Tag: Project Management

Looking Back and Looking Forward to Improve

Written by George Pitagorsky on February 1, 2024. Posted in Articles.

There are many New Year celebrations – Tet, Rosh Ha Shona, and more. Why not make every day the beginning of a new year?

But now we are here celebrating the Western solar new year. We are reminded to enjoy the moment, reflect on the past and visualize a healthier, happier, more productive, and peaceful future.

Time to Reflect and Plan

Now is a traditional time for looking back, remembering the past, and looking forward, resolving to make a “better” future. In project management this is quality improvement through assessment, control, improvement planning, and follow through.

As individuals, we make resolutions to improve by giving up bad habits and cultivating positive behavior. We resolve to stop overeating or drinking and to exercise more, or to take that course that will lead to a new career, or to be kinder and more understanding and patient.

But many resolutions last a short time because we don’t follow through.

On a team or organizational level, do you make resolutions and follow through with them? Do you reflect and plan as a normal ongoing process, or is it a once-a-year event?

Quality Management

Among project management’s principles is assuring quality by critically assessing performance and planning to improve. Dr Deming’s PDCA cycle: Plan, Do, Check, and Act is one way of looking at the improvement process.

Reflect and resolve once a year and you are certain to miss a lot of opportunities to improve performance and wellness. Build PDCA into your normal way of doing whatever you do and you will reap the benefits of an ever-improvising process.

Learn

This article reinforces the message of my October article, “Learn from the Past to Perfect Performance, “Learn from experience. Set aside time for reflection, learning, and making the intention to perfect the way you live and work.”

Improvement is cyclical. It is ongoing. It continues as long as the target process or product lasts. The target process may be your own project management process or a new process resulting from a project. Here the focus is on the project management process.

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PDCA

The PDCA cycle is an improvement model that uses a scientific method:

Plan – propose a change,
Do – implement it,
Check – measure to see if the intended goals are achieved,
Act – decide whether to adjust by taking appropriate action in another cycle, or to standardize and stabilize the new process.

You decide to standardize and stabilize changes to your process when you have achieved planned benefits. Then you start a new cycle based on your new standard.

The Standard

You may or may not have a standard to start with.

When a new process is being designed and implemented the standard is a set of expectations. For example, you expect to complete 90% percent of projects within 10% of the original planned time and budget.

If you have done performance measurement you may know that your current standard is 40% of your projects meeting that expectation. If you do not have an objective sense of your past performance, you are at a disadvantage, but all is not lost. Chances are there is a subjective sense that you are not satisfying stakeholder expectations. Too many projects are delivered late and overbudget.

Part of planning is to set an expectation, a standard or benchmark to use as a target. You determine your goals and set the standard for measuring or checking the effects of your efforts. Research to determine if your goals are realistic. Make sure you are setting a realistic expectation about how long it will take to achieve your goals. Assess risks.

Plan to Achieve Goals

With realistic goals in mind, you plan the way you will meet them. To do that well, you have a decision to make. Will you refine your existing process or start from a blank slate?

How unstable and undefined is the current process? Is documenting it worth the effort or is it more effective to find a good model and adapt it to your current conditions.

In the realm of project management, don’t try to invent a brand-new process. You would be reinventing the wheel. Instead, take the time and effort to find a suitable model or models for the kind of projects you perform. If you have multiple project types you may need multiple defined processes, some agile, some more structured.

Cause Analysis

Look back to see why you are not meeting stakeholder expectations. Sep back and candidly assess causes. Are schedules and budgets dictated from above or are they the result of actual planning based on expected resources and conditions? Are projects initiated without regard of their impact on ongoing operations and other projects? Are estimators and/or performers in need of training or better tools or both?

Looking back at causes and on the state of the current process often causes conflict and resistance. Performers and project managers may be attached to the way they have been operating.

For example, they may be happy not to have to follow a defined process. They may not have knowledge of or may be in denial regarding the perceptions of stakeholders. They may be threatened by criticism and resistant to change.

Tread carefully to manage change in a way that engages and motivates the people who will have to go through the transition and live with the new process.

This is where follow through comes in. Educate, train, and implement change. Treat it as you would with any project, with care to support the people involved.

Check and Act

Realize that the new or changed process is not complete until you have checked to see if goals have been met. This is quality control and testing.

If you have done it well, the planning has left a standard, a benchmark, to measure against to determine if your efforts have achieved what you intended. Check often during the life of the improvement process.

Based on your findings decide and act. You may decide to continue, with or without changes to your goals, methods, or both. Or you may decide to stop, standardize, and stabilize the process.

Standardizing and stabilizing the process does not mean that your improvement work is done. You have just set a new standard against which to measure performance and go into a new PDCA cycle.

If you have done the improvement job well, future changes will be tweaks rather than major changes, though as new technologies like AI are introduced, more radical changes may be needed.

It is always a new year. Look back at what you have done, how successful it has been, and what you can do to make it better. Look forward to plan check and act.

Related articles:

Learn from the Past to Perfect Performance.

https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/learn-from-the-past-to-perfect-performance/#:~:text=To%20optimize%20performance%2C%20learn%20from,intentions%2C%20performance%2C%20and%20goals

The Key to Performance Improvement: Candid Performance Assessment

https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/the-key-to-performance-improvement-candid-perfromance-assessment/

Achieving Quality Performance and Results

https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/achieving-quality-performance-and-results/

Narrowing the Talent Gap

Written by PMI on January 31, 2024. Posted in Articles.

How to be a front-runner in the race for talent

The talent crisis is real. Projects are at risk. It’s time to make talent a strategic priority.

As a result of economic growth and increasing projectization, the demand for project managers is expected to soar in the coming decade. At the same time, the collective impact of demographic trends, retirements, and cultural shifts in the workplace, will create a shrinking talent pool that is insufficient to meet demand. The Project Management Institute (PMI) and PwC’s latest global research indicates there is a lack of awareness, or perhaps some complacency, among project-based organizations of the risks that lie ahead, and the potential detrimental impact that the talent crisis will have on projects and their ability to meet strategic goals in the future.

Successful projects are a key driver of global economic growth. As more and more industries become projectized, the demand for skilled project managers is expected to soar in the coming decade. But at the same time, aging populations and declining birth rates in many countries are shrinking the size of their workforces. According to PMI’s 2021 Talent Gap: Ten-Year Employment Trends, Costs and Global Implications report, the global economy will need a total of 25 million new project professionals by 2030. To close this gap, 2.3 million people will need to enter project management-oriented employment (PMOE) every year just to keep up with demand.

The talent gap is being exacerbated by the post-pandemic ‘Great Resignation,’¹ which has seen workers quitting their jobs in droves all over the world, and it seems that the situation will only get tougher. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index² report estimates that over 40% of workers globally are considering quitting or changing professions in the coming year.

At the same time, PMI and PwC’s latest global research indicates that talent strategies haven’t changed much. There’s a widespread lack of focus on developing and retaining existing project managers, and a lack of variety and innovation in attracting and recruiting new talent. The core problem, we believe, is that there isn’t a business case for investment in talent—one that explicitly aligns capabilities to organizational strategy and competitive advantage. The business case should describe how hiring, training, performance, and retention strategies will be aligned to those capabilities; and critically, it should use a data-driven approach to assess capabilities, measure progress, and link that to organizational performance.

Without a systematic approach and a focus on hard numbers, personal traits and behaviors will continue to be viewed as “soft” and risk being undervalued. And unless capabilities-building is recognized and treated as the central enabler of successful strategy execution, organizations will be unable to meet their goals, projects will falter, and the profession as a whole will be unable to avoid the impact of a global talent crisis. Most organizations seem unaware of the crisis, however some, albeit a minority, have begun to take action.

The Talent Gap: Facts and Figures

Project management-oriented employment (PMOE)—which includes skilled project managers and those in less formal project management roles, that encompass project management skills—makes up 3% of all global employment, equating to 90 million jobs. This is expected to grow to 3.2% or 102 million jobs by 2030. By 2030, at least 13 million project managers are expected to have retired creating additional challenges for recruitment. To close the gap, 25 million new project professionals are needed by 2030.³

A Call to Action

The message is clear: talent, projects, and strategic goals are at risk unless organizations invest now in building winning capabilities to gain a competitive advantage.

Take it to the top: Make talent management a C-suite priority, with clear alignment of capabilities and strategic priorities.
Follow the numbers: Use a systematic, data-driven approach to assessing key capabilities, identifying gaps. and measuring progress.
Reinvent recruitment: Get smarter at attracting talent to plug capabilities gaps.
Elevate your L&D: Invest in fostering critical capabilities, using diverse learning methods.
Monitor, evaluate, and monitor again: Review and evolve talent strategies in line with feedback, progress, and the changing priorities of the business.

Click to learn more about what organizations can do to minimize the impact of the crisis.
Our research points to actions that make it easier to attract, develop and retain talent, as evidenced by the strategies taken by ‘high-performing’ organizations.

About Project Management Institute (PMI)

PMI is the world’s leading professional association for a growing community of millions of project professionals and changemakers worldwide. As the world’s leading authority on project management, PMI empowers people to make ideas a reality. Through global advocacy, networking, collaboration, research, and education, PMI prepares organizations and individuals to work smarter so they can drive success in a world of change. Building on a proud legacy dating to 1969, PMI is a “for-purpose” organization working in nearly every country around the world to advance careers, strengthen organizational success, and enable changemakers with new skills and ways of working to maximize their impact. PMI offerings include globally recognized standards, certifications, online courses, thought leadership, tools, digital publications, and communities.

Visit us at PMI.org, ProjectManagement.com, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.

¹ The term “Great Resignation” was coined by professor Anthony Klotz to describe the worldwide increase in people voluntarily leaving their jobs from April 2021 onward, supposedly as a result of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and workplace conditions.

² Microsoft Work Trend Index. 2021. The Next Great Disruption is Hybrid Work—Are We Ready? Microsoft.

³ Project Management Institute. 2021. Talent Gap: Ten-Year Employment Trends, Costs, and Global Implications.

Best of PMTimes: Keeping on Track – 14 Project Management Tips

Written by Anthony Kreychmar on January 16, 2024. Posted in Articles.

Project management always involves significant challenges on the way to success.

Keeping the project on track, managing resources, maintaining a positive atmosphere among team members, and adhering to the budget are the main struggles every project manager faces.

Success is a cumulative notion: in other words, a supervisor has to keep monitoring and directing every single aspect of the project. A rigid timeframe further increases your many duties. Although there is no panacea on how to become project manager guru, the following tips can help you achieve triumph.

1. Study the Project Inside Out

A supervisor must be the most knowledgeable member of a team. This doesn’t mean that he has to be an expert in every aspect. Those who are true professionals in narrow fields can provide this kind of specific expertise. The manager’s duty is to know all the organizational details, including stakeholders’ interests, weaknesses and strengths, goals, objectives, and foresee any potential force measures.

2. Define the Project Requirements

Project manager responsibilities are directly connected to finding a way to achieving their goals and objectives. To avoid a lack or excess of resources, a detailed plan with set outcomes is essential.

3. Identify Milestones

Milestones help to track your progress. They must be clear and present a rigid timeframe for achieving specific goals. Furthermore, they’re an excellent means of demonstrating your performance to your clients. This way, an ordering company won’t lose itself in conjectures or constantly disturb you to ask how the process is going.

4. Set Up Daily Goals

Daily goals are an effective way of managing your workflow on a day-to-day level. Precise tasks for each team member to remove any uncertainty. You can work out your goals each day for a week and shift them if necessary. This gives you time to concentrate on more urgent issues.

5. Develop Professional Competence

The supervisor’s duties include everything from planning, scheduling, and budgeting to managing stakeholders, a team, conflicts, and risks.

The details vary depending on the industry. For example, working for a printing company like fortunavisual.com is different than working for a tech start-up. You can sign up for project management courses. However, the only valuable specialists are professionals in narrow fields. This knowledge can be gained through practical experience or an additional study of your chosen industry.

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6. Maintain Effective Communication

Communication is key. A supervisor must build a rapport with his/her company’s stakeholders, team, and contractors (if there are any). Alongside this, his/her duty is to establish an open dialogue between team members. Honesty, respect, and impartiality are three things to always bear in mind.

7. Support and Empathy Are Crucial

Rigid deadlines, an unexpected force majeure, and demanding clients provoke stress. This affects everyone in a team. Breakdowns are inevitable if each member doesn’t feel valued. Mutual support and empathy in communication help to maintain team spirit when fighting against oncoming hardships.

8. Track Time

Meeting deadlines is almost as important as the quality of a product. Time-management is one of the most essential project manager skills. Certain platforms and apps can save the day when it comes to tracking time. With these apps, you can track not only the workflow timeframe but also how much time your employees devote to a task. In case they exceed the set limit, optimize your operations.

9. Learn Your Team’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Every team has strengths and weaknesses. Project management success requires compensation of weaknesses with strengths. A well-selected team and mutual support are key to maintaining the balance.

10. Don’t Neglect the Software

Humans make mistakes. Technologies help minimize them. Project management software helps to keep track of progress, delegate tasks, and build effective communication and organization. For example, efficient teams usually use apps, such as Dropbox or Workfront, for sharing files.

11. Always Assess Risks

Risk management is one of the primary responsibilities of a supervisor. Knowing the potential pitfalls helps you prepare for a fight or avoid one. Keep in mind: this process is continuous. New risks may arise as you continue working.

12. Work Out Standardized Templates

Standardized templates are critical project management tools and are a decent basis for project development. A fully thought-out system, methods, and processes can be adjusted if necessary. It allows you precious extra time for dealing with urgent issues and working on the product itself.

13. Carry Out Regular Tests

Leaving the testing phase for the closing stage of a project is a bad idea. It’s much easier, faster, and cheaper to fix a problem once it’s been identified. Later on, it can be hard to detect where exactly the mistake lies.

14. Reflect on a Project

The regular analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of the project’s specifics. Analysis should be both general and precise. In other words, every single detail must be subject to the supervisor’s criticism and evaluation. Nonetheless, you’ll be able to clearly see how it influences the overall progress and the final product.

A successful project relies on many different things working, such as effective team collaboration, narrow-field-expertise, communication with everyone involved, and proper organization.

Published on: 2020/07/15

Best of PMTimes: Risk and Opportunity Management

Written by Sean Lowe on January 9, 2024. Posted in Articles.

When asked how typical risk management exercises are conducted, most project managers reply that this involves conversations and documentation around risk events and their respective probabilities and impacts.

While this is a necessary and beneficial exercise, this standard approach and mind-set does not account for taking time to recognize and focus on maximizing opportunities, and it often leads the team and project manager in the opposite direction.

Effective risk management should not be focused solely on recognizing possible failure points, but also on learning how to best recognize and capitalize on opportunities to ensure both project and future success.

Opportunity Management is about removing barriers to success and creating a path for yourself and your teams. Make sure you create time not only to identify and deal with risk, but also to recognize and capitalize on opportunities in your projects.

Chances are this change in perspective will enable you to see multiple opportunities that may not have arisen otherwise.

Enumerated here are six opportunities that nearly every project manager, regardless of discipline, can and should capitalize upon.

Take the opportunity to recognize and reward success.

Successful projects are always the result of successful teams. Successful teams are the result of the collaboration and efforts of motivated and talented individuals. The project manager must maximize all opportunities to recognize and reward team success.

This can be challenging in today’s marketplace given the tremendous financial emphasis on budgets and spending. In tough economic markets, don’t discount the importance of direct individual feedback.

Take the opportunity to provide and ask for feedback.

Feedback is an incredibly powerful, yet often overlooked opportunity that can be utilized with peers, direct reports management vendors and senior management as well. Many project managers realize the importance of providing feedback to functional managers but fail to maximize opportunities that may arise from asking for feedback.

The important thing to keep in mind is that people always remember how they were treated and made to feel, long after the American Express gift checks are spent. We as project managers are in a unique position to provide both constructive criticism and praise to both team members as well as their functional management.

It is the project manager’s responsibility to stand up for team members to ensure that their best interests are represented.

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3. Take the opportunity to network with professional project managers in your field regarding lessons learned.

Most professional project managers aren’t shy about sharing lessons learned, opportunities they’ve maximized and those they’ve missed along the way!

Take the opportunity to share experiences as well as to learn from others. Local PMI chapters, special interest groups and LinkedIn are but a few of the many ways to accomplish this. These lessons learned could very well be the result of feedback from number two, above!

Take the opportunity to utilize and involve senior leadership and your sponsor.

Never underestimate the value of the project sponsor when it comes to removing obstacles to get things done. People tend to listen a bit more intently when senior leadership speaks.

Allow them to be engaged and assist with removing barriers and obstacles. Project initiation is also a great time to have candid conversations with leadership about their vision for the project as well as opportunities they foresee. This also affords you the opportunity to highlight movement toward and capitalization on said opportunities in status meetings.

Take the opportunity to recognize cultural boundaries, international holidays and cultural differences, etc.

Most teams these days are a veritable melting pot of cultures and time zones. As such, communicating and determining a mutually agreeable time for the team to meet often presents many challenges and opportunities.

The project manager should take the opportunity to build rapport with international team members and stakeholders by learning about international holidays as well as working off-hours to account for different country’s time zones.

Encourage Opportunity Management within your teams.

This demonstrates to the team that you not only value their input but are willing to recognize and implement it toward the success of the project.

Everyone has unique perspectives and insights regarding opportunities within the project—oftentimes all you have to do is ask.

Capitalizing on these six opportunities will assist with building rapport within team as well as provide the project manager and team with valuable and timely information beyond conventional risk exercises.

Published on: 2019/01/29

Project Scope: A Comprehensive Guide

Written by Suchita Panchal on December 26, 2023. Posted in Articles.

Clearly defining scope is the foremost step to completing a project successfully. The project scope outlines the boundaries and objectives of the project, providing a roadmap for project stakeholders to understand what needs to be accomplished, the required resources, and the timeline for completion.

This article is a comprehensive guide that will delve into the key aspects of project scope, including its definition, importance, elements, and how to manage scope changes efficiently.

What is the Project Scope?

Project scope refers to the specific objectives, deliverables, features, and functions of a project. It defines the boundaries of the project, outlining what is included and what is not. By defining the project scope, project managers can establish a clear understanding of what needs to be achieved, ensuring that all stakeholders are on the same page.

Importance of Project Scope:

1. Clarity and Direction:

A well-defined project scope provides clarity and direction to the project team, stakeholders, and clients. It ensures that everyone involved in the project understands what needs to be accomplished, reducing confusion and improving collaboration.

2. Resource Management:

Project scope helps in efficient resource allocation. It enables project managers to identify the necessary resources, such as staff, equipment, and budget, required to complete the project successfully. By having a clear scope, project managers can avoid over-allocation or underutilization of resources.

3. Cost and Time Estimation:

Project scope assists in estimating the cost and duration of a project accurately. With a well-defined scope, project managers can identify the tasks, dependencies, and milestones, allowing them to create realistic project schedules and budgets.

4. Risk Mitigation:

The project scope also aids in managing risks effectively. By clearly defining what is included and excluded in the project, potential risks and challenges can be identified early on, allowing project managers to develop appropriate risk mitigation plans.

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Elements of Project Scope:

1. Objectives:

Clearly defined project objectives are crucial to the project scope. It is essential to understand what results the project aims to achieve and how it aligns with the overall organizational goals.

2. Deliverables:

The project scope should identify the tangible outputs or deliverables that the project team will produce. These deliverables could be physical products, software, reports, or any other measurable outcome.

3. Boundaries:

The scope must outline the boundaries of the project by specifying what is included and what is excluded. This helps in avoiding scope creep, which refers to the uncontrolled expansion of project boundaries during the project’s execution.

4. Constraints:

Identifying constraints within the project scope is also important. Constraints may include limitations in terms of time, budget, resources, technology, or any other factor that may impact the project’s execution.

Managing Scope Changes:

In the course of a project, changes to the scope are inevitable due to various factors such as changes in requirements, stakeholder requests, or unforeseen circumstances. However, managing scope changes is crucial to prevent scope creep and ensure project success.

Here are some key steps to effectively manage scope changes:

1. Clearly communicate the change

When a scope change is proposed, it is important to transparently communicate the implications of the change to all stakeholders, including the project team, management, and clients. This ensures that everyone understands the impact of the change and can make informed decisions.

2. Assess the impact:

Project managers along with business analysts must assess the impact of the proposed scope change on the project timeline, budget, and resources. It is crucial to evaluate whether the change can be accommodated without significantly affecting the project’s objectives.

3. Obtain stakeholder agreement:

Before implementing any scope change, obtaining agreement from all relevant stakeholders is essential. This ensures that all parties are aligned with the proposed change and minimizes the chances of misunderstandings or conflicts.

4. Adjust project plan:

If the scope change is approved, the project plan, including the schedule, budget, and resource allocation, must be adjusted as mentioned in the scope document. Project managers should update the project documentation and communicate the changes to the team.

5. Monitor scope changes:

Throughout the project, it is important to monitor and control scope changes continuously. Project managers should regularly review the scope to identify any unauthorized changes and take appropriate actions to prevent scope creep.

In a nutshell, a well-defined project scope is vital for the successful execution of any project. It provides clarity, direction, and a framework for project stakeholders to understand the project objectives, deliverables, and boundaries. By effectively managing scope changes, project managers can ensure that projects stay on track, avoiding scope creep and delivering successful outcomes. Therefore, project managers and business analysts must invest time and effort in developing and maintaining a comprehensive project scope, right from the project’s initiation.