Project Based Work

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Going the Extra Milestone

22 September 2010 - POSTED by Doug Den Hoed

Choose Your Path

Most Project Management Software has the ability to mark certain Tasks as Milestones. Some PPM softwares also offer a set of customizable Milestones — a "Milestone Path" – to encourage standardization across Projects. A few sophisticated Project Portfolio Management Software packages even let you pre-assign a Milestone Path to Tasks in a Template, ensuring consistency across Projects.

However, what if the detailed Tasks required to support the work plan don’t align well with the Milestones the Project Management Office (PMO) wants to see? Or what if Projects encompass multiple, similar Milestones across large parts of work? Even in some of the most advanced Project Management Tools, the built-in Milestone features simply can’t accommodate these requirements.

Fortunately, there is a different technique that not only addresses these limitations, but opens the door to a whole new way of presenting Project Information in a Gantt Chart.

Trial Run

The screen-shot below represents a complex Project. There are lots of detailed Tasks required for execution, but in a way that doesn’t align very well to the Milestones the PMO needs to track. Furthermore, the Project plan Branches at Stage 2 into Parts 1, 2, and 3: similar sub-Projects with different timing and effort, but the same Milestones across them. A high resolution version and sample MS Project file are also available for download.

Going The Extra Milestone Example

The shaded portion at the top represents the normal Project Details. The bottom half is the new concept: a Project Summary of what people outside the Project most care about. In this case, it contains a summary "Highlights Task" for Part 1 (red), 2 (yellow), and 3 (purple). Beneath each Part are three "Milestone Tasks": PSum Stage 1, 2, and 3. Each has a token Duration of 0.1 Hours for percent complete calculations, and zero Work required.

The vertical lines highlight the trick. The PM drags constraints from the appropriate Tasks in the Project Details — regardless of where they are buried — to the corresponding Milestone Tasks. PSum Stage 1 and 2 are Start-to-Start constraints, and PSum Stage 3 is a Finish-to-Finish constraint. As the constraints snap the Milestone Tasks in place, they roll up and drive out the footprint of their Highlights Task.

This Project Summary technique offers several interesting effects and opportunities for you to:

Plan the Project Based Work as needed, decoupling it from the PMO Milestone requirements
Meet the need of some complex Projects to show repeating Milestones across sub-Projects
Quickly "collapse down" to a simplified view of the Project Highlights
Search for the Milestone Tasks alone across multiple Projects, and view them in Gantt format, removing the noise of the Project Details
Leverage the resulting predictable Percent Complete values (0%, 33%, 67%, and 100% in this example) to perform additional logic — in @task, for example, you could put Custom Data behind the Highlights Task and add a Calculation Parameter to compute which Gate each Part is at over time
Create additional Project Summaries based on other Tasks for different viewers

Crossing the Finish Line

I hope the Project Summary technique inspires you to rethink how you structure Projects in your Project Management Software. I should note that, in the case of @task, there is no built-in way for the Milestone Tasks to automatically complete when their controlling Predecessor completes. I’m working on it…but that’s another article.

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Working with Project Stakeholders: 3 Keys to Success

23 August 2010 - POSTED by Ty Kiisel

A good caddie is critical to a successful tournament for a golfer. On the golf course, a caddie has a number of basic responsibilities:

Ensure that the proper number of clubs are in the bag
Help in the selection of clubs for specific shots
Let the golfer know where pin placements are for each hole on the golf course
Alert the golfer to where a good spot to hit their shots would be, and if they miss, where to miss
Help read putts if needed

A great caddie will have walked the course and knows everything there is to know about the softness of the turf, the condition of the sand traps, and has personally paced off the yardage for each hole. This information allows the caddie to provide the information the golfer will need to play the best round of golf possible.

Throughout the course of a project, it’s often the tough decisions made by stakeholders that make the difference between a successful project and one that fails. Sometimes the importance of stakeholders in the success of project based work is overlooked. However, it’s vital to keep them informed with the most timely and reliable information possible. Regardless of the project management software you employ or your particular work management methodology, here are three keys I’ve discovered to encourage successful stakeholder involvement:

Ensure that stakeholders, sponsors, change agents, and champions, are involved and in agreement throughout the project.
Guide the decision-makers through the key steps to success and make sure they are applied consistently throughout the project.
Keep stakeholder’s decision-making efforts based on the best practice areas that have helped other projects deliver successfully to achieve the desired results.

Not unlike the relationship between a professional golfer and caddie, the biggest benefit to keeping stakeholders in the loop is an increase in stakeholder collaboration and a more successfully portfolio of projects.

How do you keep stakeholders engaged in your projects? Do you have any suggestions that I may have left out?

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Project Managment Superheros: 6 Project-Saving Superpowers

19 August 2010 - POSTED by Ty Kiisel

Are there common characteristics successful project managers share? I don’t think anyone disagrees that delivering projects on-time, on budget, and on spec are important. I certainly think they are. That being said, I was thumbing through some old notes a while back and found these six leadership attributes. I’m not sure where I came across them originally, but they are leadership skills that can take a good project manager and make them "super."

As companies turn to project based work to help make and keep their organizations competitive and profitable, the need for skilled project leaders will continue to increase. Regardless of your particular work management methodology or business project management software, do you take time to foster the following skills or attributes?

The gift of foresight. I’m not suggesting that membership in the Psychic Friends Network is required, but being able to look down the road and make some reasonable predictions based upon practical assumptions is an important skill.
Organization. I don’t think this needs much explanation. Keeping information, schedules, and team members organized is critical. Fortunately, most project managers I know are very organized and detail-oriented people.
The ability to lead. Although there are some people who are natural leaders, basic leadership skills can be learned, practiced, and improved. You might not read about it in the PMBOK, but there are mentors, leadership training, and books you can read if an honest evaluation of your leadership skills finds you lacking. Leadership and people skills are, at the very least, as important as methodology and tracking tools.
Exceptional communication skills. It’s important to be able to communicate with everyone involved in the project from peers, to team members, and stakeholders. Everyone needs different information couched in different terms. This is a skill that is vital to a project manager’s success.
Pragmatism. A pragmatic approach to problem-solving is a skill that is essential for a discipline that faces the regular adjustments and changes that face project managers.
Empathy. In order to lead people, you need to understand them and what motivates them. Everyone is different and a one-size-fits-all approach to leadership is seldom the most successful approach. I’m not suggesting that project managers need to get all "touchie-feelie" and start tearing up in romantic comedies (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but the old saw about "..walking in another man’s shoes," might apply here.

It’s not a secret that in my humble opinion, like any good leader, great project managers understand that successfully leading people is half the battle to successfully managing a project.

Please feel free to add some of your favorite leadership skills.

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Four Early Warning Signs of a Project in Trouble

6 August 2010 - POSTED by Ty Kiisel

Underground mining is a dangerous occupation. What’s more, before the advent of sophisticated breathing apparatus, methane and carbon monoxide made it even more dangerous for the men working in the mines. In the early days of underground mining, because their metabolism was susceptible to methane and carbon monoxide poisoning, canaries played an important role in keeping miners safe.

They provided an audible warning: Canaries typically sing most of the time—when they stopped singing, it was a warning sign that they were being overcome by the toxic gas
They provided a visual warning: When they started to sway and fall from their perch, it was a signal that they were succumbing to the poison gas.

Miners who paid attention to the early warning signs owed their lives to the canaries—they were able to recognize the danger and get out of the mine before it was too late.

I think everyone would agree that missing deadlines or exceeding budgets is evidence that a project is probably in trouble. However, those symptoms are often recognized after it’s too late to do anything about it. Anyone doing project based work knows how important it is to recognize a project in trouble before it’s too late. Not too long ago, I came across this list of early warning signs that every project manager should be aware of:

Direction from management is either missing or inconsistent: The only thing worse than project leadership that is missing in action, is direction that contradicts itself and changes frequently.
Business management and project management aren’t on the same page: If the project gets consistent direction, but it’s at odds with company business objectives, there is more than likely a problem.
Project goals are not clearly articulated and understood by the project team: Although every project usually has a business goal or two—projects without a business objective should probably be reconsidered, right?—often those goals aren’t clearly articulated or understood by the project team. Occasionally, the business objective is thought to be so obvious it’s never clearly stated. Unfortunately this could lead to misunderstanding and inconsistent presumptions about priorities.
Team members don’t communicate with each other: Sometimes, even teams that get along well don’t communicate well. Communication and collaboration are essential to any successful project.

Recognizing problems before it’s too late to do anything about them is critical to work management success. Addressing issues early is the best way to save a lagging project, as well as a project manager’s career. What early warning signs to do you watch for?

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Three Keys to Redefining Work Management Success

4 August 2010 - POSTED by Ty Kiisel

Completing projects on time and on budget has proven to be a pretty valid measure of IT project success—but should it be the primary measure? I believe that pushing a project to completion on time is not the only objective—ultimately the project also needs to deliver business value. Along with the worthy objectives of finishing projects on time and within budget constraints, here are some other objectives that should be considered:

It should be about doing the right projects, not just doing them right. Delivering business value and satisfying customers is becoming more important than ever—and it starts with the evaluation of which potential projects will meet those needs and provide that value in the first place. Hopefully this has always been important, but organizations are realizing that they have to do more than give lip service to meeting customer expectations while meeting organizational goals. It must become a primary measurement of how we determine the success or failure of any IT project.
Project teams need to completely understand and address the business needs of every project. Although everyone would agree that "quality" is very subjective, if everyone on the team doesn’t have a thorough understanding of the cost of defects and rework, it doesn’t matter what work management tool you use, it won’t help. Edward Deming used to talk about how organizations must build quality into the product, it can’t be inspected in. Quality assurance needs to be a part of every process from start to finish. Smart organizations are looking at defects and their root causes through the project life-cycle to develop methodologies that improve the quality of their final deliverables.
The final product needs to be stable, compatible, and easily maintainable. It’s just too expensive for organizations to maintain software that’s incompatible with current systems or unreliable. Because staff and maintenance budgets are at a premium, software that isn’t will be abandoned for something that is.

The way organizations measure the success of project based work is changing. Managers who leverage project management tools to meet these new objectives are able to better address business needs and ultimately increase their value within their organizations.

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Sufferin’ SaaS-afras! Where can I Test?

6 July 2010 - POSTED by Doug Den Hoed

ExSaaSperation

Online Project Management is a great fit for Software as a Service (SaaS). Teams can perform their project based work in different locations and timezones, but still collaborate in a loosely coupled way. And as vendors improve the underlying PPM Software, everyone instantly benefits when the production website is upgraded. What more could you want?

Well, when a major new release that changes the user interface is coming down the pipe…how about a place to test?

DiSaaSter

About a year ago, AtTask wisely decided to give its @task ondemand customers a beta site so they could test new features against known data. The weekly beta refresh worked so well that some customers also use it for training purposes. Views, reports and other objects copy across automatically, and because the data is in a separate environment, it’s a safe place for new users to get some practise.

However, the next version of @task (R14) is a major look-and-feel release. Suddenly, those customers have few options for training new users:

There is no Test environment as such, where the current release points to a copy of their data
Beta is different enough that it could cause confusion
Even if they’d agree to pay for a data restore, they can’t copy their data back into the ondemand environment, since the primary keys would collide
They could create what’s called a Testdrive with sample canned data, but then none of their dashboards, their reports, their data — their business, really – would be included

But fortunately, there’s an easy solution.

SaaSisfaction

The trick is to build a Test environment within Production. Seriously!

Create a special Group called Training Data, and a special Access Level called Trainee, with rights to see Home Group data only
Set all new users’ Home Group to Training Data, and their Access Level to Trainee
Create several Projects, Tasks, and Issues that belong to the Training Data Group; or better yet, keep several side-by-side versions; or best of all, prepare them in Kickstarts, so you can delete and reload them each time a fresh class of new users shows up
Have the new users log in: all they will see is the Training Data
As new views, reports, dashboards and so on are added to the Production environment, they can be instantly made available to the Trainees — no migration required
Because it’s really Production, the Test environment will get the same care and attention as real data does as far as uptime, performance, support and backups (whereas beta can be down unexpectedly or intentionally for days…true story…)
When training is complete, simply upgrade their Access Level and change their Home Group to graduate them into Production

It sounds a bit daunting at first, but by leveraging @task’s security model, you can provide a safe, refreshable Test environment within Production that stays current with your business as it evolves. Who knows? If enough of us adopt the approach, it could become the defacto standard.

If you decide to try it, please let me know how it goes.

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Spiral Adoption

22 June 2010 - POSTED by Doug Den Hoed

Chasing the Rainbow

Today’s Project Portfolio Management Software packages have incredible features to help teams collaborate and visualize their project based work like never before. Some of the best are also intended to be customized to meet specific business terminology and events. Given that resources and schedules are often shared, this powerful combination of insight and adaptability can help companies reach an elusive goal that faces every PPM Software implementation: how can you increase adoption across related departments?

Provide and Conquer

This diagram illustrates "Spiral Adoption", a new techique I developed on a recent project. Here’s how it works.

Dept A licensed @task for their On-Demand Project Management Software, entered their data, and used it to generate the status of their Project based work. Several Related Departments relied on the Dept A data but for a variety of reasons did not have direct access to the Project Managment Software. To share the data, Dept A generated a Daily Extract to Excel and posted it on the network. The Related Departments pulled copies of the Extract, transformed it to suit their own needs (e.g. dropping certain columns and rows), added their own updates (e.g. new status values, revised dates, % complete), and created their own Excel based reports (e.g. pivot tables, summary tabs). Unfortunately, despite these best efforts, the process was time consuming, inefficient, and prone to wasteful confusion caused by stale-dated reports.

Given the realtime nature of the data and excellent reporting features, Dept A quickly became recognized as the most current and reliable source of Project information. Management wanted to consolidate both the timing and the format of their reports. They asked Dept A to add extra custom data fields to cover the key data points from the other departments. There were thousands of Tasks already being tracked and edited within the Related Departments. To minimize the impact on those teams and avoid data entry errors, we used a web-based applet that let Dept A users upload an Excel file of edits from the Related Departments straight into @task.

In short, the Project Management Software effectively widened to accomodate Dept A, B, C, and D, giving Management the comprehensive reporting they were after, but without substantially impacting how the Related Departments were performing their work.

Revolution

There were some very interesting and pleasant side effects to the Spiral Adoption technique:

Dept A now prepares for review meetings by exporting the rows and columns they need to Excel, editing on the fly in Excel during the meeting (faster, no internet required), and then uses the Excel Uploader to push up the changes
Dept B moved all of its data needs into the Project Management Software, became full fledged users themselves, and dropped their entire extract > update > Excel loop
Dept C created a tailored view of only their information and effectively owns and administers that data via the Excel Updater
Dept D has no immediate plans to change their processes, which is fine because…
Management now has regular, reliable, comprehensive reporting across the departments

The Spiral Adoption technique offers a way to consolidate data without duress, and instead win over additional departments on merit, over time. If you’d like to know more about the Excel Updater for @task, please drop a comment to this article.

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Team Management by ‘Command and Demand’ or ‘Love and Inspire’

14 June 2010 - POSTED by Russ Drury

In the second of my follow up posts, to an earlier post titled The ABC’s of Software Implementation, I want to expand my thoughts on the point of Desire. Getting the most out of your project team will depend on many factors, such as how you treat them, how you incentivize them, and how you get them to do what needs to be done.

In a previous organization I had a mentor who taught me that there were 2 ways of managing a team. His predecessor had what he called a ‘Command and Demand‘ approach to managing people. His team would live in fear of not delivering when or what was asked of them. Whilst the team often met their targets it was only just enough to get by. He had a close group of leaders whom he directed through and everyone else was to do what they were told ‘or else’. My mentor on the other hand favored a ‘Love and Inspire’ approach. He wanted to get to know his team, he showed concern for them; both as individuals and as workers, but above all he wanted them to see the same vision he had. When he wanted to improve the way we worked he would explain the benefits to us in such a way that the change would be exciting rather than painful.

Many theorists have written about what it takes to motivate a person. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) stated that individuals are first concerned with their basic needs, followed by safety, security and a sense of belonging before being motivated by recognition. Frederick Herzberg (1923-2000) explained that there are some factors that, if present, will not motivate you beyond satisfaction but if not present will demotivate you. These factors include responsibility, status, and salary.

Douglas McGregor (1906–1964) proposed two theories, which best aligns to that of my mentor. McGregor’s Theory X assumes employees are lazy and don’t want to work. Managers feel they have to closely control individuals work, devising complex controls to manage achievement. If the organizational goals are to be met, Theory X managers rely heavily on threat and coercion to gain their employee’s compliance. Theory Y managers on the other hand recognize that their employees can be trusted to produce their work and in turn give workers responsibility to do so. Employees are innovative, creative problem solving and self motivated. The levels of trust shown inspires self direction and pride in ones own achievements

Relating this back to the discussion of implementing project management software, what is the motivation, need or… ‘Desire’ of your team? and in particular what is their favored approach to project based work? If you’re goal is to introduce better ways of working by implementing a project management tool then the adoption of that tool is going to be crucial. Coercing and controlling your team to use the tool can only last so long before it just becomes exhaustive and ineffective. Inspiring them to understand the vision of what you are trying to achieve will cause long lasting results with much less effort.

What will you’re motivational approach be. One of ‘Command and Demand’ or ‘Love and Inspire’? I know which one works for me.

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Switchback Workflow

1 June 2010 - POSTED by Doug Den Hoed

Gravity: it’s not just a rule. It’s the law.

There’s a tactile satisfaction to the way a wooden marble run game plonks steadily from top to bottom. At a glance, we recognize the path. As it runs, we appreciate the steady pace. And at the end — plop! — we know with certainty its reached its goal.

Wouldn’t it be great if Project Management Software worked the same way?

Become a Mogul Mogul

At the 2010 @task User conference last month, gold-medal winner Johnny Moseley shared a very cool video of his dry land training, hopping down a dusty hill with ski poles at incredible speed. In a somewhat tenuous stretch, that impressive rhythm is also the end goal of the Switchback Workflow concept that I introduced in my Four Webthings and a Funeral presentation.

This screenshot illustrates how it works:

Switchback Workflow
The Switchback

The left side shows is a series of collapsed reports on a single web page. Each report represents a major phase through which each Project being tracked will pass on its way to completion. As each phase is passed, users can see their Project based work progressing as it switches back and drops down to the next report.

The right side zooms in on the first report to show some standard concepts. The first few columns identify the Projects in chronological order. Next are some colorized dates, with green for those that are complete, yellow for those due within the next 14 days, and for those due red within the next 7 days. Then there are some icons — a circular traffic light showing data readiness, a column for the overall Project status, and another for the specific Task status. The final column is always blank; but it serves to define what data has to be provided to drop down to the next report.

Another Angle

The cool part about this approach is that it’s so generic: any phased data can displayed using this approach. As a bonus, if you imagine tipping the phased reports a quarter turn to the left, the data can also be displayed graphically using the Big Picture chart that I shared in my last post. Think of this Switchback Workflow as the drilldown version of the data that drives the chart.

The next time you’re deciding the best way to share work management information with your team, I hope you’ll consider this approach. It’s helped us keep on track, without losing our marbles.

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One Chart to Rule them All

19 May 2010 - POSTED by Doug Den Hoed

One Ring Yessssss….My Preciousssssss…

Can you imagine Golum as a Project Manager? Instead of a ring, though, he’d be clutching a printout of the latest status report with his favorite chart. It’s funny to picture. But I must admit: I’m starting to see the attraction.

My Favorite Chart

I just returned from the Second Annual @task User Conference. It was my privilege to speak for the second time. My presentation this year was "Four Webthings and a Funeral" (NOTE: this is a BIG file), where I shared four of the most important configurations we’d made to our Project Management Software. The first was a chart called the Big Picture. It helped all our team members visualize the progress of our Projects — Drilling Gas Wells, in our case — as they moved from left to right through the various Phases of work. Here’s an example:
The Big Picture

The main reasons that this chart is "Precious" to me are that it is:

Intuitive: in the beginning, all Projects were stacked on the left, and at the end, they’ll all be on the right
Scalable: no matter how many Projects there are, the Y-Axis will adjust to accommodate
Adaptable: the Phases can be redefined to suit any industry
Data Driven: as Project Based Work progresses, the underlying data drives each Project into the appropriate Phase
Informative: grouping Projects by their overall schedule status (Red = Late, Yellow = At Risk, Green = On Track) helps qualify the progress and spot trends over time
Functional: in @task, users can simply click a section of the chart to drill down into the underlying Projects

Ring of Truth?

One of the promises of On-Demand Project Management is to give everyone a common vision of what’s going on. If you have a standard process that can be represented as an assembly line, I hope you’ll consider adopting a Big Picture such as the one shown above. And if you don’t, perhaps you can forge another to bind your team together.

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