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Work Before the Work Plan
Categories:
Project Planning
Categories: Project Planning
| While reviewing a project work plan this week, I thought back to the first generation of work-planning tools. I marveled at their ability to mechanize manually arduous activities, such as progress calculations and schedule charts. After using these tools on a few projects, I felt supremely confident about creating a work plan and managing a project of any size. But as I became more proficient at using them, I found myself struggling to make the work plan match what was actually going on with the project. After much frustration, I spoke to a senior project manager. She suggested that before even touching the tools, I needed to rethink my approach to work planning. Here are some of her tips that I continue to employ today:
I recommend capturing a fixed commitment -- that is, the amount of hours by resource per week. This accounts for even those resources that, by the nature of their labor contracts, can only devote a certain number of hours to the project. It also highlights the capacity these resources have to work on other projects. If the capacity is a set amount, you can quickly determine a more accurate project schedule. What are your tips for getting off to a good start with work planning? |
Go for Growth
| One of the key stakeholder management roles fulfilled by project leaders is helping team members grow and improve. Remember, you cannot be successful as a leader unless your team succeeds in achieving its objectives! You have four basic ways to develop team members: teaching, coaching, counseling and mentoring. Understanding the differences and selecting the right approach for each situation helps you help your entire team to succeed. Teaching The focus of teaching is to impart knowledge and information through instruction and explanation. The goal for the student is to acquire a skill or pass a test. Learning has a one-way flow, and the relationship between teacher and student is minimal. Effective for: Simple knowledge transfer. This can be facilitated by external experts delivering focused training sessions or asking a skilled team member to do the teaching. Your job is to make sure the right training gets to the right people at the right time. Coaching Coaching usually focuses on skills development and performance--how to do something better, faster or more effectively. The role of the coach is to give feedback on observed performance, typically in the workplace. The coach is likely to set goals for the student and measure performance periodically as that person develops new skills. Coaching requires a close working relationship between learner and coach. Effective for: Driving improved performance. Every elite sports team has a committed coach. As a team leader, you need to take this role seriously if you want to lift your team's skills and performance to the elite level! Counseling The counselor uses listening and questioning to build self-awareness and self-confidence in the student. The goal is to help the person deal with something they are finding emotionally difficult. As with teaching, learning in this manner is one-way, and the relationship is minimal. Effective for: Helping a team member deal with personal difficulties, such as when someone feels he or she has been harassed or victimized. Don't be afraid to bring a skilled external counselor. Mentoring Mentoring is a partnership between two people, with an emphasis on mutual learning. Good mentors adapt to the needs of the learner. The role of the mentor is to build capability and help the learner discover personal wisdom by encouraging him or her to work toward career goals or develop self-reliance. Because the mentoring relationship is focused on the mentee's personal goals it should be kept separate from direct lines of management control; it is very difficult to mentor a direct report. Mentors may draw on a number of approaches (teaching, coaching and counseling) to help mentees achieve the goals they've set for themselves. Because the relationship is mutually beneficial, strong bonds are often forged, which often outlast the mentoring relationship. Effective for: Building the capability of the learner. Carefully select the people in which to invest the effort and emotion of building a relationship. If it's not right for you, help your team member find the right mentor. However you choose to develop in your team members, the investment is worthwhile. An empowered, motivated and skilled team is the best underpinning you can have in your quest to be a successful leader. What combination of methods do you use to help team members grow? |
Communicate to Connect with Gen Y
| Communication is a core competency that significantly impacts the outcome of a project. But mastering communication skills has been one of the toughest tasks I have faced as a project practitioner because those skills have evolved and grown along with the fast pace of technology in multigenerational project environments. Some of us may be used to more traditional ways of communicating (as I discussed in a recent blog post), such as an in-person meeting or a telephone call. But these methods may not be effective with the newer generation of project practitioners. The generation gap may be a source of conflict or a barrier to defining common ground, since communication that may seem negative to one person may be the norm for others. For example, I remember one time when a younger team member sat three cubicles away from a senior (and older) team member, and would ask him questions via instant message. The senior team member considered this rude, since those questions could easily be asked face to face. Meanwhile, the younger team member thought he was being more productive in multi-tasking mode, asking questions via IM and emailing about project tasks. To break down these types of barriers and diminish miscommunications, you will first need to identify the communication preferences of all project team members or stakeholders, and share them with the team. I typically meet with each team member individually, and then create a matrix listing all members and specific communication preferences for each. When you meet with Gen Y team members to understand their preferences, use the time as an opportunity to learn about new collaboration tools that you can apply to the project as well. For me, this is how I learned about instant message chat lingo and how to share my computer desktop with others while on a video conference call. It is also during these meetings that I share with the Gen Y team members my project experience, exposing them to real-life project situations. Finally, be aware of pushback following any kind of changes to project communications that may disturb already established practices. If you introduce too many new technologies, they may not be welcome. The best way to make sure the team adopts new forms of communication is by proposing, not imposing. How do you ensure your project team and stakeholders adopt new communications tools? Read more about effective communications in PMI's Pulse of the Professionâ„¢ In-Depth Report, The High Cost of Low Performance: The Essential Role of Communications. |
Multi-Project Schedule Planning, Part I
Categories:
Project Planning
Categories: Project Planning
| Projects are rarely planned and executed in isolation. In general, they have external dependencies on activities, tasks or deliverables outside the project's reach. Managing tasks and dependencies that spread across several projects, which are not necessarily part of a program, creates a multi-project management context. For instance, say you are managing an IT project, delivering a software application. Many of your project tasks will be conducted within the project's boundaries and with the full control and ownership of your project team. Nevertheless, your project has dependencies on a software component, developed in parallel by another team within the same enterprise, yet as part of an entirely different project. Your project will have to wait for the other team to finish and deliver its component to deploy and test your software application. Since the two projects have phases and deliverables dependent on each other, their project schedules will have to be correlated. Managing correlated schedules requires a different approach. In a single-project context, a project manager plans the schedule, giving consideration to the project context, the work to be carried out by the project team, assumptions, risks, and the tasks' internal and external dependencies. This is more or less a silo approach, where the external dependencies rely on deliverables and not on the project phases or cycles in which they are produced. In a multi-project management context, the project managers involved, or an overseeing multi-project manager, will have to reach alignment across the projects in several aspects, including:
Let's go back to our previous IT project example, and how alignment could happen. The two projects start off independent of each other. Then they can have touch points during the requirements analysis and scoping phase, when your project team will analyze and hand over requirements and product specifications to the other team. Then the two projects will meet again during a joint testing phase, when both project teams will deploy and test their application components integrated together. Finally, the two projects will meet again during the go-live deployment, when the rollout of one project will not be complete without the rollout of the other. The more touch points the projects have, the more complex their schedule planning will be. The stronger their dependencies, the less flexibility you will have when planning your project schedule. And the more relevant the other project is for your organization, the less planning flexibility and schedule control you will have on yours. The situation gets even more complicated when your project depends on three or more other projects, which have different schedule plans, business criticalities and even project management approaches. For instance, your project is conducted in a waterfall methodology, and it's dependent on another project following an agile approach. It can become quite challenging aligning your waterfall schedule to the iterative and dynamic schedule of the other project. What is your project scheduling experience with dealing with multiple projects that depend on each other? |
Do's and Don'ts for Portfolio Managers
Categories:
Portfolio Management
Categories: Portfolio Management
| Jen L. Skrabak, PMP, is a senior-level project executive, leading high-profile business transformation projects, programs and portfolios. She has more than 18 years of professional experience across industries such as healthcare, biotechnology, entertainment and financial services. She recently established a PMO Center of Excellence that includes both project managers and business analysts, implemented a global US$50 million program across multiple sites and managed a $500 million portfolio. Ms. Skrabak served as the committee chair for The Standard for Portfolio Management - Third Edition. Read her thoughts on portfolio management below: Although PMI's The Standard for Portfolio Management was updated for its Third Edition earlier this year, I still find that there is much confusion over what portfolio managers do and how they differ from program and project managers. Having been a portfolio manager for over 10 years, I'm offering a few key differences that may help you. What portfolio managers focus on:
Now that we've level set the strategic responsibilities of portfolio managers, there are some key responsibilities that don't fall under portfolio managers. What portfolio managers do not focus on:
PMI Announces PfMP certification Recently, PMI announced its new Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP)SM credential, which will be available in Q4 2013. Having served on the Steering Committee for the PfMP credential, and providing strategic direction and guidance to the team that was chartered to make the final recommendation, it is very exciting to see this launch. I know that many in the PMI community have been asking about this certification. Having also served as chair for the development of the portfolio management standard, I believe that it's an important credential that meets a key need (remember the "P" in PMI encompasses portfolio). It drives advancement of portfolio management as a profession by formally recognizing the importance of a standard set of skills, knowledge and abilities. Key requirements include eight years of business experience and at least four years of portfolio management experience. It's expected that The Standard for Portfolio Management - Third Edition will be used as a key reference for the exam. The PfMP exam outline will be made available in September, with the first opportunity to take the exam in late Q4 2013. If you want to be one of the first to be certified for the PfMP, email [email protected]. |