Project Management That Works!

Clarity 13.2 Brings Added Value to an Already Fabulous Product plus New CA Clarity Agile Integrations!

2013-04-11T09:09:00.001-05:00

As many of you know I am a huge fan of the latest release of Clarity 13. Recently, I received a sneak peak of the new 13.2 release of Clarity and the new features of CA Clarity Agile. These promise to be extremely exciting releases! Here are some of the features that we can all look forward to:

Clarity 13.2

I felt that the 13 release of Clarity was a game changer. Clarity has always been more than a project and portfolio tool to me, it is also a platform. Since we can create objects, attributes, and configure the tool, we are really only limited by our imagination. We have been able to create resourcing solutions for professional services, solve complex algorithms for the pharmaceutical industry, and revolutionize oil and gas by taking the base of Clarity and extending the platform through configurations not customizations. What I saw in version 13 finally solved many of the UI challenges that the tool lacked. Version 13.2 continues to build on the momentum with some continued usability enhancements, mobile timesheets, and some exciting changes to portfolios and Open Workbench.

Portfolios

Portfolios has been a difficult feature for Clarity for quite some time. There are some usability issues within the current version, however, procedurally many clients want to start with portfolios without having good data to support the proper use. Once the data is ready, several clients have complained that the scenario functionality can be difficult to use. The main reason for this is navigation and understanding of how it really works. This has been addressed in a major way in 13.2. In fact, scenarios in the traditional was is completely gone in this release. Scenarios is now replaced with an object called “Plan” that is a configurable object that is less constrained to reality giving the user more options to play with the project schedule and more options to work within the live investments. This brings the data within the plan object so that it exists and is contained within that object making it more user friendly and less clicks from a navigation stand point. This is a huge shift in thinking as well as multiple plans can be created within the portfolio in a more rapid fashion making it easier to delineate and compare the plans than it was in the previous scenario model.

Even more exciting was when the “Waterline” functionality was shown which was extremely elegant and visually pleasing in the demonstration. This functionality allows a configurable set of parameters (just like constraints works today) to be adjusted real time. However, unlike the past where this information had to be generated and then the user looked at the results, this information is presented in a very slick interface with a clear “Waterline” that shows investments that are above and below the line of inclusion based on the parameters. Additionally, the individual constraints are shown with red, yellow, and green explanations in segmented boxes as well giving directed feedback on the selected parameters. A very clear shift in reporting and a huge improvement in portfolio functionality.

Another exciting feature was the drag and drop interactive Gantt charts on the portfolio. For instance, if the user is looking at the same investments from the waterline report above and switched to the Gantt chart view to see the durations of the investments, the user then could decide to move one investment from 2013 to 2014 by sliding the bar on the Gantt chart. The user also could extend another investment from one year to 18 months as part of his or her analysis. Immediately, Clarity would provide instant feedback with visual components of the impacts of those changes including the shift of the waterline up or down respectively. A very cool new function. Version 13.2 has had a very large focus on the Portfolio functionality and I know of several clients that simply can’t wait to get their hands on it!

Mobile Timesheets

Another highly anticipated feature is the addition of mobile timesheets. To be clear, this isn’t simply timesheets that have been added for the Safari browser. These are timesheets that have been optimized to work with mobile applications. Multi-gesture enabled timesheets that will allow the very busy user to bill their time on the go. This includes pinch, zoom, and full synchronization with Clarity. This is a feature that many people have been asking for and it is ready to go for 13.2.

Keyboard Shortcuts

I love the continued advances that Clarity continues to bring and the ease of use that it continues to bring. Clarity was one of the first tools that I can remember that had the “Edit Mode” functionality where I could configure my screen, drop in to edit mode and then edit the web page like a spreadsheet. Then finally in 13.0, we did not have to go in to edit mode and had just the in line editing. Then one of the chief complaints, especially when using the time scaled values from a usability standpoint is that when working with a tremendous amount of data, many of the standard keyboard shortcuts (like you would use in Microsoft Excel) did not work. The standard response to that complaint usually was, “This is a web application.” Now in 13.2, the keyboard shortcuts will work in 13.2. Many of the quick shortcuts that most people are accustomed to will now function in the TSV (CTRL+C, CTRL+X, CTRL+A, etc.) This is quite exciting!

Updated Portlet Code

Clarity’s presentation layer is one of the absolute best in the industry. It is the most configurable on the market. It allows each user to make their own decision about how they want to see the data while not effecting other users. One of my favorite stories that I tell as an example is when I was working with a PMO director who hated pie charts. He explained that when there are 10 issues or 100 issues, the pie chart is always the same size, so he prefers bar charts over pie charts. While he was explaining this to me, I went in to his Clarity and changed his issue pie chart to a bar chart so it was a moot point! I love Clarity for the things that it can make so easy. One of the downfalls of the presentation layer had been the lack of a grouping level. Sometimes when there was a complex report, the reporting layer would not present the data in a readable way. Therefore, through code or a forced layer, we would have to modify a portlet to get it to report the way a client was wanting the data to be seen. In 13.2, there is now an added option in the out of the box portlet code adding a “group by” category for easier charts and portlets to assist in this difficulty. This is a feature that will bring many clients immediate benefit.

Open Workbench

At the last CA World, it was announced that Open Workbench would be maintained and that there would be some effort placed in updating the product. This promise has been fulfilled. There are many people in different camps. Some favor Microsoft Project, others that think Open Workbench is a superior product. I have enjoyed both products for various reasons. I really like the delivery of the views of Open Workbench and how they can drive you through the workflow. What has been frustrating in the past with Open Workbench is some of the basic features of the application. Items such as resizing the columns, dependencies, and basic functionality like that has been severely lacking. I am happy to report that these items are now addressed with the release in 13.2. Significant enhancements to the user interface and overall usability is a very welcome enhancement. Dependencies have been particularly frustrating because of how you had to create it. This is now available with drag and drop functionality. With this focus, I suspect many new users will shift officially to the Open Workbench camp.

CA Clarity Agile

As the Agile methodology continues to grow in its adoption and users continue to look for integration options to allow development and project teams to have seamless integration, CA Clarity Agile continues to be a market leader due to the power of Salesforce.Com and Clarity. The 13.2 release continues this momentum.

Burn Down Charts

A feature that has been long overdue in this integration is a burn down chart that can be displayed in Clarity for project managers to display on their projects or for dashboards. This is now available with the integration options in the new version of CA Clarity Agile.

Task Status Mapping

One of the most exciting items that I saw was a task mapping status to Clarity charge codes. For each task type in CA Clarity Agile, these can be configured. For most clients, they need to know whether a task is capital or expense for capitalization purposes. This has been quite a headache for clients because we had to create a custom map or solution outside of the tool that did a mapping so that this could be tracked for financial purposes. In the latest release, this has been fixed so that each task type can be tracked to a charge code within Clarity so that time can be charged to capital or expense and a secondary solution is not required. A fantastic solution and one that has been needed for many clients!

Configurable User Story Popups

Within CA Clarity Agile, the User Story would popup. However, if there were custom fields (which many clients do create) they were unable to add the custom fields to the popup. This has been fixed so that their custom fields can be added to the popup. This is a great addition for our clients!

Task Cloning

When you clone tasks, this was a great feature, however it would pull the actual hours and pull over completed tasks that would require some clean up. While this would save some work for the user, it still required some clean up that was undesirable. Now the user has the ability to just select the tasks that are not completed and it will not pull over the actual hours so that it is just the information that is needed which is the true need of task cloning. This proves that the developers are listening to the feedback of the user community!

Conclusion

Beyond these named features, there are tremendous amount of performance improvements and enhancements that have been made to Clarity 13.2 and CA Clarity Agile. Clarity continues to be the most configurable to on the market. With release 13.2 shows that CA is unafraid to realize that certain architecture decisions may not have been the best (i.e. scenario vs. plan object) while continue to expand the usability decisions that have been fantastic (keyboard shortcuts in the TSV fields). I am excited about the new release and am hearing about early features of 13.3 like printing the Gantt chart and improved communications of the Plan Object. I will be playing with 13.2 at CA World, hope to see you there!

No Day but Today!

Rick

Let Go of Being Done!

2013-04-02T11:38:00.000-05:00

Let go of being done. This was the toughest lesson I had to learn. I read a fantastic book lately called Positive Intelligence that I was able to relate to on many levels. As I read through it, I had one of my own revelations. I place so much stress on myself on completion. Being done. Unfortunately, in life there is only one time that you are really done, and that is when you are done breathing. Otherwise, there are always things to do. New stress, projects, items that require your attention, and unexpected events. I used to operated with the thought, "if I could just complete x, then I can relax." Whenever x was almost complete, 20 new things would come up that would get in the way and add stress. I would allow this to get in the way of my happiness or sense of accomplishment. I would never feel done. When I read the book Positive Intelligence, it talks about setting terms for your happiness. It speaks to people saying, "once I get this promotion, or get that car, or get that house, then I will be happy." The issue becomes is attaining the promotion, car, or house does not bring the promised happiness. The key is being happy in the now.

I played volleyball in high school with a coach that had us scream, "Now!" After every team break to signify the last point and the future points do not matter, the point right now matters. Live in the now. The realization to revel the accomplishment of each check on my checklist has allowed me to accomplish so much more because I am not overwhelmed or worried. It is a freeing feeling.

Last year, I was feeling overwhelmed as the business was growing, new opportunities were coming along, and responsibilities continued to mount. I felt that I accomplished 10 things and 40 were added to the list on a daily business. This put me into a vortex of self doubt that allowed me to feel sorry for myself. When this occurs, it is easy to allow the world around to add pressure on a daily basis. Eventually, the pressure can mount to a point where it is a sink or swim. Through an incredible team of coworkers and more importantly and incredibly supportive family structure, I was able to take a step back and take stock of what is important in my life. Instead of focusing on constructing the castle, we decided to focus on building the plan for the castle, then focus on each bricks placement and taking pride when every brick was placed appropriately. Then at the end of every day, we can stand back and see what was accomplished and attack it the next day. The greatest shift in this strategy was not to be overwhelmed by the grandeur of the castle, to know or would be built. If bricks fell off, walls fell, enemies attacked, so be it. We would just start the next day by placing bricks.

The payoff of the shift has been enormous. At the end of the first quarter of 2013, we have accomplished all of the internal 2013 projects, we wanted to accomplish for the year. We are planning a new strategy session just to keep the momentum up instead of our regular annual one. Relaxation and focus has been much easier to come by as well. It truly is an easier way to accomplish done. At least accomplish the illusion of being done. In life, you are never done until the last beat of your heart! Until then, we have to live to the fullest. Get out there and live it.

No day but today!

My Olympic Connection – May 5th, 1988 – USA vs. Brazil @ Dr. Phillips High School

2012-07-30T09:40:00.001-05:00

From time to time I like to take a moment and reflect on my past. As the London Olympics are upon us, like most families, my family and I watched the opening ceremonies and reminisced about Olympic memories. I have a particular connection that led to many of my personal choices in life and many of my connections. It started with a club at my high school. Back in 1988, we did not have a men's volleyball team. The swim coach at the time was Bruce Follensbee and he started a volleyball club for men. I doubt he was even paid for it. Interesting how his idea reshaped and molded so many of my decisions in life. I joined the volleyball club. It sounded fun. I was playing around on the beach and a few of my friends let me know about it, so why not? In 1988, an exhibition match between the world #1 and defending Olympic champion USA Men's Volleyball team was scheduled to play in Orlando vs. Brazil. It was originally scheduled to play at the Orlando Arena, but it was behind schedule (probably a project manager's fault!) The next biggest venue was the Orlando Civic Center, however, it too was booked up. In 1988, a brand new high school had opened up off of Turkey Lake Road in Orlando which bordered the neighborhood of Orange Tree where I grew up. Today, that high school, Dr. Phillips High School, is across the street from Universal Studios and is the high school of many stars such as entertainers Wayne Brady, Joey Fatone, DJ Khaled, Major League stars Johnny Damon, A.J. Pierzynski, Danny Miceli, movers and shakers in the industry like Joe Mulvihill and of course the project management author and speaker, me. The high school was brand new and has a 2,200 seat gymnasium. With little or no options left, the event coordinators moved the volleyball match to our gymnasium. I remember getting called out of first period by Coach Follensbee and being asked if I minded missing a day of school to shag balls as the US team practiced. We also were the ball boys for the actual match. I was ecstatic!

The men had won gold in 1984 by beating the Brazilians, however, they only had four returning players from that team. Of course it helps when the returning players are the likes of Karch Kiraly, Steve Timmons, and Craig Buck. As a sophomore in high school, I barely could comprehend what I was watching and the opportunity to watch world class athletes train. In 1988, I still had the whole world in front of me. I was dabbling in several sports. I played football, soccer, baseball, and volleyball. I was working, worried about girls, and all of the other normal things that young boys deal with. During the practice when we were shagging balls for the US team, some really intense guy with a huge flat top hair cut asked me to talk to him. I have to confess, I didn't know who the guy was. It turns out, it was Steve Timmons. Steve sat me down for five minutes and asked me what position I played in volleyball, how seriously I was taking the sport, and what my plans for the future were. I had no answers for the guy. We were a volleyball club. I barely even knew the positions. The next day was the actual match and the US destroyed Brazil winning in three straight games. I found an article about the match here. At the match, I really watched. I watched Steve and Karch. I watched Craig Buck and Eric Sato. That enthusiasm carried over into the 1988 Olympics where the US team won gold again. I have been hooked ever since. At that moment, I was a volleyball fan. I tried to play full time. My senior year of high school, we had our first team. We came in second in state and it was truly a fulfilling experience. I played with great guys like Grant Turner and Barry Sands. My best friend since 2^nd grade Chris Crumpacker and of course the Famous one, Matt Amos, Joe Grindrod and James Lee rounded out the starting 6. I went to school at the University of Tennessee and got to play there as well. Even after college, volleyball was a connection that led to many friends and decisions. When I moved to Birmingham, AL, one of the first things that I did was join an area volleyball association. I met a few guys there and it turned in to one of the best summers of my life as we toured and played tournaments all over the southeast. There has been so much happiness in my life because of volleyball and so many things came from Steve taking the time to sit with me in that gym.

I left college early due to my father's illness. Right after he passed away, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next with my life. I was bartending at Bennigan's on International Drive in Orlando. One night, Steve Timmons walked in to the bar. I went over and bought him a round and told him what he had done that May evening in 1988. He had taken the time to spend with a kid and how many paths had converged because he had. He thanked me for coming over to talk to him and for the beer. The next night, Steve came back in. This time he was carrying a box of stuff. He had a bunch of Redsand gear. Redsand was his volleyball apparel company. He thanked me for taking the five minutes it took to let him know what a difference he had made to me. He told me that after he left, he had thought quite a bit about what I shared with him. It meant quite a bit to him and he wanted me to have some things from him. Another really cool moment.

All of these thoughts and memories were flooding back to me as we watched the opening of the Olympics. My daughter is getting old enough where I can share some of these stories with her. It is fascinating how some simple decisions can make profound impacts. Mr. Follensbee deciding to have a club. Me deciding to join it. Steve Timmons deciding to take 5 minutes to spend with me. Who knows how things turn out if these little things don't happen, but I am glad they did. You can bet that for all of the matches, indoor and outdoor, I am one of Team USA's biggest volleyball fans!

Go Team USA!

Rick

Be Who You Are!

2012-07-23T09:45:00.001-05:00

This is my calling. This is my call to arms. I have been gone a while from the blogosphere. I have been gone a while from speaking. The summer months are traditionally slow for speeches. However, R2 is growing like crazy. For those of you that follow the business, we grew 81% year over year last year and are up 54% at the midway point of this year. Business is great. We add more talented people and more talented clients. However, without my speaking outlet, I am not my normal self. I am not the normal passionate project manager that many of you know. These past couple of months has been trying for me. I have lived my life as an open book. The company, my career, my speeches, my family life, how I grow as a person, all out there exposed for the world to see, good, bad, or indifferent. For the past couple of months, I just haven't been there. I haven't been me. I haven't been the person I aspire to be and the person that I hold myself to be. That changes today. I had a fantastic conversation with my wife this weekend. She is the person who holds me at the center and knows me better than anyone. During that conversation I realized that I had been compromising who I was for a relationship that wasn't going to be. In business and in life, we do it all of the time. We will compromise and turn little facets of our personalities off in order for the greater good, or so we believe. Many times this is reciprocated and compromises are made on both sides. I realized this weekend that I continued to protect and compromise for a relationship that only had malicious intent for me and my organization. We have been giving so much and continued to believe that if we were the ones, or really, if I was the one that lead by example of compromise, the competing parties would fall in line. Time after time, it would just turn in to more work, heartache, stress, and mistrust. I look back over the last couple of months and I do not like who I have become. I have been short, stressed, and have lost that passion that has made me who I am. Compromise is over.

When I make a statement like that, it doesn't mean a declaration of war. It means that it I no longer wish to compromise who I am. One of my favorite lessons I have learned came from a great mentor. He asked me if I had ever gone home from work completely exhausted as if I had ran a marathon, but did not actually do anything physical. When I answered that I had, he stated the reason that I was so tired was because I was conforming my personality to something that I wasn't. I was physically holding back who I was in meetings or in reactions so that I actually was exerting physical forces that were making me tired. It made quite a bit of sense. That is how I feel today. I feel physically exhausted. I feel like I have lost a couple of months of really being the innovative person that I can be. That is why I make the statement that compromise is over.

I share this with my audience because I want everyone to be reminded to be who you are. The tragedy in Colorado proves that life is way too short and you never know what is lurking around the corner. If today was my day, would I be satisfied that I lived to my fullest potential? Today I would have to say no. That mentality changes right now. I am someone who is always on top of the details. I missed my flight today. The whole morning, I thought I was leaving at 1:15 when I was leaving at 11:15. I planned on starting to get ready for the airport at 11:15 when I received a call from Delta asking if I was going to make the flight. At that moment, I was sitting on the couch watching a cartoon with my son. I couldn't think of anything better. Normally, I would freak out and let me missing the flight ruin my day. Instead, I asked her to back me up on the next flight and calmly made the next one. Without missing a beat, I finished that cartoon with my son. It was the best moment of the day. Over the past couple of months, I haven't been the best father, husband, friend, business owner, or person I know I can be. That changed with a simple quick conversation. My son looked at me and said, "Do you have to leave right now?" I said, "Not until we see if Spiderman escapes." He said, "Thanks daddy. I love you." At that moment, I was who I wanted to be.

Compromise is over. It is time to take control back of who I am. Look out!

Be who you are!

Rick

Establishing Project Management Capacity

2012-06-19T09:47:00.001-05:00

I work with many organizations that really want to understand the capacity of their IT organization. Rarely do the ask about the capacity of their project managers. Building on the theme that not everyone can do project management, then maybe capacity to do projects starts at that level. What if the organization limited the number of projects they can truly accomplish by the capacity of their project management staff?

I had a chance to build a PMO based on a very valid model. They had a consultant perform a study about the type and length of projects and the demand that is required to handle what the organization wanted to complete. It was determined that roughly 35 projects per year was the maximum for the company and a PM could run up to 5 of those projects during the year. Therefore, the staffing model was set to 7 project managers. We ended up completing 47 projects in the first year, but the expectation was set and the management of the company recognized the value that true project management can deliver. So how do you determine the capacity or number of projects?

The best way to determine the capacity of your project management practice is to first establish tiers. Projects should be classified in 3-4 tiers. Tier 1 being the most strategic projects or the projects with the most risk. Tier 2 is still a highly strategic project, but it is shorter in duration or is not as risky. Tier 3 can be single unit or department initiatives and tier 4 can be internal initiatives or projects that can be run by team leads. Based on the governance models of the organization, an estimate of a percentage of a PM's time can be assigned to each tier. For instance, a tier one may take up 50% of a project managers time where a tier two may take 35%. Once this has been established, then the capacity can be determined. As an example:

If Tier 1 = 50%, Tier 2 = 35%, Tier 3 = 15% and I have 5 project managers, then the project capacity could be:

10 Tier 1 projects (500%)

5 Tier 1 (250%)

5 Tier 2 (175%)

5 Tier 3 (75%)

Any makeup that equals 500%.

This allows you to determine a quick capacity of project management. It also creates an algebra problem that must be solved. In most cases, when an organization applies this math, it is uncovered that 15 project managers are needed and 5 are on staff. It is amazing that most organizations do not understand the capacity of their own project management staff.

This math at least will help start the conversation.

Take Care of Your People…..and They Will Take Care of You!

2012-05-21T09:24:00.001-05:00

This is a mantra that has been around for ages. People are your greatest asset. People are what make companies. People are the greatest source of ingenuity. Yet, many companies squander, squash, and belittle their greatest asset….people.

A few years back, I got an amazing 15 minutes in an event green room with Jack Welch. I was looking at him and he was pretending not to notice. Finally, he lowered his paper and looked back at me and said, "You get one question." Exited, I asked, "I am a small business owner. What are three things that I should be doing to ensure my success in this economy?" He didn't hesitate. He gave me three points:

Whatever you think you are going to do in revenue this year and next, cut it in half.

Pay your best people. Don't give them bonuses, don't give them vouchers, give them cold hard cash.

Find the best people from other organizations and pay them what they are worth. This is the time to find the people that are being ignored by other companies and snatch them up.

It was great advice. I did just that, and we continue to grow. However, I don't think that just paying them is enough. David Maister did a study that I reference in my book Project Management That Works. In the study, he asks team members to rank what is most important to them at their work. Then he asked the managers of those team members to rank the same list, but to do so in the way they think their employees would answer. The managers selected salary as the number one thing. The team members picked being appreciated for a job well done as theirs.

I blogged a while back about my dad and his company (read it here). I wanted to follow in his footsteps. I wanted to ensure the employees of R² felt appreciated. We just finished our first annual Stretch Goal Incentive trip. Each year, I determine our goal in revenue for the year. Then I establish the "Stretch Goal." This is the goal over and above our normal achievement rank. If we hit the stretch goal, then everyone who is a part of that will go on an all-expenses paid vacation. We just completed our first one! The team went to New York City for a few days and celebrated a phenomenal 2011. It was an amazing trip. Not only was it fun, the team got a chance to reflect what we accomplished and built a stronger bond with each other. I'll never forget it!

The trip made me reflect what it was like to work for other companies. Profit reigns above people. Some of the HR practices and ways we deal with employees absolutely just crush the human spirit. I remember as a young HR manager running an office, the goal for the office was to hit 60% of milestones and production dates. In the first year, we hit 99.7%. Every single person exceeded everyone's wildest expectations. I, in turn, rewarded my employees with a 5 (exceeds expectations) on their annual review. When I turned this in, I was told that I could not do that. I was told by HR that it is impossible for everyone on my team to exceed my expectations and if that was the case, I was the problem for not creating higher expectations. I was then forced to choose one or two people on my team to give the 5 to. How is that possible after the fact? Stupid. Crushing. A perfect way to take a highly functioning team and destroy them so that the "numbers" match the "theory" of HR. This is precisely why I am not in Corporate America anymore.

I know for 99% of you out there, you do not have the ability to take everyone on a vacation. You can't give them the money that they deserve. However, you can give them the number one thing that was on their list; true, heartfelt appreciation for a job well done. Showing people that you truly care and want to see them succeed is the best way to take care of your people. However, if you can, it is also fun to take them on vacation!

No Day but Today!

Rick

Effective Waste Management: Curb the Ego's and Meetings!

2012-05-07T09:47:00.001-05:00

It amazes me how much time and money companies and organizations can simply throw away to satisfy various egos. There are so many examples to pull from:

- Executives having outrageous demands and systems just to see information "their way." There are companies out there that will take information from a system of record, massage it in a variety of tools to present to the executive team. The executive team will question the data or make adjustments and then another team will adjust the data in the system of record. When asked why not just look at the system of record, the answer is, "The executives just like to see it in Excel."

- Organizations hire industry leading experts to improve processes. They bring in the organizations because they did not have the expertise on the team to perform the functions. Then they allow the internal team that feels that they are experts to subject the known experts to micro-management and questioning of every technique.

- Executives that have had project failures in the past create so many processes and checkpoints that the resulting workflow is so chaotic and time-consuming as well as a perceived lack of value.

Most of these items have to do with ego. The ability to be right or to prove someone wrong can create countless hours of waste and cost to an organization. Yet, this cost often goes unchecked. As a consultant, there is always a tremendous amount of "low hanging fruit" that can be found in companies plagued by pointless process. Most of the workers within the process will be the first to complain or question the value…..to other people. So what can we do and how can you curb this behavior?

The first item is to create a system of measurement. While time tracking is done in many companies, the value of the information sometimes does not match the effort. Find a way within the current time tracking activities or if there is not time-tracking today, start by tracking your time. At the end of each activity, record your time with a note or marker as to whether or not there was any value to the activity. For instance, if you go to a team meeting and the meeting was an hour long to provide information to you that is beneficial, then that was a valuable activity. If you went to a meeting about a project where two people argued about the same things over and over and no resolution was found in the meeting, mark that as a non-value add activity. Run this time tracking for about a month and start to look at the amount of time in the non-value add category. What is the data saying to you? What can be done with the data? After just a few weeks, you will begin to see where the time wasted activities are. Now begin to classify those. How many of those can be categorized into areas such as ego, mistrust, or pointless meetings? You will be absolutely surprised at the outcome!

When you are faced with a process or an individual that is a constant source of ego and waste, find a way to measure those interactions. How many e-mails, communications, or documents are required? When these documents or communications are negative towards them, what do they do? All of these data points are key to understanding and navigating the political minefield of ego. The collection of these statistics may point you to stay away from certain topics or may teach you a way to communicate effectively. Whatever the case may be, finding the data point to measure and then studying the outcome will point you to the path of resolution.

I am interested in hearing from you on this topic. Do you see waste and cost simply due to ego? What do you think can be done?

Turning Around Failing Projects (Excerpt)

2012-04-11T08:50:00.001-05:00

A couple of people have asked me about my Turning Around Failing Projects speeches. Here is a small excerpt from my book Project Management That Works (a best seller published by AMACOM in 2008)

The statistics are staggering. The propensity for project failure is enormous. The general accepted failure rates range from as low as 59% to an unbelievable 94% of projects failing to meet their goals. When studying project failure, the survey questions try to determine if the project met the desired scope, timeframe, or met all of the requirements that the project set out to complete. However, these all take on new meanings when you consider something Rob Thomsett says in his book Radical Project Management:

"Projects fail because of context, not because of content"

If this statement is correct, then a large part, if not the entire 59% to 94%, of projects failed because of the improper setting of expectations. They may have delivered the contents of the project but failed to deliver on the expectations of time and cost. This drastically changes the landscape of the meaning of project failure. Now, pair Rob's definition with PMI's belief that a poor project schedule or inadequate budget is the direct result of poor project management, and project failure rests on project manager's shoulders.

It is usually assumed that a project is being run in the first place by a trained project manager. However, most of the time, someone is managing a project along with their other duties.

How to Spot a Project that Is on Its Way Down

The first task in turning around a failing project is to learn how to recognize when a project is failing. In many cases, you need to start with the first step of the classic twelve step process with the first step being identifying that there is a problem. Although there are many reasons that projects may fail, there are some key indicators that projects are on the way down:

1) Poor project planning or no plan at all. It has been said that a failure to plan is a plan for failure. If you do not prepare for problems, they will surely derail you and your project.

2) Disagreement on project requirements. A lack of good documentation of requirements or receiving different answers from different team members about the goals of the project muddies the waters and makes it difficult for a project to succeed, since no one is really clear on what success means in this instance.

3) Lack of team involvement. Sponsors, stakeholders, or team members are not involved in team activities or are not responding to inquiries about the project. When people are not involved in the project it has no real life.

4) Lack of a clearly defined end. Have you ever had a project last a year and every time you ask how much longer will the project last, the answer is just another two to three weeks? Failing to set a clear end point means a project will never end and if it never ends, it can never truly succeed.

5) Unrealistic Demands. If I said I needed you to rebuild theEiffelTower from the ground up for $30 in three weeks with five seven-year-old children as laborers, you would laugh. As ridiculous as this may sound, real demands as ridiculous as this have been set for projects. A project with demands that can never be met is sure to fail.

6) Failure to stop or plan again. Anytime a new project manager is assigned to a project, one of the first things that they want to do is to stop the project and assess where they are in the plan or re-plan in lieu of having a written plan. A team that responds by saying they are almost finished or they are too busy to plan is a clear sign of a project on the way down. Every team needs to be able to stop and rethink the project's plan.

These are all general theories and a search of the Internet will bring up many sites that have early warning signs, causes for failure, or theories as to why projects fail. The funny thing is that project managers seem to make the same mistakes over and over. The whole point of a project management process and profession is to continually improve. However, the reasons for project failure still continue to remain the same. Unfortunately, unless the way the projects are being planned or how the expectations are being set changes, the results of the project are unlikely to change.

Someone Isn't Being Heard

One common reason for project failure is that communication has fallen apart and someone is not being heard. Consider the following example.

A project manager was assigned to a support project that had no project management structure. The project was consistently not meeting the customer's expectations and senior management wanted a plan to improve customer satisfaction. The project manager started to investigate the root causes of the satisfaction issues. She met with the team as a whole and then individually. As she met with the team members, the issues were becoming quite clear. The causes of the customer satisfaction issues had already been identified by the team and they attempted to put action plans in place to rectify the problems. The project manager investigated the options that the team had put together and saw that they were quite viable. She compiled the information into a presentation and scheduled a meeting with her senior management. She outlined the options and asked for a decision from senior management as to which option they agreed with. They chose an option and she implemented the plan. There was an immediate improvement in the timeliness of customer service which in turn led to an improvement in customer satisfaction. As the improvements continued for the next couple of weeks, senior management brought the project manager in to thank her for a job well done. They asked how she came up with the options she presented. "I didn't," she replied. "The team developed the options. All I did was examine them for viability and present them to you." The senior management team was in disbelief. They wondered why the team hadn't presented the options to them before this. The project manager replied, "They may have not understood the best way to present the information to you or how to approach you with their ideas. But it was their ideas all along."

There are many reasons why the team may not have been able to communicate their options to the management in this example. Teams can develop behaviors based on small insignificant events. At one point, a senior manager could have said "no" too abruptly and demoralized a team member. That team member then begins to have the attitude that senior management doesn't care or will not listen to them. A few episodes of that and groupthink can set in.

According to www.dictionary.com, groupthink is defined as:

The act or practice of reasoning or decision-making by a group, especially when characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view.

decision making by a group (especially in a manner that discourages creativity or individual responsibility).

For a very serious example, groupthink was the cause of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. This is no small statement. Groupthink was the ultimate cause of one of the worst space tragedies in our time. When the analysis of the disaster was complete, it was determined that the O-rings of the rocket booster were the cause of the explosion. An engineer at the company that manufactured the O-rings had warned senior management that when the weather drops below a certain temperature, the integrity of the O-rings is compromised. The engineer asked for more time from senior management to be certain. The panel that was formed to uncover the reasons for the Challenger disaster found some startling information. Originally, the company that made the O-rings recommended that the Challenger should cancel the launch until the temperature rose above 53 degrees, which was not expected to occur for several days. NASA has already cancelled the launch a few times and was under enormous political and societal pressure. They applied pressure to the engineering company. Fearing the loss of future revenue and backlash from causing another delay, the engineering company began to question it's own data and began to rationalize their decision. The engineering company asked for five minutes to discuss the situation. During the five minutes that the company was isolated enormous pressure was put on the engineer about his data and analysis. The question for the company became whether to choose safety and possible loss of revenue or risk and future revenue. Inevitably, the pressure to conform outweighed the right decision. When the engineering company called NASA back, they recommended that the Challenger should launch. The official findings of the panel stated that the technical malfunction was the O-rings, the cause the disaster was groupthink.

When anyone in management stops listening to their team members, disaster can strike at any time. When a project is failing, first look to the communication. Over 90% of a project manager's job is to communicate. Whether it is documentation, meetings, one-on-one conversation, or phone calls, all are forms of communications. When you refer to the list of key indicators, communication is central part of all of the items. When communications stop, people stop being heard. When team members are not being heard, project failure is sure to follow.

So what do you recommend to open communication? How do we prevent these kinds of failures?

My Next Big Thing!

2012-03-26T09:52:00.001-05:00

For my many followers and fans, we have exciting news. We are getting very close to launching the next big endeavor for me. Many of you responded to a request for an endorsement of my speaking and seminars. I am now one of the most recommended people on LinkedIn. You can view my profile here and if you haven't recommended me yet, I would appreciate your endorsement.

Now to the subject at hand; I have finally found the question that I need to ask and to answer. That question is, "What Do I Stand For?" Think about that question. Think about your answer. Do you know? Do you know how to make the decision and fulfill your answer? Follow this blog and watch in the coming months to find your answer!

There is a book, a kit to help out, and seminars all in development for this topic. We are tying this together with many of the things that have been happening with me and R2 Consulting. This is a huge step forward for me and my company and I am literally bursting at the seams with activity.

My blog posts in the coming weeks will be developing this topic further and starting to discuss the content for the series. I thank all of you that read this column and continue to support me in my endeavors. I can't wait for this next chapter to begin!

Rick

My Travel Pet Peeves!

2012-02-27T08:27:00.001-06:00

When you travel as much as I do, you begin to see patterns and things that begin to rub you the wrong way. Here are a few things that absolutely drive me crazy when I travel (in no particular order).

1) Using your cell phone on speaker phone mode in the gate area. Why do you people do that? Do you think we care about the conversation? I recently joined into one. A lady was talking about how bad her man was treating her to a girlfriend. It would be one thing if this was being done in a corner somewhere. Instead, I was sitting in a chair in the gate and she sat down right next to me to have this conversation. I assumed she wanted me to join in. When I started answering questions, she gave me the dirtiest look. I said, "Oh, I thought you wanted my help since you sat down next to me and are on speaker phone. If this was private, I would have thought you wouldn't be broadcasting it to everyone in the gate." She was not amused. Some people can be oblivious to the world around them.

2) Calling someone as soon as we land and speaking so loud that everyone on the plane can hear you. I understand the need to call people and communicate from the plane. However, be mindful of those around you. On a recent flight, a lady called a shipper of goods to inquire where they were in the delivery process. Evidently, they had tried to deliver and couldn't. She began to scream at the top of her lungs how that driver will turn around and go back or she would have his job. The tirade was nasty and loud. A gentleman in the very front of the plane finally turned around and yelled, "Shut up, nobody cares!" She then started telling the whole plane the situation…..and again…..nobody really cared. She then yelled something that leads me to #3.

3) Nobody cares who you are. At least once every trip, I hear somebody exclaim, "Do you know who I am?" There are many important people in the world. However, when there is an inconvenience, there is always the person that thinks they are more important than everybody else. One exchange recently was pretty funny to watch. The plane was delayed by weather. The gate agent was trying to handle everybody's connections and accommodate the entire plane. A guy marches to the front of the line and steps in front of an older lady. He then demands to know the reason for the delay. The gate agent said the weather was unsafe to fly through. He demanded answers as to when he would fly. She was very polite to suggest that if he returned to his spot in line, she will deal with him when it is his turn. He responded, "Do you know who I am? I HAVE to be in Detroit tonight. I have a very important business deal that must be done tomorrow." The gate agent again requested that he return to his spot in line. When the guy yelled that he would have the gate agent's job, another passenger stepped in. "Nobody cares who you are. Get in back of the line." He then turned around and announced he was the Senior Vice President of some small company nobody had heard of. The whole line just started cracking up. It was pretty funny. When a flight is delayed, everybody has a reason to be on that plane; else, they wouldn't have bought the ticket! The "I am more important than everyone else" game is ridiculous.

4) I demand to speak to the President of the airline! When a flight is canceled or delayed, it is a pain. It unfortunately isn't a rare occurrence. I have been bumped, had flights cancel, had flights delay five hours and then cancel, and completely missed them. Revenue for airlines is all based on people sitting on seats on an airplane. Because people miss, cancel, and move flights, the airlines will overbook. On some occasions, everybody will actually show up resulting in an oversold situation. This is normally resolved by seeking volunteers to move their flights. In rare occasions, a passenger is bumped. It is a term and condition on every airline's ticket. It can be frustrating when it happens, but it does. When weather has occurred or someone has been involuntarily bumped, the outrage ensues. I was on a plane recently from Birmingham to Atlanta. The flight is normally between 25-35 minutes in length and is always scheduled for an hour. Atlanta being one of the busiest airports in the world, the Birmingham flight is frequently placed on a ground hold due to incoming traffic in Atlanta. Even with the delay, we are generally to our gate +/- 20 minutes. One day during this delay, a guy announced he had enough. He called customer service and demanded to speak to the President. I have heard this many times. Someone screaming, "Then get me to someone who can make a decision. I want to speak to the CEO. Get me the number!" First, they will never give you that number. Second, why are you more important that everyone else?

5) Bringing food on the plane. This one is probably more controversial. I understand not having time to eat or being hungry. However, the plane is so cramped and everyone is on top of each other that whatever you do bring on the plane, everyone can smell. There is nothing like having the person in front of you eating Chinese food while the person next to you is eating Mexican food. The blend of aromas is joyous.

6) Not sharing the space. I am a big dude. I take up quite a bit of space, especially on little planes. I tend to book window seats and try to sit an angle so that it is comfortable for the person sitting next to me. However, I get angry when they are all in my space. Not a care in the world. Reading the newspaper and the paper being in my face. Using the armrest in between us to store your drink because you have used your entire tray. Be mindful of space!

In the end, travel can be stressful. Even when it is as routine as it is for someone like me; it can still be a challenge. I have several tips that I have developed over the years…..but that will be a subject of another post. What are some of your pet peeves?

How to Complete a Project Audit

2012-02-14T08:55:00.001-06:00

The great and oft-quoted philosopher Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." A great project manager may tell you, "The unexamined project is not worth doing." In order for a project team to assess, refine and improve its process, that process must be comprehensively and critically evaluated. Toward that end, the project audit is an invaluable tool.

Project audits are conducted to discover and then examine any issues or challenges that arise as a team works to complete its assigned task. The practical application of this fact-finding is of course to learn from experience with the goal of improving future projects. But it isn't always about finding out what went wrong. Audits can also identify and celebrate innovations and process successes, ensuring that what went right is fleshed out and built upon so that it can go even more right the next time around.

When to conduct an audit: Project audits may be done during a project or at its completion. When conducted while a project is still in progress, an audit provides on-the-ground assessment that informs the project sponsor, project manager and team of what is going well and what needs to be changed in order for the project to be completed successfully, on-time and within budget. If an audit is undertaken at the completion of the project, it becomes more of a post-mortem examination performed to define success for upcoming projects and ensure it is achieved. Regardless of an audit's timing, the process is basically the same.

Who should conduct the audit: Ideally, project audits should be conducted by an outside party bringing impartiality and a fresh perspective, but whether you choose to outsource the audit or not, confidentiality is essential for data gathering. When project team members and other stakeholders are interviewed about their experiences, they should feel comfortable speaking frankly and not fear retribution for voicing any frustrations with the process. An audit is only as comprehensive as the information on which it is based.

A project audit is comprised of three phases:

Research Preparation (includes defining success and developing questionnaire)

Deep-Dive Research

Reporting Findings

Research Preparation, the first phase, actually consists of about three major tasks. First, the auditor must speak with both the project sponsor and the project manager individually to determine each person's success criteria. What do they think the successfully completed project will look like? And what should the successful audit accomplish and uncover? Being clear about client expectations is of utmost importance.

After these high-level interviews, two questionnaires must be developed. The first will be distributed to each person on the project team and any key stakeholders in advance of one-on-one interviews. Ideally, this questionnaire will get the audit's interview subjects thinking (and organizing their thoughts) about the project's successes, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities.

The second questionnaire is for use during the project team interviews and should consist of open-ended questions that work to flesh out the issues the first questionnaire brought to light. Good interviews aren't just SWOT analyses; they focus on process: How did the team work together? Were meetings run efficiently? How were risks mitigated? Did information flow effectively?

Deep-Dive Research: Now that you have developed your tools, it's time to put them to use collecting data. Project auditors will need to conduct individual interviews with the project sponsor, project manager, project team members and key stakeholders, which may include vendors, suppliers, contractors and even customer representation.

In addition to your interviews, an exhaustive review of all documentation pertaining to the project is the audit's other major source of data. This document review should include basic policy items like team structure, project scope and plan, and business requirements. But it will also require delving into daily, ongoing project documentation like meeting minutes, spreadsheets, milestone reports, action items and change logs.

Be sure to speak with both internal and external stakeholders to determine what their expectations were and whether they have been met. Were the Project Quality Management and Product Quality Management plans followed and achieved? Each person you interview and document you study provides an important piece of the overall puzzle.

Reporting Your Findings is the final phase of the audit. Compile all data collected from questionnaires, interviews and project documentation. Identify and explicate the project's successes, failures, concerns and challenges. The crucial conclusion of this in-depth report should be a list of lessons learned and how to implement them going forward.

The comprehensive report should of course be delivered with a companion presentation that highlights key findings in an easily-digestible, attention-grabbing format that energizes the entire project team for the work that lies ahead – a more cohesive effort that results in greater success on future projects.

Conclusion: The project audit is certainly a beneficial, and even cathartic, exercise for all project team members. It provides a mountain of data and insight into an organization's processes and politics. However, every phase of the audit must be focused on, and work in service to, improving the next project. The project audit is a very forward-facing tool. It is only worth the resources expended when the lessons it uncovers are applied to future projects. Only then can your project audit truly be considered a success.

This article was provided by Joe Schembri with Villanova University's project management courses. Professionals interested in earning their PMP certification can take courses to prepare themselves 100% online.

CA's Clarity Version 13 - A New Standard in PPM Tools!

2012-01-05T21:45:00.001-06:00

I finally have gotten what I have wished for! The power of Clarity with an updated user interface. Many superstitious people think that 13 is an unlucky number. Version 13 for CA's Clarity has been worth the wait.

I run a technology agnostic company, but I am often asked for my opinion. I have been a longtime supporter of Clarity. However, the interface for the tool has become outdated and was the biggest outstanding issue. While configurations and portlets could overcome some of the issues, there were times where it was just cumbersome. Specifically, it was difficult for the project manager to see dependencies or update the project schedules. It was also cumbersome to add team members and make assignments. Again, with experience, there were workarounds. However, newer tools like Daptiv and @task were smoking Clarity from a user interface perspective even though they lacked the depth and configurability of Clarity. With V13, it is truly a game changer. I have been able to spend some significant time on the latest version and already have several clients on the new version. The big push for CA was establishing what they called 2.2 clicks to value. I believe they have achieved that. Here is my first take at some of the game changers.

In line editing - Clarity has had an edit mode which was innovative when it first came out. Project management is a spreadsheet driven industry so being able to edit like a spreadsheet is a positive thing. The old interface allowed for edit mode, but it was not aesthetically pleasing and often hard to navigate. V13 allows direct in line editing with just a click of the mouse button. It is intuitive and effective. It so reverts back to a display mode when you are done. The part that I wasn't expecting was the visual feedback of the change. Clarity has a unique ability of Being able to complete tentative schedules with an innovative view of what had changed. For example, if a date changed, Clarity would display the new date and the old date with a red strikethrough side by side. They have taken this view and applied it to the in line editing which is a fantastic feature. It also gives a visual to the user that changes have not been saved. I wish more web based apps had this functionality.

Auto Suggest Functionality - For all of the browse fields in Clarity and for those users that have very deep OBS structures, you are going to love this functionality! If the field is a browse field, you still can click the binoculars and search and add as you are used to. However, you can also type in the first few letters of the value that you want in the field within the in line editing and the system will offer a filtered view of selections allowing you to select the value you want. This eliminates many clicks and is the most powerful on resource and OBS fields. This feature is worth its weight in gold.

Better assignment view. The assignment view now combines the standard view with a time-scaled view to not only see the total planned work, but a daily view of how the work is going to be executed. This is like a split window view in Microsoft Project, but more configurable and can be edited in the normal flow of a project update.

Adding team members - One of the biggest issues of pre 13 Clarity was how the team members and assignments worked. It made sense from a logistical standpoint, but for many project managers, it was a source of frustration. If you were inside a task and wanted to make an assignment to a person that was not on the team, there were between 20-35 clicks that had to be made. In an open environment, this is frustrating. However, there are several environments with very strict regulations and procedures as to who and how people can be added to the team. To accommodate both environments, CA implemented an "Assignment Pool" field. On a project by project basis, the setting of Team Only (current functionality) or Resource Pool (new functionality) can be selected. If it is Resource Pool, then the entire resource pool is available to assign to a task. This eliminates 20-30 clicks from a test case that happens often.

Dependencies - Managing dependencies in Clarity has often been difficult. You were unable to see them and editing them again was way too many clicks. There was an easy way to add dependencies from the Work Breakdown Structure view, but there was no visual feedback that anything happened when you clicked the button and there was no visibility in that view that showed if dependencies existed or not. Again, this has been addressed. From the Gantt chart view, you are able to create, edit, and view dependencies right in the Gantt chart. It also supports drag and drop. It goes one step further than some other tools as well. If you hover over the dependency link, the system will show you the actual names of the predecessors and successors. Very nice addition.

No need to export to MSP - As a power user, I would often tell clients that it was easier for me to create a plan in Microsoft Project, upload it to Clarity, and then manage it in Clarity. For the hardcore Microsoft Project users, this is still available. However, for 95% of the users that I have personal experience with, there is no need to export to MSP. The ease of use of the front end and the in line editing availability in the Gantt chart removes the need to do the export.

All of the power still retained - The main reasons I have always liked Clarity are still there. The configurability and power of the tool remains. The user interface is what received the overhaul. It is now completely 64 bit including Java and Tomcat and supports more memory to the Java heap. All things that will mean a boost of performance for most environments.

Favorites Bar - Another great timesaver is taking a concept that was developed in some of the earlier versions of Clarity and expanding it. I am not sure of the exact version, but in either 8.1 or 12.0, the user had the ability to set the home page to a different view. If I am managing a project and I find myself always navigating to a certain page, then I could set that page as my home page so that it was the first page that opened when I logged in. CA has taken this functionality and expanded it for a full Favorites section. It works the same way except that I can create several "bookmarks" within the tool to allow me to navigate quickly between common screens. This is a huge boost for productivity and saves a ton of clicks from the normal navigation of the tool.

One thing still missing - There was one feature that is still desperately needed. I was hoping it would be in this version and I am told it is in the works. We are still unable to print a project schedule from Clarity. For those of you that have attended my seminars you know that I am against printing the project schedule anyway. It's not like the resources really print it, read and understand it, and can't wait until the next version is released! However, it is a reality that we still need to print the schedules. I hope that functionality is around the corner. In the meantime, there are some nice reports and you can still export the plan to Workbench or Project and use their printing functionalities.

My Conclusion - V13 is absolutely worth the wait and there are so many upsides to the new release in forms of usability and functionality that my personal recommendation is to upgrade as soon as possible. There will always be issues and things for software to add, but this is not a wait and see release. This is an absolute add. There are so many advantages to this release. In fact, I don't think I have ever been as excited about a new release of software since Microsoft Project announced change highlighting and multiple undo to MSP in 2007! Contact your CA representatives or hit the CA support site and download the latest version now. You will not be disappointed! If you have been on the fence about choosing a PPM tool, this release of Clarity is a game changer. Being technology agnostic, I have a Pros vs. Cons list for each tool that we work with. This release of Clarity has removed the current cons that I had on that list. If you are considering a tool and have received a demo of the older version of Clarity, make sure you see this version before proceeding. As I just told the existing users, you will not be disappointed!

Until next time!

Rick

Some Things Just Take Time.....

2011-12-07T21:37:00.000-06:00

There is always the great debate about throwing resources at a project to try to pull off the impossible timeframe. However, some things just take time. When I train project managers, I use an analogy of what effort driven in Microsoft Project means. I ask them, “Are you painting a fence or driving to Nashville?” If you are painting a fence and it takes 8 hours to paint the fence, then it will also take the full 8 hours of time. If you add a resource, it will still take 8 hours of effort, but will only take 4 hours of elapsed time since two people are splitting the work. If it takes you 4 hours to drive to Nashville and you add a second person, it doesn’t mean you cut the time in half. Now two people are spending 4 hours in the car so it doubles the amount of effort. This is a cleaner version of the way that I used to explain this. I used to say that you can’t always throw resources at a problem. The example I would state is that you can’t put 9 women into a room and produce a baby in a month, some things just take time. I used that for a couple of years and every once and a while, someone would be offended. So I changed it to a cleaner version for most of my trainings. However, a good friend John Ragsdale sent me this and it made me laugh. I don’t know where this originated to give it proper credit, but to whoever pulled this together….it reminded me of when I got started. Enjoy!

Definitions of Designations:

Project Manager is a person who thinks nine women can deliver a baby in one month.

Developer is a person who thinks it will take 18 months to deliver a baby.

Onsite Coordinator is one who thinks a single woman can deliver nine babies in one month.

Client is the one who doesn’t know why he wants a baby.

Marketing Manager is a person who thinks he can deliver a baby even if no woman or man is available.

Resource Optimization Team thinks they don’t need a man or woman; they’ll produce a child with zero resources.

Documentation Team thinks they don’t care whether the child is delivered; they’ll just document it in 9 months.

Quality Auditor is the person who is never happy with the PROCESS to produce a baby.

Tester is a person who always tells his wife that this is not the right baby.

HR Manager is a person who thinks that a donkey can deliver a human baby in 9 months.

I don't acknowledge it....therefore it doesn't exist!

2011-11-08T15:35:00.000-06:00

Is this a reality? I overheard a conversation last night at dinner where a guy was explaining to his friends that he has not gotten a cold in the last 15 years. He stated that his grandmother told him that there is no such thing as a common cold. He believed her and ever since he has never gotten a cold. One of his friends asked, “Do you ever not feel good?” He said, “Sometimes my nose will be stuffy or I get a sore throat or cough. I will feel run down and will stay in bed a couple of days……but it’s not a cold! They don’t exist!” Call me old fashioned, but that sounds like a cold to me.
It reminded me of my top 5 favorite quotes from a sponsor. We were running a project and the sponsor had announced to the entire customer base the completion date of the project before the project was even opened in the organization. Her statement committed us to a 10 month project to be delivered in 4 months. I approached the sponsor and told her that we would have to do some serious risk management on the project. Her response is still a classic: “Rick, this project has no risk because it must be done on time!” If we don’t acknowledge it, it must not exist.
This same denial seems to be true for sponsors when they set a project date or budget. They often will tell a project manager, “just figure it out,” or, “just make it happen.” As if the project manager can just wave their magic wand and a new month will be created or a bag of cash will appear. Projects have been run this way since the beginning of time. Why is it so misunderstood? I like to compare projects to weight loss. Look, I would love to take a pill at night, never have to work out, eat whatever I want, and lose weight. The reality is that eating right and exercise is what it takes. The sales numbers for weight loss fads, products, pills, exercise machines, etc. is staggering! Every day I hear an ad for a new product that promised dramatic weight loss without changing and of the bad habits that lead to the weight gain in the first place. It is this same mentality that continues to plague projects. This mentality that if we put it out there it will happen and if we don’t acknowledge the bad stuff, it doesn’t exist is the basis of many of the organizations in business today. Then everybody is surprised when something doesn’t go as planned. This goes all the way back to the way the project was selected and how most likely the budget was trimmed via a spreadsheet to get it to meet an arbitrary number that feels right to the executives. Sure we can cut 20% of this project, there was probably padding in it anyway!
Risk does exist. Project failure is a very real and repeatable process. Yet we continue to not acknowledge it. For example, a project manager will be told that they do not have time to plan, the project must start now. The project fails. The project team does a lessons learned session and blames the lack of planning as the reason why. Then the team will agree that more planning will be necessary. Then the next project comes along and the same project manager is told that there is no time to plan, it must start right away! One of the greatest things we can do as project managers is simply acknowledging that these things do exist. Documentation and metrics capture that show these patterns is paramount. We must acknowledge these failures. It is the first step in resolution.
Go forth and document!
Rick

Where Has Customer Service Gone?

2011-10-03T11:14:00.001-05:00

As many of you know, I travel quite a bit. I am extremely loyal to my brands often going out of my way or not taking the convenient path to maintain that loyalty. For example, I drove 55 miles each way for a speaking engagement to stay in the nearest Marriott. However, more and more, I am seeing customer service get worse and worse. In this economy, it is even more important to retain your customer base than ever. I try not to complain, but two situations that just occurred have led me to this post. Unfortunately, I will not change the names to protect any innocents.

The first experience was with the Vanderbilt Marriott in Nashville, TN. They have one of the most amazing and wonderful staffs ever. From the valet to the desk manager to the Concierge team, they are a class act. I have had several customers in Nashville and have stayed over 100 nights in that hotel. At one point, I didn't have to stay in Nashville for 6 months, yet everyone still knew me by name when I came in. Most hotels have corporate rates and when I travel, I use the client's rates to lower expenses. In every hotel I have ever stayed, if the corporate code is unavailable, I have been told to book a room anyway and get the code changed at the front desk. This was the case for this particular reservation. I booked the room and headed to Nashville. When I arrived, I was greeted by the familiar valet guy by name. The front desk manager welcomed me as she has for years. We asked about each other's families and made the usual small talk. I told her the rate situation. She told me she can no longer change it and I can see she was upset at the inability to do so. I asked her why. She said that a new owner had taken over and that policy is not in effect anymore. She stated that the owner representative was there and I could discuss it with him. When I talked to him, I was appalled at the answer. He said that the reason is due to a revenue model to ensure they stayed as viable as possible. I explained to him that I had earned my platinum status at that hotel. Not just that I am platinum, I earned enough nights at his hotel to become platinum. The rate difference was $80. I asked if an extra $80 was worth losing a customer that had spent easily $20,000 at that hotel. He said that it was policy and his hands were tied. So I cancelled my reservation and found another Marriott in Nashville.

The second item happened on my latest trip. I rent with National Rent-A-Car and have been an Executive member for several years. I realized when I arrived in Houston at IAH that I had left my driver's license at home. It is Sunday night late and I am stuck at the airport. I go to the rental counter and talk to the manager. I explain what I had done, but that I rent a car from her counter every other week for quite some time. I could have my wife fax her a copy of my driver's license to prove that she was in possession of it and that it was valid. She was going to overnight the license to where I was staying. I had my passport with me to prove my identity. I had just rented a car there the prior week so it wasn't as if I was an unknown entity. I can appreciate the policy and I can appreciate the adherence to it as well. The attitude that I received from the manager was flippant and she just said, "I can't do anything," and walked away. As she walked away I asked was there anything that could be done, any options, or anyway to get a cab from the location. She continued to walk away mumbling and let the office door close behind her. Fantastic customer service, I must say! Again, I understand my mistake. I can understand the policy. The attitude was what was so infuriating. She didn't even look up my name or what type of customer I was. She didn't even try to assist when I was in need.

What happened to customer service? There used to be trust in the consumer. If I had never rented a car at that location or stayed at that particular hotel before, I can understand. Even if I had only done so once or twice, I could understand. To attain the highest level statuses of their loyalty programs and have their locations be where I attained those statuses, unforgivable. Sometimes you have to look at the money lost or loyalty lost versus the immediate gain. Policies are there to protect and serve, but not to the detriment of customer service. Everything these days is recorded, outsourced, and has a total lack of empathy. Bring back the human. Bring back the humanity. Please, loyalty should be more than a free gift. Loyalty should mean the company should strive just as hard as the consumer. It is just as easy for me to book somewhere else.

Stay loyal!

Rick

"I want a PMO!" - Validate What They Mean

2011-09-21T10:35:00.000-05:00

Clients will often state that they want me to come in and help them create a PMO. Unfortunately, that is all that they say. It is like me saying, “I want to be a better project manager.” It is a pretty vague statement. When the decision is made to create a PMO, there is some general reason why that is happening. It is important that you uncover those meanings.

For instance, a client had recently stated that a PMO was being created in a division and that all of the certain projects of a certain type would be brought into the PMO. At the time, there were 150 of these projects identified in the group. The group also had 6 project managers who already had a portfolio of 30 projects. There were several questions that this posed:

What do we mean by “brought into”? Does that mean we own the projects completely or we own the status reporting?
Will we get more staff to run these projects?
Why do we feel the need to create the PMO?
What is the end result of creating the PMO that you envision?
Will the PMO be part of the strategic planning of the division or just told to execute the projects?

Unfortunately, not many answers were provided. I compare the explosion of PMO’s to the Six Sigma craze. There was a popular article that stated a Six Sigma Master Black Belt could bring a company an average savings of $2M. Based on the article, many companies went on the hunt to find their Master Black Belt. They approached it as if the person would show up with a $2M check!

I fear that the explosion of PMO’s is due to the same reason. An executive will read an article or see a result published from a company that shows that a PMO increased revenues, decreased cost, and improved efficiencies. Therefore, they conclude that they must have one. In my experience, few executives are willing to make the changes that achieve the results in the article. Change must occur in order for results to be realized.

Faced with the situation above, my suggested course of action follows what is taught in my seminars and books. The path was:

Identify what it takes to manage a project in the environment and come up with a percentage of time on average it consumes of a project manager.
Apply the percentages to the projects to determine the number of project managers needed.
Identify alternate actions should head count not be increased (including not accepting the 150 additional projects)
Ensure that the data you are presenting is accurate.

Once all the steps have been completed, meet with the sponsor. Ask for the 30 additional project managers that would be necessary to accept the additional project load. If the answer is no, show the alternatives of what is possible with the current staff (including some of the ideas that I have blogged earlier titled “Do We Have to Own Projects Start to Finish” in May of 2011.) From there, this will take a life of its own. The important part is to ensure that you have validated what they mean when an executive states, “I want a PMO!”

Until next time,

Rick

The Plague of Ulterior Motives

2011-09-07T09:15:00.001-05:00

I continue to be amazed at how much time, effort, and money is wasted internally by companies. One of the number one causes of this waste is ulterior motives. These are people who will deliberately say and do things in public, but in private have another motive to their actions. This is a rampant disease that can cost organizations millions of dollars. Instead of having uncomfortable conversations or debating issues, the person or group would rather act is if they are playing along and hope that the initiative fails. There are several of these types to watch for:

The Two Faced Approach. This approach is been around for a long time. As soon as any social structure is developed, this approach is evident. My kids experience this in school and unfortunately, some never seem to grow out of the behavior. The approach is to act one way in front of one group and then act a completely different way in front of the sponsors and executives. For example, an individual can be openly combative and antagonistic towards you in a closed meeting. Then in the team meeting, be open and friendly and act as if they have been working with you all along. One of the greatest examples of this behavior is Eddie Haskell from Leave it to Beaver. Eddie was conniving, manipulative, and mean to everyone. However, when the parents were around, he had his best manners on display and gave the illusion to the parents that he was perfectly behaved.

Transference of the Issue. This approach will make sure to not answer a direct question or issue. If you ask a direct question, they will talk around the subject without answering directly, transfer the answer back to you, or deflect the answer to a person or group that is not available at the time. They make an art of not answering the question. They will respond to questions with, "It will take whatever you think," or "What do you want it to do?" These are purposefully vague answers to questions that can allow them to say they are being responsive without actually answering the question.

Secret Saboteur. This group will secretly try to make the initiative fail. Either they disagree with the initiative or they are scared of the change that it might bring. Instead of working with the initiative, they purposefully delay, don't deliver, cause rework, or otherwise sabotage the work. This is a particularly dangerous group.

The Other Option. I have seen this option several times. This is where the group or individual wants the theme of the solution to be successful, but not necessarily the current selected solution to work. For instance, a company wanted to do workforce management. They looked at a portfolio and project management system and an enterprise resource platform. The business and users wanted the project management system. A key executive had former ties to the enterprise system and wanted that one. Instead of debating the decision, the executive allowed the project management system to be purchased. During the implementation, the executive put unrealistic demands on the team, changed the scope, and changed success criteria. The first implementation group did not succeed. A decision was necessary to continue with the current tool or get the one that the executive wanted. Surprisingly, the business wanted to continue with the current system. The executive again sabotaged the implementation to the point that the second implementation team failed. Finally, the executive got the system that she had wanted. However, it ended up costing the organization millions of dollars.

This can also manifest itself by stating that a group wants something when it isn't the true thing that they want. For example, an organization that fights for a change of a tool. The existing tool does what they want, but they convince the organization to change. The reality is that they want control of the tool. It isn't that one tool is better than the other. It is that they can control the tool better if they own it. I see this quite often with centralized IT departments. You will get a department that wants to go rogue and get another tool. In the end, what they wanted was to not have to utilize the centralized IT group.

We will explore how to deal with these types in later blog postings. The first step in dealing with ulterior motives is to try to understand which one of these categories the group or individual belongs to. From there, we can start to create a game plan on how to deal with them.

Am I missing any? Would love to hear from you on this topic!

Rick

More Metrics!

2011-08-19T08:05:00.000-05:00

Building on my last post, we are continuing to build some new metrics. The last post talked about resource management metrics. Here are some other ones that we are tracking now.

Execution Metrics
# of tasks
# of tasks on time
# of tasks past due
# of tasks severely overdue
# of team members
# of opportunities to turn in status report
# of status reports turned in

Planning Metrics

Date Project Assigned
Requested Project End Date
Project End Date Original Planned
Mandated?
Date Agreed upon with Sponsor
Date Project Actually Completed

There will be much more to come as we are developing a new concept that we are titling now as "Metrics 2.0: New Metrics for a New Project Management Era"

Do you have some unique metrics that you track? Please share!

SRH25JZFSYVH

New Metrics: Resource Management

2011-08-09T14:17:00.000-05:00

I have several requests from people asking about some of the metrics that I track on my projects. I am working on a new book of metrics and new ways of thinking about metrics. Here is a sneak peek of some of the types of metrics that I track:

Resource Management Metrics
# of times invited to a meeting
# of times showed up to the meeting
Participation type (called in, showed up in person, etc.)
# of issues assigned
# of risks assigned
# of issues resolved
# of risks resolved
# of issues introduced
# of risks introduced
# of tasks assigned
# of tasks completed on time
# of tasks completed past due
# of e-mails sent (by pm)
# of e-mails responded to

This takes the metrics just a bit beyond what we normally track. It is not all % complete or estimates. It is also about quality. For example, I had a very large project that had impact on multiple departments. One of the departments was finance. Right at go live, the finance department went to the project sponsor and said that the project should be stopped. The project manager (which was me) did not consult them or did not get their input on the project. Therefore, since finance was not consulted, the project should be stopped.

When I was called in to the Sponsor’s office, I stated that I had not gotten their input. What finance had stated was completely correct. However, they were not an identified stakeholder on the project and based on their project focus rating, they did not appear to want to be involved. Finance asked, “What do you mean by a project focus rating?” I explained that I track how many times I had invited them to meetings, asked for input, number of issues assigned, number of e-mails that were sent and went unresolved, and overall participation on the project. Based on the information that I had, they were invited to 47 meetings and never showed, 31 e-mails went unanswered, 3 issues were assigned that never were completed, and 2 direct requests for assistance were not answered. Since all I can do is facilitate, I took the 83 separate times to have them provide input as a sign that they did not want to participate. In the end, finance didn’t have a leg to stand on. If they wanted to have direct input, they could have. What happened is that they felt the project would not impact them and they blew off the project. When they finally saw that there was impact, the project was too far down the road.

This is a common occurrence in projects. This is why we have to look at metrics that go beyond. The point is that we have to manage more of the quality or focus of individuals on a project. In environments when there are tons of competing projects and priorities, it is a necessity to measure the amount of focus a resource gives to the project.

Hope this helps!

Rick

The Chicken Little Syndrome

2011-07-29T08:38:00.001-05:00

“The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” Ah, the overreaction, the storm that breaks up the calm, or the person who is just trying to get noticed. Whatever the cause, the Chicken Little Syndrome (CLS) can hurt your credibility as well as cause disruption and productivity loss for the organization. What is the Chicken Little Syndrome? This is taking a small fact or occurrence and blowing it out of proportion so that it becomes the center of attention to executives. Many times the motivation behind it seems pure. However, it also can be truly dangerous.

In my seminars and lectures, I always talk about “getting to the data.” If I have more data than you and can speak intelligently about the data, then I have a higher chance of winning a conflict. Just like anything else, data can be manipulated and misused. Look at the poor egg. I don’t know if they are good or bad for you anymore. It seems every month a new study is released that states and proves the exact opposite of the study before that one. It is a mystery! So data can literally become the great chicken and egg debate……Squirrel! (That was for those loyal followers from my seminars ;)

Back to Chicken Little, Wikipedia states, “The Merriam-Webster Dictionary records the first application of the name Chicken Little to 'one who warns of or predicts calamity, especially without justification’ as dating from 1895.” So the Chicken Little Syndrome is someone who takes a small fact, issue, or data point and uses it to warn of impending doom without understanding what the data point really is. I see the syndrome almost on a weekly basis and sometimes more often than that. When it really can become fun is if the data points are theoretical. For example, take estimations of a work effort. The first key word is “estimate.” This word alone implies a guess. There are tons of theories on how to do estimates. My favorite estimation theory is PERT or Program Evaluation and Review Technique which was started in 1957 by the US Navy. You can read more about PERT here. At the end of the day and regardless of the theory, it is still an estimate. What is great about an estimate is regardless of how much time and effort you put into the models, it will always be an imperfect value. Whenever there are imperfections or data points that are open to widening levels of interpretation, the Chicken Little Syndrome can rear its ugly head.

Personally, I always feel that there is something behind the Chicken Little Syndrome. Something else that may not be right on the surface, but it is the true issue of the prediction of doom. For example, a consultant is working with an organization to build a work estimation model. He or she works with client for an extended amount of time and designs an extremely comprehensive model that is +/- 7% accurate. The model is accurate, but also requires the end user to track large amounts of different data points to help feed back into the work model. A second consultant comes in and looks at the model and suggests a different way. The different way is +/- 10% accurate but greatly reduces the amount of time the end user spends capturing the data. The core team chooses the easier model and accepts the additional 3% of inaccuracy as an acceptable risk. The first consultant feels strongly that the way it was designed originally is the best way. To disprove the second consultant, CLS takes over. The second consultant creates a specific case of where the model that was originally created is much better than the model in play. This turns in to charts, graphs, and presentations stating that the sky is about to fall. This grabs the attention of the executives which just finished a hefty investment in creating a system around the second model. Doubt, worry, and panic sets in. Meetings, conference calls, and many side conversations are generated based on the CLS. This causes the second consultant to come in and defend the model that he or she created. Instead of working in the existing system and focusing on the use of that tool, time is spent debating and validating models. It becomes a war of presentations. CLS has taken over the center stage and hours and hours of time are spent trying to prove that the sky is fully intact. In the end, the first consultant was potentially only looking for validation. There was time and effort and a great amount of good work placed into the model. No model was truly right or wrong, they both had advantages and disadvantages. However, because of the CLS, the organization is forced to choose. Since the organization had to choose, this means someone won and someone lost an argument. This is a dramatization, but a great example of what CLS is.

Another form of CLS is also called “blamestorming” or “issue deflection.” Essentially, this occurs when there is an issue that someone causes or a major mistake is made on a project. Instead of confessing to the issue or admitting fault, the person contracts the Chicken Little Syndrome. The person launches into a meeting and creates a great hubbub about something in the complete opposite direction of the issue that he or she had caused. Maybe a grandiose statement is made. Sometimes it is just a downright lie. Regardless of what is said, the intention of saying it is to create a commotion and take the attention off of them and place it elsewhere with the hopes that the original issue will be resolved or go away. This just creates distraction and ultimately hurts the organizations, relationships, and often people.

I have also seen forms of CLS where the person sees everything as a personal battle. It is as if the whole company is conspiring to interrupt the individual’s workflow. These are the ones that every conversation is them discussing how they gave an ultimatum, or had to stop someone from destroying life as we know it. Each story consists of what an idiot everyone else is and how they alone saved the day. Usually, it is about everything in their lives. Work, relationships, fights with the mailman, how the cable company is personally trying to rip them off, etc. It is a defensive and hurtful posture.

Is there an antidote for CLS? I am not sure. It can be combatted in a couple of ways. First, be savvy to what is really happening. See if you can identify and work with the person that appears to have CLS and see if you can determine the root cause. Make sure that they do not see the issue as a battle. The other way to combat it is to call the behavior out for what it is. Ask for the motivations. Ask why they feel so strongly about their statements. See if you can get them to discuss openly what is really happening. A great technique to do this is the “5 why” technique. This technique is a way to help try to identify the cause/effect relationship of an issue. You can read more about that here.

If you feel like you are about to expose the next grand conspiracy or are trying to deflect blame or a mistake off of you, take a step back. Are you creating a bigger issue than what it really is? Could there be alternative solutions? Is it possible the data you are referencing is not correct? Make sure you are being objective before you raise such a large issue. If I asked you to name someone that contracts CLS often, most of you reading this can come up with a name almost immediately. Sometimes, these people just want to be appreciated for doing a good job. Sometimes it is their insecurities. Whatever the cause, nine times out of ten, there is a cause. Find it and you too can stop this horrible disease.

No day but today!

Rick

R2 Website 2.0

2011-07-08T08:48:00.001-05:00

How do you portray what project management is or better yet, what project management consultants do in fifteen seconds or less? That was the question that I was trying to answer. Like many small businesses, I originally setup my website. I am also very active in social media through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and of course, this blog. It was time to upgrade the website and reintroduce the new and improved rsquaredconsulting.com. Our new home page blends my speaking engagements, twitter activity, and blog posts all on one page while showing what it is that we do. We wanted to be able to get across the services that we provide without the client having to hunt and peck. It was time to call in the experts!

I contacted longtime friend Chase Morrow who currently runs IT Rockstars in Birmingham, AL. We rolled up our sleeves and got to work. I am very happy with the end result. The home page came out exactly as I had hoped and Chase and his team did terrific work bringing my vision to fruition. So please, check out www.rsquaredconsulting.com and take the new website for a spin. Please let us know what you think! When you are done, check out the link for IT Rockstars and see if they can assist you in the same way they did me!

Rick

Advice to Pass: My Mother’s Favorite Sayings

2011-06-28T12:05:00.000-05:00

I apologize to my readers for not posting anything in the last couple of weeks. My mom passed away recently and as you know by now, each event is a learning opportunity. As we were gathering for the service and meeting with the pastor, he had asked my brothers and I to reflect and talk about some of our mom's favorite sayings. He asked what were things that we would hear around the house and things that she said that we will never forget. Here are some of those sayings:

If you seem to have a problem with the whole world, maybe it isn't the world with the problem. Ever feel that way? That it seems the whole world is coming down on you? I definitely know the feeling. When my mom would say this to me, it was not something that I really wanted to hear. Especially at that time! However, when I would think about it, I would be experiencing a defeatist attitude or just overall having a grumpy day. This saying would make me step back and think about how I was approaching the day. Believe it or not, it helped.

Someone needs to go back to their room and have an attitude adjustment! This was another famous saying that you didn't want to hear. Again, a grumpy day was taking over. We would go back in to our room and begin. It would first start with a mumbling of, "I don't have an attitude problem, she has the attitude problem." I would then trail off. Pretty soon, I would forget about what I was mad about in the first place and lo and behold, the attitude adjustment would work!

If you want someone to learn a behavior or skill, make them care about it. My mom was a saleswoman and seminar leader as well. She always would tell us the story of how motivation truly works. She would tell the story this way:

Ask somebody to learn how to play the tuba. Most likely, they will not or they will say that they can't. Now, take away their family, or home, or something that they hold dear. Tell them that they can't get it back until they learn how to play a specific song on the tuba. Amazingly, they will learn how to play the tuba.

The moral of the story is that unless they care about learning, doing, or being a part of whatever it is you want them to do, it won't happen. Find a way to make them care, and you will get results.

My mom had tons of sayings and knowledge nuggets that she passed on. I know my brothers and I are successful due to the drive, determination, and work ethic that she helped form in us. She will be missed. Rest in peace.

Rick

The Iron Triangle of the PMO: People, Processes, and Technology

2011-06-03T09:52:00.000-05:00

Project management has always been fond of the "Triple Constraint" or the "Iron Triangle." In traditional terms, the sayings represent the three constraints on a project: cost, schedule, quality. It is often taught as the iron triangle because if one shifts, one of the other sides must also shift in order to stay balanced. For instance, if schedule is the constraint and you are behind schedule, you either add staff (cost) or reduce scope (quality) to bring the date back within the constraint. As I continue to work with executives and their PMO's, the iron triangle for the PMO is people, process, and technology. Company after company continue to make significant investments in one of the three areas and often neglect the other two. For instance, a company will purchase Clarity, but then not hire project managers thinking that the tool will fix their issues. Another company may make significant investments in creating the process but then not hire enough project managers to complete the process. Each time this occurs, the company will then question the value of the investment. Just like in projects, the PMO must make investments and measure their success on the three sides of their triangle.

Process
In most of the organizations that I work in, they have some sort of governance or process that is documented. Many times, these have been purchased from various consulting firms and consist of templates and mandates of which documents are completed when. As outlined in an earlier post, "What About My Capacity" I outline how to quickly determine the amount of work it takes to complete the project management process. Companies are often frustrated at the lack of information or quality of information that they receive during project reviews. Their answer is to create templates and mandate the completion of the templates. However, they ask people who are not familiar with the concepts or the templates to fill them out. This is akin to handing somebody who finished high school math a tax form and expect the same results that a trained accountant would give them. An investment in the process is a key factor in the creation of a successful PMO. However, the process alone can't fix your issues.

PeopleThe right people in the right positions can make a tremendous difference in the quality of project management. I will state it as plainly as I can for the record: projects should be run by trained project managers. It is that simple. As an example, you are at a car repair shop because you have something wrong with your engine. You are told that the mechanic that is going to fix your car will not be able to fix it for 4 hours. Right then, a 17 year old kid walks up and says, "I know about cars, I can fix it." Do you wait for the trained mechanic even though it means waiting four hours or do you let the kid fix it? Most of us would wait. Why? We want someone who is trained, certified, and warranties the work. We also want someone with experience. You want experience and training. This is true for many professions: Teachers, Doctors, Dentists, Surgeons, Executives, Accountants, Home Builders, Engineers, Architects, etc. This is true for just about every profession.......except project management. I have worked with organizations that have invested many millions of dollars mandating processes. These processes require the project managers to complete forms, risk planning, project scheduling, etc. The process is so important that it is mandated. Then when they roll out the process, they do not have enough people to complete the demand for project management. This forces them to select someone who is not a project manager to complete the work. However, if the work is completed with poor quality or the results do not add up, it is the profession of project management whose value is questioned. Not the people performing the task, but the profession itself. In some cases, I have seen resources that cost three or four times the amount a project manager would cost to complete the activities. These people do so begrudgingly and will readily admit they don't want to do that type of work. I have seen organizations lose highly valuable resources because they were making them do activities outside of the job that they were hired to do. Why do we invest so much in a process, but do not invest in the people to complete the process? Or better yet, we think that if we by the right product, it will solve our issues.

TechnologyI have completed over 70 project and portfolio management technology implementations. I have worked with Clarity, Microsoft Project, Planview, Primavera, Daptiv, @task, and others. These are all great tools. However, they do not solve your project management process or people issues. What they will do is make your poor processes run faster or expose the lack of quality of information. They are compliance tools that help make your processes and people efficient. If the project manager you have selected on a project has never really written a project schedule or been trained how to do so, why do we think making them enter it into Clarity is going to make it better? I will give you the number one reason why PPM tool implementations fail: lack of executive mandate. Unless the executives prove that they are in the tool, looking at the data, using the data for decisions, and mandating compliance, then the tools just become another process that project managers (or the people selected to do project management) must fill out. I have taken over many failed PPM tool integrations. In each case, the executives were never really looking at the information or making sure that the information within the tool is accurate. I worked with one organization where they spent a significant amount of money purchasing and installing the tool. They never trained their project managers to use the tool properly because they thought that the cost was to high. In three months, the data was so disjointed that the project managers held a meeting and decided that the tool was too hard to use. So they all agreed that they would use the tool as a project reporting tool, but would maintain all plans and schedules outside of the tool. The executives never really checked the tool because they were using printed reports that came from the tool. The tool had become an afterthought. The next question then become, what is the value of the tool? In other organizations, they will say that the tool was the wrong tool and will consider purchasing yet another tool to try to do the same things. This tool then is not implemented properly so they will question the value of project management itself. It is a downward cycle that happens in roughly 70% of the clients that purchase the tools. They think that the investment in technology is going to solve their issues. It just exposes them.

PMO Value: Process, People, and Technology
Unless there is investment in all three branches, the PMO will usually either fail or become a non-strategic resource. To build a successful PMO, the following must occur:

People - If project management is important to the organization, then invest in project managers. Stating that you do not have the funds to hire a project manager and then turning over the duties to someone who costs three times as much is not only a waste of money, it is provides poor quality. Invest in the right people and the right training.
Process - Do not just invest in templates and mandates. Make sure the investment is made to educate the executives on the value of project management and the value of the proper process of project management. Dr. James Norrie in the book "Breaking Through the Project Fog: How Smart Organizations Achieve Success by Creating, Selecting and Executing On-Strategy Projects (Jossey-Bass Leadership Series - Canada)" has the best answer to the value of project management that I have heard to date: the value of a project manager grows exponentially the earlier you involve them in the process. The other key to proper process is to ensure the right amount of governance to the right amount of projects. There should always be some sort of tier system within projects so that the process to complete the governance of the project does not cost more than completing the project itself.
Technology - Invest in technology that will enable the organization to enforce compliance, each roles data builds on the other roles, and provides key decision metrics to executives. The technology should be invested in that streamlines the process, stops duplicate entry of information, is the single source of the truth, and provides value add activity. If you are entering the same information into three different systems or the system that you are entering information in is not the single source of the truth, then we are adding cost for process, not for results.

I have seen many organizations spend tremendous amount of money on one or two of the sides of the triangle while neglecting the others. To be successful, the three sides must be balanced to an organizations needs and ample focus should be placed on all three.

Be strong and stay true to your principles,

Rick

Do We Have to Own Projects Start to Finish?

2011-05-17T10:01:00.001-05:00

I know what I am about to suggest is controversial. I will state up front that it is not the most ideal situation. In my experience, over 90% of the companies that I work with have more projects than project managers. This is a problem that plagues the industry. Companies should recognize this as an issue and address it by either hiring or reducing the project load. Instead, they give projects to other people who are not project managers, nor do they want to be. In these environments, I have a new theory. Do project managers have to own the project start to finish?

I know that is what we have been taught and what we believe. However, if a company will not commit to the resources necessary, the answer can't be to wallow in self pity. I recently worked with an organization on the maturity of their project management practice. Using the capacity model that I explained in an earlier blog post, I found that the company needed 35 project managers and they had five on staff. When we presented this to the CIO, he stated that he would just tap 30 of his resource managers to become project leads. This is just as ludicrous as asking 30 people who finished high school math to help with the backlog in accounting. It would never happen! Yet it does on a daily basis in the industry of project management. When we countered that the 30 people were not trained project managers, he stated that the 30 should be mentored by the existing project managers. This would further reduce the time that the project managers had on their projects.

The decision was devastating. We were all at a loss on how to proceed. To further complicate the issue, the client was on Clarity. This would mean the training of 30 people who are not project managers how to perform project management functions and try to protect the normalized data that was within Clarity. It was definitely an uphill battle. This is where the theory was born. I held a meeting with the project managers. Although we want to, the real question is do we have to own a project from start to finish? We began to analyze the activities that were required to run the project. We came up with the average time it took to do the normal project management activities and the value that each activity played in the overall success of the project. The high value activities were creating the WBS, project plan, risk analysis, and high level monitoring. The lower value activities were scheduling meetings, writing meeting minutes, filling out the various reports. There are some of you out there that may disagree with these value rankings, but this was the case at this company.

What we began to see is that if we split the duties on each project, there was a way to improve the quality of projects without the hiring of 30 more project managers. What we decided was that all projects would be planned by project managers and they would be responsible for creating the initial schedule and loading that into Clarity. They would also monitor the status logs, issues and risks, and monitor variances. The project leads would schedule and conduct the status meetings, be responsible for the meeting minutes and status reports, and handle the day to day monitoring of the tasks. This worked especially well since most of the project leads were resource managers and the tasks that they were monitoring came from staff that reported to them. This approach allowed the project managers to focus on planning, risk, corrective, and preventative actions. The project leads were responsible for day to day execution. If projects were going well, then the project manager was free to monitor the other projects. If the project wasn't going well, the project manager could re-engage and put the project back on track.

This model has been in place for over a year now and has been quite successful. The overall quality if the projects rose because every project was being planned by a certified project manager. Since then, the company has hired 5 more project managers to bring them up to 10. They are beginning to realize the value that the certification brings and that there is a method to the madness.

Again, I know this is not the ideal setup. It is an effective one for a company that has a low maturity, questions the value of project management, and will not make the investments required to be successful. This is a nice bridging technique that can be measured and prove the need for properly trained resources. So I will answer my own question. Do we need to own the project start to finish? Ideally, yes. However, with the current state of project management, it is time we start challenging some of the older principles and come up with innovative new ways to solve old problems. So the answer is: not always!

That is my story and I am sticking to it!

Rick

But It's The Way It Has Always Been Done Here! - Part 2

2011-05-10T10:17:00.000-05:00

After posting my last blog post, a friend of mine told me about this story. I researched the story and found what I believe to be the originating post. The link to the original blog can be found here: Original Blog

Here is the story written by Ron Beasley:

As a Psychologist I have studied human behavior. While I am not a veterinarian, I can make several applications and lessons learned from the following story about monkeys, especially as it applies to life and business. Can you?

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, you'll see a banana hanging on a string with a set of stairs placed under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, all of the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt to obtain the banana. As soon as his foot touches the stairs, all of the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. It's not long before all of the other monkeys try to prevent any monkey from climbing the stairs.

Now, put away the cold water, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him as he makes his way toward the stairs. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.

Why not?

The Answer is: That's the way it has always been done here!

Interesting story!

Rick