The Money Files

Do you use collaboration tools on your projects? So many project managers do.

I recently did a webinar for this community about the book, answering people’s questions about collaboration tools. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to respond to everyone’s queries, so I wanted to write up some responses. I reckon that will take a couple of articles!

So what is the book all about? This might give you some context for the questions.

Collaboration Tools for Project Managers

The book is about facing the challenge of managing projects effectively using tested and reliable methods, while also making the most of new technology that is proven to help us manage projects.

It was a fun book to write. I looked at why we are moving away from the old working practices, and the benefits of different kinds of technology. I mapped project communication and team management to the project lifecycle as they relate to the ways in which you can use technology to help your team. This is the second edition and I put a lot more focus on understanding your requirements and then tool selection. This edition also has more in about security because that’s a topic people are always concerned about. And there’s quite a lot of information about the social and cultural effects of introducing new technology into a tool, like how to win over management when they don’t want to invest in a new product.

Here are some of the questions. And if you’d rather watch the webinar and see what was discussed, you can do that here.

What's changed since you wrote the book?

This is already the second edition of the book, and yet tech moves on very quickly. I think what’s been the biggest shift is the ability for tools to make more use of the data that goes into them. The arena for big data is huge, and it still isn’t really mature, at least not for the kind of tools we are talking about today. We have the possibility of making much better use of historical project data for estimating purposes, for example, and the tech is there now to do that. We just need to see vendors build that data repository into the way they intelligently surface information.

I think there’s also more of a shift towards better user interfaces and more mature Gantt charts. For a time there wasn’t much of a cross over between collaboration tools and scheduling tools. You’d end up keeping Microsoft Project or Primavera for scheduling and then have additional tools for collaboration, or you’d try to integrate tools together.

Today, more enterprise project management tools have better collaboration features, and tools strong on collaboration for project managers have better Gantt chart functionality. I still think there is a way to go in making a really nice looking, easy to use Gantt chart tool that works online, but vendors are improving their solutions all the time.

What improvements/changes are you seeing in the use of AI and bots for project management?

We are seeing some changes to the way project management tools use data, but I wouldn’t say that most of the software tools out there are particularly advanced with the use of AI and bots.

I think that tools outside of the project management space are probably doing this better, and that means we will see PM tools picking up this functionality in due course.

For example, you have probably been on a website with a chat box that pops up. If you enter your question, you might get a choice of automated responses to your question. The AI tool has interpreted what you are asking about and surfaced the correct response. They might have got it right, in which case, your chat is over. If the chat bot got it wrong, you can then go on to live chat with a human, or to leave an email message. I’m sure you’ve seen this on websites that offer a service. Project management is a service too, so in some of the projects we roll out, incorporating bots as part of the solution, like in the case of advanced user training, could be something we start to see more and more of.

How can project managers improve communication with collaboration tools?

There are a couple of points I want to make here.

First, please don’t assume that just because you add in a collaboration tool to your team, that your communication will suddenly be amazing. If you don’t have a culture of collaboration, knowledge sharing and openness, then all you will do is take your dysfunctional environment and tech enable it. In fact, you will probably make it worse, because the lack of sharing and trust will be even more obvious.

So you need to start from a place with decent communication channels, or work to get those alongside your work to implement new technology.

Having said that, collaboration tools can and do improve team communication. I’ve seen it on the projects I’ve worked on and through the project managers I mentor. The main advantages are:

Speed – it’s faster to collaborate with people if you can see when they are online and available for conversation, and you often get a faster reply through a tool than on email or through booking a meeting. This is great for getting answers from subject matter experts who don’t work on your project full time, but will only work if the whole company is using the software.

Clarity – a lot of miscommunication is avoided because you are forced to be more precise on a collaboration tool and they tend to be more inclusive too. This can help people really understand what is being asked of them.

History – you can see the history of the conversation. This is great in fast paced environments where things change often. You can go back and find out why that decision was made or who edited the document, and that can give you useful insights into how the project has ended up where it is now. It can also save you, if you have a sponsor with a poor memory, because you have a full audit trail of conversations.

I’ll share some more questions and answers next time!

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When estimating feels like nothing more than a best (even educated) guess, how can you improve your project results? Great – or at least effective – estimating is something that can vastly improve your stakeholders’ confidence levels, help your team plan their work better and give you more chance of hitting your budget or time targets. So why does it feel so hard?

In this infographic I share 5 tips for making estimating that little bit easier. What other advice do you have for improving the estimating process with your team? Let us know in the comments!

You can read more about some of the ideas on this infographic in this article.

Hello again, and welcome to another column in what has now become established as a regular-ish feature on The Money Files blog: What’s New In the PMBOK Guide®-- Sixth Edition. Last month I took my second look at Project Resource Management (read Part 1 here and Part 2, on Estimate Activity Resources here). Today, it’s the turn of the third process in this knowledge area: Acquire Resources.

The name of this process is slightly different to what you might remember from the last version. Previously, the process was Acquire Project Team. I think the updated name is better, not because it’s cool to refer to people as ‘resources’ (it’s not) but because it is a broader description of the resources required to run a project.

‘Resources’ can include equipment, and even the budget. And as we are using it to refer to people, it can also mean getting the support and buy in of people who aren’t directly on the core team.

Acquire Resources Process

This is the third process in the Knowledge Area. We’re now in the Executing process group.

This process is where you get what you need to do the project, be that people, supplies, equipment, facilities, a temporary office or whatever.

Inputs

There are two new inputs, which are:

Project management plan: This simply replaces the ‘human resource management plan’ that was in the last version. As with a lot of these changes, they have made the inputs broader. Instead of referencing the particular pages within the project management plan, the reference is to the whole thing.

This makes a lot more sense to me because it’s clearer that the project management plan is one document with sub-sections and not lots of documentation (although it could be… tailoring, right?). Also, there might be other sections of the plan that are useful for securing resources including the procurement management plan (as you don’t want to go over budget) and the resource management plan.

Project documents: Again we see this vague input here. It could basically cover anything but most likely you’ll be thinking about:

• The project schedule, so you can plan when resources are required
• Resource calendars, which make more sense here than in the previous process. You can’t secure resources if they are off on long term sick leave or have planned maternity leave just at the point you need them.
• Resource requirements, which will be documented somewhere and relate to what you need – you can’t acquire what you don’t know about
• Stakeholder register.

You can also include other documentation as required, like the assumptions log – there might be things in here relating to how tasks need to be carried out.

Tools and Techniques

There are 4 tools and techniques for this process. Negotiation, acquisition and multi-criteria decision analysis have been removed. That leaves us with pre-assignment and virtual teams.

The two new ones are:

Technique: Decision making. Multi-criteria decision analysis is something that fits into the broader category of decision making, so it hasn’t really disappeared, just been ‘rolled up’. Personally I find it strange to consider decision making something to be used specifically here. Don’t we make decisions all the time? You probably do multi-criteria decision analysis every single day without calling it that. It’s just part of the job.

In case you aren’t sure what it means, it’s taking lots of factors into account when making a decision. For resource allocation, this could include:

• Availability of the resource
• How much it costs
• Whether the person has the right skills and experience
• Whether the person has the right attitude and temperament for the project
• The location of the resource and whether it (or they) can be transported to the project’s location as required, or whether it (or they) can be used virtually.

Technique: Interpersonal and team skills. Negotiation is something that fits into the broader category of interpersonal skills, so that hasn’t really disappeared either. You may have to negotiate to get the resources that you need.

Outputs

The outputs to this process have changed quite a lot, but there’s nothing surprising here. Project staff assignments have dropped out. That leaves resource calendars and project management plan updates, plus some new ones.

We have:

Physical resource assignments: these relate to the non-people resources that you need for the project.

Project team assignments: these relate to the people that you need for the project. You should also document what those people are going to do e.g. roles and responsibilities.

Change requests: I don’t know why this doesn’t appear more frequently. Carrying out any process may result in something changing. Perhaps the specific reference here relates to the fact that when you are trying to book resources, you’ll often find you can’t have who you want when you want and that may change the schedule.

Project documents updates: Lots of documents might get updated as a result of this process. As a prompt, some are listed in the PMBOK Guide®-- Sixth Edition including the lessons learned register, the project schedule, the resource breakdown structure, resource calendars, the risk register and the stakeholder register. Update whatever you think needs updating.

Enterprise environmental factors updates: There might be some need to update enterprise information for some reason, perhaps if you have a central resource pool, for example.

Organisational process assets updates: There might be some incredible insight you’ve gained through securing resources for this project that means you have to change the way the whole organisation deals with resource management and results in you updating OPAs.

That’s the end of this process. The Knowledge Area has 3 more processes to work through, so next time I’ll take a look at Develop Team.

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In this quick video I share three different ways to track schedule performance. Do you use these methods already? Let me know in the comments below.

If you’d like to read more about this, or you just can’t watch the videos where you are, then you can read more about schedule tracking in this article.

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You might be lucky enough to be working with contract managers on your project. This is normally the case if you have a massive procurement to do, or there are lots of high-value contracts relating to what you are building. Think civil engineering projects, construction, oil and gas – that kind of thing.

However, contract management is also a skill that many of us have to have by default, because we don’t have contract management personnel available to our projects. If you aren’t working on the country’s biggest IT project supporting the national infrastructure, perhaps you will have to manage the contracts and relationships with suppliers yourself.

So what does that mean for you? Here are 5 of the essential skills a good contract manager needs. Can you see the overlap with project management?

1.  Communication Skills

I can’t actually think of many jobs that don’t need decent communication skills, so this one should be a given.

2. Contract Awareness

You need to understand the contract. That might sound obvious, but it’s amazing how difficult some contracts are to read and understand. You’ll have to explain parts of the contract to people who have no idea what any of the legal speak means.

If you think this is something you’ll have to do a lot, it would be worth preparing a short, easy to understand executive summary of the contract to use. You’re trying to highlight the key provisions, and what each party has signed up to.

3. Negotiation

You’d expect this as well, and there is normally a fair amount of negotiation to do in all areas on projects. This is a huge part of the day to day work of a full-time contract manager because they will be talking to suppliers all the time.

Negotiation with third parties involves preparation work, and looking for points of mutual interest from which to craft solutions that work for everyone. You’re trying to be proactive but get the best outcome for your own side of the discussions. It’s also important to be fair and respectful, because that’s the tone you want to set for your relationship.

4. Risk Management

Another key project management area that is useful in the contracting environment.

A contract manager – or a project manager fulfilling the role of a contract manager – should be looking for the risks in the relationships.

These could be:

• New vendors whom you haven’t worked with before – there’s a risk they won’t be very good
• Vendors who are struggling financially – there’s a risk they might tip over into insolvency or financial difficulties
• Risks related to specific areas of the contract, such as contract terms about liability or indemnity
• Risks related to specific deliverables from the contract, that you have asked the vendor to track and manage or mitigate on your behalf

And I’m sure you can think of others. The point is to make sure that contract and vendor risks are managed in the same way as your other areas of project risk.

5. Conflict Resolution

When negotiation and risk management don’t go to plan, you could find yourself in a conflict situation. Being able to successful deal with that is another important skill for contract managers.

You’re looking for an outcome that supports the relationship, assuming that it is worth saving. Conflict resolution includes a range of different options from sitting down and talking together through to the more formally defined options like alternative dispute resolution or ending up in court for litigation. Which, for the avoidance of doubt, I would suggest you strongly avoid!

Ideally, you should be sorting out any conflicts in an agreeable and professional way. As well as being generally nicer to do it that way, you will save your company a lot of money in legal costs.

Whether you have a contract manager doing the contract discussions for you, or you are being your own procurement expert, these are the skills that will help you get the best out of the contract.

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