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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/.

5 Keys to the Best Project Client Retention Rate

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on 5 Keys to the Best Project Client Retention Rate






There is a saying, “it’s far easier to retain good customers than it is to go out and find new ones.” As an independent consultant, former PMO Director, and currently as a Project Manager who has spent over 20 years leading complex technical projects for demanding project clients, the same is true in my role.

You want that customer experience to be rewarding for both you and your client. You want the customer to feel as comfortable and confident with you leading their important projects as possible.

My motto is always, “You’re only as successful as your last customer thinks you are…” Not sure I can say it better any other way.

What can we do while we are managing our customer’s projects and managing the budgets to spend their project dollars as wisely as we can in order to end the engagement successfully?

And what can we do to provide the most satisfying customer experience so that it’s a no-brainer to whom they will turn if and when they need a similar project handled again?

Customer satisfaction is everything to customer retention, and good customer references from our best customers help us gain new business. For me, it boils down – at least in part – to focusing on project management best practices. But also comes down to fairly logical, but dedicated ongoing close focus to things that are near and dear to our customers’ hearts. Let’s consider these.

Timely, accurate status reporting.

Customer satisfaction often begins with good status reporting. A regular, detailed, and accurate project status report plays the dual role of showing the project client that you are on top of the project, that the project information is up to date, and – hopefully – that the project is in good control.

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Even better, make sure you’ve interacted with the client to find out exactly what they want to see on the weekly status report. Don’t waste your time, though, producing fifteen different status reports for fifteen different entities or stakeholder groups. Do yourself a favor and find one format that works for everyone. The Project Manager already has enough on their plate and often is managing more than one project at a time, so try to keep it as simple as possible. But keep it regular – don’t skip weeks even if there is no real change. The customer still wants to know you’re on top of it.

A detailed, revised project scheduled delivered frequently.

As important as a regular, accurate status report is, a revised project schedule in the hands of the project customer and team is just as important. The customer doesn’t want two or three weeks to go by and be looking at the same project schedule showing the same task progress as three weeks ago. What does that say to them? It says no progress has been made. That is not a good step toward project retention. Your team has made progress – show it.

Regular sponsor/customer contact.

I always say that formal weekly project status meetings or calls with the customer are important. Certainly you’re probably in contact with the customer several times a week by phone or email, and that type of contact is critical and does help with customer retention. But you and your team get to really shine every week on the status call and show what you’ve accomplished, get the information you need from the customer and get decisions made. Take advantage of it.

Budget management and accountability.

You’re managing – for the most part – someone else’s money. Sure, you’re accountable to your senior management, probably even the CFO of your company, for the profitability of the project. But the funding comes from the customer and a project budget that goes crazy could cause a project to get canceled mid-stream. That could end up being a complete waste of the customer’s dollars and will not end in high client satisfaction or a retained customer.

Related Article: Are Your Sponsors and Clients Satisfied?

Manage the budget closely. Every week you should get new actual charges against the project from accounting, revise the project budget forecast, and analyze what the budget health looks like.

A 10% budget overrun can be corrected fairly easily. A 50% or 60% overrun cannot and may not ever be corrected. If you’re managing the budget closely every week, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever go past 10% over. You can quickly plan with your team – and possibly even your project customer – on what corrective action you may need to take. Your customer wants you to succeed. They are there to help. Trust me.

Team control.

The Project Manager, who is leading and appears to be in control of their team throughout the engagement, is more likely to retain the customer and help see that the current project leads to more projects and more revenue.

Conflict resolution, team collaboration, and project team member communication are all key responsibilities of the Project Manager and, if done right, keep the team in control and focused on the goals and mission of the project keeping the project on track toward success. Project success equals customer satisfaction, and customer satisfaction equals project success.

Summary / call for input

Our project customers are important. Our projects are complex. Our project teams are skilled and work hard to complete projects successfully – often working several projects at once. Just as we project managers are also leading several projects and project teams at once. The job asks a lot of us with no guarantees of big rewards or even recognition at the end.

So, we take lots of pride in being able to see projects through from conception to completion and to end them successfully by rolling the solution out to a project client’s anxiously awaiting end user base. When we do that, we are putting our stamp on the project. Success often leads to future work with this very same client, either in the form of upgrades and add-ons to the current project or even new and more complex (and maybe even higher dollar) projects.

Customer retention is a big deal– it’s the easiest way to ensure future revenue and job security and that’s always a good thing.

What about our readers – what are your secrets to customer retention? What do you do to monitor customer satisfaction and what do you do to keep yourself in the best position to successfully deliver on your projects? What do you agree with or disagree with on this list presented here?

Project Management Simplified for the Masses

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 7 Comments on Project Management Simplified for the Masses

Project management isn’t rocket science. It would be nice if it was – it would probably pay better. But it is interesting. It is challenging. It does require dedication and organization. And it certainly isn’t for everyone as it doesn’t bring high pay and accolades.

You have to want to do it. But you can. If you’re logical, have common sense, can be organized, and aren’t afraid to put your neck on the line when you know or think you’re right and when you’re trying to do the best for the work you are doing, for whom you’re doing it (the project client) and whom you’re doing it with (the project team).

So, if you’re thinking project management as a career and the above seems to fit you then please read on. I want to tell you – in simplified form – what project management really is all about. I’m not claiming to be the best Project Manager in the world…I certainly am not. Nor am I the best PM author in the world, but possibly the most prolific. However, I do prefer to work smarter, not harder because I always have a lot to do in a day managing projects and multiple clients. So, the simpler I can make it, the easier and more productive my PM life can be. Keep in mind I’m writing this from two perspectives that may or may not match up with your own professional angle. I am writing this from experience as an IT/technical project manager and as a consulting project manager/business strategist. Please be thinking of your own processes in project management that help you get things done and simplify your life and feel free to share and discuss.  Mine are in no particular order of importance but rather a full body of project work.

Kickoff the project with detail. Plan, prepare for and conduct a kickoff meeting for your project. Whether it’s a $5,000 project or a $50 million project, do this. You won’t be sorry. The project kickoff session – whether it’s a formal face to face meeting with 50 attendees or a conference call with 10 people on the line – sets the stage for everything that happens after. This is your chance to get everyone on the same page with the same expectations of your delivery team and the outcome. It gets everyone ready for the next steps of nailing down good, complete requirements and starting work on the project solution.

Status report weekly. Preparing and distributing weekly status reports to all project team members, the project client and all project stakeholders – including your senior management within the delivery organization – is extremely important. It’s all part of keeping everyone “in the know” and on the same page as much as possible. Do this and your life as a project manager becomes much easier. It means fewer emails and phone calls to and from those stakeholders – and the project customer – wondering what is going on with ‘x’ task or what the latest status of a particular deliverable is. It should all be available in the weekly status report. If it’s important to the project, it should be in there.

Create one status report for all. Nothing says make it simple on yourself like doing it right once. Find a project status report layout that satisfies everyone whom you need to satisfy. Start with the client’s needs and your team’s needs, then build in a nice dashboard for your senior management and maybe only include the dashboard with their version. But at least you don’t have to re-work it 15 different ways for 15 different groups or individuals.

Meet on status weekly. This means to meet with the project customer and the project team. It’s a given you meet with the customer weekly – they need and require and should be entitled to regular weekly updates on the project status. Yes, you can do this through status reports and for some project clients on small projects or projects with little complexity, that may be all they want and need. But it’s an even better idea to conduct an actual meeting – even if it’s a short one.  A ten-minute weekly phone call can still do wonders for keeping the small issues from falling through the cracks and becoming big issues later on in the project.

Revise project schedule, budget, and resource plans weekly. Revising critical project data every week is just plain wise and common sense. Project managers need to know that all project stakeholders – the most important of those being the project customer and project team members – are on the same page at all times. One of the best ways to automatically do this is to keep the project schedule up to date and distributed among those key project stakeholders. When you need decisions made and input on project tasks, deliverables, and milestones, all stakeholders will – or at least, should – know where the project tasks stand progress-wise at any given time. The same holds true for budget status and resource planning and usage though this is usually something you keep to just the delivery side of the equation. Tying the project client into budget status and resource forecasting and planning is not a common thing, but something you can certainly do if the project – and the customer – call for it.

One more note on the regular budget planning and re-forecasting.  Doing this weekly is just good fiscal management. A budget left unattended can quickly get out of hand when the project is extremely busy, and much effort and activity is being charged to the project. A budget overrun of 10% is far easier to correct than a 50% budget overrun…and close weekly oversight and analysis almost guarantees that it will never go over by more than 10% without you knowing it.

Summary / call for input

Project management is hard enough. Managing hundreds of tasks on complex project schedules and being responsible for the delegation and accurate reporting of those tasks can be mind-boggling. Top that off with all the reporting, customer management and decision making that must happen to keep the whole mess moving forward and it’s basically like you’re trying to steer a barge through a canal with one hand. Step back and look at how you can streamline certain activities. Minimize meetings and the length of meetings. Do one status report, not three different versions. This will especially help you if you end up being responsible for several projects at once. It may be the only way you keep your sanity and start to realize some key project successes.

What are your tricks and processes for keeping things as simple as possible? What secrets do you employ to keep your head above water while still being productive, working smarter, not harder, and satisfying all those pesky stakeholders?

5 Project Management Mistakes that Can Get You Sued

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on 5 Project Management Mistakes that Can Get You Sued

I’m an independent consultant AND a Project Manager.  My online reputation is everything, and the last thing I want would be to have a lawsuit directed at me suddenly. 

If you’re consulting or performing PM services through a third party that is paying you, then generally you’re covered by that organization.  And if not, then your own liability insurance will cover you.  Still the negative connotation of being a party in a lawsuit is enough to cause harm to a consulting or project management practice.  So – hint – you want to avoid a lawsuit whenever possible.

I’m sure there are many ways to quickly get yourself into the middle of an ugly lawsuit as a Project Manager or consultant, all of which we want to avoid.  What I’m going to cover here are the top 5 that come to mind for me.  Again, this is far from a comprehensive list, so please be ready to share your own thoughts and experiences and let’s discuss.

Providing an unusable end solution.  This one goes without saying.  Obviously, if you blow through the client’s project budget and turn over an unusable solution to their end users, you might find yourself the subject of a lawsuit.  Always show yourself as willing to right any wrong and stay with a project until you get it right.  You will greatly reduce your chances of facing a lawsuit if the project fails at first  but stick with it to make it right or, at least, show good effort and intent.  A good show of faith in the face of project adversity will help the client to see that you are on their side and are willing to do whatever it takes to fix the end solution as much as possible.  I’m not saying you won’t have to give away some free work.  You likely will but just about anything is better than an expensive and disruptive lawsuit.

Misrepresenting your credentials and experience.  You shouldn’t lie on your resume, and you shouldn’t lie on your website.  Never give yourself credit for credentials you don’t have.  I’m not sure how easy it is for someone to check your credentials or how many even would, but you just don’t do that.  And, if that deceit is coupled with any failures on your part during the course of the project, a lawsuit may happen.  The integrity of the Project Manager or consultant should never be in question.  The minute it is, the word can get around fast, and you may find yourself losing all of your clients at once, and fast.

Leaking proprietary client information to a competitor. Most project clients will want you to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).  There also may be a formal contract involved.  Either way, logic should tell you that you don’t leak proprietary client information to anyone, let alone a competitor of your valued client.  I have had several clients writing into our agreement a list of direct competitors that I agree not to work with while I’m engaged with this client.  Our project clients are important – honor all such agreements and always be above and beyond reproach.  I don’t even like to give out client names when prospective customers ask for references.  I avoid this at all costs.  It’s been a good practice for me.

Related Article: Strategies to Keep Your Project on Track

Failing to cover your bases with signoffs/approvals.  I’m not saying you always need formal signoffs on all deliverables.  But why not?  You never know when you might run up against a client who seems a bit overly litigious, and if you don’t have the documentation to prove that you met dates, milestones, and deliverables along the way, then you could find yourself being sued without the documentation to defend yourself.  Come up with a formal, generic signoff sheet or email for each deliverable and ask your client to sign it or respond to the email with their approval.  That documentation may be golden one day.  Always be careful.

Failure to document requirements well.  As Project Managers, we all know that it’s a bad idea to embark on a project without good, detailed project requirements in place.  It’s what you use to develop your customer’s final solution.  Unfortunately, bad requirements happen all the time, and they can lead to projects going over budget, over time, and – if not corrected at all – the final result may be an end solution that isn’t usable.  So really, this one can overlap a bit with the first topic above.  But requirements are the lifeblood of the project and as the delivery organization it is your job to make sure that the requirements are well documented and signoff/approved by the project client.  If you have poor requirements to develop the solution from then, don’t start the project work until you have good requirements.  If you start, then the finger will be pointed at you, and a lawsuit may come about.

Summary / call for input

Lawsuits are ugly.  Customers can sometimes be overly litigious.  And sometimes you don’t know that until the project is well underway.  A lawsuit may have a basis, or it may be unfounded…but either way, it can be damaging to you.  Be honest, by above reproach, follow through, and don’t forget to document everything.

Thankfully, I’ve never even been close to being involved in one.  No threats, no actions.  The key is to be open and honest with your project clients at all times and always give them your best.  Failure happens, but if the project client knows you’ve been upfront with info, have given the project 100% and are willing to do what you can to fix issues along the way, then you will greatly reduce any chance of legal action should failure be the final outcome.  Stick with the client and make their satisfaction your ultimate goal.  It will always work to your benefit over time.

How about our readers?  What are your thoughts on this?  Have you or your organization ever faced a lawsuit as a result of a failed project?  What happened?  What did you do to work it out with the client?  Please share and discuss.

Finish What You Start

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on Finish What You Start

I think I speak for most or all of us when I say it’s more or less part of our human nature that we like to finish what we start.  Please tell me if you disagree. 

I get frustrated at home when I get called away from a task that I’m in the middle of or interrupted on a complicated project and then try to go back a week later and try to pick up where I left off. All of that forward momentum…all of the job well-done enthusiasm…all of that teaching my kids a step by step approach to completing that specific task is gone. And it’s very hard to resume with the same accuracy, efficiency and enthusiasm that was there previously. 

The same holds true – in my opinion – on the projects we are managing.  To start with a fresh new project with a new client and a formal kickoff that you prepare and plan for and then conduct is great.  To bring that long project to completion and rollout no matter how many ups and downs and bumps and issues there were is relieving, rewarding, priceless and very fulfilling all at the same time.  To have to hand off that project you’ve owned since its inception at any point short of completion sucks. It just plain sucks.

It’s not always going to work, but if you really want to finish the project you’ve started, and management is pushing you to jump to another new project, here are ‘x’ steps to take to try to hang on to the special project that you don’t want to let go of.

Formulate reasons why you need to stay on the current project.  Do you want to keep your project that you’ve successfully walked your team and project client halfway through?  Then fight for it.  You may not be successful, but you’ll be sincere and probably respected for it.  How do you fight for it?  Well, you’re likely being pulled for something that your senior leadership feels is either a better fit or that they need your experience or leadership to take on.  It may be a project for a very important new or past customer, and they want your expertise to lead it.  So you may not have a choice, but you can explain you appreciate the vote of confidence, and state that you’d really like to figure out a way – jointly with management – to keep your current project as well.

Justify keeping the project showing your ability to handle the workload.  Once you’ve expressed your desire to hang on to your current project, and if it appears you are going to be obligated to take on the newly assigned project, then you’re going to have to show how you can handle both projects.  That’s probably only going to fly if you are at a slower point on the project that you want to see through until the end.  If it’s going smoothly, then you may win your battle. But if your project that management wants offloaded to someone else is going strong and taking considerable PM time, then you’re not likely to get very far. That’s when you move on to the next argument.

Suggest other projects to offload.  If you can’t get management to leave you off the new project, and you can’t get them to agree to let you have both projects, then you must approach them with the concept of offloading another project to some other project manager, assuming you’re managing more than just one project currently.  This may sound logical, and it may even sound easy, but getting management to change their mind about strategic plans they’ve already formulated, thought through and were in the process of acting upon is difficult at best.  They can be as stubborn as you when they feel they’ve made wise plans and wise decisions.  You’ll need to do the dirty work.  You will need to be the one to select which project or projects could be offloaded – possibly even suggesting how to offload one or more projects to and why.  You’ll need to do the legwork on this because they already have and their mind is made up. 

Related Article: 5 Goals of a Project Manager

Next, sit down with management have a discussion, going through your justification of why it makes more sense to offload project ‘y’ than project ‘x’…the one you want to keep.  Look at dollars, the team, and mainly the customer.  If you can get any statements from clients supporting how much they want you to stay on the project or how satisfied they are with you and your team’s performance, that will only help you in your cause.

Summary / call for input

The bottom line is this, if you’re passionate about project management, owning your project and the high-level of customer service that goes along with it, then you probably want to see your projects through to the end.  Whether the project is going great and you want to bring it home or it’s going poorly and you don’t want to be that project manager who abandoned his customer and handed off a stinking mess of issues to another project manager to clean up, you want to keep it.  You have your reasons.  If so, then you’ll need to fight for it – not obnoxiously, but logically.  And you’ll need to state your case – you’ll need to reason with your senior management and convince them that your way is the best way.  Like the starting pitcher who doesn’t want to be removed from the game, you’ll have to convince that pitching coach that you shouldn’t have to turn the ball in just yet.

What about our readers?  Is it common for you to not be able to see your projects through to the end?  I think we see this more often when organizations are understocked with reliable, experienced project managers, and they often need to reach out to the most experienced to take on the new and more complex projects they start to acquire as they grow their business and PM practice.  What are your thoughts?  What are your own potential solutions or suggestions?

Making the Most of a Bad Project Client Relationship

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Making the Most of a Bad Project Client Relationship

I realize this is probably a fairly confusing title. But we do sometimes have those bad client-delivery organization relationships. Either they were bad on an old portion of the project, and you just took over a restart of the project, or possibly they lack confidence right out of the gate on your ability to deliver.

Maybe the project sponsor was stuck in their position against their will, and they’re determined to show you that nothing you can do will make them happy.

Is this a no-win situation? It sounds like it, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m not saying you can certainly succeed. You may be doomed to fail no matter what you do to turn things around, but there are a few steps you can take to show your client that you are determined to win them over. Now, bite your lip, suck it up, and try out one or more (or all) of these actions in an attempt to turn that customer frown into a smile.

Meet face-to-face. The very first action – and probably most obvious and possibly most painful depending on why the client relationship is sour – is a good old-fashioned face-to-face meeting. Or at least a good face-to-face conference call. This meeting is project manager to project sponsor. Ask how things are going, what is going well, what is causing concerns, and how confident they feel in your team’s ability to deliver. In fact, have them go over their top five concerns about the project right now. Then proceed to address each of those concerns. First do this in the meeting with a conclusive answer or a “we’ll take that under advisement”. Then tell them you’ll report to them within a week on how you intend to address those concerns.

Change your project status reporting structure. Change how, what, and when you’re reporting project status on the engagement. This may not sound like anything earth shattering, but trust me it can be vital. There are those clients who get frustrated because they don’t feel like they are regularly receiving the information that will make them confident and comfortable with what is happening on the project. Ask them if they feel like the current status reporting structure is meeting their needs. If not, change it so that it does. Listen carefully, and then act.

Related Article: Are Your Sponsors and Clients Satisfied?

Get your senior management involved. This is one of those situations where you have to take this action before your customer does. Getting someone from your executive team to sit in on one or more project status calls can send a great message to your client. It says, “you are important to us…very important.” Plus, if you do this proactively, the client will enjoy the attention rather than see it as an opportunity to complain or request changes. Being proactive and changing things around a bit on a stale or stalled project usually has a very positive effect on customer confidence and satisfaction. Your attempts to gain executive visibility for the project and the client will not go unnoticed by the project customer.

Perform a scope review on the project. Much like everything else on this list, doing a scope check mid-project is another action to help the project customer gain confidence that what they will be receiving is, indeed, what they want and are paying for. A good time to run back through requirements would be just before testing preparation as it will provide your client with a nice segue into building test cases and test scenarios for user acceptance testing (UAT). But this will also give them complete confidence – or as complete as possible – that you have built the final product with all requirements in mind. This review can also be accomplished – to a degree – by creating a requirements traceability matrix. A good sit-down with the client to review scope is a nice hand-holding gesture and gives them greater confidence in the delivery team’s ability to actually deliver.

Conduct an on the spot lessons learned mid-project. Finally, (or possibly next) halt everything and conduct a lessons learned session on the project with the customer. Discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly on the project so you can improve or take corrective action (if that is even necessary) rather than just learn for the next project. You will gain lots of points with the client just by being bold enough to do this mid-project and attempting corrective action if needed. Nothing says you value the client relationship like doing something of this magnitude.

How to move forward

A bad relationship just may remain a bad relationship no matter what you do. But I guarantee you that it definitely will if you choose not to do anything. Do something about it. Change something, talk to the project client, open up new lines of communication. Just don’t ever bury your head in the sand. That is the absolute worst thing you can do. Within a week, they will be contacting your CEO.

Be proactive, take corrective steps – and those corrective steps should start with one, two or possibly all of the five actions I’ve outlined in this article. Try out these five actions – something will improve. And as you try out each – ask yourself and your team if things seem to have improved. And then, be bold, ask your project client for feedback. Ask if they have seen positive changes. The worst thing they can say is, “not really” or “not yet.” But at least they will have seen action, and that is all good.

What about our readers? When have you had a project relationship that was strained and what did you do to try to turn things around and win back or gain customer confidence? Did it work?