Tag Archive for 'PM'

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Project Management in 5 Easy Steps

Published on March 17, 2004 in Project. 0 Comments Tags: .

I just finished giving a 2-day seminar on Project Management Methodologies for Service Organizations. It’s a customized presentation that I tailor to the client’s needs. The company wanted to get their engineers into a PM frame of mind. There were 6 systems engineers who were making the move into project management.

I enjoyed it because the engineers were active, interested and very inquisitive. When it was all said and done, one of the engineers asks, “So, can you summarize what I’m supposed to take away with me today?” We had gone through quite a lot of details, so I thought I’d cast a wide net and came up with a Top-5 list:

  • First and foremost, if your strategy is correct, any number of tactical errors can be made and yet the project proves successful. No doubt about it, not everything runs smoothly or as planned. Be ready to change your tactics when striving for your goal.
  • Second and third, communicate and communicate again. OK, so I cheated. This one takes up two spaces on my 5 item list because it is so important. Communication can take place many ways including face-to-face, by phone, fax, email, or meetings. It is important to know that 90% of a PM’s time is spent communicating!
  • Fourth, don’t wait until the end of the project to review the lessons learned. While every project will have a “post mortem” analysis, a great PM will review and learn from every tactical move performed during the project. The lessons learned will then be used in the next task.
  • And finally, keep a cool head. Missed deadlines, out-of-control budgets, employee turnover and stakeholder scrutiny; It can be difficult to get the feelings of “impending doom” out of your head. It’s natural with the PM’s level of exposure to feel like your nerves are being tested; to wonder how you’re going to handle your own anxieties. Remember the project’s goal and continue to work towards that goal.

10 Questions for every Project

Published on March 15, 2004 in Process and Project. 0 Comments Tags: .

So you’ve got all your numbers together, a plan written, schedule laid out and it’s time to begin the project. Before you start, you need to make sure you can answer 10 questions:

  1. How will you know you are done?
  2. What activities and deliverables are NOT included?
  3. What assumptions are you making about the project team?
  4. What assumptions are you making about the actions of others?
  5. How did you derive the total effort?
  6. How did you derive the total schedule?
  7. How did you determine the correct allocation of effort and time between tasks?
  8. What would be the cost impact of accelerating the schedule by 25%?
  9. What are the risk factors that would cause the schedule to slip or the costs to overrun?
  10. What metrics will we use to quantify and track progress?

Make sure you can answer all the questions before starting implementation. Successful projects are not successful because they did not run into problems, but because they anticipated the problems and overcame them.

Project Communications

Published on March 13, 2004 in Project. 0 Comments Tags: .

Ninety percent of a PMs job is communicating — with stakeholders, designers, vendors, team members, press, accountants — about the project. So why are so many surprised when they first hear of a schedule slipping? Often communications protocol with a client takes a hiatus because the PM does not want to upset the client, nor strain the relationship.

In an article on StickyMinds.com called Bread Crumbs, Peter Clark explains a strategy of leaving a trail of communications so as not to increase risks of the project for your customer, as well as to CYA.

A common project problem is customer/stakeholder unresponsiveness. Meetings are missed, specifications are not reviewed, and drawings are not approved. This traps the project in the fuzzy front end, and leads to schedule pressure. If the initial project milestones take longer than planned, there will be even less time for future milestones, which has a direct impact on the project’s cost and schedule.

PM Special Report

Published on February 26, 2004 in Project and Technology. 0 Comments Tags: .

The focus is on IT, but Computerworld has issued their Project Management Special Report. Some interesting articles, information and ideas. There’s even a short quiz so that you can Evaluate your PMO.

These are challenging times for IT project managers. The business wants new systems built yesterday to meet customer demands. IT projects have to be run through the ROI gauntlet and get intense scrutiny from all corners of the company. Business conditions change midproject.

But taking shortcuts can lead to project failure, which isn’t good for the business or IT credibility. So IT projects are caught between the need for speed and flexibility on one hand, and the need to follow a disciplined, successful methodology on the other.

projectified

Published on February 13, 2004 in Project. 0 Comments Tags: .

If you’re working with Microsoft’s Project Server you need to keep tabs on projectified, a blog authored by Brian Kennemer. He writes about project management issues as they relate to Project Server. It’s a new blog started within the last month. I hope he keeps it going. Enjoy!

Contract PM

Published on February 5, 2004 in Process and Project. 0 Comments Tags: .

There’s a great article at PM Boulevard on using contract or interim project managers (like me!). Contract Project Manager: Free Agents and Pinch Hitters. My clients generally use me as a mentor.

For companies that aren’t large enough to have a PM center of excellence, being able to provide mentoring and guidance to an up and coming employee is money well spent.

The Mentor is one of four reasons to bring in a contractor. The other reasons are:

  • Peak Loading
  • The Program Manager/Project Manager model
  • The Consultant PM as head of the PMO

The author, Donna Fitzgerald has defined the rolls well. And I concur. If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.

Project Managing Business Management

Published on January 21, 2004 in Business and Project. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Last night I went to a meeting of the Northeast Ohio Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Every year in January, we have the Kerzner Award Dinner Meeting, with a presentation of the Kerzner Award. Dr. Kerzner is the preeminent project manager and we are lucky that he lives, teaches and works in NE Ohio. If your interested in PM, you need to hear him speak or read any of his great texts.

During his presentation of Advanced Project Management: Best Practices on Implementation, my ears perked up a couple of items, but one statement in particular was great to hear.

“Businesses should be run as a project.”

I agree 100%. The trinity of project management–cost, quality and time– is the same concern or goal in business….of any type. It is becoming evident that as businesses and the corporate environment (legal, financial, HR, marketing and the rest) become more complex, business managers are turning to project management to provide a systematic methodology. You do not have to be building a factory or developing an ERP package to be using project management best practices. The methodology works in developing new products, establishing new offices, mergers & acquisitions, process re-engineering and every process needed in managing a business. Perhaps soon we will see a “BMBOK, the Business Management Body of Knowledge,” or just make the PMBOK, the Project Management Body of Knowledge required reading for managers and executives.

Paper PMP

Published on January 15, 2004 in Musings and Project. 0 Comments Tags: .

I’ve been project managing, in various capacities, in various industries, for over 25 years. For most of that time, I was not a “certified” project manager. I did an excellent job, but had my share of shitty “lessons learned” meetings at project close-out. I didn’t get my PMP until 3 years ago…didn’t feel the need for it, fear of tests, didn’t want to study, blah, blah. I decided to take the exam because I wanted to see if I could do it, but, more importantly, I was about to present a seminar, to a dozen information technology nerds, on what PM was all about. I was afraid twenty years of experience wasn’t enough. I needed certification to impress my audience. I took the test.

It was a tough test, taxing my knowledge with questions on subjects I don’t use everyday. I answered all the questions in about two and a half hours and then spent another hour looking at my answers with a brain full of self-doubt. I passed the test.

Back then there were no exam-crams, no boot camps, no claims of guaranteed test-passing. I did look at the information provided by PMI, but experience was my only teacher. Now, magazine ads tout boot camps where I can spend 5 days and pass the test at the end of the week. I can find a multitude of books on “How to pass the PMP test” at the local book store with such titles as: PMP Certification For Dummies and PMP Exam Cram.

Not to say I wouldn’t have used these if they had been available, but my concern is: flooding the market with the “Paper PMP.” Any of you who are familiar with the IT industry may remember back a dozen years ago when the “Paper CNE” flooded the market or more recently the “Paper MCSE” has crashed a few networks. The only way to get ahead in the IT industry was to have certifications, and the industry responded by cranking out thousands of Paper [name your favorite technology here] Engineers.

Of course business owners, like myself, got tired of, or worse, burned by hiring these technology marvels because they couldn’t put any of their knowledge into practice. Boot camps or exam cramming books emphasized test preparation at the expense of practical knowledge. The “paper engineers” diluted the marketplace systematically. First it was the CNE (Certified Netware Engineer), then the MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer), then a whole barrage of Cisco certifications. Each was at first the hot ticket and then fell off after an influx of test-passing-with-no-experience engineers.

With every new technology or endeavor, there have always been professionals who were self-taught, and many of them are the most intuitive and valuable employees. Unfortunately, some are overlooked or taken advantage of because their skills are not apparent on a resumé. I can see where this kind of person can benefit from a boot camp. Even if it is merely a test-preparation seminar, they are simply getting ready to prove what they can already apply.

Yes there is a lot of studying and learning required to be a proficient Project Manager, but the best learning I got was from the School of Hard Knocks (experience). And yes, I’m glad I got my PMP, but sad that someone with $5,000 and a week of free time can also. I just hope they get some hard knocks before managing a project.

A short course in PM

Published on January 2, 2004 in Project. 0 Comments Tags: , .

After posting the other day, I started thinking, “What about the people just exploring projects and their management?” Here’s a short course in project management: Project Management Training. I believe it covers everything a beginner can use…and refresh an old-timer. From starting to closing, it’s in there!

Project Management and Jazz

Published on December 22, 2003 in Project. 0 Comments Tags: .


Playing the Live Jazz of Project Management is a PDF paper discussing the similarities between project management and the playing of improvisational jazz.

“General characteristics for projects and jazz are compared and the five most important linkages between projects and jazz are discussed. The paper also explains why disorder is not chaotic and projects can be successfully managed. Jazz might show us one way of looking at the structure of disorder.”