Project One Being: Modeling Behaviors for Open Communication
PMBOK v8 Definition
Project One Being refers to the project manager's role in establishing and maintaining a safe, respectful, nonjudgmental environment that allows the project team to communicate openly. This is accomplished by modeling desired behaviors such as transparency and integrity. Transparency involves being open about how one thinks, makes choices, and processes information, including being transparent about biases. Integrity comprises ethical behavior and honesty, demonstrated by sharing risks, communicating assumptions and basis of estimates, delivering bad news early, and ensuring status reports provide an accurate depiction of the project's progress.
Why It Matters for the Exam
This concept appears frequently in PMI exam questions about the project manager's role in team development, communication management, and leadership. It is tested in situational questions where the project manager must choose the correct behavior to foster an open team environment. Questions often present scenarios involving team conflict, poor communication, or lack of trust, requiring candidates to identify the appropriate modeling behavior.
Key Points to Remember (for the exam)
- Core Concept: The project manager models desired behaviors to create a safe, respectful, nonjudgmental environment for open communication
- Key Behavior - Transparency: Being open about thinking processes, choices, information processing, and biases
- Key Behavior - Integrity: Demonstrating ethical behavior and honesty through risk sharing, assumption communication, bad news delivery, and accurate status reporting
- Team Culture Impact: Project team culture may be established deliberately through norms or informally through behaviors and actions of team members
- Bias Management: Being open and transparent about biases up front establishes a culture of openness and trust enabling consensus and collaboration
- Project Manager Responsibility: The project manager is key in establishing and maintaining this environment
- Common Confusion: Confusing "modeling behaviors" with "directing behaviors" - modeling means demonstrating, not commanding
Typical PMI Exam Example
A project manager notices team members are reluctant to share schedule concerns. The project manager openly shares their own scheduling assumptions and admits when their initial estimates were inaccurate. This behavior models transparency and integrity, encouraging team members to communicate openly about risks and assumptions.
PMI Exam Traps
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Trap: Thinking the project manager should enforce rules for open communication
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Reality: The project manager models behaviors rather than imposing rules; modeling creates psychological safety
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Trap: Confusing transparency with sharing all information indiscriminately
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Reality: Transparency means being open about thinking processes and biases, not sharing confidential or irrelevant information
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Trap: Believing integrity only means telling the truth
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Reality: Integrity includes ethical behavior, honesty, sharing risks, communicating assumptions, delivering bad news early, and ensuring accurate status reports
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Trap: Assuming team culture is solely determined by organizational culture
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Reality: Each project team develops its own unique culture, operating within but distinct from the organization's culture
Important PMI Connections
| Related Concept | Relationship Type | Exam Attention Point |
|---|---|---|
| Active Listening | Complementary Technique | Active listening techniques (acknowledging, clarifying, confirming, understanding, addressing barriers) support the open communication environment |
| Team Norms | Deliberate Establishment | Project team norms are a method to deliberately establish team culture, supporting the modeling of desired behaviors |
| Centralized vs Distributed Leadership | Context for Decision-Making | Team members may be guided by top-down leadership or self-organize; modeling behaviors applies in both contexts |
| Physical, Material, or Virtual Resources | Resource Category | Non-personnel resources are distinct from the human factors of team communication and culture |
Quick Review Questions
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A project manager wants to create an environment where team members feel safe sharing bad news. Which behavior should the project manager model first?
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During a project status meeting, a team member provides an overly optimistic progress report. According to PMBOK v8, what behavior related to integrity should the project manager demonstrate?
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A project team member has a bias against Gantt charts, believing they are not valid schedules. How should the project manager address this bias to establish a culture of openness?
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What is the difference between establishing team culture deliberately through norms versus informally through behaviors and actions?
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In a scenario where team members are not communicating openly about risks, which two behaviors should the project manager model to address this situation?
PMBOK v8 Reference
Section 5 - Tools and Techniques (Project manager role in establishing safe, respectful, nonjudgmental environment); Section 4 - Models, Methods, and Artifacts (Team culture development); Section 5 - Tools and Techniques (Active listening as complementary technique)