Category Archives: PM-Professionals

Just recently I experienced how things show their human side in a project: We were doing well, actually better than the plan and under budget, not at least because we strictly kept with discipline to the rule “no change without approved Change Request”.

What should I tell you? All of a sudden, right before the finish of works, some desires for improvements that presumably could be done “just as a sideline” slipped in. Needless to say in passing and bypassing the Project Manager. But this guy got it: by the supplier’s change request flying on his desk. And see, by a more close and detailed assessment some collateral at some dependent tasks became visible that had not been recognized on the radar in the “back room”…

What do we learn from this? You can’t be everywhere as a Project Manager, ok. And relaxation is likely to lead, same as in real life, to a “let-yourself-go”, that seems human. That’s why it is even more important (as it is in sports) to keep up discipline and motivation, even and especially in times when all signs seem to be pointing towards easing of tension.

And of course the Project Manager must always go ahead with unquestionable authenticity as a good example, because if he gets sloppy this will not only rub off but will make himself insensitive for the weaknesses in his team!

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We have learned it in our PM education: 80% of a project manager’s work is necessary communication. Unfortunately I find structures in many companies that are not supportive at all for this purpose: Silo thinking, hierarchy level autism, but also overwhelming correspondence, reporting and meetings. Especially in troubled projects (but as well in those which are going to become alike) this phenomenon is widely spread.

Set Communication Rules

In time-critical projects – and actually when recovering a distressed project you almost have everything but much time – I made a good experience with provoking communication, even forcing it to happen. For this purpose I first need to state some rules for communication, such as “as direct and personal as possible first, only second via phone, and at last via email“. Many things simply are clarified much faster and without misunderstandings if you stand up, go over to your colleague, and jointly look at / talk through the issue with him. This is how you can overcome department borders without difficulty as well. And where geographical distance is prohibiting this a direct phone call, eventually supported by a screen sharing, is an effective and efficient medium. We all know endless email loops instead…

“Daylies for the Team Communication

Another effective means, especially at teams which are not used to close, interdisciplinary collaboration, I have adopted from the agile world: the brief daily Stand-up meeting, at best right in the morning. It forces all involved to exchange information concentrated at least once a day. It is important that it is conducted very disciplined, moderated by the Project Manager, and that it starts and ends punctually. A pin board or whiteboard is an effective tool to visualize and talk through the actual status of the “Sprint Backlog” in the meeting. This may be coming out a little bumpy at the beginning, but I soon received very positive feedback and results in all of my projects.

As a side effect this mostly has a good influence on the meeting culture in the project: they become less and shorter, because much has been already talked about in the “Dailies” or directly. The imperative of good preparation, discipline and punctuality often replicates here and gives security to the participants for their day planning.

Jour Fixes for Reporting

The project responsibles at the executive levels should also be tightly involved by the Project Manager with a regular meeting (Jour Fixe). And it also has proven successful to provide regular access to the “Project Plan” (mainly the schedule) to all involved to have them understand the interdependencies and maybe collaborate better.

However even with all “lean” communication we always need to follow the rule: Decisions have to be documented! No matter whether with (countersigned) meeting minutes or with a simple email “I have understood our conversation as follows…”

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For many people project management is mainly buerocratic overhead, for the majority of executives it is (still) a commodity. Actually the Project Manager’s work should obviously provide an added value to the project, and be it only that nothing important gets forgotten. For this we “educated” project managers have a bunch of tools and methods which we can scale and apply appropriately to the specific project situation.

Among the documents that to my opinion should not be missing in any project, not even in small ones, we have a resilient project order (Project Charter and Scope Description), a Change Management Process mandatory for all involved parties, and the Risk Management. All further components in the Project Management Plan may be included there in more or less formal and sophisticated shape.

How to incorporate this can be retrieved in the relevant professional literature, the grade of formalism needs to be determined right by the Project Manager according to the acceptance in the team and on executive level. It is important that the Project Order as well as the Project Management Plan is approved (countersigned) by all relevant stakeholders. Therefore it is recommendable for the PM to conduct an extensive stakeholder analysis right at the project start to not miss any important influencer or decider…

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In a big programme that I was asked to recover some time ago I had to search many weeks for competent project managers to lead the sub-projects. Not a single candidate presented to me by the procurement department was acceptable! Looking at the job offerings and ads in the relevant web portals I know why:

Most of the job profiles describe the duties of a project manager that general that everybody who once has done a (sub)project lead can identify himself with it. So many applicants of various quality show up along the lines of “let’s have a look…”. The interposed resource provider is ok with this (his primary interest is in the salary expectations to optimize his own margin), procurement has an (unsuitable) check list, and the selection is finally done by best price.

Describe your project elaborately in detail, its scope, frame conditions (departments involved, suppliers, external staff, stakeholders etc.), the professional requirements, less the technical or industry ones but especially those to the level of the Project Manager. That way the applicant, the recruiter, and the hiring instance can judge the candidate’s match correctly. Don’t have the salary be a criteria for the pre-selection – I myself tell my calculation principally not before I have achieved a common understanding about the job with my principal. Everything else would not be serious.

Better leave the search for professional staff to the HR than to the procurement department – in most cases there is more experience available with job assessments. And reserve the short listing, which you will present to your project sponsor together with your good advice, to yourself. That’s how you normally get people who are capable to do their jobs right and help you lead your project. And your principal thus saves a fortune for expensive experiments with cheap but overwhelmed “practitioners” or “experienced specialists” without sufficient PM skills…

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Unrealistic schedule targets, e.g. as a result of sales having promised too much, or because the boss striving for savings, often are the beginning of distress in the course of a project.

As bosses in many cases are driven by or thinking in numbers you can sometimes beat them with their own weapons. Conduct a realistic 3-Point-Estimation for all work packages in discussion. Then prove your position with statistic probabilities (standard deviation, confidence intervals), showing how certain the too short time constraint would fail. This will provide your “bad gut feeling” with data based security and convince a lot of your bosses.

Sales you may treat a little more subtle: Show to the Account Manager the alternatives to admit a mistake in calculation and re-negotiate the constraints now at the order’s beginning, or having to beg with expensive concessions for a period of grace afterwards…

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In my last project I had to deal with an “overly powerful” implementation partner, i.e. a company who can easily disrespect her customers’ interests just because of her sheer size and market position. Additionally these firms pay highest attention to not being contractually vulnerable – even in case that means they wouldn’t accept an order if it’s not according to their waterproof clauses, terms and conditions. Simple example: penalties are generally not accepted; therefore the customer has no lever or claim in case of delays.

That’s what we faced, too, and our project started right away with a delay of 2 weeks at the supplier. First it looked as if we had to swallow a postponement of all our milestones and pay the surplus cost on top. But we managed to make our big partner put in (for him) unusual efforts and resource allocations, and effectively catch up the delay in the remaining time.

How? Well, we simply always were one to two steps ahead of him. Our work packages and provisions were delivered absolutely on plan. Again and again we requested testing and approvals at our supplier, sent him test data, forced his hands. We couldn’t oblige him to anything, but obviously this pushing the progress touched his self-appeal and the motivation of his implementation team.

Anyway, after a quite bumpy start with much bueraucratic ping-pong we have merged and grown in a joint team which coordinately managed to make some “impossible” things happen, sometimes by putting a slant on impeding regulations and processes. A really fine success!

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