I hate using the word “accountability”, because it is so misused and abused.
One CEO I worked with who recognized the lack of good project management practices in a certain organization said it best, “Project Management is not just about accountability. It is so much more!”
In fact, that’s the last thing of importance in managing well. It takes care of itself where operations and projects are led, managed, and worked through well. Hard-working, trustworthy team members will self-manage well and hold themselves accountable to your clear, realistic expectations, and vision of success if clearly set.
Here is my takeaway #15 from one of the most useful practical books in my field, “Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager”:
15) “The more you respect and listen to your team, and the clearer the expectations, the more your team members will hold themselves accountable, and the more informal authority you will earn to be able to hold them accountable. Unless you practice the first three behaviors, your attempts to hold people accountable will fail.”
“‘A project manager is a master in the art of Done,’ says one expert. ‘If there is an obstacle in the path to Done, we remove it. Or we talk to the person or the people who can remove the obstacle. We bug them until they remove it.'”
Note: This comes from Chapter 2 “PEOPLE + PROCESS = SUCCESS” (page 29)
* Practice Accountability
The four behaviors should give you the authority to project manage the work.
Certainly, a project manager will need to follow-up and hold people accountable to own what they promised to do in their assignments (what, by when?).
Overall, I approve of the message in the above quote, right up until the point of using the word “bug”. We, project managers, should not have to “bug” people to do their accountability any more than the people we report to should have to “bug” us about our responsibilities and accountabilities.
Simply, using the word “remind” puts it in the proper perspective for me. When we “own” our roles (take responsibility or hold ourselves accountable) we should understand the distinction between responsible and accountable (Think RACI chart). Words matter and we should all be clear about what they should mean to us.
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STORY TIME: Allow me to give you some background to the best organization I have ever served in (and it has the most moving parts so-to-speak when it comes to people and positions). I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We’re not perfect but we try to be of one heart and one mind, so it is easier to be in sync in our actions and reaching desired outcomes.
The Church does not have a paid ministry and yet somehow combines our gifts and talents to get the work done. Most of the members have “callings” to serve in capacities that help to “own” the organization’s work (Leader, Teacher, Secretary, etc.). We perform these labors on top of full-time professions (Business Owner, Project Manager, etc.) and normal lives each week.
You would think this leads to chaotic processes, and they can be, but because we treat each other’s assignments with equal importance, and we are working for each other’s betterment, our work together naturally improves and gets better and better.
We each perform out of duty and love for the Lord’s work of saving souls and ministering (or serving) to the poor in Spirit (which is all of us most of the time, leaders and followers alike) after all. I wish the business world were more like it. One key concept in administering (or managing) tasks is that we follow a principle to “return and report” so we can coordinate our efforts as members of the body of Christ.
The leader of our congregation is a Bishop, and I serve as his Executive Secretary. Sometimes I am scrambling to coordinate so I can communicate what I am responsible and accountable for, but I have learned how to make it easier on everyone.
One of my responsibilities each week is to make sure we get a Sacrament meeting program put together. The steps are simple enough:
- I am accountable to ask for volunteers for opening and closing prayers.
- The Bishop or Counselors assign/request a few members of the congregation to prepare “talks” and let me know who is speaking.
- The Music Director chooses the music and lets me know those details.
- I give information to someone who makes a much nicer program then I would.
For a while, I was scrambling to get information on Saturday each week, then scrambling to get it printed Sunday morning before 9 a.m. church. And then I talked with each person in the process and figured out we needed to: 1) Set a due date for information by Thursday, 2) Set a drop-dead date for a program PDF by Friday since our designer doesn’t have time on Saturday (meaning the program would list TBA for missing information at that point), and 3) Printing on Saturday night so I am not scrambling around leadership meetings Sunday morning and can help my wife (getting 4 kids ready) instead.
I communicated this format, and it has worked out really well ever since. If I have to follow-up with individual accountabilities, it is just a reminder. They don’t treat it like I am bugging them. They actually usually apologize if they are a little late getting back to me (but understandably that’s not always within their control either and we have accounted for it.).
They know we are all just fulfilling our responsibilities the best we can. When your responsibility is mostly to keep track of another’s accountability it goes better if everyone is on top of and clear about their assignment’s and reporting its progression, so you don’t have extra work following up again and again with where they are at. At any rate, the better your team is at practicing accountability in this way, the better the work will flow between hands.
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As project managers, instead of repeating the same process to bug others at every obstacle, we go into the next project armed with know-how to look ahead at our processes and remove the obstacles we know we will encounter, before our team crosses that bridge.
And for those obstacles that are already assigned an accountability to someone else on the team, we set up the project schedule and framework such that they can overcome the obstacle within the timeframe set, report at checkpoints anything concerning, and problems can be solved, if things aren’t quite on track.
Hopefully they return and report without you having to ask about it. Daily standup meetings are a natural time to apprise you of project work updates. Onward and upward!