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Author: Brad Egeland

Brad Egeland is a Business Solution Designer and IT/PM consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management, and project management experience leading initiatives in Manufacturing, Government Contracting, Creative Design, Gaming and Hospitality, Retail Operations, Aviation and Airline, Pharmaceutical, Start-ups, Healthcare, Higher Education, Non-profit, High-Tech, Engineering and general IT. He has been named the “#1 Provider of Project Management Content in the World” with over 7,000 published articles, eBooks, white papers and videos. Brad is married, a father of 11, and living in sunny Las Vegas, NV. Visit Brad's site at http://www.bradegeland.com/.

It Never Hurts to “Know a Guy”

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on It Never Hurts to “Know a Guy”

I’m sure you’re familiar with that funny phrase: “I know a guy” or “I have a guy for that.” Or even, “Let me hook you up with my guy.”

Well, the same goes for project management. Especially in technical project management. Asking for help and the expertise of someone outside of your organization is a way of life in project management. That’s why our teams, stakeholders, and other resources in the organization are valuable along with expert resources outside of our organization. Asking questions of all these groups of individuals and getting answers and information from them leads to making the best possible decisions and next steps for our customers and projects. This is especially true of the business analysts on projects. Why? Let’s examine these ideas and scenarios.

Seeking Technical Direction

In today’s complicated technology environments, it’s impossible to have a deep understanding of all things technical. The need for a Technical Expert for this happens on about every project. Why? Although the Business Analyst or Project Manager is strong in building relationships and eliciting requirements, they don’t have the in depth technical knowledge of a technical lead or application owner. Having the Business Analyst or Project Manager also perform the role of a Technical Lead is hopefully rare. Deep system and application knowledge can pull a Business Analyst or Project Manager away from building strong business relationships and eliciting fully complete business requirements. Going to more technical team members or even outside the organization for more savvy technical resources is a great idea when additional technical information is needed, answers are required fast and important business decisions are required.

Clarifying and Defining Project Requirements

There are going to be times when the project requirements need further defining. Perhaps even after they have been documented and work on the design or the development has started. It’s a natural occurrence and happens all the time – sometimes resulting in change orders. But it can’t be left to guess work – requirements must be clarified with the customer and possibly an outside expert technical resource when necessary. Failing to do so can result in costly re-work or an end solution that isn’t the right solution for the customer.

The Theory of Progressive Elaboration come into play here. At the beginning of the project you know very little about the details when formulating the project scope or design. As you progress or learn more about the details of the vision, goals, objectives and perhaps even the proposed solution your deeper understanding of the requirements. This typically results in scope or solution changes that are created by obtaining this deeper knowledge. Deeper knowledge also triggers level setting of project outcomes and expectations with project teams, stakeholders and project sponsors.

Getting Prices and Estimates for Change Orders

Another area where “knowing a guy” might be beneficial or even required is in the case of creating estimates and preparing change orders. We want our estimates to be accurate and we can’t always do that with the available team members, project manager or even others in the organization. An estimate may involve incorporating some yet to be used technology or service so knowing someone on the outside that possess that certain expertise could be a great benefit for getting an answer quickly and a change order proposal turned around to the project client in an impressive, accurate and swift manner. This all serves to help guarantee a satisfactory customer experience and a confident sign off on any needed change order work.

This is where Analogous estimating or estimating based on past experiences comes into play. Experts or other resources wither inside or outside the organization that have performed similar projects, will be able to provide a list of tasks or activities with durations. Duration of the task then drives the estimates. Care should be used with Analogous estimating techniques to ensure that tasks and durations would remain the same for the specific project. Validation of assumptions being made by external experts is critical to avoiding overly inflated estimates.

The Theory of Progressive Elaboration applies here. The estimates provided by outside experts are as good as their level of understanding for the project. The deeper the understanding of the project, the more accurate the Analogous estimate.

Experts at Requirements Meetings and Technical Discussions

Sometimes you need more than a phone call for some tough discussions. That’s when you might want to reach out to a “guy” or consultant who can come in, sit in on the business process discussions with the project client, sponsor or stakeholders to understand the “as is” and “to be” environment. Then help make some guidance decisions with those in the meeting. This consultant can be brought in as a subject matter expert (SME) to help guide the team to deeper understanding of the topic at hand or guide them down different path if the paths to create clarity. The result can be a solution that better fits the project and the real needs of the project customer and their organization.

It’s ok to reach out like this – it happens all the time. One thing that the Business Analyst and Project Manager will need to determine is if the solution is more technical or different than they understood it to be. Has the solution changed significantly due to our understanding? If not, they may need to eat the cost of this outside technical resource on their own in their own organization without the benefit of a change order to pay for it and a consultant or consulting organization like this won’t be cheap. But if the project is more detailed than the customer originally perceived then you can convince them that this resource is necessary to move the project forward and probably get them to sign off on a change order to cover this consulting service…or at least split the cost of it with your organization.

During issues or Testing or Break-Fix Work

Just like the requirements definition help mentioned above, there can be those times when you are testing a technical solution or trying to roll everything out and you can’t get past a few technical issues. It’s happened to me before. You may need to call in an outside expert to get the project past that performance testing issue or trouble spot. Again, you may have to assume all the expenses for this within the delivery organization without any change order benefit. At this stage, that is likely. But if you can justify it and feel ok about it, you can certainly try to get the customer to pay for part of it. It depends on the nature of the issues being encountered.

Summary

The key is to never hesitate to reach out for help. Never go it alone when you can seek help to get the best answers possible. The project’s success may depend on it so put the ego aside and bring in an expert whenever necessary. Anything less is not a smart move.

Readers – what are your thoughts on this? When you are lost do you stop to ask directions? Getting expert help can help you to stay clear of costly re-work that can wreak a project budget and timeline. Please share your thoughts and experiences below.

Worry Less, Succeed More in Project Management – Tips for Working Smarter

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Worry Less, Succeed More in Project Management – Tips for Working Smarter

Worry, worry, worry. I used to lay in bed at night worrying about my projects. It was like I was back in the eighth grade all over again.

Making notes for myself before I fell asleep of things I needed to be sure I took care of in the morning – only now I was putting notes into my smartphone. It is the same old dog with just a few new tricks. After hitting high school, my life became fun, and I worried less because I got smarter about a lot of things.

So, let’s just say I finally hit high school in terms of project management. Or better yet college (now that was more fun than everything combined, and I made it out alive, with good grades, successful…and best of all…in just four years!). There are some tips I’ve learned and mastered to make this whole PM mess of a world easier to live in and succeed in. Consider…

Manage Projects in 60 Seconds a Day

This is one of those things that is definitely from my personal category of “work smarter, not harder.” I even have a video about it as part of my “60 Second PM” video series, and it’s called “Manage Projects in 60 Minutes a Day”. The basic premise is you can get most of what you need to get done on each project you manage each and every day in just 60 minutes. Don’t bother multi-tasking. Most of us are bad at it. Set aside an hour and knock out everything you need to do that day on a given project. If you’re managing five or six projects at a time, like I often am, it may be the only way to keep your head above water. Don’t procrastinate and stay away from Facebook for that hour and focus on revising the project schedule, checking your project financial health, revising and sending out the status report, prepping for upcoming meetings, sending2 out a quick daily status email to all key stakeholders and you’re basically done. I know I’ve simplified it a bit here, but for many projects, this will be enough on many days of the week.

Worry Less About What You Can’t Control

Surprise! Project management is just like the real world. Much of what happens and affects us is beyond our control. Worry more about what you can control and less about what you can’t control. The budget is getting out of hand. You may be able to control it by talking to your team members about the tasks they are working on and where they are charging their time for all their work on your project and on all the other projects they are working on. But if a vendor is going to be late delivering a key material or service for the project, roll with it. There isn’t much you can do. Adjust the schedule and tell the client. Create an action plan to manage the vendor more directly if possible. Be aware you just may be stuck with the vendor being late. If the vendor is managed by your purchasing or contracting office, inform them of the delay and move on.

Rock the Meetings and Other Things Just Flow Better

Communication is possibly the most important ingredient to project success. So are good requirements and meetings with a key communication focal point. Have good meetings, go into them organized and know what you need to get out of them. Take good notes and follow up to ensure everyone understood what was discussed and assigned. That will make the rest of the project goes much more smoothly. Use meetings to get a lot of work decided and done. Then stick to the 60 minutes a day concept.

Delegate Well and Get More Sleep

You can’t do it all yourself. And guess what? No one wants you to because you aren’t that good at everything. Let go and delegate. That’s what you’re supposed to do, and that’s why you have teams and stakeholders who you are responsible for and who are supposed to care about the project. Use them – wisely and as much as possible.

Make the Project Client Your Ally

By definition the all-important and always correct inter-web definition of ally states, “To unite formally, as by treaty, league, marriage, or the like. To associate or connect by some mutual relationship, as resemblance or friendship. A person, group, or nation that is associated with another or others for some common cause or purpose.” It may feel like the project customer is breathing down your back all the time, but in reality, they do want you to succeed. So use them as a means to that end. Assign them tasks, force key decisions and info gathering on them, keep them involved and accountable. You won’t be sorry.

Senior Management Is Important, But So Is the Customer.

What your senior management wants and needs directs you to do what is important. They do after all sign your paycheck. But your customer is extremely important, and I’ve succeeded better by putting their needs and wishes first. When I’ve allowed myself to go against my better judgment and follow management’s directions in those tough situations it is more often than not I later realize that I should have stayed focused on my customer’s needs and wishes instead. Hindsight is 20/20. Plus, not following senior management direction – even in those tough spots when they are asking you to withhold info from the customer or do something you know is going to harm the project – can lead to you being out of work. That isn’t the end of the world but be mentally prepared if you ever have to take a firm stand.

Let the Bad Clients Go

I’m a consultant and I’m here to say, there are bad project clients out there, and they can make your life miserable. So, if you have a chance, let them go because you will never turn a bad or difficult client into a good or easier or compliant customer. It just won’t happen. But be prepared for the backlash – just like with senior management – if you take an unpopular stand. However, you will probably sleep better for it.

Summary

At the end of the day, project management isn’t rocket science. Project management is hard enough. We need to be looking for real world ways to streamline the work more, get more things off the project manager’s plate and on to a team member or stakeholder’s plate, and focus on success rather than pleasing everyone all the time. Then, you’ll find happiness.

Readers – what are your thoughts on my list? Do you agree – what do you have to add? Please share your thoughts and discuss.

5 Takeaways from Failed Projects

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 7 Comments on 5 Takeaways from Failed Projects

Projects fail. It’s a painful reality, but they do. And we can either learn from them or keep repeating them.

Unfortunately, we often repeat our mistakes a few times before we realize they are mistakes and may be the underlying causes of the failures. For me, this list of five is a good start in realizing what I needed to learn and change about mine and my teams’ project delivery processes. As you read my list of five, please consider what your list might look like.

1. Always Conduct Lessons Learned

This one is hard, I realize. A 2010 survey I conducted with project managers and their teams indicated that 57% either never conducted lessons learned sessions or performed them on fewer than 10% of their projects. People move on to their next assignments, and it just isn’t enough of a priority to make these sessions happen. That is unfortunate because another survey I conducted indicated that 46% of project leaders felt future project failures could have been avoided if they had been conducting lessons learned sessions rather than avoiding them.

2. Peer Reviews of Deliverables Are Important

I once had a project fail almost entirely because we weren’t conducting peer reviews on project deliverables. You may be saying to yourself, ”peer reviews..why?” Well, here’s why. My very skilled and experienced but also very thinly stretched (across 3-4 projects) business analyst on the project was producing a

Functional Design Document (FDD) – an important document on a complex technical project Not a huge project, but not a small one either…about a $350,000 implementation. Because of a glitch in the PDF program, he was using; we sent 3 error-prone documents to a very frustrated client before we got it right. Then we peer-reviewed every deliverable after that and on every project I’ve managed since then. Small oversights can lead to big client frustrations. Your customers start to think of you as sloppy and question what the overall end solution is going to look like. Don’t give them a reason like this to start lacking confidence in the delivery team’s abilities to get things right.

3. Communication is at The Forefront of Project Success

Miscommunication can sink a project quickly. Communication is Job One for the project manager. Poor or lacking communication leads to misinterpreted requirements, re-work, gold-platting (over developing a solution thus costing extra money beyond what’s budgeted for the task), and poor decision making. All of these can cause projects to fail in mid-project or to cause the rollout of a solution that the end users can’t use properly. Or it may cause a solution to go to user acceptance testing (UAT) that isn’t really ready for UAT. Trust me, the last thing a project manager, business analyst and tech team want to endure is a very painful customer user acceptance testing experience. It’s no fun. It’s costly. It causes great customer frustration, dissatisfaction, and a quick loss of client confidence. “Back to the drawing board” is not a phrase that the project team wants to hear. And your senior management won’t be too happy either. It is a big fail.

4. Make Sure Your Chosen Tool or Tools Can Do The Job

Make sure the project management tools you are using can get the job done. Some projects require heavy bug/issue tracking. That’s great if a spreadsheet can do the job, but if it can’t you need to tie change orders and pricing into it – then you may be running the project with inadequate project management and reporting tools. As you and your team assess the landscape of the project – including the requirements for managing the budget, the issues, the changes and scope, and the risks. Be thinking about what reports are going to be needed and what your current project management tool can handle. You may need to research some new options and chose a different direction for managing this particular project. Spending a little more money or taking the time to use the right tool can mean the difference between success and failure or at least on time and on budget delivery both of which tie into customer satisfaction and a successful project delivery.

5. Balance Customer and Senior Leadership Input When Making Decisions

What the customer thinks they need or want may not actually be the solution to their project needs. That’s why planning is critical, and you may have to tell the customer “It’s bigger than you think.” Step back with your team and assess what the business processes are and whether or not this “need” from the customer is the real problem or just a symptom of some bigger project that needs to happen.

The same goes with your own senior management who may sometimes give you direction on a project or how to handle a customer or key decisions. Do not blindly follow. I did on two occasions, and it ended up costing us two projects worth a combined $3 million. It was painful. Had I openly questioned my PMO Director’s direction on the projects and the decisions he made for these two projects, then we might have been able to save them. Hindsight is 20-20, indeed. But I’ve always been a customer-first kind of project manager and those two projects really confirmed why I am that way. If you are the project manager in the trenches with the customer and team on a daily basis, you are likely in a better position to make good decisions that will benefit the project the most. You see all angles, not just the best interests of your organization. Consider everything and don’t blindly follow. If something doesn’t feel right, say it then and not later when it’s too late.

Summary

Project failure happens. It isn’t always a complete failure. Take that project mentioned above where my team and I delivered the error-prone Functional Design Document three times before getting it right. We eventually handed off a solution to the client. But they weren’t excited about it, it was late, and they never ended up fully utilizing the technical solution. It went about 6 months and $150,000 over-budget. It was for a major airline and could have been a great success story. That one deliverable certainly wasn’t the reason for the failure, and it rested on both sides – with my delivery organization and with improper customer expectations, training, and planning. Still, I would not consider it a success.

What about our readers? What would you add to the list as some key causes of project failures or behaviors that can result in poor project delivery? Please share your thoughts and experiences.

5 Steps to Improved Project Team Collaboration

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on 5 Steps to Improved Project Team Collaboration

Team collaboration and communication is critical to project success.

The project manager organizes the project and provides scheduling, budgeting, resource planning and usage, communication and customer engagement oversight throughout the project. However, the business analyst is often the one in the trenches with the project team on a daily basis – often interacting on the individual tasks the team is performing both with the team and with the project customer. You can see how team collaboration would quickly be at the forefront of project success especially on today’s projects that often being carried out by virtual teams that may never come face to face with each other.

Let’s consider five possible steps to be taken to improve the project team collaboration on a day to day basis:

1. Know the Team

In this age of virtual teams, individuals may go through entire projects without ever meeting their team members – or even the client – face to face. I have carried out projects lasting 12 months or longer without meeting any of my team in person or even the customer. The key is communication. To create a close knit team, you must connect with them on a personal level as well. I always suggest at least a weekly team call. Unless something urgent must be discussed immediately, initiate the call with some lighter conversation. Start going around the group and talking about what activities they have going on outside of work over the weekend or next week. It is an excellent way to build some cohesion beyond just the task commitments. Everyone hates having their picture taken, but having a photo on your email signature line or profile in the system gives a face to the person on the other end of the phone call. We humans can feel empathy and comradery when seeing a person’s face because it is how our brains our wired. When we see a person’s picture, we feel closer to them personally.

2. Get Input from Everyone

Always include the entire team on important meetings, decisions, and communications. If you get in the habit of going only to a tech lead or data specialist for example on a given project before you know it that is all you will have left. The portion of the team that is always being left out will start to shift their focus to the projects where they feel they are making bigger contributions. You do not want that! Include everyone, even if you still have a go-to guy on the team for most of what you need. The team that keeps excellent communication where everyone is providing input is the more productive and accountable team. That is what you want for your team.

3. Allow Everyone to Face the Customer

Make sure everyone is interacting with the project client. It increases the feeling of contribution and accountability for the project team members. With that increased feeling of contribution and responsibility you will also likely see an increase in participation, cooperation, and performance. People want to be wanted. I want you to want me, remember? What is the easiest and best way to do this? Some of the team will frequently be interacting with the customer already – especially on a technical project where early on some requirements and business processes may need vetting. However, another great way – a way I have always used – is to allow (or force) each project team member to report on the progress of their key project tasks during the regular weekly status calls with the customer. This increases accountability and ownership of tasks and increases collaboration as they work to ensure that they have made as much progress as possible and that everyone on the team is up to date on their task statuses before these calls.

4. Use a Collaboration Tool

Believe it or not, on individual projects the tool can make a big difference. Moreover, if it is a collaboration you are in need of, then that has to be a significant project management consideration. Alternatively, you can set up a “home grown” collaboration method. However, there are enough project management related tools out there to research and try out where you can fully collaborate through the given tool of choice and not have to resort to a closed Facebook group. Can you tell that I have done that on a project or two? There are better choices out there to review. It takes time, but contact vendors, demo alternatives and find the one that works for your teams and organization and maybe your customers depending on whether or not you want them involved in the collaboration process. At a minimum, you want to be able to communicate and share documents and revisions through the collaborative tool. Proceed carefully. Complex collaboration tools that are difficult to interact with may break down communication for the team.

5. Clear Team Member Availability

Finally, to ensure you have full team member participation, collaboration and cooperation on high priority complex projects, make sure your team members are indeed available for the project. I’ve had several projects start well only to find that a given team member was stretched too thin or involved in another, possibly higher priority project. When issues arise on one of those other critical projects you may lose that essential resource either temporarily or even permanently. That can be painful and onboarding new resources is not without extra costs and sometimes lost in the process – not to mention causing almost immediate concern for the client that their project may not be very important to your organization if they are losing resources to other projects and other clients.

Summary

A tight team is a dedicated, ready to follow you into a battle. Excellent communication and collaboration is the key to most of the project success you are going to experience on any given engagement. Without good communication, requirements will get missed or miscommunicated, deadlines will come and go without successful delivery, and re-work will undoubtedly happen. All of these will serve to inch your project closer to overall customer dissatisfaction and project failure. You do not want that, so get started on the right foot from the outset. These are five of my proven steps to build the best team collaboration and avoid the pending glitches. I probably have more…

Readers: What are your steps? What do you do to build a close knit team and ensure the best and most efficient collaboration and communication possible? What problems have you encountered? What successes have you experienced? Please share and discuss.

Top 6 Project Manager Characteristics You Can’t Overlook

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Top 6 Project Manager Characteristics You Can’t Overlook

Sure we all have our list of key characteristics that a good project manager should have going into the PM career they have chosen…

or been forced into. Is it the right list? Maybe..probably depends on the type of projects they are leading. But I’ve got a different list here…one that has some “below-the-layers” type of characteristics that are more “soft” skills than hard skills. You can’t always just learn these and they really are necessary for true success on the tough ones…meaning tough projects.

So, let’s look over my list and try to lock in on these six and you’ll probably be pretty well-equipped to deal with most general project management related responsibilities that help define true success – at least from my experience over the years. It’s experience…but it’s the right experience that’s really the make it or break it in the PM world. Focus on these six…

Works well under pressure.

I don’t think there is a project manager alive and with any real experience to speak of who hasn’t felt some pressure or that real fun “under the gun” feeling when running a tough project. Expectations are high, information is low and the focus is on the project manager to make the right move or decision at the right time. This is one of those “must have’s” if you hope to be successful in the big projects. There’s really no “faking it till you make it” in this category…you can either sweat it out or you can’t. The best can.

Gets production from those under him.

The project manager who can’t lead his team effectively will get eaten alive. No one can question that. But what makes him get that following he requires? Leadership, honesty, integrity, experience – and the right experience, credibility, sometimes charisma, and that whatever it takes to just have the follow through to do what you say you’re going to do. What’s that called? Maybe stick-to-it-iveness. You know what I mean. Never wishy-washy. Battle tested, success proven. That’s who the team will follow. Not the resource manager disguised as the tech project leader.

Can deal with senior management.

This sounds easy, but it’s not. Senior management doesn’t always want exactly what the project customer wants…or even what the project manager wants. And sometimes they can demand things that aren’t necessarily in the best interest of the project. That happened to me on two occasions and I bowed to senior management even though I thought I knew it was the wrong way to go for the project and customer. Turns out my gut was right, but I didn’t listen to it and both times it cost us success on the project – we failed miserably and it was at that senior management input point that we jumped the shark on each project and failure became inevitable. No more…I am more careful in “just following” senior management. You really sometimes need to be able to “deal” with them and still support your customer’s best interests at the same time.

Knows financials.

Knows financials? Why is this important? Because the project that falls 10% off budget can be corrected. The project that is 50% over is likely doomed to fail. 50% is too great of an overage to correct when so many other critical things are going on for the project – all of which are chewing through the budget themselves and fighting for those fading dollars remaining on the project. So the project manager who is comfortable with the project financial planning, analysis and forecasting processes and knows to stay on top of the budget weekly is going to win more often than lose on the financial side. Having a good connection in accounting always helps because the smart project manager is reviewing project financials – updated with actual charges from his team and vendors – every week and re-forecasting diligently. If you are always watching, then it’s far more difficult for the project budget to go more than 10% over without you knowing about it…and doing something about it.

Doesn’t require accolades.

This one is important because you often won’t get any. Success is tough and often elusive (true success happens less than 50% of the time on average no matter how good you are), but is still expected every time out. Think Tiger Woods not winning a major golf tournament. While the odds of winning any major for the best are long, for Tiger it was expected every time out until he was beset with back injuries and surgeries. And even then he still has only won 14 major tournaments and trails the leader and legend Jack Nicklaus by 4 as he enters his 40’s with his prime behind him. So, understanding right away that success is expected and pats on the back are a strange and rare bonus will help the best performing project managers succeed and not care about what others think or what may be coming their way in terms of recognition.

Know how to handle the customer.

It’s the customer’s project. The customer’s money. It’s their requirements, their business processes, their technological whims and wishes. But success rests on yours and your team’s shoulders and no matter what the customer wants or says, at the end of the day success or failure is yours. So knowing how to interact with and manage the customer is important. Knowing when to say yes and when to say no is key. Knowing when your customer is just looking for treatment for a symptom of a bigger problem…that’s critical. And it takes experience and a strong gut to tell the project customer that you need to dig deeper…that what they have come to you with is not really the full project. Careful how you break that news to them though, because further analysis means more money. And it could lose you the project if you handle it wrong.

Summary / call for input

Basically, project leadership is not for the faint of heart. You have to start somewhere…yes. At some point a project manager is the newbie with no experience. Hopefully, that project manager gets to start small and has a good mentor. I did and it sure helped my success and confidence levels. Some get thrown into the fire. But somehow we all must acquire these characteristics and skills to truly succeed.

What’s your take on this list? What would you change or add to it? Please share your thoughts and experiences with our readers.