Do you want Portfolio & Project Management to last? Here are 5 powerful reasons why rituals help you strengthen PPM!
Rituals are an essential part of our lives and understanding the power of rituals strengthens Portfolio & Project Management. In the project life cycle, we find rituals like signing a contract, kicking off the project, reaching milestones or celebrating project completions. In addition to marking important transitions, rituals have social purposes such as improving social coherence, loyalty and commitment. Also, they provide support in maintaining, influencing and transforming the culture of the project organization.
- Rituals are events that represent moving from a current to a new state.
Just like birth, graduation, marriage, and so on, rituals illustrate a change and act as a bridge between past and future. Implementing Portfolio & Project Management (further abbreviated as PPM) characterizes a new state of operation requiring new roles, responsibilities and processes. Rituals are an important tool to introduce this new way of working.
- Rituals are essential in maintaining structure and security in the mundane project life.
Inevitably, transitioning towards a PPM framework results in initial resistance. When conflicts arise, but also when new members join, or a project team member suddenly leaves, rituals support and guide people to accept and internalize the change. Government Body Meetings, for example, are an important decision-making element in PPM; a ritual providing structure to the project environment.
- The power of the ritual lies in what it represents.
The special moment given to a ritual takes people away from the everyday flow of the project and places them in a sacred, magical space. A ritual can be as simple as a banana award, but the specific event gives meaning to a transformation process, helps people acknowledge the transition and move towards the future. Whether it’s celebrating project success, promoting desired behavior or completing a project, rituals can improve team coherence, loyalty and commitment; aspects that are essential in PPM.
- Rituals indicate a sense of renewal.
Rituals are all around us. Office parties and happy hours are obvious examples, but it’s the mundane everyday rituals that are fundamental in PPM implementation. The stakeholder identification meeting, the budget meeting, the prioritization meeting, the PPM training course: these are moments to create a shared identity, achieve specific goals, and communicates values or important messages. They do what rituals do: offer a pause from the everyday business to replenish and restore, so that after the mystic moment one can continue the work in a new reality.
- Marked by the three phases of separation, transition and incorporation, rituals illustrate identity changes.
When going through a ritual, PPM stakeholders ‘travel’ from the familiar, move through the unknown, and return in a new identity. This new state of working should illustrate the desired behavior, identify PPM action items to obtain project solutions, and above all, develop solutions for the customer.
When implementing PPM practices, you can use rituals to improve project performance, change habits and add value to the stakeholders involved. Recognize the reasons why rituals can strengthen PPM and achieve higher team results!
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