Project Management in Public Safety
Project Management in Public Safety
Showcasing leadership potential with the ability to get work done
Over the past decade, I've had numerous conversations and calls with first responders, emergency managers, security professionals, and members of the military who have struggled to make the leap from entry-level and tactical positions into leadership roles in their organizations. And although everyone's story is a bit different, there are some trends worth sharing.
And one of them is simple: underestimating the value of project management skills, whether that is in the field or in the office, as a component of preparing yourself to lead larger teams and initiatives.
Some of the people from first responder and military backgrounds that I have spoken with who have hesitated to put this recommendation into action have often cited one of two reasons:
They haven't yet learned or mastered all of the skills present in the unit or team they are getting ready to lead (and are therefore not yet ready).
The act of learning or studying something that isn't tied to the tactical function their organization performs feels like they are taking steps toward becoming an "administrator."
But I don't think that either of these needs to be true.
I don't think a person has to have technical mastery over every element in a team before they can lead it or that learning how to manage large efforts means that you are trying to take a shortcut in your career. Note that I’m not advocating for people with no experience or hands-on knowledge about how work is performed to be assigned to leadership roles, but I am saying that skilled project managers have developed skills beyond the technical functions performed by a team.
There's a big opportunity for people who want to make the most out of their on-the-ground experience and learn how to transition from being the person who does all of the work to leading teams that can get things done. When you realize that this isn't about shirking responsibility or becoming an "administrator" but steps to increase your reach and your ability, you can expand your impact and speed up the pace at which you can get things done.
Once you recognize this, you can grow your experience base faster than people who don't have your background and become a more capable leader that people are excited to work with.
But managing projects and learning how to articulate your approach requires some nuance. You have to remember that your success as a project manager is, more often than not, determined by your team. So, you want to be thoughtful about what skills you prioritize in your development.
With all of that in mind, here are two mistakes to avoid when setting out to deepen your project management skills.
Two Mistakes to Avoid
Mistake #1: Thinking ICS is the only way
The Incident Command System (ICS) that has been taught, championed, and integrated into so many American first response agencies and emergency management offices certainly has its strengths. And at its core, ICS is an approach to project management. It is a process of approaching a situation, establishing goals, developing a plan to accomplish the objectives, assigning resources (both people and equipment) to execute the plan, addressing the administrative requirements of the incident/project, and re-assessing the situation to see if you accomplished the goals. Rinse and repeat.
But ICS also creates many positions, uses many forms, and uses a standard set of meetings to execute that cycle. To organizations that only use the ICS system during disasters and emergencies, the process can feel burdensome at times. It can lead people to focus on completing checklists and planning meetings instead of focusing on how that system can be used to solve the actual problem being faced.
In the private sector, however, organizations execute those steps every single day. They even have people who lead teams through it. They just don't call the person in charge the incident commander and they don't call their process ICS. They call it project management. Because it is a process that is run to help organizations accomplish their mission, whether that is by executing growth initiatives or managing projects efficiently to reduce their cost, they are also (often) incentivized to make those processes work really well.
This is why there are agile processes, waterfall/predictive project management processes, and hybrid systems. Each with countless courses available to learn them, certification programs to demonstrate knowledge, and many parallels to the work of public safety professionals. Not everything from these approaches will carry over and plug seamlessly into what your specific agency or organization needs, but they can be a great foundation to expand your knowledge in project management.
The point is to learn other ways to manage projects. Learn about how those approaches work, their pros and cons, and gain comfort with the style. This will allow the project manager and team leader to adapt their approach to the team they are working with. Instead of forcing an approach on a group of people because it is the only one that you know, meeting people where they are increases the chances of the team being able to deliver the results being promised.
Mistake #2: Not learning how to manage different projects differently
Emergencies, crises, disasters, battles, incidents and any other settings you operate in are not one-size-fits-all events. Even when there are similarities to past events, each one is unique. If you are going to be able to adapt your approach to leadership and management to the situation, you need to develop different approaches to managing projects before the incident occurs. There are a couple of different ways these could be done.
One way to consider management styles and requirements is by considering the responsibilities assigned to the project manager.
The "PM of One." In this situation, the project manager is also the sole team member. The manager is doing all of the work to not only manage the process but also do the work.
The "Working Manager." In this situation, the project manager has at least one additional team member. In addition to managing the project, the PM is also doing a portion of the work themselves, with team members taking some of the responsibility for completing the project.
The "Pure Project Manager." In this situation, the project manager is only doing project management-related tasks and is delegating the work required to complete the project to other team members. This could be determined by a number of factors, such as the complexity of the project, the size of the team, or the amount of time available for the PM to dedicate to the project.
Note that this isn't about rank or title but the responsibilities assigned to the person leading the project. Emergency managers and people who have led large tactical response operations will recognize this as the way resources often build in incidents. It starts off as just you. Eventually, a few other people come to help, and you work alongside them. And then, in large incidents, you elevate into the manager of a large team that requires your full attention on leading them instead of doing the work itself.
A second way to consider approaches to project management is by how clear the scope and goals of the project are at the start, and how stable those should be throughout the project.
Predictive/Waterfall Management: In projects characterized as having really clear goals, a clear scope, and a highly structured/sequenced approach to getting the work done, predictive methods of management might be needed. In this approach, like you'd see with the construction of a large commercial office building where you need the electrician to finish running the wiring before you start hanging sheetrock and closing the walls, a lot of resource planning is done before you begin work. This approach to management is often successful for organizations conducting disaster preparedness projects that require a thoughtful approach to stakeholder engagement, have constrained resources, and are pursuing clear project outcomes.
Agile Management: For projects where the scope of the project isn't clear, or the definition of success might change throughout the project, you probably don't want to spend much time at the start of the project conducting detailed planning. Since what is needed might change, you may benefit from a more iterative approach to project management where you develop a short-term plan that you immediately put into action, see what is working and not working, adjust your plan, and take the next step forward. This approach is often seen in emergency and disaster response scenarios where the situation is constantly changing, or new information is becoming available.
The point is that you want to be ready to not only adapt your approach to the team (Mistake #1) but also be able to adapt to the situation. To be adaptable, you will want to develop comfort working with all three different sets of responsibilities and the two different approaches to project management. This comfort is what truly unlocks the ability to adjust your approach to meet the demands of the situation being faced.
A Project Management Development Checklist
As you develop your ability and reputation as a person who can get things done, I'd use a similar approach to managing an actual project. Develop a simple roadmap and begin executing the steps to complete it. It doesn't have to be overly complex, and you want to ensure you are making progress with each moment of time you're putting into professional development.
Here are a few ways you can start doing this today:
1. Recognize that project management is a thing and be on the lookout for examples. A project, by definition, is a temporary endeavor. It is something with a clear start and clear end, and they are everywhere.
Construction projects, training events, exercises and drills, incidents, community and volunteer events, conferences, and countless other things are all done to accomplish a specific goal, with a specific scope, a defined timeframe, and a budget.
While formal training is readily available on the “science” of project management, a lot can be learned about the “art” through observation of real-world projects. See how other projects are run and build your personal database of great projects and project managers.
2. Practice defining “done.” This is arguably the most important project management skill to hone as a project manager. How will you know you are done?
A project is something that is temporary, so you need to know when to stop work. It is also supposed to have a defined timeline. If you don't know when you have accomplished what you set out to do, your timeline will be blown, and the chances of accomplishing the project's goal will feel impossible.
This is something you can practice daily. How you define goals, ensure that your vision of success matches your boss's definition, and build a shared understanding of success is truly a critical skill. The better you do this, the fewer problems you will have when establishing goals as part of your response to emergencies and disasters.
3. Gain repetition in project management before spending too much time documenting your process. It can be tempting for process-oriented professionals to want to stop and build the perfect checklist or tool for their management style after the first project. But don't do it, at least not yet.
Early on, you should be focused on executing projects. The first time you complete a project as a PM, you will take your personal approach to management from 0% developed to 40%. The second project, from 40% to 65% developed. The third time, from 65% to 85% developed. You can make big gains simply by doing. You don't have to have an overly developed system in place (that will come next).
Do this at your current job, with volunteer organizations, and any other group that will let you take charge or support managing a project or event. Starting with a number of repetitions will also ensure you develop critical skills immediately (even if not a complete approach). You don't know the next time an incident will force you to step into a leadership role, so don't waste time trying to perfect something. Just start, then fine-tune.
4. Once you have done it a few times, formalize your process so you can fine-tune your approach. A time will come when continued growth and mastery of the ability to lead larger teams will require detailed learning and extra effort.
It is only at the final step that professionals should begin to formalize their approach to project management and go through more detailed training and education. By having a foundation of experience, you will be able to quickly understand the topics you are being taught, where they fit into projects, and the benefits and limitations of any particular tool or approach in your job.
In disasters and incident response, things change fast. You aren't going to pause an operation to draft, submit, and sign a "scope change memo." But formal processes, which can be very important in long-duration or high-complexity projects, were developed to solve a specific problem. A scope change memo ensures that everyone is aware of a change and that the resulting desired outcome has changed. How you do that in public safety will likely be different, but lessons about the intended outcome of actions can come from learning a formalized approach.
When you get to this final stage, the process of managing projects becomes easier. This is when professionals take the next transition and are able to truly lead their teams through projects without having to spend excess time or attention on the mechanics of management.
You don't have to love project management, but you should become good at it.
As I mentioned above, I’m not advocating that project managers bypass the time it takes to understand how a team actually performs the work. If you’re going to connect with professionals, have credibility, and be able to do the work to advance key aspects of a project, experience is a must.
But project management is a skill in itself. It is one of those areas where people can develop the skills required to be known as a person able to get things done. Especially in a time where it feels like having a good idea is good enough, those who have a reputation for being able to execute projects and make that idea a reality immediately stand out from their peers.
You don't have to love project management, but if you're looking to grow as a leader in your organization, spending time to learn the fundamentals of the field, learn the nuances of different project approaches, and learn how to integrate those concepts into different situations is time well spent. It might take time, but probably not as long as you think. Especially if you start today by putting one foot in front of the other and building your skills through action.
That’s all for today!
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