It’s been a crazy two weeks: dad passed away and I moved. Dad went quickly and in his sleep. We know he wasn’t going to make it so we were able to say goodbye and we are all very sad when we think about it.

The move went well from the perspective of the moving, but the place was so dirty I couldn’t unpack. Then I went away for two days to work with a client. So it’s been more than a week, and I just unpacked the last box today.

So, I’ve learned, or relearned a great lesson over the last two weeks.

When things get hairy, review your priorities and make a list of what you can get done. There will be things you can’t do, you need to let them go and not worry about trying to fit them in.

For me, it’s important to make sure I get at least a half hour of down time a day – watching TV, reading, or just listening to music. If I neglect that short break, I lose my ability to be productive and become easily overwhelmed. With that break, I can keep going on my must do list.

For a PM it is important to know what you need to do to keep your head above water. What specific tasks must be done? Is there something that needs to be on the list because you will feel like you should have done it? For me this blog was that thing. Two weeks in a row not posting was not acceptable.

If you can find out what you need to make you feel productive, you may become better with recognizing when your team needs to break, or push a bit harder.

Think about which lessons you keep having to learn. Are they the exact same lessons, or is there a little step forward each time?

Happy PMing.

Perry

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

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?

I found a new way to reach out to people on the Internet, and increase my visibility. Over the last few months I have been creating and publishing articles for Ezinearticles.com.

It isn’t a source of income, you publish articles for free. It’s a way to get your name in front of potential clients and drive traffic to your website. When I publish an article, I am putting up fodder for newsletters. People looking for articles to fill a newsletter go to Ezinearticles.com and take content. I benefit because my bio contains a link to my web page and any pertinent information I want to put there.

I do get stats on the number of times someone has checked out my article, and if someone has used it. Just not who.

It’s free to put articles up, the articles are vetted and may be changed a bit to make them more saleable. I have written separate articles and tweaked blog posts for publishing and I’m heading towards the next level of membership – not sure yet what that means.

So, if you have information – or even well formed opinions and advice – consider dropping by to Ezinearticles and giving them a try. They give you guidance and ideas to help you get started.

Have a great week.

Perry

How Project Management Can Help You With Any Business

No matter what business you are in, you have goals and intentions.  From the largest corporation to the smallest home-based business, projects are being started every day.  Without proper management of these projects, all the effort, time, and money are wasted.

The Changing Work Place

It is widely known that change is the only constant in the world.  We see changes in innovation and technology development daily.  People and companies are trying to keep up with all these new products and ideas, with some handling it better than others.

As organizations pursue their goal to reduce the cost of running a business, they are also trying to deal with the changes occurring all around them.  In misguided attempts to stay competitive, many companies are “downsizing” their employees.

For a company to survive the challenges of change, it must change as well.  New ways of looking at employees, new thoughts on preserving its business, and a new dedication to keeping in the forefront of its industry.

To survive a changing environment is only possible if we keep pace with and accept change.

An increasing number of employees are working from home instead of the office.  The use of computers and Internet technologies are a must not only for those working at home, but for every business that is trying to become or remain successful.  Vital for every organization is the technology of computers and the Internet.

The greatest challenges posed by the changing workplace are collaboration and communication.

One requirement of the changing workplace is that we need to be updated and well informed all the time.  Access to updated data and information regarding any business activity is a must.  Sharing information in real-time can guarantee success for organization and individuals alike.

Guarantee the success of organizations and individuals, by sharing of expertise and information in a timely manner.

How a Project Management System Can Help

Challenges in the changing workplace might seem impossible to overcome, but they can become simplified when a proper Project Management Plan is used.

The project management system may be the single best solution for the collaboration needs of any organization.  A project management system is multi-functional software that performs tasks like resource allocation, communication, budget management, quality management, report generation, cost and quality control.

Also, communication, information sharing and administrating are simplified and made much easier through use of a project management system.

Scheduling is an element of a project management system. According to the time limit and given resources the project management system divides the projects into a series of tasks and makes the handling of even complex projects very easy. It enables you to make the best possible use of time and resources.

Another great benefit provided by the project management system is communication. The project management system has a central database, which the permitted users can use to track the work progress and get updated information and data easily. It predicts any kind of problem that can arise in the project and removes uncertainties and ambiguities related to projects. From report generation to risk analysis, project management is very useful. It clearly defines the path to follow and contribution required at every level and from every employee.

These are just a few functions of a project management system. With proper implementation and use, it can help overcome great challenges that otherwise seem impossible. Thus, by making the collaboration, communication and working possible across the organization, the project management system helps the company meets the challenges of an ever-changing workplace.

Jason Westland has 15 years experience in the project management industry. From his experience he has created software to help speed up the management process. If you would like to find out more information about Jason’s  online project management software.

Money can be as little as the cost of your chapter event. PMI West Coast chapter has monthly events, lovely dinner, great speakers, and 3 PDUs for $45. Or as expensive as a PMI seminar. Great workshops, fabulous advice, and usually a great location. Moneywise, cost of event + cost of hotel + cost of travel = expensive.

Time can be based on volunteering, writing articles or books, or simply doing project management work.

At the West Coast chapter event this week, I heard from a fellow PMP that he was running out of time. He has 3 PDUs and 6 months to get the other 57. I suggested he write an article for the chapter newsletter. Something he hadn’t considered.

If you write a blog, you already have at least the start of an article. I created an article for ezinearticles.com from a blog post about estimating. This site is great for building your credibility and driving traffic to your website.

Most SGIs have newsletters and will be happy to include articles in an issue.

Have a great week of project management.

The dream of gathering absolutely complete requirements is just that, a dream.You will find no matter how detailed or complete, or ‘approved as final’ your requirements are, things will change. That isn’t a failure of the requirements, it’s a fact of project management.  If you try to perfect the beginning, you’ll never start your development or build phase.

If there is no element of uncertainty, I don’t think you have a project.

The PM’s job is to manage what happens: issues, changes, delays, opportunities. Doing a great job of gathering requirements only resolves the questions at the beginning of the project. The client or stakeholder, or sponsor will have new ideas as they get new information. The market demands change. The longer the time frame of the project the more likely you will have changes.

Doing a great job of gathering requirements is only one part of the project start. You need to develop your scope change management plan as well. That plan will include your process of assessing changes against the project drivers and making recommendations.

A good scope change plan will help the PM manage ‘pet’ ideas as well as fabulous ideas that everyone loves but will have a significant impact on the time, cost and quality of the original project.

Happy PMing

Well, we know the answer to that is at least two sided. First, they need the skills and then they need time. Department managers learn to put out fires and ‘deal’ with problems. They don’t achieve success by keeping their boss informed of problems and challenges and they don’t necessarily provide periodic status reporting. And, they have day jobs. They can’t set aside their day job to do a project.

The reality right now is that operations and projects are getting mixed together. Whether that can be successful in the long term is questionable, history doesn’t predict that it will be, but I think in the short term, there’s a way to support businesses through successful project delivery.

Some project managers who go the self employed route set up as contractors. They go in and do a great job managing a project and then they get out.

Others go the route of consultant. They may still go in to do a project, the difference is that while there, a consultant will look for opportunities to improve processes, set up new ways of dealing with projects in the future and leave lessons behind purposefully.

From a perspective of the business, project management contractors fill in shortages of capacity. Too many projects for a short term to complete with internal leadership. As the company grows, some of the contractors will be invited to become permanent employees.

For the business person, a consultant will suggest changes to improve, streamline, and change, the business processes to increase capacity of the internal team. As the company grows, consultants are asked to do more of this work and may temporarily fill a gap in competency.

The world needs both, contractors and consultants, as much as it needs employees. The key to success for the project professional is to know which you are, consultant or contractor. The key to success for the business person is to know what you need.

Have a successful week.

I’ve been chatting with clients over the last week and I think I now have an answer – at least for me, your answer might be different.

I take the complex and simplify it. When my client says “it’s a lot of work”, I get excited. I can take the ‘lot of work’ and make it manageable. I love doing that!

Yes, I report on status, I manage issues and risks and I communicate and support others in communicating. But, what I do first, is simplify. I remember a book I read on consulting that answered the question ‘how do you eat an elephant’ – one bite at a time.

So, I take the elephant and I carve it into bite sized pieces. I pull the overwhelming list of activities out of my client’s mind and give it back to them as a schedule.

What’s your answer to the question “what does a project manager do?”

Happy PMing.

So, how do you know? As the PM how do you recognize the difference between firefighting and issue management?

What does issue management look like?

No matter how fast the issues come, the PM and the team can assess the issue against the goals of the project and prioritize the use of resources for resolution. The PM can make the distinction between real issues and things that will go away if you wait.

Issues are resolved based on the long view – the desired result, the alignment to strategy, the market place. Any number of criteria that drive the project. The PM knows what the project drivers are. What takes precedence, cost, time, or quality? Recommendations are aligned with that priority.

What does firefighting look like?

Issues come fast and frequently. The same issue keeps rising because it’s not resolved completely. Issues are resolved on the approach of “how do I get this out of my face’. There’s no consistent priority of resources to the issues. People are pulled from one to the other issue, working on the latest problem before resolving the current fire.

Projects overrun schedule and budget and don’t often meet the quality. Scope creeps, customers are unsatisfied.

So, Perry, don’t hold back say what you really mean.

I’ve been in both situations. In the firefighting project, the team was so stressed that I joked about having a counselling shingle hanging outside my door. No one ever knew they had done the right thing. The project was a success but at the cost of 12 – 14 hour days and quality all over the place. There was no clear understanding of what the criteria were for meeting a compliance standard. As a result, time, energy and money were spent meeting the highest overall standard when we only needed to meet the specific standards.

In a similar project that used an issue management approach we met the right standard, with fewer people and money over a shorter time period.

There were fewer real issues, and we knew how to deal with the issues that would go away with time.

In my experience, the keys to avoiding firefighting lie in the initiation and planning of a project. The PM and the sponsor need to clearly determine the priorities on the drivers to allow the project team to produce aligned recommendations when issues need to be resolved.

Clarity between the PM and the sponsor on decision making authority can alleviate the effort required to resolve issues as the project proceeds.

Close and frequent communication with the sponsor at the early stages of the project will build a level of trust between them. When there is trust between the PM and the sponsor, things go smoothly – well as smoothly as a project can go.

What is the one thing you would advise a PM to do if they want to get a better handle on issue management?