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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
Past Contributors:
Rex Holmlin
Vivek Prakash
Dan Goldfischer
Linda Agyapong
Jim De Piante
Siti Hajar Abdul Hamid
Bernadine Douglas
Michael Hatfield
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Kelley Hunsberger
Taralyn Frasqueri-Molina
Alfonso Bucero Torres
Marian Haus
Shobhna Raghupathy
Peter Taylor
Joanna Newman
Saira Karim
Jess Tayel
Lung-Hung Chou
Rebecca Braglio
Roberto Toledo
Geoff Mattie
Recent Posts
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The Technical Program Manager: How to Stay Relevant in 2025
5 Things Your Operational Plan Should Do
5 New Project Guardrails for Adaptive Leaders
The Leader's Voice: Respect It, Protect It, and Use It Properly!
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Date
| Technically speaking, the project schedule is a key project planning component. But practically speaking, simply creating a project schedule does not guarantee project success. Project success requires the project manager to plan out a reliable, comprehensive and realistic schedule.
The following three-pronged approach helps in creating such a schedule: set up a schedule planning framework, master schedule basics and run the project avoiding the classic schedule planning pitfalls.
In this post, I will shed some light on a simple schedule planning framework. Effective schedule planning boils down to five basic steps:
- Plan. Identify which sources and resources will provide the project schedule information, such as the scope baseline, scheduling takeaways from similar previous projects and subject matter experts. Select the appropriate software tool to manage the schedule. This could be a standard project management tool used by your company, or it can be one you have selected considering your project's level of complexity, reporting automation needs and team collaboration requirements.
- Develop. Break down the work packages and deliverables into actionable tasks. Identify key milestones, such as completion of major deliverables or project phases. Sequence tasks logically, depending on their execution order and dependency on other tasks. Match team members to each task with their corresponding skills. Assess task efforts and all project time based on historical data from a similar project, or using techniques such as the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT).
- Validate. Work with subject matter experts to review and validate the developing schedule.
- Follow through. After creating a baseline project schedule, track the completed tasks and achieved milestones. Developing a project schedule is not a final destination -- it has to be maintained.
- Adjust. You will rarely finish the project by following the exact schedule plan you began with. Adjust the schedule as you go by exploiting the opportunities that arise (such as fast-tracking activities or finishing work earlier, if possible), or taking corrective actions when faced with delays or unexpected activities (such as enlarging the team or "crashing" activities).
What are your must-do steps when creating a project schedule? What scheduling framework has been successful for you?
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Posted
by
Marian Haus
on: April 10, 2013 11:13 PM
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Permalink |
Comments (14)
| For all the talk of an economic recovery, many organizations continue to obsess over headcount. But a smaller (and smarter) group is focusing on getting the right people on the right projects -- positioning those people and the organization itself to grow.
The payoff can be huge, according to PMI's Pulse of the Professionâ„¢ In-Depth Report: Talent Management. On average, 72 percent of projects meet their original goals and business intent at organizations with significant or good alignment between their talent management and organizational strategies. Now put that up against the 58 percent rate at organizations with moderate or weak alignment.
Despite the potential ROI, only 10 percent of organizations report significant alignment. That stat takes on added significance when you consider what's shaping up as a true talent crisis.
Pulse data revealed four in five organizations report difficulty in finding qualified project management candidates to fill open positions. Some organizations are resorting to some serious poaching -- check the battle for project talent between Silicon Valley tech titans Apple, Google, Yahoo! and Facebook. China Road and Bridge Corporation is adopting a more long-term approach, according to China Daily. Looking to build talent in a strategic market for its projects, the company is sponsoring a group of Congolese students to study engineering and project management in Xi'an, China.
In this case, organizations that align talent management and strategy have an edge, reporting less difficulty in filling open positions.
Organizations that align talent management to organizational strategy are also more effective at implementing formalized career paths, with 83 percent moving new hires to advanced project management positions. Among organizations with weak alignment, that number drops to 62 percent.
The MD Anderson Cancer Center, for example, clearly outlines the path up. It requires 10 years of experience (including five years of project management) and a Project Management Professional (PMP)® credential for senior project managers who manage highly complex strategic projects that span three or more organizational boundaries. Establishing a career path not only makes employees feel like the organization has a vested interest in them, it also helps the organization spot -- and close -- any skills gaps that might prevent it from delivering on its business goals.
Recruiting and retaining top talent will only get organizations so far. They need to measure results, too. Across the board, organizations with strong alignment are more likely to measure outcomes such as staff turnover, learning development, and employee engagement, retention and productivity.
U.S. space agency NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), for example, tracks the effectiveness of its professional development courses by assessing enrollment numbers and feedback from senior leadership. Armed with that information, the PMI Global Executive Council member knows what's working -- and what's not.
No doubt, creating a talent management program comes with a hefty price tag. But consider the danger of skimping: On a US$1 billion project, organizations with significant or good alignment of talent management programs to organizational strategy put US$50 million fewer dollars at risk than organizations with moderate or weak alignment.
With those kinds of numbers on the line, the bigger question is: Can an organization afford not to make the investment?
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Posted
by
cyndee miller
on: April 08, 2013 10:40 AM
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Permalink |
Comments (7)
| To yield expected results, a distributed project team must first speak the same language when it comes to communications.
With that in mind, I developed a basic set of email communications rules called the Project Communication Decalogue. I require everyone on my team to adhere to it when emailing each other, and I introduce it the first time I meet with a new team or member. When everyone is on the same page, it makes for leaner, cleaner communications.
- Don't be cute in the subject line. Attract the attention of the recipient using powerful, descriptive language in subject lines. Include a call for action when needed, including statements like: URGENT, FOR YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION or ESCALATION REQUIRED.
- Limit the distribution list. Include only the interested parties in the messages. Beware the "Reply All" button.
- Start fresh. Remove unnecessary email trails -- for example, when the messages start to deviate from the original topic. Better yet, when possible, create a new message to continue the discussion.
- Manage response expectations. Let your team members know the reason for a delay, in the event you are not able to take immediate action on a request or conversation.
- Filter and follow the thread. If the number of messages on a topic starts to get out of hand, sort them by subject or conversation. Return to the first of the sequence to find clarity on the issue at hand. Then, scan the rest of the message's trail to determine what requires attention and action.
- Do not engage in email battles. Avoid confrontation online. It is just not productive and creates clutter in your inbox. If you spend more than 10 minutes crafting an email, you are better off scheduling a meeting or call with your counterpart to address the problem in an actual conversation.
- Turn on auto-reply. As a courtesy to your teammates, enable the "out-of-the-office" feature. Specify your length of absence from the office and who will be covering while you are out.
- Make thorough meeting invitations via email. List the agenda and attach any documents that will be reviewed during a conference call. Do not send documents minutes before the call, expecting that attendees will be online.
- Always include the meeting location. In the location box of your calendar invite, include the meeting room data and any pertinent communication information, such as the conference bridge number and PIN.
- Check the availability of meeting participants. As many email clients allow you to check a participant's availability, do not send calendar invitations knowing that one or more participants are unavailable. This will reduce email traffic.
From experience, the adoption of these rules takes a few weeks. But once you get buy-in from all team members, email communications become a smoother process, freeing up time to focus on much more important project tasks.
What are your basic email communication rules? How do you get your project team to speak the same language via email?
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Posted
by
Conrado Morlan
on: April 05, 2013 10:08 AM
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Permalink |
Comments (1)
| We all know a healthy project portfolio is aligned with an organization's overall strategy. But how do we get there?
First, define "project portfolio." A bunch of independent projects does not make up a portfolio — it is simply a group of projects. A portfolio is composed of multiple projects aligned to help the organization execute its strategy.
Second, define "portfolio management." Portfolio management enables organizations to identify, select and prioritize the investments that will maximize business value. The major components of portfolio management include supporting strategic objectives, ensuring value creation, prioritizing projects based on their relative importance, managing the flow of benefits and integrating stakeholders around business objectives. Here are a few questions to help determine how well your organization is managing its portfolio:
- Does the portfolio reflect and support the organization's business strategy?
- Is every project clearly aligned with the organization's strategic goals and objectives?
- Does resource and investment allocation reflect strategic priorities and consider objective criteria?
- Is the economic value of the organization's portfolio greater than the investment made?
- Are projects efficient in terms of scope, time and cost?
- Are the portfolio's indicators meeting stakeholders' expectations, especially regarding value and benefits?
If some of your answers were "no," don't worry — you are not alone. But implementing good portfolio management can be a great challenge. Enterprise project management professionals usually joke that it is a "simple" three-step process:
- Define all your projects and proposals.
- Identify your resources and categorize them.
- Figure out your decision-making structure regarding selection and prioritization, and map it using a spreadsheet or enterprise project management software.
Step three, in particular, is very difficult — yet it is the core of portfolio management. Portfolio management is the art of getting more than the sum of its projects' results.
To do so, corporate strategies must be laid out clearly. This helps portfolio managers to measure value that would not be generated by any individual project.
While software tools make it easier to simulate portfolios to help in decision-making, portfolio management ultimately depends more on governance and appropriate processes than on calculations.
The portfolio also needs to be flexible enough to cope with changes in strategy and environment, which is why portfolio managers must perform regular check-ups — a portfolio that fits your organization needs to link to its strategy at all times.
How healthy is your organization's portfolio? How do you monitor it? Share your thoughts below, and Voices on Project Management will publish the best response as a blog post.
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Posted
by
Mario Trentim
on: March 29, 2013 08:26 AM
|
Permalink |
Comments (3)
| There is nothing like a good story to connect with project stakeholders and team members. Storytelling has been used to communicate sophisticated ideas for millennia, ranging from the parables in the Bible to the morals found in fairy tales.
Done right, storytelling is a captivating way to explain why your project (or a decision within the project) was initiated, what it will become and the benefits that will follow.
Creating a good story requires skill, and while you may never become the next J.K. Rowling, applying some effective development techniques can help you hone your own storytelling style.
The "story spine," a tool created by U.S. playwright Kenn Adams, helps project professionals craft well-structured stories. The outline is a series of sentence fragments that prompt the narrative elements of your story. You can even use it in a group setting -- perhaps during an exercise in which you ask team members to craft a story to explain the technical decisions made by team.
The template is as follows, with a project management example in italics on securing buy-in to solve an emerging risk issue:
The Platform introduces the issue or topic.
- Once upon a time...
- Example: The project risk register identified...
The Catalyst explains why this is important today.
- But one day, something changed...
- Example: The recent findings have escalated this risk significantly by...
The Consequences explains the journey and the "problem."
- Because of that... (This is repeated as many times as you wish.)
- Example: Because of this, we have had to change...
- And then _____ occurred.
- Example: This change caused...
The Climax is the turning point that leads to the proposed solution.
- Until finally...
- Example: Which means the project must...
The Resolution is the final -- and positive -- solution to problem.
- And the moral of the story is...
- Example: And we need your approval to implement these recommendations.
So next time you need to sell an idea to management or to your project team, why not try a good story?
Have you ever tried telling a story to gain buy-in from stakeholders? What technique did you find helpful?
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Posted
by
Lynda Bourne
on: March 26, 2013 07:04 PM
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Permalink |
Comments (1)
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"It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go."
- Bertrand Russell
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