文/Lee R. Lambert 译/赵克琛

创新的项目主管会保持团队成员的生产力并使之专注于项目目标，同时在执行过程中节约时间和金钱。

即使你使用了各种方法来确保项目估算的准确性，你仍然有可能将成本预算降低30％，进度预算缩短50％。这是如何做到的呢？关注那些能够影响每天项目进展的“不可见”开销：领导力。位于美国印第安纳州卡斯尔顿市的Beohringer Mannheim公司的管理层首先学习到了这一点。

这家公司曾尝试推出一种复杂的医疗诊断系统产品，目的是提供居家血糖水平监控。此项目初始估计需要3年的开发时间和1600万美元的预算。如果Boehringer Mannheim公司想要停止由强生公司的一项“跳跃性”产品One Touch血糖仪所引起的异常迅速的市场份额流失，他们可没有36个月的时间。当硝烟散尽时，这个项目的完成只用了18个月和不到1200万美元。在将产品推向市场之后，公司迅速夺回流失的市场份额并且持续巩固了市场地位。此项成功的秘密在于公司强调的领导力。

加强项目力量
Boehringer Mannheim公司采用了一系列的领导力方法来帮助开发其创新性的居家血糖监控系统。

创立一个共同的愿景和目标并清楚地传达出去。管理层知道公司不可能长期承受市场份额的流失。为了重获竞争优势，公司需要尽快得到一个更先进的新产品，这样，从项目起始只有18个月的时间。公司员工被告知：此项目对公司的未来生死攸关。

这项“昨天就需要”的需求被传达给所有被认定有特殊技能和声望的潜在项目参与者。团队成员得到建议指出个人和职业承诺的可能水准将是他们从未经历过的，如果不能专注地投入进来，他们就不用考虑自己了。如果潜在地团队成员退出将不会带来任何负面效应。

对目标的良好沟通造就了一个由超过200名见多识广的忠实专业人员组成的团队，他们专注于在创纪录的时间内将一个出色的医疗诊断产品引入消费市场。

明确角色与职责。借助工作分解结构（WBS）作为框架，项目成员对各自的工作包同初步的职责分配矩阵有了总体的认识。更为重要的是，每位成员都被鼓励去置疑工作定义直到他们完全满意管理目标在技术上清晰明确，并且在实现时间及成本期望上达成共识。

良好定义的工作包完成指标提供了简单的监控手段以确认达成管理和绩效预期。这种工作分配的决策方法使项目团队可以仔细评估和考虑由工作内容和技能不匹配所造成的潜在影响（对时间和成本估计的准确性）。另外，工作包的一致性和专业性有助于获得团队成员的认同和全心全意发自内心的承诺。

接下来，管理层扩展单个成员的授权，包括与技能相匹配的权威。在工作进展度量和问题分析上，管理层借用了“没有消息就是好消息”哲学的自由度与灵活性。只有对共同期望的重大破坏时才需要向更高的管理层做正式汇报，其中包括那些纠正措施的建议。

识别关键接口。在一份详细的输入/输出流程图和工作包级别的WBS的帮助下，项目成员可以确定他们自己特定的工作职责的时效性在多大程度上与其他工作包相关联。使用关键路径法（CPM），公认的前导关系决定了项目时间和工作包的最重要的线性关系（路径或链）。

为了评估风险并考虑单个工作包耗时不确定性和资源可用性的影响，项目团队采用了计划评审技术和蒙特卡罗模拟法。他们分析时间关联接口的图谱来评估“路径聚合”的潜在影响，作为这些变数的一项衍生物，同时，将结果通知给领导。

适时传递合适的信息。由于现代技术驱动的信息处理环境，领导团队通常会很快地获取项目信息。实际上，信息过载成为了今天的项目决策者所面临的最大问题：太多的信息太快地传播并经常彼此冲突。

在这个项目里，对集成逻辑网络计划法和相关工具技术地谨慎使用为每位成员提供了清晰的视野以确定其工作目标并有效指明实现途径。

有了清晰并完整定义的项目信息提供的视角，项目领导的角色转换成在特定环境和项目情况下受到重视的不同的人。换句话说，领导力不再被认为是项目经理的独有领域。所有项目成员都有机会接触关键的项目时间和接口信息。被充分授权的任何成员都应理解他们承担更高责任的义务，并且在需要的时候担负强有力的领导责任。这种工作层面上的领导力通常被看作“及时、有效的沟通”。

使用关键路径法（CPM）规划项目为领导力建立了一种框架。通过考虑诸多输入的一系列“如果，怎样”的处理程序，我们可以迅速的评估接口责任和接口连接中断地潜在影响。处理程序的输入包括乐观/悲观时间估计的组合、浮动变量、资源约束、标准差范围和以往工作包绩效等。通过这样的“如果，怎样”程序，我们可以做出预测和决策。

在愉悦的气氛中努力工作。项目领导必须要理解创建和培育一个团队合作环境的重要性，在这种环境里，每位成员时刻对他们自己和他们所作的工作感觉良好。

在那个新的医疗诊断系统中，每位成员的正常工作时间是每周六到七天，每天12到14小时。而且，没有人曾被要求过加班。项目成员准确的知道要做的事情，他们把“搞定它”作为解决问题的最有效方法。

在一个非常紧张的项目环境中，项目成员花在工作上的时间通常要比花在家人身上的要少得多。为了保持高昂的士气并缓解项目紧张造成的疲惫，项目领导投入了时间和精力去创建和培育一个“愉悦的团队”，它的目的在于促进共同解决问题。

由公司支持的创新性领导力活动包括：赠品、kickoff大会、频繁的聚会、午餐、各种娱乐和“带家人来工作”狂欢会。这些“愉悦”的开销是12万美元，但项目上可归功于这些领导力驱动的概念所节省的劳动力成本远高于12万美元（25万小时，平均每小时50美元的免费劳动）。

宝贵的指导
由领导力活动带来的时间和财务上的节省的意义重大并给人留下深刻印象，但是，这些节省并不包括用正常的一半时间将高质量产品推向市场的实际收益，也不包括错误开端的成本和由无效领导力引起的返工。

项目管理为有效的领导力建立了基础，它在项目各个层面上将个人的潜力转化成了绩效。

领导力实现里程碑
接触关键的领导力，美国印第安纳州卡斯尔顿市Boehinger Mannheim公司在非常紧张的进度下开发出一项重要的新产品。以下是该公司执行的步骤：

八月
●组建团队。基于经验、激情和承诺进行内部招聘。

九月
●创立团队名称、口号和标识。让团队来决定这些。所有的参考资料、宣传和沟通都使用团队名称、口号和标识。
●组织正式的团队kickoff会议。主要演讲人罗恩·梅尔斯的讲话激励了团队。
●召开由关键产品开发领域组织的整合团队计划会议，如仪表、化工、市场和后勤等。这种方法增加了团对成员的参与、接受和授权。

十月
●发布月度团队新闻。突出表现团队的成就和成员的私人重大事件，如分娩，死亡，小孩的成就等。
●开始两星期一次的团队午餐。
●成员生日的正式通知。用生日卡和月度聚会来庆祝团队成员和其他重要人员的生日。
●分发团队的小礼物给成员的家人。每月奖励印有团队名称、标识和口号的茶杯、风筝、电热盘、笔和钥匙环等。

十一月
●组织团队成员与其他职能部门的月度信息交流午餐。这些聚会有助于消除“组织隔离焦虑”，并且促进寻求问题的最佳解决方案。

十二月
●主持团队的家庭圣诞聚会。项目经理扮演带着礼物的圣诞老人。

一月
●在奖励午宴和认可活动中表彰具有突出表现的个人和小组。

五月
●组织在工作场所的一天的饮食娱乐活动招待成员和家人。
●开始着手“回归”规划。在项目结束时，单独约见团队成员以评估他们对各自所属的组织角色的需求和想法。在接下来的三个多月里，领导着手去实现这些愿望。

七月
●召开一个项目终结庆功会。给所有团队成员播放专业制作的记录了从项目开始到结束的录像，包括重大事件、成就和所克服的困难等。录像包含了许多成员的个人访谈，讲述他们所学到的经验和增长的价值。

作者简介：Lee R. Lambert是美国俄亥俄州哥伦布市Lambert咨询公司的项目管理顾问、培训师和演讲人。他参与了组建PMI的PMP认证计划，曾于1995年获得PMI优异服务奖。

原文如下：
　　　　　　　　　　Leading The Charge

By Lee R. Lambert, PMP

Innovative project leaders keep team participants productive and dedicated to the project objective – and save time and money in the process.

Even after you do “all the right things” to ensure your project’s estimate is on the money, you still can reduce your estimate by as much as 30 percent in total project cost and as much as 50 percent in project duration. How? Pay attention to the “invisible” cost that affects day-to-day project progress: leadership, Management at Castleton, Ind., USA-based Boehringer Mannheim Corp. learned this lesson first-hand.

The firm was attempting to introduce a complex medical diagnostic system product for in-home monitoring of blood glucose levels. The project originally was estimated at three years of development and a budget of approximately $16 million. But Boehringer Mannheim did not have the luxury of 36 months of development if it was going to stop the incredibly rapid market share erosion caused by a “leap frog” product – Johnson & Johnson’s One Touch.

When the smoke cleared, this project was completed in only 18 months at a cost of less than $12 million. The company quickly recaptured lost market share after introduction of the deliverable and has gone on to solidify and maintain its market position. The “secret” to this accomplishment was the firm’s emphasis on leadership.

Empowering projects
Boehringer Mannheim employed a number of leadership techniques to deliver its innovative in-home blood glucose monitoring system.

Creating and Articulating a Common Vision/Goal. Management knew the company could not sustain deterioration of its market for long. To recoup competitive advantage, the company needed a new, much improved product as soon as possible – in this case, 18 months from project initiation. Employees were informed how vital this project was to the company’s future.

This “need it yesterday” requirement was communicated to all potential project participants, who were identified primarily for their specific skill sets and reputations. Team members were advised that the probable level of personal and professional commitment would be unlike anything they had ever experienced and that they should remove themselves from consideration if they could not immerse themselves. There were no negative consequences if potential team members bowed out.

Good communication of goals resulted in a team of more than 200 informed and committed professionals all focused on introducing a superior medical diagnostics product to the consumer marketplace in record time.

Clarity in Roles and Responsibilities. Using the work breakdown structure (WBS) as the framework, project participants gained a thorough understanding of their assigned work package with the initial responsibility assignment matrix. More importantly, each contributor was expected to challenge the work definition until that contributor was perfectly satisfied that the management objective was technically unambiguous and that there was mutual agreement on realistic time and cost expectations.

Well-defined work package completion criteria allowed easy monitoring to confirm that both management’s and the performer’s expectations were met. This approach to determining work assignments allowed the team to carefully evaluate and consider the potential impact associated with a work content/skill set match disconnect (the accuracy of estimating time and cost). In addition, the consistent, professional work package led to obtaining performer buy-in and whole-hearted, internalized commitment.

Next, Management extended total empowerment rights (including authority consistent with the confirmed skill set capability) to the individual performers. Management also invoked the freedom and flexibility of a “no news is good news” philosophy in work progress measurement and problem analysis. Only significant disruptions of “shared” expectations required formal reporting (including suggested corrective action to be taken) to higher levels of management.

Critical Interface Recognition. The project participants determined how critical the timing (start and completion) of their specific work responsibilities was in relation to other project work packages using a detailed input/output work flow diagram and the work package level of the WBS. Because a critical path method (CPM) was utilized, the mutually agreed precedent relationships determined the project duration and its most “linear critical” sequence (path or chain) of work packages.

To assess risks and consider the impacts of uncertainty and resource availability on the individual work package durations, the team employed the program evaluation and review technique and Monte Carlo simulation. They analyzed a spectrum of timing-related interfaces to assess the potential impacts of “path convergence” as a derivative of these variables – and leaders were kept apprised of the results.

The Right Information at the Right Time. Thanks to today’s technology-driven information processing environment, leaders often get project information too quickly. In fact, information overload may well be the biggest problem facing today’s project decision-makers – too much information, too fast and often conflicting.

In this project, the conscientious use of an integrated logic network schedule approach and its related tools and techniques provided everyone in the project with a clear view of where they and their work were going and effectively highlighted ho to get there.

With clear, well-defined project information as the window, the role of project leader “rotated” to whomever was appropriate under specific circumstances or unique project conditions. In other words, leadership was not considered the sole domain of the project managers. All project participants had access to critical project timing and interface information. All project participants, having been fully empowered, understood their obligation to “step up” and take a strong leadership position when it was required. This working-level leadership could most easily be recognized as “timely and effective communication.”

The use of a CPM approach to planning and scheduling the project established the framework for leadership. Interface responsibilities and potential impacts of “missed” interface connections were quickly assessed through a series of “what-if” manipulations, considering a variety of inputs. These inputs included combinations of optimistic/pessimistic time estimates, float variables, resource constraints, standard deviation ranges and past work package performance. From these what-if exercises, forecasts and decisions were made.

Hard Work Within a Fun Atmosphere. Leaders must understand the importance of creating and nurturing a team-based environment where individual contributors feel good about the work they are doing and about themselves whenever they are in that environment.

On the new medical diagnostic system project, the normal workday for any individual contributor on the team was 12 – 14 hours, six to seven days per week. Yet, no one was ever asked to work overtime. Project team members knew exactly what was expected and needed, and they simply set about “getting it done” the most effective way possible.

In an intense project environment, individual contributors typically spend significantly more waking hours with their project team members than they do with their own family members. To keep morale high and ease the strain of project intensity, project leaders invested time and effort in creating and nurturing a “fun team” mentality, where the focus was consistently on getting things done together.

Innovative company-sponsored leadership activities included giveaways, a team kickoff party, frequent lunches, parties, a variety of entertainment and a “bring the family to work” day in a carnival-like atmosphere with rides, games and toys. The cost of “fun” approached $120,000, but the labor cost savings to the project – much of it attributable to these leadership-driven concepts – amounted to more than $12 million (250,000 hours of “free labor” at an average charge rate of $50/hour).

Invaluable Guidance
The leadership-driven financial and time “savings” on this project were significant and impressive, but these numbers do not begin to consider the substantial beneficial market implications of getting a high-quality product delivered in half the normal time. Nor do these number consider the cost of false starts and rework typically associated with ineffective leadership.

Project management creates the foundation for effective leadership, which converts personal potential into realized performance at all project levels.

Leader Milestones
With key leadership initiatives, Castleton, Ind., USA-based Boehringer Mannheim Corp. developed a vital new product under a very tight schedule. Here’s how the company dealt with the execution phase:

August
●Formed team. Recruited almost exclusively from within based on experience, enthusiasm and commitment.

September
●Established team name, slogan and logo. Allowed the team to determine this. All references, promotions and communication utilized the team name, slogan and logo.
●Conducted official team kick-off meeting. Keynote speaker Ron Meyers (then coach of the Indianapolis Colts football team) provided team inspiration.
●Held integrated team planning sessions organized by key product development areas, such as meter, chemistry strip, marketing and logistics. This approach increased team member participation, buy in and empowerment.

October
●Created and published monthly team newsletter. Highlighted team achievements and team member personal milestones, including births, deaths, children’s accomplishments.
●Began biweekly team lunch series.
●Started formally acknowledging birthdays. Team members’ and significant others’ birthdays were celebrated with cards and monthly parties.
●Distributed team “goodies” to team member’s homes. Cups, kites, hot plates, pens and key rings with the team name, logo and slogan were awarded monthly.

November
●Planned and conducted monthly “information exchange” lunch sessions with team members and others in the same functional area. These meetings helped avoid “organization separation anxiety” and stimulate the search for the best solutions to problems.

December
●Hosted a team family Christmas party. The project manager played the role of Santa with gifts.

January
●Recognized monthly individual and group performance within the work breakdown structure at a luncheon awards and recognition program.

May
Planned and conducted a team day at the worksite with entertainment and food for family members and guests.
Began “re-entry” planning sessions. Met individually with team members to assess their needs and wants regarding their role in the home organization at project completion. Over the next three months, the leader acted on those wishes.

July
Held a project completion celebration. Presented every team member with a professionally produced videotape that chronicled the project from start to finished – significant events and accomplishments and problems they had overcome. The tape included many personal interviews with team members regarding the experience and the value they experienced.

Lee R. Lambert, PMP, is a project management consultant, trainer and speaker with Lambert Consulting Group Inc., Columbus, Ohio, USA. He was involved in founding the Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Program and received the Distinguished Service Award from PMI in 1995.

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