Posts Tagged ‘management’

The Art of Project Management

Sunday, 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

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Posted in Innovation, Professionalism, communication, motivation | 1 Comment »

Dirty little project management secret

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Project Managers sometime fly by the seat of their pants. Okay, now it’s out in the open.

Some PMs do this all the time. They like the rollercoaster ride, they love the heroics and they see creativity in the pressures of the deadlines and drama.

This approach can be successful depending on the culture of the organization, and the complexity of the projects. Low complexity projects can be successful with a pantser approach; high complexity projects can’t always (I’d say more like can’t ever) be successful this way.

So let’s think about a big complex project and how pantsing can work, or not work.

Can work – in unforeseen risks and issue resolution. You can find creativity in groups when you start with “so what might we do” rather than “what are the main strategies we can apply to this issue?”

Can’t work – if it’s your main risk strategy. You will have risks that you identify and can’t think of a strategy – the strategy becomes, we will try to figure it out if it happens. If all your risks have this strategy you are going to burn people out and destroy your credibility.

Can work – when you are trying to create a new and innovative product or service. When gathering requirements for your product, you can engage the stakeholders in free form sessions of what might be possible.

Can’t work – when your project has complex regulatory requirements. You need to have controls and a clear direction to meet all the requirements. You can’t figure them out as you go along.

Can work – when you are trying to find a way to recognize and reward people. It’s fine to figure out fun things to do at milestones. It can bring the team together to create an on the spot celebration.

Can’t work – in resolving conflicts within the team. You need to have a consistent and clear approach to managing conflict. It creates trust within the team if they know how things will be dealt with.

Tell us about your thoughts on planning v spontaneity.

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Communication – why is it so hard?

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

I’ve been looking around at blogs for inspiration for today’s post. It seems like communication is a popular topic for bloggers. It is a complex topic with plenty of aspects for thousands of blog posts, even though it sounds simple. How hard is it to be clear, paraphrase for clarity, follow up, listen… and all the other tips people have out there.

Well, the answer is, it’s hard because everyone has buttons that set them off, some people know how to control their own buttons, some people don’t know what their buttons are so they always seem to be going off on an unexpected direction. It’s hard because we don’t communicate in a vacuum; the pm’s voice is only one of many the person is listening to at any given time. And, it’s hard because the project priorities are not the only priorities the person has, often work priorities get drowned out in personal priorities.

Yes, so it’s hard, but you can’t give up. You are a PM; if something isn’t hard, it’s not worth doing. You are super leader, problem solver, communicator, change manager, and there is no kryptonite excuse.

Communication never gets easy. If you think you’ve figured out the team, or the person, you are living in an old paradigm. The expression, the only constant is change, applies to people too. As soon as you find success in working with a team, something will change; you need to keep your spidey senses pinging the environment and adjusting your style to accommodate the needs of your team.

How do you do this? Well, the steps are pretty simple. You need to be clear in your communications, you need to paraphrase, or ask them to paraphrase to ensure common understanding, and you need to follow up.  The caveat to this – aka the first complication – is that you need to do it without coming across as a micro manager.

Complication #2 – you have to understand your own emotional triggers and control them. Just because you’ve told this person four times how to present the status of their work package, doesn’t mean you can snap at them on the fifth time. Their functional manager may have asked for different information and confused the issue.

Complication #3 – rumors can confuse the message. The worse situation is when you need to have the team pull together to meet a deadline and the rumor mill is buzzing with information about your project being cancelled. You can’t control the rumor mill; you can be clear and constant about the truth, as you know it.

Complication #4 – things change. You may have just informed your team about a key decision that impacts the budget, scope or resources on your project, only to have your sponsor tell you the decision has been reversed, deferred, or otherwise changed. Now you will have to re-communicate to the team.  Which is a nice lead into…

Complication # 5 – people don’t trust that the message won’t change. This lack of credibility can cripple a communication plan. You need to figure out how to deliver messages that change or seem to conflict with credibility and confidence. It may sound impossible, but functional managers do it all the time. This is where your ability to be confident and honest in communicating is put to the test.

Here are some links to article on communication.

Communication styles

Communication Styles at Work

Effective Communication

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Scope expansion, or scope creep

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

Scope can be the most difficult thing to control in a project. We all want to make sure we meet expectations, and, often it takes a long time to define the expectations. So, where does scope definition end and scope creep begin?

Scope on target or off target

Scope on target or off target

I have drawn the line for scope clarity at the point when the charter is signed. At that point, you should have had sufficient discussion around scope, using the WBS and the scope statement, to get the right scope. The right scope for every project is different. It can expand and contract through the planning process. The important thing to remember is that you need to spend the time in the scoping and planning process. If you rush to get sign off, you’ll be making scope changes as you execute – and your project will look and feel out of control.

When you have achieved sign off, and you have the right scope for your project, then you enter the scope management process. Scope creep can happen now. All scope creep means is that you have allowed – yes, you the PM – the project scope to increase without analysing the impact on the triple constraint, and getting an approval. You need to start scope management as soon as the ink dries on the charter.

Where does scope creep usually come from? In my experience, your sponsor is actually the least likely to contribute to creep. The sponsor is usually more aware of the costs of adding scope than other people, and if between you, you’ve diligently identified scope, they won’t need to add anything. I think there are 3 sources of scope creep.

Stakeholders, some may not understand the goals of the project and some disagree with the goals.  They ask to add in the little things that will take the project off course, and closer to what they need. How to deal with this? I’ve found success in a two-step process. First, review the goals and scope with them to identify where there may be alignment between the project goals and the changes. Then, unless they agree to withdraw the request, go through the agreed scope management process.  If the sponsor signs off, you change the scope and no creep exists.

Project team workers are a second source. This usually comes in the form of enhancements during design. This source of scope creep is probably easiest to prevent and the hardest to control. Prevention comes in the form of early and clear communication of the scope and the process to change scope on the project.  Control is difficult because the changes are generally small but the cumulative effect can be significant. Often you are playing catch up and managing after the fact.  When this happens, discuss the consequences of the change with the person who made it; remind them of the process, but be careful not to stifle creativity by over reacting.

The final source of scope creep, you the PM. Some time you’ll have a great idea to incorporate a strategic change into the project, or a new technology, or a budget savings, or any number of great ideas. It is critical that you follow the process of scope change; your sponsor is counting on you to manage the team and yourself.  I remember the time that I dropped in on a new PM at the end of the day. She was staring at the charter; it didn’t take a lot of perception to know something was wrong. She confessed that she’d gone ahead with her project and incorporated some great ideas. The problem was when she checked the charter in preparation for meeting with her sponsor, she had moved away from the original purpose of the project. Your best tool for keeping yourself on track is to check your great idea against the charter, just the way your handle stakeholders, you need to asses the impact of the change, and follow the change management process.

Here are a few good articles relating to scope creep.

Collegiate project

Project Perfect

Tech Republic

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs as a project tool

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

In the eighties, it was fashionable for management teams to go away for retreats to learn the latest managment theory and how to apply it in the workplace to better lead their teams. I’m sure you can guess that after the retreat managers made some efforts to apply the new skills, but life and work got in the way. The latest theory joined the rest of the management flavours of the day, ignored and put on the shelf.  I think that’s a big loss, these theories were valuable and, with a chance to become ingrained, could have helped more companies become more successful.

This blog posting will touch on the theory of hierarchical needs, from Abraham Maslow. There are links below to a few other theories for thought. In short Abraham Maslow theorized that people have certain basic needs that must be met before they can move on.  Here’s what it looks like.

A graphic representation of the priority of needs

A graphic representation of the priority of needs

Looking at this from the top down – just to be different. One day you are sitting there, enjoying the day, thinking big generous trusting thoughts. The world is everyone’s oyster, peace on earth, etc. Suddenly you need to pee; no problem, you go to the bathroom. Problem,  the door is jammed shut. Your priority drops to the next layer, what will people think if you have to go to a neighbor asking to use their bathroom? You shake the door handle again, no luck, drop another level as you start the pee dance. Where are your family, why is the door locked. Drop down again, what the heck are you going to do, why are you living in such a crappy house, isn’t there some kind of standard for bathroom doors? Drop down another level, to heck with the rules, you kick in the door and solve your basic problem.

So, think about how this relates to your project teams. Are you making sure their basic needs are met? Do they have to work overtime to meet deadlines? If so, where do you think their minds are as stomachs start to growl, and they enter work hour thirteen? Once the basic needs are taken care of, you need to ask about the work environment. Is it conducive to work; are your team members confined in stuffy rooms? Do they have a place where they can go to think? Is there enough trust to allow people to take a risk?

At belongingness and love – you don’t have to hug everyone – you need to make sure there’s social interaction; chatting around the coffee station, a football pool, these make for a feeling of camaraderie.  Satisfying the need for esteem comes from recognition activities, interesting assignments, and leadership opportunities.

Getting to the top is a bit different, I believe people take themselves to the top, that’s why it’s called self-actualization; you can’t take them. What you can do as the leader is help take care of the rest of the pyramid and create the possibility for people to get there.

So how does this impact your project? When people are in the lower levels of the pyramid, you tend to get crisis management. People are unsure of the safety and security of their basic needs to do the job – maybe it’s as simple as they don’t understand what the project is trying to accomplish – they take actions to create stability and security. In the belongingness and esteem areas, you have team members helping each other to succeed, and making sure there’s spotlight to share.

It’s well worth reviewing some of the fundamentals of people management theory – I think you’ll recognize so of the aspects of current people management trends there.

Tip, check some of these links out.

Maslow

Herzberg – an interesting idea that explains why money doesn’t always motivate people

McGregor – theory X and theory Y management, different styles work in different environments

Hawthorn – sometimes just paying attention helps

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