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A serious problem threatens projects everywhere. In large part, this problem stems from management attention deficit syndrome, or MADS, a condition exacerbated by an addiction to mobile technology. Managers who suffer from MADS are distracted and careless, two attributes that contribute to project failure. Here's how MADS can wreak havoc.
Recently the CIO of a pharmaceutical firm shared his problems regarding a multimillion-dollar compliance project. The 16-month-old project was considerably over budget and behind schedule. Because the project suffered from numerous critical, unresolved issues, the CIO asked me to conduct a one-day briefing to ensure that team managers understood the project governance methodology.
The source of the project's problems emerged relatively quickly when the application manager and four of her direct reports all adamantly conveyed that they couldn't spare a full day for a briefing session. We settled on a half-day session for the nine managers of the group.
That day, I arrived at 7:30 a.m. for the 8 a.m. briefing. The coordinator who was responsible for my security clearance was missing. Citing heavy traffic, the flustered coordinator arrived at 8:10; when we got to the briefing room, only four people were there. The other attendees who had shown up announced that they had better things to do and left. At 8:25, the group manager showed up talking on her cell phone. The coordinator scurried out to find the other participants. The briefing finally started at 8:50, minus three participants who couldn't be found. During the session, the group manager received five phone calls, answered four calls and left the room for three. In total, she was absent for half an hour. Another manager received three calls, took two and left the room for one. Several other participants checked for messages on their phones and BlackBerrys, all of which remained on throughout the session.
With such wandering attention spans, it's little wonder that the project was off track.
Everyone Is at Risk
No one is immune from the insidious power of MADS. At a managers meeting I attended recently, the speaker -- who gave a talk on "efficiently incorporating technology to improve productivity" -- gleefully announced that he had 16 different e-mail addresses, a BlackBerry and two cell phones.
He proudly stated his e-mail statistics: He spends four hours each day reviewing and responding to the some 450 messages he receives. During his 45-minute speech, with his BlackBerry firmly in hand, he stopped three times to look at its screen and once stopped to type in a response. Throughout, he was oblivious to the audience response to this behavior: sheer distaste. At the end of his presentation, he finally caught on when the organization's president asked audience members to use their cell phones to text a note of thanks in lieu of applause.
People who rely on mobile tools and applications -- ostensibly to boost their productivity -- instead erode productivity if they don't put their devices away to pay attention to the task at hand. And productivity isn't the only thing that suffers; when people insist on using mobile devices during face-to-face meetings, communication suffers as well, which can easily derail a project. This is why MADS is so destructive.
MADS often culminates in distraction and carelessness. So it's no wonder that ...
But now you must excuse me. I need to take this call.
Gopal K. Kapur is president of the Center for Project Management in San Ramon, Calif., and author of Project Management for Information, Technology, Business and Certification. To comment on this story, email ProjectExpert@ciodecisions.com.
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