From lessons learned to 'Mindsets'
In the first article in this series, I looked at a database of lessons learned to see what was and wasn’t working in the application of project management.
In the second article, I postulated that there is a problem with people not applying the most basic good practice. No doubt many of them have learned good practice on courses or in the workplace but they just have difficulty in making the right behaviours a habit or ‘embedding’ them in organisational behaviour. I also suggested ways of creating these habits through checklists – an approach that has seen the World Health Organisation reduce surgical mortality by 47%.
I now see a link to another popular theme on social media – ‘The Mindset’. An increasing number of posts talk about ‘creating’, ‘developing’ or ‘coaching for’ the right mindset. This originated mainly as a mantra from the Agile community “Agile is a Mindset, not a method”.
There are various definitions of mindset but the one I am interested in is “a collection of behaviours”. In this instance, the behaviours that are based on well-established project management good practice which, if applied consistently, can make a real difference to project success. I am constantly reminded of a quotation from John Katzenbach, the author along with Douglas Smith, of the 1993 book ‘The Wisdom of Teams’ in which they describe the Katzenbach and Smith team development model. He said: “Start with changing behaviours, not mindsets. It is much easier to ‘act your way into new thinking’ than to ‘think your way into new actions’. Recurring and consistent performance results from behaviour change will lead to lasting changes in the way people feel, think and believe in the long run.”
To me that describes perfectly what Praxis is seeking to achieve with its on-line best practice and associated checklists. Gain the knowledge, apply it systematically until it becomes a habit (or a mindset if you prefer) and finally – make a difference.
Adrian Dooley, Lead Author of the Praxis Framework.
