The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

Not really off topic

 The video below is both funny and educative.  Although its primary focus is not project management, I believe many of the subjects discussed can benefit a project manager. 

 

A few that come to mind are:

• Communications between cultures.  Except if you have lived a very sheltered life, you'll have been in contact with other cultures or, even worse, members of a younger generation...  Seeing this from a different point of view or just acknowledging that they exist goes a long way.
• The impact of choice.  Have you ever had a project unravel because too many choices or path were available?  I know I've had clients that mandated that "all possible avenues" be investigated and multiple options be included in proposals.

After you've listened to the video you can let me know that I'm all wrong and that not everything can or must be related back to project management.  I know, I have a tendency to oversimplify things...

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Half ethical is like half pregnant.

OK, I must admit that this subject is not as sexy or controversial as Agile and that it may be anticlimactic for this 100^th post (I know, it is both a shameless plug and a quest for praise; please oblige…) but it goes to the heart of business and human relations.

Can you be half ethical?  How does half trustworthy sound to you?  I’m asking because over the last few days I’ve had to ponder this both at work and in conversations with friends.  Here are some of the issues that came to my attention:

• A project manager has been changing procurement rules after milking a solution provider for information over many iterations of a potential project that never quite starts.  These iterations took place over 3+ years.  It also appears that the project manager may have given part of previous bid packages to the provider’s competition.
• A program manager has been hiding key information from his project manager, his solution provider’s project manager, and his own stakeholders.  This information was critical to proposals and to the successful delivery of projects.  Expectations are now out of sync with what is actually feasible.
• A solution provider has been talking with its clients in a way that would suggest to that client that almost unlimited resources can be made available to his projects although this is far from the truth.

In none of these situations can the culprits say with a straight face that they have been 100% ethical and trustworthy.  All of these situations describe a damaged relationship that will probably never be mended.  What if all participants always behaved like they are in a relationship (for the long term) instead of executing a transaction (a one night stand)?  What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

So, I used the word Agile twice which should perk up my statistics.  All that is missing now is your praise; don’t make me wait too long…

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A believable plan

As I was catching up on my reading I landed on The Late Finish Strategy by Glen Alleman.  I find that reading his posts usually make me think, sometimes make me smile, and that linking to them make people believe that I’m not that dumb after all…  Often times Glen’s post are about those common sense things that, for some reason, end up being neglected.  Things like knowing what you are trying to deliver or having a believable plan.

In this post he talks about the need for budget and schedule margins.  Most of the time you are not given margins; your team has to fight hard to build them up.  Most of the time you look at your schedule and there is a sea of red tasks; the critical path extends from project beginning to project end with no break.  To state the obvious; if your schedule does not have any slack, it’s not that you MAY get in trouble, you ARE in trouble.

Now, if you are blessed with some slack in your project schedule you are not out of the woods yet.  As the old saying goes: ”How does a project end up late? One day at a time…”  So, however you got that slack, you have to fight tooth and nail to avoid seeing it disappear.  You likely won’t be able to end with all the slack you started with or all the slack you managed to build up but you just can’t give it away or you’ll end up being the meat in a “rock and a hard place” sandwich.  This situation can happen real fast or creep up on you but the result is the same; pain.

I’ll add to Glen’s post that on top of a budget margin and of a schedule margin you also need a personnel margin.  What good are schedule and budget margins if you don’t have the personnel to do the work?  I contend that like for budget and schedule you need a personnel margin.  Why?  Here are a few scenarios were that margin would be useful:

• Your resources are “potentially overcommitted” due to their name or skills being linked to numerous proposals or future projects.  Don’t you love “do not substitute” clauses in contracts?
• You work in a matrix environment, your resources are on “loan”, and the loan is being called.
• Your resources are committed to more than one project and the other project manager (not you of course) dropped the ball, his project is in trouble and he is sucking all available resources.
• Your resources are committed to more than one project, business priorities change and your resources end up overcommitted.  Multitasking and overtime are taking their toll.

Once again, if your schedule does not have any slack, it’s not that you MAY get in trouble, you ARE in trouble.  You must have slack in your schedule, budget, and resources or you plan is not believable and you have to stop lying to yourself and others.

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Leading by setting stretch goals

One of the points I should have made in my previous post on leadership was that you grow your replacements by setting stretch goals for them.  Setting stretch goals does not apply only to leadership roles but also to all project team members. 

Planning and estimating are activities that many would love to offload onto the PM; the problem becomes how do you train the next PM?  Here are a few examples of stretch goals around planning and estimating:

• When a new Request for Proposal (RFP) is received; distribute it to a few potential or new technical leaders or project managers. Give them a reasonable but not generous amount of time to individually derive a list of deliverables and a WBS.

• Convene everyone to compare, organize, and harmonize the results of the WBS round. Give everyone a reasonable amount of time to individually derive a list of tasks and efforts related to the deliverables identified in the harmonized WBS.

• Convene everyone to compare, organize, and harmonize the results of the task and effort round. Give everyone a reasonable amount of time to individually set constraints and dependencies for the tasks identified in the harmonized task list.

As you go through the exercise observe every participant’s behaviour.  Look for signs that individual participants appear to be lost, uninterested, or not participating in meeting.  Address issues as they come along, offering help and encouragement as needed.  Do not allow participant to give up on the exercise.

You can expect wildly different outputs from each individual at each step of the exercise.  You may reveal hidden talents and you are almost certain to foster a feeling of commitment in all participants.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Who should pay for project management?

It all depends on the type of contract (fixed cost, time and materials, time and materials not to exceed) and who shoulders the risk associated with the project.

If it is a fixed cost project you need your own project manager to protect the interests of your company.  If your client elects not to appoint a project manager it is up to them but in that case you should increase the project management part of your estimate because you’ll end up doing their job for them.

If it is a time and materials project you are basically selling live bodies to your client.  Since that is not a true project you do not need a project manager except if PMs are the ones issuing invoices in your company.

If it is a time and materials not to exceed project you should beat you head against the wall until you get it into your head that you have just entered into an open ended contract where your company assumes all the risk.  If you ever needed a PM now is the time.  Appoint the meanest, angriest project manager you have, give him a Gatling gun, all the ammo in the world, and fix bayonets.  Life is about to get interesting…

Personally I’ve been advocating for a while that we should always appoint a PM regardless of whether the budget allows for one or not.  Cheapest insurance policy in the world.  If you do not take care of your interest who will?

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Do we need accurate estimates?

You bet your life you do and you should involve as many people as possible developing one.  If you do get that accurate estimate you will enjoy, in no particular order, the following benefits:

• Focus on the deliverables; hopefully you started with a WBS. Are the task in the estimate directly related to the deliverables or are we gold plating?

• Buy-in from your team members and management. It is not YOUR estimate anymore, it is EVERYONE’s estimate.

• You can run a Monte Carlo simulation to figure out the realistic end date instead of the optimistic one. It is pretty amazing how both values may differ.

• You’ll have identified the training and staffing needs you’ll have if this project becomes part of your portfolio.

• A strong basis for contractual negotiations. Now your sales force knows how much you think this will cost and why.

• If the client says you are too high by X your sales people can ask what can be dropped from scope.

• If your company wants the project to satisfy both its Balanced Score Card financial and customer objectives we now know how many hours we may agree to give away to gain a new client or keep an old one. Remember; do not drop the rate, give hours away instead.

• Faster response time when revising your estimate following scope changes. You already have figures out where you can cut. If the client doesn’t volunteer potential areas of scope reduction you probably have identified them already.

• You’ll have a good starting point for the next time a similar project crops up.

Of course you’ll only know how accurate you were after you get the project and you deliver on it…

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.  I am a LinkeIn Open Networker (LION); you can use “Friend” to add me to your network, please mention the blog in your request.