Practical Project Management

Making decisions, the project manager’s challenge

July 25th, 2010

Often the project manager is in the middle of a push and pull about decisions. Everyone wants to get started, but key decisions aren’t made. How do you keep everyone engaged when this is happening?

I find this one to be the most interesting challenge, and the one linked tightly to corporate culture.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to go ahead with some of the project while you wait, and other times, delay in decision making is a sign of trouble brewing.

Sometimes the corporate culture is ‘just do it’ and sometimes it’s about careful analysis before acting – and usually somewhere in between the two extremes. If your organization leans towards the ‘just do it’, you need to get an idea of the direction and then go forward. If your organization leans towards the analysis scenario, you need to get documented agreement to go forward before the decision is complete.

How does the PM know which scenario is true for their project?

History will help, what has happened in previous projects when decisions are delayed? Your sponsor will give direction to help determine what to do. And the way the team reacts is also a good indicator.

If you determine you can go ahead while waiting for the final decision, there are some ways to ensure you are doing the right thing. First, your sponsor needs to be on board with what you are doing. And second, develop a way to document both the reasons for going ahead and the implications.

How do you determine what to do? That’s probably the easiest part. Look at activities that need to be done regardless of the decision. Can you start drafting risk plans, communication plans, or resource plans.

Can you develop marketing plans? Will the decision have an impact on the way you’ll market the product?

Can you analyze some potential solutions?

The overall question in this circumstance is depended on the decision you are waiting for. If the decision could determine whether the project goes forward or not, or is a fundamental decision about the product features, you probably don’t want to use resources of any kind because the risk of wasting resources is high.

If the decision is a refinement of the features, or a buy/lease decision, there are a lot of activities that can be done to move the project forward while you wait.

Happy PMing

Perry

Tags: consulting, initiation, project challenges, solutions, tips
Posted in execution, organizational savvy | No Comments »

Communication Plans, the key to project success

July 18th, 2010

It may be too much to say a communications plan is the key to success, but certainly not having one is going to cause everyone much unneeded stress. This communication plan is not the internal plan of status reporting, issue resolution and periodic updates, it’s for your stakeholders whoever they may be.

If you have never created a communication plan, here’s the short list of things to consider;

start with a strategy – what are you communicating
create an objective – what are the concrete goals for the communication plan
identify your audience – there may be several different groups
develop the key messages – the key messages usually are the same no matter how many audiences you have
identify the communication channels
deliver and assess

Now that you have your plan, and you are working the plan, let’s talk about what benefits you will see.

When you are communicating the right information to the right people, in the right way, everyone has the opportunity to understand the project. Note, I said they have the opportunity, not that they will understand. For the people who still require help you also have consistent messaging to use.

When you focus on communication it becomes easier to find your audience and align the messaging. If there is no plan for what and how to communicate, often you find yourself pulling communications together on demand and finding the closest channel rather than the right channel.

Planning early for communication allows you to set measures for communication success and that allows you to adjust the communications if it’s not meeting the objectives.

Having a schedule to communicate can sometimes help meet a goal or get a decision tied down. Why? Because when you have a plan your driver is to get information into the communication. When you don’t have a plan, there may be no driver, and communication gets delayed rather than driven.

Do you have any thoughts on communication planning?

If you would like a template for a communication plan, send me an email, and I’ll forward one to you.

Happy PMing

Perry

Tags: communication, project challenges, success, Teams
Posted in communication | No Comments »

LinkedIn discussions

July 11th, 2010

I like to get involved in LinkedIn discussions. I like a bit of controversy, not the kind that gets personal but a good healthy discussion. LinkedIn discussions are a good way to see what’s going on in the ‘world’ you join there.

Here are some conversations you might want to jump in on if you are PM.

What should go into an advanced Project Management course?

How would you deal with corruption?

Why do IT projects fail?

How do you deal with PMs who miss deadlines?

Happy PMing

Perry

Tags: communication, ideas, professional
Posted in links | No Comments »

Annoucement about my new venture

July 4th, 2010

Do you ever wonder if you have enough in your life? Are you a change junkie? I think PMs tend to be change junkies – perhaps because I feel it justifies my own behaviour.

This post is not about project management but about identifying an opportunity, business and self management. Something PMs need to understand no matter what industry the specialize in, they need to connect with the ‘business’ end of the work.

In the last year I’ve worked with a great business partner to bring an e-publishing company to life. PaperBoxBooks works with new authors to help them find their on-line reader. We created it to fill a gap we found between the way traditional publishers saw the market and the new fast growing e-publishing world.

Today – almost 12 months to the date we started talking about PaperBoxBooks – we officially launch Fiction Therapy. We found that new authors are hungry for feedback that helps them improve their writing and we weren’t able to devote the time to our PaperboxBooks authors that we wanted to. So, along came Fiction Therapy, a place for authors to hear the good, the bad, and the – well maybe not ugly but fixable?

From a PM perspective we did all the right things for initiation: strategies, smart goals, success measures.

From a business perspective, well that remains to be seen.

If you are a writer or know someone who is interested in getting feedback on their writing, check out Fiction Therapy. If you want to follow us on Twitter we’re @fictiontherapy you can learn about special offers or giveaways.

As for self management, if I want to add anything else to my plate, I have to let something go. Not something my inner change junkie wants to hear.

Happy PMing

Perry

If you like fantasy romance and read ebooks, check out Off Track by Alice Griffiths (my romantic pen name).

Tags: new starts
Posted in non-project | No Comments »

Team burnout

June 27th, 2010

A short post today because I’m suffering a bit from team burnout. It’s been a while since I’ve been here and I wondered how many project managers forget that teams get burned out and they need time to recover.

I’ve been working as part of a team putting together a conference. I’ve never done this before and man did I underestimate the effort. Sound familiar? Well, I wasn’t even taking on the biggest load but today, the conference ended today, I feel wiped. I know I can start controlling my time now, well as much as I’ve been able to control it in the past. And I enjoyed the conference, getting a ton of great ideas and advice.

But, today I have little or no perspective. I see all the tasks I’ve let slip in priority. I look at the pile of new work I have to do and it seems like a mountain. Okay, that’s a bit melodramatic. In my head I know I’m in control, but my tiredness is weighing me down.

So, when your team has pulled a huge effort to meet a deadline, and you’ve celebrated with them, thanked them, and congratulated them. You need to remember that they need a bit of breathing space.

Don’t launch into talking about the next exciting challenge – it can seem like a never ending demand on them.

Don’t expect them to give 110% percent the next working day – they may not have the energy.

Do be clear about the next immediate priorities and what the expectations are for the next few days.They’ll need some perspective.

Do review the project plan with the team – seeing how far they’ve come can re-energize them for the next effort.

Do have the sponsor thank them for their effort – it’s nice to hear the effort is appreciated at the top.

Anyway – I need to do some things I want to do for the rest of the day, rather than things I feel I have to do.

Have a great PMing week.

Perry

Tags: leadership
Posted in Team management | No Comments »

People skills and your inner voice

June 20th, 2010

Have you ever wondered why that team member suddenly causes you more problems when you have less time to deal with them?

It’s not them.

When you get under pressure, your little inner voice, the one you ignore otherwise, starts telling you how to act. It’s a lizard voice in your lizard brain. Rarely will your voice tell you ‘be patient’, ‘ask questions’. It usually comes in the form of “get it done and deal with the people later”.

My voice tends to tell me to ‘just get it done and don’t wait for people to figure it out. You can always show them how you did it afterward”. Not very empowering for the rest of the team.

The lesson I’ve learned over the years – and still have to remember to learn – is when that lizard starts talking I come to a stop and remind myself to ‘be patient’ and ‘ask questions’.

When you start to hear that voice, whatever yours says to you, take a breath think and then act.

What about when there’s a safety issue? I suggest that the best time to make sure you aren’t causing more problems rather than calmly dealing with the situation.

Happy PMing

Perry

Tags: communication, leadership, project challenges, Teams
Posted in Team management, Uncategorized, self management | No Comments »

Project management blog recommendation

June 14th, 2010

If you don’t follow the Papercut Edge, I highly recommend you give it a try. The current series of posts are all about the 9 types of PM behaviour that you don’t want to see.

Check it out.

Happy PMing

Perry

Tags: Information, tips
Posted in Recommendation | No Comments »

The Art of Project Management

May 30th, 2010

Have you ever watched a PM be successful without an apparent methodology? Is this an example of good project management or lucky project management?

I would say, it can be both. An inexperienced PM can get lucky, and experience PM can be using their knowledge and wisdom to work the methodology without having to openly use all the tools. The challenge is, it’s not always about experience.

How do you know which one you are dealing with?

A lucky PM will eventually run out of luck. At best, when things go off track after the luck runs out, the lucky PM will be scrambling to figure out how to show what happened and figure out what the team will do. At worst, the lucky PM will struggle to figure out who to blame.

For sponsors and clients, you can ask a few questions along the way. A lucky PM will not be able to easily answer specific questions that start with what, when, and how. “How is it going?” is too easy to answer with “great!”, but “What are the current issues (there are always some issues)” is harder to answer if you don’t have a handle on the project.

A ‘good’ PM will have their finger on the project, they will produce the documentation you need but they will be able to answer the hard questions. Or, will be comfortable with saying they will need to check.

The challenges is it’s not about experience all the time. You can find highly experienced PMs who work by the methodology, they run successful projects, they can tell you exactly where in the Project Management Life Cycle the project is. You can also find inexperienced PMs who will successfully manage teams through challenging projects without referencing any methodology.

Why does this matter? PMs will bring to the project what they have: experience, people skills, communication skills, any combination of these. By understanding where your PM fits on the scale of lucky to good, you can understand how work with them.

For an internal PM, you know how to develop their skills. For a contractor or consulting PM, you can work with these concepts to hire the right type of PM for your project.

Have a great project week.

Perry

Tags: communication, consulting, execution, management, motivation, tips
Posted in Innovation, Professionalism, communication, motivation | 1 Comment »

Asking the right questions

May 23rd, 2010

I have been looking on LinkedIn a lot lately and trying to answer some of the questions raised in discussions. I found it hard to give a useful suggestion most of the time because the question was not asked with enough context.

Asking questions is a skill. For a consultant, PM or a business analyst, it’s a critical skill. It’s about asking the right questions in the right way.

What are the right questions? That depends on your objective. Who, what, when, why, how are a good place to start. Thinking about your end goal will help determine what information you need.

What are we trying to do?
When do you need to have it done?
Who will be doing the work, who will be affected by the outcomes?
Why are you trying to achieve this?
How have you done this in the past, how can we get started…?

These are all excellent questions. When the questions are framed this way the gap is context. When you start to form your questions, think about the people you will be asking, is there ambiguity in the context? Will you need to explain the background? Can your answer come in a yes/no format – this is not what you are aiming for most of the time.

Let’s look at an example.

Question:

Do you have a PMO?

Answer:

Yes or no.

This can be misleading when you go to implement a solution.

If you realize there’s more information, you might ask what does the PMO do? If you go down this route, you’ll get the information you need, eventually, but you are setting up more of an interrogation than an interview.

A new approach:

Question:

Often an organization has formal or informal project support, methodology, training and prioritization. How is this handled in your company?

Answer:

Depending on your client, you’ll get a different answer – what you will get, though is a conversation rather than an answer. The conversation will lead to a richer understanding of what, why, how, who, when.

If you think about the bigger picture of the information you need, you’ll start to form more open and encompassing questions and the result will be a better understanding of your client.

Do you have any success stories, or horror stories?

Tags: communication, consulting, Information, requirements, solutions, tips
Posted in Professionalism, communication, self employment | No Comments »

Practical Project Management

Making decisions, the project manager’s challenge

Communication Plans, the key to project success

LinkedIn discussions

Annoucement about my new venture

Team burnout

People skills and your inner voice

Project management blog recommendation

The Art of Project Management

Asking the right questions

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Perry A. Wilson, PMP, Project Management Consulting

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