Monday, January 31, 2011
#3 and Feeling Good!
It has been a couple of weeks since my last post. No, I am not breaking my New Year's resolution, things have just been quite busy and the blessings continue to come! Here are several updates of what has been happening:
1) We received a message last night that this little old blog has been ranked #3 in a new listing of the Top 25 Blogs You Aren't Reading Yet. The two in front of this one are collaborative efforts, so we can say we are the #1 individually run (stretch much?). The list was published by Mr. Manager. You can read the article here:
http://mastersinprojectmanagement.org/25-best-project-management-blogs-you-arent-reading-yet.html#3
I have read through some of the other blogs listed and it is a great compilation of new project management blogs. I am quite honored!
2) I was interviewed recently by PM411.org for their podcast. This is the 67th podcast that they have created. You can hear the podcast here:
http://pm411.org/2011/01/14/podcast-episode-067-stop-playing-games/
Also, check out some of the other podcasts that they have. The content is fantastic!
3) I just finished working with the RMC Project Management team to create the audio book and an e-learning course based on the Stop Playing Games! book. I truly enjoy spending time with the RMC team. They always are so professional, down-to-earth, and driven for excellence. Laurie, Erica, Tim, Eric, Whitney, Jason, and a host of others are so much fun to be around and they make me look so much better than I really am!
Other than all of that, not much has been going on ;) Later this week I will restart the answering of questions that have been posed in the various webinars. I hope this message finds you well.
Passionately forging in to 2011,
Rick
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Value of a Resource Loaded Schedule
Here is the next question in my continuing series of answering questions posed to me through the various webinars.
How do you get the senior members of the organization to realize the importance of a resource loaded schedule?
The Setup
I think the only way to bring the visibility to the senior executives is to be consistent with all of the schedules and then roll them up to view a true view of capacity. For instance, say that you are running 4 projects right now. Make sure that all of your schedules are resource loaded and appropriate. If they are not setup appropriately, read some of my other blog posts or either of my books to learn how to setup the plans. Once the plans are setup, then you need to roll up an aggregate view of the demand for the resources. If you have Project Server, Clarity, or any of these types of Enterprise tools, then learn how to do it there. If you do not have any of those tools, then use the "Resource Usage" view of your project plan to look at a monthly view of the total demand hours in your plans and plot those in a spreadsheet. You will end up with a chart that will show how busy the resources really are. Now add their "Other Work" such as admin time and operational support time. This gives you the total view of the demand of the resources.
The DeliveryNow that you have all of the data, when an executive asks for a new project or to accelerate a different one, you present them with the options that they have in an assumptive manner. You could say, "We would be happy to take on this project, how would you like to handle it? Should we hire a consultant or are you alright with waiting until October?" Of course, the executives are going to want to know why they can't have it right now. This is where you present them the aggregated view of the resources. If your company is like most, then your resources are maxed out. When you show this data to the executives, they will try to pick it apart. This is when you show them the resource loaded schedule, essentially proving your data. During the entire encounter, you need to maintain a positive outlook that you are happy to do anything and are willing to, you just need a decision as to what direction to take. Force the tough decision back to the executive.
The AftermathIt takes a few times for this to work, but eventually the executives will begin to accept the data. It is up to you to keep the data updated and relevant. As a side note, if you use a resource loaded schedule to delay a project start date or extend a project end date, then you will have no problems ever getting estimates from those resources again! I have worked with many executives in this capacity. It most cases, he/she will start to see the data for themselves and will begin to make the decisions. Being on both sides of the issue, I have often seen project managers tell me that a date or objective is impossible. However, when I challenge them, there is no substance to back up the claim. Having resource loaded schedules and understanding their impact on resource capacity can help make incredible strides in organizations.
TipSeveral companies ask me regularly to help them balance capacity and demand. My greatest tip is to not try to do the whole company at once. Pick one division (maybe the PMO itself) and balance their capacity and demand as a pilot. This is a relatively low level of effort to begin to have some of the conversations. I have a blog post titled "What About My Capacity?" that gives you a quick formula to ascertain the capacity of a PMO. Once the data is collected and the value of the data is realized, then expand it to a larger group.
Hoping you are finding your life's passion,
Rick
Sunday, December 5, 2010
One of the top 5 PM's of all time: Santa Claus
It is time to start a new, more serious, and much-needed debate. Who are the top five non-religious mythical project managers ever? My first pick? Santa Claus.
I mean really, how many of you can say that if you missed your project deadline by one day, you would disappoint 6.89 billion children? That is quite a bit of pressure! Not only that, missing the deadline likely would stop his existence! As some of the great texts will tell us (by texts, I mean movies and TV) children must continue to believe in Santa Claus for him to continue to have the magic. I teach in my seminars to ask the question, "Can I ask the significance of the date?" when a mandated date is posed. Santa can answer, "My very existence will be diminished and I will crush the hearts of billions of children." I think that constitutes an acceptable reason to mandate a date.
So every December 26th, Santa and his team of elves hold a lessons learned session to begin the planning for the next project and literal "go-live" date of December 25th. I wonder if the elves are looking at Scrum and Agile methodologies for toy making?
There have been some interesting situations that Santa and the elves have discussed during lessons learned of the past. Like the one time in 1947 that Santa had to go to court to prove that not only did he work at Macy's, but that in fact he was the real Santa. The Commonwealth of New York agreed.
Contingency plans have been put in place now for weather thanks to the discovery of the infamous birth defect in one of the reindeers in 1939. There was also the time in 1966 where Santa helped Batman out of a jam all while keeping regular status report meetings with his team back at the North Pole. In more recent times, Santa Claus had to work out a wrestling dilemma for the World Wrestling Federation in 2006. The man is just everywhere!
However, the secret documents that were smuggled out and made into the movies "The Santa Clause" have given us the greatest insight into the risk mitigation strategies. First, if the actual Santa gets hurt or is in an accident and can't continue his duties, then someone else just puts on the suit and the risk has been mitigated. Of course, we find out that the lucky person who enters into the clause must also obtain a wife by next Christmas. That nearly caused the demise of the 2002 Christmas project.
Think about the scope creep that Santa has to deal with as well. First about 1.4 billion new children are born every year. That is quite a few new names and toys to have to estimate. Also, there is the checking of good versus bad that has to be worked out. I can tell you by experience that some kids can make a comeback! New technologies are being developed every day as well and it is harder and harder to keep the attention of our youth. What used to be wooded toys are now Wii's and Xbox's. Things move, make noise, and even appear to think nowadays. The cost of upgrading the workshop every year alone is staggering.
The teams change, the circumstances change, toys change, and yet year after year, the project date is made. There are over 800 appearances of Santa in the documented tales of his exploits and issue resolution practices in the ancient texts (again movies and TV!). Each and every time, Santa and his team find a way to deliver the project on time. For that, he is one of my top 5 mythical project managers of all time. Let the debate rage on for the other 4 slots! Who do you think and why?
I mean really, how many of you can say that if you missed your project deadline by one day, you would disappoint 6.89 billion children? That is quite a bit of pressure! Not only that, missing the deadline likely would stop his existence! As some of the great texts will tell us (by texts, I mean movies and TV) children must continue to believe in Santa Claus for him to continue to have the magic. I teach in my seminars to ask the question, "Can I ask the significance of the date?" when a mandated date is posed. Santa can answer, "My very existence will be diminished and I will crush the hearts of billions of children." I think that constitutes an acceptable reason to mandate a date.
So every December 26th, Santa and his team of elves hold a lessons learned session to begin the planning for the next project and literal "go-live" date of December 25th. I wonder if the elves are looking at Scrum and Agile methodologies for toy making?
There have been some interesting situations that Santa and the elves have discussed during lessons learned of the past. Like the one time in 1947 that Santa had to go to court to prove that not only did he work at Macy's, but that in fact he was the real Santa. The Commonwealth of New York agreed.
Contingency plans have been put in place now for weather thanks to the discovery of the infamous birth defect in one of the reindeers in 1939. There was also the time in 1966 where Santa helped Batman out of a jam all while keeping regular status report meetings with his team back at the North Pole. In more recent times, Santa Claus had to work out a wrestling dilemma for the World Wrestling Federation in 2006. The man is just everywhere!
However, the secret documents that were smuggled out and made into the movies "The Santa Clause" have given us the greatest insight into the risk mitigation strategies. First, if the actual Santa gets hurt or is in an accident and can't continue his duties, then someone else just puts on the suit and the risk has been mitigated. Of course, we find out that the lucky person who enters into the clause must also obtain a wife by next Christmas. That nearly caused the demise of the 2002 Christmas project.
Think about the scope creep that Santa has to deal with as well. First about 1.4 billion new children are born every year. That is quite a few new names and toys to have to estimate. Also, there is the checking of good versus bad that has to be worked out. I can tell you by experience that some kids can make a comeback! New technologies are being developed every day as well and it is harder and harder to keep the attention of our youth. What used to be wooded toys are now Wii's and Xbox's. Things move, make noise, and even appear to think nowadays. The cost of upgrading the workshop every year alone is staggering.
The teams change, the circumstances change, toys change, and yet year after year, the project date is made. There are over 800 appearances of Santa in the documented tales of his exploits and issue resolution practices in the ancient texts (again movies and TV!). Each and every time, Santa and his team find a way to deliver the project on time. For that, he is one of my top 5 mythical project managers of all time. Let the debate rage on for the other 4 slots! Who do you think and why?
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Why does the team need to see the schedule?
As part of my continuing series of addressing questions posed in my webinar, the next question to address asks:
"Do you have any suggestions for how to help your team of resources (who are untrained in PM concepts) understand what they are seeing in the schedule?"
I get this question quite a bit. In my opinion, I choose to not send the schedule to my team. I think I just heard the collective gasp. Before I get into what I do, let's discuss why I don't. When I am challenged on this thought in my speeches, I always ask, "What do you think happens when you send the full project plan?" Some of you out there may think that as soon as the resource gets the plan, they open it, print it, find their name and tasks, and study it to make sure they are ready to go. Although there are a few team members out there that might do this, the norm is to not even open the file. Most resources simply wait for the status meeting or for the e-mail to come to tell them to get started on their tasks.
So does it make sense to train all of the team members on how to read a project schedule? Also, what type of schedule? Several project managers write linearly based project schedules, meaning that their schedules go from Task 1 to Task 2 in the order in which they are to be performed. These schedules are against project theory as well. True project schedules should be written from WBS's and network diagrams. If this is the case, then many of the schedules are even more difficult to read because the tasks are grouped by deliverable and may increase the complexity of the predecessors. So what do I suggest? To-do lists.
I send each team member a report of their tasks. It is a simple report that shows the task name, start date, finish date, their estimate, and the actual hours that have been reported. It is sorted by start date and I show all of their tasks for the project. This tells them what they are really interested in, what do I need to do and when do I need to have it done?
Some people object asking, "What about the predecessors? Don't the resources need to see what needs to complete before they can get started?" My general answer is no. Most of the time, the predecessors came from the resource during the WBS/Network Diagramming session anyway. They already know what needs to complete before they can get started.
This approach has been very successful for me. It is simple, effective, and keeps team members focused on what they are supposed to do. I have also written Visual Basic code that automates the creation of Excel spreadsheets as task lists from Project. Another approach is to use the Reports->Assignments->To-Do List report that comes standard with Microsoft Project.
Whatever the format, just make sure that what the team member receives isn't information overload. This will allow you to communicate more effectively with each team member. It also allows you to manage risk and risk dates more efficiently by not revealing all of the dates to all of the resources. This isn't a shady practice or something you are trying to hide. It is simply your information to manage.
At least that is my opinion, please feel free to share yours.
Until next time,
Rick
"Do you have any suggestions for how to help your team of resources (who are untrained in PM concepts) understand what they are seeing in the schedule?"
I get this question quite a bit. In my opinion, I choose to not send the schedule to my team. I think I just heard the collective gasp. Before I get into what I do, let's discuss why I don't. When I am challenged on this thought in my speeches, I always ask, "What do you think happens when you send the full project plan?" Some of you out there may think that as soon as the resource gets the plan, they open it, print it, find their name and tasks, and study it to make sure they are ready to go. Although there are a few team members out there that might do this, the norm is to not even open the file. Most resources simply wait for the status meeting or for the e-mail to come to tell them to get started on their tasks.
So does it make sense to train all of the team members on how to read a project schedule? Also, what type of schedule? Several project managers write linearly based project schedules, meaning that their schedules go from Task 1 to Task 2 in the order in which they are to be performed. These schedules are against project theory as well. True project schedules should be written from WBS's and network diagrams. If this is the case, then many of the schedules are even more difficult to read because the tasks are grouped by deliverable and may increase the complexity of the predecessors. So what do I suggest? To-do lists.
I send each team member a report of their tasks. It is a simple report that shows the task name, start date, finish date, their estimate, and the actual hours that have been reported. It is sorted by start date and I show all of their tasks for the project. This tells them what they are really interested in, what do I need to do and when do I need to have it done?
Some people object asking, "What about the predecessors? Don't the resources need to see what needs to complete before they can get started?" My general answer is no. Most of the time, the predecessors came from the resource during the WBS/Network Diagramming session anyway. They already know what needs to complete before they can get started.
This approach has been very successful for me. It is simple, effective, and keeps team members focused on what they are supposed to do. I have also written Visual Basic code that automates the creation of Excel spreadsheets as task lists from Project. Another approach is to use the Reports->Assignments->To-Do List report that comes standard with Microsoft Project.
Whatever the format, just make sure that what the team member receives isn't information overload. This will allow you to communicate more effectively with each team member. It also allows you to manage risk and risk dates more efficiently by not revealing all of the dates to all of the resources. This isn't a shady practice or something you are trying to hide. It is simply your information to manage.
At least that is my opinion, please feel free to share yours.
Until next time,
Rick
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