work of the project and nothing is going right. The team is missing deadline after deadline. Failures are eroding morale, no-one believes in the project or the project manager anymore. Poor morale leads to bickering and bickering leads to more missed deadlines and further erosion of morale. The thing that makes Groves remarkable in my mind is not his ability to keep pressing forward in the face of all this adversity, but his ability to keep the team moving forward, and not only moving forward, but working long exhausting hours under the most adverse conditions and under the most extreme pressure.

One of the keys to making a nuclear weapon is the ability to cause the fissile material to implode. This was another area experiencing repeated failures. Groves addressed this problem with corrective action: he brought 2 additional scientists from England on board the project - Geoffrey Taylor and James Tuck. The corrective action was effective; Taylor and Tuck produced the desired affect. Taylor pointed out that the fissile materials had to have a minimum degree of stability to be used (materials produced previously had been much too unstable) and Tucker introduced the concept of wave shaping which was to make the production of the bomb feasible.

Groves restructured the fissile materials production facilities to produce stable fissile materials with the new requirements introduced by Taylor. Oppenheimer and his team were re-focused on the technology of wave shaping and implosion to construct a bomb. Thinking up to this point was that it would be possible to deliver the nuclear weapons using some form of gun. This sounds very strange to us now, but keep in mind that no-one had much experience with nuclear reaction at this time, much less nuclear weapons production. The delivery of a nuclear weapon using a gun must have seemed a reasonable project objective at the outset. Like so many project objectives, changing technology made a project change necessary. It's not that Groves recognized the need for change, or that he implemented a change to the project that I find so admirable, it's the way in which he turned a potential disaster into a success!

General Groves had additional challenges to overcome which were not technology related. The military establishment was deeply suspicious of the team of scientists and mathematicians Groves had assembled and wanted to take a cautious approach to information sharing with the team. The added layer of difficulty in acquiring and sharing the information that was needed for the team to succeed, frustrated the team and eventually the complaint was escalated to General Groves. Groves wasted no time in delivering a solution to the problem. His solution? Ignore the security policies imposed on the project by the army brass. This wasn't a wholesale divestiture of all the security rules, just those that hindered information sharing amongst the team. The result was a disgruntled segment of army brass, an unfettered flow of information among the team, and the eventual success of the project.

By the end of 1944, the project had turned the corner. On October 27th Oppenheimer approved the first test of a nuclear bomb. Approval was later given by Groves who had ultimate approval authority on the project. Also accomplished by the end of 1944:


The uranium enrichment facilities succeed in increasing their production rate. Production was not yet at the level needed to make a bomb, but they had mastered to technology needed to reach that rate.

The wave shaping technology was successful in proving the feasibility of an implosion bomb.

Problems with plutonium production were resolved and large scale production of plutonium began.

Work to date had finally succeeded in delivering the pilots that proved fissile materials could be produced in sufficient quantities to build a bomb, now work would begin on producing the bomb. General Groves imposed an August 1 st deadline for readiness to deliver the first nuclear weapon (the decision to actually deliver the weapon would be made by about the only man that Groves was answerable to at this point: President Harry S. Truman). In the intervening 7 months of 1945 the project needed to:


Increase the rate of production of enriched uranium from 90 grams/day to 204 grams/day, a level necessary to produce a workable bomb.


Pilot the construction of an implosion bomb to prove its feasibility. The gun delivery method was still the backup plan, but by this time all hopes were fixed on the implosion approach.


Complete work on a nuclear reactor and bring the plant on line.


Complete work on a thermal diffusion plant and begin producing enriched uranium in sufficient quantities.


Build a nuclear bomb and explode it, without causing injury or property damage, to prove the feasibility of delivery of the bomb.


Choose the target, plan the flight, choose the bomber and crew and prepare them for the flight.

On July 16, 1945, the first nuclear bomb (named Gadget) was tested in the New Mexican dessert near Los Alamos. The test was a success, and that was just as well for Groves as he had already dispatched Little Boy, the bomber, and the bomber flight crew to an island near enough to Japan to deliver the bomb and return. Do you see a recurring theme here? General Groves has yet again crashed the schedule to meet a tight deadline.

The rest, as they say, is history. Harry Truman gave his approval to drop Little Boy on Hiroshima on August the 6, 1945 and Fat Man on Nagasaki on August 9. The resulting carnage hastened the end of the war in the Pacific; war in Europe had already ended in May of 1945 with Hitler's defeat. The purpose of this article is not to argue the moral issues involved, merely to use General Gate's accomplishments to illustrate the leadership qualities I believe distinguish truly remarkable project managers from the rest of us mortals.

Ignoring for the moment the moral implications of the atomic bomb, something that General Groves did, Groves took on a huge project with a team that reached 175,000 members at its peak, overcame numerous technical challenges, to deliver the planned scope of the project on time. Budget was certainly not a priority for this project, although there was one presumably so I haven't discussed it here. I say that the project delivered to its planned scope because it delivered a nuclear weapon, despite the fact that the original plan called for a nuclear weapon that could be fired by a gun.

The project management skills that General Groves possessed in spades that facilitated his success were the following:



Leadership General Groves set the stage for the pace at which the project would move within a week of his arrival. He also knew how to delegate authority so that project details were the responsibility of a team member who had the demonstrated leadership experience and technical expertise to deliver results (Oppenheimer). He showed his leadership capabilities in countless ways during this project, but those are some of the ways which stand out.



The ability to respond to change Most of us view project change from a passive perspective but Groves was an instigator of change. When he recognized the need for expertise in the creation of large industrial plants he changed the project parameters to outsource that work to Dupont and Kellog. He also recognized the need to change the project requirements to deliver the nuclear weapon by air rather than by gun. Again, his ability to respond to changes in the project environment was demonstrated in countless ways. The ones I've mentioned here are just those that stand out.



His willingness to take risks General Groves could have played it safe and accepted the restrictions placed on the project by the military's security rules. He didn't, he recognized that adherence to all the rules would jeopardize the project and risked his career by flouting some of them. This is just one example of his running rough shod over those who opposed him. These enemies were partially successful in visiting retribution on him. Responsibility for the country's nuclear program was wrested from him and passed to civilian authority. General Groves retired from the military to accept a post as Vice President at the Rand Corporation.



Use of authority General Groves recognized the level or responsibility he assumed when he took the project over from Compton and exercised a degree of authority over the project that was commensurate with it. If he had any doubts about that, he was relieved of them when he was promoted shortly after assuming responsibility for the project. Groves not only understood and used the level of authority he had been given, he actually exceeded it as he demonstrated with his flouting of the security rules.



Setting stretch objectives for the team General Groves was leading a team (actually any number of teams) that were challenged with producing a deliverable that no-one had ever produced before. Not only did they have to produce a nuclear weapon, they had to invent and implement most of the technology required to produce the weapon. As if these weren't challenges enough, they had to do all this in less than 3 years. Had Groves set objectives for the team that they were confident of achieving, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been safe (and up to 100,000 American lives would have been lost invading mainland Japan). Groves ignored the conservative advice and set stretch objectives. Not all the objectives were met, Groves set the project completion date for early 1945 initially, but the failures were used as learning opportunities and new stretch objectives were set.



Implementation of corrective actions Each time that General Groves and his teams experienced failure he kept a cool head and learned from the experience. When the team failed to develop a means of converting fissile material into a bomb, he acquired two new team members from Britain whose expertise succeeded in overcoming that challenge. When the first plant failed to produce materials in sufficient quantities to produce a bomb, he learned from the experience and restructured the plant. All these corrective actions were successful in saving the project.

Very, very few of us will ever have an opportunity to demonstrate our capabilities in the way that Leslie Groves did. What we can do is be very grateful to him for demonstrating the importance of the project management role for the entire world and to emulate some of his strengths. If we're just moderately successful in imitating the Leslie Groves model we'll be better project managers. We should start by hanging a picture of him on our office wall to remind us of his contributions. I think I'll do that now, if only I could find a picture of him where he's smiling.......

The Top 5 Skills of Good Project Managers

I have worked with and managed project managers over many years. Based on my own observations of what I did or did not do well on my projects, and similar observations about other project managers on their projects, I offer my assessment of the top 5 skills of good project managers:

1. Attention to Achieving the Project Goals - In many types of projects, especially technology projects, it can be easy to get wrapped up in the details and the technology and lose sight of the business goals. The focus of the team and the project shifts to a technology goal - for example, building an XYZ system - instead of the goal of solving the business problem. When that happens the resulting system may not meet all of the business expectations.

The project manager and the team need to clearly understand the business goals before detailed planning and work starts on the project. Then, the project manager needs to remind the regularly about the goals and how the project work relates to those goals.

2. Attention to Details - Probably the most-cited skill for project managers is attention to detail, and rightfully so. Projects of any size have hundreds and thousands of little details that must be attended to at the right time and in the right way throughout the course of the project. That's why senior managers should not manage projects... They are supposed to deal with the big picture, not the details.

It is not the job of the project manager to handle every detail, but it is the project manager's job to remind the team or ask the team about the details of the tasks they are doing.

3. Communication and Coordination with the Team - The planning and execution of the project is done in the day-by-day, week-by-week grunt work of the project. And it's done by the project manager working directly with the team to make it all happen... communicating and coordinating about their activities, the dependencies between the activities, the amounts of time to get the activities done, the issues that must be resolved, and so on.

Daily communication and coordination is the core of managing the project. It requires good organization and good people and verbal communication skills.

4. Problem Solving and Communication outside the Team - General problem solving is an important project manager skill because problems and roadblocks must be dealt with frequently. In most business projects, it usually means finding the persons outside of the team whom the project manager or team must work with and taking the appropriate steps to get the problem resolved. It may mean going up the management ladder to escalate the problem and get the necessary attention, prioritization, and resources directed toward the problem.

This particular skill set also involves communicating regular status to management about the progress of the project and issues that might be impacting work results, schedule, budget, etc. It requires excellent people and verbal communication skills and good written communication skills as well.

5. Customer Relationship Management - In business projects, it is important that the project manager maintain a good working relationship with the customer, whether the customer is external or internal. Managing the customer's expectations is a key part of this - not in a manipulative way, but in an honest and relatively open way. The customer needs to know what is realistic in developing the product and what is not, and customers always like to be kept informed about how the project is going and whether you, as the project manager, are responding to issues in the most effective way.

Managing the customer relationship also involves communication with management - keeping them informed about project issues, whether the customer is happy and quiet or unhappy and likely to escalate. Like several others, this area of performance obviously requires good people and communication skills too, as well as good issues management, which is all about tracking customer issues and managing them to the satisfaction of the customer.

Bottom-Line: There are many skills that a project manager must have, but if he or she does these five well, their probability of success with most projects will be high.

Remarkable Project Managers - The Roeblings

The first project manager we visited in this series was General Leslie Richard Groves, the project manager responsible for the successful completion of the Manhattan project. For our next remarkable project manager we're going to go back a little further in time to the period just after the American Civil War when the Brooklyn Bridge was built, directly connecting Brooklyn with Manhattan. In those days, Brooklyn was the suburbs and Manhattan was the business district so most people had to cross the East River to get to work. Up until the bridges completion in 1883, people crossed the East River in ferries; fine in the summertime but more problematic in wintertime when ice could stop the ferries. By 1867 New Yorkers had had enough inconvenience and called on the New York Bridge Company to put together plans for a bridge. The New York Bridge Company assigned a senior engineer to the project, John A. Roebling, and made him responsible for the plans and the project.

The Brooklyn Bridge took 16 years to build (from project initiation to completion) and our story spans two generations of Roeblings - John and Washington, father and son. John Roebling died as a result of an injury he suffered while supervising the project work in 1869. His foot was crushed by a ferry as he was fixing the location of the first tower and he died 16 days later of lockjaw. His son, Washington Roebling, took over the project and completed it. At the time the bridge was built, it was customary for the engineer who designed a structure to take responsibility of managing the project which built it. The Roeblings were not only remarkable and forward thinking engineers (the design and many technical innovations were the father's ideas), they were remarkable, persevering, and effective project managers. This article focuses on the project management aspect of this project, but because Roebling senior was actually responsible for the plan, we give credit to both.

The construction of a bridge over such a long span (remember this was 1867) was the first technical challenge that had to be overcome. The bridge has a total span of 6,016 feet and a main span length of 1,595.5 feet. To put this challenge into perspective, it was not until 1890 that a bridge with a longer main span was built over the Firth of Forth in Scotland. The technical challenges are the most interesting aspect for the technical crowd, but the Roeblings also faced political challenges and safety challenges. The political challenges were mainly caused by the fact that the bridge started in one municipality and finished in another so the Roeblings were faced with satisfying two key stakeholders with sometimes competing interests. Further challenges were provided by increasing jealousy from competing engineering firms. The project started with a budget of $7,000,000 (excluding land) which was a huge sum in those days. As the project moved forward the budget gradually increased to $12,000,000. Safety at construction sites doesn't become a major issue until a completely new and untried approach to building is used for the first time. Inventing the technical solution is one challenge. Now find a solution that produces the deliverable that can be performed safely!

Another problem faced by Roebling was the financing of the bridge. The financing came from a rather complex set of subscriptions from both municipal governments and private industry. Financing was not always received according to the project plan which not only made completion of the project to any sort of schedule difficult, it also increased the cost of the project.

John Roebling was assigned the project in May of 1867 and submitted his plans, surveys, and estimates for the bridge in September of that year. The plans were turned over to a team of consulting engineers provided by the army. The consulting engineers were engaged to ensure the plans were properly done and that the project was feasible. The consulting engineers approved Roebling's plans with one minor modification, that the height be increased by 5 feet to a height of 135 feet, to ensure that marine traffic would not be interfered with. Work commenced on the bridge on January 3, 1870. Unfortunately John was not around to see work start on his project as he died the previous year but the work was passed off to his son, another engineer, who had been involved in one capacity or another from the outset.

Washington Roebling received the first change request for the project before work had actually started. In the world of bridge construction your customers can easily understand the impact of asking for a doubling in the bridges size after 80% of the work is completed. The change request was to increase the carrying capacity of the bridge to anticipate future demand. This change was estimated by Roebling to cost an additional 8% over the original budget. The additional cost was accepted, the change accepted and Roebling changed the bridge plans accordingly. The next change originated with the project: it was determined that the original plan to use pilings as foundations for the twin towers of the bridge was not feasible, the foundations would need to rest on bedrock which was 78 feet below grade on the one side and 45 feet on the other.

The first project phase involved creating the two towers that form the structural base of the bridge. As mentioned, these towers are not only below the water (approx. 80 feet) but between 45 and 80 feet below the river bed because they have to be set on solid bedrock rather than on pilings because of the tremendous weight they bear. The problem to be solved was how to dig an 80 foot hole 80 feet underwater? The solution Roebling chose was caissons. Caissons are water tight structures that carry workers who do the excavating. The caissons are lowered into the water until they rest on the river bottom. Compressed air is then pumped into the caisson to create a breathable atmosphere. The inspiration for this solution came from the diving bell which was the submersible of its day. The diving bell worked on the same principal: a diver was locked in the bell; compressed air pumped in then the diver was lowered into the water.

The caissons used for the Brooklyn bridge tower were constructed of wood calked with pitch and lined with steel and fit the footprint of the bottom of the tower, 102 feet by 172 feet, plus 11 feet on each side. This massive structure was lowered into the water until it rested on the bottom, and then the construction workers began excavation of the river bottom. When they had reached the bedrock 80 feet (or 45 feet depending on which tower was being worked on) they began the construction of the actual tower which then rested on the caisson. Manual excavation would have taken forever and there were no machines which they could lower with the caisson which could do the job so Roebling decided to use dynamite to speed the process.

Imagine the combination he was dealing with here. The interior of the caisson had to be lit so the workers could see what they were doing and the only light available at the time was gas light. The atmosphere in the caisson was charged with compressed air and, to top it all off, the caisson was constructed from wood! Not what I would call a safe working environment and, in fact, explosions and fires did happen. That's why Roebling had the caissons lined with steel to protect the wood and pitch from open flame.

Once the caissons reached bedrock, cement was hydraulically inserted beneath its floor to provide a solid, level platform for the tower and then the platform was built in place using the caissons as its foundation. The process that Roebling devised to build the tower in place and sink it onto the caisson base is too technically complex for me to explain here. Just bear in mind that this was all unexplored territory for bridge building, Roebling and his team had to improvise these solutions on the fly, without having an opportunity to prove his methods with pilots. If you're interested in the technique that Roebling used to sink his towers, there is a great article in the Catskill Archives on the subject. Just visit their website at: http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/bbstory.Html

The construction of the towers above the water line was a much simpler process and the first tower was completed in May of 1875 and the second was finished in July of 1876. The next challenge was the cables that transfer the weight of a suspension bridge to its towers.

Washington Roebling fell ill at this time to health issues stemming from what divers call "the bends". The bends are caused by nitrogen bubbles in the blood that don't dissolve as a diver returns to the surface of the water too quickly. Compressed air was used to keep the water from flowing into the caissons as the digging proceeded to the river bottom. The use of the compressed air duplicated the problems that divers have when making deeper dives. We know now that a limit to the time a diver spends at depth and a slow ascent are the two key strategies to defend against the bends, but this knowledge wasn't prevalent at the time Roebling was building the bridge. Although Washington Roebling was incapacitated, he enlisted the help of his wife to act as lieutenant. Mrs. Roebling studied mathematics and engineering until she was able to carry Roebling's instructions to the work site and oversee their implementation through project engineers. He never completely recovered from his case of the bends, suffering ill effects from it for the rest of his life. Roebling was lucky; fires, explosions, and the bends would take the lives of 20 workers before the caissons were completed.

Roebling made use of another significant innovation in constructing the bridge: steel for the 4 massive cables that support the bridge. These 4 cables run from both sides of the river and over the two towers. Up to that time no-one had ever used steel to create cables for suspension bridges, they used iron. Roebling was constructing a longer, heavier bridge than had been constructed to that point and knew (or suspected) that iron would not be strong enough to suit the purpose. He bucked conventional wisdom, and the project budget, and chose to construct the cables from steel. As to whether iron cables would have been sufficient, we'll never know but we do know that Roebling's steel cables were.

The bridge was initially designed for foot traffic, horse drawn traffic, and trains. The trains would run on two elevated tracks, the horse drawn traffic on four lanes below, and the foot paths were on an elevated promenade above the train tracks. The two train tracks meant the bridge had to be constructed to carry heavy loads so each cable was constructed to carry a maximum of 11,200 tons. Each cable was 15" in diameter and consisted of 19 strands containing a total of 5,434 individual wires! Roebling used vertical cables suspended from the 4 main cables to suspend the bridge and then added stiffening trusses to make the bridge wind proof.

Construction of the bridge proper began in 1879 after completion of the two towers and rigging of the 4 main cables. By 1883 the bridge was completed and ready for its grand opening. Though Washington Roebling was unable to attend, his wife represented the Roebling interests and officially opened the bridge. The project was to have one last brush with tragedy that day. A lady pedestrian ascending the stairs to the walkway tripped and fell, screaming as she did. Her screams set off a panic amongst the rest of the pedestrians on the bridge who thought her screams were an indication the bridge was in trouble. In the ensuing panic, 12 people were killed and 35 seriously injured.

The Roeblings, father and son, not only exhibited a remarkable degree of engineering skill in designing and engineering the longest suspension bridge to have been built to that date, they also exhibited a remarkable degree of project management skill in seeing the project through to the end. Let's take a look at a few of their project management accomplishments:

Planning the project The Roeblings planned the successful completion of, what to that point was the longest suspension bridge. The plan was solid as proven by its successful execution.


Customer management Don't forget that the Roebling's had two individual municipal governments to satisfy. These governments did not necessarily share a common set of interests, and when they did share a common interest, such as limiting the money spent on the bridge, these interests were not always in the best interests of the project. The Roeblings persevered through the times when money was tight and succeeded in securing sufficient budget to build the bridge the way they knew it should be built.


Managing Change There were several sources of change during construction of the bridge. Some came from the stakeholders of the project, such as the increase in scope of the bridge to handle an anticipated increase in traffic, or the increase in the minimum required height, and others came from the project such as the change from iron cables to steel. The Roeblings handled the changes well, rejecting changes that did not add value to the project and implementing the ones which did with a minimum of disruption to deliverables and schedules. The Roeblings were particularly adept at dealing with the upsets that the bridge financing threw their way. The bridge was 90% funded by Brooklyn and Manhattan (New York) and 10% funded by private capital. The Roeblings survived a stock manipulation scandal, numerous budget increases, and the threat of a discontinuation of funding altogether and still delivered the project.

Lessons Learned/Corrective Action/Changing the Plan Washington Roebling learned from mistakes on the Brooklyn Bridge project, and other projects, took corrective action when needed and did not hesitate to make changes to the plan when it was clear to him that they were warranted. A good example of his ability to learn quickly and avoid unnecessary mistakes on the project was his use of compressed air to enable work at the bottom of the deep caissons. The technology was fairly new but was in use at the time in diving bells. Washington Roebling adapted the technology to his purpose to enable the men to work in the caissons. Keep in mind that as the men excavated the silt at the bottom of the caissons the water would want to rush in the opening this created. The compressed air served to keep that water out.

Managing the Risks The first risk to be managed during the construction of the bridge were the risks to the workers' safety. Although the record shows that 20 workers died while working on the bridge, the fatalities all occurred around the building of the caissons, a new venture. Mitigation strategies were implemented in an attempt to avoid accidents, such as the lining of the wooden caissons with iron but the combination of compressed air, open flame and explosives were clearly more than this strategy could deal with. Other project risks, which could be better predicted, based on other bridge projects and other municipal projects were well mitigated. An example of those risks and mitigation strategies is the risk of a stress fracture in any of the steel trusses or girders used to build the bridge. The mitigation strategy used was the testing of samples of all the components using a hydraulic press.

Project Managers - Are You Micromanaging Your Way to Project Failure?

Micromanagement can be defined as managing with excessive control. Micromanaging is still commonly used by project managers who think that if they define and monitor project tasks down to the molecular level, there is a much better chance of getting things done and achieving the objectives of the project.

If you are a project manager, and you are micromanaging, you are negligent of not doing your real job. Why do I say this? Think about it. Firstly, if you are investing all of your time in checking up on your team, where will you find the time to do the other things that ultimately decide if your project is a success for a failure? How should you spend your time then?

First and foremost, you must invest significant time in creating, nurturing and developing and observing your team. The things that really make the difference, and make success more likely, are those wonderful human behaviours that can't be brought about by close or harsh management. Things like motivation, morale, commitment, innovation, creativity, integrity, trust and open and honest communications are the keys to the project management kingdom.

And what is the impact of micromanagement on these illusive qualities? It kills them stone dead. Everybody hates being micromanaged. It is disrespectful and kills trust. And wouldn't you know it, trust and respect are the very things that enable all of the other desirable behaviours that you need in your project.

Of course you must manage your team but it should be at the appropriate level. Empower your team by giving them autonomy. Unleash their collective powers so that they are fully committed and fully performing.

Give them reasonably large chunks of work and get their buy in by agreeing what has to be done, the time it will take, and what outputs are expected and how they can be checked. This will promote ownership, engagement and accountability.

Manage them by using MBWA or "managing by walking around". Simply wander around the office occasionally and see how they are doing. Talk to them, share with them, have fun with them, advise them and be advised by them. Be supportive and don't be critical. This will enable you to stay in touch with what is happening. You will see at first hand if they are succeeding, where they are struggling, and if they need help. In other words, you will have your finger on the pulse of your team.

A natural by-product of MBWA is a trusting relationship and mutual respect. Yes! the very qualities that form the foundation for all of the other desirable behaviours such as morale, commitment, innovation etc. that you need in your project.

The next big problem for micromanagers is that they are probably wearing blinkers and are blind to the bigger picture. A project is not an island but exists in the context of an organisation and a wider business and economic environment. The project manager must take a holistic view and not only have an inward focus but an outward focus also. You not only have to manage the internal workings of the project and the project team but you must also seek to influence the wider environment of customer, sponsor and other members of the stakeholder community.

The best way to ensure that you understand the big picture is to make the time to wander around the building and network with those who have an interest in and are affected by your project. Practice NBWA or "networking by walking around". Find out what's happening on other projects. Tune into the grapevine to get the latest gossip. Be a political animal and understand the politics of the organisation. Who is in or who is out? Who is on the way up or way down? Are there any changes in the wind that will likely impact your project? Who is cheering for your project and who is wishing it ill?

I know that there are micromanagers out there who will be shaking their heads and saying that this is a load of wimpish nonsense. The most important part of my job is to make sure that the team is actually working. What about the slackers, trouble makers and the just plain dumb?

If you are unlucky enough to have one of these types, then obviously some action must be taken. Maybe their behaviour is a side effect of your micromanagement style? Ask them what is the problem? Part of your job as project manager is to coach, mentor and grow individual team members. If this is not possible, then reassignment out of the project may be the only option. Let the bus company carry the passengers, not your projects!

As one who has suffered the evil of micromanagement myself, can I appeal to all project managers out there to stand back and think again. Come on. Give us all a break! You will reap many rewards by giving your team its wings.

How to Find Good Project Managers

Good project managers can make or break your business. A project not only needs to run smoothly, but also meet deadlines and be cost effective. There are two ways a business can find good project managements. They can hire effective project managers to oversee one or several projects, or they can use project management consultants.

Companies often need several project managers to oversee various aspects of the business. Good project managers will use practiced project management strategies that have been proven to work over a period of time. They take an analytical approach to projects and examine time and costs. The purpose of a project manager is not only to see that a job is completed properly and on time, but also that it is cost effective to the company.

Businesses that are seeking good project managers need to look for those who have experience and training in the project management field. The individuals should be able to provide references from past projects they have completed. They need to understand how to organize projects and to work within budgets. Good project managers need to be adept at multi tasking and able to take a project from start to finish.

Many companies today are seeking project-management consulting firms to handle various aspects of project management. This type of outsourcing is common for businesses that have large projects that need guidance and for small businesses that may not have the human resources needed to oversee a large project. Rather than turning work down that could mean substantial profit for the business, companies will outsource project management to a qualified consulting firm with proven success in the field. This is often more cost effective for businesses as they can get knowledgeable and experienced project managers and keep the consulting team on for as long at it takes to complete the project.

Good project management consulting teams will employ positive project-management methodologies to see a project to completion. They will also audit the project on a weekly basis and provide the company with reports as to the status of the work. When the project is completed, the contract with the project consulting firm is complete. There is no need to hire and lay off individuals when using project management consulting firms, which makes it much more cost effective for small to medium sized businesses.

Project Managers Need Leadership Skills

Yes - if you are a project manager you really need leadership skills!? Today's project managers must have leadership skills in order to effectively perform their roles in the organization and stand out from the crowd. ??Something must make you distinct from the others - especially if you are currently job searching or worried about your job security given the current economy.

While this has certainly always been the case; it is even more important today in an economy where project managers (PMs) are being asked to do more with less - reduced budgets for their projects, fewer resources available to work on the projects, and reduced timelines to get the products/services to market - in order to ensure their organizations remain competitive in a global economy.?

Without a doubt, PMs who are not well-versed in technical skills (such as Earned Value Management1, quantitative risk analysis or estimating activities) cannot perform their role effectively.? And certainly, without a working knowledge of the Project Management Body of Knowledge2 (PMBOK?), PMs will be unable to acquire their Project Management Professional3 (PMP?) certification.? Additionally, in a world where there are many people running around with the "project manager" title, a PMP? certification is one way to stand out from the crowd. ?However, that alone may not be enough.? Strong project management technical skills and PMP? certification is not sufficient for those project managers aspiring to take on more responsibilities.? Project managers cannot effectively compete with so many other certified PMs unless they have more than technical skills in their toolboxes.? Project managers' long-term success and potential for growth are limited if they do not possess the necessary critical skills.? For example, how effective can PMs be in their roles if they do not possess teaming skills, are not effective at influencing others, cannot communicate or present effectively, or are unable to see the "big picture?" ?Realistically - they can't be very effective.?

Therefore, leadership skills are, without a doubt, a requirement for PMs.? For example, it is difficult to lead global teams comprised of individuals with different personal goals/objectives and varied cultural backgrounds if you do not have essential leadership skills.? Again, I can't emphasize enough that technical skills is not sufficient - it is just not possible for project managers to get the job done solely with strong technical skills.? To progress in the organization - you need to show strong leadership skills also.A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK? Guide), 4th Edition (2008, Project Management Institute), in Appendix G, notes particular interpersonal skills that PMs must have in order to be effective in their role.? They are:

Leadership
Team building
Motivation
Communication
Influencing
Decision making
Political and cultural awareness
Negotiation

And, other skills that are important for individuals leading project teams include:

Coaching
Conflict management
Developing/motivating/inspiring others
Time management/priority setting
Problem solving
Presentation skills
Establishing goals/delegating

All of these interpersonal and leadership skills are needed so that project managers can effectively manage any size project they are leading. ?

Project managers who can demonstrate competence in these skills increase the success of the projects they lead and demonstrate their value to the organization - above and beyond their ability to create a Work Breakdown Structure or a Risk Management Plan.?

One PM I have spoken with commented that his strength in understanding the big picture behind a project and conveying that vision to his project team and others in the organization led to him being involved in the decision-making process around which projects would be completed in a given year.? Here is someone who obviously stood out to the executives as bringing value to an important strategic planning process.

Another PM said her ability to problem solve effectively by really understanding the issues made her a valuable resource within the organization, not just on project teams.? She was often called upon to address complex problems within the organization.

These skills noted above in addition to strategic leadership skills such as strategic planning and change management help project managers be viewed as key individuals within the organization - someone with the potential to move up through the ranks and take on a senior leadership role.?

And let's not forget some other important skills to have, including:


Ability to work with others
Ability to think ahead - foresee potential issues, risks, etc.
A sense of humor (often needed when times get tense and the workload seems impossible!)
Ability to manage logistics
Strong organizational skills

A project manager with a combination of strong project management technical skills and relevant leadership and other important skills will find him/herself in a position of strength within their organization and a valuable resource overall.? These are the project managers you want to work with on projects and the individuals that the executive team looks to as high potentials within the organization.

Are you one of these project managers?? If not, how are you going to get there?? Map out your personal plan for development.?

Definitions

1EVM = Earned Value Management is a methodology for integrating scope, schedule, and resources to measure project performance and progress.?

2PMBOK? = Project Management Body of Knowledge.? The PMBOK? is the sum of knowledge within the profession of project management.? The PMBOK? Guide is the subset of the Project Management Body of Knowledge that is generally recognized as good practice.?

3PMP? = Project Management Professional Certification.? A PMP? is certified by the Project Management Institute (PMI?).

Gina Abudi Blog http://www.GinaAbudi.com

Website http://www.PeakPerformanceGroup.com

Gina Abudi has over 15 years consulting experience in a variety of areas, including project management, process management, leadership development, succession planning, high potential programs, talent optimization and development of strategic learning and development programs. She is Partner/VP Strategic Solutions at Peak Performance Group, Inc. in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She has been honored by PMI? as one of the Power 50 and has served as Chair of PMI?s Global Corporate Council Leadership Team. She has presented at various conferences on topics ranging from general management and leadership topics to project management. Gina received her MBA from Simmons Graduate School of Management.

Copyright ? 2009 - 2010 Gina Abudi - All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

The Project Manager's Job Title And Role In An Organization

When a company organization is searched to find a project manager, the first results may be fruitless because no one with that job title can be found. The project manager's identity is often hidden behind some other organizational role. This is particularly true for specialized in-house project where, for example, a person with the title 'facilities manager' might act as project manager during a major reorganization of accommodation. Another example is where a personal styled 'senior engineer' is made responsible for managing a costly new product design and development project.

Even where project management is accredited with the important of a full-time appointment, the situation can be made less clear by the variety of titles used to describe the job. Contract manager, scheduling and estimating manager, project coordinator, project coordination engineer, program engineer, project leader, and project manager are but a few of the titles which have been used. The trend in recent years has been encouraging, and project management is now widely recognized as a profession that deserves reasonable status and rewards with its own professional associations (The Association for Project Management in the UK) and with far less confusion over the job title.

The levels of responsibility and authority given to project managers vary considerably from one organization to another. In some cases they act simply as planners and coordinators. In other businesses the project manager will have complete authority over all those responsible for achieving the project objectives.

The career of a project manager may have started as an information technologist, as a specialist in one of the operational research disciplines, a contracts manager or a qualified engineer. One of the more common routes to project management lies through the engineering design department. Frequently the engineer in command of a particular project design is charged with some degree of overall responsibility for seeing the entire project through to completion. When this happens, the engineer has a dual organizational position, exercising direct line authority and supervision over the engineering design staff, which acting only in a functional role when trying to influence all the other departments engaged on the project.

The project management function in a small company might be conducted entirely on a part-time basis by one of the existing department heads, or by some other individual as in the case of the engineer just described. Other companies could be forced to recognize the need for a full-time project manager, the incumbent being held responsible for either one individual project or for several projects which are being handled simultaneously.

The question of "How senior is a project manager?" and "To whom should the project manager report?" now arise. Much of the project manager's time will be spent in coordination - steering and integrating the activities of some departments and relying on others for information or supporting services. Thus the desirable organizational status for the project manager appears to be indicated on a level at least equivalent to the company's departmental managers.

John Reynolds has been a practicing project manager for nearly 20 years and is the editor of an informational website rating project management software products. For more information on project management and project management software, visit Project Management Software Web.

Not Enough Project Managers to Save the Country

On 25 May in Question Time, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced funding for 35,000 projects as part of the budget or economic stimulus packages. While this seems good on the surface, there is evidence that there simply aren't enough project managers available to deliver the outcomes so desperately needed by the community.

The 35,000 projects range across four broad areas: Infrastructure, Defence, Information Technology and the Environment. Defence initiatives include upgrading equipment, facilities and weaponry; improvements to staff healthcare and remuneration and security infrastructure. IT projects cover implementing the recommendations of the Gershon review of IT in Government and the National Broadband Network rollout. An important and significant environmental project is the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

I have been in the Government project management game a long time and is somewhat pessimistic about the Government's chances of success in its endeavours.

Given that many of these projects are tied up in the Government's solution to the Global Financial Crisis and preparing the country for recovery - the projects will be high profile and there will be enormous expectations of success from the Government, the media and the general population.

The opposition and other critics may question the reasoning or motives behind this massive spending commitment, however, a greater question looms as to the capacity of Government agencies to plan and manage the projects and deliver these expected outcomes.

Projects don't just happen. They need skilled project managers to plan and execute them and manage the physical, financial and human resources to deliver what's required on time and within budget.

So where will these project managers come from? Let's look at some statistics.

The two prime industry associations for project management are the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM) and the Project Management Institute (PMI). Between them they have 13,000 members in Australia - which is purported to be around half the number of project managers (PMs) in the country.

A simple calculation shows that this represents 0.74 of a project manager for each of the 35,000 projects. This, of course, assumes there are no other Government projects in train and that there is no competition from projects in the private sector or from overseas.

Since the Gershon Review, Government agencies are on a mission to rid themselves of their reliance on contractors - with many actively pursuing the 50% target, yet with very few agencies finding permanent staff to replace them. According to a recent AIPM study, Australian Government and Defence project managers are some of the lowest paid in the Country. Their salary is almost $17,000 below market average. Given this, how does the Government expect to attract project managers to its cause?

By their nature, some of these projects will be long and complex, tying up project management resources for months and even years. The Government will need to rely on a sound project management workforce to ensure continuity of quality and consistency of delivery.

Of course, not all the projects will need to be delivered at once - which means that project managers could potentially be involved in a number of projects over time. This will require accurate scheduling and tight management of resources to ensure that all the projects receive appropriate attention. The question is, is this a realistic expectation?

History shows that organisations tend to focus their training of project managers on three things: how to schedule a project, how to prepare a project budget and the ins and outs of a project management methodology, such as PRINCE2. The trouble is that this training doesn't teach project managers the skills they need to manage risks, stakeholder expectations and people or develop accurate estimates - the things that tend to bring schedules and budgets undone.

Project failure is well documented. American research company 'Applied Data' recently published a report that found up to 75% of software projects are cancelled. A study by META Group found that more than half of all IT projects over-shoot their budgets and timetables and fail to deliver outcomes.

The Standish Group studied over 300,000 projects valued at $350Bn. They found that they over ran initial cost estimates by 45% and their schedules by 63%. The US Army found that of all IT projects, 47% were delivered to the customer and not used, 29% were paid for but not delivered, 19% were abandoned or reworked and only 2% were used as delivered.

A report recently released by the Australian National Audit Office of a review of 13 selected projects from 62 projects found similar mixed results. The ANAO identified the planned time, cost, deliverables and benefits from the initial project approval and compared the actual results with the approved plan.

The audit of these 13 projects found on average they were completed close to cost but often late. Half of the projects were completed later than planned by 50% or more. The achievement of planned benefits had often not be demonstrated and the ANAO recommended that agencies record the approval of individual projects in a manner that better provides a basis for assessing progress and success and recording responsibility for specific supporting elements of the business case.

The next question to be asked is whether the Rudd Government has a magic bullet that will overcome these extraordinary inefficiencies - typical in project management - to be able to deliver its projected results with so few project management resources. Or will the tax payers of Australia be happy to accept a high proportion of these projects either being delivered late over budget or not at all?

My view is that the solution doesn't have to be a magic bullet, but rather it just requires some honesty about the situation, some commonsense and good planning.

The first step would be to acknowledge the resource shortfall and stem the tide of project manager contract cancellations. This would at least provide some short term expertise from people familiar with the context of the projects and the objectives of the portfolios they exist in.

The second step would be to actually implement the recommendations of the Gershon review in terms of a plan to build project management capability within Government organisations.

his is a long term solution and something in which the Government has little expertise.

The focus needs to be less on scheduling and budgeting and more on the real management skills that PMs need to deliver successful projects.

At the end of the day, there are so few project managers out there that could pull off this ambitious agenda. We have to ask when the Government is going to open its eyes, see the light and take the right action to get the job done!

Michael Young is an award-winning project management consultant, trainer and assessor and is Principal Consultant for Transformed Pty Ltd. Transformed works with individuals to develop their project management skills and with organisations to enhance their program delivery and strategic implementation capabilities. Michael can be contacted at http://www.transformed.com.au

Check out Michael's other articles at: http://www.transformed.com.au/media/articles.html