Playing the Project Manager

This book (Smith, 2014) is a very well-written and crafted alternative view what a project manager’s role is, how they behave and discharge their duties. It is a book primarily targeted at project management (PM) practitioners but it is of valuable interest to academics and the many student-practitioners who study PM and who aspire to being project managers. The author has written a previous book (Smith, 2007) that was very interesting to me personally and led to one of my Master of Project Management degree students being fascinated enough to pick up the challenge to undertake a PhD in the general topic area of shaping and crafting projects. Readers may wish to refer to a paper in this journal authored by Charles Smith and Mark Winter (2010). This book extends Smith’s previous work. His honours degree in psychology is evident in his work in change management and this book takes a very interesting direction in its perspective on project work.

The book is quite short (146pp.) and is written in a simple manner that is easily understood. It is well written so that it can be read and absorbed quite quickly. He presents project managers as six character archetypes, much in the same way as his friend and mentor Mark Winter did with images of project types (Winter and Szczepanek, 2009). In chapter two he makes a very interesting point about archetypes (Chapter 2, p. 21) “[…] the archetypes are not an arbitrary classification of managerial behaviours. Their existence as distinct modes of performance is a consequence of the basics of what it means to be a manager. The essence of management is about power: persuading, coaxing or compelling others to act in a manner that you judge to be preferable. And the manager’s purpose in this […] is twofold, concerning not only the work to be done (for example the project in hand), but also the development of the manager’s identity”. Smith’s use of archetypes reminds me of a paper by Loosemore and Chin (2000) on stereotypes and on the study of behaviours as metaphors in a book by Shelley (2007) in which he later tested the concept of the “organisational Zoo” through his PhD thesis (Shelley, 2012). All these ways of making sense of behaviours and actions is highly relevant to the practice of PM.

This review briefly summarises the book chapter by chapter and I make observations and link it to my understanding of supporting theory that may not be expressed in the book but I felt underpinned its content and allows readers to pursue further useful content that provides additional theoretical sources to supplement their understanding of this important topic.

Chapter 1 provides a very engaging insight into project managers as performers. He also takes us on a journey of the lived reality of PM. This is a practice based perspective of project work. Charles Smith was one of the original re-thinking PM team (Winter and Smith, 2006; Winter et al., 2006) that provided us with a breakthrough view of what PM is and how we can reconceptualise PM to better make sense of what we observe in project work (see also Hodgson and Cicmil, 2006). This practice turn was also the subject of a Special Issue of IJMPiB (Hällgren and Lindahl, 2012) Volume 5 Issue 3 in which a number of papers on the practice turn were featured. This Chapter 1, therefore, has solid theoretical and academic foundations to start this book. In the introduction he sets the tone of the book well when he says (Smith, 2014, p. 8) “The world of projects is an arena of possibilities for action, not a robotic or tightly constrained practice. The central concern of this book is therefore the matter of how one speaks and acts to become, and establish oneself as, a manager in the world of projects. I will set out how this is done, in general terms, and through six archetypes”.

Chapter 2 has its focus on being a project manager. It has some wonderful lessons about overcoming adversity by mindfully reframing situation. The section on adversity and resilience is in my view spot-on and I wish that I had read this when I was a project manager on a 60 story office building 30 years ago. This is where a book such as this, simply but effectively written and communicated, provides such value. For some readers, this book may open a door to understanding the politics of PM in the way that it is a moment of knowledge entrainment (Söderlund, 2010), the moment when something suddenly makes sense and you can see the value in something and that you can productively use that knowledge. In this chapter Smith identifies six archetypes the analyst, the enforcer, the expert, the impresario, the master of ceremonies and the reshaper. He explains their characteristics and refers to them throughout the book.

Chapter 3 is entitled “Getting hold of the plot” and it follows the concept of the PM as a performance. It draws to our attention the need for “identity resources” and “identity capital”. He explains that whatever role a project manager chooses to play that it needs to be a credible performance, believable and engendering trust so framing the perspective, plot, public and private identity of the person whose role is to manage the project or problem faced (the plot of the story) is vital. People need to have the personal identity resources such as skills, knowledge, attributes and experience to do this framing work as well as other identity resources such as tools and personal support mechanisms. They bring these resources and effectively manage others to contribute to that identity capital. This is an interesting way of seeing both opportunities and constraints to adopting a particular performance role and approach. Readers may wish to find out more about this aspect that is well documented in the psychology literature (e.g. see Haslam et al., 2003). In this chapter’s section on “allegiances and narratives” Smith draws our attention to how language (rhetoric) is used to by actors in the project teams and stakeholders that illuminate their perspective, priorities and expectations that help a project manager frame the challenge being faced. On p. 29 he says “A performing manager will take a pragmatic approach. What really matters is to have to hand the set of tools needed on the day to put on a credible performance. This may be minimal, or nothing. However the successful performer needs sound knowledge of what is possible, and how to assemble and present this evidence, and may need a mass of detail in the background from which to extract what is needed.” This is the level of insights that Smith offers us into what the tools of the trade may be. The focus on clear communication is quite different from much of the PMBOK processes and techniques (PMI, 2013) as tools though the PMBOK has more recently emphasise people skills. This Chapter 2 has a section on speaking to tell the story and another on rhetoric to highlight dualities on possible positions to adopt along continua such as vision (clarity vs confusion). I found it interesting to reflect upon how a project manager may define a set of dualities to create their role identity. I find this book very thought provoking in general and it sent me scuttling to my endnote library to search for various key words and then to open pdfs that I have stored as attachments. One quote I made for my endnote entry for this book was on p. 37 “A performance is not simply put on. Founded on hard work it emerges slowly into the world, gets defined and refined, disputed and eventually assimilated, over time, until that moment when it crystallises into the articulation of project sense that carries the day. And with it emerges that new self, the authoritative manager”.

Chapter 4 has its focus on playing the analyst performance role and it opens with the revelation that the approach that the analyst embodies is the “controlling mind”. This is about control, an ability to frame the problem and solution and to then convince others into action to reach the stated objective. He discusses the necessary chain of trust that this entails and the logic of this role’s rhetoric in creating the plot. He illustrates each chapter’s content with a series of vignettes that are very effective in explaining the sub-text of how this type of archetype project manager operates. He does not do this in any biased or judgemental way that I can perceive; rather, he illustrates how this analyst archetype project manager constructs that identity and plays it out. I found it quite amazing to see the strengths and weaknesses of this archetype role unfold through the chapter.

Chapter 5 has its focus on playing the enforcer performance role. It starts with Smith’s observation (p. 51) that “has its origins in the world of commitments, obligations and duties. Parties wishing to contribute to a project make promises, contracts are agreed, and the work is assigned. PM is about arranging such agreements (formal or informal) and seeing that commitments made are honoured, so that the various parts of the work, and hence the project as a whole, are seen through to delivery.” Smith observes that the enforcer is the agent of a sponsor in the sense that role is to carry out the sponsor’s project objectives. Many in the PM community take this as a given, as best practice and indeed much of the PM rhetoric is replete with praise for this archetype project manager. However, as Smith points out in the section on getting a grip, the rhetoric is political based on an assumption of inherently ordered situations where the basis for the political project objectives and means of delivering it remain stable and valid. I reflected upon David Snowden’s Cynefyn framework[1] (Kurtz and Snowden, 2003; Snowden and Boone, 2007) in which various leadership styles are linked back to ordered and unordered situations that in our PM world we would see as simple, complicated or complex project situations. The rhetoric used by the enforcer stresses dualities of us-them and right-wrong (plan, action, etc.) and on-track vs off-track, for example. It does tend to seek things being lock-step, “singing from the same hymn sheet” and that the sponsor’s priority is the correct priority. Smith also points out the vulnerability of this archetype if the sponsor wavers and changes direction, circumstances swiftly change or other forms of authority-capital are diminished. Enforcers need to marshal a lot of energy and effort to rectify going off-track be that sponsor spinelessness or deliver team lack of belief in the authority enforces actually possesses. The section in this chapter “is this a good place to be?” provides a set of particularly valuable insights about the nature of dealing with enforcer archetype project managers.

Chapter 6 has its focus on playing the expert performance role. Smith takes a very plain speaking assessment of what it is like to be an expert project manager and to deal with that archetype. By expert, he means somebody who becomes the project manager with very deep and high levels of expertise in a technical area of the project and that this expertise provides them with formidable authority, “voice” and legitimacy. To quote him Smith says “The simple fact, uncomfortable for the priests of PM, is that experts in particular knowledge disciplines have immense powers in the project field, and often have the capability to act as the de facto project manager – the Expert. These people have taken years to develop their understanding of their discipline. To them the ‘profession’ of PM looks decidedly lightweight. Many discipline experts can readily exploit this weakness to their personal advantage. The norms of their own specialist discipline can trump the rules and practices laid down by mere Project Managers” (p. 68). This chapter made me reflect on the essence of expertise following the work of Dreyfus and Dreyfus (2005) and Cicmil (2003) who adapted the concept within a PM context. Experts seem to have downloaded their tacit knowledge into their being and they know how, why and when to override “the rules” when faced with challenging situations and their instincts are respected and generally reliable. They can also be intimidating because of their stature and so some of the collegial challenging of assumptions that may be desirable can be stifled. Interestingly, in the chapter section entitled “Inner life: being wanted” Smith identifies some of the misgivings that experts may hold about their role as project manager fearing that they may lose touch with their area of technical expertise. The expert archetype can be particularly challenging to clients and others in the project delivery team. I reflected upon the Cynefin framework developed by Snowden referred to earlier in relation to this book review. I have mixed feelings about the expert as a being a thought leader in leading complicated or complex projects. On the one hand they may be particularly useful on complicated projects because of their deep technical knowledge and understanding of the limitations and possibilities of technical issues as well as who and where to seek further advice from and they may be also useful for leading complex projects due to understanding the limits of technology. On the other hand they also may tend to be set in their ways and feel that they do not need to canvass advice or views from non-experts and so miss the people engagement and respect for alternative perspectives and that can inhibit working effectively in people/process complex situations or chaotic situations.

Chapter 7 has its focus on playing the impresario performance role. On p. 80 Smith says “The framing narrative of Impresarios is thus made up of three interlinked strands of thinking: their central driving mission, their flexible freethinking approach to problems, and their dependency on loyal supporters” and later in that page he offers the insights that “Impresario, distance themselves from the prevailing management culture and liberate their work from the rigidity that surrounds them”. He contrasts the servile relationship to the project sponsor of the enforcer, analyst and expert with the somewhat cavalier and iconoclastic individualistic and often ego-centric traits of this style of project manager. He cites advantages as creativity and an ability to bend or break rules to achieve remarkable outcomes. I can see this potentially relevant to leaders of complex or chaotic projects which need agility and high levels of resilience and the impresario is obviously highly motivated with a passion for the project outcome and can inspire great loyalty and commitment in others to join in the adventure. However, they may be high level risk takers and may not appreciate the ramifications of the consequences of the actions or the impact that bending/breaking rules may have on others who follow a more process dominated approach and may also result in adverse unintended consequences. He provides interesting vignettes to illustrate each of the archetypes and the one chosen for impresario is particularly interesting. He also links this behaviour to project types in that he argues that they may be best suited to artistic endeavours and people-complex projects. One interesting aspect I saw in the description of the impresario archetype was that they can readily switch to other archetypes such as enforcer or analyser when it suits them or the situation.

Chapter 8 has its focus on playing the masters of ceremonies performance role. Smith on p. 92 maintains that “their philosophy of PM is about creating space: zones where people with diverse aims can come together. Through interaction they will discover areas of commonality, which will become invested in the project. Hence ideas of what constitutes “value”, in their multiplicity, become realised through the single project”. This is an interesting archetype for those who believe that projects should avoid scope creep at all costs. It put me in mind of a presentation I saw by Professor Nuno Gil[2] in September 2014 at a megaprojects symposium at Curtin University in Perth Australia. Gil’s presentation explained how the London 2012 Olympic Games and Cross Rail mega projects blew out in scope. An important point made by Gil was that scope creep was a function of the “project” evolving as new influential stakeholders emerged and their needs were incorporated into what in reality became a programme of synergistic projects. The masters of ceremonies archetype frequently shapes complex intertwined projects that are difficult to scope, often individually are unviable but are in synergy with others, and morph and transform so that it is difficult to determine how the changes became “authorised” in the way they ended up and how long they took to complete (or even what completion meant). Smith also says (2014, p. 93) that “I have not chosen to call these people the Hosts (or the Hostesses) of projects. They are not running open houses. The term ‘Master of Ceremonies’ is appropriate because they are masters (i.e. those in control) of the ceremonies that comprise the social processes of projects. To resist the normal political pressures on projects, which work to close down options (and employ Enforcers as their willing agents), the Masters of Ceremonies must create instead robust processes that work to open up possibilities, creating that much needed space: the leeway in which people with varied interests can come together, and in which alternatives can be brought from the wings to take centre stage”. Smith’s vignette for this archetype manages social projects and relies on reputation to create value as justification for scope creep and dragging out “projects” beyond time expectations of those who initially authorised them. He also portrays them as having highly tuned stakeholder engagement skills and through being able to see the perspective of others being seen as “difficult” in voicing concerns about inclusion of certain groups who may require scope creep to occur. Their skills as mediator, however, can be very valuable for sensitive projects and may be a route to this role.

Chapter 9 has its focus on playing the reshaper performance role. Smith (2014, p. 101) observes that “Being a Reshaper is about understanding the ‘realities’ of this political world and acting to align the project with the agenda of the powers that will prevail. It is about knowing which way the wind is blowing and choosing a project journey that has the wind behind it”. This archetype deals with people-complexity in projects. The interesting aspect from the chapter that I found interesting was that the reshaper archetype could be seen as potentially Machiavellian and indeed the vignette presented in the chapter features a situation where the project manager exhibits these characteristics but in a way to thwart being set up by a project sponsor to be unethical and potentially criminal. The reshaper archetype has the intellectual and human capital resources to be able to turn around a very bad project situation in which the sponsor may be misguided or mischievous in setting a project’s aims and objectives into re-casting the project in a different and perhaps far more positive direction. This kind of project manager archetype may be able for example to counter optimism bias and recalibrate expectations or outcomes. As Smith observes on p. 102 “It is not good sense to be caught out being the manager of an inherently poor project. If we find ourselves in such a situation it is better to correct it rather than struggle on against the odds. We do not want to persist with a losing game. Better to redefine that game, to change the rules”. The reshaper is a highly expert political animal, always vigilant to opportunities to turn adversity into advantage and pull rabbits out of hats so to speak. This obviously holds advantages for the management of poorly conceived projects to delivery real and positive benefits but the same type of individual may use their political acumen to drive their own agenda, career and even corrupt a project agenda to subvert it to their needs. The reshaper can be a white hat or black hat person. They are inherently capably of manipulating people and situations. On p. 108 Smith makes the observation that “Reshapers differ from other archetypes in their willingness to wade into the political mire and take radical action to divert the project, and with it their own position, to what they consider to be a more favourable direction. For other managers, change is an unfortunate imposition, which must be controlled. For the reshaper change is an implement of identity creation. It is through discovering potential project changes, and making them happen, that a manager becomes a Reshaper”. This archetype provides a very interesting contrast to the other types that follow the sponsor’s project objectives and in fact makes strategic decisions and actions that may be seen as usurping the sponsor’s role. It raises interesting ethical dilemma issues, in fact the whole notion of project manager archetypes and what these mean in terms of ethical stances and dilemmas raises a host of way in which we can examine ethical quandaries and issues.

In Chapter 10 Smith takes each archetype and discusses their careers. He questions whether a “perfect” project manager should encompass elements of all archetypes in some form of contingency model of PM practice. Clearly, in his vignettes throughout the chapters, some project managers naturally adopt several archetypal stances. In this sense it is similar to Shelley’s (2007, 2012) animal metaphor of leaders and team behaviours where most people exhibit a repertoire of behaviours and apply them contingent upon their perception of the prevailing situation they face. To illustrate this I cite Smith’s p 114 where he states “We might make an analogy with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who is reputed to have spoken in Spanish to God, in Italian to women, in French to men, and in German to his horse. Is there an equivalent project manager? Such a manager might speak: as an Analyst in the project team, as an Enforcer to financial backers and to recalcitrant contractors, as an Expert to critics, as an Impresario to customers, as a Master of Ceremonies to the wider public, and as a Reshaper to allies and fellow plotters”. Chapter 10 provides useful insights into the nature, career direction and necessary qualifications, skills, attributes and propensities of project managers for each of the six identified and described archetypes.

The book concludes with an appendix that provides background notes and references to relevant literature including some I have cited in my above discussion of the book. It also has a short bibliography. In conclusion I found this book a highly stimulating and thought provoking book. I read his earlier book (Smith, 2007) several years ago and found that also stimulating and interesting. This book is one that I would also recommend and feel that it is of particular value to PM practitioners in areas of managing projects where the nature of the project calls into question the value of the PMBOK as a guide to be followed. This book I feel contributes to the whole rethinking PM and responds to the encouragement that the PMI research committee offers through its varied and wide research agenda to question the PMBOK and the PMI competency framework (PMI, 2007) in order that our understanding of PM becomes more relevant to a wider range of project types. It is a short book written a way that is easy to read. I have a copy of The Prince (Machiavelli and Bull, 1961) that I bought decades ago which is also a slim publication that offers amazing insights. Both The Prince and this book can be read quite quickly at one level, on a short(ish) travel journey or while on holiday or otherwise relaxing with a read. However, it is a book somewhat like The Prince at another deeper level that encourages you to think a lot more deeply about the nature of how we perceive projects and project managers.