The Role of Leadership vs. Management in Project Management

You’ll often hear people extolling the virtues of leadership, and at other times the virtue or failures of management. The question is what is the difference and how does that play out within the context of Project Management.

In a nutshell (yes, I am simplifying it for this discussion) the difference between leadership and management can be thought of in this way:

Management is about dealing with the complexities, logistics and issues of execution. In short, it brings order, consistency and predictability to the notion of things like Project Deliverables, meeting Quality Assurance goals, and the overall delivery of product, projects or programs, regardless of what those things might be.

Leadership on the other hand is about vision, inspiration and dealing with change.

In order for any effort or organization to function in a healthy and sustainable way, there must a symbiotic relationship between the two. 

Managers and leaders have commonality in some of the tasks and activities that they perform (i.e. deciding what needs to be done, who will do it and making it happen), but they go about achieving the end results in very different, yet interrelated ways that create a synergy that is much more effective than either trait on it’s own.

Managers will plan, create SOW’s, Gantts, Issues Lists, Test Plans, etc… in an effort to solve problems. Leaders will develop a vision first and devise strategies on how to achieve that vision.

Managers will focus on recruiting and hiring to staff the project to completion.  Leaders will often be more focused on aligning strategic resources within the teams, communicating the vision to them knowing that they will support, propogate (and in some cases enhance) the vision to the rest of the teams.

Managers will use all of the planning tools at their disposal to monitor execution and evaluate the end results against the plan. Leaders will inspire and motivate people to continue moving in the right direction, to not be sidetracked by problems, issues, or false objection. And they will often do it in what seems to be very simple ways that speak to the human aspect (e.g. emotions, values, etc…) of their team members.

So as Project and Program Managers, which do we want to be?  Perhaps … both. Any project, program or organization of any substance must have a management component to survive. Structure, procedure and protocol is not a bad thing. But structure, procedure and protocol without vision, and human inspiration becomes static.  Likewise vision and human inspiration without structure, procedure and protocol can lead to chaos.  The key is understanding the difference between them, the proper balance between the two, and when and where to apply them.

Gene Eckhart
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

  

What Type of Search is Right for You?

For many functions in the organization the full text “Google” like search capability found in most document management systems may be useful.  For others, it’s not sufficient in providing the business value.  Here’s some situations that may help determine what is right for you.

A business professor once said “There are three core functions to any process… 1. Procurement of Materials 2. Conversion of Materials and 3. Distribution of those Materials.  All other functions only support these three”.  In translation, these three things can map to any function found in business for any department (Sales, HR, Information Technology etc.)  It seems that when analyzing any business process, this old adage always comes back and discussing search in the enterprise is no exception.

When looking at search it’s helpful to see both sides of these functions for document management.  Documents either “drive the process” as a core function, or documents are ”driven by the process” as in a supporting role.  The differences are not all that hard to see.  Document that drive the process are directly related to the three functions above 1. Procurement 2. Conversion and 3. Distribution.  Documents that are driven by the process may be everything else.

Vouchers, Invoices and Checks are all documents that drive Purchasing.  Service Orders and Proof of Delivery are documents that drive Operations.  Purchase Orders and Service Contracts drive sales. 

On the other side, Marketing Literature  is driven by Marketing.  Brochures are driven by Sales.  The company Calendar is driven by HR and Inventory Reports are driven by Operations.  These documents support the functions of their departments.

A less technical way to look at this dichotomy is ”gotta have that document now” and “gee, this looks like what I’m looking for”.  When designing a search architecture, this is one of the basic questions you can ask yourself.

Documents that drive the business process tend to require a discrete index field search.  This is because the user is typically looking for the one document they need, and they need it quick.  A Sales Order for a customer service representative or an Invoice for a purchasing manager.  These documents also typically already have a structured meta-data component already designed for them before the document management system is in place.  A Sales Order Number field is always generated for Sales Orders and an Invoice Number Field always has an Invoice number.  This is true before or after a document management system exists.

Documents that are driven by the process are less structured in nature.  Marketing Literature, Progress Reports and the Employee Vacation schedule to name a few.  The user is typically looking for some information that could be in one, or many of these documents.  Could an employee figure out if Memorial Day is a company holiday by finding the wrong documents to their search?  Like last years vacation schedule?  Probably so.  If this is the case, a full text content search may prove successful.

Documents that “drive the process” answer questions to a search that only that one document can satisfy.  What items were billed for Invoice # 123456?  What date was Employee #78910 hired?  Who signed for Proof of Delivery #34567?  In these cases, a discrete index field search is required.

 

John Moffitt

Systems Engineer

ImageSource, Inc.

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