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Making the Client Situation Better

Written by Andrew Miller on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on Making the Client Situation Better

As a Project Manager, what is our main objective? To keep the project on track? On budget? In scope? To implement successfully? There is a strong argument for all of these, but many of them are difficult to manage. Scope is a variable to be debated, project timelines are changing all the time and project budget may be static, but can never be exact.
Maybe we need to look at a different way of determining whether or not we were successful as project managers. Ask yourself this simple question – is the client better off than he/she was when I got here as a result of the work that I have done? (For the purposes of this blog, client can mean external clients or internal business – in each case those benefiting from the project). The reason that I like this question as a gauge of success is it focuses on improving the clients’ position. The reason that you may NOT like it is because it can be a purely subjective measure. Typically you can put measures in place to prove whether or not the client is better off, but most do not spend the time required to do this.

Many of us have found ourselves in a position destined for failure. Project sponsorship is poor, there are not enough resources on the team, the software vendor is non-responsive, etc. In these circumstances, traditional project management measurements (budget, timelines, change orders) would make us look like terrible PMs. But, if we ask the question above, and the client is better off than when we started, then we did a good job. A good PM recognizes that they cannot always fix the problem, but they can improve it.

If a manufacturing organization has a defect rate of 50% on parts and embarks on a project to fix the problem that results in a reduction to a 35% defect rate, did the PM do a good job? Most would say that a 35% defect rate is unacceptably high and therefore the project failed. I would say that on the surface, it looks like the PM did a good job, but what was the project supposed to achieve? Was the target 20%? 40%? Without knowing our objectives, how can we gauge whether we were a success or failure? Traditional measurements do not give us this information, but we are stuck using them because that is what everyone wants to hear.

Maybe we need to look at a different way of determining whether or not we were successful as project managers. Ask yourself this simple question – is the client better off than he/she was when I got here as a result of the work that I have done? (For the purposes of this blog, client can mean external clients or internal business units.) The reason that you may NOT like it is because it can be a purely subjective measure. Typically you can put measures in place to prove whether or not the client is better off, but most do not spend the time required to do this.

Shouldn

Written by Cynthia Low on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Shouldn

I tend to talk often in this column about “Enterprise” Project Management (EPM) Software. It’s a hot topic these days because so many organizations want to get their project management personnel to coordinate their actions, and management often feels left out of the loop due to the lack of consolidated project management reports. Organizations which do projects have an interest in such topics regardless of their size. So it’s perhaps worthwhile to take a moment and examine what project management software vendors mean by “the enterprise” If we think of the spectrum of project management systems, it’s pretty easy to identify the opposite ends of the spectrum.

At one end we have the individual project manager. He or she is responsible for the projects which they impact directly or for which they provide schedule and other project analysis and reporting. In some organizations, there is only one project manager who only has a few projects to manage. In such a situation, this project manager wears all the hats. They do schedules, estimates, cost control, project tracking and project documentation.

With all the different roles such individuals play, it’s not surprising to find that they are most likely to have their own box of tools to get through their day. In the project management software realm, the most common two tools are Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Project. According to some estimates, there are about 35 million project managers using Excel as their primary project management tool and another 20 million using Microsoft Project. There is a plethora of other tools to be found that target this market from freeware to open source to tools of all descriptions. So, it’s fair to say that this part of the market is very well served by the project management software industry.

At the opposite end of the spectrum we have the ‘large enterprise’. The precise definition of such organizations is different from one project management software to another but suffice it to say that the big vendors think ‘big’ when they use the word ‘enterprise’. This typically means somewhere above 2,000 employees and up to the largest organizations in the world of several hundred thousand employees.

When there are thousands of licenses of something to be sold, all kinds of large project management software vendors line up to try to get a piece of the action. There are several categories of vendor who focus on large enterprise project management solutions. In the ERP/Finance world we have the big players, SAP and Oracle who have finance-oriented solutions with project management and resource management modules. In the specialist camp we have the omnipresent Microsoft with a collection of tools referred to as the Microsoft EPM Solution along with Primavera (now an Oracle company), Clarity from Computer Associates and Planview.

These large scale tools really need to be thought of as more of a building platform than a closed set of functionality. All of them arrive at the client’s door with tremendous potential and tremendous flexibility but little in the way of plug-and-play in the manner we think of the individual project management tools.

So far so good.

But, there is an incredible number of companies in between these two huge markets. The ‘mid-market’ is rather under-serviced and simultaneously rather over-promised.

Where the ends of the project management software spectrum at the individual and enterprise levels are served by a relatively small number of vendors and products, in the mid-market, there are hundreds if not thousands of possible options.

The market is characterized by demands that the implementation of organizational project management be as fast and inexpensive as the individual end of the spectrum, but deliver the complex functionality and integration from the enterprise end of the spectrum. This is obviously not possible. The notion of ‘easy-to-use enterprise project management software’ is a fantasy. The concepts themselves aren’t easy and the culture change; the change-management aspect of the implementation can be terribly challenging. I’ve talked about these challenges in here before.

So what do you do if you’re in this no-man’s land of organizational size – let’s say between 50 and 200 employees?

There are probably a hundred different paths you can take. First, just as it is with all organizational solutions, it’s very important to start by defining the problem. What are the business problems you’re trying to resolve? If the problem is reporting based, perhaps you can overcome this by having a centralized super-user who will generate, analyze and publish reports. If the problem is resource-oriented, perhaps you can look at combining tools to have a small central group of project managers distribute reporting information to all the other personnel. If the problem is team communication and collaboration, then perhaps one of the many collaboration tools can overcome this challenge without having to consider a large implementation of specialized project software.

If I was faced with such a challenge, here’s what my most likely response would be:

People
First I’d look to create a tiny (maybe just one person) Project Management Office. If there’s to be any coordination of efforts in the project management realm, it won’t happen by accident. There has to be a central rallying point for the initiative and for future evolution of the structure. Next, I’d look to create a very small cadre of experienced project managers and I’d dedicate them to the Project Manager role. This is one of the things that’s so rarely done and most executives don’t realize the cost due to lack of efficiency of not having specialist personnel in these roles.

Tools
I’d almost certainly leverage the low cost and quick-to-deploy individual project management tools, but I’d look to extend them with some add-ons. If my challenge was team communication, I might consider using a collaboration tool, but I might also just look to see what I need the team to communicate about and see if there were tools that lent themselves to the process that could be managed centrally. If my challenge was reporting and viewing of project data, I’d consider one of the low-cost viewers for Microsoft Project or Primavera or a report writing tool.

Here are some add-on or mid-market targeted tools I might consider:

EasyTaskSync (www.easytasksync.com)
This tool moves data back and forth from Microsoft Project to Outlook, allowing a single project manager to get a lot of personnel involved in the project through a tool that is likely to be on everyone’s desktop.

DecisionEdge (www.decisionedge.com)
This report-writer produces a range of great looking reports from data contained in Microsoft Project or Primavera. The resulting reports can be made available over the web or in printed form.

EPMLive (www.projectpublisher.com)
EPMLive hosts Project Server with a pre-set list of functions. Views, User Defined Fields, structures are set up in an attempt to make the big Project Server system a little easier to swallow.

Daptiv (www.daptiv.com)
While we’re talking about hosted systems, another option would be Daptiv who has portfolio management, scheduling and resource management in a web-based structure.

SteelRay Project Viewer (www.steelray.com)
Afinion Project Viewer (www.afinion.com)
Seavus Project Viewer (www.seavusprojectviewer.com)
Houstatonic Project Viewer (www.projectviewercentral.com)
Live Project Viewer (www.kadonk.com)
Each of these claims to be the top Microsoft Project Viewer on the market and I’m sure there are a hundred more.

When you’re in the massive mid-market for organizational project management software, there’s unfortunately no clear leader or small number of tools which dominate the market. You’ll need to be a little more crafty, and put in a little more homework before you land on just the right combination of tools to get to the particular solution that’s appropriate to you.

Remember the basics: Articulate the particular business problem you want to resolve with these project management tools and make sure the vendors you talk to are ready to empower this thinking at the appropriate level for what you require.

Chris Vandersluis is the founder and president of HMS Software based in Montreal, Canada. He has an economics degree from Montreal’s McGill University and over 22 years experience in the automation of project control systems. He is a long-standing member of both the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) and is the founder of the Montreal Chapter of the Microsoft Project Association. Mr. Vandersluis has been published in numerous publications including Fortune Magazine, Heavy Construction News, the Ivey Business Journal, PMI’s PMNetwork and Computing Canada. Mr. Vandersluis has been part of the Microsoft Enterprise Project Management Partner Advisory Council since 2003. He teaches Advanced Project Management at McGill University’s Executive Institute. He can be reached at [email protected]

Blueprint Wins Jolt Product Excellence Award

Written by Cynthia Low on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Blueprint Wins Jolt Product Excellence Award

Toronto, ON. – Blueprint, a leading provider of requirements definition solutions for the business analyst, has been honored with a Jolt Product Excellence Award in the highly competitive Design Tools and Modeling category. TechWeb announced the winners of the 19th annual Jolt Product Excellence and Productivity Awards during the Award Ceremony at the Software Development West 2009 Conference and Expo.

The prestigious Jolt Awards recognize those products that have jolted the industry with their significance and made the task of creating software faster, easier, and more efficient. Winners are selected from among hundreds of qualified nominations by an esteemed panel of judges consisting of industry insiders, columnists, and technology leaders.

“This year was a remarkably exciting year for the Jolt Awards because there were so many strong contenders in every category,” said Amber Ankerholz, SD West conference manager. “Blueprint’s selection in the Design and Modeling category puts it among an elite group of software development innovators.”

The Jolt judges not only examine the standard criteria of audience suitability, productivity, innovation, quality, ROI, risk and flexibility, but also seek to honor products that are ahead of the curve. Jolt-winning products are universally useful; are simple, yet rich in functionality; redefine their product space; and/or solve a nagging problem that has consistently eluded other products and books.

“The Jolt Awards are the Oscars of the software industry, and we are proud and humbled by this recognition of the excellence of our product,” said David Nyland, CEO of Blueprint. “By solving a problem that we and numerous other software development organizations have faced – enabling the business analyst to properly define and communicate requirements to meet the business need across a distributed environment – we have built a product that enables the business analyst to succeed.”

The Jolt Awards are presented by SD West and sponsored by Jolt Energy drinks. A complete list of the 19th annual Jolt Award winners is available at http://www.joltawards.com. For more information on Blueprint, visit http://www.blueprintsys.com. 3/09

Dealing with Difficult People on the Project Team. Part 2.

Written by Cynthia Low on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on Dealing with Difficult People on the Project Team. Part 2.

In Part1 of this two-part article in the last Project Times, we learned that about 10% of the typical workforce is classified as falling into the Difficult People category. Some people are surprised it’s so little. Sometimes it feels like they are everywhere! What is a difficult person? Perhaps the better question is: what is a difficult person for you and what can you do about those people?

Let’s just take a quick look at the difficult types we identified in the first article, and consider the havoc they might play with your project team. As we said before, there are many types, but in general, they can be rolled into these main groups, the first three of which we dealt with in the earlier article:

  • The Steamroller
    This is the bully of the group – always interrupting, insulting, and yelling. We all know those types.
  • The Sniper
    These are the folks who hide in the back of room, always sniping – taking shots at everyone, constantly nit-picking back at you, sending out comments, etc. They always want to do this from “under cover.” If you call them on it they say, “Oh, I’m just kidding,” or, “Can’t ya take a joke?,” or, “I didn’t say anything!” They always have a comment.
  • The “Can’t Say No” person
    They won’t say “no” to work. The problem is they won’t say no, they won’t say no, they won’t say no . . . and then they finally just collapse!
  • The Know-It-All:
    Do I have to say anything else? Need I say more? They know it all!
  • The Complainer:
    Chronic complainers! Chronic whiners! To them, life is one big complaint!
  • The Staller:
    The Indecisive Staller. This is the person who just will not make a decision. They will not commit to anything; they are always stalling.

Time to take Action!

In our previous article we discussed in detail how to deal with The Steamroller, The Sniper and The “Can’t Say No” person. Now let’s deal with the three final types we identified.

Dealing with the Know-It-All

In dealing with the Know-It-All, here are some bottom-line items to be aware of:

Typically, they have been around a long time, and they do know a lot. So, make sure you know your stuff, because if you don’t, they will point it out very quickly. Recognize it, and respect it, but show them that maybe their ideas aren’t always the right answer or the right way. The typical Know-It-All tends to be a bit of a bully as well. They have their idea, and they just won’t let it go. You can try saying things like, “That’s a really good point, but have you thought of this? What if this or that happens?” Basically, you need help them see the alternatives. Will they ever admit they are wrong? Typically, not. It’s like trying to catch a greased pig. Most of the time, it’s not going to happen.

If you find yourself dealing with a Know-It-All in a meeting, ignore the temptation to make them look bad. Do not alienate them. Throw an idea out there and let it sit for a minute. Sometimes they may actually come around to it, but quite often, they will want to spin it so that it will seem as if it were their idea. And you know what? That is okay sometimes. Occasionally, selling an idea someone else wants to take credit for, once in a while, is okay. Your job is done, and the elimination of conflict will be better in the long run.

Dealing with the Complainer

Understand that to them, life is one big complaint. Complainers typically come in one of two delicious flavors. The first type of Complainer really doesn’t care about solutions; they just want someone to listen to them. They will come into your office in the morning, and they will talk and talk and talk until you finally chase them out! Here’s what you can do. Listen for a while, and then move them to a problem-solving alliance. Acknowledge their feelings, deal with the emotions if necessary, but try to push them toward finding a problem-solving solution. You can say something like this, “Okay, I hear your dilemma. Let’s see if we can solve it.” The secret is.when you move into problem-solving, they will typically leave. Very quickly. They really don’t want to solve anything. They just want to complain!

With the second type of complainer, it’s a little bit different. These are the folks who complain because they are paralyzed – they really don’t know what to do. When you move to problem-solving, you really will help them. One thing to be careful of though: don’t facilitate their dependence on you, otherwise they will come back again and again for the very same issue or problem. As the saying goes, you can feed someone, or you can teach them to fish for themselves. If you fail to do that, it is now you who has an additional problem, one of time management. Learn to be upfront. Say, “Okay, I will show you this one time. Here’s a pen and a sheet of paper; I’m going to talk and you will take notes. I will show you this one time. I will stay here all day if necessary, but when we leave, I expect that you will really have ‘gotten it’. I expect that you will be able to do this for yourself after this conversation, so make sure to pay attention and ask as many questions as you need to understand.”

Use a tone that is gentle, yet firm at the same time. By having this conversation, you will actually have helped two people, you and them.

Dealing with the Staller

Aahh, the Indecisive Staller. They don’t want to upset anyone, which really means that they want to please everyone. In their mind, the way to accomplish this is to never make a decision, which ends up upsetting everyone! They don’t want to take a stand. Instead, they take the attitude that if they just leave the issue alone, it will go away. Yes, quite often it will go away, but only because someone else will have done the work, and now they’re mad too!

One way of helping them is to discuss the benefits of deciding. Talk about all the good that comes through getting off the fence and making a decision: work actually is accomplished, people are happy, morale will go up, projects will be able to move forward, and they get to continue drawing a paycheck! Another thing you can do is discuss a few options with them. This is basically the old salesman trek. Instead of saying, “Would you like to buy the vacuum cleaner today?,” you say, “Which of the vacuum cleaners will you be buying today, the red one or the blue one?” What you are doing is narrowing down their options, and forcing them to make a decision.

The Lesson: Take Action and Be Firm

From our short analysis of difficult people, one definite conclusion can be drawn. If you don’t do something about the difficult people in your life, you will simply continue to get more of their problematic behavior. Whether it is the Steamroller, the Sniper, they Can’t Say No person, the Know-It-All, the Complainer, or the Staller, you must take action. Be firm, but be gentle, and remember they are human, just like you. But after all, it’s a place of business, and work needs to be accomplished. And in the accomplishment of that work, sometimes the more difficult conversations need to take place.

delivers comprehensive hands-on project management, business analysis, ITIL, and professional skills training. 3/09

Copyright © Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved.

Tim McClintock is an instructor with Global Knowledge Training LLC.This article was originally published in Global Knowledge’s Management in Motion e-newsletter. Global Knowledge (www.globalknowledge.com)

 

Project Risk Management in 12 Questions

Written by Claude Emond on . Posted in Articles.

Many people ask me how I proceed when doing a project risk assessment workshop on a project. Well… I ask questions. Actually 12 of them repeatedly. Not only for the assessment portion, but to cover the whole project risk management process cycle: identification, reality check (not in PMBoK per se), analysis, response, and monitoring and control.


Firstly, I never use the word “risk” in those workshops, but rather “concern” or “worry”. Most people just hate to talk about risks….a primitive type of magic thinking to the effect that if we talk about a risk, it will happen (a curious belief since it is the contrary that will happen!!).

Secondly, I do risk management on the project at stake, not using so-called risk checklists and taxonomies. I start with having everybody on the workshop agreeing on a project charter and a workable WBS (which most of the time do not exist the first time I am called in, six to 12 months after the start of the project). Thus, addressing each of the major elements of the charter, and after of the WBS, I start asking my questions.

I separated these questions by risk management process step, with commentaries, to help you see clearly how this goes.

Risk identification

1- Do you have any worries or concerns with respect to…?

I ask this question systematically to everyone present, for each of the major elements of the charter (constraints, project strategy, key success factors, assumptions, etc..) and then for each of the major element of the WBS (looking in this case at inputs, outputs and the transformation process used to deliver the outputs of the element)

Reality check

This is not in the PMBoK, as a separate step per se. This is a little Ishikawa process I added to find root causes and treat them instead of acting on risk symptoms. (It’s my little contribution to improving on the currently used and often unsuccessful risk assessment methodologies)

2- Why are you concerned or worried? Because of a past experience, a current state of affairs or an intuition about possible future events?

On a 100 M $ project I looked at, after a year since its start, this question helped the risk assessment team (12 people) reduce the original 300 concerns or so, found with the first question above, to 67 root causes that everyone could see “in the present” or concerns based on past experiences (I threw away nothing since many original concerns had a the same root cause)

Risk analysis

I then ask three questions on each root cause identified “in the present”, thus one that everybody can see, a “known-known,” if we use the cryptic terminology of the seasoned PMP. Here, I want everybody on the team to agree on the foreseen impact…and it is a lot easier to agree on this if everybody can see the same present situation.

3- What happens if we do nothing with respect to this concern?

4- Would it put the project objectives or part of them in danger?

5- If we do nothing, how fast can we be endangered?

….measures urgency to act if we have to act

6- What is the probability this thing could happen if we do nothing?

…measures probability of occurrence. I purposely delay talking about probabilities at the latest moment possible, since this is highly fuzzy business and nobody sees the same future. But usually, if I got people to agree on root causes everyone can see in the present, they very rapidly agree about the impact of doing nothing about it. So the probability question is settled very fast, as everybody desires to act on the group-perceived danger of doing nothing.

Risk response

7- So, if we need to act, what do we do?

8- Who is responsible to do it and report on it?

9- When will that be done?

Acting on perceived dangers or current problems is the real reason we do risk assessment workshops on projects. I say that because most organizations, which have documented project risk management processes (not many), do not use them consistently. Most, of the very few that do use them, feel happy with stopping the process after producing those colourful red-yellow-green risk probability-impact matrices (that cannot be understood, by the way, by 15 % of the male population, the men who are color-blind). These nice looking matrices are useless if we do not act on them. So, do something (which is only possible if all stakeholders agree to act on a risk element. They can only agree if they see the same present root causes and are all worried together when they see them).

I got a complete risk response plan with 67 elements (dates, everything) on the 100 M $ project mentioned above, after a discussion of only 90 minutes or so, because everybody (12 people in the workshop) knew that they had to act fast, all convinced of the dangers they ALL saw clearly in the same “present situation” they at last shared on this project.

Risk monitoring and control (so…continuous risk assessment)

10- Does our risk response plan works?

11- If not, what do we do now?

12- …And today, do you have any new worries or concerns with respect to…?

Here we start the cycle all over again.

Since project risk management is a continuous process, who should ask these questions?
Me or another facilitator? No, we are not there all the time.
A “special” risk management manager assigned to the project? No, we already have a manager on this project.

A project manager fully aware that risk management is his/her responsibility, because s/he has been hired to do just that; manage uncertainty? I strongly believe so.