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Tag: Project Management

Top 6 Project Manager Characteristics You Can’t Overlook

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Top 6 Project Manager Characteristics You Can’t Overlook

Sure we all have our list of key characteristics that a good project manager should have going into the PM career they have chosen…

or been forced into. Is it the right list? Maybe..probably depends on the type of projects they are leading. But I’ve got a different list here…one that has some “below-the-layers” type of characteristics that are more “soft” skills than hard skills. You can’t always just learn these and they really are necessary for true success on the tough ones…meaning tough projects.

So, let’s look over my list and try to lock in on these six and you’ll probably be pretty well-equipped to deal with most general project management related responsibilities that help define true success – at least from my experience over the years. It’s experience…but it’s the right experience that’s really the make it or break it in the PM world. Focus on these six…

Works well under pressure.

I don’t think there is a project manager alive and with any real experience to speak of who hasn’t felt some pressure or that real fun “under the gun” feeling when running a tough project. Expectations are high, information is low and the focus is on the project manager to make the right move or decision at the right time. This is one of those “must have’s” if you hope to be successful in the big projects. There’s really no “faking it till you make it” in this category…you can either sweat it out or you can’t. The best can.

Gets production from those under him.

The project manager who can’t lead his team effectively will get eaten alive. No one can question that. But what makes him get that following he requires? Leadership, honesty, integrity, experience – and the right experience, credibility, sometimes charisma, and that whatever it takes to just have the follow through to do what you say you’re going to do. What’s that called? Maybe stick-to-it-iveness. You know what I mean. Never wishy-washy. Battle tested, success proven. That’s who the team will follow. Not the resource manager disguised as the tech project leader.

Can deal with senior management.

This sounds easy, but it’s not. Senior management doesn’t always want exactly what the project customer wants…or even what the project manager wants. And sometimes they can demand things that aren’t necessarily in the best interest of the project. That happened to me on two occasions and I bowed to senior management even though I thought I knew it was the wrong way to go for the project and customer. Turns out my gut was right, but I didn’t listen to it and both times it cost us success on the project – we failed miserably and it was at that senior management input point that we jumped the shark on each project and failure became inevitable. No more…I am more careful in “just following” senior management. You really sometimes need to be able to “deal” with them and still support your customer’s best interests at the same time.

Knows financials.

Knows financials? Why is this important? Because the project that falls 10% off budget can be corrected. The project that is 50% over is likely doomed to fail. 50% is too great of an overage to correct when so many other critical things are going on for the project – all of which are chewing through the budget themselves and fighting for those fading dollars remaining on the project. So the project manager who is comfortable with the project financial planning, analysis and forecasting processes and knows to stay on top of the budget weekly is going to win more often than lose on the financial side. Having a good connection in accounting always helps because the smart project manager is reviewing project financials – updated with actual charges from his team and vendors – every week and re-forecasting diligently. If you are always watching, then it’s far more difficult for the project budget to go more than 10% over without you knowing about it…and doing something about it.

Doesn’t require accolades.

This one is important because you often won’t get any. Success is tough and often elusive (true success happens less than 50% of the time on average no matter how good you are), but is still expected every time out. Think Tiger Woods not winning a major golf tournament. While the odds of winning any major for the best are long, for Tiger it was expected every time out until he was beset with back injuries and surgeries. And even then he still has only won 14 major tournaments and trails the leader and legend Jack Nicklaus by 4 as he enters his 40’s with his prime behind him. So, understanding right away that success is expected and pats on the back are a strange and rare bonus will help the best performing project managers succeed and not care about what others think or what may be coming their way in terms of recognition.

Know how to handle the customer.

It’s the customer’s project. The customer’s money. It’s their requirements, their business processes, their technological whims and wishes. But success rests on yours and your team’s shoulders and no matter what the customer wants or says, at the end of the day success or failure is yours. So knowing how to interact with and manage the customer is important. Knowing when to say yes and when to say no is key. Knowing when your customer is just looking for treatment for a symptom of a bigger problem…that’s critical. And it takes experience and a strong gut to tell the project customer that you need to dig deeper…that what they have come to you with is not really the full project. Careful how you break that news to them though, because further analysis means more money. And it could lose you the project if you handle it wrong.

Summary / call for input

Basically, project leadership is not for the faint of heart. You have to start somewhere…yes. At some point a project manager is the newbie with no experience. Hopefully, that project manager gets to start small and has a good mentor. I did and it sure helped my success and confidence levels. Some get thrown into the fire. But somehow we all must acquire these characteristics and skills to truly succeed.

What’s your take on this list? What would you change or add to it? Please share your thoughts and experiences with our readers.

Applying Best Practices on Strategic Initiatives

Written by Kenneth Perry on . Posted in Articles. 7 Comments on Applying Best Practices on Strategic Initiatives

Why employing project management best practices is critical to a Project Manager’s success at managing an organization’s strategic initiatives

Many organizations in today’s environment rely on Project Managers to help develop and manage their key strategic initiatives. These organizational initiatives are defined as “discretionary project[s] designed to close a strategic performance gap… [and] achieve performance improvements that cannot occur through continuous operational refinement or improvement.” These types of projects can be lengthy, highly complex and involve a wide variety of stakeholders, some of whom may hold senior leadership positions. Such challenges make it a risky undertaking for a Project Manager entrusted with this responsibility. What is a Project Manager to do?

In my experience working on such strategic projects, I have learned that one of the most important things a Project Manager can do in this situation is to embrace and apply project management best practices right from the beginning of the initiative. Doing so requires the individual to collect information on the tools, techniques, processes and methodologies considered to be best-in-class; review, analyze and understand their content; and integrate them into the design and execution of the initiative. While knowing technical or industry-specific best practices are no doubt important in this context, utilizing project management best practices is absolutely critical for the Project Manager chosen to shepherd an organization’s strategic initiative.

Why should project management best practices be used to support the effective management of strategic initiatives? I have concluded there are, at least, four major reasons for doing so.

  1. It ensures the organization’s efforts are aligned with accepted standards. If project management best practices are not applied to the implementation and coordination of strategic initiatives, then organizations are executing their strategy in a manner never before demonstrated in a successful, replicable way. This of course can introduce considerable risk to the organization. Instead, organizations can reduce risk by aligning their management of strategic initiatives with validated and respected project management best practices. 
  2. Doing so adds credibility to the Project Manager. Since project management best practices have already been evaluated and recognized as most effective, the Project Manager can rest assured knowing that his or her approach is grounded in established theory and practice. Their efforts will be understood by the project team, the sponsor and stakeholders as being prudent, deliberate, and justifiable. This reflects well upon the Project Manager and increases the confidence level in his or her management of the initiative.
  3. It provides predictability in a complex environment. When a Project Manager bases their efforts on project management best practices, they are introducing a degree of predictability to the project environment in which the team members and stakeholders operate. This is important as predictability greatly supports expectation-setting, communication and collaboration within the project. This is not to suggest that creativity or innovation are inherently bad characteristics to have in this context. It is to simply state that such qualities as consistency and repeatability are typically more important to effectively manage strategic initiatives considering the characteristically high degree of both risk and importance that such initiatives have.
  4. Applying best practices increases the probability of success. Something can only be established as a “best” practice if it has been consistently demonstrated to support, or result in, successful outcomes. Using such established project management practices is analogous to borrowing a map someone previously created to help them navigate through comparable, complicated terrain. Like this map, project management best practices – when applied appropriately – will increase your own chance at success because your “navigation through the project terrain” will be supported by practices others have already successfully implemented.

Though not a comprehensive list by any means, these four reasons do support the assertion that the application of project management best practices is a value-added exercise for all Project Managers, particularly in the context of strategic initiative management.

For those looking to discover and apply project management best practices to their own work, there are a wide variety of sources and organizations that they can turn to. One of the premier thought leaders in the field, the Project Management Institute (PMI), is a great place to start. PMI has developed the Project Management Body of Knowledge, or PMBOK, which is one of the leading handbooks on project management in existence. Additionally, PMI’s website is full of other standards, articles, templates and research papers, helpful for Project Managers across all levels. Another important best practice resource to draw from is the PRINCE2 standard, which is a very popular methodology, particularly outside of North America.  All are sources that have proven useful to me in the past and that I have leaned on in my own effort to manage strategic initiatives. I hope they will prove helpful to you as well.

11 Tips for Better Project Results

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on 11 Tips for Better Project Results

Customer service. Much of project management is about customer service.

You do, after all, want to keep the customer informed, happy, involved in the project, and wanting more work. Customer satisfaction is one of the three key ingredients to successful project delivery. My motto is always “You’re only as successful as your last customer thinks you are.” So, keep the customer happy, and you’re successful.

Related Article: Deliver Project Results by Engaging Employees

To that end, I’m identifying 11 tips to a better project outcome. And that isn’t always just about customer happiness and satisfaction. It also means a more productive and high performing team.

It may just mean more efficient project management processes which lead to the project manager doing a better job of managing the project and the resources working on it.

Here are my 11 tips for doing a better job of delivering on your current projects.

1. Dashboard Reporting.

If you aren’t already doing so, implement dashboard reporting in your regular – hopefully weekly – project status reporting. I fully believe in a one size fits all status reporting style. Why create one for your customer, one for your team, one for your supervisors and one for whoever else needs it on your long list of stakeholders? Just create one project status report that generally takes care of everyone’s needs. Adding a dashboard will go a long way in making those many different stakeholders happy. That quick insight will either answer a lot of quick questions or dissuade other questions, freeing up your time to manage the project and do what you need to be doing.

2. Shorter, increased frequency status calls.

Want to make project improvements fast? Increase communication, don’t decrease it. If you need to improve things this week, add communication including team and customer touch points. Do this by having more calls, more meetings, more status report discussions and distributions, and more distributions of the project schedule. I’m not saying to do that for every project every week from now on. We do have lives and need to do the actual project work. But if a project needs some help, increasing the project touch points with key stakeholders can improve things fast. At least in the short term and sometimes that is all we are talking about.

3. Budget review.

Review the budget with the team. You may be doing this every week on your own as the project manager, but if you want to ensure team accountability for their hours then involve the entire project team in the budget review process. Awareness breeds accountability. Trust me; this does work.

4. Resource review.

Likewise, your project team members are the ones working daily on the project tasks. They may have some added insight that you don’t have. They also know – firsthand – their commitments to other projects. Their participation in weekly resource forecasting efforts can only help.

5. Mid-project review.

We conduct project reviews periodically and post-mortem. It all depends on the project and the customer. But if you’re not conducting any mid-project reviews, then be sure to add one or two to the schedule. Again, more review and more communication can be a very good thing for accountability and for customer satisfaction – especially if the project needs that kind of a boost.

6. Add issues to the project report.

Make sure there is a place in the status report for current, outstanding issues on the project. You should be driving to have one size fits all status reporting and including issues on the project status report keeps it all in one place.

7. Send someone onsite for some tasks or for the next meeting with the remote client.

If you’re working with a remote client or leading a virtual team and rarely have physical touch points with the project client, arrange to either visit the client yourself or send someone from the team onsite to complete some tasks. It will serve double duty to get some work accomplished and accomplish some face time with the project client. Always a good thing if there is any indication that the project needs that at this point.

8. Get a C-level involved in your project.

It never hurts to get senior management involved in your project, proactively, I mean. If the client calls your CEO, then that’s bad. But if you ask your CEO to show up to a client meeting just to make the client feel important, then that’s a good thing. The project client will get the feeling that their project is a priority to your organization and their satisfaction level and approval level will rise.

9. Do a disaster recovery or cyber security presentation for the client.

These can get costly so be careful, but asking the client to come on site and see a presentation of the disaster recovery and / or digital security measures and backup processes you have in place could be a good thing for the project – especially if you’re handling extra sensitive information for the client. They will gain confidence that you have business continuity under control and that a security issue isn’t likely to knock their project off the rails.

10. Give away some work.

If you’re finding the client to be extremely concerned with cash and budget, perhaps you can offer some work for free. Obviously, be aware of what you’re giving away and get approval to do so from your senior leadership. But if the project client knows they are getting some free work, that will definitely be a benefit to the project.

11. Pick up the phone.

Finally, just pick up the phone and call the customer. If you are usually just emailing status, questions, and answers back and forth with the client, give them a call. The voice is a good thing to inject when usually all they are getting is electronic communication. Ask them how they are doing. Ask them how they think the project is going. Listen. Learn.

Summary / call for input

Want to improve how the project is going? Want to set the project up for a positive outcome? Try any or all of these 11 tips for project improvement and shake it up a bit. What else would you add to the list? What do you do periodically to improve your project outcome and customer satisfaction?

OUTSIDE THE BOX FORUM: Business Analyst as Co-Manager or Project Manager

Written by Robert Wysocki on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on OUTSIDE THE BOX FORUM: Business Analyst as Co-Manager or Project Manager

The Co-Manager Model is unique to the Effective Complex Project Management (ECPM) Framework.

It consists of a senior client manager who plays the role of co-project manager opposite the professional project manager. They equally share responsibility and authority over the entire project. When that is not feasible, an alternative is needed. There are two possibilities that utilize the client’s business analyst.

Related Article: If It Doesn’t Make Sense, Why Do It?

Business Analyst as Co-Manager

In order to be assigned decision-making authority on the project, this business analyst must be the most senior level professional. They must have as intimate an understanding of the client’s line of business as does the client manager. They are their representative expert and trusted too. The management model used in the IS Department at Walmart is very similar to this model. In Walmart, it would not be unusual for the business analyst in a line of business to have a deeper and more complete understanding of a business process than its manager.

Business Analyst as Project Manager

Project managers are pervasive throughout the organization whether you want to admit it or not. They range from the senior-most professional to those who only occasionally use the process. There will be situations where the department manager will elect to keep the project internal and not look to outside management support. My practice has always been to have a relationship with each of my client departments to where they are encouraged to consult with me on project issues and problems. This type of relationship can be cultivated through a Project Support Office that is service-oriented. I often refer to myself as their extended team.

This model can be thought of a variation of the Co-Manager Model with both managers collapsed into a single individual. That destroys the benefit of having the two co-managers discuss issues when they have differing points of view. That can prove to be a healthy exchange which the collapsed model does not afford.

The Million Dollar Project Manager

Written by Lisa Anderson on . Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on The Million Dollar Project Manager

In our experience working with manufacturers and distributors from small, family-owned businesses to medium-sized, private equity backed companies to global….

large, complex organizations, projects account for 80% of the improvement. There are projects to improve efficiencies, reduce inventory, grow sales, expand into new regions, consolidate operations and the list goes on. Thus, if we must rely on projects for business growth and profitability, should we think about our project managers as million-dollar project managers?

Most likely the answer is yes. However, in our experience, project managers are not often treated with much respect. Often times they are seen as lower level resources responsible for executing initiatives, coordinating resources and reporting progress up the chain. But, is this how we should treat our resources who can have such a far-reaching impact?

Let’s think about the reach of project managers impact. There are several key points to consider:

  1. Impact on resources: Undoubtedly, the number one concern from all levels of leadership relates back to resources. There are “too many,” “not enough,” “not the right skills,” “not allocated properly” and so on. Thus, anyone who has a significant impact on resources should be considered valuable.
  2. Daily decisions on which tasks gain priority: Similar to the impact on resources, determining the priority of tasks is crucial. As a project manager, there is a constant need to prioritize among tasks, collaborate with departments, etc.
  3. Ingrained in the business: Project managers are in the “thick of things” on a daily basis. In order to complete tasks and achieve results, project managers are involved in a wide array of activities. They are familiar with what is working and what isn’t working in each department as it relates to project tasks. There are very few projects which are confined to a singular department.
  4. Communicate across the organization: In order to complete their tasks, the project manager must communicate and collaborate across departments and layers of the organization. Since high-quality resources are hard to come by, it is vital to keep communications in a positive light.
  5. Impact on profit: Certainly, almost every project relates back to profitability in some respect. Whether we are growing the business, increasing margins, automating key processes or improving efficiencies, there is a direct impact on profit.

So, since it is clear that project managers have a substantial impact on business success, it is wise to think about how to maximize their performance. As a metaphor, the million-dollar project manager is appealing since there is often million-dollar impacts. Thus, what should we do to ensure project managers are treated more like million-dollar project managers?

  1. Provide clarity of the big picture: Project managers will be more invested in their projects if they understand the impact on the organization. Make sure to provide clarity of the big picture and how they fit in.
  2. Give them discretion: There have been countless studies as to what is most successful in keeping valuable employees (like your million-dollar project managers), and the net conclusion is that employees want some ability to affect the outcome of their work. We must give them some level of discretion to make decisions and guide their projects within reasonable parameters.
  3. Recognize small wins: Managing projects can be a slog into details with little to show for it. Find small wins to celebrate. Make a big deal of the importance and tie it back to the project manager and their team.
  4. Support their decisions: There is nothing more important than supporting your project managers. Of course, providing constructive feedback is essential; however, when in the heat of the battle, it is vital to support your project manager’s decisions. Without this support at critical junctures, the project will suffer, and the project manager will become dismayed.
  5. Promote the project: Promoting the project throughout the organization can do quite a lot for its chances of success. How do you get resources to want to join your project team? Start by being attractive. This often times goes back to how compelling the project seems. Make it so! Do you think the best leaders’ projects for improving margins happen to be more enticing than the average leaders’ projects of the same type? No; perception becomes a reality.

Since projects will have a substantial effect on your customer loyalty and bottom line – the two most critical aspects of any business – it is worthwhile taking a few steps back to think about the project managers driving these results. If you think about their impact, a million dollars might not be sufficient. Therefore, start thinking about your project managers as though they have a million-dollar impact and results will follow.