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Voices on Project Management
by Cameron McGaughy,
Lynda Bourne, Kevin Korterud, Conrado Morlan, Peter Tarhanidis, Mario Trentim, Jen Skrabak, David Wakeman, Wanda Curlee, Christian Bisson, Ramiro Rodrigues, Soma Bhattacharya, Emily Luijbregts, Sree Rao, Yasmina Khelifi, Marat Oyvetsky, Lenka Pincot, Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres, cyndee miller
Voices on Project Management offers insights, tips, advice and personal stories from project managers in different regions and industries. The goal is to get you thinking, and spark a discussion. So, if you read something that you agree with--or even disagree with--leave a comment.
View Posts By:
Cameron McGaughy
Lynda Bourne
Kevin Korterud
Conrado Morlan
Peter Tarhanidis
Mario Trentim
Jen Skrabak
David Wakeman
Wanda Curlee
Christian Bisson
Ramiro Rodrigues
Soma Bhattacharya
Emily Luijbregts
Sree Rao
Yasmina Khelifi
Marat Oyvetsky
Lenka Pincot
Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres
cyndee miller
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Vivek Prakash
Dan Goldfischer
Linda Agyapong
Jim De Piante
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Bernadine Douglas
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Geoff Mattie
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5 Things Your Operational Plan Should Do
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The Leader's Voice: Respect It, Protect It, and Use It Properly!
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Viewing Posts by Bernadine Douglas
| In a project, you and your team may face what seems to be an endless mountain of tasks and deadlines. You need to provide clarification and direction. And to do so, you'll need to prioritize work as you build a project schedule. The good news is, to do so, there are really only two things you need to know about a task:
- What is due?
- When is it due?
If you know what is due, you can determine estimates on the work and think about what indicators are involved in getting the work done. These indicators may include:
- Funding. A low budget usually means a small work effort is expected. A higher budget will allow for more effort and charge-outs. This means you may become responsible for purchases and expenses that will require an authorization above and beyond your own.
- Resources. If your project involves other people or outside vendors, you need to consider whom you may need to retrieve something from. For example, if data is required to get the work done, factor this into the project's effort. Your timing to receive it and the timing you will need to respond to what you receive is important. Global projects and virtual teams as well as a geographical scope require technology advances. So remember to factor in costs for equipment, connections and any possible barriers that need to be handled.
Next up is the "when is it due" question. The way you structure the project, such as a large versus a small effort, can help to determine timing. And to help you figure out timing, consider:
- Known risks and issues. These put a constraint on timing. So, being aware of when the project is due will most likely dictate if a certain task can be done in a certain timeframe and if something else can be pushed slightly to another timeframe. Be cognizant that unknown risks and issues could cause further problems and delays.
- Lessons learned. Previous lessons learned provide information on how other projects with similar indicators fared.
Prepare a chart or checklist with the significant indicators that make it possible for you to get the project done. Budget, the team (resources), complexity of the work to be done and due date should be columns in your chart. Rank each according to its priority, using a scale of 1 to 10, for example. Demonstrate what the ranking means and what constitutes that level of rank. Once you have your chart prepared, share it with anyone who may need to rely on it. If a stakeholder or team member comes to you questioning work and has workload problems, disclose your chart. This will lessen a helter-skelter approach to the project work. Finally, have support for your decisions. Your manager or director must support your system for prioritization if it is going to work.
How do you prioritize work? |
Posted
by
Bernadine Douglas
on: December 18, 2013 03:14 PM
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Comments (0)
| Project trouble can hit from a blind spot, even though you tried as much as possible to prepare for issues. You did a risk analysis when you took the project on, and even tried to be ready to mitigate unknown issues.
As I advised in my previous post, do an assessment to determine the problem. Figure out what needs to be fixed, or if the situation is even fixable. If the project seems to have reached a point of no return, here are some tips on how to pull it out of trouble:
- Seek out your sponsors. They should be the source to go to when trouble arises. Not only is it likely they will have encountered something similar in the past, but they can also provide additional budget funds, more resources or reinforcement for areas in conflict.
- Consult with your team. Bring everyone together, discuss the problems surrounding the project, and begin to discuss counteraction and next steps. Steer away from blame and trying to determine who is at fault. Beware especially of ganging up on the customer. Team members may want to take the position that it's the customer's problem, not the team's. But be clear that the point of getting together is to determine how to solve a problem project, not pass it off as someone else's fault. Instead, gear questions toward possible solutions and the support needed to achieve them.
- Rely on backup and supporting information. Most likely, you will have monitored risks and issues all along and kept a good repository on your project. If so, you will be able to locate the exact information that helps address your problem. For example, you may be over budget because equipment purchases ate even beyond what your contingency allowed, and now a project sponsor or customer may be questioning the overrun. You should be able to pinpoint the authorization you received to make that purchase.
- Enlist outside resources, if needed. Lessons learned or a fellow project manager could be consulted for knowledge transfer and experience. You could even call in an outside contractor for a specific need.
- Remember that a halt is an option as well. Most times, this is seen as negative, and the project is considered a failure. But that is not necessarily the case. Sometimes, halting the project is the necessary solution, and it doesn't have to have horrific implications. If it isn't halted, the project could accumulate astronomical costs. The trouble could consume the project to the point where it would need to be shut down. A halt can also help you assess if the project is still meeting objectives (which could be the source of the problem). Stopping the project in its tracks could help you to determine if you need to redirect funds and/or resources.
Finally, keep in mind that not all trouble devours all. Before panicking, calmly look to areas that will guide you to a solution. You may even find your project is more sound than it seems.
How do you confront trouble on your project?
|
Posted
by
Bernadine Douglas
on: October 15, 2013 10:25 AM
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Permalink |
Comments (6)
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In my previous post, I discussed points to help prevent problem projects. Here, I'll talk about what to do when you realize an existing project is headed for trouble. Let me try to explain it like this: If you are driving a vehicle, what happens when you see a red light? You know that when you come to it, you will stop. After the light turns green, you will look both ways before proceeding. When our projects hit red lights, we as project managers must also stop and assess our environment. As you look at the big picture, review your inputs, factors and the overall sanity of the project. Examine your risk register or issues log. Is the status of risks or issues showing something that was missed and needs to be addressed immediately? For example, something easily overlooked is when the schedule for applying security patches is on the same timeframe as the testing phase. This sort of impact can cause testing to grind to a halt, with the team unaware of the source of conflict. A review of the risks or issues log would have highlighted these events. Another source to review is your budget plan. Have unplanned circumstances arisen, such as the need to produce more prototypes? Does the acquisition of resources require additional time? Is equipment becoming obsolete or in need of repair? Expenses such as these caution you to slow down and reevaluate your budget. Be aware that ultimately, you may need to secure a renewed budget approval. Consider client relationships as well. Are your clients becoming unsatisfied and impatient, regardless of how well you're completing deliverables and meeting milestones? If so, you may need to allay fears or even compromise on a feature of your project. Perhaps that means reconfirming a budget forecast, or something as simple as picking up the phone and calling the client with an impromptu status report. One last piece of advice: Take a look at lessons learned. It's very likely a previous project manager may have outlined specific pain points on similar problem projects. These will provide valuable insights that even the most technically experienced project manager can lean on. They're good for figuring out what to do in grey-area situations: when it was difficult to get management signoff on a needed budget increase; how a concern was handled when a client change request was denied; or how to garner support when team conflicts arose. After you recognize there's trouble ahead, how else do you assess the size of the problem?
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Posted
by
Bernadine Douglas
on: August 13, 2013 09:51 AM
|
Permalink |
Comments (3)
| We've all seen the signs a project is about to blow up — a schedule goes awry, a budget exceeds its tolerance threshold. To prevent this, consider taking a few measures:
- Secure executive support for major issues. Initial project documentation, such as a project charter and communications plan, will classify your project sponsors and champions, their roles and responsibilities, and escalation procedures. Rely on that, but also position yourself for frequent project status meetings with executives.
- Keep communications with sponsors and key stakeholders at a level that allows you to reach out to them when you may need them.
- Be aware of your project environment at all times. Regularly review project plans against where you are and what's planned to come. It will help minimize the risk of an issue arising when you least expect it — a resource pushed to the point of no return, for example.
- Look for lessons learned. Review the project history for potential concerns you may want to monitor and document in your risk log. Meet with other project managers in and outside of your organization to learn about pitfalls they may have encountered and how they handled them.
Prevention requires preparation, listening and awareness. As you interact with your team, your sponsors and other project managers, be sure to listen and look for pain points that warrant investigation.
In my next post, I'll talk about recovery steps when facing a troubled project. For now, please share what you do to prevent troubled projects. |
Posted
by
Bernadine Douglas
on: July 09, 2013 04:49 PM
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Permalink |
Comments (2)
| At a project's end, I sometimes have to tackle non-project lessons learned — those issues or takeaways that arise beyond what went right and wrong on the project. Here's how I've implemented some I have faced:
Team adjournment. Team members must now move on to other teams and projects. To mitigate the sense of loss, arrange an end-of-project reward, such as a social gathering. And if emails, instant messaging, and social media — such as a company Facebook page — were arranged for project communications, encourage new discussions via these channels to foster continued friendships.
Changes to the organization's processes. Lessons learned should provide direction on the processes that benefit the organization the most if adopted right away. Once those are identified, speak to sponsors or executives and request that a task force be appointed to evaluate these processes further. The task force should consist of key stakeholders who can make changes to processes. For example, I organized a task force to review our quality control processes on a recent production project. During the project, our quality manager only reviewed product consistency and workmanship in the testing phase. The task force, however, determined the quality manager should be involved earlier and review elements during the design phase. This ensured design elements were consistent with other products released to market and cut down on time spent on the testing phase.
For your projects, if you determine your organization can benefit from the process changes identified during a lessons learned, embed change management principles in project plans to lay the groundwork for employee buy-in. This lessens the impact of new processes for the employee — and the organization. Finally, the changes may require new training, which you should champion. Without it, you'll have new processes, but no team members capable of following them.
Revenue breakthroughs, good or bad. Even when your project is facing cancellation, you can help drive discussion around its closing. Prepare reports that show in-depth understanding of the issues. After all, many of the projects that get cancelled may just need portfolio realignment.
On the other hand, if your project was successful, there is a new bottom line to celebrate. So if appropriate, publish your accomplishment in the form of best practices with organizations such as PMI. You can also prepare training sessions and webinars or publish articles about the organization's steps toward success.
Do you look beyond the project's lessons learned for other challenges and opportunities?
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Posted
by
Bernadine Douglas
on: May 29, 2013 12:37 PM
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Permalink |
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