Archive for the 'project planning' Category

So you're asking who is David Schmaltz and what has he done? David is the author of the book The Blind Men and the Elephant, Mastering Project Work. It's a great book on the essence and the challenges of project work. One of the indicators of how great any work is we can see in who lines up as advocates and detractors. David has more than his fair share of both. I'm guessing that his latest article will produce the same effect. David, just for the record, count me in as one of your advocates!

David's latest piece The Planning Wars, appearing on June 30, 2005 in Projects @ Work uses the project "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to explore the misconceptions and "inescapable truths" of project planning and management. He does a good job of side-stepping the politics of the situation. (Congratulations David!) As usual for David, the writing is very good. It's tight and engaging.

I hesitate to recap his article. Take the time to read it, digest it, and share it with others. And after you do, please share your reactions with David and readers of Reforming Project Management.

Keep your team ready to respond and adjust to the changing circumstances of the project by including them in regular planning conversations.

The Project Reformer's e-Tip of the Week

039: Prepare Your Team for Uncertainty

Project managers spend way too much time tweaking their plans — without guidance from the team — only to be faced with the inevitable oops!! There is a higher probability that things will accidentally go wrong in a project than that things will accidentally go right. Fundamentals of Project Management, James P. Lewis Planning is preparation for those who will be in action. We waste our time when we plan by ourselves. Have planning conversations. Engage your team — the project performers — in those conversations. Review the overall plan on a regular basis. Add details to later phases of your project as you go taking into consideration what really happened, what you've learned, changing client conditions of satisfaction, and the innovations that you've put in place. When you plan with your team they will be prepared to adjust to the inevitable uncertainty. Thanks go out to Dr. Gerry for reminding me of the quote. The Project Leaders' Studio™

©2004 Hal Macomber | RPM | e-Tip Archive | PDF | Submit Tip

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The Last Planner System® is routinely delivering projects on time and on budget. Want to know how? That will have to wait for another posting. But for today, I'll introduce you to Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell, the creators of the Last Planner System. They authored a 13-page paper for IGLC-11 sharing the current state of the approach and the open issues, An Update on the Last Planner.

• Work structuring: linking scheduling and production control
• Phase scheduling: providing goals for Last Planner
• A list of improvements and recommendations that have emerged from theory and practice.

Emphasize learning (changes in PPC) rather than absolute values of PPC.

Throughout the years the authors and innovators have made numerous distinctions about projects that orient us to a new paradigm of project management. One important set of distinctions is how they view work structuring and project schedules.

"(S)chedules are products of work structuring that specify goals and the handoffs between specialists required to achieve those goals. Production control has the job of achieving those handoffs or initiating replanning should that prove infeasible."

Glenn and Greg are not speaking about structuring projects through the contracting process. They are pointing to answering the question, "How will we do this work with each other?"

The authors made five recommendations:

1. Identify tasks and assignments that are either handoffs to someone else or that
   have implications for coordinating the use of shared resources.
2. Make customer acceptance explicitly the measure of release.
3. Emphasize learning (changes in PPC) rather than absolute values of PPC.
4. Incorporate linguistic action and reliable promising.
5. Measure PPC against planned day (versus week) for release.

LPS addresses the question "How will we do this work with each other?"

And they posed five questions:

1. Should work groups (squads, gangs, crews) meet daily to align assignments,
   identify make ready actions needed within the day, and identify problems
   requiring replanning?
2. How far in advance should commitments be made?
3. Should multiple levels of commitment be recognized?
4. How to better assure that (the) Last Planner (System) is used within a distributed control system?
5. Does application of the Last Planner system reduce the variability in duration of
   construction activities?

I am someone who helps teams adopt the LPS on their projects. So often people want to just use the six-week look-ahead plan and the weekly work plan. They think they are just using a different set of planning forms. The authors use this paper to show how the whole of the project planning and control approach changes. They also do something more important. They invite each of us to join them in research from the field as you use the Last Planner System on your projects. Want to learn from those who are already using the LPS? Join Glenn, Greg, and a group of practitioners in Park City, UT, September 14- 17, for the Sixth Annual Lean Construction Congress.

The Last Planner System™ (LPS) is a trademark of the Lean Construction Institute. The LPS is free for use. Join other users of the LPS at Planner2Planner.

The AEC world can learn from those people doing information technology projects. I hear people in IT say, "Construction is straight forward; everything is visible and predictable." That shows how little they know about construction! But hidden in that statement is the recognition that IT projects must deal with high levels of uncertainty. While the IT world inherited the practices of project management from the AEC world, they have adapted those practices to accommodate some of the same challenges prevalent in AEC projects.

Planning is practice for the main event. Let's practice with the people who will perform.

All but the trivial construction projects are uncertain. The nature of engineer-to-order one-off products nearly guarantees that a group of strangers will have one heck of a challenge designing and building. Bill Heldman, Director of Operations for the City and County of Denver Office of Information Technology, writes in Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine That First Step Is Tricky. The article is worth a read, particularly if you are not an IT professional. You'll see something about how another large group of project folk see the world. Bill describes approaches for dealing with poorly articulated project requests, something that is oh-so familiar in the AEC world.

Bill's basic message is to set your project up for success by taking the time to define outcomes, time tables, budgets, team members, and project roles. While he misses at least one important element — practices for planning — Bill's emphasis on getting the project started well is on the mark. Projects that start well are more likely to finish well.

I have one beef with Bill. He recommends that a project manager

"…whip up a project plan for almost any IT undertaking of any size".

It's exactly that way of working that gets us into trouble in the AEC world. Project planning is effective when we include the team of performers. When we engage the performers in an on-going planning process we not only expand the knowledge, talents, and judgement available, but more importantly we prepare the performers to operate in the uncertain future. Planning is practice for the main event. Let's practice with the people who will perform. Planning is a recurring conversation that produces a coherence of the promises of the performers with the overall promise of the project. While the first step of starting well might be tricky, don't miss the second step of collaboratively planning.

I promised to give you my feedback on my mind-mapping trial. Well, Chuck Frey of Innovation Tools beat me to it. He just did a review of the software I've been trying. I don't have any point for comparison, but Chuck does. See ConceptDraw MINDMAP Pro 3 Product Review - InnovationTools: "ConceptDraw MINDMAP Pro version 3 offers valuable enhancements to polished program". Chuck gives the program 5 stars (out of 5).

My posting earlier this week on using mind-mapping for project planning and management hit a sweet spot. Almost 600 people clicked through to the Innovation Tools site. You'll see more from me on this topic.

I'm tired of traditional project management software. For so many projects MS Project, Suretrak, and P3 are overkill. Want something to handle those projects done by a small project team? Try mind mapping. That's right, the memory technique created by Tony Buzan is being used quite successfully for managing projects. Chuck Frey has a short article in Innovation Tools,
How to Use Mind Mapping Software for Project Management. He describes applications and strategies for their use.

The Innovation Tools site includes a Mind Mapping Resource Center where you'll find reviews, articles, and my favorite Mind Mapping in Eight Easy Steps from the Innovation Network. I've been mind mapping for almost 17 years. This 10 minute tutorial is outstanding!

I'm not managing a project with a mind map just yet. I'm playing with ConceptDraw MINDMAP to see how easy it is to use the tools. But whether or not I find software helpful, I will try the approach on a project that I'm starting later this month. I'll let you know how it goes.

Interested in innovation? Chuck Frey also writes the Innovation Tools Weblog. Add it to your feed reader.

Brian Kennemer made a fix to the PPC add-in for MS Project. See projectified: PPC Part III: This Time…It's Personal. He's corrected a bug and offered two versions for calculating PPC. The first version checks the complete date against the baseline finish date. He also has a version that calculates based on a 'Status Date', essentially representing a repromise date. Brian wrote to say that I had it wrong. The 'Status Date' is the last date that the task was updated. Doesn't seem to be useful. PPC should be measured against the promise made by the task performer or the last planner responsible for making the assignment. Either way, the promise is made at the last responsible moment. The baseline date is likely to be different from the promise date by an actual performer.

For those of you using MS Project for your projects the PPC add-in will provide a measure of planning reliability. Reliability is the key measure for dealing with dependence and variability in the project environment.

Thanks again Brian!

Kudos to Brian Michael Kennemer!! He just published in Projectified an add-in macro for MS Project that calculates Percent of Plan (Promises) Complete (PPC). This is the key measure of planning reliability. Projects done on a lean basis have PPCs that are above 85%. Usual projects are under 50%. Due to the phenomenon of dependence and variation low PPC leads to projects that are late and over budget.

Get Brian's PPC Macro. It's a quick add-in to your MS Project schedules. Now the important question? How do you improve PPC? Start by reviewing these three Project e-Tips:

• 001: Chart the Reliability of Task Completions
• 002: Collect and Post Pareto Data
• 029: Coordinate Action for Project Success

Then put a process in place for making work ready. That process must address and resolve the constraints that keep people from completing a task. Adopt a process that allows people to only start work that is in a condition to be finished. Finally, get project performers to promise completion.

You now know have a measurement tool and a practice for improving planning reliability. Get on with it!

It's been a few weeks since I published a Project e-Tip. I've got lots to offer! I've been working with teams who are just beginning to go on the Last Planner System™. While a few are struggling, others are making great progress. This week's tip just might be the key to making everyday improvement.

The Project Reformer's e-Tip of the Week

028: Measure Planning Reliability

Anyone know who first said, "What gets measured gets done?" I found a reference to a 1986 Tom Peters' article What Gets Measured Gets Done. Let's just start this Project e-Tip by saying if you aren't measuring, then you can't know if you are improving. We've come to learn that on projects reliability of planning is more important than productivity of work groups. But are you measuring reliability? No! Start now. Measuring reliability is a simple process. Start by meeting with your team on an everyday basis for just a few minutes. I recommend doing this at the end of the day. Schedule the meeting for 5 minutes. During this meeting you have one question. "Did you finish what you promised to finish today?" The only allowed answers are "Yes" or "No". Record the answers on a graph. The graph doesn't need to be fancy. Flip chart paper will do. Add to the graph each day. Record the result for your team as a percent. 5 tasks finished out of 7 promised to finish is 71%. Plot that on a graph. No credit for progress or for performing work that was not promised. The point of this exercise is to improve planning reliability. Check back next week for uncovering the reasons for unreliability. The Project Leaders' Studio™

©2004 Hal Macomber | weblog.halmacomber.com | e-Tip Archive | PDF | Submit Tip

How about a few tips from the peanut gallery! There's a free prize if I publish your tip.

Over a year ago I published a series of postings on the critical path method that produced all kinds of comments and emails from readers. I collected those postings into a two-page article that I published on this site as CPM: Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice. Shortly thereafter, Greg Howell caught some article in ENR on CPM. It was the usual stuff about project managers just need to learn how to use the CPM tools. In an unpublished letter to the editor (with a copy to me) he replied this way:

"CPM is the tool for you if you believe what you know is more important than what you can learn, and if you prefer being "In Charge" to getting the project done, and if out-of-date plans are more useful than a team prepared for action."

Without promising the project is full of delay. That is waste. And it leads to more waste.

While I see what he is saying, and I think the phrasing is clever, many people might not get why he says it. Greg is indirectly pointing to the stasis of the use of the CPM tools. People don't have the habits or the inclination to keep the CPM schedules up-to-date. Little variations and missing task status can throw a CPM schedule out of whack. Soon people lose confidence and ignore the schedule.

Another key issue has to do with the authorization of work. The PMBoK® says something like, "Work is authorized by the schedule." Authorization is not the issue. Coordination among the team is the issue. Team members depend on the completion of work (prerequisites) so they can begin their work. But beginning work is the easy part. Other team members want to know when you will finish your work. They, just like you, want a promise. Without promising the project is full of delay. That is waste. And it leads to more waste.

Team members can make promises on the work they will perform informed by a CPM schedule. That would be wonderful. But we don't see that behavior. In fact, we see, as Greg so aptly puts it,

"The usual project meeting is a commitment-free zone." The CPM schedule is just one of the excuses for not doing what needs to be done."

What do you prefer? I don't know anyone who would identify with Greg's characterization. And teams need some guidance of overall sequence of work. Bob Huber, Scheduling Manager, The Boldt Company, suggests The Marriage of CPM and Lean Construction in his paper co-authored with Paul Reiser presented at last year's International Group for Lean Construction's 11th Conference. He urges people to use CPM at a high level rather than a detailed task level. Further detail is left to the people performing the work. The result is a CPM schedule that is easy to keep up-to-date and doesn't have swings in it from week to week. People will use that schedule.

The PMBoK® describes 10 planning processes out of a total of 13 core processes for project management. These 10 processes comprise what Koskela and Howell (K&H) call management-as-planning in their paper The Underlying Theory of Project Management is Obsolete.

It is crazy to give the greatest effort to detail when we know the least about the project…at the beginning.

It's no surprise there are 10 planning processes. We go to great extremes on projects to plan. The value of planning seems to arise out of the concern for mimimzing risk. More time on planning is supposed to lead to fewer unforseen conditions. The usual practice is for smart and experienced people to spend time up-front thinking through one possibilty after another finally landing on an approach that makes sense (to them). The plan is put to paper (or in scheduling software) then is 'sold' to project participants and the customer as the (one right) way to go. Often, planning then stops. Execution begins.

This distinct break — planning as separate from execution — is seen by K&H as consistent with the general field of operations. Planning is the process of deciding what to do. Those in execution get their direction from the plan in a usual dispatching process…following the "simple process of issuing orders". Management-as-planning in conjunction with planning-as-determining, becomes management-as-determing in the everyday practices of projects.

We can understand from history that computer time for scheduling programs was expensive. Doing a good job once, or maybe twice was all the project could afford. Further, some project activities are deemed expensive to change mid-way through the project, like changing the layout of a building or adding functions to software. So in an effort to minimize rework project teams fix the requirements and the schedule. But the future is uncertain. Plans can't possibly determine results. At best, planning prepares for the always-uncertain future.

Our herculean efforts to get the project plan in place at six levels of detail early in the life of a project is not just a waste of time, it uses key people who could be used throughout the project to better end. It is crazy to give the greatest effort to detail when we know the least about the project…at the beginning. Better (much better) is to add detail no sooner than it is needed (acting a the last responsible moment) taking advantage of what is revealed and learned. AND do this with people who are close to the project…people who actually perform the tasks.

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What project manager hasn't experienced being boxed in. Been there; done that. But that's not what this posting is about. Or is it?. Seems there's a new class of software promising to revolutionize project management. It's called Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). Andrew Raskin writes about PLM in A Faster Ride to Market.

Raskin describes how the Cannondale Bicycle Company got into the 4-wheel ATV market with an incredible push. After that taxing experience they decided to do something different — they are now using product life-cycle management software to manage product development. Hailed as a cure-all for eliminating waste and speeding products to market, (read one representative paper) it has the potential for being the next big diversion.

CRM is the most-recent example of a diversion. Last year alone $11 billion was invested in CRM software to improve/automate customer interactions. Results as reported have been checkered.

According to Gartner, Inc., end users will continue to label more than 50% of all CRM implementations failures through 2006. Can You Prevent CRM Failures? .

As a culture we seem obsessed with the quick-fix, particularly when it comes in the form of automation software. Perhaps it just gives testament to our resignation about getting employees to do as we want.

So why am I worried? Andrew Raskin reports that when 100 technology managers were asked about their planned investments 47% reported they were investing in PLM software. That compares with only 34% planning investments in CRM. I am convinced software can help. I�m worried that it is being driven by technology managers rather than those people on the line. Software can be wonderful for reinforcing best practice as organization-wide habit. But first you must establish best practice. Further, companies rarely consider examining what they've been doing.

"Companies haven't asked why are they even doing [CRM]," Fournier says. "Companies need to ask, 'How is this going to change our organization?' CRM is an integrating mechanism, but firms are still very much made up of silos." CRM Success: Still the Exception, Not the Rule.

We're not learning from our mistakes and there is no evidence that is changing.

Let's say that PLM is a better approach. The practice I observe is 'bolting on' one system to the next. PLM bolted on to the usual CPM hierarchical project approach will just produce more waste for already over-worked stressed-out project managers. It's a sure-fire way to put the project manager in a box.

You can find the PDF of CPM: Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice in the left column of the weblog. Or, get it here .

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Some very thoughtful comments were made on some of the postings from last week's series on CPM. I urge you to read those comments. Just click on the "(#) Comments" link at the end of each posting wherever you see a number other than "Please Comment". I urge you to leave comments as well.

If what people were doing was working there'd be no reason to do something else!

A few people asked me what I was planning to do with the Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twiceseries. Based on the requests I've decided to compile the five postings as a single document that I'll link on the site. That document can be freely downloaded and distributed. I hope you find it valuable.

Now for those wondering what got me going on the series in the first place, I've been somewhat concerned about people who set out to adopt a new approach (to anything) while trying their hardest not to give up what they are doing. If what they were doing was working there'd be no reason to do something else! We know in the case of project planning and control that it routinely doesn't work.

Continuing to do the old has three negative effects on succeeding with the new:

1. It maintains the inertia of the current practice
2. It consumes scarce attention and capacity for adopting the unfamiliar and initially time-consuming practice
3. It reinforces the measurement and rewards associated with the old

Using the Critical Path Method for project planning and control is just one of those practices that seems like a good idea, but fails in execution. One issue I failed to stress last week is the lack of seriousness given to CPM as evidenced by not providing the resources to do a good job keeping the schedules always up-to-date. There is a trend seen in construction where people are preparing the CPM schedules yet they don't know how to build and don't know scheduling¹. Lack of seriousness and competence spells disaster for the project participants. Not doing CPM scheduling in many cases would be far better than doing it the current way. And certainly for those people who are dissatisfied enough to try a different approach they should give up trying to do both.

Stop the craziness of doing the old and the new.

1. As reported in ENR [ ⇑ back ]

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