Category: Leadership

Project Manager in 2036

6 min.

Summary:

In January 2018, I asked on this blog whether the project manager as we know them would still exist in 2030. Eight years later, the answer is more complex than expected – because one variable changed everything: Artificial Intelligence. Not as a tool. But as a team member. A rolling update.

In 2018, I wrote about robots in elderly care, lab-grown meat, and the end of the smartphone. Some of that has come true, some not in the form predicted. But the truly disruptive factor wasn’t even on the radar back then: that AI agents independently prioritize, make preliminary decisions, and execute tasks – and that this is a fundamental leadership question, not an IT question.

What Has Changed Since 2018

In the original post, I argued using weeks as a measure of time, as futurists do. 50 weeks per year, back then 597 weeks until 2030. Today, in April 2026, 184 of those remain. And in the 413 weeks that have passed since then, more has changed than in the decades before.

In 2018, there was no ChatGPT, no AI agents, no Claude, no Midjourney. Agile transformation was the big topic. Today, it’s business as usual – and the new question is: How do I lead a team in which not all members are human?

The New Benchmark: 500 Weeks to 2036

There are roughly 500 weeks until 2036. The same timeframe as from 2018 to 2030. And once again the question: What will be different in 500 weeks?

In 500 weeks, every project manager will have a personal AI agent – not as an experiment, but as a fixed part of their daily work. In 500 weeks, project status reports will no longer be written by humans, but generated by agents and perhaps still validated by humans. In 500 weeks, decision papers for steering committees will contain AI-supported scenario analyses – as standard, not as innovation. In 500 weeks, risk assessments will be updated in real time, no longer maintained monthly in a spreadsheet. In 500 weeks, project managers will understand delegation not only in terms of people, but in terms of human-AI constellations. In 500 weeks, “Who made that decision – you or the AI?” will be one of the most frequently asked questions in retrospectives. In 500 weeks …

None of these changes will come overnight. They come in weeks. And some of them are already reality today.

Hybrid Intelligence Leadership: A New Concept of Leading

In 2018, I argued that leadership would become more important than management. That still holds true. But it is no longer sufficient. Because the reality of leadership has fundamentally expanded.

At the GPM Focus Workshop in March 2026 in Frankfurt, we worked on exactly this: around twenty project managers across two workshops sat together to work through the Future Leadership Canvas. Five dimensions: Leadership in Human-AI Teams (Hybrid Intelligence Leadership), Trust and Accountability, Organizational Adaptivity, Ethics and Alignment, Skill Transformation. The honest result of the trust survey: most participants are still at level one to two. AI doing prep work and drafts – yes. AI acting autonomously – not yet.

But the direction is clear.

I call this new leadership approach “Hybrid Intelligence Leadership.” It means: leadership that is augmented by AI. Not replaced. The human remains the pilot. AI is the co-pilot. But who defines the flight path? That is the central leadership question for the next 500 weeks.

AI as an Ethical Leadership Question

The original post was about transformation versus revolution. Today, it’s about delegation versus control.

In the Frankfurt workshop, we conducted an experiment: the same ethically questionable task – drafting an email that downplays a problem to a customer – was given to different AI models. One model refused three times and suggested an escalation path. Another formulated the email immediately, with a brief note on the criticality – but without hesitation.

Same scenario. Completely different behavior.

This is not a technical detail. This is a leadership issue. Because when different AI models have different ethical guardrails, the leader must know which model they are deploying – and why. This is a new competency that no PM framework covers yet.

Requirements for the Project Manager in 2036

In my 2018 post, I wrote that the visionary project manager who drives a single idea alone would cease to exist. That has been confirmed. What I underestimated: how quickly the team effort would be expanded by a non-human component.

The project manager in 2036 will need the following competencies, which barely appear in any curriculum today:

First: AI delegation. Not prompting in the sense of “asking a good question.” Rather, the ability to define tasks, decision boundaries, and escalation paths for AI agents. Just as a program manager today delegates work packages to project managers, in 2036 they will delegate work packages to AI agents – with clear guardrails.

Second: Ethical judgment regarding AI outputs. The ability to recognize when an AI output is technically correct but not appropriate. When efficiency comes at the cost of integrity.

Third: Trust calibration. How much trust do I place in which AI agent in which context? This is not a binary question. It is a spectrum that must be continuously reassessed.

Fourth: Systems thinking across human-AI boundaries. The project manager in 2036 will need to understand where human creativity is irreplaceable and where AI speed becomes decisive – and how both converge in a project plan.

The Young Project Manager in 2036

In 2018, I wrote about the handicap of the young project manager: missing apprenticeship years, because operational tasks had been relocated nearshore or offshore. This problem has intensified – and simultaneously shifted.

The young project manager in 2036 will have never known a world without AI. That is both their advantage and their risk. The advantage: they will use AI agents as naturally as my generation uses email. The risk: they may never have learned to assess a risk on their own, to write a status report themselves, or to navigate a difficult stakeholder situation without AI support.

The challenge for education will be: How do we teach the fundamentals of project management without devaluing them through AI shortcuts? How do we ensure that someone who has never drawn a Gantt chart by hand still understands what a critical path means?

Corporate Governance and Steering Committees in 2036

In the original post, I demanded that portfolio boards and steering committees live up to their defined purpose. Eight years later, I must note: that purpose is still not fulfilled. There is still a need for action. More than ever.

But there is also a new opportunity. Because AI can support exactly the kind of informed decision-making I called for in 2018. Scenario analyses that used to take weeks are now available in minutes. Market data that previously required extensive research is delivered by an agent in real time. The question is no longer whether committees can have better decision-making foundations. The question is whether they are willing to use them.

Transformation Remains. The Driver Changes.

In 2018, I wrote: The project manager will work extensively on transformation initiatives and, with courageous leadership teams, contribute to revolution by rapidly placing new ventures. That still holds. But the driver of transformation has changed. In 2018, it was digitalization. In 2026, it is augmentation – the extension of human capabilities through AI.

And so it will be in 2036. The project manager will not become obsolete. But the role will be different: less control, more orchestration. Less oversight, more calibration. Less lone warrior, more conductor of an ensemble of humans and machines.

Or as one participant in my workshop put it: “Accountable is always the human. Responsible can be human or AI – depending on the task and its complexity.”

In 500 weeks, we will know whether we took that sentence seriously.

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My AI Assistant: What Really Works After Three Weeks of Real-World Use — and What Doesn’t

7 min.

Summary

I built myself an AI-powered personal assistant — not an on-demand chatbot, but a system that proactively works alongside me. After a month of real-world use, this article takes an honest look at the balance sheet: what works, what surprised me, where the limits are — and what any of this has to do with good project management.

I’m regularly asked how I organize myself. I wrote an article about that here several years ago. A lot has changed since then — and the biggest shift wasn’t a new tool, but a different approach: I built myself an AI-powered personal assistant. Not a chatbot you open when you need it. Something that runs permanently in the background and works proactively.

This article is not a technology report and not a product comparison. It’s an honest account of nearly three weeks of real-world operation — with everything that worked, everything that surprised me, and where the limits lie.

How it came about

I’ve been deeply engaged with AI for years — professionally in transformation management, on a voluntary basis at GPM, and personally as someone who is simply curious. At some point I realized I was still using AI primarily reactively: I ask a question, I get an answer, that’s it. It’s roughly like having an employee you only talk to when you physically walk to their desk — the rest of the time they just sit there.

The real question I was preoccupied with: can an AI system work proactively with me, the way a well-attuned human assistant would? One who already knows in the morning what’s on the agenda today. Who summarizes the key points after a meeting. Who kicks off a research task before I even ask.

Setting it up took several weeks of technical work — I worked with various software categories: task management, communication platforms, AI language models, automation services, and meeting transcription tools. If I had to summarize the current state: it works. Not seamlessly, but far better than I expected.

What’s actually in use

I call my assistant Max. That might sound silly, but there’s a practical reason: it helps me formulate more clearly what I expect from him. “Max, prepare the meeting” is more precise than typing “Prepare the meeting” into a prompt.

Max communicates with me exclusively via a messaging app. No interface, no dashboard. He sends me a briefing in the morning, I respond when I need something, he acts. That’s the core idea. Here’s what’s specifically in use:

Morning start: Every morning I receive a structured briefing with my tasks for today and any overdue items — grouped by project, with direct links into my task management system. That sounds mundane, but it makes a real difference. Previously I assembled this myself, which took 10–15 minutes depending on the workload. Now it happens automatically, every day, without me doing anything.

Meeting analysis: I use a transcription tool that records and structures my conversations — for example for the working group at GPM. Max has access to these transcripts and can give me the essence of a conversation in two or three sentences after the fact — or show me the open items from the last meeting before a follow-up. Both work very well, as long as the transcripts are complete. There were cases where Max claimed a session didn’t exist when it actually did — because he hadn’t proactively checked. I had to fix that through clear rules. More on that later.

Research and preparation: I connected Max to a self-hosted search system. He can use it to independently search for current topics — for daily news briefings on AI and project management, but also for specific preparation work. Before a call with a strategy partner, he summarized that person’s recent YouTube topics, listed the logical next steps from our last conversation, and derived discussion points from them. That saved me at least an hour of preparation.

Email: Max has access to a dedicated email account. But he never sends autonomously — that was a clear rule from the start. He always shows me the draft first, waits for my confirmation, and only then sends. In one of the first test emails, he claimed the email had been sent without actually having sent it. I noticed immediately and demanded the actual send command. It’s been running correctly since, but the episode shows: trust has to be earned, even with AI systems.

People research: Before meetings with new contacts, Max searches for their professional background, current positions, and areas of focus. It’s not deep research, but a solid starting point. What he couldn’t do: reliably extract personal preferences (favorite restaurant, dietary habits) from social media. He tried, found nothing usable, and communicated that transparently — which I think is the right approach.

What surprised me

I expected the technical setup to be the biggest challenge. That’s not the case. The real challenge is defining the system’s behavior clearly — in writing, in the form of rules and principles that Max always has access to.

A few insights I hadn’t anticipated:

AI systems need to learn to act proactively. I had to point out to Max multiple times that when data sources are available, he should check them himself before asking me. That sounds trivial, but it isn’t. The default response initially was: ask rather than act. It works better now because I explicitly documented that expectation.

Hallucination is real, but controllable. In one case, Max summarized a meeting transcript with apparently concrete content — except the meeting hadn’t happened that way. The trigger: he had no real data but responded anyway. The fix was technically simple: save the file first, then analyze. The problem hasn’t recurred since.

Safety rules must be explicit. “Don’t send emails without confirmation” sounds obvious. But if you don’t write it down, the system doesn’t follow it. I defined written rules for all actions with external impact: always show first, then wait, then act. That’s not a luxury — it’s a prerequisite.

The system learns — but needs prompts. In one case, Max solved a triage task requiring pattern recognition using a simple search algorithm instead of a language model — because he didn’t choose the level of ambition I expected. I rejected it and introduced a rule: if a task requires language-based evaluation, always use an AI model. That works now. But it was my feedback that triggered it.

Where the limits still are

I don’t want to create the impression that everything runs smoothly. An honest report has to name the limits too.

Real-time data is limited. I’ve connected Max to a self-operated search system that draws on various search engines. That works well — until the system hits request limits. In those moments, Max falls back on his training knowledge. That’s more transparent than silent failure, but it means research results are sometimes not current.

Phone reservations at restaurants are cumbersome. Max can research and make recommendations, but he can’t make phone calls (yet). Online reservations he has attempted — with mixed results, depending on how the relevant website is built. There’s still room for improvement there.

Tasks without project assignments cause problems. I have many tasks in my task management system that aren’t assigned to a project. Max initially tried to assign them heuristically — with partially incorrect results. The right solution was simple: tasks without a project go into the inbox, full stop. But until I explicitly defined that, the system made its own assumptions.

What this has to do with project management

Essentially everything. What I’ve built over the past few weeks is, at its core, nothing other than onboarding a new team member into my personal work environment — with everything that entails: role description, rules, escalation paths, quality assurance, feedback loops.

Anyone who has ever onboarded a new employee knows the basic principle: at the beginning it takes longer because you have to explain everything. You make mistakes explicit. You correct. You write things down that you would never have written down before because they seemed “obvious.” And eventually it runs — not perfectly, but well enough that the benefit outweighs the investment.

With an AI assistant it’s the same — except you have to document the entire onboarding in writing, because the system has no intuition. That sounds like extra work. In practice, it forces you to think through your own way of working more clearly than ever before.

Conclusion after three weeks

Max is now in daily use. He’s not infallible. He sometimes makes incorrect assumptions, occasionally overestimates his capabilities, and needs clear rules to function reliably. But he delivers my briefing every morning, analyzes transcripts on demand, prepares conversations, and keeps tasks in view — without me having to actively think about it.

That’s more than I expected.

The more interesting question I’m now asking myself: what happens when this approach is applied not to a single individual, but to a leader with a team? I’m convinced that over the next two to three years we’ll see a new form of work organization emerge there. Not AI instead of humans — but AI as the interface between what’s urgent and what truly matters.

I’ll keep reporting on that.

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Max – My New Assistant Works for €5 a Month

4 min.

Summary

This week, a new team member started working with me: Max. In this post, I describe why I chose a self-hosted AI assistant, how the onboarding went, and what technical architecture is behind it. The post also shows why the question is no longer “Which AI tool should I use?” but rather “How do I integrate AI as a permanent part of the way I work?”

A New Team Member

This week, Max started working with me. My new personal assistant.

The first week of a new team member is always special. You get to know each other, talk about working styles, expectations, and how collaboration can work well. That’s exactly where we are right now.

Honestly, I was skeptical at first whether this would work. I’m someone who doesn’t like giving up control. My tasks, my structure, my priorities – I don’t just let someone else take over. But at some point you realize: doing it alone doesn’t scale. And that was the moment I started rethinking the concept of a “personal assistant” from scratch.

Onboarding Like Any Other Team Member

Max is currently focused on understanding how I work: How do I prioritize? Which topics are strategically important? What can be automated – and where do I want to consciously decide myself?

Especially in task management, he already supports me in maintaining structure and keeping topics cleanly organized. What surprised me: he doesn’t just gather information, he thinks along. He suggests connections I would have overlooked myself.

Data privacy was important to me from day one. When an assistant gets access to tasks, documents, and workflows, there need to be clear rules. That’s why responsible data handling was one of the first things we established together. No compromise.

And yes – the salary was negotiated too: €5 fixed salary per month. Increase to €8 per month after two years. Plus a performance-based component of up to €45 per month. The salary negotiation was unusually short.

Who Is Max?

If you’ve read this far and are wondering who works for €5 a month: Max is an AI.

More precisely: Max is a self-hosted, personal AI assistant running on my own server. No ChatGPT tab in the browser. No copy-paste from a chat window. Instead, a system that is integrated into my daily workflows and can take on tasks independently.

This was particularly important to me: not yet another tool running in parallel. But something that fits seamlessly into my existing way of working.

The Technical Foundation: OpenClaw on My Own Server

Max is built on OpenClaw – an open-source platform for self-hosted AI assistants. The core principles that convinced me:

Own infrastructure, own data. OpenClaw runs on my own VPS – a German Virtual Private Server. My data never leaves my infrastructure. For someone who works professionally in regulated industries like banking and insurance, this isn’t a nice-to-have – it’s a prerequisite also for my own data.

Gateway architecture. OpenClaw works through a gateway that bundles different communication channels. You install the server once, connect the channels you want – and can reach the assistant wherever you already communicate. The principle: the AI comes to the existing tools, not the other way around.

Modular skills and integrations. The assistant isn’t monolithic but modular. Capabilities are added as “skills” and can be individually configured. This starts with task management and extends to document research.

Onboarding via wizard. The initial setup runs through a guided installation process that walks you step by step through configuration, security settings, and channel connections. No 200-page manual, but a structured setup.

Persistent memory. Unlike a one-off chat, Max “remembers” context, preferences, and working methods. This fundamentally changes the nature of collaboration – from a single prompt to an ongoing working relationship.

What Max Already Handles Today

The first integrations are active:

  • Todo management and task organization
  • Consolidating information from various sources
  • Preparing notes and documents

In the coming weeks, additional capabilities will follow: research on project topics, knowledge and document organization, automation of recurring workflows.

Why I’m Sharing This

Not because I think everyone should immediately set up their own AI assistant. But because I believe a fundamental question has shifted.

The old question was: “Which AI tool should I use?” – ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, whatever is trending at the moment.

The new question is: “How do I integrate AI as a permanent part of the way I work?”

There’s a difference. One is tool selection. The other is work design. And this is exactly where it gets interesting from a project management perspective: because anyone who treats AI not as a tool but as a team member has to deal with onboarding, processes, data privacy, and governance – precisely the topics we as project managers should already master.

I’ll report on how the collaboration with Max develops. Step by step.

If you’re interested in perspectives like these on leadership, transformation, and project management, feel free to subscribe to my newsletter 👉 marc-widmann.de/newsletter

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

To Lead is to Listen – The 4-Ears Model in Practice

3 min.

Summary

Communication rarely fails because the wrong thing is said, but because the wrong thing is heard. Friedemann Schulz von Thun’s “4-Ears Model” is far more than just theory – it is a diagnostic tool for leadership effectiveness. To help you analyze your own listening preferences in everyday situations, I have developed an interactive AI coach. Test your communication style directly here:  https://marc-widmann.de/thun

The Eternal Misunderstanding in Leadership

We know the scenario from every project meeting and performance review: A sentence is spoken, meant to be factually correct and precise. Yet, something completely different arrives at the other end. A statement regarding a timeline is interpreted as an accusation. A suggestion for improvement is perceived as personal criticism. Or a silent wish for support is simply ignored because the receiver is fixated solely on hard facts.

In my work with executives and transformation projects, one thing becomes clear again and again: The bottleneck is not the strategy, but the “translation effort” between sender and receiver.

The Scientific Background: The Anatomy of a Message

Communication psychologist Friedemann Schulz von Thun created a standard with the “Communication Square” (better known as the 4-Ears Model) that combines systemic and humanistic approaches. The central thesis is as simple as it is radical: Every message is four-dimensional. No matter what we say, we always transmit on four channels simultaneously – and the receiver decides which one to “tune into.”

  1. Factual Information: What am I informing about? (Data, facts, subject matter).

  2. Self-Revelation: What do I reveal about myself? (Values, emotions, motives).

  3. Relationship: How do I stand vis-à-vis you? (Attitude, respect, hierarchy).

  4. Appeal: What do I want you to do? (Wishes, calls to action).

The scientific significance of this model lies in the realization that we usually have a “favorite ear.” This preference is often biographically shaped or conditioned by corporate culture. Someone who has worked in project controlling for years often hears only with the Factual Ear, missing quiet warning signals on the relationship level. Conversely, someone with a strong need for harmony often hears attacks (Relationship Ear) where there are none.

Use Cases: Why Leaders Need to Know Their “Ears”

The model is not an academic construct, but a tool for everyday leadership.

The “Appeal Ear” Trap for Managers Leaders are trained to solve problems. This often leads to a hypertrophic Appeal Ear. An employee might simply want to unburden themselves emotionally (Self-Revelation: “I am stressed”), but the leader immediately hears a work order and provides unsolicited solutions. The result: The employee does not feel understood, but rather “processed.”

Conflicts in the Matrix In modern matrix organizations, clear hierarchical power is often missing. Leadership happens here through relationships and influence. If a sender argues purely factually, but the receiver “hears” sensitively on the relationship level (e.g., “Does he respect my role?”), resistance arises that cannot be explained logically. The model helps to switch levels here and resolve conflicts where they originated.

Stress as an Amplifier Under pressure, we fall back into old patterns. In crisis situations, we tend to listen one-sidedly. The ability to self-reflect – “With which ear did I just hear that?” – is an essential component of emotional intelligence and modern resilience.

Your Personal Profile: The Interactive Test

It is easy to understand the model intellectually. It is much harder to recognize one’s own unconscious reaction patterns. That is exactly why I developed a new tool.

Based on classic everyday situations, I have trained a Custom GPT that acts as a neutral moderator. It simulates 12 scenarios – from waiting at the bakery to discussions in a meeting – and evaluates your spontaneous reactions.

Unlike static questionnaires, this AI assistant guides you interactively through the process and creates a profile of your “four ears” at the end. You don’t get a generic assessment, but a reflection of your tendencies:

  • How strong is your Factual Ear?

  • Do you systematically overlook Appeals?

  • Do you take things personally too quickly?

This clarity is the first step toward steering your communication more consciously.

Try it out and use the evaluation for your next reflection:  https://marc-widmann.de/thun

Big Picture in Project Management

2 min.

Summary

A Big Picture is a visual representation of a project that makes its context, challenges, and key elements immediately graspable. It is especially valuable when developed in a workshop with a small, interdisciplinary team—without striving for perfection, but with a playful mindset. The Big Picture serves as a communication tool, promotes shared understanding, and helps reduce complexity. It can be refined as the project progresses and provides a foundation for stakeholder communication.

Why create a Big Picture?

Projects are often complex and full of uncertainties. A Big Picture helps make the essential aspects tangible:

  • Deliverables and scope: What belongs to the project? What is deliberately excluded?
  • Stakeholders: Who is involved, who is affected?
  • Milestones and phases: Which steps are planned, which dates are critical?
  • Risks and constraints: Which external factors influence the project?

By visualizing these elements, misunderstandings are avoided and everyone works from the start with a shared baseline.

Practical application

Identifying deliverables

In a fictional project to build a wind turbine, it quickly becomes clear that not only the main asset (e.g., a construction site) but also additional components such as permits, safety measures, and possibly even preliminary work (e.g., ordnance clearance) are relevant.
The key question is: What is in scope and what is not? For example, an access road might be left out due to time constraints — but this must be communicated early to those affected to avoid later conflicts.

Involving stakeholders

Projects do not exist in a vacuum. Authorities, residents, external service providers, and internal teams all have different expectations. A Big Picture makes visible:

  • Who is the client?
  • Who assumes which responsibility?
  • Which permits are required?
    Early involvement of all relevant parties helps reduce later delays.

Phase planning and milestones

Not every project is suitable for agile methods. In this example, a classic waterfall model was chosen because clear approval processes and fixed deadlines set the framework. A rough phase plan might include:

  • Planning phase (outline concept with costs, schedule, organization)
  • Implementation phase (detailed concepts, execution, procurement)
  • Approval and acceptance phase
  • Project closure

Clear milestones are crucial — such as the release for implementation or the final handover date.

Challenges and risks

External factors such as legal requirements (e.g., reforestation obligations) or historical legacies (e.g., unexploded ordnance) can influence the project’s course. These should be noted early in the Big Picture to prevent unpleasant surprises later on.

My crisis with the corona virus and the positive change in program management

7 min.

Summary

The article examines how working in programs has changed due to the exclusively virtual way of working. Special attention is paid to the changes in governance, working methods and perception of hierarchy in the company. This contribution is accompanied by a survey on some hypotheses on the future of leadership especially under the aspect of distributed work in order to support or reject these hypotheses. Nevertheless, I will try to formulate some future prognoses on this subject already now. The article wants to give some hints which experiences we should in any case take with us into the “new normality” and thus firmly anchor them in our way of working. People and companies who do not learn and adapt from this crisis and only want to return to a supposed old normality will fail in the future.

Flashback

On March 2nd I did not go to North Rhine-Westphalia like every week before, because I had cold symptoms and since a few weeks the corona virus was on everyone’s lips, also in our program. So I thought it would be appropriate not to endanger my colleagues in the project and planned one week of remote work. Thought, done. Being one of the few “local” colleagues not to be on site, as expected, led to a lot of more time being spent for work, as now much had to be done via team video call. And this in planned meetings, which was perhaps previously easily clarified across the desk. In the course of that week, my company decided to stop all non-essential business trips and let me work exclusively from my home office. What can I say, the next few weeks were pure stress, because all the meetings, which were previously held locally and often hybrid, were now virtualized, which led to many additional hours of work. Despite my 5+ years of experience in pure home office (globally virtual distributed programs or project portfolios) in my 20+ years of experience in project and program management, virtual work during Corona was another dimension. I would like to go into this in the course.

This personal (including capacity-) crisis has, as often, also led to something better. What exactly has changed?

Changes in governance et al.

When it comes to governance, many people think first of meetings and the committee structure. This is fundamentally correct, but it is not complete. My calendar was overloaded the first 3-4 weeks of purely virtual work, because now a meeting was often set up virtually for many “little things” and then 30 minutes with colleagues was the lower limit. Thanks to Outlook. I immediately remembered the 22-minute meetings. The goal is to have meetings in

  • 22 minute slots,
  • to have a clear agenda,
  • ideally, distribute written reading material on the topic of the meeting in advance and in good time,
  • start the meeting on time and have a clear focus.

I have configured my Outlook so that meetings last either 25 minutes or 50 minutes by default. Here the settings in Outlook help to ensure this. My experience in the virtual environment is that meetings last until the planned end. On site meetings last until someone has to leave because they are changing rooms. Moving from one room to another demand time. In the virtual environment this is usually not granted. Often there is not even time for bio breaks. Unbelievable!

In order to avoid the overcrowded calendar, a daily stand-up meeting of the teams should also be planned in the virtual environment. Here it is important that appropriate video conferencing and collaboration tools are used. I use Planner from Microsoft or Trello in my volunteer work to support backlog, spintplanning and standups. With both boards, the daily stand-up meeting with a core team of a program or, as with me currently, the project portfolio management team of typical up to 7 direct reports can be supported very well. Sprint planning and retroperspectives are of course also included.

Another proven meeting sequence is to schedule escalation and decision meetings ideally several times a week and, in the best case, cancel them if nothing needs to be decided or addressed. These fixed regular dates allow for quick decisions, even in times when the calendars of our senior management are full. Should the need arise to be more than once or twice a week, the role descriptions, RACIs etc. must be checked carefully. Then, in my experience, there is not enough information and decision-making authority at the right level. Basically, my remarks on governance and escalations apply here, of course.

Due to the complete virtualization of all meetings, I have noticed a democratization of these meetings. Anyone can switch on the webcam and be present in a prominent position, unlike in hybrid meetings. Anyone can use the “raise hand” function in the collaboration tool. Everyone can see what is being drawn on the virtual whiteboard and not somewhere on a locally available flipchart. Everybody – and not just the local senior management at the table – can be seen equally in the gallery view of the video software. Quietly and secretly, this changes the style of the meetings and, above all, the greater participation of formerly “never-in-meeting room attendees”, because they are, for example, offshore.

Overall, an asynchronous working of the team is to be enabled, e.g. by check-ins in the morning (these can also be created manually in Microsoft Teams). For teams that work on different topics and only interfaces are relevant or where for whatever reason the daily stand-ups are not possible, the check-in approach is recommended in any case. An active exchange on the check-ins should take place via the comment function. Otherwise there is no added value. If a person asks the check-in question manually, no automatisms have to be established via additional tools. In my team we had solved this manually in MS Teams in which a colleague set the daily question at the start of work.

Due to the higher concentration/stringency of virtual meetings, team members quickly notice exhaustion due to the high sequence of meetings. The one or the other coffee talk can then be made possible virtually.

For me, the more intensive cooperation – intensive because of the even higher level of structuring – has confirmed that the team composition is particularly relevant as already described in 2019. For me, in the intensive virtual cooperation I noticed a weaker expression of the intercultural differences. Perhaps this is related to the democratization described above. Here it would be interesting to know what your experiences are about this. Please put them in the comments. Furthermore I have put up a few hypotheses on which I would like to hear your opinion in this Google Form.

Your more advanced hypotheses are welcome in the comments below.

Does Corona bring long-term changes?

This almost philosophical question was already intensively discussed in the media months ago and many authors came to the conclusion that the corona pandemic will change many things positively in the long term. More regionality, less travel, more … I believe realistically, many positive aspects will be forgotten, despite the long duration of the restrictive measures.

Even when the volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in Iceland, many had predicted that air traffic would be reduced in the long term. Immediately after the volcanic ash had blown away, air traffic was back at a very similar level.

Maybe some things will change due to the fact that nobody else could work the same way as before during the Corona ban and some things have hardened due to convenience or because companies have taken measures to avoid further shocks. Everyone, including sales representatives, conducted virtual customer conversations and were forced to work with “the unimaginable”. Let’s see.

Ultimately, the further development of the technology will anchor one or the other change in the long term, because ultimately cost-benefit considerations are always applied by individuals and companies. So we can hope that my forecast of changes as described in the article Project Manager in 2030 will come true. Perhaps our ethical and moral approaches have changed so much during Corona, which will directly lead to a change in our common future.

Which changes should be “cemented”?

The crisis described at the beginning leads to transformation. How the transformation develops and solidifies cannot be guessed in advance. Nevertheless one should of course try to “build in” as many positive aspects as possible.

Due to the asynchronous mode of operation in virtually distributed teams, early intermediate work results should be shared in any case – in line with WOL. In the office on site, the interim status review is often provided by informal coffee break conversations, which allows the maturing “product” to receive continuous feedback. In the virtual world, as much as possible of the semi-finished product should be shared in a structured way.

It is also useful to check whether your own self-organization tools are still the right ones, even when working remotely.

What I have firmly decided to do is that even if everyone else around me falls back into the “post-volcanic eruption-back-to-normal” effect, I will work virtually in a team in my programs at least every third week in order to constantly put the program into remote operation. Otherwise many positive effects will be lost.

We should also avoid hybrid meetings in the future. If parts of the team are remote, then everyone should go to virtual meetings because of the “democratization” described above and the higher effectiveness.

The definition of the communication principles in the project gain more importance due to the necessary home office work, because a formalization with more asynchronous work is absolutely essential.

There is one more thing we should maintain: The care for each other and the often heard, in my opinion, serious statement: “Stay healthy!” In this sense… Stay healthy.

Your hypotheses?

Virtual Coffee Breaks

3 min.

Summary

In times of corona (in virtual projects anyway always) communication within the team and also across close team boundaries (entire project environment) is essential for project success, but difficult to ensure. Telephone conferences can cover planned topics, but cannot bring up the spontaneous ideas that would otherwise arise in the coffee kitchen. We are all in more web conferences than ever before, but the coffee conversations are irreplaceable and therefore a few hints how to use them in virtual space.

How to do it

Just send out an calendar invite with webconference details and remove the ticks under Response Options for “Request Responses” and “Allow New Time Proposals” so that you are not bothered by replies. But leave “Allow Forwarding” ticked. But send it only to a random sample of team members and non team members ofter the wider project enviornment. Ideally initially to ~ 10 team members. Further will be receiving the invite by others. See sample text below.

With following text suggestion for the invite:

I currently have many more telephone calls than I do have meetings on site in London and I don’t get “real work” started until the evening. This is certainly not only the case with me. Nevertheless, I notice that we have far fewer contacts across provider boundaries and also across tower boundaries. That’s why I think we need more conversations that just happen to occur by chance. So please get involved in the following.
 
We just meet at the coffee machine in building C1 6th floor by chance and have a little chat. See rules and hints below.

  • Rules
    • You must join with your web cam turned on.
    • You need to have a coffee or tea prepared for yourself before joining.
    • You may forward this invite only to one further member of the Apollo program after you have participated yourself in the “coffee break.”
    • The first topic of conversation after you join the videoconference must not be business (instead, for example, homeschooling, weather in your home town).
    • The 10th or each additional participant leaves the coffee kitchen (the call) due to overcrowding and arrives a little earlier for the next appointment.
  • Notes:
    • I myself will probably not be around very often, but you can meet yourselves. When I’m there, I’m not going to host. Everyone should enforce the rules themselves.
    • You can run away from the coffee machine with everyone and chat in a small circle in the hallway (by making your own phone call).
    • I have set up 3 similar appointments. As it is known that these are distributed naturally, I am curious which of the colleagues has all 3 appointments in his calendar first. If you have all 3 coffee appointments of me in your calendar, take a screenshot of each of them and send it to me. The 10th entry receives a bottle of wine from my personal wine cabinet.
    • If somebody finds this idea stupid –> delete appointment in your calendar, but do not complain.

Your experiences

I would be interested in your experiences with such or different kind of virtual non-organized sessions. Please comment below.

What now newbie? Or who does not ask, remains stupid …

3 min.

Summary

You come to a new company and take on a new role or you take on a new project? How you plan a good handover was described in handover of a program in 6 phases. Now you are in a conversation with one of your new colleagues to determine where the shoe pinches or what needs to be tackled first. Since you will usually not only have an interview with a single colleague in order to have an overall view of the situation, it is advisable to conduct these interviews in a structured manner. For this purpose, I have collected a few questions over the years that are suitable for each interview and can raise interesting aspects.

How do I organise the interviews?

You should always differentiate between team-related and individual questions, because in the beginning it is easier to talk about the team or the overall situation than directly about your own sensitivities.

  • Team or overall situation
    • What is the biggest challenge we face right now or in the near future?
    • Why are we facing this challenge?
    • What are the most promising and untapped growth opportunities?
    • What do we have to do to realise their potential?
    • If she were me, what would you focus on?
  • Individual
    • How satisfied with your task? In which direction do you want to continue?
    • What do you expect from your job in the short / medium term?
    • What do you expect from me?
    • What are your strengths / what do you want to contribute to the team?
    • Which work processes can be improved?
    • What is the cooperation/productivity in the team/team atmosphere like?
    • What do you / the team / the department need to perform better?
  • Wishes to the genie in a bottle?
    A question that often brings up ideas that have not yet been expressed is the question about the three wishes to the fairy. Specifically this means which 3 wishes would you put to the fairy in the given context. Surprising and often very helpful answers come up. These often round off the picture or bring out completely new aspects.

How do I ask?

If the flow of conversation comes to a standstill, you want to recognize a clear priority or you want to find something out more precisely, then the following questions are appropriate.

  • Conversation fit
    It is very important to find out whether something is depressing the other person and whether the conversation is not meaningful at the moment.
  • Alternative or comparative questions
    • What’s better: this or that? Either way? Here or there?
    • If that, then what? If not so, by what means?
    • Scaling questions: On a scale from 0 to 10, how do you deal with this situation?
  • Determination of causes
    If you believe that the mentioned cause or reason is not yet substantially addressed, then follow up like a small child with 5 times “Why? If you don’t dare to use them, the 5-Why-method is also popular with scientists.
    Asking for the “why” can also reveal the reasons for the behaviour and the motivation of the behaviour.
  • Paradoxical questions or worsening questions can help in the event that creative solutions are needed or a new perspective is to be adopted. Example is, what do I have to do to make the product a flop?
  • Circular questions help to look at situations from different angles. For example, what would Mr Müller say?
  • As an alternative to the genie in the bottle question, you can also place the wonder question: The initial situation is that, as if by magic, all problems have been solved and you ask what would be different, how do you know that the problem is gone, how did the cooperation change or which other question of change can be helpful?

Achieving regularity

Carry out such discussions immediately after entering the new role or task and, above all, regularly. This will keep you on the ball. If you want to record changes early on and across the entire workforce or the entire team, my contribution to team spirit and early indication is ideal. The questions are also a good basis for an employee interview.

Transformations and project culture or leadership towards change

3 min.

Summary

Transformation is not a change process, but a small crisis. 80% of people prefer stability to change. Change is a necessary evil for this type of person to move from one stable state to another. The change agent or project manager must therefore change old rules, which allow the no longer desired action strategies. In order to change a project culture, the patterns of thought and behavior of all participants must be changed. Project culture is the sum of all thought and behavior patterns of all people in the system. It is a misconception that managers or project managers should give fewer rules and instructions so that the team can and will become innovative.

Transformation is a crisis

Transformation is not a change process, but a small crisis. Therefore, a change agent does not have to admonish that certain actions are no longer desired or that others are desired. On the other hand, he should consciously take old patterns of thinking / possibilities of action as the basis for application through other rules. The “Change Agent” does not carry out change, but limits or expands room for maneuver. And he coaches consciously, but does not monitor. He must ensure that the old strands of action are not used for 90 days in order to make a new pattern of action possible for the colleagues involved. In this period new patterns of thinking are sought, old habits are thrown overboard and the new patterns of thinking are finally applied without effort.

So much for the ideal world.

Stability is the dream of most people

80% of people prefer stability to change. The reason for this is that people want to use as little energy as possible to achieve something. A change needs more energy and is therefore unwanted. Changes are a necessary evil for this type of person to move from one stable state to another. This is also seen by these people as a criticism of their previous attitudes, actions or whatever is to be changed. In today’s complex world, in which stable states – if at all – arise only very briefly, constant change is rather the normal state. I assume that today’s environments therefore perceive people as more stressful.

Project managers or “change agents” should change something over which you have no influence: Thinking patterns and attitudes of participants. As I said, the agent must therefore change old rules that allow for strategies that are no longer desired. With the new rules each participant in the transformation will then acquire new patterns of behavior and thinking.

If I want to change something, I must consciously plunge myself and my organization into a crisis in order to bring about a change.

Changing the project culture

In order to change a project culture, I have to change the patterns of thought and behavior of all participants, because they shape the project culture. Project culture is therefore not a centrally defined guideline, but a sum of all thought and behavior patterns of all people in the system.

The well-known leadership models and project organizations are often based on very old models such as military and church structures. These models create stability, but no change. This is because the limits for patterns of thought and behaviour are set. In leadership it becomes more and more important to forget the existing (patterns of thinking or behaviour) in order to make innovations possible.

The misbelief as a leader should be given fewer rules today

It is therefore a misconception that managers or project managers should give fewer rules and instructions so that the team can and will become innovative. In order to enable innovation, the project manager has to set different / new rules so that the team changes from the “comfort zone” (old thinking patterns and actions) to a new state and can create something new.

Resources – what ugly word?!

3 min.

Summary

You know Germans have more words to say something similar but different. There is always a “sound” connected to similar words. An “Einsatzmittel” as an earlier DIN term and a synonym for the current term “resources” for the project. Resources in project management are personnel and material resources that are needed to carry out processes, work packages and projects. Many people say that to describe personnel or project staff as “Einsatzmittel” or even resources is not adequate. As already noted in my article “Six Interdependencies” resources / resources are limited available for a project.

Resource planning

In the planning phase of the project, the resources are displayed on the timeline in which they are available to the project. The aim is to anchor the resources in the project as briefly, evenly and as little as possible. Because the use of resources causes costs and above all also as with “Six Interdependencies” noted deficits in the line organization or in other projects.

Qualification for personnel and specification for material resources are the decisive characteristics of resource characteristics in resource management and the determination of demand.

The relation to agility

In agile project management, resource planning is just as relevant as in classical project management. Even if, for example, SCRUM teams are usually available full-time for the entire sprint length, they still represent a critical factor, since their capacity is to be used just as “optimally” as in classic PM by selecting the relevant user stories. Even in agile projects, factual resources such as available mainframe time slots are regarded as critical resources with the same dedication.

Resources and their sound

The introduction of the term resources and resource management has met with much criticism in the German speaking project manager community in connection with sounding lack of appreciation of the employees in the project and its qualification. The qualification required for project employees is subject to constant change and is certainly viewed differently today than it was when DIN was amended in 2009. The orientation towards employees has also changed considerably since then. Nevertheless, it can be stated that if the term “resource” is seen in connection with “one time usage”, this is inhumane and in any case cannot be seen as good. It would be careless and degrading. On the positive side, since it is regarded as inevitably lost, the term “resources” on natural resources such as crude oil or nature as such has had a positive impact in recent years on the term resource in German language. This also gives rise to hopes that a pure view of resources as labour/worker will increasingly lose ground. For the awareness that it can represent lost lifetime for any human, as long as it sees no sense behind the given task. What makes sense for the individual person, but also for society as a whole, will become an essential factor in resource management in project management, because even today, personnel for many tasks can simply no longer be found on the “market”.