Project Management Archives - Page 2 of 3

Bright Idea: Opportunity or Distraction?

Are you creative? Do you employ creative people? I like dealing with creative people, but we all know people who are always seduced by the next shiny thing they see. What do you do when someone comes up with a “bright idea”, a new way of doing things part way through a project? Do you adopt it or not?

This is one of those situations where you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

What are the issues:

I expect that we want to achieve our objective and we want to do this efficiently.

We want to continue to make progress.
The “bright idea” may cause an improvement or it may not.
Implementing the idea will inevitably cause some disruption.
Even assessing the idea will cost some effort.

So, what should we do? – Change Management

The answer to our dilemma is to have some version of “Change Management”. We need to capture the “bright idea” and then assess whether it will actually help us and then, if appropriate, introduce it in a controlled way. We should also have some kind of back-out plan, so that if the proposed change doesn’t have the beneficial effect we hope for, then we can revert to doing things the old way.

The question is, “how do we do that?”

My suggested way of handling this situation:

First of all, you an agreed “Change Management” (in this case “suggestion management”) process. I prefer it to be as light-weight as possible. This should:

Capture the idea, so that it is not lost, even if it is rejected or not implemented immediately.
Encourage people, so they know their ideas are being considered.

Ideas should be assessed quickly, but without disrupting productive activity.

Here are some questions which will help you decide whether to adopt a suggestion and when to adopt it:

Can we continue to work doing things the current way? If so, perhaps we should defer assessing the change.
widespread is the effect of the change? Changes with widespread effects need to be considered more carefully.
Is there an obvious way of “backing out” the change?
Do the benefits offered by the bright idea justify the effort and risk to implement it?

Agile project management offers opportunities to incorporate change management and adopt bright ideas in a controlled way.

Scope: Are you trying to do too much?

Project Scope diagram — Set the Scope of your project

I don’t mean to be negative, but have you ever asked yourself why projects fail? I’m sure you can come up with a great long list. Today I’d like to address just one – trying to do too much, also known as having the wrong scope.

You must have come across projects which you feel would have succeeded if only they had set their sights a little lower – and stuck with that. I’m not just talking about “Scope Creep” where the project grows during its course, but I’m including the projects where the scope was too big from the beginning.

Realism versus Optimism

Optimism is a good thing. If we don’t believe we are going to succeed, we are unlikely to start a project. If we don’t believe we can succeed, we are not going to try and we almost guarantee failure.

On the other hand, if we commit to a project which will require all the resources we have, and then something else comes up, then again we are not going to succeed.

The scope of a project needs to be realistic. It needs to recognise that the objectives of the project need to be compatible with the constraints and the environment in which it operates. A project which has to deal with outside events is likely to be less productive.

One of the keys to effective project management is for the sponsors, management and workers to agree what they want to achieve – and then stick to the plan!

Getting Scope right in the first place

Agreeing the scope of a project is one of those areas where technical skills and so-called “soft skills” are required. You may find what you are doing being influenced by politics and things outside your control.

There are tools you can use to help you to get and to document agreement. Aim to get the different parties to agree what is “in scope” and what is “out of scope”.

The Agile project management methods emphasise prioritisation and create opportunities to adjust the scope of each iteration. There is less need to get it absolutely right first time.

Tools for getting scope right

I recommend holding workshops where the different stakeholders can agree what the project scope. Within these workshops, I use a technique to help the participants agree and document the project scope. The technique is simple and I have created a short course so you can learn. Go and have a look now.

Prioritisation: Are you doing the right things?

Priorities over diary page — Prioritisation means knowing what you are going to do.

I know you’re terribly busy, but take a moment to ask “am I doing the right things?” If someone shouted

“Stop what you are doing!”

right now, would you look back at what you had created and be satisfied, or would you wish you had put the effort into something different?

Get your priorities right

Sooner or later every project comes to an end. Projects can end for many reasons:

All the work has been completed
We’ve run out of time, or
We’ve run out of money (budget)
Someone in charge says “I’ve changed my mind. Stop!”

Knowing what the priorities are as an individual and as a project at each stage is extremely powerful. It means that you know where to put your effort, you know what to do next, when you finish a task, or a task become “blocked” and it means that you know what you are _not_ going to do (at least for the time being).

Prioritisation: How should you decide your priorities?

You can do it on the basis of maximising benefit or minimising risk or cost or any other criteria you decide. Those in authority (which might or might not include you) should discuss the priorities (that includes having a good argument about them) for phase of the project you are working on, agree what the priorities are and then stick to that plan.

One of the strengths of the various “Agile” project management methods is the emphasis they put on agreeing the objectives or priorities of a time-box, iteration or sprint. Personally, I like to use MoSCoW for this, where:

M= Must have. There should only be one or two “Must haves” for each time-box.
S= Should have. There can be several “Should haves”
C=Could have. There can be several “Could haves”, and finally
W=Won’t have (this time around).

This approach concentrates on the “Must Haves” and only starts on the “Should Haves” when they have been completed. If you get it right, you run out of time or budget ideally somewhere in the Could haves (if you do well) or in the Should haves (if you make less progress than you hope).

Make sure that when someone calls “stop!” you (and everyone else) thinks they have received good value for your efforts.

Slack: Add a little contingency to your project

Meshed gears need "slack" — Meshed Gears need appropriate clearance or “slack”

“Slack” is a central idea of The Church of the Sub-Genius. They don’t define “Slack”, but they imply say that J.R “Bob” Dobbs is the embodiment of it.

I’m careful to respect the beliefs of others, even when I’m not sure they expect to be taken seriously, but you can find useful ideas in the strangest of places!

One way of looking at slack, is as time which is not allocated to productive activity. If we use this definition:

How can “slack” possibly make a project more successful?

Why we all need a little Slack

One reason for including a little slack is to account for uncertainty in estimates. If we schedule every task exactly the amount of time we think it will take and no more, and anything runs over time, then our completion date will start to slip.
Another reason for allowing a little slack is to allow people to review what they are doing (to “Think”, to use a once popular slogan). That way they can identify ways of doing their work more effectively and possibly improving their own productivity.
Finally, machines (like the gears in the illustration) which are operated without adequate clearances tend to require extra energy to drive them and break down more frequently. On the other hand, if clearances are too great, then gears become noisy and inefficient.

How do we know that we have the right amount of “slack”?

I am not arguing for inflating all estimates. Inflated estimates simply increase costs. Too much slack is as bad as too little. The signs that we have the wrong amount of “slack” or contingency are:

Too little slack: There is always difficulty completing any task on schedule. Even slight problems cause significant delays. Of course, there may be other reasons.
Too much slack: Everything is completed easily on schedule – in fact “the job is expanding to match the time available”.

How do we add “slack” to our project plan?

Slack can be added to individual tasks or to the project as a whole. It can also be added as recognised lower priority activities which we can decide to sacrifice if we need to. There are arguments for and against all approaches. Whatever approach you take, you should try and track how you are using any contingency you have added to your plan.

Is there the appropriate amount of “slack” in your project?

Look at whatever you are working on.

If the estimates are right “on average”, do you have enough “slack” to allow for the inconsistencies?
Do you have enough “thinking time”?

Project Tracking: Increase the probability you will achieve your goal

How are you getting on with your New Year resolutions? I’m doing pretty well with mine. I’ve been to the gym regularly week since the beginning of January, and several work projects are on track too. I have been “tracking” my achievements.

My question to you is:

“How do you know how well you are getting on?”

Why we need to track our projects

I said earlier that a New Year resolution should be SMART. Two of the letters are M for measurable and T for Time-bounded. If we are going to achieve our goal by the time we have set ourselves then we should be making progress towards it. If we are not making the progress we expect, then maybe we need to take action.
In order to monitor our progress we need to have some sort of tracking. We to be clear about our expectations (Plan) and we need to know what we have achieved (Actual). “Planned versus Actual” is what project tracking is all about, and it is one of the foundations of Project Management.

How do we track our project?

“Project tracking” sounds terribly formal but it doesn’t have to be complicated or bureaucratic. The key elements are “Plan”, “Actual” and periodic checking.

The Plan, or expectation of my New Year Resolution is to take “regular exercise, once or twice a week”.
The Actual is no more than a word in my (paper) diary.
The monitoring is looking at the “ticks” on the last weekend of the month. There is no formal report.

My advice is always to use “the simplest thing which could possibly work”, and to build it into whatever routine you have. Make monitoring and tracking what you do a habit.

Reap the benefits of tracking your work

Monitoring your work and your projects allows you to take control. Don’t assume that you will always be “behind”. Sometimes you will be ahead of where you expect to be and sometimes the problem will not be productivity but the plan.

Start today! A little self-monitoring can increase your feeling of control and allow you to work more effectively.