Category: Project Management

Extreme Scenarios and Pre-Mortems – Foresight Methods for Projects

7 min.

Summary

On October 20, Peter Kennedy of the Futures Strategy Group asked whether we need more extreme scenarios today. A few days earlier, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center had published a pre-mortem of a major AI-enabled catastrophe. Both methods start from a future nobody wants to plan for. My thesis is that in projects and strategy work we plan too close to the present, and that these two methods are a good antidote.

Why Now?

Kennedy describes a feeling many of us share. Reality seems to be overtaking even the most radical scenarios. Covid-19, political division, and now AI. The natural reaction is to hunker down, put off big decisions, and wait for things to settle.

His answer is clear. Things never really settle. In strategic planning, he calls prediction “a losing endeavor”. Beyond the very near term, the only prudent way to plan is to assume the future will be fundamentally different and will challenge your own operating model.

Almost at the same time, the Belfer Center took a different route. Instead of sketching many futures, the authors assumed a single, very dramatic one and asked backward how it could have happened.

Two methods, one common core. What’s behind them, and what can we as project and program managers take away?

What Is an Extreme Scenario?

By its own account, the Futures Strategy Group has worked with “alternative futures” for a quarter of a century. These aren’t probability calculations or single events. They’re fully developed stories about fundamentally different environments. They should be relevant and accessible, but also provocative.

Three rules from the piece strike me as especially useful for our work.

  • The scenario horizon lies well beyond the planning horizon. If an organization plans zero to five years ahead, FSG sets the scenarios ten years out or more.
  • Scenarios must be plausible and internally consistent. As a check, FSG sketches chronologies of invented events leading from today to the scenario.
  • Scenarios challenge not only assumptions about the future but also whether your own operating model still holds up.

According to Kennedy, the longer horizon frees people from the “tyranny of the present”. If you’re not tied to the timeline of current plans, you’re more willing to accept a truly different world.

An example from the piece shows how extreme this can get. In 2003, FSG wrote a scenario for the US Coast Guard in which a coronavirus originating in China kills ten million people worldwide. Covid-19 was still 16 years away. FSG itself stresses that prediction is never the goal. The value lies elsewhere. Kennedy argues that rehearsing several futures also prepares people for disruptions that never appeared in any scenario.

And now the real question of the piece. Do we need to deliberately stretch the boundaries of plausibility today to keep up with the pace of change? Kennedy sees a potentially big payoff. Broader and more resilient strategies, more agility, and a workforce that leans into the future.

Wild Cards and Stress Tests?

The discussion below the article, in which Kennedy himself takes part, is worth reading. Two suggestions from it are very practical.

Rodolfo Sabonge proposes keeping the core scenarios within a reasonable range and then stress-testing them with injected extreme shocks, much like central banks run their stress tests. Add clear early-warning indicators. And include extreme upside scenarios, not just threats. Extreme can also mean speed, when changes we expected over fifteen years arrive in two or three.

Charles Thomas writes that they occasionally do this already. The same extreme event is injected into all scenarios as a “wild card.” A powerful tool, he says, but tricky to get right.

My takeaway? Extreme doesn’t mean science fiction. Extreme means it hits our most cherished assumptions.

What Is a Pre-Mortem?

The idea comes from Gary Klein, who described it in Harvard Business Review in 2007. The team assumes the project it’s planning has already failed and comes up with plausible reasons why. The trick is psychological. People with doubts can voice them without being cast as naysayers.

The Belfer Center has now applied this method to a very serious subject. The October 15, 2026 paper by Stephen Casper and colleagues assumes that the first major AI-enabled terrorist event has already happened. “Major” is defined up front. At least 50 people killed or seriously injured, or at least one billion dollars in damage, based on thresholds in US laws on frontier AI.

From there, the authors work backward through the life cycle of an AI model. Five points where things can go wrong.

  1. How the dangerous capability is developed.
  2. How the model is deployed.
  3. How the capability is elicited.
  4. How safeguards fail.
  5. How detection fails.

At each point they ask which decision enabled the event and where it could have been interrupted. Their conclusion in short. Whether it comes to that depends largely on choices developers, distribution platforms, and governments are making today. The paper ends with nine falsifiable predictions and two explicitly hypothetical scenarios.

Speaking to the Harvard Gazette, Stephen Casper says they deliberately picked one of the more dramatic scenarios. The aim is to help prevent it or, if it does happen, to enable a faster and better-informed discussion afterward.

What interests me here is less the AI risk itself, important as it is. It’s the method. The threshold is defined in advance. The path backward is structured by phase. And the predictions are worded so they can be checked later.

What Can We Learn for Projects?

Quite a lot, in my opinion. We usually plan projects for their duration. Yet the benefits are often supposed to last many years beyond that. With its Momentum Model, ICB5 describes exactly this shift from “project delivered” to “value created.” I wrote about it in my post on the future of PM certification.

Applied to project and strategy work, I see seven starting points.

  • Choose a scenario horizon longer than the project itself. The question isn’t whether the project finishes on time, but whether its result still holds up in ten years.
  • Run a pre-mortem before kick-off or before a major steering committee decision. The project has failed. Why?
  • Structure the path backward by phase, as the Belfer Center does, and ask for each phase where you could have stepped in.
  • Define up front what “failure” means. Without a threshold, everyone ends up discussing a different problem.
  • Inject one wild card into every plan variant instead of writing a separate disaster scenario.
  • Define early-warning indicators for each scenario and track them in the status report.
  • Play through the extremely good scenario, too. Sudden success can overwhelm a project just as much.

I have only used pre-mortems indirectly so far. In a current software development project, I will use exactly this approach for strategically supported AI discussions.

If you know reverse brainstorming, often called the headstand method in German-speaking countries, much of this will look familiar. Both flip the question toward failure. The difference lies in tense, purpose, and output.

  • Reverse brainstorming asks, “How do we make this project fail?” It’s a creativity technique. The negative ideas are flipped back around and turned into solution ideas.
  • The pre-mortem says, “The project has failed. Why?” The failure has already happened and is explained backward. It’s a risk technique. The result is a set of risks, warning signs, and points where you can step in.

An everyday picture. Reverse brainstorming asks how we could thoroughly ruin a dinner party, and derives from that what really matters. The pre-mortem imagines the guests have already left disappointed and asks what went wrong.

One point matters most to me. Both methods depend on dissent being welcome. In the discussion, Kennedy adds that extreme scenarios also weaken the influence of those who have seen it all. And then: “There are no experts on the future.” That’s a leadership task, not a question of method.

Where Are the Limits?

Of course, these methods aren’t a cure-all either.

  • Scenarios are not forecasts. Selling the coronavirus example as a hit misses the point. FSG says so itself.
  • Extreme scenarios can paralyze. Kennedy describes clients who already feel immobilized by constant disruption. If an organization’s hair is on fire right now, he says he actually advises against scenario work.
  • Extreme has to be tailored, as Charles Thomas stresses in the discussion. A scenario that doesn’t affect anyone in the room remains a thought experiment.
  • A pre-mortem is only as good as the willingness to hear uncomfortable answers. Without psychological safety, it ends up as a list of the usual suspects.

What Does This Mean for the Coming Years?

From here on, this is my assessment, not an established development.

If AI agents become team members, as I described in Project Manager in 2036, and prepare more and more of the planning work, our contribution shifts. Away from building the plan, toward questioning its assumptions. Scenarios and pre-mortems are made for exactly that.

The Belfer paper also shows that risks arise in chains of decisions. Who makes which decision, and where it can be interrupted, is a governance question. It belongs in steering committees, not just in risk registers.

And the point about speed from the FSG discussion stays with me. Maybe the extreme thing about the future isn’t the event itself, but that it arrives sooner than expected.

Kennedy closes with Louis Pasteur. Chance favors the prepared mind.

Which scenario would you never put in front of your steering committee? And why that one?

Feel free to subscribe to my free newsletter.

Sources

The Door That Swings Back – What a Lack of Consideration Does to Project Teams

7 min.

Summary

A door swinging back against your hand is a small thing. Whether this kind of inconsiderate behavior is really on the rise is disputed among researchers. What it does, however, is well documented. It spreads, drains concentration, and slows the flow of information in teams. My thesis is that it is already seeping into our working lives, and for projects that is a real problem.

What Happened?

Saturday, October 24, in a store in Mainz, Germany. A clothing store. Nobody held the door, nobody looked back. The door swung back against my hand. I was frustrated. And I was worried about the future.

Inside, the place looked like a junk room. Several customers pushed neatly stacked clothes aside, piece by piece, to look for their size. The featured image is my own photo and shows what it looked like.

I see similar things on the street. My thesis is that this growing lack of consideration for others is already spilling over into our working lives. I think that is a big problem. So I looked at what research has to say about it.

Is It Really Getting Worse?

Many people share the feeling. In a survey by the Pew Research Center (2025, about 9,600 U.S. adults), 47 percent said people have become ruder in public since the pandemic. 44 percent saw no difference.

The workplace looks similar. In 2013, Christine Porath and Christine Pearson reported in Harvard Business Review that in 1998 a quarter of respondents were treated rudely at least once a week. By 2011, it was half. These are self-reports, though, not a representative time series.

And then there is the counterevidence. In 2023, Adam Mastroianni and Daniel Gilbert analyzed surveys with more than 12 million respondents in Nature. People in at least 60 countries have believed for at least 70 years that morality is declining. But when you ask about concrete behavior, such as whether someone was treated with respect the day before, hardly anything has changed over the decades. Their explanation is that negative things catch our attention more and that we forget past negatives faster.

So what does that mean for my observation? It is real. Whether it reflects a trend is an open question. What is certain is the damage inconsiderate behavior does where it happens.

What Does Rudeness Do to Us?

Here the research is remarkably clear.

Rudeness is contagious. In three studies in 2016, Trevor Foulk, Andrew Woolum, and Amir Erez showed that a single episode is enough. People who experience it become more likely to be rude themselves afterward. Even toward people who had nothing to do with it.

It colors the whole day. In 2017, Woolum and colleagues followed 81 professionals and managers over ten workdays. Those who merely witnessed rudeness in the morning perceived more of it throughout the day, made less progress on their tasks, and were more likely to withdraw from interactions.

Even watching has a cost. In experiments published in 2009, Porath and Erez showed that people who merely witness someone being treated with contempt perform worse on tasks, are less creative, and help less.

And it costs the organization. In Porath and Pearson’s 2013 survey of 800 employees, 48 percent said they had intentionally decreased their work effort. 80 percent lost work time worrying about the incident. 25 percent took their frustration out on customers.

For me, this is the bridge to my thesis. What is documented is that a single experience lingers for hours and gets passed on. What is not documented is that a ruder public sphere permanently changes work culture. That remains my observation. But whoever has a door swing back against their hand in the morning is sitting in the daily stand-up an hour later.

Why Do We Become Inconsiderate?

Usually not out of malice. I find three explanations plausible.

Hurry. In 1973, John Darley and Daniel Batson sent seminary students to give a talk, some of them on the parable of the Good Samaritan. On the way, a man lay slumped helplessly on the ground. Without time pressure, 63 percent helped. Under high time pressure, only 10 percent did. The topic of the talk made no difference. The study is old and small (40 participants). Still, everyone knows the pattern.

Overload. In Porath’s surveys, half of those who had been rude themselves said they felt overloaded. Only 4 percent said it was fun (Georgetown University, 2018).

Disorder as the norm. In 2008, Kees Keizer and colleagues showed in Science, with field experiments in Groningen, that visible rule-breaking leads to more of it. In front of a clean wall, 33 percent simply dropped a flyer. In front of a wall covered in graffiti, 69 percent did. Nobody has studied stacks of clothes. Still, the analogy to the store is obvious. Where it already looks like a junk room, the next person pushes things aside too.

What Does This Mean for Projects?

Projects live on information that people share voluntarily. A risk someone raises early. A question someone dares to ask. A mistake that gets reported before it becomes expensive.

That is exactly what suffers. In 2015, Arieh Riskin and colleagues had 24 neonatal intensive care teams work through an emergency simulation. A supposed outside expert made a few mildly disparaging remarks in passing that had nothing to do with the teams’ performance. Diagnosis and treatment got worse. Rudeness alone explained nearly 12 percent of the variance in performance. The reason was that the teams shared less information and asked for help less often.

Amy Edmondson calls what gets lost there psychological safety. In her 1999 study of 51 teams, the shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking fostered learning. And learning, in turn, drove performance.

IPMA’s ICB4 also describes this attitude as a competence. Under the competence element “Relationships and engagement,” it lists, for example, “Demonstrate empathy through listening, understanding and support” and “Show confidence and respect by encouraging others to share their opinions or concerns.” For us, consideration is therefore part of project competence.

In my opinion, the project manager plays the role of the store owner here. They shape what counts as normal in the team. Through what they do, and through what they let slide.

What Helps?

The good news is that mindfulness can be practiced. Paul Condon and colleagues (2013) showed this in an experiment. After eight weeks of meditation training, half of the participants gave up their seat to a woman on crutches, compared with only 15 percent in the comparison group. And that was even though two other people in the waiting room ignored her.

It is not a miracle cure. A meta-analysis by Vonderlin and colleagues (2020, 56 randomized trials) shows that workplace mindfulness programs reduce stress and improve well-being. There is no robust evidence for higher productivity. The authors also warn against using mindfulness to pacify dissatisfied employees. Handing out a mindfulness app while leaving the overload in place gains little.

For everyday project work, I mainly see small things.

  • Plan time reserves. People who are always in a hurry overlook others.
  • Start meetings on time and end them on time. A clear agenda helps.
  • Listen in meetings instead of reading email on the side. I wrote about how hard that is in my post on the 4-ears model.
  • Address rudeness calmly and promptly. Staying silent turns it into the norm.
  • Keep shared artifacts tidy. Backlog, file storage, minutes. Visible disorder invites more.
  • Look back briefly at handovers. Who works with my result after me?
  • In the retrospective, also ask how we treated each other.
  • Small gestures. Say thank you, call back, know people’s names.

And Going Forward?

From here on, this is my assessment. Project work is becoming more hybrid and more tightly scheduled. Chance encounters are becoming rarer, messages squeezed between two meetings more frequent. Consideration therefore becomes less of a habit and has to be cultivated more deliberately. Whether inconsiderate behavior is really growing in society, research will tell. For our own teams, we don’t have to wait.

Holding a door costs two seconds. What it costs not to hold it is shown in the studies above.

Where does the junk room start in your project? And who will be the first to tidy up?

Feel free to subscribe to my free newsletter.

Sources

AI and the Future of PM Certification – What ICB5 Changes and What It Doesn’t

9 min.

Summary

In early October, IPMA launched ICB5, the fifth generation of its competence baseline for project, program, and portfolio management. Artificial intelligence is one of five themes running through it. At the same time, generative AI can now produce a certification report that is hard to tell apart from one written by the candidate. My thesis is that AI changes how competence is evidenced, not what competence means. Certification will therefore have to move away from documents and toward conversation.

How Did This Post Come About?

A few days ago, I asked on LinkedIn: “Will we still need project managers who can build a project plan?” The discussion quickly went beyond planning.

Are written reports still meaningful evidence? Do we need more presentations and expert discussions? An oral exam as early as Level D? Maybe even question cards like in the old ICB3 procedure? And how much depends on commitment and maturity in the organizations where certified project managers end up working?

In one comment, I boiled my position down to one sentence: “AI changes the form of evidence, not the competence requirement.” But a comment is not enough for this question. So here is a fuller take. What is officially confirmed, and what do I conclude from it?

ICB5 Is Here. Just Not in the Exam Yet.

ICB4 was published in 2015 and has been the basis for certification in Germany since 2018. Its successor was approved by the IPMA Council of Delegates at the end of August 2026. It was presented at the IPMA World Congress in Hiroshima in September and officially launched in Zadar on October 2, 2026. Since October 16, digital copies have been available free of charge via my.ipma, in three volumes covering project, program, and portfolio management.

The “Eye of Competence” with Perspective, People, and Practice stays. New competence elements include Sustainable Stewardship, Digital Enablement, and Organizational Change and Transformation. All new IPMA standards share five themes. Sustainability, digitalization, agility, AI, and resilience.

On top of that comes the new Momentum Model, which traces the path from deliverables to outcomes, benefits, and long-term impact. So the bar moves from “project delivered” to “value created.”

What does this mean for anyone planning a certification right now? The ICB describes competences, not the assessment process. That is governed by IPMA’s International Certification Regulations (ICR) and the national certification bodies. In Germany, this is PM-ZERT, GPM’s certification body. Its current guidelines are still based on ICB 4.0. As I mentioned in my LinkedIn post, it can take several months up to a year before ICB5 is reflected in an exam regulation.

I see this transition period as an opportunity. When ICB5 is put into practice, we should rethink not only the content but also the forms of evidence.

How Is Competence Assessed Today?

Anyone debating AI in certification should know what the process actually looks like. At PM-ZERT, the current guidelines say the following.

LevelRequirement (per guideline)Forms of evidence
DPurely a knowledge exam: the candidate’s own project management knowledge across all relevant competences; no project experience requiredPath 1: report applying that knowledge to a real or fictitious project (max. 25 pages + 15 pages appendix), written exam (90 min), feedback talk on the report (max. 20 min) · Path 2: two written exams (90 min each)
CLeading others in projects of moderate complexityReport on 20 competence elements, written exam (120 min), assessment center with role play or case study (depending on the process variant), interview (60 min) including a 15-minute presentation
BLeading others in complex projects, programs, or portfoliosReport, written exam (180 min), assessment center, interview (90 min)
ALeadership of very complex initiatives at a strategic levelConformity review (conversation, approx. 60 min), report (max. 25 pages + 15 pages appendix), workshop with assessment center (role play), interview (90 min) including a 15-minute presentation

Two details are key for the AI question.

  • At the end of the report, candidates declare that they wrote it on their own, without third-party input, “in particular not by means of AI software.”
  • The same declaration states that the assessor must personally be convinced that the candidate wrote the work.

So the process already relies on conversation as a cross-check of the document. Which is good.

From Level C upward, this works. The assessment center, the presentation, and the interview show whether someone really understands their project.

Level D is different. It is purely a knowledge exam, and no project experience is required. And this is exactly where the cross-check is almost entirely missing. Path 1 includes a feedback talk of up to 20 minutes. Path 2 has no oral component at all. Whether candidates have actually mastered the knowledge themselves shows up almost only in the written exam.

Is a Ban Enough?

The AI clause is right and necessary. But it is hard to enforce if the document is all you look at. Two studies make this clear.

In 2024, researchers at the University of Reading submitted exam answers written entirely by GPT-4 into regular online exams of a psychology program. 94 percent went undetected. On average, the AI submissions even scored higher than those of real students.

In 2023, an international team led by Debora Weber-Wulff tested fourteen AI text detection tools, including Turnitin. Their conclusion is clear. The tools are neither accurate nor reliable, and none reached 80 percent accuracy. Even light paraphrasing made detection much worse.

Both studies come from higher education, not from PM certification. Does the lesson carry over? In my opinion, yes. A report that applies project management knowledge to a project situation in a structured way is exactly the kind of text language models handle well. That goes for the knowledge-based report at Level D as much as for the STAR descriptions from Level C upward. And the better the models get, the less detectors will help.

What Do We Actually Want to Prove?

Certainly not that someone can write a good text about a project. At Level D, we want to see that candidates have mastered project management knowledge themselves. From Level C upward, that they can lead a project responsibly. That means understanding how things connect, justifying decisions, dealing with resistance, and learning from mistakes. This is exactly what the ICB’s competence elements and key competence indicators describe.

AI does not change that. Quite the opposite. As AI agents increasingly prepare project plans, risk registers, and status reports, the judgment behind them becomes more important, not less. In my post on the Project Manager in 2036, I asked how we can teach the fundamentals of project management without undermining them through AI shortcuts. Certification faces the same question.

Universities are a step ahead here. Since 2025, the University of Sydney has been using a “two-lane” approach. Secure, supervised assessments show what students can do on their own. Open assessments explicitly allow AI, as long as its use is disclosed.

For PM certification, my position is clear.

  1. The report becomes the basis for a conversation. It still matters, but as preparation for the expert discussion and not as standalone proof. Whether AI helped with the wording matters less once the conversation shows whether someone truly understands what they wrote.
  2. An oral exam starting at Level D. At this level, it is not about project practice. It is about demonstrating that candidates have mastered the knowledge themselves, not just with AI support. A short, structured expert discussion, for example based on randomly drawn questions about methods and how they fit together, takes modest effort and has a big effect.
  3. Disclose AI use instead of just banning it. Candidates who work with AI explain what they used it for and how they checked the results. That is evidence of competence in itself and fits the new Digital Enablement element.
  4. Put more weight on live situations. Assessment centers and role plays show behavior under realistic conditions. AI cannot be used there unnoticed, not even today. Prepared materials and laptops are explicitly not allowed in the role play.

These are the four points I stand for. They are not announced changes to the exam regulations.

Commitment Starts in the Organization

Another point came up in the discussion that, in my opinion, is underrated. Even the best exam does little if the organization doesn’t tie the certificate to real responsibility.

A certificate confirms competence at a point in time. Whether it makes a difference day to day depends on clear roles, steering committees that actually decide, and a project culture that people live. I have already written about this in my posts on steering committees and on transformation and project culture.

IPMA sees the connection, too. Alongside ICB5, it released a new edition of the Organizational Competence Baseline (OCB2), whose five-level classification lets organizations assess their current level of competence. For me, both perspectives belong together. If AI makes project documents easier to produce, organizations need to be all the more explicit about who stands behind the content. As one participant in the GPM Focus Workshop in March put it: “Accountable is always the human.”

And What About PMI?

Updated 25 October 2026

Almost at the same time as ICB5, the Project Management Institute (PMI) made its own move. On October 22, 2026, at its Global Summit in Detroit, it announced several new offerings. Two of them speak directly to the questions in this post.

  • Advanced Project Leader (APL) is a new global certification for experienced project professionals. It’s meant to show that they can lead complex, high-consequence work. It’s delivered through partner organizations whose internal programs for advanced practitioners PMI validates against its own standards.
  • “PMI Foundations: Agentic AI for Project Professionals” is an e-learning course. It aims to give project professionals the literacy and judgment to scope, oversee, and govern AI agents responsibly, without needing a coding background. In a “Build Lab,” participants build an agent themselves.

One figure from PMI’s own research stands out. 69 percent of the project professionals surveyed already use AI to create content, documentation, and project deliverables. The press release doesn’t say how the survey was conducted. But the direction supports the point made above under “Is a Ban Enough?”. Documents alone are becoming weaker evidence.

From an ICB5 perspective, I see two parallels. With APL, PMI also focuses on proven capability in complex work and involves the organizations where that capability is shown. That fits what I wrote about commitment in the organization. And PMI treats AI agents as a governance and leadership task for project people, not as an IT topic. At IPMA, AI is one of the five themes running through the new standards, alongside the new competence element Digital Enablement.

The difference is in the setup. ICB describes competences, and certification bodies define the assessment process. PMI brings both the certification and the learning offering itself. The press release doesn’t say exactly how APL candidates are assessed. For the question at the heart of this post, document or conversation, that’s the deciding point. For now, it remains open.

What Does This Mean for the Coming Years?

This is where it gets speculative. These are scenarios, not facts.

  • Candidates are still assessed against ICB4 today. Reading ICB5 now still shows where the bar is heading. Toward impact, sustainability, and the responsible use of digital tools.
  • For certification bodies and assessors, the move to ICB5 is the natural moment to review the forms of evidence. The more weight shifts to conversation and live situations, the more assessor qualification and calibration matter.
  • Organizations are left with the question of how project accountability is anchored in their own organization. No certificate answers that. AI makes it more urgent.

I am firmly convinced that certification which tests competence in conversation will not be devalued by AI. It will become more credible. Certification that relies mainly on documents, on the other hand, will struggle.

Which leaves a question we should discuss openly as a community. Ten years from now, what kind of evidence will still prove that someone can really lead a project? And how much of it has to be delivered without AI?

What do you think?

Feel free to subscribe to my free newsletter.

Sources

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.

Feel free to subscribe to my free 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?

Definition of goals in the “Six Interdependencies” playing field

4 min.

Summary

Project objectives are the establishment of requirements which are as quantified as possible and which must be met in order for a project to be considered successfully completed. Conflicts of objectives are to be avoided. An absolute prioritisation of the goals is recommended. In the case of objectives, one must always pay attention to the combination of SMART objectives, completeness of the objectives and, above all, the delimitation of benefit and non-objectives. An absolute prioritisation across all goals in order to be aware of one’s own priorities is helpful. In addition to the magic triangle, the aim is to distinguish between non-targets, benefit targets and now consciously the negative benefit targets as damage and to provide resource planning optimised for all organisations involved.

What are goals and how should they be?

Project objectives are the establishment of requirements that are as quantified as possible and that must be met in order for a project to be regarded as successfully completed. DIN 69901-5:2009-01 defines the project objective as “the totality of individual objectives achieved by the project”.
A complete definition of objectives requires the identification of all relevant stakeholders, which can lead to conflicts of interest. Conflicts of objectives are to be avoided, i.e. the different project objectives must fit together.
The magic triangle defines performance (including quality), costs and deadlines. The magic triangle is supplemented by further dimensions through the six interdependencies.
The goals are to be defined as SMART:

Specific/Simple Simple, understandable, concrete
Measurable Operationalized, quantified
Achievable/attainable Achievable, socially accepted, worthwhile
Realistic/Relevant Objectively attainable
Timeable/Timely Concretely planned in terms of time

Define objectives in a delimited way

Often there is talk of “never-saturated stakeholders”, I have experienced in practice that it helps to have absolute prioritisation across all goals in order to make people aware of their own priorities. In other words, in addition to the must-can-target categorization, a prioritization with a clearer definition of what is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, … x most important goal is recommended.

One must always pay attention with the goals to the combination of SMART goals, completeness of the goals and above all the delimitation of benefit goals (= business benefits/business objectives) and also non-goals. A consideration of these target categories certainly helps to encourage the stakeholders to make a clear statement or to hold on to their expectations in advance, to commit them even better.

The benefit of the project can be defined by the benefit goals of the project. And just as with risks and opportunities, there is a positive and negative sign here. With the “Six Interdependencies” I have consciously chosen the negative sign (i.e. damage here) as the initial viewing angle, as with risk management, in order to deliberately provoke this lighting. In the past, benefits and thus benefit goals were often and well defined by project managers (in contrast to their performance goals).

Social goals

In my opinion, an example of “training on the job” within the framework of the project is a good example of a social goal that can be well defined in terms of objectives, provided that “training on the job” takes place during the course of the project. If, on the other hand, this “training on the job” takes place in the follow-up of the project on the basis of the use of the project object (e.g. use of the implemented software in everyday operations after the end of the project), it is a clear benefit goal and must also be defined as such. If, on the other hand, the training is essential for the implementation of the project, it is a performance goal, because otherwise the object of performance will not be completed or achieved.

Goals in the playing field of the Six Interdependencies

The supplemented interdependencies help my perception according to the clear definition of the project object and the demarcation by the use of this and the well definition of the basic conditions (context determination) in the framework of resources, damage and stakeholder satisfaction.

In my opinion, the Six Interdependencies bring more to light the things that have so far been defined, in part neglected, on the edge, next to the magic triangle, by benefit goals, resource planning (but so far only with the focus on the project and not as is now the case with the Six Interdependencies of the entire (parent) organization(s) involved). In practice, I have already achieved positive, more conscious and more complete goal definitions and delimitations. Thus the six interdependencies show all known practice-proven project methodical aids like magic triangle, in addition delimitation of not goals and use goals and now consciously the negative use goals as damage, conscious restriction of the resources and however not only for the project (as it happens classically with the resource planning primarily), but also for all organizations involved an optimized resource planning.

Thus, the Six Interdependencies are a combination of already known, previously independently considered influences and now additional consideration of damage and cross-organizational resource consideration together:

Six Interdependencies

Stakeholder Management as an Element of the Six Interdependencies

4 min.

Summary


In order to identify the right stakeholders of the project, the environment analysis is carried out as a precursor. The social environment factors are included in the stakeholder analysis and it is recommended to consider them according to the following dimensions: Power and conflict potential. The objective of the stakeholder analysis is to group the stakeholders in the individual quadrants of a 4-quadrant portfolio in order to represent a corresponding number of stakeholder strategies. If I consolidate the stakeholders in a stakeholder portfolio quadrant, I have the chance to plan a consolidated measure using the common strategy of the quadrant. Various sources of error in the preparation of the stakeholder analysis are pointed out.

What is a stakeholder?

As already mentioned in my “Six Interdependencies“, the consideration of stakeholders is an essential component for project success. Stakeholders are individuals, groups of people, organizations or the entirety of all those who are involved in the project, directly or indirectly affected by it or have a justified interest in it.

Environmental analysis as a basis for stakeholder analysis

In order to identify the right stakeholders of the project, the environment analysis is carried out as a precursor. The project environment analysis is a systematic, forward-looking consideration, observation and analysis of the positive (supporting) and negative (disruptive) influences of the project environment on the project, to be introduced as early as the initiation phase. A distinction is made between the social and factual environmental factors. A further distinction can be made between project-internal, project-external or company-internal or company-external factors. A differentiation exclusively between internal and external factors is not specific enough. Opportunities and risks in the further course of the project planning can be determined from the objective environmental factors and interfaces of the project can be made conscious.

Stakeholder analysis and its determination

The social environment factors are included in the stakeholder analysis and it is recommended to consider them according to the following dimensions: Power and conflict potential. Other dimensions such as influence, interest can be qualitative but not necessarily clearly grouping dimensions. Interest and influence can be positive, negative, high or low. The advantage of power and conflict potential is that they can be high and low, but not positive or negative at the same time. Why do we only want to record high and low values of the two dimensions and not e.g. values with very high, very low etc.? Low conflict potential stands for (potential or actual) promoters and high conflict potential for (potential or actual) opponents. In practice, a constant consideration of the (potential) opponents and promoters is necessary anyway.

The objective of stakeholder analysis is to group the stakeholders in the individual quadrants of a 4-quandrant portfolio in order to subsequently reflect a corresponding number of stakeholder strategies in it. It therefore makes sense to group the stakeholders in a portfolio into high and low power, high and low conflict potential. A direct allocation of stakeholder strategies can then take place directly.

Stakeholder strategies and their allocation in the portfolio

The following strategies can be included in a stakeholder portfolio:

  • Participative strategy based on participation and active involvement, communication and information of the project environment actors, e.g. joint decision making workshops,
  • discursive strategy, which (mostly reactive) is geared to the objective analysis of the project environment, e.g. by means of conflict resolution instruments,
  • repressive strategies characterised by the use of organisational, informational or factual power, e.g. management requirements or selective information.

For the fourth quadrant, it is recommended to provide for purely informational measures, which, however, do not represent a real strategy and are therefore not referred to as such.

A meaningful stakeholder portfolio thus looks as follows:

Stakeholder-Portfolio

Stakeholder strategies – why is that?

Why do I want to look at strategies and not just measures for each stakeholder? Measures per stakeholder are time-consuming and costly. If I now plan individual measures for each stakeholder, I have a complex bundle of measures. If, on the other hand, I consolidate the stakeholders in a stakeholder portfolio quadrant, I have the opportunity to plan a consolidated measure using the joint strategy of the quadrant.

Typical sources of error in stakeholder analysis

If stakeholder strategies are mapped on the basis of dimensions other than power and conflict potential, there is a danger that the stakeholders will not be clearly classified. If, for example, the stakeholder’s interest is highlighted instead of the power dimension, secretly positive, negative, high and low groupings are possible and therefore multiple allocation to portfolio quadrants is likely. I have observed this in many misguided stakeholder analyses.

Another problem can be the failure to conduct a continuous stakeholder analysis. You should always look at stakeholders anew. Shifts in power in a company can change the dimension of power, but above all the characteristics of the dimension of conflict potential can change again and again. The stakeholder’s potential for conflict with the project can change as a result of changes in attitudes towards the project as a result of project developments.

A renunciation of the combined indication of names or roles already in the environment analysis and then also in the transfer into the stakeholder analysis can lead to a generalization and to an overlooking of important characteristics. Mr. Mayer-Schulze can be a pedantic, conflict-laden comrade-in-arms, but his role as a user does not necessarily suggest this.

Grouped environmental factors such as “steering committee” instead of the performance of all individual steering committee members may lead to lump sums and thus the overlooking of specific interests and influences.

What belongs in the status report?

2 min.

Summary

A regular status report is important in the project. The status report is the basic information for the members of the steering committee. It is advisable to create a list of the typical contents of a report, which can be used in any presentation form. Also the status light colours must be well defined to ban the watermelon effect.

Addressees and occasion

A regular status report is important in the project. Regular means that a predefined cycle or on certain predefined occasions is created and delivered to the specified recipients. The objective is to present the progress of the project, to address decision-making needs and to point out risks and problems. The status report is the basic information for all members of the steering committee.

Content

Each status report should include the following:

  • Management Summary
  • Status light
  • Defined indicators (often performance, deadline and costs) and optionally their development in an Earned Value analysis
  • Achievements in the reporting period
  • Planned but unachieved in the period
  • Initiated or planned measures
  • Planned for the next reporting period / upcoming milestones
  • Top (3) risks
  • Necessary decisions

Status Light Colours and the Eternal Controversy

Again and again there are energetic discussions about which colour the status light should have. It often doesn’t make sense to take part in them and as a project manager you should have a clear and above all simple, easy to understand and valid definition for all levels at hand in order to be able to avert the watermelon effect (red inside, green outside). The following definition can be of help:

  • Red = Problems exist which can no longer be solved at the reporting level and which have a negative effect on the defined indicators (usually performance, deadline, costs) or which have already had an effect. Measures were not effective or not possible. There is a need for decision or action at the higher level (level above that of the reporting party).
  • Yellow = The defined indicators show plan deviations. Problems exist that the reporting person plans to solve. Measures have been or are being taken (list of measures required). The need for decision or action on the part of the higher authority is foreseeable if the measures taken do not have an effect.
  • Green = No problems at the reporting level. The defined indicators show no deviations from the plan.

A possible file naming convention for the status report can be found here.