Operational Excellence in Project Management

I´ve seen and read thousands of articles, posts, books and presentations in how to fail as a Project Manager… As I am one of them I´ve decided that it is time to collect tips and tricks and share with the community, here we go:

• Fail to address issues immediately - two members of your project team can't stand each other and cooperation is vital to the success of the project, find a way that they can work together professionally do not procrastinate it will just make the things worse.
• Reschedule too often - You can change due dates, assignments, and schedules, but be aware that there is a cost every time you make a change, and if you ask your team to keep up with too many changes you are risking to make mistakes, missed deadlines, confusion, and possibly stress team.
• Ignore quality to reach project milestones – Focus on complete the project on time and within budget but not on quality, having done that to each deliverable means that you will some up more quality problems in your project prior to delivery to the customer.
• Micromanaging isn't pretty- The most able managers know when to share responsibilities with others and to keep focused on the big picture.
• Risk Management – if you don’t manage project risks then you are the risk ! Don´t let it happen you will risk the project and your job
• Communication is bothering and annoying – believe me a thousand of issues could be avoided if you adopt a very effective communication in your project
• I always say yes to my customer- yes you can always say yes in a different ways but please think before you act understand the impacts in your project before to say yes and if you say yes tell him also how to do that.

The biggest challenge is your discipline to run the project in a continuous way not your technical expertise, think about that.

Managed projects and delivery it with success demands what is obvious, meaning, ability, technical skills and knows project management process, but it is more than that,, you have to understand the basic principles of leadership and you have to  exercise them daily and when you do this you will understand this sentence:

"Not every project manager is project leader."

And during project execution will remember this phrase also:

"Your team  is equally important to the success of the project and it should be a high performance team."

A team of this level does not fall from the sky or appears miraculously, it takes time to build a high performance team,  but don´t be naive, teams  needs strict discipline and rigid definition and control roles and responsibilities which has to be e followed!

If you want your team to be high performance you need to create this structure otherwise you will have chaos in your project, when it is achieved you will be able to trigger innovation and creativity with the team and results will be materialized.

This is your role as a leader, create this structure !

You want to be one more or want to make a difference? Remember for each project delivered with success project you get a free invitation to run another project and, increasingly complex.  You decide  which path you want to follow, up or down the ladder of success...If you want to climb the hill I invite you to continue reading this article because from this point I write for those who want to win.

As leader there are principles you have to consider and follow as stated above, which I will describe below:

• Vision - build and share the vision and project objectives with the team is one of the critical success factors for the project, it is not done just once, for example, during the kick-off of the project, it is a daily exercise and continuous communication and team acculturation,
• Collaboration - High performance teams are using the synergistic effects between them, the impossible becomes possible, and this happens only through active collaboration inside the team and as the example comes from above, the project manager plays a crucial role in this process, be a role model and demonstrate and exercise collaboration,
• Performance - Planning is important in the project at the end of a day's work you and your team have to perform and deliver. As a leader it is your responsibility to create an environment that promotes high performance team and individuals.
• Learning - People make mistakes, we all make mistakes, effective leaders encourage staff to try new ways and learn from your mistakes, he devotes enough time for the team to learn, innovate and be creative.
• Results - delivery results is a prerequisite for any project to be delivered  this is the result of team work not an individual. This will only happen if you make sure you run  the first four principles above.

"The reason most people do not achieve their goals is because they were not defined, or have never been seriously considered by them as attainable or reliable. Winners can tell you where they're going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will participate in this adventure with them "- Denis E. Waitley

We as project managers are facing an additional major challenge with our project team...

The clash of generations (baby boomers, generation X, Y and millennium ), four generations (as far as I remember until now...) working together ... that have different behavior characteristics in relation to others.

The consequence of this is the increasing complexity for us project managers is to understand and communicate effectively with the them, for example a  project manager in age of 60 years old, and a team with the following ages: 20 , 35 and 45 so this becomes very complex.

Imagine another situation where you request to a staff member to invest his time to delivery a set of tasks from a task list which you have previously communicated to him but he could not do the job properly.

Why ?

What happened is that the storytelling was not applied , that is, the lack of a "proper narrative" did not cause engagement of your colleague. In that case he had less chance to remember and probably could not get involved or repeat the appropriate behavior for the completion of that work, this happened for two factors combined:

Communication noise and clash of generations 

When we explain what is expected to a colleague we should explain it in a narrative way (with the procedure included)  and providing an example on when and what the situation that happened.

Read for example the text below: "Once upon a time, a group of people who were outraged at how the failed software projects. Then they had begin to study more about the nature of the software and found that developing software is an extremely intellectual work and not manual or repetitive. Thus, the Taylor models concerning job specialization and motivation of workers which were inherited in software management would not be the most recommended best practices. In fact, it would be virtually opposite. "

This is storytelling!

If you succeed to create an emotional connection with your team member  your colleague will be able to feel and be excited about this narrative as a consequence engagement and commitment will come together. 

Remember the stories you heard from your mother and grandma when you were young ? Same approach !

This concept of "storytelling" is actually already well known in the business world with the name of Storytelling, a strong tool for corporate communication both internally and externally as we begin to use in projects.

Projects are communicated and messages are transmitted through stories, creating an emotional bond, facilitating the understanding and memorization. This technique is high precisely because of the new challenges in the workplace, generated by the transformation that technology has brought us (is the new trend for the coming years, for which we must prepare ourselves).

The more we use social media, more will need to incorporate storytelling techniques to motivate, lead and work with the new generations. 

Concluding:

A good project leader who can engage and explain to your project member what should be done in a certain project procedure or how to act in the face of certain situations before meet a customer or in how the conduct of project activities;instead of using a list actions that must be done, it uses an example ( a story ) in which those procedures were applied achieving greater efficiency .

I hope you had enjoyed it !
 

Nelson Rosamilha,PMP®,BB®,Prince 2 Practitioner®
[email protected]
Twitter: nelsonrosamilha
http://br.linkedin.com/in/rosamilha

Risk Management is one of the most overlooked project management areas, and for some managers the most tedious task to do...

Why do so many project managers fail in risk management, or rather not manage the risks of their projects?  

This is a question that I really would like to answer, may be I will include this research in my master study in Business Administration...but surely manage project risk and their critical path are essential activities. 

Keeping track of risks, you always help you to discuss them with your team, so ensure that risks be included in its agenda periodicals meeting you will have with your team and discuss it with them. 

Still the decision is yours, but I will list down a few benefits  that you can deliver to your business by registering and controlling the risks of the project.

Planning - It helps you to schedule activities in the most appropriate order, because the risks which may happen as a result of the planned actions needs to be handled, for example mitigation.  Do not expect that your team do their regular project tasks (you have to monitor !!) and much less risk mitigation activities. Have with you your risk register to identify the mitigating actions and a schedule control tool which will support you to have a complete picture of the work required to be performed by the team.

Prioritization - One of the major functions of a risk register is to capture all risks to the project centralized in one place (the famous data repository..). That's great, but it is necessary to prioritize these risks, ask yourself "What risks would cause you more problems in the project?" and list your risks in order of priority so that you know what to focus on before. 

The longer the project risks, the greater the chance of them discontinue the project in some way! 

Remember, risks come and go and Murphy always comes along, so when a risk has passed, take it off the record, or at least mark as closed. This allows you to focus on the risks that still pose a threat - do not spend your time prioritizing actions that direct things have passed away.

Help  (or hinder) your project budget - your project mitigating actions are subject to cause spending or bring new opportunities (even if only the cost of labor in the project team). Look at your risk register and work thinking about what it will cost to manage each risk effectively. Then you can add these costs to your project budget.

Of course, you may find too expensive to manage all risks the way you want, which is where your risk prioritization activities comes. Distribute all of its available funds for the risks of highest priority.

See if you can identify a positive risk as well, and here comes the opportunity! These are risks that cause no problems but bring benefits such as additional revenue that can recover or increase the scope of your project or; anticipate a delivery. This is why when we manage risks on projects we have to constantly remember that we must seek for winning opportunities!

Who does what and when - Another feature of the risk register is to assign an owner for risk. Someone must be responsible for managing the risks, even if do not do all the work by yourself. Besides being a great opportunity for a younger member of your team to be noticed and feel recognized. Enjoy the famous LEADERSHIP skill and delegate it . Do not assume responsibility for any risks you might have several other things to do.

Best Project Management - When you manage the risk properly and proactively they work for the benefit of the project and the company.

With advance view of the problem you will have the chance to work in advance with the team, increasing the chances of success of the project and avoiding project excuses like: "I did not know", "No one warned me" , etc... 

Concluding:

• Discuss the risks with your team, they have better technical view than you,
• Make sure that those risks be included in your meeting agenda to be discussed and managed,
• Bring the main risks with you during the committee meetings and present its response plan

Reflect on what I have written, you shall be considered a pro-active manager highly valued feature in today's companies.

Every project manager must take risks, but do it methodically and safely 

I hope it helps you !

Nelson Rosamilha,PMP,Prince 2 Practitioner, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
https://br.linkedin.com/in/rosamilha

Scope Creep  is the name that project managers give to additional unplanned deliveries in the project. 

These extra deliveries, or changes can mean the difference between success and project failure. 
Uncontrolled scope augmentation is the worst enemy for any project manager if you do not manage the situation properly. 

All of you have probably faced this monster during the execution of your project, a  small increase in the scope can stop the project, cause budget/schedule overrun, schedule or even worse resulting in customer loss causing major damage to the company. 

There are several techniques and tools such as WBS , PERT .and others that can help you in the scope of management, you can find them in a good project management book. My proposal here is to contribute with 6 management tips that can help you in this situation:

1. Project Vision - Ensure full understanding of the project vision. Meet with project stakeholders and reinforce this vision and do not forget to communicate the change management process for those interested,
2. Manage expectations of stakeholders - No matter the size of the delivery of your project and since the beginning of the project you must manage customer expectations , communicating what is expected to be delivered and what will not be delivered , failure at this point means dissatisfied customer , unsuccessfully project and loss of new business opportunities, do not be afraid to say "NO" and be polite !
3. Know the process of change management - It is important to know what the process is and how to use it. The less you expect the scope creep can materialize , you have to be prepared...
   If you are unsure about the process, look for information with the account manager, project committee or in the worst scenario you have to manage the situation by yourself. Establish a action plan once you realize that there will be scope to increase after that talk with your account manager and discuss the impact on the project.
4. Document the requirements in a clear and detailed way and search for formal approval,
5. Communicate with the team - you must communicate clearly the scope of the project to your team. In addition, they should know that ideas are welcome and can bring benefits to the project, but this should be discussed before its execution. I consider this the most important point. Meet weekly with the team and ensure that working packages are documented in WBS and those packages are  clearly defined schedule to be reviewed.
6. Mitigation plans - Risks can quickly become serious problems when the subject is increase the scope, plan ahead (be proactive and yes t I'm being redundant ), try to have a separate budget to manage this these risks.

The scope is the essence of the project and determines whether the result is successful or not. The project stakeholders have different business needs depending on the type of work, domestic policy, bonuses, and other factors which require you extreme care and caution regarding the appropriate treatment in this situation.   Understand these conflicting interests must be considered in order to maintain the project .

The client is not worried about what's in the contract, he is concerned about his business! 

In short

• Understand what your customer wants to achieve,
• Collaborate to produce a possible solution,
• Define the scope that will produce this solution,
• Produce a cost impact analysis, term, etc ..
• Write the details of the service being provided,
• Seek approval of the committee if any.

Good luck !

www.rosamilha.com
twitter:nelsonrosamilha
https://br.linkedin.com/in/rosamilha