The Money Files

I think it’s important to understand project requirements.

I get that people want to be flexible and work things out as they go. But if you don’t know where you are going, how do you know if you’re on the right track?

It doesn’t matter to me how those requirements are documented. You can write user stories, or put together a waterfall-inspired requirements traceability matrix.

The important thing is that they are documented. The journey you’re on needs a destination.

Of course that destination might change. That’s what change control is for, or backlog grooming. You pick and choose as you go, being flexible and making alterations that mean you constantly add value. But at least there is some goal.

I’m thinking particularly of a project team that thankfully I wasn’t part of, but I know it was very frustrating for the project manager. Their role changed from being a ‘proper’ project manager to being someone who oversaw a team doing lots of small ad hoc developments and changes that felt very much like BAU enhancements, with no end in sight.

He needed to get out of that project, because effectively what had happened was he’d morphed into the role of product owner and the project had drifted into being a live service, without a formal close down and handover.

And I’ve been on projects where there hasn’t been anyone to handover to, so I’ve had to keep the support elements until someone could be made available. That is not fun.

 So if your project stakeholders are more inclined towards drifting to the finish line than working out the map to deliver their vision, then here are 3 benefits of documenting requirements to share with them.

1. A winding journey is a slow one

Do they want to get to the destination quickly or not? Perhaps slow is the correct approach. But in my experience businesses want fast results, with the least amount of money and resource time spent on getting there.

You can’t do that if you are constantly fire-fighting, dealing with changes, doing rework and coping with the misunderstandings and lack of clarity that come from not knowing what you are doing.

2. Better requirements = Better cost management

The same people who are reluctant to help you prioritise what should really be in scope could easily be the same people telling you to do the project cheaply and to keep an eye on cost.

If you know what’s in scope, you can budget better. The more stable your requirements – or at least the end goal – the easier it is to work out what it’s going to cost to get there, and how much you are prepared for that figure to be.

3. Documentation helps formalise the project

Is it really a project, or is it a piece of BAU continuous improvement?

If it’s truly a project, you should know it has a start, a middle and an end. You might not know exactly how you are going to get there. You might manage the work in different ways, with different methodologies or approaches. But ultimately, you know it’s going to finish.

Without documentation, it’s not clear to me whether it’s a real project. If you can’t articulate what you are doing, and your sponsor isn’t prepared to put it in writing, then that’s a red flag for me.

You can still put things in writing, however informally, and caveat them with saying things might all look different once the work starts or whatever. But having documentation increases engagement and makes the project work more formal. Which in turn makes it easier to get resources to commit to doing tasks.

Whether you are preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam, or one of the other many project management certifications you can do, good prep helps you succeed.

The infographic below shows five tips for preparing for your project management exam. These aren’t the only examples of good practice for exam prep, but they are the things I try to live by when I take exams – although it has been a while since my last classroom experience!

Remember why you are doing this: professional certification exams are hard. In one of mine, I had to write essays – it’s not often your work exposes you to situations where you have to handwrite for so long. You’re putting yourself through it because it’s worth it, for your professional development.

Write down your study plan: having a plan only works if it is visual and you can see it. We’re project managers, this part should be easy!

Take enough breaks: I feel guilty when I’m not studying when I know I have an exam coming up, but you need to be balanced and take time off too.

Sleep well: I have trouble doing this at the best of times! But do try to make an effort to get an early night the evening before your exam.

Treat yourself afterwards: You’ve put a lot of effort into getting to the exam itself. In the PMP® exam, you’ll know instantly if you have passed or not. Other exams require you to wait until the paper has been marked and you are notified afterwards. That can be quite a nerve-wracking time! Plan something else to do to take your mind off waiting, or to celebrate and wind down immediately afterwards. You’ve earned it!

Whether it’s raised eyebrows and eyerolling or a full-on shouting match, projects are a conflict-inflicted environment!

You could be on the receiving end of the conflict because team members or stakeholders have fallen out over something. Or you could be contributing to it, having to address an issue such as not having enough money to complete the work.

As a self-confessed conflict avoider, I have always wanted to get conflict dealt with and out the way as soon as possible, so we can all get back to work. Here are 3 options for diffusing conflict situations on a project.

1. Take the heat out of the situation

One option – one of my favourites because it’s not confrontational – is to help everyone calm down a bit.

Oftentimes, a problem doesn’t look so bad with a bit of distance, and the heat disappears from the conflict.

The simplest thing to do here is to draw a line under the conversation, take a pause, and say you’ll come back to the conflict-causing topic at another time.

Remember to actually address the topic at that time, though, otherwise you just cause seething resentment in the team members who want to air their views and haven’t had the opportunity to.

If you are one of those people who can diffuse tension in a room with a joke, go for it. I’m not, so I wouldn’t risk saying something not very funny and making the situation worse, so I opt for calm voices, and a short pause in proceedings.

2. Agree

It’s so difficult to be rude or argumentative to someone who agrees with you. I don’t remember who I learned this from as a retail assistant in a busy shop while I was at college, but it certainly works with angry customers.

If you aren’t defensive, they stop fighting. It’s no fun arguing with someone who isn’t arguing back and who appears to actually be on your side.

Obviously, this isn’t going to work in every scenario. You can’t agree with a construction worker who is choosing not to wear protective gear on a building site and causing a fuss about it.

But in some situations, this is a good technique to try. You can always move the discussion along and use other techniques if necessary.

3. Say you are sorry

Again, this isn’t a solution appropriate for every project conflict situation. However, you shouldn’t be above saying sorry. If the mistake is yours, own it. Sometimes that’s all people want – for someone else to accept the issue happened and to own up to it.

I’ve been in meetings where I’ve taken the blame for something the project team did (collectively) as I’m the one who is responsible for the successful delivery. And we didn’t deliver. That’s on me. The body language of the person with the complaint changed significantly after I said sorry. The discussion moved on.

These 3 techniques aren’t going to win you any peace treaty awards, but for day-to-day small gripes and grumbles on a team, they are easy things to try. What’s your best tip for keeping the peace on a project?

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Payback period is a term that you’ll seen on business cases and in other project selection documentation. It’s a criteria that helps organisations decide if they want to go ahead with a project or not.

But what is it? And how can we use it to our advantage?

Payback period refers to the amount of time required for your investment to pay back. In other words, it’s the time taken to ‘earn’ the amount of the original investment.

Let’s say you own a hotel. You build a penthouse room on the top. It costs £100,000 to build (you get the materials very cheaply! Go with me, this amount makes the maths easier).

The price for one night’s accommodation in the penthouse is £100.

Therefore, you need to sell 1,000 nights of accommodation to break even.

 100,000 / 100 = 1,000.

The payback period for this room is 1,000 nights.

That example is SO simplistic but hopefully you get the idea. Payback period measures how long something takes to pay for itself.

What kind of payback period is best?

The best kind of payback period is the shortest!

The faster something can pay back, and start bringing in profit, the better in business terms. Once you have broken even, payback period has been completed and any money earned after that is extra – the benefits you were hoping to see.

I love using payback period because it’s easy to understand and easy to work out. If you are comparing projects, when everything else is equal, the project with the shortest payback period should be the one you do first.

Of course, in real life projects aren’t equal in all other respects. You will be juggling a range of other selection criteria, of which, payback period is only one. However, it is a useful measure to look at first, to give you an idea of the effort involved in earning anything from this project. Something that has a payback period of over 10 years might not be worth doing at all and can be eliminated from project selection.

Depending on your industry, payback periods could be short or long. Any type of large-scale construction project will necessarily have a longer payback period than launching a fast-to-market consumer app. Some projects may not pay back for years, and still be worth doing. You know your industry and projects better than I ever will, so apply your professional judgement and consider what the ‘appropriate’ kind of payback period is for your organisation.

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Project managers often get concerned about project cost control. This video talks about what project cost control actually is and why you shouldn’t be worried about getting to grips with your budget. Most of what you have to do is the same type of ‘monitoring and controlling’ you do on other areas of the project, so it isn’t really that different… just with large amounts of cash attached!

This video aims to demystify project cost control and share some thoughts about just getting started.

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