If you can’t figure out how the positive people are feeling, you will focus on the verbal negative people.

Good luck

Perry

Do any of these describe you?

1. You have just been assigned a project off the side of your desk and have no idea how to start
2. You have been picked as the sponsor of a project (big or small) and you don’t know what to expect from a PM
3. Your projects (as a sponsor or assigned PM) are getting off track
4. As the sponsor you have no idea if your projects are on track or not
5. As a business leader/owner you have too many projects on the list and no way to prioritize

Whether you have to lead or sponsor the project, it’s important to know what to expect. How do you start a project so that it’s more likely to be a success?

1. scope statements will detail what you will or won’t deliver
2. success and closing criteria will help keep you on track
3. good governance documented in a charter will help keep the project moving

How do you manage communications? Who get what information?

1. status reporting will provide an overview for most audiences
2. a communication plan will help identify who your audiences are for each communication
3. a stakeholder management plan will help keep everyone up to date based on their needs.

Shameless plug

I have a course designed as a full day workshop designed for the business person that leads you through the process from initiation to project closure.

If you are interested check out my training courses or contact me directly perry@perryawilsonconsulting.com

Happy PMing

Perry

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 have come up with these 5 steps to make sure our phone communications are as effective as possible.

1. think about what you need to accomplish; for the client and for the project
2. set up the meeting as though you were going to be face-to-face; send an agenda ahead of time, even if there is only one agenda item.
3. clarify at the beginning of the call why you are talking and what needs to be achieved, and at then end what the next steps might be
4. be clear who will call whom.
5. document the outcomes immediate after the call.

This has worked really well for me and I’m sure you have other suggestions. What do you do to make sure your distance communications are as effective as your face-to-face communications?

Happy PMing

Perry

I have worked with teams to develop plans with little in the way of specs. We needed to do this to fill out information in the business case – true with lots of projects I’m sure. Without some concept of the cost, time and resources involved, the client doesn’t have a way to properly prioritize the project.

I’ve worked with teams to develop plans that result in an RFP – the only way to understand clearly enough what to put in the RFP was to develop a draft plan.

When I’m faced with this situation I usually start building a plan from the top down and from phase 1 forward. I don’t think this is agile, because we are working with a waterfall schedule, but it does give the client and the team the ability to provide details on what they know and not try to put details into the unknown.

Key to the success of this is communication and team leadership. Communicate frequently and clearly that the plan is draft so that you can minimize the expectations of the stakeholder. Keep the team excited about the possibilities so they don’t get tied to a solution that might not make the cut.

What do you do in this situation?

Happy PMing

Perry

How about setting a goal for customer satisfaction? If you set some standards of performance, you can measure them at the end. If your team has a challenge with customer communication, one way to improve it is to make it a part of the success of the project.

Is stakeholder management a challenge? How about finding a way to measure the satisfaction your stakeholders feel at the end of the project.

These two ideas require that someone in the team take on a role of management. If you want to measure  satisfaction, you start by agreeing on what that means and you have to continue to check throughout the project that you are meeting the expectations. Does it mean you have to do everything the client  or stakeholder wants? No. It means you need to manage the expectations and keep in communication with people.

Have you used something interesting for success measures on your projects? Leave a comment with your ideas.

Happy PMing.

Perry

The reason we status report seems to have gotten lost in the search for a new format of status reports. We report to keep people apprised of the status of the project. We use whatever tool fits best within the organization, or methodology.

The key elements of status reporting are,

1. where we thought we would be based on the last approved baseline and where we really are
2. what we see as issues that the sponsor needs to help resolve, and how they need to help
3. what we see coming up that is just a heads up – and what we’re doing about it

If you are reporting clearly and honestly on these three points, the status report has value. If not, here’s the problem,

1. Where we are v where we thought we would be. If you are trying to provide a more optimistic picture, you’ll mislead the sponsor, and lose your credibility
2. If you are trying to show you can solve the issues when it’s really in the hands of your sponsor, you are going to have to come to the table for help when you are at the end of your resources. The sponsor wants to help, let them get in there and do their job.
3. If you don’t tell your sponsor what’s coming up – and say whether you need help or not – you’ll look like you are blindsiding them when they hear it from someone else.

So, the point is, status reporting is communication and if you communicate the right things clearly and objectively, the format is just a tool.

What do you think about status reporting? Do you have a story to share?

Happy PMing

Perry

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

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

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