Reforming Project Management » teams

Project Blogs Never Been Easier nor More Useful

Hal — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:06:14 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

About seven years ago I speculated on this weblog a use for blogging on projects. It was a naive post at the time. I didn't have real conviction about it. I never encouraged my clients to have a try. Well, times have changed, or maybe I have changed. Project collaboration and up-to-date communication is valued more than ever. The technology just got so simple that there's no work to do to create and maintain a project blog.

Send an email and the project update is made

Posterous is a blogging and social media platform that works from your email account. You can use it from your desktop or your mobile phone. Just send a message to post@posterous.com and the rest is magic! The subject of your email becomes the title of the post. Anything you attach — photos, Powerpoint, recordings, documents — are handled by Posterous and presented elegantly on your blog. You can set up your blog so every member of your team can post. That would be very useful for keeping everyone up to date on progress, particularly when geographically dispersed. Just send an email and the project update is made!

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Projects Are about What?

Hal — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:01:47 +0000

One of my project blogging friends, Bas de Baar, has begun a compilation of his posts that he's calling the Project Shrink Linear Edition version 0.1. It's an unbook. I don't know if Bas is calling it that, but he's creating it in that way. I'm a big fan of his thinking and his writing. Bas hits the nail on the head when he says, "Projects are about humans."

Projects are about humans.

You'll like his writing. He mixes personal experience with stories and just enough philosophy to be interesting, but not boring.

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Vroom and the “Capability Principle”: from sharing the project vision to successfully delivering projects

Claude Emond — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:52:55 +0000

I still meet many project managers who just state that sharing a project vision (if ever there is one) is a waste of time and that the project team should just concentrate on what they are asked (told ?) to do. This always reminds me of my first project management courses, more than 30 years ago (dinosaurs were still alive), when I was told that: "The more information people have about a project, the more veto power we are giving them…so, it is important to keep information sharing to the strict minimum, using as a strict yardstick of information distribution direct-task-oriented need-to-know information."

I am appalled to see that this primitive belief still endures today, since it shows so little understanding of how human minds and hearts really work. I am also appalled that, each time I ask about Vroom's Expectancy Theory of Motivation (dating back from the early 1960s) and it's significance to project management audiences (including many PMPs), I find out that it is still mostly unheard of or, when it is known of, it rings no bell about the relationship between sharing a project vision and mobilizing project teams to ensure project success. This is very unfortunate since Vroom's simple theory:

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The Proximity Principle and Project Success: Revisiting Project e-Tip 016

Claude Emond — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:43:20 +0000

In my first guest-blogger entry, I mentioned the importance of managing perceptions. I wrote that not doing so was the main cause of why only one project out of three was considered successful by major stakeholders, according to the Standish Group's Chaos Report¹. I concluded that "not managing perceptions" could be considered the 10th waste of ill-managed projects.

It is easy to say that we have to manage perceptions. But where and how should we start doing that? The Chaos Report gives us pretty good leads on that. The report identifies the involvement of end-users as the No.1 in its Top Ten List of project key success factors. I talked about that also when Hal gave me the opportunity to contribute a project e-tip back in 2003 (e-tip 016: Keep the Customer/End-User Involved). After all these years, this e-tip is still relevant and I propose to rename it The Proximity Principle and to revisit it as it pertains to fighting the 10th waste.

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Not Managing Perceptions: The 10th Waste of Project Management

Claude Emond — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:17:34 +0000

"Project Quality Management must address the management of the project and the product of the project"

(p.180, PMBoK, 3rd edition)

In an earlier blog entry, I presented the Nine Wastes of Mismanaged Projects, according to Lean Project Management gurus (Howell, Macomber, Koskela, Bodek). I said then that I saw a 10th waste adversely affecting project success: Not Managing Perceptions. Today, I will briefly explain why I believe that not managing perceptions is a major project waste, and why it has to be taken care of for our projects to be successful.

The sentence from the PMBoK quoted above is one of the most important messages on successful project management. It means that project quality, a strong indicator of project success, does not only depend on the physical characteristics of project deliverables, it also depends on HOW they were delivered. It means that a project is not only a destination, it is also a journey. It means that in matters of quality, BOTH the journey and the destination are important.

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Newest Kaizen Book — by Shigeo Shingo

Hal — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:15:47 +0000

This is not a book review. That will come later. I'm only sharing the news that there is a new Shigeo Shingo book: kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking. Norman Bodek gave me the chance to review an early version of the book. I'm quite impressed. I've wondered for quite some time if there is a systematic behind Toyota's success other than PDCA. We now all know the answer. Shingo developed an approach that helps everyone to be more creative. And that approach is readily learned.

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Construction Project Silence Puts Safety at Risk

Hal — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:57:28 +0000

Bad concrete and wrong epoxy are just two of the problems with the Big Dig. ENR ran two stories in the August 5, 2007 issue detailing guilty pleas on criminal charges along with failure to act responsibly with structural design issues. Certainly, the whole project is not bad. But living in Boston, we worry not knowing which parts are bad. While money is always a possible motive, in this case people clearly were not exercising their responsibilities as custodians of public safety. In short, few were speaking up and fewer still were listening.

The Two Great Wastes contribute in significant, yet incalculable ways, to the failings on all projects.

I know first-hand how easy it is to just drive on by safety issues. It's easy to think, "Somebody must be taking care." Last Friday I drove by a police construction detail where a new home was being connected to a sewer line in the center of a state road. There were two police officers along with two flag persons and a 1/2 dozen workers. One man was neck deep in a straight-cut narrow trench shoveling loose gravel. In the situation I describe OSHA requires a trench box anytime a trench is 5 feet or more deep. From my passing view, this worker was just about at that limit. Was a trench box required? I don't know. There was no trench box present. I didn't stop. I should have stopped. But had I stopped, what conversation would I had and with whom? To my knowledge, no one was injured. No incident occurred. But it is really beside the point. I feel terrible for not stopping.

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How to Hire Project Talent

Hal — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 03:47:41 +0000

Short answer: Don't try! That's the advice anyway from the people at The Four Seasons hotel chain. Instead, they hire for attitude. US News goes on to report in Four Seasons Service Is Unstinting, "…then train them thoroughly and treat them with the same respect (management) expects them to show hotel guests." When scanning resumes and interviewing candidates the question they try to answer is, "Are you an innately happy person?" They understand how to teach people to be a bellman or a deskclerk, but "If your momma didn't teach you to be nice, then (they) can't either."

What would be the equivalent attitudes for people who work on projects?

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Distraction, another Form of the Two Great Wastes™, Leads to Project Failure

Hal — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 03:31:14 +0000

Article Series - Why Projects Fail

Why Good Projects Fail Anyway
Could Occam’s Razor Explain Project Failures?
Why Projects Fail
Silence — One of the Two Great Wastes™ — Is a Project and Career Killer
Distraction, another Form of the Two Great Wastes™, Leads to Project Failure

There's no independent study I'm quoting today. No, I'm just sharing what I've been observing. In yesterday's post on Silence Is a Project and Career Killer, the authors of the study emphasized that team members need to be speaking. My experience is that most team members, at one time or another, do speak about their concerns for the project. But others — team members, leaders, managers, and clients — are too distracted by their own concerns to pay attention to the speaking. I mean, really pay attention. The kind of attention that requires putting the laptop cover down. The kind of attention that keeps you from answering the telephone during the conversation. The kind of attention that the person speaking walks away knowing that s/he has been listened to by you. That kind of attention. (...)
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10 Unbreakable Rules for Project Success

Hal — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 03:17:52 +0000

Some things just don't go out of style. Four years ago, PM Forum published an essay on succeeding on projects. Many people have referenced the essay. It's now my turn.

Mark Lilly and Tim Rahschulte¹ introduce their unbreakable project rules this way:

"Why do so few projects succeed? Despite the decades of increasingly complex attempts to manage projects, far too many managers overlook the 10 Unbreakable Rules for Project Success. As outlined below, these common sense guidelines hold the key to increasing your success rate and delivering greater consistency across your project's lifecycle."

Recognize the limitations of a me-first orientation. Projects require cooperation, collaboration, and coordination.

Their advice is directed at individuals on project teams. Here are their 10 unbreakable rules: (...)
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Understanding Project Constraints

Hal — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 04:57:12 +0000

Over the years I've written quite a bit about constraints. In the process environment there are physical constraints which are easy to spot. You'll see work piling up in front of the constraint. Projects are always constrained. We think that the big constraint is time. The project promise date (deadline) provides a limitation on how much can be accomplished. Most of us are familiar with physical constraints. Getting more done is limited in some way by how much capacity one can bring to the situation. It can appear that physical constraints are the only constraints. In other postings I've written about policy constraints and paradigm constraints. Perhaps I'll revisit them. Until last Friday, I hadn't considered that there was another class of constraints. Jim Dallas changed my mind. (...)
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Gantt, Earned Value, Critical Path, or Project Jazz?

Hal — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 04:46:43 +0000

Article Series - Using Gantt Charts

Gantt, Earned Value, Critical Path, or Project Jazz?
What Has the Gantt Chart Done for You Lately?
How Are You Using Gantt Charts to Brief Project Teams?
Don’t Give Up on Gantt Charts Yet
Use a Gantt Chart as a Conversation Starter
Visiting Gantt Again with Apologies to Glen

What project techniques make the biggest contribution to project success? Gantt charts? No. Earned Value? No. Critical Path? No. The biggest contributor just might be "all that jazz." Read what these authors have to say, Playing the Live Jazz of Project Management.

Next in series

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