Some Things Just Take Time.....

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

Definitions of Designations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where Has Customer Service Gone?

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

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

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

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

Stay loyal!

Rick

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

Until next time,

 

Rick