拉尔夫·穆勒：软技能是项目管理的核心

尉艳娟

人物简介

他是《项目管理期刊》（Project Management Journal）主编，多家项目管理学术期刊的编委会成员。

他是工商管理博士，挪威商学院项目管理教授，悉尼科技大学兼职教授，中国复旦大学客座教授、大连理工大学“海天学者”，欧洲治理学院（European School of Governance）研究实验室主任。

他出版学术论文200余篇，学术著作13部。他参与制定了“PMI项目集和项目组合管理标准”和“OPM3”等标准。他曾获“2016 PMI 荣誉会员”“2015 PMI终身研究成就奖”“2012 IPMA研究奖”“2009《项目管理期刊》年度最佳论文”等殊荣。

他研究的领域包括项目管理、项目集管理、项目组合管理、项目治理、领导力、PMO、研究方法论。

他就是项目管理学术圈的顶尖学者之一——拉尔夫·穆勒（Ralf Müller）教授。

穆勒教授学者风范十足，却是“半路出家”。加入学术圈之前，他曾是行业精英，为全球50多个国家及地区的公司和政府机构提供过咨询服务。穆勒教授第一次做项目经理有点像“赶鸭子上架”，后来他发现做项目经理能够支持的项目有限，遂决定转战学术圈，期许将项目管理的声音传递给更多的人。

美国管理技术大学（UMT）的教务长戴维森·弗雷姆（Davidson Frame）曾这样评价他：“他的研究提高了项目管理的学术水平。与众不同的是，他能够打破传统的项目计划、预算、风险等界限，从广泛的、跨学科的角度来研究项目管理”。

观点概览

在中国，学习项目管理并取得专业认证的人越来越多，人们对项目管理的认知日趋成熟。穆勒教授建议，中国的项目管理从业者应更多地关注组织级项目管理。

穆勒教授曾做调查研究挑战了已有的领导力理论。在他看来，在团队成员频繁变动的情况下，团队还能表现出色是因为项目进展中及时将领导权授予项目特定时刻的最佳领导者。因此，他推崇“平衡领导力”。

全球化时代，也许我们会不自觉地偏爱自己的文化价值，但是，穆勒教授呼吁，项目管理从业者要有文化敏感性，退后一步审视全局，做判断要基于事实而非情绪。

穆勒教授的研究表明，97%的项目都存在道德问题，如透明问题、关系问题、优化问题。其中，在基于控制的项目治理环境中，透明问题尤为突出。成功的项目都是在基于信任的项目治理环境下开展的，因此，项目治理机构应该给予项目经理更多的信任。

穆勒教授指出，无论采取何种工具、方法或流程，项目最终还是由人来完成的，因此，我们要重视软技能。10年前，穆勒和特纳教授通过研究证明了软技能的重要性。其中，領导力风格这一因素对项目成功的影响占比是9% ～ 43%，而每一项硬技能占比大概是7%。穆勒教授的近期研究结果显示，治理心理（治理的人性方面）比项目治理本身对项目结果的影响更大。

Interview

Project Management Is an Accidental Choice

Q1： Why did you choose project management as your career Do you enjoy this profession

Ralf Müller： Well， I guess my "choice" is typical for many in the "accidental profession". I was working as a UNIX specialist in the department for major clients in a large worldwide IT company. One day our department manager returned from a meeting at Corporate Headquarters and said， "All people in this department are project managers from now on." We were hesitant to accept this in the beginning， but then decided to give it a try. Having led several projects of increasing value， I took over international and global projects. Later， during my time as worldwide Director of project management in this company， I travelled around the world to rescue troubled projects. I learned that my efforts could only help one project or project manager at a time， so I decided to change to academia to spread my word to many people simultaneously. I have never regretted being a project manager or switching to academia. Both are exciting and challenging roles.

Q2： As a professor， editor-in-chief， editorial board member for a number of academic journals， contributor to some PMI standards， book author， researcher， etc.， you have a busy schedule. Would you please share your secrets of time management

Ralf Müller： I do not know if there is some secret in what I do. As an academic， my schedule is first and foremost determined by the dates when I have to teach at universities. The gaps between these dates I fill with research projects， conferences， PhD supervision etc. When it comes to priorities， I try to balance the achievement of short-term deadlines with work on activities with long-term deadlines. Prioritization typically follows the old 2x2 matrix of urgent （high or low） versus important （high or low）， where I prioritize high/high items but from both short-term and long-term perspectives.

Q3： Youve been awarded PMI Research Achievement Award and IPMA Research Award. What do the awards mean to you

Ralf Müller： Obviously it shows that my studies are seen as relevant and that the results are recognized as credible. It also tells me that my research topics are not only of academic interest， as the awards are primarily given by practitioner organizations. Besides the awards for specific studies， I especially value the lifetime research award. It gives a feeling that most of what I do is valued， not only one particular study.

China Needs to Focus More on OPM

Q4： Project management is thriving in China. As a visiting professor of Fudan University and Dalian University of Technology， do you think so

Ralf Müller： Certainly. When I taught in the BI-Fudan Executive MBA program in Shanghai， I saw more and more students with a professional certification or a good education in project management. When I did research in China， together with the teams from Dalian University of Technology or others， I saw the same effect. People now talk more proficiently about their projects and their management. Still I think the sheer magnitude and number of projects that are going on in China requires many more people with a solid education or professional certification in project management. While the understanding of project management is thriving in China， I think there is a need to expand the view to organizational project management. As I said， people are getting better in understanding projects and their management， but I do not see growth in the understanding of how projects are embedded in the organization and how to adjust the organization for efficient project delivery. While some of the students I see know what portfolio management is， other very important aspects of good organization-wide project management are often unknown， including themes like benefits realization management， portfolio optimization， governance of projects， governmentality and organization-wide PMOs.

Performant Teams Shift Leadership Authority

Q5： Youve initiated a survey on leadership in projects to understand the interaction between the leadership by the project manager and the possible leadership by team members in projects. What does the survey result show

Ralf Müller： The study， of which this survey was one of many ways to collect data， gave a number of new insights and proved some of the existing leadership theories as inappropriate for project settings. Existing theories， such as the Tuckman model of form， storm， norm and perform， or the Hersey & Blanchard Theory that leadership styles need to be adjusted to team members experience in working together， do assume that teams become performant after a period of time working together， and that if a new team member joins， the whole team has to go through the entire development cycle again in order to become performant again. If this was true， most of the project teams would never become performant. Team members frequently change in projects. We showed that these teams are performant anyway. They do it by shifting leadership authority to the best leader at any point in time in the project. Sometimes leadership emerges from within the team （which is known as shared and distributed leadership）， or the leadership comes from the project manager （which is known as vertical leadership）， or in other cases the project manager appoints a leader from within the team and let him/ her lead the project temporarily under the project managers supervision （which is known as horizontal leadership）. The balancing of these three leadership approaches over the duration of the project is named "balanced leadership". In other words， depending on the situation of the project， the project manager decides to either let the team lead itself， or appoint a leader from the team， or lead himself/herself. Through that the best possible leader is in charge at any time and in any situation in the project. This contributes to the best possible performance at any time in the project.

Q6： In the era of globalization and digitalization， which leadership styles would you recommend Balanced leadership

Ralf Müller： Leadership is situation dependent. Balanced leadership is an observed reality in projects. Globalization and digitalization add to the need for cultural understanding and sensitivity in virtual interaction. So project mangers and teams need to become more sensitive to the differences in cultural value systems to better understand each other in terms of behaviors and thinking patterns. That includes the ability to question whether their own value system is the best in a given situation. As we are all ethnocentric and inclined to prefer our own cultural value system over that of others， globalization can only work if we go back a step to overview the situation and then decide which values are most appropriate in a given situation or project predominantly based on facts and not on emotions.

Trust Is Characteristic of Successful Projects

Q7： Youve written papers on Ethics and Governance in Temporary Organizations， so in your opinion， what should we pay special attention to in leading temporary organizations

Ralf Müller： The studies on ethics in projects showed that 97% of all projects suffer from at least one of the top three ethical issues： transparency issues， relationship issues， or optimization issues. It also showed that transparency issues（i.e. the project manager not reporting the real status of the project） are dominant in control-based governance settings. However， successful projects are typically in trust-based governance settings. So steering committees （as project governance institutions） should give more trust to their project managers. Projects that are launched with a steering committee that trusts the project manager are typically quite successful. Projects launched with a steering committee that predominantly controls the project manager are heading towards a vicious downward circle of hiding mistakes and performance issues， which lead to more control， which leads to even lesser transparency etc. These projects can never get to a level of trust that is characteristic of successful projects.

Organizations with a PMO Perform Better

Q8： What are the principles of building efficient and highperformance PMOs

Ralf Müller： Flexibility. PMOs are responsible for improving organization-specific issues. Every organization is different and so are their issues to be solved. Moreover， after PMOs have solved an issue， their mandate changes to solving another issue. This new mandate might require different skills and different people in the PMO. So PMOs change constantly. Our studies show that PMOs are quite successful in solving the issues they are tasked with and then take on very different issues after that. This requires different skills and different people over time. This change in people is often misunderstood as a reaction to poor performance of the PMO. This is wrong （but seen quite often）， and leads to false conclusions， such that most PMOs will be closed after two or three years. They will not be closed， but their mandate changes. And this is not because of poor performance， but because they performed so well that the issue they were supposed to solve is now solved. On average， PMOs are good in what they are doing. This is not only shown by academic studies but also in studies by the big consulting firms. Organizations with a PMO have significantly fewer projects with cost or time overruns.