If you ask your customers to rate your performance, you may improve communication and learn how to better meet their needs.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

If you do not routinely survey your customers about how well you and your projects are measuring up to their expectations, then you have plenty of company. Of those who don’t use this powerful business tool, most believe they’d rate in the 75 percent to 95 percent satisfaction range. Guess what? My experience shows that the satisfaction rating after the first survey is conducted is almost always below 50 percent.

Ouch! How could that be? Just because a customer smiles at you in the morning over a cup of coffee, inquires about your weekend or returns your phone calls does not mean he or she respects your performance and results. When you say, “I’ll try,” or, “We’ll see what we can do,” your customer hears a commitment. When your deliverables have quality defects, even “minor” ones, your customer expects better. It is all about expectations and how well you manage them with your customer and within your project.

Here are some frequently asked questions and answers regarding surveys:

Q: Who should conduct a survey?
A: It can be anyone who has a customer, internal or external.

Q: Should the project manager (PM) develop and administer the survey?
A: Not necessarily. The PM should ensure the survey is performed, but a project office, other group or the primary customer liaison from a project could manage it. Surveys administered to external customers should be reviewed and approved by the executive head of the project and possibly by a legal advisor. Surveys should be included in an organization’s project management methodology.

Q: How frequently should surveys be conducted?
A: At the end of a project or a major phase of a long-running project. Conducting surveys too often dilutes their effectiveness as a communication tool. If conducted too infrequently, they have little benefit on performance improvements.

Q: How long should a survey be?
A: Short–preferably no more than 10 questions with a multiple-choice graduated scale, such as “very satisfied,” “satisfied,” “neutral,” “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied.” The customer should be provided space to expand on the response to each question. The survey should not exceed one double-sided page and would be most efficient if administered electronically.

Q: What kinds of questions should be asked?
A: Questions related to satisfaction. Common areas include meeting commitments, schedules, costs, managing scope changes, quality of deliverables, and timely, accurate communications. Don’t overlook giving the customer the opportunity to respond to open questions (not multiple choice), such as “What did you like most about the project?” “What did you like least?” and “Any other comments?”

Q: How should the survey results be used?
A: To measure an organization’s performance improvements with a customer. The first survey sets the baseline. Actions are then planned to improve the survey results from subsequent surveys. Actions are adjusted accordingly to ensure that surveys reflect improvement. Many of the more professionally mature organizations use the survey results as a measure of a project manager’s long-term improvement and effectiveness. Now go make a difference!

In today’s workplace, many so-called project management professionals do not stand on their own two feet, but on those of others.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

An astonishing thing happened to most of us after preparing for a job in the business world: We didn’t properly prepare. What’s worse, we didn’t realize it for years.

The handholding in our “I’m-not-responsible-for-my-own-actions” world is having a devastating impact on the workforce. While students learn technology skills, they lack the business skills based on “soft” areas like accountability, resourcefulness and leadership. (See “First and Foremost: Mind Your Own Business!” PM Network, July 2000.)

These familiar examples of employee beliefs or actions indicate professional immaturity:

• Believes that effort is more important than results
• Waits to be asked to work overtime when it is necessary
• Expects management or others to initiate needed change in areas that affect own work output
• Complains rather than constructively works issues to closure
• Avoids escalating issues that are at an apparent impasse
• Brings problems to senior management without any recommendations for solutions
• Believes that commitments are transient
• Waits to be blessed with empowerment and authority by a higher-up before taking it
• Delays in asking for help when needed
• Doesn’t take accountability for own actions
• Thinks that the grass is greener at the next company
• Looks out for the company at the expense of own domain of responsibility
• Believes that boss is responsible for the employee’s career.

When employees have not learned what it means to be professionally mature, managers must teach them. However, all too often, these managers either demonstrate similar professional immaturity or place a higher priority on work other than their key assignment: nurturing their employees. (See “Duties of the Effective Resource Manager,” PM Network, December 1999.) The result is a tremendous burden on project managers — in addition to planning and executing a successful project, they must spend the time and energy to teach their team members what constitutes proper behavior.

You may be thinking, “It’s not fair for me to perform the job that the managers aren’t accomplishing.” In the real world, it’s not about what’s fair, it’s about results. If you want a winning project, then you must deal with the people side of issues. By all means, work with managers where appropriate; however, ineffective managers are not an excuse for project failure.

Many companies believe that their most important asset is their employees, but this is not precisely true. A company’s most important asset is its leaders. If a company has mediocre leaders and the best staff, it will be doomed to mediocrity. With the best leaders and mediocre staff, that same company will be a formidable force. Why? Because employees rise to the expectations of their leaders — companies with the best leaders will ultimately have the best employees.

Project managers are leaders and, therefore, teachers. (See “Duties of the Effective Project Manager,” PM Network, September 1999.) When unsure how to proceed with a soft issue, seek counsel, but avoid doing nothing. (See “What Good is a PM Mentor?” PM Network, April 1999.) Professional maturity of project members will improve based on your acknowledgment of this pervasive problem and willingness to become part of the solution. Now, go make a difference!

If you keep an open mind, criticism can be a potent learning aid.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

In April’s column I discussed how criticism can — negatively affect us, reasons why we allow it to control us, and lessons to learn about criticism. This column discusses a method for dealing effectively with criticism.

Being negatively affected by criticism is a learned behavior. For many of us, our families, friends, school, and work environments have taught us that if we want another person’s approval, if we want to be liked and accepted by others, then we need to alter our behavior to accommodate our criticizers. This view is so widespread that most of us have it engraved into our makeup, as part of the core of what we perceive ourselves to be. Intentionally or not, people use criticism as a form of controlling our actions, controlling us. And we use criticism as a tool for controlling or hurting others.

How does one change the way he or she deals with criticism? Every time you receive criticism, constructive or destructive, ask yourself the following question and respond accordingly: Can I benefit in any way from the — criticism?

If the answer is yes, then welcome the opportunity to learn and grow, to be stronger tomorrow than you are today. If appropriate, show appreciation for the input.

If the answer is no, then discard the input and proceed with your plans.

You might think that this sounds too easy. It is not easy. It requires practice, and lots of it. But then, you have all kinds of opportunity to practice — each time you receive criticism. You need to change the way you perceive criticism. It should not be viewed as a bad thing. Instead, it should be viewed as an opportunity to learn, to improve yourself and enhance what you can offer to others. Criticism is truly a — potent learning aid, if we view it in the positive light that it deserves.

Criticism is here to stay. You can deal with it or be maimed or destroyed by it. You can learn and grow from it or slowly withdraw and fall apart from it.

Below is an exercise that can help you distinguish constructive criticism from destructive criticism and help you be able to effectively deal with any criticism when it occurs. Although, at first glance, this may seem to be a simple thing to do, you might find that your capabilities to deal with criticism when you are “under the gun” can be greatly diminished. This exercise can help prepare you to quickly distinguish between criticism that holds merit or criticism having empty value — and to conduct yourself — accordingly.

List every piece of criticism that you received over the past day or two. List everything, no matter how insignificant the remark or action seems to be. Follow your journey throughout the day and recall the people you had contact with, whether in person, on the telephone, through the mail, through a computer terminal, or whatever. Develop a list of at least 10 criticisms.

Now examine each item and mark whether it is an example of constructive (C) or destructive (D) criticism. If you can learn anything at all of value, mark it as constructive. As you mark each entry, recall how you felt when you received the criticism. Did it bother you? If so, recall what was said in Part 1 of this article about never allowing criticism to negatively impact your thoughts or performance. Visualize, as if the incident was being replayed, how you could have maintained your inner control. Repeat these actions for each item in the list. The more you visualize yourself maintaining your inner control and acknowledging the lessons you receive from constructive criticism, the more you are programming your mind to behave in the manner you truly desire. Practice this enough and it will become a part of the way you think and operate.

AS PROJECT LEADERS, it is essential that we deal effectively with criticism, both when receiving and when transmitting criticism. Our performance, as well as the performance of those within our domain of responsibility, will greatly benefit.

“Criticism is something we can avoid easily — by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” –Aristotle

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

WHO ISN’T FAMILIAR WITH CRITICISM? It comes from everywhere — friends, relatives, co-workers, supervisors, even strangers. While there is little we can do to prevent criticism from coming our way, there are ways of dealing with criticism that can turn it into a positive experience.

As project leaders, it is essential that we deal effectively with criticism. Let’s explore this powerful, yet often shunned, evaluation of our actions and behavior.

Criticism, for many of us, has the effect of penetrating our fragile self-esteem, often leaving us to analyze and question the truth behind the image we have of ourselves. For some, criticism can cut even deeper, and depression can seep into our being and leave us with a sharp sense of desperation — we just want to hide, to be left alone.

Why does criticism affect so many of us in this negative way? Some of the reasons for the control it appears to have over us include these:

• We fear rejection by the people who are part of our world — we don’t want to be turned upon.
• We are afraid that the criticism has merit and that we are wrong — we don’t want to look stupid.
• We don’t like the image we have of ourselves and the criticism reenforces our negative self-image.
• We are frustrated because people won’t give us a chance to see how effective we really can be — they often seem to focus on the “bad” parts of us.

We can overcome these reasons for allowing others to negatively affect us. But know that you — and I — will never escape criticism. More often than not, you have no control over the criticism that comes your way. I repeat: You have no control. So, what can you do?

Learn to Expect Criticism. Criticism is going to happen. It is part of the reality in which we live. If you learn to expect criticism, you are far less likely to be caught off guard and far more likely to remain in control when the criticism arrives.

Learn to Recognize, Accept, and Welcome Constructive Criticism. Criticism can be categorized as either constructive or destructive. You should welcome constructive criticism; that is, criticism that is well meaning and intended to be useful. Constructive criticism should leave you with the feeling that you have been helped, that you have learned something about yourself and the impact that your actions are having on others.

But what about destructive criticism? Destructive criticism is input you receive that might have malicious overtones. This type of criticism offers no value to the recipient that would allow him or her to learn and grow from the experience.

A cautionary note: What appears to be destructive criticism is often constructive criticism delivered by a person who has difficulty expressing thoughts in a nonaggressive, tactful, and articulate manner. Listen carefully to apparently destructive criticism for useful information that it might be disguising.

Never Allow Criticism, Constructive or Destructive, to Negatively Impact Your Thoughts or Performance. At some time or other, you will find people who disapprove of your behavior or your decisions. (You might even project those feelings toward others from time to time.) Even the people you love, and who love you, will, at times, disapprove of your actions. Keep in mind that other people’s opinions are just that — opinions. If you allow what other people say about you to immobilize you, to negatively impact your thoughts or performance, then you are saying, in effect, that what other people think about you is more important than what you think about yourself.

What you think about yourself must always be more important to you than what others think about you. If you need the approval of others before you can feel good about yourself, you are giving permission to others to control you. If you don’t think well of yourself, it will show through in the relationships you have. People would rather be around those who feel good about who and what they are. It is OK and healthy to think well about yourself. This is not a selfish, uncaring action. Quite the opposite. It simply means that you have more to give to others if you think and feel good about yourself.

IN JUNE’S COLUMN, I’ll discuss an effective method for dealing with criticism.

Here’s how to get the most from your contractors, while reducing the overall risk to your project.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

WHAT DO I MEAN BY CONTRACTOR? A person who has been hired to perform one or more activities. The contractor typically resides at the purchasing company’s location and works alongside other contractors and company employees. The contractor might work under the direction of a representative of the contractor’s company or might work directly under the direction of the purchasing company.

Today, more than ever, contractors are integral to the success of most companies. However, many company employees — some in management — often resent contractors and treat them as second-class members of a project. This thinking is professionally immature, shortsighted, and, simply, bad business. Let’s look at a short list of actions that can help ensure that you obtain the best performance from your contractors.

Immediately Take the Time to Teach Them the Rules of Working in the Organization. Contractors don’t know the rules for working in your company and on your project. A 30-minute introductory class is an example of teaching them what they need to know…and informing them of what is off limits. Contractors are not to be treated as company employees, but they must have access to information and resources that are required for them to perform satisfactorily on their project.

Welcome Them as “Full” Members of the Project Team. If you expect to draw upon their full potential, contractors should be made to feel like wanted and needed members of the project team. Treat them with the respect and dignity of first-class members and they will perform so. This means expecting the same — no more, no less — from contractors as you do from other project members. For example, a contractor’s progress typically should be tracked with the same frequency, intensity, and method as any other project member’s.

Clarify From Whom They Take Direction. Contractors can operate successfully in a number of modes of giving or taking direction, such as being self-directed or taking direction from other contractors. However, whenever possible and appropriate, it is recommended that contractors work under the direction of a company employee. Typically, this helps a company to better maintain control over its interests.

Ensure Their Continual Education to Keep Them Satisfactorily Productive. Contractors are hired for their knowledge and skills. However, there almost always will be new information, technologies, and/or processes that they will need to learn. Expect to provide various types of training and education when needed. (Who picks up the tab is negotiable.) But take care to provide only the education and training needed — and no more. Why? For two key reasons: (1) “over-educating” will cut into their productivity, and (2) contractors are usually considered a temporary resource; therefore, invest only to the point that you must to get the job done.

It is Far More Efficient to Weed Out Nonperformers Before They are Hired. Although most contractors whom you select will perform well, expect that occasionally you will discover a poor performer. Sometimes it can take months to do so…and more months to recover. Plan ahead to weed out the poor performers as early as possible. One technique is to beef up the interview process. Another is to give newly hired contractors a specific piece of work that they can demonstrate their skills on immediately — something that can be completed within one to four weeks.

Awards Can Help Draw Out the Best Performance. Consider allowing contractors to earn awards. You might want to designate a specific award that only a contractor can earn. You are missing a great opportunity for motivating excellence among your contractors if you have no way to reward them individually for exceptional performance.

CONTRACTORS ARE A VALUED resource to cherish and nurture. Make the best use of this business investment. Everyone wins! [Note: You should always consult your legal representative regarding the treatment of contractors.]

Parse document-related activities into a series of smaller activities.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

I FREQUENTLY REVIEW project plans. A common weakness I encounter is the underplanning of project documents. Project documents include any documents that must be prepared and approved during a project; examples are requirements, specifications, contracts with vendors, design documents, test plans, and publications that will be delivered to the client along with the final product.

For example, if a project plan identifies an activity as “Test Plan” and shows a duration of six weeks, what does this mean? Does it mean that the Test Plan document can be prepared, reviewed, updated, and approved all in six weeks? Or does it mean only that the Test Plan will be prepared? Big difference!

Document-related activities should be parsed into smaller, more discrete activities when developing a project plan. These discrete activities are referred to as document implementation phases. The logical sequence of these phases is preparation, review, update, approval, and refresh. Let’s briefly look at each of these five phases.

Preparation. This is usually the longest of the phases and can vary from several hours for very small, simple documents to many weeks for large, complex documents.

Review. This phase begins when the document is distributed for examination. This phase is typically several days to several weeks in duration, depending on the document type, size, and availability and proximity of reviewers. Documents distributed for review should be essentially complete—no sections should be missing or significantly deficient. The goal is for all information to be available, complete, and accurate.

Update. This phase is used to modify a document in response to comments from reviewers. Time is set aside to react to comments and concerns that, once addressed, will ensure a better product or project. This phase may be from several days to several weeks in duration depending on the document and the quantity and complexity of the problems identified. All updates to the document should be highlighted, such as the use of revision bars in the margins. This will allow reviewers to locate quickly the most recent changes to the document.

Approval. This is the final opportunity for responses on a document. This phase is called approval because final agreement on the document’s contents must be reached here. This phase might take from several days to several weeks.

Refresh. The last phase is used to record any changes to the document that have occurred during the approval phase. The document is then distributed for information purposes only; no more comments are expected or solicited. This phase could take as little as one hour or as long as several weeks.

Some documents might need only the three phases: preparation, approval, and refresh. These documents are typically small in size, cause little controversy, and would require little change from a first review. Documents that require all five phases are those that are considered critical or complex project documents. To omit the review and update phases for documents that are considered primary is usually a grave mistake.

Although the five phases described here are adequate for most documents, you might choose to identify other phases for some documents. For example, separate phases related to customer validation or inspection might be added.

However many phases you assign to a document, it is important to separately identify, plan, and track these phases. Returning to our original example, “Test Plan—6 weeks” is better planned and tracked by parsing that document into smaller activities, such as Prepare Test Plan—2.5 weeks, Review Test Plan—1 week, Update Test Plan—1 week, Approve Test Plan—1 week, and Refresh Test Plan—.5 weeks.

PROJECT PLANNING IS all about getting in control. Dividing a document-related activity into smaller activities helps you do just that.

Progress on a project cannot be measured unless a plan has been established against which it can be measured.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

Last month’s column (Part 1) addressed frequently asked questions about project planning. This column continues the focus on and the questions most frequently asked about effective project planning.

Q. What is the difference between a top-down plan and a bottom-up plan? A top-down plan typically is developed by one person (or a small subset of people on a project). It suggests a set of high-level schedules, costs, and risks. A top-down plan should not be conveyed to management or the client as a committed plan, only as a targeted plan. Top-down planning is an essential business exercise that helps stakeholders get a better feel for the size, cost, and complexity of a project. A bottom-up plan is developed with the participation of virtually all members of a project. All activities are identified (not just the significant ones), along with the activity owners, activity durations, the dependencies among activities, and other information. A bottom-up plan represents the plan that should be committed and is considered reasonable risk.

Q. Contracts are often based on top-down planning. Are you saying that these plans should not be committed? It is not realistic to wait for the critical mass of project members to be onboard before estimating plan commitments for a contract. With contracts, it is important that the final proposal be carefully reviewed before it is submitted. It also should include sufficient contingency to help address the unknown.

Q. Who should approve the project plan? All stakeholders. Project members approve their own portions of the project plan as well as those portions that affect their domain of responsibility. For the project manager, this translates to having approval rights on the entire plan. Resource managers approve those portions that affect their resource commitments. The product manager, sponsor, and/or client approve the major aspects of the plan such as scope, schedules, costs, and quality.

Q. Who has the final say on the approval of the project plan? The person in management who has the most at stake based on the successful outcome of the project has the final approval from within the project’s organization. The project manager works on behalf of this person, often called the product manager or sponsor. However, ultimately, the client has the final approval if the project is directed toward a specific client.

Q. When should a project plan be replanned? Routine changes to the project plan will occur as a result of the change control process chosen to address changes in scope. As a result, in some cases, it is possible that significant portions of the project plan must be replanned. However, other events could trigger replanning a project. Examples include if the project schedules/costs are continuing to erode and the original plan is no longer achievable, or if there are changes in the project’s ground rules that could affect the plan (for example, availability of resources and/or shifting priority of project). Consideration also should be given to replanning the project at the end of major phases. When a project is first planned, many assumptions are made. As the project achieves its major phases or milestones, better data is available from which to plan.

As last thoughts for you from these frequently asked questions, I have three: (1) Learn from the wisdom, “We never find time to do it right, but always find time to do it over.” Performing thoughtful planning the first time is always the best business choice. (2) The best project plan is aggressive, but achievable. Aggressive to maintain a healthy rate of productivity and competitiveness; achievable so that all stakeholders win. (3) Project planning is about getting in control; project tracking is about staying in control. The progress on a project cannot be measured unless a reasonable plan first has been established against which progress can be measured.

Note: In response to a reader’s comment, here is an update relative to “Who should approve the project plan:” Anyone whose domain of responsibility is affected by the project plan must have the ability to approve his or her dependencies and commitments. That approval could either be direct or through a representative.

“The beginning is the most important part of the work,” said Plato. I agree!

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

Effective project planning is vitally important to the success of a project, yet on many projects planning is weak. Here are responses to some frequently asked questions about this crucial activity.

Q. What is the primary purpose for a project plan? Project planning is about getting in control. Until a project has a comprehensive plan to follow, it cannot convincingly be defended as being under control. The project plan serves as a road map of project activities, is critical to achieving a healthy productivity rate for the project’s members, is the keystone for project communications, and is the baseline from which to gauge progress. Note: Project tracking is about staying in control and can only be effective after a reasonable plan is in place from which to track.

Q. When should a project plan be started? A preliminary project plan should be available within the first week that a project manager (PM) is assigned to a project. It should address the next two to four weeks of activities and requires no approval other than by the PM. It is used to ensure that the PM, as well as project members coming onboard, are making reasonable progress. Until a comprehensive project plan can be put in place, the PM must always have a near-term plan from which to pace progress.

Q. What events should occur before a comprehensive project plan can be created? Minimally, these events should occur: the project manager is assigned; the requirements (problems to be solved) are completed and approved; a scope statement (very-high-level solution addressing the problems) is completed and approved; and a critical mass of project members are assigned and working the project. For some projects, detailed specifications or a statement of work also is completed and approved. For the more process-mature projects, additional exhibits are in place, such as a project management methodology and a project charter defining, among other things, roles and responsibilities.

Q. It appears that the PM is responsible for the project plan. True? True. The project plan is created according to the direction given by the project manager. Every project member contributes to it, and the PM ensures that all aspects of the plan are carefully reviewed and approved. The PM defends the right plan on behalf of all project stakeholders and is held personally accountable for both the completeness and the performance of the plan.

Q. Is it wrong for the client, sponsor, or head executive to preset the project completion date? Not at all! This date is helpful to allow the project team to understand the sense of urgency of the project and to attempt to achieve the target date. A problem arises only if the project team cannot possibly achieve the target date, yet it is mandated anyway.

Q. Referring to the last question/answer, what can the PM do if directed by a superior to provide a plan that, on paper, appears to achieve the end date but in reality is unrealistic? The project manager has the responsibility to defend the right plan. If the PM is unsuccessful, then several steps can be taken. (1) Solicit a respected third party to assess the reasonableness of the project plan with the expectation that that person backs up the PM’s assessment. (2) Put metrics in place so that early warning signs can be seen if the progress of the project plan begins to wane. (3) At the end of each major phase of the project plan, add the activity, “Resize Project Plan.” This will allow a more accurate estimate for the remaining phases.

Q. But what if the project end date is contractual? Isn’t it a waste of time to resize the project? All the more reason to resize the project when better estimates can be provided. If you have a committed project completion date, it is imperative to understand the obstacles so that they can be mitigated. Perhaps the original end date cannot be achieved; however, everyone will be pulling together to minimize the damage.

NEXT MONTH, IN PART 2, I’ll respond to more frequently asked questions about project planning, while continuing on a quest to add more thoughtfulness to an often ineffectively performed activity.

Rather than just talking about the improvements you want, why not plan and execute them.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

THIS SHORT ARTICLE MIGHT SAVE you a lot of time and money. It could even be the cause of decreasing your time-to-market and increasing your revenue/profit, quality, and customer sat ratings! Skeptical? Read on.

Here is a highly effective approach that I frequently use with clients to help them improve the performance of their organizations and the projects within those organizations. However, you don’t need an outside consultant to make this happen.

1. Invite People to a Brainstorming Session. The participants come from across the organization and should be the power players-the leaders. These are people who typically have the most knowledge and experience about the processes, tools, and products. Strive to have a large percentage of the participants be other than managers.
2. Conduct the Brainstorming Session. The objective is for the participants to brainstorm, identifying the most important problems facing the organization that, if properly addressed, could have a positive, measurable impact on the overall performance of the organization. Depending on the size of the organization, this session might include from five to 20 persons and take from one to three hours.
3. Identify the Top Three to Five Problems to Solve. After a reasonably exhaustive list of key problems has been brainstormed, select the top three to five problems. An effective approach is to list all the brainstormed problems on flipcharts and attach these charts to the meeting room walls. Then, with everyone participating, assign a weight to each problem such as high, medium, and low. There may be anywhere from 10-50 problems identified, but only a relatively small number will be judged high. Identify the most critical.
4. Assign Owners to These Problems. A different person should be assigned to champion the solution of each problem. These owners have the responsibility to drive these problems to closure and will be evaluated on their results (not effort) to institutionalize the solutions across the organization.
5. Create a Project Plan for Addressing Each Problem. Deriving the solution for each problem and institutionalizing that solution becomes a project plan. The assigned owners now become project managers and each project manager will plan and track his or her project through its completion. The plan will show that many members will play a role on each project, even if the role is only to review and approve appropriate deliverables.
6. Track Each Project Plan Weekly. A senior project manager (SPM) is assigned to review weekly the progress of each plan. The SPM works, one-on-one, with each project manager. This step is essential as a check-and-balance to ensure that these plans are progressing as needed.
7. Repeat Steps 1-6 Every Six Months. After the top three to five problems have been addressed, now identify the next layer of top three to five problems and work them off in the same fashion.

Here’s a sample list of common top problems that frequently surface; the problems are listed as “what is needed”:

• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for project members (for example, project manager, team leader, business architect)
• A consistent project management methodology defined, documented, and followed
• An effective portfolio management process to nominate and prioritize projects
• Dedicated project managers and resource managers
• A defined and communicated awards program.

A project plan for, say, the first bullet, might include milestones such as the following: define and obtain agreement on the problem; draft a high-level solution to the problem and have it reviewed by a short list of peers; draft the solution and have it approved by the appropriate organization’s members; train the members of the organization so they understand the roles and responsibilities; enforce compliance as new projects are started.

MY EXPERIENCE SHOWS that almost all problems can be solved and institutionalized within three to six months. Now that’s progress!

Do what’s best for your domain of responsibility, not what’s best for your company.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

WHEN YOU START WORK each day, do not focus on moving your company forward. If possible, do not focus on your company at all. Yes, you read correctly.

Instead, channel your energies on successfully completing your assignments … your domain of responsibility. If everyone in your company focused on his or her domain of responsibility, the company would do just fine. In fact, your company probably would be more successful than it is today.

What do I mean by your domain of responsibility? It includes all responsibilities and commitments that fall within the scope of your assignment. This is the area for which you are accountable. Whether you are a one-person project, a member of a 10-person project, or a member of a 1,000-person project, your project’s success-and, therefore, your company’s success-has a direct relationship to how well you perform in your domain of responsibility.

If you reach outside your domain of responsibility and attempt to fix or improve something there, I view this to be extra credit in terms of your actions and your performance. I am not a proponent of pursuing extra credit, especially if that extra credit is at the sacrifice of successfully completing your commitments in your domain of responsibility. It has been my experience that if one focuses superbly in his or her domain of responsibility, one’s contributions and overall career will shine brightly-even without the extra credit.

It is important to understand the difference between your domain of responsibility and extra credit. Let’s look at an example.

You are a project manager of a new project. You also are a member of an organization that has many projects managed concurrently. The organization does not have well-defined project management best practices that you can adopt for your project. Therefore, you (or others at your direction) must define satisfactory practices to be followed on your project. The pursuit of these tasks is not extra credit because you need well-defined practices to support the success of your project.

However, the project management practices you define should be created only for your project. They should not be designed and documented to become institutionalized for other projects to use. If they are prepared in a manner to be used beyond your project, then these actions are examples of extra credit. To perform the extra credit would require much more time to be invested at the expense of your project.

In the course of performing your commitments, any action that you feel you must perform in order to successfully complete your commitments becomes a part of your domain of responsibility. It often is easy to shrug off being accountable for items that require other people’s/organization’s/company’s actions. But if these actions are required to successfully complete your commitments, it becomes your duty to ensure that these actions occur.

Here are a few examples of items that are in a project manager’s domain of responsibility but often are weakly pursued:

• Adopting/defining PM best practices for the project
• Ensuring client participation
• Obtaining commitments from others and then holding them accountable
• Escalating project-related issues to achieve their timely closure
• Enforcing effective change control to manage scope creep
• Defending the right project plan to the project sponsor, executives, or client
• Boldly driving your project to a successful completion, not waiting for someone else to do it for you.

FOCUSING ON YOUR DOMAIN of responsibility doesn’t mean that you don’t care about your company. Your actions demonstrate the opposite. The success of your assignments strengthens the success of your company. If you want to turn a company around, then turn around the thinking of the members of that company. Refocus the members on being accountable for their domains of responsibility and the rest will follow.

Use this agenda to navigate your project meeting and stay a course for maximum results.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

LAST MONTH’S COLUMN addressed frequently asked questions about project tracking meetings. As a follow-up, this column addresses the major subjects of focus at these meetings. While project tracking meetings can be conducted in a wide variety of formats, I have found the following approach to be especially effective. These subjects are presented at tracking meetings in the order described here.

Project High-Priority Areas. The project manager displays the top three to five problems now plaguing the project, while their “owners” report any late-breaking news. These problems are currently impacting a major project milestone (often called an “issue”) or have the potential (called a “risk”) to do so. The project manager tracks these high-priority areas daily, all other project progress/problems are tracked weekly.

Overview of Project Progress. The project manager presents this information on a single chart that lists the project’s major milestones. The chart is first presented as a high-level view of the project plan and is updated for each tracking meeting to illustrate the “big picture” of where the project’s progress is in relation to where it was planned to be. This chart has special interest to the project’s sponsor and client. It is expected to be a reasonably good view of the forest without obstruction from all the trees. The chart likely will require updating by the end of the tracking meeting after all participants have presented their status.

Progress of Project Activities. Each participant of a project tracking meeting presents their status against their portion of the project plan. This status includes metrics to substantiate the progress made, identifies their top three to five priorities and their corresponding status, and a 30-day outlook of what can be expected, including whether or not help is required.

Progress of Action Items. An action item is a project problem that is logged, assigned to an owner to resolve, and then tracked until it is closed. The owners of action items present their progress. Presentations of action items can be performed at the same time a participant has the floor to present his or her progress of project activities.

Project Outlook. The project manager forecasts a 30-day outlook for the project. That is, 30 days from now, will the project be on schedule, within cost, and what is the overall likelihood (high, medium, low) that the project will complete as planned? Although this information initially should be prepared before the meeting, it is likely that it must be altered real-time based on the latest information collected at the meeting.

Schedule Work/Escalation Meetings. The project manager spends the last moments of the meeting declaring what project activities and action items require special attention over the next two to three days. If possible, these meetings should be scheduled now, preferably for the following day. These meetings typically become priorities within the project.

THE MEETING AGENDA should be published and followed throughout the meeting. The project manager has the authority to declare that only a subset of the participants present their plan status, as well as which action items are presented. All status not presented must still be submitted to the project manager at the end of the meeting. This allows the project manager to study the status without subjecting everyone to presentations on other than the currently most important areas of the project plan and action items.

The project manager must lead these meetings so that they run on schedule and are productive. A beneficial technique is for the project manager to assign a scribe to record the meeting notes so that the project manager is free to concentrate on effectively running the meeting. This meeting and its derivative actions serve as the primary driving force behind the project. As these meetings go … so goes the project.

Project tracking is about staying in control–being proactive, not reactive.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

THE PROJECT TRACKING MEETING and its derivative actions serves as the primary driving force behind the project. Here are responses to some frequently asked questions about this control mechanism.

What is the primary purpose for project tracking meetings?
Project planning is about getting in control. Project tracking is about staying in control. The No. 1 reason for project tracking meetings is to identify potential project problems before they occur. The No. 2 reason is to ensure that recovery plans are put in place before unrecoverable harm occurs. Project tracking is predominately focused on being proactive, not reactive.

How often should a project formally be tracked?
Project tracking meetings should occur once a week. (The exceptions are small-duration projects that are only several weeks or less in duration, in which case, project tracking meetings could occur more frequently.) Meeting less often than each week can delay the discovery or discussion of serious problems, which can harm the successful outcome of the project. Meeting more frequently than weekly can be quite unproductive and waste scarce time, because it requires members of the project tracking meeting to spend additional time preparing more than one progress status per week. It also requires the project tracking meeting members to spend additional time in meetings rather than being free to work their plans.

Does it matter what day of the week the project tracking meeting is conducted?
Yes. Routine project tracking meetings are very important to the health of a project and require participants to attend-on time and prepared. Therefore, avoid having meetings on Mondays or Fridays; these days are often used as holidays or personal days for extended weekends. Furthermore, meeting participants use Mondays to catch up on progress that may have occurred over the weekend. This leaves Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for the meeting. My favorites are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, because I like to reserve the day after the project tracking meeting for work and escalation meetings to address unresolved issues or new issues identified from the meeting. This means that Thursday would be used as the reserved day if the project tracking meeting were held on Wednesday.

What if project members find themselves assigned to more than one project?
If there are multiple ongoing projects across an organization and, referring to the answer to the previous question, all project tracking meetings were held on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, it seems that there would be too many meeting conflicts. However, most organizations seldom experience this problem. In those cases where it does occur, the project managers need to meet among themselves and carefully coordinate their project tracking meetings to avoid such conflicts.

Who should attend project tracking meetings?
Everyone might attend for small projects of, say, 10 or fewer members. For all larger sized projects, a representative from each organization or team would attend. Managers typically should not own activities or tasks and, therefore, are optional attendees. However, the most effective managers will attend as often as they can to support their employees who are assigned to the project.

Is it overkill for the project tracking meeting participants to meet briefly every day?
The weekly, formal project tracking meeting is a must. However, here is an additional technique that can work surprisingly well: The project manager can meet with participants of the project tracking team for 15-30 minutes at the start of each workday to ensure that the top-priority problems are receiving the attention they require. This mostly is an informal meeting that requires little preparation, if any, from the participants.

Any last thoughts?
If you don’t have a reasonable plan from which to track a project, don’t bother having project tracking meetings.

Is your PMO just expensive overhead, or does it provide services with direct benefits to your organization?

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

LET’S FIRST DEFINE what I mean by a PMO. A project management office (PMO), sometimes called a project office, is a group of people that includes project managers whose mission is to support project managers in the successful launch, implementation, and completion of their projects. This includes performing any tasks that can benefit current or future projects. This mission can be interpreted narrowly or broadly, depending on the budget and overall objectives of a PMO.

Unfortunately, many PMOs are not well received or well respected across an organization. A PMO might be viewed by the organization it serves as simply being overhead, an expensive, bureaucratic fad consuming scarce funding and resources, and providing questionable or weak value based on its costs to the organization. Many times this is an earned reputation! But an ineffectual or unsatisfactory reputation can be turned around as the PMO takes on a plethora of value-added activities.

When a PMO provides services that have a direct benefit to an organization and its projects, a good reputation is inevitable. For example, look at the following starter list of services that a PMO can provide, and ask yourself if such a PMO would be welcomed in your organization.

• Provides well-trained and competent project managers to run key projects (see “Duties of the Effective Project Manager,” PM Network, September 1999).
• Provides project management consulting periodically as requested.
• Develops, documents, and maintains project management best practices.
• Reviews contract proposals from vendors or from within the home organization.
• Sponsors project management education seminars and classes.
• Conducts project culture training (see “Change the Culture in Your Organization … Project by Project,” PM Network, August 1999).
• Performs project reviews (see “Project Reviews-Looking Inside From Outside,” PM Network, May 1999).
• Performs postproject reviews.
• Ensures that new projects are applying lessons learned (see “Are You Learning From Project to Project?” PM Network, March 1999).

The PMO has the responsibility for educating the organization it serves about the benefits it brings to projects, as well as the benefits it brings to the overall enterprise. A PMO must be able to defend its existence. It must create and track metrics that can show the results of its positive contributions. For example, a PMO should survey its customers, both internal and external, on a routine basis to verify that it truly is adding value, and the value is measurable and consistently improving.

The strength and reputation of a PMO rests first with the effectiveness of its project managers. For example, if the project managers are not receiving the proper training, coaching, and mentoring, they will likely be ineffective. If the project managers have a weak mastery of the needed soft skills, then they will likely be too soft to be sufficiently effective (see “The #1 Reason Why Project Managers Fail: Too Soft!” PM Network, December 1997). The effectiveness of project managers can be influenced by the support that they receive from mentors, one another, and the PMO support personnel (see “What Good is a PM Mentor?” PM Network, April 1999). The reputation of the project managers will directly reflect on the reputation of the PMO.

RESIST USING A PMO for implementing activities that provide questionable value to projects and, therefore, to the organization. Be aggressive in defining a PMO that boldly seeks to improve the overall success of the projects and the organization it serves (see “Boldness! You Cannot Be a Consistently Effective Leader If You Don’t Have It,” PM Network, January 2000). The respect your PMO receives over time will be the respect it earns.

The project manager who is not sufficiently technical in his chosen industry can expect to experience a serious handicap.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

THE SINGLE MOST INFLUENTIAL person on a project is the project manager. The project manager is ultimately accountable for the successful planning and execution of the project. In this lead capacity, the project manager works with the troops in the trenches-where the real day-to-day work is performed. The leadership exhibited by the project manager will more directly influence and impact more people than any other position … and can profoundly impact the outcome of the project.

As more individuals, organizations, companies, and institutions turn on to the great benefits of adopting project management practices, more people are being placed in project leadership positions without sufficient technical training, mentoring, or experience. A question increasingly being asked today is, “How technical must a project manager be to be sufficiently effective?”

What do I mean by technical? If a project manager is well versed and experienced in the application of project management principles, yet is relatively new to the industry (software development, shipbuilding, commercial construction, aircraft development, for example) where the principles will be applied, the project manager can expect to experience a serious handicap. The project manager will have difficulty with the terminology, the technology, and knowing when and what questions to ask and sufficiently being able to understand the responses. Can the project manager learn? Yes. Can the project manager be highly effective on his first project with this technical handicap? Not likely!

Let’s look at an example: I sometimes ask the participants of software project management classes that I conduct if they think that I would be an effective project manager of a project building the next generation of commercial aircraft. The class participants know that I have 30 years of experience in software development, project management, and leadership assignments. They assume that I am proficient in project management, having, to date, written four books related to the subject. Most participants usually respond, yes, that I would be a good project manager candidate. I would not be a good candidate!

You don’t have to be the smartest, most technically knowledgeable person on the project to be the project manager. You do, however, have to have the knowledge, skills, and experience to be able to recognize when problems surface or potential problems are looming. You must be able to articulate those problems, bring the right people together to solve those problems, and know when the problem has been properly addressed and closed-all this with the proper sense of urgency that the problem requires. With essentially no experience in building aircraft, I would make costly mistakes that an experienced aircraft-related project manager easily would have avoided.

Let’s look at another, but more pervasive, example: Picture a person who is relatively new to both the project management profession and to a discipline, say, software development. Would that person be an effective project manager of her first software development project, particularly one of a respectable size? No! Why? Because, in addition to having weak project management skills, that person would not understand the terminology and technology being employed on the project, such as … What is a reasonable software development process to follow? What are reasonable productivity rates for performing design, code, test, and documentation work? How important are design and code reviews? What testing is essential to perform? … You get the idea.

A PROJECT MANAGER, in addition to having a workable grasp of project management concepts, must also be astute in the technical aspects of the discipline within which these concepts must be employed. If the project manager is not sufficiently technical, then you can expect cost, schedule, quality, and functional problems to occur that would otherwise have been avoided or reduced in magnitude. Training, mentoring, and evolving experience can help a project manager gain the necessary technical skill to be effective. How technical are you?

Author’s note: The project manager must be sufficiently technical. This requirement, however, is far from being highly technical or being the most technical person on the project. It is more a matter of having a sufficient level of domain knowledge regarding terminology and technology that the project engulfs. It also is a matter of demonstrating the leadership to draw upon the technical knowledge and skills from across the project’s membership when needed.

Keep your project focus where it belongs, monitor your priorities daily, and keep your project on track.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

I HAVE OBSERVED many hundreds of projects, either as a project member or as an outsider. These projects consisted of from less than a handful of project members to well over a thousand, and project durations ranged from several weeks to several years. My experience has been that the top reason for projects in trouble is that the project’s most important problems are not managed effectively, nor with the sense of urgency they require.

All project members should manage to their top three priorities to make the most effective use of their time. (Actually, it’s the top three to five problems, but the term top three is used for brevity.) Let’s look at an example of how this is performed by a project manager.

First, identify the top three priorities. You probably already know what they are, but if you aren’t certain, then you can do the following. Assemble a small team consisting of project members holding key project positions. (If the project team is very small, then assemble the entire team.) Brainstorm and generate a list of project problems; then prioritize the list of problems based on the importance of them being solved. Truncate the list after the top three to five items, and focus only on what is left, on those at the top. Now assign a person to own each problem, preferably a different owner per problem. Each assigned person puts together a plan to resolve the problem. The plan can be called a priority management plan or a risk management plan. The plan identifies, at a minimum, the following items:

• Who owns the problem
• Activities to be performed to resolve the problem
• Owner of each activity (if different from the owner of the problem to be resolved)
• Dependencies that each of the activities have on other activities
• Duration of each activity
• Special items of note, if any, such as the likelihood of this problem occurring (if it is a risk)
• Persons who must sign off (approve) the plan; these are people with whom the plan has a dependency for it to be successful
• How the plan can be tracked daily.

Each plan must be trackable on a daily basis. (All other project problems are tracked on a weekly basis.) The owner of each of the top problems meets with the project manager at a designated time each day. For example, one problem owner meets in the project manager’s office from 4:00 to 4:15 p.m. each day, another meets from 4:15 to 4:30 p.m., and so on. Meeting each day, even if only for five minutes, shows the sense of urgency that is placed on resolving the problems. Each problem should be closed as soon as reasonably possible.

It is expected that an owner of a top problem is spending most of his or her time each day in solving the problem. If this is not the case, the person’s time on the project is not being used effectively.

As the top problems are worked off the priority list, assign and address the next level of priority problems, and so on throughout the project.

THE TOP PROBLEMS of a project are the areas that can cause the most harm. These problems must be identified, assigned, tracked, and resolved with the urgency they require. The project manager must exercise a great degree of leadership, vision, creativity, and discipline to ensure that the most important problems are being appropriately addressed. If a problem remains on the top-problems list very long, then the owner of the problem, as well as the project manager (if different), are not effectively performing their duties. Do you know your project’s top three problems?

The person who consistently displays bold behavior will far out-perform the person who does not.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

PICTURE THIS: You are observing two equally talented and skilled individuals. One person has a consistent performance record of demonstrating boldness, while the other exhibits little or none. What is the distinguishing difference between them regarding their achievements?

The person who consistently displays bold behavior will far out-perform the other. A behavior of boldness helps propel a person beyond what he or she might otherwise achieve. In fact, boldness has such a profound impact on the effectiveness of one’s performance that I find it curious that this trait is not more talked about in the leadership and project management arenas.

What do I mean by boldness? Boldness is the act of responding to a situation in a manner that may be viewed as daring to some, but is essential to effectively address the issue at hand. By boldness, I do not mean being rude, reckless, insensitive, arrogant, or a bully. None of these attributes are acceptable to any of us … ever!

All too often, I hear, “I have all the responsibility, but I don’t have the authority!” This is not true! The problem is that most of us do not take the authority. We do little more than grab the tip of the iceberg in seizing authority, in behaving boldly. For example, when was the last time your boss called you on the carpet for exceeding your authority? It has been my experience that most people cannot remember a time. If you can, and you did nothing illegal or unethical, then you are to be applauded.

Let’s look at some examples of project manager behavior that is essential for achieving a consistently effective performance. This behavior, for many, can require various degrees of boldness. Do you see yourself in these examples? Are you sufficiently bold … or are you too soft?

• Passionately defends the right project plan to the project sponsor, executives, and the client(s). Lead the project team in developing, scrubbing, and professionally defending the appropriate project plan.
• Escalates to higher levels of management-within two workdays-project-related problems that are at an apparent impasse for resolution. Drive critical and potentially critical problems to a timely and satisfactory closure.
• Behaves as if you have the authority to match your responsibility. Take charge as if you own your domain of responsibility, as if you are the true business owner.
• Drives good project management practices throughout the project. Initiate and establish effective project management discipline across a project.
• Asks for help when needed. You will never know all that you will need to know. Deliberately seek out the answers when they are needed.
• Assigns tasks to the appropriate project members. Don’t hesitate to insist that the right project members are assigned to, and effectively working on, problems that affect their domain of responsibility.
• Makes decisions as they are needed; doesn’t delay or abstain. Your timely decisions are crucial to effectively drive the project to achieve its objectives.
• Holds project members accountable for their commitments and actions. Work closely with project members to instill a sense of commitment and urgency in their actions.
• Focuses daily on the top three project problems and their corresponding solutions. Avoid being constantly sidetracked on lesser issues at the sacrifice of working on and solving the most important project problems.

OBSERVE THE PEOPLE around you who are making positive change in their organizations or projects. Their actions require boldness. After a while, you may not think of these co-workers as bold, but simply as effective leaders. However, boldness is an essential element of all consistently effective leaders.

Here’s my vote for the most altruistic, yet most influential, position in the organization.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

I RECENTLY WROTE an article called, “Duties of the Effective Project Manager” [PM Network, September 1999]. The article was widely embraced, and many readers requested that I also address the duties of resource managers. With the prominent role that is becoming increasingly popular for project managers, resource managers are becoming less sure of their role. Let’s take a closer look.

The No. 1 reason why employees leave a company is that they don’t feel appreciated. They don’t feel like anyone is championing their cause, looking out for them. Resource managers are the primary nurturers within an organization and company. They support their direct reports in helping them be successful in two key areas: meeting their project commitments and helping them to discover and achieve their potential in the organization and company. Let’s look at a short list of the more significant duties of resource managers (RMs).

Hires and fires. RMs must invest the time to hire qualified people who can help the projects achieve their goals. Also important is the need to appropriately address poor performers.
Performs resource planning and allocation. Only RMs can make job assignments. (A project manager can, however, assign tasks and action items as they relate to a project member’s assigned job.) RMs must anticipate and plan for future demands of their resources (direct reports).
Defines roles and responsibilities for direct reports. RMs ensure that their direct reports not only understand their jobs, but also understand how they will be measured against performing their jobs satisfactorily.
Supports direct reports in meeting their commitments. RMs work with their direct reports to help them be successful. This includes reviewing their plans and routinely tracking their progress.
Is a catalyst to resolve domain-related problems. RMs ensure that all problems within their domain are being addressed with the appropriate sense of urgency.
Evaluates performance of direct reports. Although verbal input from others can be solicited, RMs are fully accountable to work close enough with their direct reports to fairly evaluate their performance.
Compensates and awards direct reports. RMs have the duty to appropriately compensate and award. Better to err on the side of too many and too large awards, than too few and too small.
Provides career counseling and development. Each human resource needs to be nurtured to reach his or her potential. RMs must be available and accessible to work with and help develop their direct reports, including in areas of training and job opportunities.
Promotes a productive work environment. RMs have the responsibility to ensure continual improvement in the productivity of direct reports, both on long-term projects as well as from project to project.
Serves as channel for company communications. RMs serve as conduits for the dissemination of company-related information to direct reports. The RM puts a face on the corporation with which the direct reports can communicate.
Executes company policies and practices. RMs are the enforcement arm for company polices and practices as they relate to the RM’s domain of responsibility. This includes ensuring compliance with legal issues in such areas as products and services, workplace safety and contractor relationships.
Secures future work opportunities. RMs strive to practice a full employment policy for direct reports whose performance is satisfactory. The best RMs do not resort to downsizing as a standard or convenient method of managing the business. Instead, they accept responsibility for seeking and developing new business opportunities, while the direct reports focus on driving the day-to-day operations.

THE RESOURCE MANAGER has a nearly impossible job—with demands coming from every imaginable direction—yet a job that can have a profound impact on the organization’s success.

Whether they are clients, vendors, contractors or company employees, a project suffers when preferential treatment is given to any group or person.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

WHAT IF A PROJECT is made up of client personnel, vendors, and contractors, in addition to the company’s personnel? How should the project manager relate to each of these diverse groups?

This is a common problem on many projects, yet the answer is simple: Once people are assigned to a project, regardless of where they hail from, they must all be treated the same. No exceptions!

Exhibit 1 shows a project that consists of all of these groups. For purpose of illustration, each team is led by a team leader and is made up of a different group of project members: client personnel, vendor personnel, contractors, and company personnel. Note that, although not depicted in this example, it is possible that a team can consist of a mixture of people from these different groups.

Once the project members have been assigned to the project, the project manager should not focus on their origins. The focus must be on the project, the commitments from each team, and on the corresponding actions that each project member performs toward achieving their assigned tasks. The project manager sees everyone as a project member and will work with each person and group as if they were personnel from the same project team … because they are!

Each team is expected to have plans, commit to those plans, and track according to those plans. If any team is in trouble, or headed that way, the project manager initiates the attention required to help the team get back on plan. Every team is held just as accountable for their commitments as any other team.

I commonly see project managers treat the client’s personnel assigned to the project with kid gloves, quick to cut them slack at every turn. I often see vendors treated as if they are a “black box” that cannot be tampered with, their whims easily accepted as “cast in stone,” with no or little chance of altering. I see contractors treated as second-class members of the team, where project information is often withheld from them—information that they need to fully function as members of the project. And I often see company employees treated harshly because of the view that they are the most accessible project members and, therefore, the most easily manipulated.

A PROJECT’S SUCCESS is dependent upon the success of each and every project member. An effective project manager recognizes this and works consistently, firmly, and unbiasedly across all members of a project to ensure the project completes successfully.

Which do you practice: the “50/70 Rule” or the unreliable “50/50 Rule”?

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED that the “linear 50/50 rule” doesn’t seem to work well on your projects? That is, if you have an activity such as Prepare the Product’s Documentation, Code the Product’s Modules, or Run the System Test Scripts, when half of the allotted time for the activity has elapsed, you are 50 percent completed with the activity. Yet, when the remaining 50 percent of the time expires, the activity has not completed? This is a common problem on projects with activities that are made up of multiple so-called equivalent-weighted tasks.

For example, if we have 100 pages of material to write in 20 days (Prepare the Product’s Documentation), we expect the progress of writing the pages to represent a linear progression. That is, each page takes the same amount of time to write and that five pages can be expected to be completed every day. But the reality is that if you are only 50 percent complete with an activity when half the time has elapsed, the activity is almost certain to be completed late.

So, what can we do different? When planning an activity made up of many tasks that are approximately of the same level-of-effort, do not use the linear 50/50 rule. Instead, use the “S-shape curve 50/70 rule.” That is, when 50 percent of the time has elapsed, 70 percent of the work must have been completed. The remaining 30 percent of the work must be completed in the remaining 50 percent of time.

Let’s look at the exhibit to better understand what happens. The S-shape curve is common for planning many types of endeavors. It suggests that progress usually is slow at the start of an activity, builds to a peak when productivity is at its very best, and then slows again during the more difficult phase of completing the activity. Almost every activity you take on in life tends to play out this way. This is why many of us say we are on schedule midway into an activity, and believe we are, yet often are late in completing the activity.

THE NEXT TIME you are creating a plan for yourself, or are working with your team or project members in creating a plan, make sure that your plan takes into account the realities of the S-shape curve. Furthermore, when your progress is being tracked, show the planned progress as an S-shape curve where the vertical axis depicts the quantity being measured, such as the number of pages to be written, modules to be coded, or test scripts to be run. Then report your actual progress against your plan that is depicted as an S-shape curve.

“Project manager” is a job for those who want to make a difference.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

TRULY EFFECTIVE PROJECT MANAGERS are not easy to find. Although many people have the potential to become successful project managers, a person must first understand the duties of a project manager before he or she can be sufficiently effective in that role.

The project manager has the single most important position on a project and has the overall responsibility for its success. This position comes with a tremendous responsibility, accountability, ownership and authority. Because of the criticality of this role, project managers must be carefully selected, trained, and nurtured to give them every opportunity to be successful. Let’s look at a short list of the more significant duties of a project manager.

Has Full Responsibility and Accountability for the Project. The project manager, fully accountable for the outcome of the project, is the glue that holds the project together. The project manager leads the project with passion, as if it was his or her own business.
Applies Lessons Learned From Recent Projects. The project manager studies the lessons learned from prior projects and applies the most important lessons to the new project.
Defines Project Roles and Responsibilities. The project manager is ultimately responsible for ensuring that project members understand what is expected of them and what they should expect from one another.
Leads the Project Planning Activities. The project manager directs the creation, approval, and ongoing change control of the project plan.
Performs Project Tracking. The No. 1 reason for tracking a project is to discover potential problems before they occur. The project manager applies this proactive approach in routinely tracking the project members’ progress against their project commitments.
Adopts Project Management Best Practices. The project manager, not management, is responsible for defining, teaching, and enforcing the use of good project management practices.
Manages to Project Priorities; Performs Risk Management. The project manager understands that the No. 1 problem on all projects is that the most important problems are not being worked to a swift closure; therefore, most of the project manager’s time each day is dedicated to addressing the project’s top three-to-five priorities.
Communicates Project Status Upward and to the Client. No significant project status leaves the boundaries of the project without project manager approval.
Drives Decision-Making to Lowest Level Possible. The project manager drives ownership of decisions to the level where the accountability of the decision must lie. A key result is that project members, with proper training and coaching, will almost always rise to the expectations placed on them.
Promotes Client Involvement. The project manager recognizes that project success is directly related to satisfying the client; therefore, client involvement is essential to ensure that the right product is built.
Encourages and Supports Escalations. The project manager establishes a project culture where escalations to resolve “stagnant” problems are viewed as good business and not viewed as being personal.
Enforces Effective Change Control. The project manager ensures that scope creep, communications, and quality are carefully managed.
Mentors Project Members. The project manager is a teacher and a helper.
Promotes Good Working Relationships. The project manager serves as a role model in promoting good working relationships across a project.
Makes Things Happen. You don’t have to be the smartest, most knowledgeable person on the project to be the project manager. You do, however, have to have the knowledge, skills and experience to be able to recognize when problems surface or potential problems are looming. You must be able to articulate those problems, bring the right people together to solve those problems and know when the problem has been properly addressed and closed—all this with the proper sense of urgency that the problem requires.