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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/.

10 Ways to Improve Your Project Today

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 72 Comments on 10 Ways to Improve Your Project Today

Maybe all of your projects are going strong right now. But if you’re like me and you are overseeing 5-6 projects at a time and we know that there is a greater than 50% failure rate (to some degree) on technical projects, then it’s likely that at least one of your projects is struggling. What I want to cover here is ten positive ways that – with out a lot of effort – you can improve your project right now. Nothing earth shattering or difficult to implement, that’s what makes it so practical that you have no excuse but to implement some or all of these this week. Try it and see how it goes – then let me know – because none of these will hurt your project and all should help to some degree. And that’s all we’re looking for, some improvement to customer satisfaction, project visibility in your own organization, team ownership and accountability, resource management, and financial management improvement.

Some of these may be happening on your projects right now and if they are, that’s great. The more of these that you are already doing, the better. Let’s consider…

Engage the team daily. We engage the team as needed and probably weekly on at least a customer status call. But we need to be engaging them more often as a group – especially if the project is starting to go off the rails. Gold plating, estimate padding, any rogue development, or lost focus on YOUR project is possible when you’ve left too much time between contacts with your critical project resources. Stay in touch – and stay in touch often. I suggest a group page on Facebook or the use of a collaboration tool that – at the very least – allows you to say, “Hi, how’s it going today and what is everyone focused on right now?”. That will allow you to touch base as a group each morning and will keep the team expecting communication, oversight and accountability from you daily. It’s a good thing and a great habit to be in.

Check in with the project customer at least three times a week. Just as we need to keep our project team engaged and on task, we need to do the same with our project client. One project status call and touch base each week may be fine for small projects or during slow times, but for larger and high visibility projects or projects experiencing ongoing issues those touch points need to happen more often and I suggest 3-4 times per week for that.

Add financials to the project status report. The project budget is always important and keeping it in front of the team and the customer only serves to elevate it to a new level of visibility, oversight and accountability. But seriously, I’ve run projects that started to experience serious budget issues. Unfortunately, I was directed by my PMO director to keep the info and troubles out of sight from my project customer on a couple of important and high dollar projects and by the time I could attempt to discuss it with the customer and make a plan for action, it was too late. We ultimately saved one of them after a long work stoppage, but the other one was canceled. It could have gone the other way under better circumstances.

Include senior management in your status reporting distribution. Something most of us don’t do unless the PM infrastructure requires it – including senior management in our weekly project status reporting distribution. Likely, if there is a PMO in place, the director is doing something to report status up the chain of command. I say take it a step further to get senior management aware and involved – especially on the bigger projects. And it never hurts for them to see your name as the PM on a regular basis…unless your project is constantly in trouble.

Send out meeting agendas in advance. This may be something you’re already doing, but if not, start today. It gives everyone a chance to know what’s going to be discussed, know what they need to be prepared for, and allows them to be ready to speak. All of these add up to a meeting that is usually going to be quicker and more productive and – in the long run – better attended.

Hold meetings no matter what, but stay on topic. Nothing really to discuss this week? Don’t cancel the meeting. Say hi, go around the room, and spend 5-10 minutes. You may not get much said or learn anything, but you’ve spoken volumes about your consistency and at the same time shown you’re not a time waster when nothing really needs to be said. But if you start to cancel those meetings rather than going through with them you’ll be telling all the attendees that your meetings aren’t that important and your attendance may dip. Don’t cancel; just don’t waste their time. That’s what the water cooler is for.

Revise project financials weekly. I always say that a 10% budget overage is easier to correct than a 50% budget overage. That is obvious. But what might not be obvious to some is that by reviewing and revising your project financials every week the PM is far more likely to see budget issues before they get out of hand (like 50% out of hand).

Revisit resource forecasts weekly. Everything I stated about project financials goes for the resource forecast as well. Plus, your project resources are usually the most expensive part of the project so they play into the project financials anyway. Working on one and not the other is certainly not wise.

Plan for a mid project lessons learned session. I say why wait till the end of the project to conduct a lessons learned session. Plus, if you always wait till the end you run the risk of losing most or all of your team and the customer to whatever they are working on next. Get everyone together 2-3 times during the project for quick lessons learned sessions to discuss what’s going well and what isn’t so you can correct things now rather than later. This keeps customer satisfaction higher and allows for mid-project correction of issues. Win-win.

Bring the CEO to your next project meeting with the client. Finally, figure out a way to drag your CEO or at least someone close to that level to your next project status meeting. Your customer will love the exposure and seeming importance placed on their project and you’ll get a leader involved who may serve to knock down a roadblock or two later in the engagement.

Summary

The bottom line is we can’t guarantee what will work and what won’t, what will make a difference in the engagement and satisfaction of our project clients and ownership of our team members. But we can take several small steps to improve our project that won’t ding the budget or the timeline and can help improve our standing with our customer while also serving to help us stay on top of budgets and resource planning. And these are always areas that we struggle to stay in control of as project managers…especially on the more challenging and long term projects and especially when our plates are full and our project oversight is spread thin.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

9 Steps to Regaining Project Control

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on 9 Steps to Regaining Project Control

egland Feb18

I don’t know about your experiences, but when I’m managing projects I rarely have the luxury of running just one project at a time. Even if I have a large engagement on my plate, I usually have at least a couple of other projects going on concurrently. That said, it’s easy – when issues come up on any project – to let that project or one of the other quieter projects get a little off track or a little out of control. And, if the project with issues or high priorities goes out of control then the damage can be large, the magnifying glass on you can be huge, and the customer satisfaction can be of major importance.

For this discussion, I really can’t focus on any single project issue or topic that can cause us to get behind or lose some control on our projects, because the list of potential problems is essentially infinite. Some are even outside of our control, but most have to do – directly or indirectly – with budget, time, or customer satisfaction. Or at least they can cause problems with one or two or all three of these. So let’s consider this in general terms – what do we do to help get our project back on course?

Here is my 9 step process to analyze, assess, plan, inform, and execute…

1. Assess the issue.  First, assess the situation as thoroughly as possible. At this point you are doing it alone, personally as the project manager. It doesn’t matter if you found out about it, or it was an ongoing issue, or a 3rd party such as a team member brought it to your attention. And even if your assessment only lasts 15-30 minutes, I feel strongly that the project manager has responsibility for performing an initial assessment and creating the beginnings of a rough action plan before taking it to the team. The project manager needs to be in charge, in control, and give the appearance of being properly briefed and prepared to begin planning for action.

2. Rein in the team.  Next, bring the team together to discuss the issue(s) and begin to devise at least a rough course of action. Again, this needs to happen quickly and not take too much time. You aren’t putting together the overall plan for action, you’re still in the early assessment and analysis phase. Any delay here means a delay in notifying the client…so this needs to be about one hour or less (depending on the severity and/or complexity of the situation).

3. Meet with the customer.  In this next step, we actually notify the client. If this pertains to ongoing issues, then it’s likely the client is already aware. However, they may be working with you in ongoing break/fix mode (most of us have been there where we fix one issue and create two more new ones as a result when we test the fix) and may not realize you’re at a point where additional or more significant action is about to be taken. At any rate, this is where you sit down with the client and either break bad news to them – while tell them you are vigorously working on a course or courses of action to present to them shortly – or that you are working to present a more finalized plan of action to attack what has been ailing the project to this point. Give them a time frame – preferably no more than a day or two – that you will be coming back to them with solidified plan or plans of action.

4. Meet with senior management.  You knew that you were going to have to take it to senior management sooner or later – and now is the time. Depending on the issue and situation, senior management may already be aware that the project has issues or is in some sort of trouble. This is where you present the full picture, and a draft plan of action for next steps resolution. You should probably also have at the ready any requests you have of them – perhaps now is a good time for them to make a phone call to the project client to reassure them that the best team is on it and will be returning with a course of corrective action in the next 24-48 hours. Reassuring the customer at this time is one of your biggest concerns – you want to keep that customer satisfaction as high as possible and keep them as informed as possible. Seeing that your senior management is involved will likely calm them rather than cause concern to escalate.

5. Devise 3+ action plans.  Next, work with your team (and senior management if necessary and/or appropriate) to devise three or more possible plans of action. This is an introductory step to the next step – where you must really come up with a good plan of action.

6.  Brainstorm options (customer optional depending on level of involvement and type of project). Here you are once again working with your team – the experts – to finalize a plan of action. Leave senior management out at this point because you’ll be getting their approval/signoff of your plan in the next step anyway. Weigh the technology, the costs, the timeframe and any current restrictions with the project and come up with the solution that seems to be the best fit considering all of those constraints. This is where you really finalize the next steps. Involving the customer in this process is optional depending on their level of involvement and the complexity of the solution or plan.

7.  Present choice to senior management. Since you’ve involved senior management in this already, you’re going to want to inform them of your plan and get that buy-in. If you don’t – and something happens – everything is on you and your team. That should not be the case – you represent your organization. Get senior management approval because, believe it or not, they may have some helpful input you had not yet considered.

8.  Present choice to customer. Here is where your presentation skills, negotiation skills, and leadership skills may need to be called on all at once. You’re going to present the chosen solution to the customer, get their approval of the chosen course of action, and make them feel comfortable and confident that you and your team know what you’re doing. Good luck.

9.  Strategize and execute. Finally, strategize with your team and the customer on how best and when best to implement the chosen course of action, and…then execute that plan. Have the proper technical support ready. Think of it almost like a disaster recovery demonstration. Be prepared for the risks and be ready to have not everything work 100% as intended. The stronger your execution is on this, the stronger your customer’s confidence in you and your team’s ability to deliver will be.

Summary

Some or all of these will work – at least to some degree – for any type of sizeable project issue you might be facing. Of course, it isn’t necessary to take every issue to senior management, involve all stakeholders in the analysis and decision making processes, or even notify your project client concerning every issue that arises. But significant issues that arise – and that’s the assumption here…that we are dealing with something significant and potentially project course altering – are going to involve most or all of these steps to some degree.

Don’t forget to leave  your comments below.

Managing the Project Kickoff Process

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Managing the Project Kickoff Process

egland Jan21Kicking off a new project can be an interesting and rewarding experience.  It can also be a nightmare.  The difference between the two is often determined by just a little proper forethought and planning in advance of the initial customer contact and kickoff preparation process.  The kickoff process is never simple and easy – it does require a fair amount of planning and effort.  However, a project that is kicked off well will properly set customer expectations, possibly even senior management expectations, and get the critical project planning process that happens next off to the best start possible.  All of these are key ingredients of success on any project.

There is no “mandatory” process to go through when planning and preparing for the project kickoff.  And most what needs to happen is fairly logical.  For me, I’ve come up with a list of five areas and concepts to cover when I’m getting ready to kickoff a project.  Some have just come through learning the hard way as you’ll see when you read the info presented below.  Please review my process and feel free to comment with what has worked (and not worked) for you as you prepare to kickoff a crucial project for one of your customers…

The handoff to PM.  The first step in the process is the handoff. In most organizations, the PM has no role in the actual sales process of the potential project with the client…or the project inception process.  That is unfortunate, because the PM has much he can bring to the table in terms of delivery organization capabilities, PM concepts and practices, a solid understanding of what it’s going to usually take to get the project done, what type of information is needed from the customer, and a good idea of levels of effort and costs of any given activity or set of tasks.  Early PM involvement can help properly set expectations all around, provide the customer with a more accurate price and timeline from the start, and likely get the project kicked off faster.  But I digress.

In most organizations, this will not be the case, so the next best thing is to get a great handoff from sales to the PM.  That involves a complete knowledge dump because the account manager who “sold” the project knows how he came to the price and timeframe that was committed to, and he knows customer wants, needs and quirks that will help the PM best serve that customer.  Those things must transfer to the PM.

Preparation for the kickoff.  Next, begin preparation for the formal kickoff session.  First that should involve an introduction of the PM to the project customer and a determination of when and where the project kickoff will take place.  This usually happens on customer soil so as to set the “service” tone of the overall project engagement.  It may end up being one of the few times the PM and team (if they are assigned at this point) are onsite with the project customer so you’ll want to take advantage of this and familiarize yourself with their location – especially if it has any bearing on the technical or business solution that will be rolled out at the end of the project.  Preparation for this critical session needs to include a presentation deck and proposed agenda that is delivered to the customer in advance of the session for general approval (no surprises…or at least avoid them as much as you can just as you would during the project).

Who should attend kickoff?  This may not seem that important beyond the project sponsor or true project leader on the customer side, some key stakeholders on either side, and the PM.  Oh but it is.  I’ve kicked off projects where the customer decided to have nearly 30 potential end users attend.  Mistake.  Why?  Because as you begin to have any type of design discussions during the kickoff session – and it will come up – these 30 people each have a mind of their own and need based on their job and it can easily turn a 3 hour kickoff session into a two day meeting if not managed well.  That’s what happened to me on one large kickoff effort so I’ve learned to discuss that in advance with my project customer so we can stay on track during the actual kickoff session.

What to cover.  There are a large number of potential topics for the formal project kickoff – depending on the project size, genre, technology, etc.  However, there are a few very common things that should be covered and discussed in every project kickoff session – whether it’s for a $50,000 project or a $5 million project.  At a minimum, I believe the project statement of work should be discussed in detail, all milestones and deliverables as well as those proposed dates, the role of the project team members, how any training and testing will be handled, the change order process for the project, how the project will be managed overall including communication and the general project methodology, and what the next steps are and when they will happen.  Which leads us to…

Next steps.  As the kickoff session is nearing an end, the next steps need to be discussed.  For an IT project, that’s usually requirements definition and other project planning, design discussions, and then the actual build/development of the solution (pardon the very high-level glossed over next steps).  A decision on where and when these things are going to happen needs to be discussed and there is definitely no better time to do that than when you have all of these key players in the same room at the same time.  Even for remote projects, the big planning sessions that need to happen next should probably be done face to face and should happen onsite at the customer facility if at all possible.  You need to discuss business processes (“as is” and “to be”).  Quick and easy access to potential end users during this phase will help speed up the process as well as provide the delivery team with better, more complete and detailed requirements and result in a more accurate and usable solution rolled out to the customer…and less re-work at the end of the project to fix what isn’t what those critical end users REALLY want and need.

Summary

A great kickoff will never ensure project success.  So many things go into the potential success on any given project – and many of things will be outside of your control.  But a project that starts well has a better chance of running smoothly and ending favorably. 

Your turn…  What has worked for you when you are preparing to kickoff a new project?  What hasn’t worked?  What have you learned the hard way along the way?  The bottom line for me has been to try to do my best to properly set customer expectations.  This helps get the project off to a smooth start and avoids landing the project delivery team – my team – behind the 8 ball with the client from the outset.  It’s hard to recover from a dissatisfied customer right out of the gate.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Taking on Too Many Projects

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Taking on Too Many Projects

I realize when we work in an organization that assigns projects to project managers we often don’t have much choice in taking the assignments or turning them down. We can say no to a new project, but if our senior management — which obviously knows what’s on our plates at any given time — thinks we have the bandwidth to take on more work, then we should take on more work, right? What kind of poor project managers would we look like if we said no to more work? Our PMO director must know that we can handle it. And if we show concern over having too much on our plate, does that make us look lazy, weak or uncooperative? Maybe not, but most of us think that is probably the case.

So, if we feel overwhelmed with our current workload only to find more work being thrust upon us, what should we do? Take it? Probably not, because it can be a recipe for failure. The only thing worse than looking lazy, weak or uncooperative (as mentioned above) would be to end up as a complete failure having all of our projects go south as we become even more overloaded, overwhelmed and under-supported. What can we do? Say no? Maybe, but we need to be strategic. Here are four potential actions or responses we can provide when we are concerned about our current project load and feel that more work will lead to failure…

Discuss the priority of the project with your supervisor. First, discuss the project’s priority level with your supervisor. The new project may be hot and one you want to take on due to its importance and visibility (and career implications). Or you may find out that it is a much lower priority than some of your current projects and, therefore, this discussion may empower you to take it to the next level and compare it against your current workload in order to show your supervisor that it’s not a good idea for you to take an additional project on right now.

Review your current workload and issues with your supervisor. After you have learned more about the current project — and if you find out this new project isn’t more desirable or of more importance than your current projects — you may be ready to state your case for saying no to the new work. Go through each of your projects with your supervisor — the current progress on each one, outstanding issues and trouble points, and what the customer’s current satisfaction level is on each project. The idea is to establish the fact with your supervisor that what you are doing is already a full load and it’s all important…they should probably look for leadership for this new project elsewhere.

Ask if others may have more immediate bandwidth available. Another approach would be to discuss your workload with your supervisor in comparison to other project managers in the organization. Not to point out slackers…not at all. But hopefully to establish that others may have more room on their plate than you do at the moment.

Go to executive management. Finally, if you feel strongly enough about the situation and its potential detrimental effect on either your current projects or this new project, then you may have no choice but to go higher up the food chain. Especially if you are still being forced to take on this new project and you are absolutely dead-on certain that taking it on will have far-reaching negative effects. You must do this realizing that it could have significant repercussions — both in saying no to an assignment and going over your supervisor’s head to do it. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Use your best professional judgment.

Summary

Sometimes we can say no without really saying no. By showing your senior management how hard you are working (believe me, they may not be aware) and how many issues you are currently working on or through or under (again, they are likely not aware), you can help them come to the obvious conclusion that you may not have the time to take on a new project right now. Or they may leave your discussion thinking you’re a wimp and there’s nothing you can do about that — obviously they just don’t get it and that’s a risk you may have to take. It’s up to you, but no action on your part means you definitely take it on and risk failure on one or more of your current — and very important — projects.

How would you handle situations like this? Have you ever been in this position? What did you do? Please share your thoughts and experiences.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Stealing a Resource from Another Project

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on Stealing a Resource from Another Project

We do run into situations from time to time when we lose a resource to another project. It hurts, it’s frustrating and we are suddenly forced into a situation where we must fill a huge void on our project team…unexpectedly. I can honestly say, I’ve lost several key resources on projects along the way and none were planned. Not once did I have any advanced notification that I was going to lose a particular resource, and when it happened I had to deal with it quickly, put in a request for a replacement resource, acquire the resource, begin to get them up to speed as quickly as possible and introduce them to the customer — preferably after they had a firm grasp of the project’s requirements, status and issues.

That’s one side of the equation — and for most of us who try to play as fairly as possible that is probably the side of the equation we have seen the most. But then again, nice guys sometimes finish last. So, let’s take a look at the other side of project resource management for this type of situation, the side where you need not just a particular skill set…you need “that guy.” Has that ever been you? That has been me — twice. I’m not proud of it, but I had to make it happen on two of my projects and, while the two scenarios weren’t identical and they presented themselves in two different organizations, how I acted was similar enough to formulate a general strategy that I will share with you here. You know, in case you find yourself in a similar situation and you want to pilfer a key resource from an unsuspecting project manager who’s trying hard just like you to succeed and has no idea you’re about to wreak havoc on his project timeline and budget.

Know your target

First, obviously, you need to know who it is you want. And check your project. If it isn’t a high-profile, high-dollar, mission-critical project, you probably won’t get very far and might as well stop here before you embarrass yourself. And also consider your connections in the organization. Are you well connected? Believe me, it helps…a lot. You may be able to pull this off solely based on the importance of your project, but it really helps if you know the right people as well. Because the only thing worse than a robbery like this is an attempted robbery that fails. It’s like putting up your hand in public for a high-five and no one gives you a high-five. Embarrassing.

So, know who you want, know that your project warrants making this kind of move, and know that you know some people who can help you pull it off. Then move forward.

Go to your closest connection on the executive team

You don’t want to go to senior management any more than you have to. They are busy, and you don’t want to be asking them for favors all the time. But if you are well connected in the organization, sometimes you must use those connections to help you and your project succeed. And if you have to have a particular resource who is currently unavailable because they are 100% committed to another project, then now is one of those times that you reach out to your senior management connections and get their buy-in and support for what you are about to request.

Get them up to speed on your project. Explain your reasons for needing this specific resource and what it means to your project’s success and what that project means to your organization. Some projects are going to be an easier sell than others — let’s hope yours is an easy one because this step could be the end of the line for your request. If you go this far and your helpful senior management connection deems your move destructive (because you can find a different resource and do just fine or because they perceive your project not to be critical enough to warrant such a move) then you have just raised a flag and there will likely be no way you can acquire that resource for your project…they will see to it.

But if you indeed can sell this concept to that senior management connection, then you are well on your way to enhancing your project team with your desired resource acquisition.

Verify overall availability with direct supervisor

This may or may not be a necessary part of the process, but it never hurts to check in with the direct supervisor of the target resource. Why? Because even those resources who are dedicated 100% to your very critical project can get pulled back periodically by their direct supervisor to do some departmental work that has long been planned or may be of particular importance at any given time. It’s not often — especially when you are in a matrix organization where these resources are really supposed to be part of project teams most of the time. But it never hurts to verify overall availability with the direct supervisor…consider it a risk-avoidance move.

Get approval

Finally, with the justification in hand, the support of your senior management, and the verification of the resource’s overall availability, you go for the gold. How the rest of the equation works depends on the resource assignment and gate-keeping system in your own organization (and it may very well be that you just let the senior management connection make this move for you). But, in general, you get the approval (based on all the work you’ve done so far) and you acquire the resource. Getting them up to speed is the full responsibility, of course, of you and the rest of your project team — that is just part of the normal project collaboration process. However, you have probably already put that in motion if the likely success of your move looked promising early on.

Summary

This might not win you points with your other project manager colleagues, and if you do this more than once you’re likely going to get a negative reputation. But success does sometimes come at a price. I’m not saying nice guys actually do finish last. I think I’m a nice guy. But I’m not going to finish last so I’ll put the nice guy reputation on hold from time to time if I have to in order to help ensure the success of my project and my project team for the customers for which I’m managing these engagements.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.