This document discusses principles for applying an abundance approach to program and project management. It outlines four quadrants for improvement: collaborate, create, control, and compete. The collaborate quadrant focuses on developing talent and strong relationships through culture, collaboration, and trust. The create quadrant emphasizes articulating a motivating vision of the future through symbolic leadership and innovative ideas. The control quadrant aims to produce extraordinary results through goal clarity, planning, and accountability. Finally, the compete quadrant prioritizes aggressive actions, stakeholder agreements, and incentives to drive measurable progress.

1. MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE
Applying Heliotropic Abundance for creating
Program and Project Management processes
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3. Making the Impossible Possible, Kim Cameron and Marc Lavine, 2006
Lessons learned from the cleanup of America’s most
dangerous Nuclear Weapons Plan

4. Abundance Principle of Management
 Strive for positive deviance, pursuing the best of the
human condition and working to fulfill the highest
potential of the organization.
 Focuses on:
 Resilience
 Flourishing
 Vitality
 Extraordinarily positive individual and organizational
outcomes
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5. The Ordinary Approach to Change†
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 Identify and define the problem accurately.
 Generate alternate solutions to the problem based
on root causes so that convergence on a solution is
not premature.
 Focus on evaluating and selecting the best
alternative.
 Implement the chosen alternative solution and follow
up to ensure that the problem or obstacle is
resolved.
† Leading Change, John Kotter Harvard Business School Press, 1996
Organization Change: Theory and Practice, W. W. Burke, Sage, 2002
A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen, J. G. March, Free Press, 1994
Smart Thinking for Crazy Times: The Art of Solving the Right Problems, I. I. Mitroff, Berrett–Koehler, 1998

6. The Abundance Approach
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 Abundance is not a substitute for ordinary
management – it is a supplement for the problem
solving approach.
 Abundance focuses on:
 Closing the gaps between acceptable performance
and spectacular performance.
 Emphasizes positively deviant accomplishments rather
than normal or expected accomplishments.
 Positive possibilities rather than deficits.

7. Conventional Principles versus Abundance
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Conventional Principles Abundance Principles
General Leadership Principles
 Problem solving and deficit gaps  Virtuousness and abundance gaps
 A single heroic leader  Multiple leaders playing multiple roles
 One leader from the beginning to end  A continuity of leaders
 Congruence and consistency  Paradox and contradiction
Principles Related to Visionary and Symbolic Leadership
 Logical, rational, and sensible visions – with
SMART goals
 Symbolic, emotional, and meaningful –
with profound purpose
 Consistency, stability, and predictability  Revolution and positive deviance
 Personal benefits and advantages  Meaningfulness beyond personal benefits
 Organizations absorb the risks of failure
and benefits of success
 Employees share the risks of failure and
rewards for success

8. Conventional Principles versus Abundance
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Conventional Principles Abundance Principles
Careful, Clear, and Controlled Leadership
 Organizational change at the expense of
the people
 Organizational change for the benefit of
the people
 Commitments and priorities based on
environmental demands
 Unalterable commitments and integrity at
all costs
 Managing the contract, attaching resources
to performance
 Managing the contract and ensuring stable
funding
 Ultimate responsibility and accountability
for measureable success at the top
 Responsibility and accountability for
measureable success for everyone

9. Conventional Principles versus Abundance
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Conventional Principles Abundance Principles
Collaboration, Engagement, and Participation
 Building on and reinforcing the current
culture
 Introducing challenges that the culture
cannot address
 Decision making and leadership at the top
 Employee and management in
partnerships in planning, decision making,
training, evaluation, and discipline
 Need–to–know information sharing and
physical separation
 Early, frequent, and abundant information
sharing with colocation
 Long–term employment, personal
relations, and use of specialist
 Long–employability, professional relations,
and retraining

10. Conventional Principles versus Abundance
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Conventional Principles Abundance Principles
Rigorous, uncompromising, and results oriented leaderhip
 Managing external communications
 Openness of all message through early and
often communications
 Keeping critics at a distance
 Making critics stakeholders, building
relationships, and using positive strategies
 Clear, stable performance targets that
meet standard coming from the top
 Escalating performance, virtuousness, and
positive deviance targets from multiple
sources
 Organizational financial benefit from
outstanding success
 Financial generosity and benevolence with
employees

11. Four Quadrants of Improvement
Guided by the Abundance Approach
Collaborate Create
Control Compete
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12. Collaborate
Relationships, Human Capital, and Collaboration
 Develop talent, build strong relationships, and foster
trust between all parties based on:
 Culture
 Collaboration
 Credibility
 Human capital and social relationships
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13. Create
Vision, Innovation, and Symbolic Leadership
 Articulate and reinforce a motivating vision of what
could be in contrast of what occurred in the past.
 Forge a clear and shared vision of the future.
 Symbolic leadership in support of changing mission.
 Innovative and creative ideas about work.
 New sense of meaning and importance to pursued tasks.
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14. Control
Stability, Discipline, and Process Control
 Grounded in virtuousness, extending beyond just
doing well, but developing mechanisms for
producing extraordinary results
 Goal clarity
 Agreements between producers and suppliers
 Planning and objective measures and accountability
 Stable support and funding for work efforts
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15. Compete
Incentives and Rigorous Performance Standards
 Aggressive actions, external constituents, market
forces, performance incentives, and obtaining
measureable results
 External stakeholder agreements
 Managing external relationships
 Taking bold action
 Incentives for measureable progress
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Long Term Flexibility for Change New
InternalMaintenance Culture Type: CLAN Culture Type: ADHOCRACY
ExternalPositioning
Orientation: COLLOABORATE Orientation: CREATE
Leader Type:  Facilitator
 Mentor
 Team builder
Leader Type:  Innovator
 Entrepreneur
 Visionary
Value Drivers:  Commitment
 Communication
 Development
Value Drivers:  Innovative outputs
 Transformational
 Agility
Theory of
Effectiveness:
 Human development
and high commitment
produce effectiveness
Theory of
Effectiveness:
 Innovativeness, vision,
and constant change
produce effectiveness
Culture Type: HEIRARCHY Culture Type: MARKET
Orientation: CONTROL Orientation: COMPETE
Leader Type:  Coordinator
 Monitor
 Organizer
Leader Type:  Hard driver
 Competitor
 Producer
Value Drivers:  Efficiency
 Timeliness
 Consistency and
Uniformity
Value Drivers:  Market share
 Goal achievement
 Profitability
Theory of
Effectiveness:
 Control and efficiency
with capable processes
produce effectiveness
Theory of
Effectiveness:
 Aggressively competing
and customer focus
produce effectiveness
Incremental Stability Control Fast

17. This is What DONE Looks Like
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