A Practicing Project Manager Wants Your Help

6 Responses to “A Practicing Project Manager Wants Your Help”

1. Rich Says:
   June 4th, 2005 at 8:47 am

   Clarity of end-state is certainly key. Without clarity of end-state, there is can be no clarity of scope, which leads to guessing at the WBS. Since cost, schedule, and quality are all greatly dependent on the WBS, those baselines too are compromised without clarity of end-state and scope. Furthermore, the WBS is arguably the most important input to risk management. Without clarity, every aspect of the project is a risk, and the likelihood of project success is very low.

   Executive support is another “must-have” for driving project success. Someone must champion the project at the sponsor/executive level to help remove constraints, provide the necessary organization formal authority muscle, and priorize competing priorities. Without executive support, projects generally face human, material, and financial resource shortage as a result of competing priorities. Also, the involvement of the executive helps sets the sense of urgency and credibility for the project.

   Regarding tracking resource involvment, I take a results view. I look for things I can count and measure. I look at the percentage of tasks per individual/group that start on time as well as end on time. I also measure the amount of rework for each deliverable. If someone is delivering me a product on time; however, it always needs rework, then intervention is required.

   A final comment regarding the WBS. I often will measure the amount of change, addition, deletion to WBS elements to gauge scope stability. Since the WBS by definition is the scope baseline, what better way to assess scope fluxuation then by looking at the moment of your WBS. We also know that as the WBS changes, so do the schedule and cost baselines, not to mention the identified risks and the responses to manage those risks.

2. Bob Wells Says:
   June 4th, 2005 at 11:17 am

   What the heck I will offer my opinion!

   Something along the lines of an employee satisfaction survey would be a great leading indicator. Everything done on a project is done by a human processor, or at least very closely linked. Their collective morale, will, opinion, satisfaction, sense of purpose, and challenge engagement, is the wind that pushes the sails of the project ship.

3. Will Lichtig Says:
   June 4th, 2005 at 11:29 am

   Joe,

   As I have learned from Hal, and his partner Greg Howell, the “thin slice” in this arena is looking for team members, whether project-level performers or executives, who make and keep reliable promises.

   Much of the paperwork on projects is generated to prepare for project failure, rather than create project success. It is largely waste and is a direct by-product of the inability of project participants to clearly express their conditions of satisfaction (what needs to be done) and to honestly commit to when they will satisfy the performance requests of others.

   I don’t know whether you are using the Last Planner System, but the goal of that system is to make commitment making paramount. In my view, it is to the project setting what just-in-time delivery is to the Toyota Production System. As described in the Toyota Way, just-in-time delivery is not a goal in itself. Rather, just-in-time delivery and the resulting absence of inventory forces problems in the manufacturing cycle to the surface, not permitting them to be hidden by hills of inventory. Just-in-time, “lowers the river, so that Toyota can see the rocks.”

   While the goal of LPS is to create flow on the project, it also serves as a vehicle to enable project performers to explore the “conditions of satisfaction” (your “clear and definite scope”?) and to make and secure reliable promises for completing their work (your “committed team”). It also provides the tracking mechanism to continuously assess team performance in these areas, to identify reasons for variance, and to help the team identify how they can improve team performance.

   The measurements you describe are relevant only insofar as the metrics are really important to the project at the time. For example, you mention turn-around time. What really matters is that responses are provided when they are needed and when they are promised. When we manage to an artificial number of days established in the contract (e.g., 21 days) it ignores the reality of the project and builds waste into the system. What we really need to identify is when the response is needed in order to release the work of the follow-on activity and how good is the performer at committing to a response date and keeping it. If the work is scheduled to begin in 7 days, having performance to the contract standard of 21 is not helpful. Likewise, if our goal is to effectively plan the work, if we assume that all responses will take 21 days, our plans will be artificially longer than they need to be.

   Again, LPS provides the vehicle to allow the project team to have the conversations necessary to determine the needs of the project — to determine when a response is needed and whether the performer can meet that need.

   Imagine how your project would run if you were able to make requests based upon the needs of the project, receive reliable commitments concerning performance, and have information available and a team committed to learning from the variances and continuously working to improve reliability. You might actually be able to spend your time planning and innovating about upcoming work, rather than chasing after things that didn’t happen in the past.

4. Jerry Mulenburg Says:
   June 4th, 2005 at 8:49 pm

   Joe,
   The answer to your dilemma is of course, it depends.

   A lot of scope changes indicates insufficient definition in the upfront planning process. NASA found that at least 10% of the total project resources must be spent in formulating the project to minimize cost overrun.

   The project manager’s job, as I think you understand from the stating your problem/question, is to manage the project, not the process, and certainly not to be a technical expert, or even contributor to the project. Their job is to make sure the people who do the work are shielded from outside influence and have everything necessary to do their work, which includes guidance from the project manager.

   What I found in researching complex NASA projects was that across all of the projects, the project managers I interviewed focused on a few key things:
   1. Pre-project involvement (if you should be so lucky) is important to guide the scope of the project, and to influence clear goals and objectives, and a few explicitly defined success factors.
   2. Structuring the project in a way that matches both the characteristics/skills of the project manager, and the needs of the project (identifying which of schedule, cost, technology is the driving factor).
   3. Choosing the project team members when possible, and at least having veto authority when not, to ensure that the right skills and personalities are on the team to accomplish the job.
   5. Identifying clear roles for the team members.
   6. Having just a few rules for the project operation including how they will:
   a. communicate
   b. find and solve problems
   c. make decisions
   d. resolve conflicts

   For small projects the project manager unfortunately must deal with the adminstrative needs of the project to keep the project team free to work on the work of the project. As project size/complexity increases, the project manager hopefully will have access to a deputy or other support folk who can focus on keeping the management process running smoothly while the project manager is free to focus on the work of the project.

   I hope this helps some, and good luck.
   Jerry

5. Bode Omonaiye Says:
   June 6th, 2005 at 4:51 am

   Hi Joe,

   The 4th critical success factor you missed out is:
   YOU MUST HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION THAT KEEP YOU CONSTANTLY IN CHARGE; and this last one is a variable that gets updated by the day!

   Project administration can hardly be separated from project management. How well resources are allocated, to ensure proper delegation of valuable support services to competent hands, would determine by how much you can cut down time on attending to administrative issues; and much of this depend on you as the PM.

   There is hardly any two way to it. Project management is a continum, and you cannot afford to miss out on valuable information that can have a major impact on the outcome of the delivery.

   Good luck.

   Bode.

6. Joe Says:
   June 7th, 2005 at 7:33 am

   thanks all for your thoughts. Some good points coming through, so I’d like to summarize what’s been said so far and continue the discussion.

   As I read your posts, I believe we have agreement on the following as crucial to project success:

   - Clarity of end state / clear, definite scope / conditions of satisfaction
   - the ability for the project manager to have timely information about the project’s current state, progress, and direction
   - the ability to generate and manage committment from team members and executive management

   Given that, what’s on YOUR dashboard?

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