Читать книгу The Red Pill Executive - Tony Gruebl - Страница 27

Over the past few years, the entire project management industry has been struggling to figure out how to operationalize Strategic Alignment at the project level. Blue pill executives play their cards close to the chest, and blue pill project managers are not comfortable pushing boundaries. That disconnect in communication runs deep.

Enterprise PMOs are PMI’s latest push toward Strategic Alignment, and this may be their greatest contribution to the space. Known in the industry as EPMOs, this task force monitors several teams at once, watching the overall impact of their projects on the company. Because they include top cover, EPMOs create a safe space, so it’s easier to identify the swells beneath the surface and maneuver successfully around them.

“There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”¹⁰⁵

~Morpheus in The Matrix.

Even agile methodology makes an attempt at forcing Strategic Alignment by handing ownership of the project to the Operations Executive. The executive already knows the Business Value potential and can act accordingly. That may be one way to do it, but piling extra duties on people who have no time or focus for them only creates other problems.

Strategic Alignment requires fidelity in the true value potential. This level of reality feels risky. Such a commitment to truth is very similar to choosing the red pill.

As Morpheus told Neo in The Matrix:

You take the blue pill, the story ends and you wake up in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more.⁵³

The Red Pill Operations Executive takes the risk and embraces transparency and clarity. This is where unvarnished reality is expected, discussion is open, and tough questions are welcome, even invited. Questions such as:

 •If this venture actually costs twice the budget, is it still worth doing?

 •How about if it takes twice as long or runs out an extra quarter?

 •What if your corporate strategy changes and the goals of this initiative need to be realigned?

 •What kind of reporting do you need to make sure you can properly communicate how this project stays in Strategic Alignment?

 •Where is additional value that we can capture in and around this project?

 •What are we overlooking?

When you have the cojones to work with team members at this level, you step out of the shadows and stand in the glaring spotlight. You also increase your personal capital and ramp up your chances to win.

Like we said, this is where stuff gets real.

You in?

Chapter 2 Summary

 •As an operating model, the Iron Triangle must be demoted to a useful-tool status, replaced by Business Value with fidelity in the ability to see the true value potential.

 •Saving major expenditures in time and money means a win for the organization. Quickly killing a wasteful project is also a success.

 •Strategic Alignment is the best indicator of a project’s ability to capture Business Value.

 •A completed endeavor that fails to achieve Business Value isn’t truly successful.

 •Identifying real Business Value is sometimes complicated and murky, often intertwined with unsaid goals. Business Value becomes clear only by taking deliberate steps.

 •Strategic Alignment is not the same as executive alignment.

 •The Abilene Paradox, overly political behaviors, and other factors can skew perceptions of Strategic Alignment.

 •Attempts to remove the human element from projects have fared no better than over-reliance on the Iron Triangle.

 •According to Gartner, by 2021 enterprises that focus on executing Strategic Alignment will be 80 percent more likely to be industry leaders.