The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

OCMs Role In Communications with Stakeholders and Resistors webinar

First of all; OCM stands for Organizational Change Management.  I did not know that, maybe you did.  As it often happens, the webinar was plagued by technical issues.  Presenter and introducer could not talk to each other.  Adobe connect is nasty.  It’s been over a year with this technology, PMI should fix this.

Points the presenter made:

• You cannot skip identifying and engaging the stakeholders from the get go.  Look at organizational charts.  I’ll add that this has to be expanded to include the people working day to day with the project’s product; they may not be in the org chart but they must be on board.
• Document the findings of your stakeholder analysis.  Document their status (pro or con) toward the project, thei attitude towards change, etc.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate and then think about communicating.
• Identify each stakeholder as part of a group and the group as sponsors, change agents, targets (her term), etc.
• Use a bubble chart to show the size of the various stakeholder groups.  I don’t recall if she suggested the same type of chart but where power is the dimension.  10 mildly powerful stakeholders may have less power than the supremely powerful person.  She justly stated that loudness does not equal power.
• Showed a timeline (like Project 2010) that shows the high level communication plan.  This emphasize that the plan is a living thing, and should include repeat communications.  Underlying the timeline is a number of documents explaining the what and the who of the communications (a bit like work packages really).
• Complainers and resistors should be engaged immediately.  Why are they resisting?  Knowing this points you in the direction of how to address their issue.  Lack of knowledge about the project, no more status quo, potential loss of employment, not consulted, etc. are all reasons for resisting.

Sadly some of the material is not part of the PowerPoint stack, you’ll have to listen to the webinar.  Also it gave me the feeling that the change manager is seen as someone else than the PM.  I think the change manager can be a separate person for large projects or programs but for smaller endeavors, the change manager IS the PM.

All together a pretty good presentation with a very good Q&A session

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

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Tearing Down Project Barriers Between the Business and IT webinar

Today I listened to the recorded PMI IS CoP webinar called Tearing Down Project Barriers Between the Business and IT.

The webinar speaks to IT as a tool to achieve business goals of an organization as opposed as IT as its own beast with it own goals.  I believe the same focus, on business goals, should be applied to other business entities like marketing, accounting, and production (includes engineering, construction, software development, etc.).  Business entities serve the business, not the other way around.  Just look up business score card approaches for more on the subject.

The webinar identifies problems with project inception or concept as a major culprit.  Imprecise scope, inflated expectations, immature technologies, and hype.  Business user many not speak the language of your domain; you have to align and adapt. Business users may want something that is hard to do but you have to help them understand that and that difficulties may have to be surmounted for them to get what they need.  Hype usually “forgets” that there are implementation difficulties. 

Alignment between stakeholders or business entities is essential but very tough to reach.  By the time the project is recognized as such, expectations (realistic or not) have already been brewing for a while.  Often time the inception process has been going on in a vacuum.  Various stakeholders may add requirements that satisfy their business entity but take the “project” away from actual business goals.  Think of a product designed to sell at a given price point; it may not be enticing to the consumer because it lacks certain features.  Think of a product designed to yield a given profit margin, it may be very inexpensive to produce but no one wants it because it is perceived as cheap.  Think of a product that I seen as easy to bring to production; maybe it is already obsolete compared to what the competition has.  Also, if the expectations are not aligned with the capabilities of the organization, there will be pushback from the project team.

Gaining alignment requires active guidance.  This process documents requirements, assumptions, risks, organization capacities, etc.  At this point you have a project manager, maybe a system architect, maybe a business analyst, maybe a quality assurance person, but no project team.  At this point you are just not ready to roll.  If you did you may run into one or many walls around technology, schedule, or economics.

Maintaining alignment also requires guidance.  The same team of people guides the project team in staying the course, preventing scope creep and likely unmet expectations on features, schedule, or cost.

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

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Deceivingly not simple

Which project is the most valuable is always clear, isn’t it? What constitutes a successful project is always clear, isn’t it?  Plainly, the answer is resounding MAYBE.

Listen to Mark Perry’s PMO Podcast episodes 218 and 219 and play the game.  I really like these kinds of tales where things are not as clear as they appear to be.  It does take more than technical or program management excellence to find the right answer; it takes a good dose of business acumen.  Business acumen is one area where your business stakeholder can help.  Be sure to ask the right questions to allow yourself to make the right decisions.

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

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Communication is everything

It is said that project management is mostly a people/communication thing.  Yet most communications are handled badly, especially communications about exceptional events or situations.  When things go wrong or off the beaten path you have to make sure that you message is understood.

Let me tell you about an hypothetical (not really) situation.  You are coming back from a business trip and your flight from Raleigh, NC to Montreal, Canada makes you transit through Newark, NJ.  You notice when you check-in that the flight number is the same for both legs of the trip, let’s say CO 5153, and you are given only one boarding pass.  You’ve seen this before a few times, it means the same plane will go to Montreal after Newark passengers deplane.

You get to Newark were the friendly flight crew thanks you for flying with them and announce that this is the end of the flight.  You’re puzzled and ask an attendant.  She looks a bit confused but tells you have to deplane too.  More puzzlement on you part because, in the past, you stayed on the plane in those situations.  Must be a security thing you think.  You deplane.

As you walk out you turn around and see that the gate announces a Montreal flight 2 hours from now.   Great, a delay!  You do not check the flight number, it says Montreal, right?  You walk around a bit and see another gate, with your flight number, departing in 5 minutes.  Rats!  You board and get to destination on time.

How many occasions where missed to properly communicate about an atypical situation?  Could this have been handled better?  Do you ever assume that your project stakeholders will , by themselves, understand there is a problem, that it is being handled, that they agree with the way it is being handled, and that they will have a common understanding?  Food for thoughts I think.

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

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Communicating Change with Seven Questions webinar

I just finished listening to the “Communicating Change with Seven Questions” with Peter de Jager presented by the PMI IS CoP.  I should have let you know in advance but…

I must say it was both entertaining and informative.  It spoke about change but mostly about communications, minimizing push back, and getting people on board with change.  I highly recommend you listen to the recording.

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

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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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We're all equal; it's just that some are more equal than others…

Do not count votes; weigh them...

- Anonymous

So true, isn’t it?  Although we live in an era of management and project management by consensus, the reality is that some stakeholder votes carry more weight than others.  Examples are regulatory agencies or the PM’s best friend/enemy the Sponsor.  Something to remember and to use to your advantage...

What do you think?  As always questions and 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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Agile? Me too or 2?

Craig Brown (Better Project) commented on my previous “Agile? Me?” post.  My main take away from the points he makes are that Agile, although not entirely new, packages software project management in such a way as to make it appealing to teams.

Other important points are:

• The command and control approach to software project management does not really work.
• A fool with a tool (or methodology) is still a fool or, in his words, “Smart people get it right. People that struggle with common sense will fail at this management system as much as any other”.

As previously stated, I see Agile as a different language or dialect of project management; I do understand that some (many?) project stakeholders do not “get” traditional project management.  I lost count of how many times I’ve been asked for a schedule only to have the person asking go totally blank when receiving it and then asking very basic questions about Gantt charts. 

However, talking with someone experienced in scheduling, EV, etc. you don’t get the blank stares.  This goes to say that speaking a language that all stakeholders understand gets you a long way down the path to success.

The aspect that is still evading me is, assuming that the Agile practitioner is not a fool or a micro manager, what is the economic benefit to the project organization that takes the Agile path?  Can I expect 15% shorter schedule, 17% lower cost, 8% lower rework, 21% fewer bugs, etc.?  The numbers are not that important but they would help me make a decision while investing my time and money training myself.

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Stick to your guns

Have you ever had a stakeholder that had a knack for getting people on the defensive?  I once took over a project that was in deep trouble because scope concessions had been made without a proper analysis of the impact of the change on the schedule and budget.  That project was now in crisis mode and the stakeholder was using the weekly progress (what progress?) meeting to attack the current project management staff.  That person was so good at getting under people’s skin that the meeting would turn into a shouting match within minutes.  This was amplified by the stakeholder insisting on a set of topics to be discussed and the project management staff not complying.

When I took that project over I decided to do two things and to never move from that decision:

• First thing was to use the same tactic that allows a young soldier to survive a stark raving lunatic maniac aka his drill instructor. What you need to do is have a master interlock that paralyses your mouth while being yelled at. It helps if you have a little voice in your head that yells back at the abusive moron.

• The second thing was to stick to the list of topics that had been requested and agreed upon. Every time the stakeholder would try to move to something that was not on the list I would obstinately resume my briefing from that list.

Eventually the stakeholder from hell got tired of not being able to get under my skin and “delegated” the meeting to someone who truly wanted to work at resolving the project’s problems.  It took time but we got to the end of it.  Moral of the story?  Stick to your guns.

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

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