2. Influencing Successful Outcomes - Human
Side: Pragmatic approach to plan for right
soft skills
Deepali Goyal– Group Project Manager, Infosys Limited
3. Contents
1. Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 4
2. Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 4
3. Challenge in planning for complementary skill set .......................................................................... 5
4. Feasibility of Planning Complementary Skills ................................................................................. 5
5. Framework for Soft Skill Recommendation ..................................................................................... 6
6. Effectiveness of Framework .......................................................................................................... 10
7. Case to compare the output .......................................................................................................... 10
8. Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 13
9. References .................................................................................................................................... 13
10. Author‟s Profile ............................................................................................................................ 14
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4. 1. Abstract
People, process and technology are at the core of any entrepreneurial undertaking. With maturity in
processes and advancement in technologies, we have achieved tremendous sophistication in
execution. However, people dimension is the ultimate key for the success as this brings the core and
complementary skills for effective utilization of process and technology. Core skills are mostly related
to technical know-how and enjoy the key focus while teams are put together to achieve project
objectives. Complementary/soft skills are like „Catalyst‟, which help execution to take desired rate and
direction. Close examination of successful endeavors reveal that right set of soft skills helped the
teams to achieve the desired outcomes. But, challenge is to proactively identify the right soft skills as
per the project environment and project goals. Having a framework to establish the set of soft skills for
different project roles will be an effective tool to increase the chances of project success. In this
article, we would discuss few of the project cases which were turned around to be BIG SUCCESS
due to the right level of soft skills. We would also propose a framework to guide the soft skills
requirement based on a given set of project parameters. This soft skill assessment framework comes
handy for project managers to proactively plan for comprehensive skill requirements and set the
project on success path.
2. Introduction
In pursuit of increasing project success rate, project management fraternity has been analyzing the
projects of varying sizes and nature with different business complexity. Key idea has been to find out
the factors influencing project success. Based on this, project management and execution practices
have significantly evolved. Improved processes have played a pivotal role in bringing number of
things to science side from art side of project management. Increased fine tuning of processes
resulted into positive outcomes. However, we continued to see projects falling off the track. There
were gaps needed to be plugged. People, process and technology are at the core of any
entrepreneurial undertaking. People dimension needs a closer scrutiny to identify the pattern of
success and failure. This dimension brings core and complementary skill set for project execution.
Identification of core skills for project execution is one of the primary activities in resource acquisition.
However, complementary skills are softer aspect of personality. These soft skills are collection of
personal positive attributes which impact the performance on any given task. Naturally, if the team
members are in possession of these right positive traits, we would have predicable success in any
endeavor. But, we have seen that while teams are trained to acquire project specific core skills, most
of the time complementary skills are left to the chance. These complementary skills, in the right
proportion per role, will enable to take project in right direction.
As per the analysis of failed projects examples submitted in „Catalogue of Catastrophe‟, 3 of the top 5
common mistakes are related to complementary skills for project team. This clearly emphasizes the
need for proactive planning of skills. We need to look at who needs what kind of soft skills and in what
situation. Being able to assess the impact of these skills on an ongoing basis will be helpful for the
project.
Also, success stories are often studded with the contribution not directly related with project
deliverables. Ability to do simple things differently and more effectively helped in these projects to
increase stakeholder satisfaction, improved confidence of the team and also more buy-in from users
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5. about project, product or service. This points to the need of meticulous planning of the skills and the
ways enable to get the things done differently in order to improve the outcome.
3. Challenge in planning for complementary skill set
Number of times it has been noticed that project failed or perceived to be failed in spite of having a
good team with right skills. Majority of these projects had an imbalance of soft skills leading the
project to undesired outcome. Then, can we recommend a vanilla set of soft skills for one and all to
potentially increase the probability of success. No! that would be a recipe to failure.
At onset of a project, good amount of manager‟s bandwidth is consumed in project initiation activities
and limited time is available for resource acquisition. More often, somebody in the team is entrusted
with preparation of skill set requirement for the project. Evaluation and assessment of the skill set
against core skill requirement is accomplished. Verification of complementary skill set is quite adhoc
in absence of any reference to come up with the requirement.
Having framework and guidelines readily available for managers, would help them to plan and acquire
the complementary skills for their projects.
4. Feasibility of Planning Complementary Skills
Positive attitude, adherence to process and ethical behavior are some of the underlying hygiene
factors, which need to be followed by the team. Here we want to focus on what can help project
teams to perform to their fullest potential and also the skills which can help establish desired rapport
with other stakeholders. Project goals, awareness of execution methods, project environment, project
type and the team structure play significant role in determining overall complexity. Probability of
complementary skills‟ impact on outcome increases with increase in complexity. Therefore, it is
essential that skills are planned holistically when we embark on a complex assignment.
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6. 5. Framework for Soft Skill Recommendation
Framework suggests consideration of 3 dimensions – project environment, project type and project
role for coming up with project specific complementary skill set. It is important to note that all the
people in the project do not need to have all required complementary skills. We need to look at the
project environment and understand the critical factors for specific environment. Based on the project
type and role of the team members a set of complementary skill set can be arrived at.
Dimesion1 – Understanding Project environment and varying needs
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7. All these factors have an impact on project environment. It is in project‟s benefit to understand the
project environment and align the efforts to get maximum output. However, understanding the critical
success factors for different variations of environment parameters, will aid in identifying required
complementary skills.
Sr# Environment Variation Remarks on Critical Success factors
Factor
1 Organization Process Oriented Conducive to ensure project success. Project team
Culture Culture should see ultimate project objective, pick up
suitable processes for execution and must keep an
eye on risks/issues.
Informal no specific It is critical to have a process oriented manager who
process culture can proactively work and set the project processes.
Manager should have excellent communication and
articulation skills and should be able to stay focused
on project objectives with an eye on risks/issues.
2 Team Collocated Reliance on face to face communication will be
high. Integration issues across various tracks can
be minimized by bringing teams together and
encouraging white board sessions.
Virtual (Global) It is important for the team to be aware of cultural
sensitivity. Communication protocol should be well
defined and entire team should not bear the
communication responsibility. Focus on written
communication will be high. Managers should have
good analytical and conflict resolution skills.
3 Project Goals Regular functional/ It is generally easier to understand the project
technical initiative objective and set the execution method. Team
should have good process orientation for favorable
outcome.
Strategic Business This type of initiative would have larger/deeper
Initiative goals compared to what is visible to individual
projects. Having an overall understanding on
initiative and ability to see project‟s contribution to
overall goals will help take the right decisions during
the course of execution. Advocacy, multi tasking,
sound management and communication are the key
factors.
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8. Sr# Environment Variation Remarks on Critical Success factors
Factor
4 Vendor Spread Sole Vendor Though it is good to be a sole vendor, it is prone to
induce a complacency feeling. It is essential to have
a continuous focus on establishing oneself as a
trusted partner and not just a vendor. Articulation
and partnering skills are important.
Multi Vendor Innovation, dependability and promptness are some
of the traits which help to stand out in multi vendor
environment.
5 Stakeholders Supportive Articulation of project progress as per stakeholders‟
needs
non-supportive Advocacy, negotiation, risk and issue management,
articulation are necessary to establish a positive
rapport.
Apart from environmental factors, another important point to be examined is project type. While there
are multiple ways to determine project types, I specifically referred to Martin Bell‟s classification of
projects. This is based on important parameters of project goal and execution methods. Absolute
clarity on goals and methods would result in relatively simple project type called „Paint by numbers‟.
However, complete ambiguity on goals and methods leads to a complex situation. Typically business
transformation initiative will be of this type. Please refer table x.x for details on these type.
Project Project Type Details
ID
1 Paint by Absolute clarity on goals and methods. Problems and risks are
Numbers predictable, which can be managed with sound management practices.
Examples from IT: Staff augmentation, operations and maintenance
projects
2 Go on a quest Goals are known, but methods are not clear. Work can happen on
multiple tracks and there may be a need of effective integration. This
type of project is common in Research and Development.
Examples from IT: Offer HR platform to customers on cloud by year
2014;
3 Make a Movie Clarity on methods but end goal/result is not so clear. Person with
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9. Project Project Type Details
ID
ultimate responsibility should be aware of the fact that end result may or
may not be well accepted in spite of following process.
Examples from IT : Developing a product, Creation of marketing
material
4 Walking in the This is the most difficult type of project. The main stakeholders are not
Fog only unclear about how things need to be done, but are also not totally
sure about what the end result should be. This type of project needs a
strong leader, and he must ensure that the project has the complete
commitment and support of the senior stakeholders.
Examples from IT: Business Transformation Programs
**Project types taken from Martin Bell’s article on http://suite101.com/article/project-
management-a98155
Project Type Complementary/Soft Skills
Communication Mutual Advocacy Initiative Big Picture
Trust & Understanding
Respect
Paint by numbers M H L L L
Go on a quest C H M H H
Make a movie H H M H H
Walking in the fog C H H H H
L – Low Importance; M – Medium Importance; H – High Importance; C – Critical (must have)
Guidelines for complementary skills per project role
Project Role Complementary/Soft Skills
Communication Mutual Trust Advocacy Initiative Big Picture
& Respect Understanding
Project Sponsor M H M M C
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10. Project Role Complementary/Soft Skills
Project Director H H M M C
Project Manager C H H M H
Implementation H H L L M
Manager
Project Assistant H H L L L
Team Leads M H H H M
Team Members M H M M L
6. Effectiveness of Framework
For a new project, it is recommended that the framework is used as a guidelines and an effort is
made to acquire at least critical and high importance complementary skills apart from core skills.
However, the assessment can also be done for in flight projects and recommendation may be
incorporated to improve the chances of success.
7. Case to compare the output
Company SupraCards has been leading the global market in financial cards products. They have
been able to maintain the lead position in the market due to innovative products and laser sharp focus
on cost control. QuickPay is one of their payment computation platform. Development and support of
this platform has been outsourced to vendor Ultra. QuickPay is a multi technology platform and is part
of a complex landscape receiving data from multiple upstream systems. Complex business logics are
applied on the data to arrive at payment. Payment reports are used by Finance team to disburse
payments to partners.
Though Ultra has been involved in QuickPay right from initial implementation phase, off late client has
been very upset and Ultra delivery management team is flooded with client escalations. Team is
perplexed not knowing why everything, they do, seems to go wrong. Team members are de-
motivated and most of them have got some reason or the other to ask for a release. There is a
constant threat from client to have other vendor inducted in the portfolio. Reputation and business for
Ultra is at stake.
Ultra delivery management decides to make portfolio leadership change. A new manager, Ravi, is
asked to take over the portfolio. Ravi is a seasoned manager and has an excellent experience of
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11. turning around the things. Ravi focuses his energy in understanding different perspective from
different stakeholders – project managers, team leads, team members, client facing manager, client
contacts etc. Symptoms indicate that team‟s morale and client satisfaction are extremely low.
Ravi decides to first understand the project environment and finds out that –
Project organization is a process oriented organization.
Goals of the projects executed in this platform are linked to strategic initiatives.
It is distributed team with stakeholders spread across the geography.
Ultra is a sole vendor but lot of other vendors are keenly eyeing an opportunity to enter.
He then picks up the key ongoing projects in various life cycle phases to do the project type analysis -
There are a bunch of projects which lie in „paint by numbers‟
One key project, having lot of escalation, is in „Walking in the fog‟ category.
Two of the projects are „Make a movie‟ type and others are mostly in „Go on a quest‟ type.
Based on the analysis of project environment and project types, Ravi does an assessment on skills
availability –
Core Skills : Though there are complex core skills requirements for the platform, good part is
projects are adequately staffed with right core skills. There are some minor problems with few team
members‟ competency levels but those are addressable per platform training plans.
Complementary/Soft Skills : Team‟s inputs show lot of gaps from client governance side. However,
after scratching the surface, it becomes evident that problems are multifold.
Based on project environment and type analysis –
Platform should have strong process framework which should allow the projects to adapt to
the parent project processes effectively.
There should be set guidelines and process to execute „paint by numbers‟ type of work.
As numbers of projects are linked to strategic initiatives, there is a deep need to understand
the objectives of overall initiative. It is also important to see how specific project contributes to
overall objective.
Team and other stakeholders are distributed across geographies; this indicates a need of
good communication and articulations skills.
Being sole vendor and to maintain that position, innovation has to be a culture of the team.
Assessment of these skills reveals the true picture –
Skill Required Preferred Role Current level of skill Remarks
Process Orientation Project Manager Low Needs immediate
attention
Process framework for Project Manager Low Needs immediate
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12. fixed work attention
Understanding big Project Manager & Low to Medium Need to work with key
picture Leads leads and managers to
help them understand
the specific projects‟
big picture
Communication Project Manager Low High priority – has a
Process critical impact on
outcome
Communication Team High – Unstructured High priority – has a
critical impact on
outcome
Mutual Trust & Respect Team Low Need to work with
team to help them
slowly work towards
building trust and
respect. It should be
done top down.
Advocacy Project Manager & Low Encourage them to
Leads develop this skill. To
start with, it may need
context specific
detailed support.
Initiative Project Manager & Low Identify few key areas
Leads and help them identify
the initiative. Help them
to work on it and
succeed.
Based on above assessment, Ravi identifies the key folks within the team with right complementary
skill of positive attitude and leads efforts to get an action plan prepared. This plan focuses of setting
up the right processes to ensure communication is monitored and controlled, internal discussions are
setup to improve people‟s advocacy skills, folks with right set of communication and advocacy skills
are positioned in direct client facing roles and that there are effective risk-reward mechanism within
the given project constraints. Additional intense focus on complementary skills, which was a prime
gap area, helped project to improve on overall mutual trust and respect. This led the team to be more
effective in what they work on and at the same time take bottom line ownership of what they deliver.
After 6 months, positive results started to reflect in client satisfaction.
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13. 8. Conclusion
It is true that addressing core skills gap is easier as these are trainable skills. However, it is not
impossible to have the complementary skills gap filled provided we sincerely spend energy and efforts
to identify those gaps. Addressing complementary skill gaps is a relatively slow process. But, the
positive impact on outcome is encouraging enough for us to take this up seriously.
9. References
1. “Why technology projects fail – Classic Mistakes” - http://calleam.com/WTPF/?page_id=799
2. “Project Management – The Four Types of Project” by Martin Bell -
http://suite101.com/article/project-management-a98155
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14. 10. Author’s Profile
Deepali is Group Project Manager with Infosys
Limited. She has 18 years of experience in Project
and Program Management of IT solutions &
services and process consulting.
Email: Deepaligoyal205@gmail.com
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