Tag: Project Management

3 Signs That You Are a Bad Project Sponsor

Written by Tarryn-Leigh Frans on May 5, 2017. Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on 3 Signs That You Are a Bad Project Sponsor

Trying to deliver a project without an engaged sponsor is like starting a voyage on a ship without a captain, crew, lifeboat or even a planned route.

However, that is a situation many Project Managers find themselves in (present company included!) We all know that strong executive sponsorship can make or break any project but do we truly understand the effects of bad sponsorship? According to PMI’s Pulse of the Profession Report for 2016 (An Annual Report on the State of Project Management), actively engaged executive sponsors were “by far the top driver of projects meeting their original goals and business intent.” The same project management research also found that one in three failed projects link to poorly-engaged executive sponsorship.

If you are struggling to make sense of the fact that executive sponsorship can be a top driver of goal achievement, and yet also directly linked to one-third of all project management failures, then you are not alone. In project management 101 we are all taught that your project sponsor is there to remove any obstacles that prevent the team from achieving the project’s objectives. However, how do you know when you, as the project sponsor are the problem? Importantly, how do you fix it? Now, this can be a real dilemma for any project management team, but I think I have managed to recognize the behaviors of a bad sponsor.

Behavior 1: Listen, I have got a pile of work to get through today, so I will not make today’s Steering Committee Meeting

Keeping a project running can be tough on a normal day (project management is not for sissies). So, imagine when you throw in things like a changing external environment, lack of resources, scope creep, etc.? Nothing is more frustrating for a project manager than sitting through a Steering Committee meeting and struggling to get the support and co-operation of the project sponsors. As the name suggests, the purpose of the steering committee meeting is for the project sponsor to steer the project to success from the start to the completion, give strategic direction and support the project manager.

I would like to believe that the project sponsor and project manager are in a partnership for the duration of the project. For this to be a successful partnership, the sponsor needs to be connected to the project manager and the project team. To do this, you must be present! Meeting with the project manager before the meeting and specifically discussing what they need from you during the session is crucial. Reviewing the Steering Committee pack and listing the talking points helps to keep the focus on those critical items. If you are a remote sponsor, too busy to meet to discuss progress or review status reports, then these are all warning signs that it is probably time for you to make a change or walk away.

Behavior 2: I need you to analyze, collect data, analyze more, and search for more data of all ten scenarios before I can make a decision

No decision is worse than a bad decision! If you are a project sponsor delaying a decision, you are inevitably delaying the work needed to deliver the project. Guess what? Spending more time gathering information or convincing yourself that the data is inconclusive is unlikely to help. Listen to your intuition and make the call, nobody is going to do it for you. Even with a bad decision, the project team can plan the execution, understand the risks and develop mitigations if the cracks start to appear.

Project managers are always willing to share their views so use this to your advantage. Ask for proposals and get them to explain the limitations of each option. In my experience, detailed explanations and logical counterarguments might not get you to the right decision, but it will lead you to an informed decision. If you find yourself avoiding even the simple decision (like approving project management documents), then you have a problem. It is a matter of time until it reaches critical status and you are heading for real trouble (and so is your project).

Behavior 3: I have no idea what success looks like, but I will be sure to hold you responsible when I do not get it

Are you a project sponsor that is often surprised when the deliverables are not what you expected? Wanted a rollercoaster and got a swing instead? Chances are during the project management process you have not spent enough time defining what success looks like at the end of the project.

Resist the urge to go with the generic success factors like defect-free products, improved partnerships, and happy customers. Instead, spend the time during the project definition phase to understand project success and how it will be measured objectively. If you have not had a chance to complete this sentence, “I will consider this project a success if…” then it is likely that you and the project team have no idea on what success looks like and I doubt you will ever get there.

It is just not enough to be assigned in name as the project sponsor on a project. You must be the right person for the job, with enough capacity to do it right. At Project Portfolio Office (PPO) our project management methodology defines what a sponsor’s responsibilities are, what they are involved with and what authority they have. By having this, it will serve as a reminder to you of what your project team’s expectations are of you and increase the value of project management in your business

There’s a lot more signs that show when you are a bad sponsor, but I thought these would be a great place to start. Spend some time thinking back to the last few projects, and you might uncover why the project team was hampered from delivering successful projects!
Alternatively, I have got it all wrong and guilty of deferring the problem! Share your project management experience below!

Business Intelligence Is About More Than Just Reporting

Written by Silvia Bressan on May 4, 2017. Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Business Intelligence Is About More Than Just Reporting

Solving business problems using insight is nothing new. Data shapes the way we see the world and using it to make effective and efficient business decisions is only logical.

However, many people are still under the misguided perception that business intelligence is just a fancy way of talking about analytics reporting.

Business intelligence and business analytics professionals have been arguing their case now for a long time. While some people still associate them only with numbers and spreadsheets – at the end of the day, they need to be able to turn information into something actionable.

That said, we’ve got nothing against the powerful spreadsheet.

It’s about creating good processes

No matter how pretty your dashboard of data looks, it’s meaningless if it’s not actionable. One of the most important facets of business intelligence is creating meaningful, actionable insights for businesses to use.

Some common uses for business intelligence include accelerating and improving business decision making, increasing efficiency and optimizing internal processes. By including business intelligence as part of a company’s internal processes, decisions are better informed. More than just reporting on how productive teams are or where cash flow is coming from, it’s about understanding how a business is run and providing actionable insights on how to run it better.

It’s about driving new opportunities

Business intelligence data comes in all forms. It can be real-time or historical. Ultimately, it’s there to answer any questions your team may have to drive a business forwards. This could include identifying new revenue streams, identifying market trends as they happen, or using past insights to decide the best way to move forward.

Talented business information professionals recognize the vast amounts of data they possess as having untold potential. By understanding business goals, they’re able to make clever, informed and innovative decisions for the future.

It’s about solving problems

One way to look at business intelligence is the nervous system of an organization. It senses everything and reports back. By delving deep into the insights provided by business intelligence data, it’s possible to spot business problems that need to be addressed quickly. Plus, business intelligence can even provide the intelligent insights necessarily to create an action plan for addressing any problems – current or future.

In today’s world, we always should always plan ahead. Business intelligence gives us the insights we need to both predict the future, and plan for it. Whether that’s managing the impacts of tomorrow’s weather, overseas markets, climate change or seasonal trends.

It’s about better communication

One of the most important components of business intelligence is being able to communicate findings in a way that’s effective and actionable. Business intelligence programs have been designed to clearly communicate data in a way that’s meaningful to people – not just a spreadsheet of numbers.

Yes, reporting is an important part of business intelligence. But it’s not all cut and dried. Business intelligence helps provide actionable and agile solutions to business problems. That requires collecting and interpreting a lot of information – more than most people know what to do with. That’s why finding clever, innovative and accessible ways of communicating the right information at the right time is so integral to business intelligence.

It’s about good ethics

Paying attention to ethics is good business especially in the era of the social enterprise and conscientious consumer. Not only can business intelligence provide insights for unexplored ethical avenues, but it also helps businesses find proactive ways to improve their conduct as an organization. This could be anything from improving supply chain and logistics management to finding new and improved processes for managing human resources.

Plus, in today’s rapidly growing and changing world, business intelligence is at the forefront of modern ethics exploration. Some current ethical concerns facing business intelligence specialists include data security, integrity, and privacy. Business intelligence analytics even has the potential to detect negligence and fraud. It’s an exciting new frontier for modern ethics exploration and something to keep your eye on.

It’s about people

When push comes to shove, people are what matter. Business intelligence can give you insights into how to better manage your team and provide a better, more stable working environment. From reducing employee churn to making employees’ lives easier and more productive, data should ultimately be used to benefit the people. People are the most valuable resources most businesses have and knowing how to treat them better is crucial.

Change. It’s terrifying. It’s disrupting. And, unfortunately, it’s inevitable.

Written by Silvia Bressan on May 3, 2017. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Change. It’s terrifying. It’s disrupting. And, unfortunately, it’s inevitable.

Managing change is rarely a smooth process. However, to effectively lead a business – or a team – to success, managing change in the workplace must be in your toolkit.

Businesses are constantly growing, evolving and innovating. In today’s market, change is a constant work-in-progress. To stay afloat, we need to do more than adapt to it, but also manage it and lead it. It’s no wonder that leaders who understand and can manage change are so highly sought after.

While managing organisational change is never quite as simple as it sounds, there are some strategies you can implement to make the transition smoother. It’s not as easy as being given a formula to use time and time again, but with the right processes, skills and tools at your disposal, change doesn’t have to be so world-shaking.

Start driving change and growth

The best strategy is almost never reactionary. By actively embracing change and seeking new opportunities for innovation, change and growth, you can be prepared when it comes to rolling out change initiatives in your organisation.

When trying to effectively lead change, you’ll need to clearly answer three common questions employees have about new change initiatives:

What is the change?
Why is the change happening?
How will the change affect me?

It sounds simple, but too many managers focus on the ‘what’, rather than answering their team’s legitimate concerns and questions around how and why the change is being made. When talking about why the change is happening – and how it will affect your people – try to be transparent. If it has downsides, offer a clear timeframe for these changes taking place and reiterate the long-term positives.

Establish meaningful communication with your teams

The best way to ensure that everyone is on the same page (or help everyone get there) is to facilitate clear, open communication. Meaningful communication is essential to the success of any transition period, and will help you in a few ways. For starters, it helps you understand your team and gain insight into what motivates them personally. These insights can help you predict any barriers your team might have towards accepting change and help you overcome them.

You need to know how change affects your employees personally and be aware of the politics and psychology that informs their reactions to change. By openly explaining the transition process to your team (through the why, what and how mentioned previously) and understanding their reactions, you can respond to your team appropriately.

Some teams are more resistant to change than others. Understanding why is the first step towards being able to effectively lead them down the path towards a smoother, easier transition.

Motivate your people effectively

People often come into change with the attitude ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Your role is to make them understand – in their own terms – why this isn’t the case. The benefits of change need to outweigh the pain it will cause. By opening communication with your team, you should have a good idea of what their concerns are. Addressing these early, and demonstrating how the change is of mutual benefit can help everyone get on the same page.

Never attack your team or tell them that they’re wrong. Your team comprises smart, intelligent people. Just because they’re not with you yet, doesn’t mean they won’t be. By providing your team with personal and professional wins (i.e. outlining how the change will make their lives easier both at work and in day-to-day life), they’ll feel as though the change is in their favour. Benefits can help bring them onside to work with you and make the most out of the transition.

Showing how the change will eliminate a known pain-point can have a similar impact. It’s about finding and articulating mutual goals, not persuading them that they’re wrong for being cautious.

Ultimately, change is unpredictable. There will always be some resistance to change (and always has been), and your role is to make the process as stress-free for your team as possible. Gaining a detailed understanding of the psychology of change in business – how your team ticks and what motivates them – is just the beginning.

Agile for Fixed Bid – an Oxymoron?

Written by Lakshmi KP on May 1, 2017. Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Agile for Fixed Bid – an Oxymoron?

I remember the struggles our team went through when we embraced “Agile” methodology for the first time on a fixed bid engagement.

While we managed to deliver the project to the satisfaction of the client, it wasn’t a smooth journey. There was a constant worry regarding schedule/cost overruns that we weren’t able to “enjoy” Agile to the fullest. Over time, we have figured out how to strike a balance between these two seemingly different worlds.

If you are wondering if “Agile” is a good fit for your fixed bid engagements, just take a look at these core principles of Agile methodology.

While Agile methodology offers several benefits, I think these are the ones most relevant to a consulting firm offering fixed bid projects.

Now if you have decided to go “Agile,” how do you ensure that you are able to meet all your “fixed” bid commitments amidst the Agile process? For this, let’s pay a closer look at the definition of Agile.

“An Agile methodology refers to the capability to break down tasks into really small chunks, and executing them in a way that they can be changed easily.”

It doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no predefined scope or timelines. The “change” would occur due to the usual reasons such as “missed out requirement,” “change in the marketplace,” “change in organizational politics” or “change in business priorities.” The change will not occur because the process followed is “Agile.” What “Agile” targets are embracing to make change easier and a more natural process.

However given the contractual nature of fixed bid engagements between two separate organizations, there are some extensions needed to the standard Agile process to make them successful. In my experience, there are primarily three such extensions required for fixed bid engagements.

Strong internal product owner
Granular backlog planning
Defined change control process

Strong Internal Product Owner

The area where a fixed bid team will need to go beyond the standard Agile process would be where interaction with the business stakeholders are required. Given the nature of the relationship between the two organizations, this typically is not possible. What usually works well in these cases is to have a representative from the consulting firm act as the Internal Product Owner. Let’s say you are following Agile SCRUM. The Internal Product Owner will be responsible for representing the client business team in the grooming meetings and daily stand-ups. It is important that this Internal Product Owner understands the client’s business very well to detail out the nuances of the business requirements. This role could be carried out by a single individual or a group depending on the complexity of the project.

The Internal Product Owner should be responsible for keeping the client business team updated on the product progress. One approach is to invite the client business team to the sprint review sessions so that your team gets the feedback directly from the client team. If the client team is not amenable to participating in your sprint ceremonies, the Internal Product Owner should act as the bridge between the client team and your own team.

Granular Backlog Planning

Another area to be considered is the granularity of planning. In standard Agile, the team works off a high-level plan, but the team is not expected to assign backlog items to any specific sprint. A fixed bid engagement requires more granular planning. For Example: all backlog items need to be assigned to a specific sprint. It is acceptable for the team to move items around as the project progresses. However, they need to have a clear plan at all times to address all pending items.

This will help in multiple ways.

Provides an unambiguous picture to all stakeholders on when the project will hit its milestones.
Effectively communicates with the client team on dependencies and their impact.
Helps with change control (more on that in the next section), when the change being introduced has an impact on the timeline.

Defined Change Control Process

What about scope creep? The scope creep should be managed via a defined change control process. If your client is onboard with the idea, you could define the scope in terms of story points, for closer alignment with the Agile process.

The beauty of Agile is that it may be possible for you to accommodate some of the scope changes with no cost impact to the client, especially if the changes are pertaining to items way down in the backlog. Even if you are able to accommodate changes with no cost impact, you should get these items go through the change control route. This will help in two ways:

Your client understands the value you are bringing in.
Your client might see an opportunity to reorganize their internal processes with the better visibility you are providing (this is most relevant when you are dealing with multiple groups within the client organization)

So by having a defined change control process, you are not violating the Agile principle of “customer collaboration over contract negotiation.” On the other hand, you could be moving one step closer to becoming your client’s trusted partner.

In summary, it is clear that a consulting firm that offers fixed bid services can embrace ‘’Agile’ to its own benefit as well as its client’s benefit. All that’s required are a couple of well thought through extensions to the core Agile process. I wish someone had handed me the cheat sheet when that client approached us a long time ago!

When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Project Manager

Written by Sean Lowe on April 28, 2017. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Project Manager

I was sitting on a bench in the mall the other day bouncing my one-year-old daughter on my knee when a mother next to me asked her six-year-old daughter,

“what do you want to be when you grow up, sweetie?”

I remember thinking that this girl would most certainly rather play dolls and dress up than be presented with a question that many adults in professional careers may still be asking themselves. Perhaps the mother was looking for a few tips, I chuckled. I continued bouncing, awaiting the little girl’s answer. “A teacher,” the little girl returned along with a smile fit for a cereal box.

As a boy, I believe my favorite answer was Superman. My mom even made me a cape with a big “S” on it. Many of my childhood classmates wanted to be firefighters, policemen/women, and various other superheroes. I do not remember hearing “project manager.”

I decided to ask a group of sixth graders what they wanted to be when they grew up, and I received similar answers: firefighter, doctor, policewoman, construction worker, surgeon, etc. I then posed the following question: “What if you had to be ALL of these things every day? What would that be like?”

“Messy” was one boy’s answer. “I’d be all sweaty from running around putting out fires and then I’d have to get dirty building houses and all bloody cutting people up,” he said. “It would just be weird” was another girl’s response, “doing all of those things would get really confusing, and I’d probably kill somebody if I had to do surgery.” “I’d just try new stuff,” replied another boy, “because it might be cool to find out what it was like.” “That’s impossible” was the last boy’s answer. “How could you really be all of those things?”

Any of these humorous scenarios sound familiar? As project managers, we are expected to function in a myriad of capacities, including but not limited to firefighting, being the team/organizational policeman/woman, the contract and legal expert, teacher, coach, technical subject-matter expert (SME) . . . and the list goes on and on. We plan, schedule, obsess, coordinate, orchestrate, integrate, and see opportunity and possibility when others are calling for the project to be canceled. Super hero or not, however, we must resist the urge to “be” all things. A good project manager continues to develop professionally while allowing others on the project team to do the same. Delegation, empowerment and creative integration are instrumental in team development and, ultimately, project success.

The Project Manager as Firefighter, Law Enforcer and Doctor

Project managers own any and all firefighting that takes place within the “walls” of our respective project. It could also be argued that we must transcend these “walls” and extend our firefighting influence into fires that have the potential to spread into our “house.” In this respect, we are firefighters, risk managers, and problem-resolution experts. Risk management is an all too often neglected area that, when properly facilitated and integrated, can provide significant insight, context, and accountability.

Every call and meeting can provide an opportunity for anarchy. Rules, guidelines and “laws” must be placed within projects to keep traffic flowing in the proper direction. In terms of status and record keeping, it’s also necessary to closely monitor resource allocation percentages against limits (baseline). Just as traffic merges onto a busy highway, the project manager must police the integration of all project components.

Key project decisions are sometimes like prescribing medication or performing minor surgery. Decisions about what’s best for the overall health of the project are often times in the hands of the project “doctor” . . . and yes, patients die on the table. Good thing most project managers do not have to account for project malpractice insurance, or we’d all be singing the blues from time to time!

The Project Manager as Lawyer, Contract Administrator, Negotiator and Interpreter

Here’s where it starts to get really confusing. Depending on your propensity for legalese, contracts, statements of work, working agreements, service level arrangements and other business process-related documents may be on your project manager plate. Many times, the business arm of organizations frame and scope out efforts long before a project manager is engaged. This places the project manager “behind the eight ball” in terms of homework and diligence required to get up to speed on the contract and applicable deliverables, in order to appropriately validate the project scope and plan the integration of what’s to be delivered. The contract may be saying one thing, and the project may be headed in a direction to deliver something completely different. In this respect, we are the project’s lawyer, contract administrator and head negotiator.

The project manager needs to be able to take in information from all stakeholders (SMEs, vendors, multi-source providers, etc.), contextualize and prioritize it, and re-frame it for senior managers and other stakeholders — each of whom speak a different figurative (as well as often times, literal) language. The project manager also needs to understand how the cultures represented as stakeholders respond and react to information, how they’re motivated and more.

Information flowing down from top management needs to be cared for as well. Senior management’s communication vehicle to the project team is the “interpreter.” The interpreter also needs to internalize, translate, consolidate and subsequently communicate key stakeholders’ respective interpretations of project success.

The function of the project manager is to be adept at the multiple roles required to be project manager — not to be a SME on a specific task or, as is more often the case, the product or technology the project is delivering. We must be a translator, law enforcer, firefighter, lawyer, politician, superhero, doctor and, yes, “seer of the future.” Organizational SMEs may be well equipped to complete specific project tasks, but not to manage the integration of all project components.

Project managers must fill many roles, every day and it does get weird, messy, dirty, confusing and, if you’re having a really bad day, seemingly impossible. But, it’s really “cool” when you realize that it is possible for one person to manage the integration of “all of those things.”