How to Be a Sponsor Whisperer

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Ever notice that some project managers always seem to have sponsor support? Project managers who successfully manage sponsors use a handful of techniques. Here are the go-to tools for “executive whisperer” project managers.

  • Get to the point in status reports. Status reports should be short and concise . Talk with your sponsor to understand their main concerns. Highlight information related to those concerns in your status report. While you still compile detailed information such as the status of individual tasks or the hours worked versus planned, it’s best to leave that detail in the background. Include links to the data in your reports so the sponsor can access it.
  • For longer discussions, prepare a short intro and let the sponsor lead the discussion. Senior leaders want to process information in the sequence most meaningful to them. Avoid pushing your agenda of what to share and when. Sponsors might not hear what you’re saying until they get the information they want. Deliver a short introduction – 30 to 60 seconds– to set the stage. After that, let the sponsor lead the discussion. Have data available that you can reference to answer questions. If you don’t have an answer, share where you can get it and follow up after the meeting. If information you want to share hasn’t been discussed, bring it up at the end of the meeting.
  • Know your stakeholders’ points of view. Project sponsors might not interact with other stakeholders on a regular basis. If stakeholders raise concerns, talk with them to understand their issues. Don’t assume your sponsor has this information. Your sponsor has a greater span of responsibilities than you, as a project manager. So, do the legwork on stakeholder issues to offload the sponsor. If you need your sponsor’s help talking with a stakeholder, brief them on the data they need. Share your recommendation and a clear goal for what you want from the discussion. Follow up on any actions that may result from the discussion with the stakeholder.
  • Make clear recommendations. The most frequent complaint from project sponsors is that project managers dump problems on them. Even worse, the problem might not be well-defined. To become a sponsor favorite, analyze the problems and come up with potential solutions. List the pros and cons for each potential solution and recommend a solution. That way, the sponsor can consider different business options, which improves sponsor confidence and helps them decide more quickly.
  • Be calm. Your mood rubs off on your project team and your sponsor. If you demonstrate confidence by being calm and diligently performing your role, your sponsor will be more confident. In turn, you avoid extra reporting and questions because you have your sponsor’s trust. Being calm doesn’t mean holding back bad news. If something is wrong, share it calmly, along with how you’ll address the problem. Follow up in whatever way your sponsor prefers.

Remember that sponsors are individuals with their own preferences. Take time to understand your sponsor’s expectations to improve your chances of success.

Do you have any tips for dealing with project sponsors – or questions about how to deal with them? Join the discussion by posting in the comments section.

For more about project sponsors, check out Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez’s How to Be an Effective Project Sponsor course.

Coming up:

October 2022 will be a busy month. My updated Project Management Foundations course is due to go live. And you can see me in several LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

 

October 12, 2022  11AM MT- Project Baselines: Basics and Best Practices

Once management approves a project, the project manager baselines the project. What is a baseline? What do you capture in a baseline? What happens when you create a baseline in Project? What are best practices for making baselines more helpful to managing projects effectively?

In this interactive Office Hours presentation, Bonnie Biafore and Ira Brown will share best practices at all stages of baselining.

Link to the event- https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6978438578267664385/

 

Oct 17, 2022  11AM MT- Leading with Curiosity

Questions and answers are inputs into any system or project, and they drive the output — whether the system is making dinner or launching a new product. The more diverse the inputs, the more innovative the output! Asking the right questions from the outset is crucial to setting up a system or project for success and achieving the best outcomes. To turbocharge results, you need to go beyond the usual questions like “What is the goal for the endeavor?” and “What is the best strategy for achieving that goal?” You and your team need to be curious and creative throughout the endeavor. In this Office Hours session, Natalie Nixon and Bonnie Biafore will explore what it means for a cognitively and experientially diverse team to be curious and creative and what you, as a leader can do to support that effort.

Link to the event- https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6979155332908400640/

 

Oct 27, 2022- Sometimes, the hardest part of innovation isn’t coming up with the great idea. It’s implementing it. Across the organization.

If you are trying to lead your organization in thinking (or doing) differently, you need to balance inspiration and operations. In this engaging and interactive conversation, LinkedIn Instructors Bonnie Biafore (Project Management Foundations) and Robbie Kellman Baxter (Become an Entrepreneur Inside a Company) will share best practices in scaling your great idea throughout your organization.

Link to the event- https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6978746469797244928/

The Business Case Lifecycle

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The project lifecycle is well-known, but did you know there are other lifecycles within it? Well-managed projects include a business case, which has a lifecycle as well. Here are common stages in the lifecycle of a business case and the information they contain.

Overview of the business case lifecycle

The first draft of the business case aligns with the project charter. It matches the project charter assumptions and initial cost estimates; and supports the rationale for the project. It spells out high-level costs and benefits. In most cases, you make assumptions that will need to be confirmed later as you learn more about the project.  In the early stages of the project, the range of accuracy or confidence of the business case is broad, typically +/- 50% or more. Don’t make the mistake of omitting this accuracy range from your business case. Without an accuracy range, stakeholders usually assume that the business case is more accurate than it is.

As the project proceeds, you continue to enhance the business case. During planning, when your team members plan their parts of the project, you get more information on approach, potential costs, and risks. During execution, cost and time actuals help make the business case more accurate.

  • The business case and project planning. During planning, project approaches, costs, and benefits become clearer. You estimate the resources you need to deliver business value and refine the value that deliverables will provide to the business. Also, you refine the risks and the costs to manage them.  You incorporate this additional knowledge into the business case. If the business case looks sound at the end of planning, you baseline the project. By doing so, you baseline the business case as well. You guessed it. That means that any change request affecting the business case requires approval.

Project status changes also go into the business case. Status is a significant indicator of the ongoing health of the project. Your business case should be accurate to +/- 25% at the end of project planning.

  • Pre-determined business case updates. Experienced project managers will schedule regular updates to their business cases. These updates correspond to events that detail specific costs. For example, you may have to negotiate for external resources. Or you must buy specific equipment. When initial cost estimates become known costs, it’s time to update the business case and share it with stakeholders. You should strive for +/-10% accuracy.
  • Project execution and change order updates. During project execution, you update the business case regularly, particularly to reflect actual costs that vary from estimates and whenever a change request is approved. Actual costs incurred during project execution can generate surprises, which is why regular updates are so important. Frequent updates help set expectations and help trigger remedial action when necessary. 
  • Closeout. The final step in the business case lifecycle goes hand in hand with the closeout of the project. Like every other closeout activity, you should complete it in detail. A finalized business case can be used as a template for other cases. Also, detailed cost information can be useful when estimating future projects. Closeout your business case, and the value of the case can live well beyond the project it supports!

Do you build and maintain business cases for your projects? Do you have questions about how to keep your project and business case aligned? If so, post your questions or recommendations in the comments section.

For more about business cases, check out Mike Figliuolo’s course Writing a Business Case.

Coming up:

October 2022 will be a busy month. My updated Project Management Foundations course is due to go live. And you can see me in several LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

 

October 12, 2022  11AM MT- Project Baselines: Basics and Best Practices

Once management approves a project, the project manager baselines the project. What is a baseline? What do you capture in a baseline? What happens when you create a baseline in Project? What are best practices for making baselines more helpful to managing projects effectively?

In this interactive Office Hours presentation, Bonnie Biafore and Ira Brown will share best practices at all stages of baselining.

Link to the event- https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6978438578267664385/

 

Oct 17, 2022  11AM MT- Leading with Curiosity

Questions and answers are inputs into any system or project, and they drive the output — whether the system is making dinner or launching a new product. The more diverse the inputs, the more innovative the output! Asking the right questions from the outset is crucial to setting up a system or project for success and achieving the best outcomes. To turbocharge results, you need to go beyond the usual questions like “What is the goal for the endeavor?” and “What is the best strategy for achieving that goal?” You and your team need to be curious and creative throughout the endeavor. In this Office Hours session, Natalie Nixon and Bonnie Biafore will explore what it means for a cognitively and experientially diverse team to be curious and creative and what you, as a leader can do to support that effort.

Link to the event- https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6979155332908400640/

 

Oct 27, 2022- Sometimes, the hardest part of innovation isn’t coming up with the great idea. It’s implementing it. Across the organization.

If you are trying to lead your organization in thinking (or doing) differently, you need to balance inspiration and operations. In this engaging and interactive conversation, LinkedIn Instructors Bonnie Biafore (Project Management Foundations) and Robbie Kellman Baxter (Become an Entrepreneur Inside a Company) will share best practices in scaling your great idea throughout your organization.

Link to the event- https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6978746469797244928/

Should You Create an Exception Plan for Your Project?

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An Exception Plan is a pre-agreed fallback approach to implement if a project gets into trouble. It’s more than a mitigation plan to address a single risk. An exception plan supplies an alternative project plan to recover from unacceptable conditions, such as exceeding the accepted tolerances for schedule delays or budget overruns. 

First, let’s look at the different definitions for Exception Plan. In PRINCE2, an exception plan is applied when a phase will exceed its cost or schedule commitment. Other methodologies use exception plans (or exception documentation) to show when overall project constraints are at risk. 

The exception plan in this article focuses on increasing the efficiency of responding to a troubled project. The plan includes course correction actions that have been pre-approved by management. In other words, an alternative plan to recover the project is ready to go. That means you can immediately implement the exception plan when project parameters are going to be exceeded. This pre-agreed exception plan saves time and money.

Here are some tips for when an exception plan might make sense and what the plan might propose:

Alternative project options are workable. Exception plans are useful only when you have flexibility in scope, schedule, or budget. Exception plans often propose cuts to scope or changes to the original approved timeline. For example, the plan could cut non-essential deliverables to bring an over-budget project back in line. In this case, management must be comfortable with and approve these changes ahead of time.

Alternate risks are acceptable. An exception plan walks a fine line between delivering value and adding risk. For instance, you might reduce quality management tasks to save time and money. This choice is practical if enough quality management activities remain after the task reduction. Even then, cutting quality management adds risk, which must be acceptable to stakeholders. For another example, the plan could propose decreasing organizational change management activities. Once again, the increased risk of implementation issues needs to be acceptable to management and project stakeholders.

Exception plans for agile projects are different. Issues with agile show up as delivery shortfalls, such as committed features that are late — or not delivered at all. Exception planning for agile projects usually focuses on engaging more experienced people to help get things back on track. Completing features in the backlog increases the business value of the project. However, management needs to be OK with the cost of these additional skilled resources.

The plan increases project management support. A project that is outside acceptable parameters presents project management challenges. Often, a project suffers due to a lack of technical or in-depth project management skills. The exception plan needs to address that shortage. However, an exception plan that increases the burden on the PM isn’t helpful. In other words, adding more management control deliverables without adding staff to create them makes things worse, not better. So, exception plans also need to include increased project management support. Management must commit to providing the additional project management resources as well as other changes from the exception plan. 

Do you have questions or suggestions about how to use an exception plan with a project? If so, join the conversation in the comments section.

For more about project planning, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

Coming up:

October 2022 will be a busy month. My updated Project Management Foundations course is due to go live. And you can see me in several LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

October 12, 2022  11AM MT- Project Baselines: Basics and Best Practices

Once management approves a project, the project manager baselines the project. What is a baseline? What do you capture in a baseline? What happens when you create a baseline in Project? What are best practices for making baselines more helpful to managing projects effectively?

In this interactive Office Hours presentation, Bonnie Biafore and Ira Brown will share best practices at all stages of baselining.

Link to event   https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6978438578267664385/

 

Oct 17, 2022  11AM MT- Leading with Curiosity 

Questions and answers are inputs into any system or project, and they drive the output — whether the system is making dinner or launching a new product. The more diverse the inputs, the more innovative the output! Asking the right questions from the outset is crucial to setting up a system or project for success and achieving the best outcomes. To turbocharge results, you need to go beyond the usual questions like “What is the goal for the endeavor?” and “What is the best strategy for achieving that goal?” You and your team need to be curious and creative throughout the endeavor. In this Office Hours session, Natalie Nixon and Bonnie Biafore will explore what it means for a cognitively and experientially diverse team to be curious and creative and what you, as a leader can do to support that effort.

https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6979155332908400640/

 

Oct 27, 2022- Sometimes, the hardest part of innovation isn’t coming up with the great idea. It’s implementing it. Across the organization.

 

If you are trying to lead your organization in thinking (or doing) differently, you need to balance inspiration and operations. In this engaging and interactive conversation, LinkedIn Instructors Bonnie Biafore (Project Management Foundations) and Robbie Kellman Baxter (Become an Entrepreneur Inside a Company) will share best practices in scaling your great idea throughout your organization.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6978746469797244928/

How Agile Supports Change

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Photo by Ian Flores on Unsplash

Agile methodologies are designed to handle change easily, which is why they’re called -er- agile! Most aspects of agile work can change without causing problems. But a couple of things are best left alone. Here’s what you can and shouldn’t change when working in an agile environment: 

Priority.  At the beginning of each sprint, the team reviews and re-prioritizes the stories in the backlog.  So you can change priority at the beginning of every sprint.  When stories are completed, stakeholders learn from using the functions that were produced. That can lead to re-prioritization of what’s in the backlog. The same goes when new business challenges arise and benefits of functions are understood. One constraint on re-prioritization is that the priority changes must comply with technical practicalities and logical business sequences. For example, you can’t build a balance sheet until you can process revenue and expenses!

Schedule. When you review the functional backlog, you can adjust the schedule by moving functions the business needs or wants into upcoming sprints. You need accurate estimates of effort to reschedule work. Developers learn as they produce functions, so they can estimate effort more accurately as the project progresses.

Scope. New scope ideas often crop up after a few functions are produced. Scope changes are expected with agile approaches. However, scope changes often involve trade-offs. For example, you might negotiate budget and time. And you might drop existing scope to make room for new and important functions.

Deadlines. In agile projects, people are usually assigned for a pre-determined amount of time. For that reason, scope becomes the variable. As you talk with the team about scope changes or reprioritizations, you can adjust sprints to change deadlines for specific functions. The overall project deadline can even be changed — if the whole team is still available.

What Doesn’t Change in Agile

Don’t count on changing cadence or personnel! Building your agile team and setting a sprint schedule — and sticking to them — are important for the success of an agile project. A big benefit of agile is what is learned along the way. Changing the people on the team upsets that learning and reduces the benefits you achieve. Changing the sprint cadence can also be disruptive. Schedules are built around focused sprint meetings and activities. Changing the schedule can throw the team off their rhythm and mess up existing estimates and sprint plans.

For more on agile, check out the Become an Agile Project Manager learning path.

Do you have any stories about how you’ve changed aspects of your agile projects? What worked? What didn’t? Share with us in the comments section.

Coming Up

My updated Project Management Foundations course is so close! I reviewed all the movies, so we’re down to a few last corrections. I clarified things that were confusing or unclear in the 2019 edition. Feeling good about this latest update.

October will be a big month of Office Hours. Keep a lookout for announcements as I nail down the details with my co-hosts.

When Business Value Doesn’t Meet Expectations

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It might seem like a hopeless situation when business value doesn’t meet expectations. Here are a few things to look at for potential opportunities for improvement.

Revisit your estimates. Compare the estimates used to justify the project to the business results. Opportunities may arise from this, including:

  • Business activities included in project justification aren’t being executed. Investigate whether you can launch these activities to generate business value.
  • Assumptions might have been inaccurate. You might achieve business benefit improvements by bringing those assumptions to fruition. For example, the project assumed internal resources would run a new system, but expensive contractors were assigned instead. Switching to internal resources could generate a positive return for the business.
  • Estimates might have been inaccurate. Understanding those inaccuracies can help create better estimates in the future. 

Cut underperforming elements. For example, in a building, you can convert extra ground floor conference rooms to leased retail space. You can apply this concept to IT as well. Consider cutting IT components that aren’t generating benefits. 

Re-examine your deliverables and training. Evaluate whether people are using your project deliverables as intended. If they aren’t, they might not have received adequate training. Find the root cause for the disconnect between intent and actual usage. Update and deliver new training to improve results. In addition, redesigning deliverables might help improve outcomes.

Trim maintenance or licensing expenses. Most project deliverables have ongoing operational costs, such as maintenance, software, other product licensing, and help support. Look for opportunities to trim the costs of these services. Although this cost cutting might reduce the efficiency and quality of your deliverables, changes that result in benefits that exceed costs is worthwhile. 

Look for secondary benefits. Business cases don’t address secondary benefits because they are hard to estimate. However, now that deliverables are in place, you can get measurement data. For example, a product might not sell as much as expected. Yet, discussing that product with customers might generate sales of other products. Also, project outcomes could free up employee time. That time might provide the opportunity to pursue other beneficial projects.

While it’s never good when a benefits shortfall occurs, don’t give up! These are a few of the possibilities you can explore to end your benefits shortfall.

What other actions might you take to bring business value back on track? Share with us in the comments section.

Coming Up:

September 15th Office Hours with Chris Croft, Doug Rose, and Bonnie Biafore

Project managers experienced a 70% change in the top 10 skills in the industry since 2015. Few teams can function without a project manager in seat to help them adapt to the whirlwind changes of the past few years. Join us to learn the top trending project management skills today and tactical tips to ensure you have the skillset for what’s next.

I’m almost done updating Project Management Foundations. In a few months, you can look for the updated edition, which includes some info on PMBoK7 and other changes.

Are You Ready to Close Your Project?

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You have delivered every component of your project, and your project team has started to disperse. It’s time for project closure, right? Not so fast! Here are other critical steps to take before closing your project. 

  • Confirm that business value is being generated. A project shouldn’t close until the business acknowledges value. However, some projects won’t generate business value for several months, for example, until new products sell. In other instances, cost savings trickle down over time.  keep a project open to track outcomes. This helps the project team understand if there are shortcomings in the project deliverables. Addressing those shortcomings educates team members so they can improve their skills for future projects.
  • Verify allocated costs. Check to see whether costs are still showing up in your project accounts. If they are, further work might be required, such as confirming final contractor payments. It could also mean someone is incorrectly allocating costs to your project. Correct these errors before closure so your project costs aren’t inflated.
  • Determine if your sponsor is still engaged. If your sponsor continues to call meetings and discuss the project, it’s too soon to close the project. Work with your sponsor and review any outcomes they believe are missing.  If the sponsor pushes for items beyond the scope of the project, seek to understand their point of view. Try to convince them to allow you to close the completed project and launch a new one. This new project would have its own business case to create the extra outcomes your sponsor desires.
  • Confirm stakeholders are using project deliverables without help. Business value should be generated without assistance by the project team. Otherwise, the cost of helping stakeholders may negate the value achieved. Before closing a project, ensure your deliverables are being used as intended. All stakeholders should independently use your deliverables in a consistent manner. If not, revisit your training and make corrections.

If you perform other steps before closing a project, tell us about what you do in the comments section.

For more about closing a project, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

Coming up:

I have an Office Hours in the works for September with Doug Rose and Chris Croft, two of my (many) idols in the LinkedIn Learning instructor community. Look for more info soon!

I’m almost done updating Project Management Foundations. In a few months, you can look for the updated edition, which includes some info on PMBoK7 and other changes.

What If Your Project is Cancelled?

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Any project may be cancelled due to changing corporate priorities or cost constraints. It can even happen to projects that are running perfectly.  If your project is cancelled, here’s what you can do to make the best of the situation.

  • Communicate with your team. Emotions will be high and people will have questions.  Talk with your team, even though you might not have all the answers. Share whatever you do know about the cancellation. This news can be demoralizing, especially if your project was going well. Be prepared for a wide range of emotions. Team members might think they did something wrong. Reassure them that they did not.

Note: Be sure to ask management if they plan to reallocate resources to other projects and share what you learn with your project team members.

  • Share the business rationale with stakeholders. Stakeholders might not be aware of the reasons for cancellation. Brief them on the details and any conditions that could prompt the project to resume. Collect the stakeholders’ views and questions. Discuss them with the project sponsor. Follow up with stakeholders when you receive answers.
  • Install viable deliverables. Despite the cancellation, some deliverables still might generate business value. Produce proper documentation for the deliverables or request the resources needed to complete it. If you can’t get the resources, check with your stakeholders. They might be able to produce the documentation themselves. Be sure there is a process to capture the business value that’s produced.
  • Archive partially completed deliverables. If your project is reinstated, you will want to retrieve any already completed work. Partial deliverables also might be useful for a future project. Capture the work performed and document where the materials can be found for future use.
  • Follow formal project closure procedures. Use your project closeout processes, as if a normal closure had occurred. Terminate vendor contracts and process final payments. Close any time recording codes associated with your project. Get sponsor sign-off on closure documentation.

Have you had a project cancelled? What other steps did you perform to close the project? Did you run into issues trying to close out the cancelled project? Share your experience in the comments section.

For more about closing a project, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

Coming up:

I have an Office Hours in the works for September with Doug Rose and Chris Croft, two of my (many) idols in the LinkedIn Learning instructor community. Look for more info soon!

I’m almost done updating Project Management Foundations. In a few months, you can look for the updated edition, which includes some info on PMBoK7 and other changes.

Handling the Pressure to Deliver Early

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Photo by Jeshoots on Unsplash

Getting pressured by management to deliver a project early is common, so you should be ready for it. It’s important to note that pushing an early delivery doesn’t mean you’re in crisis mode. It’s a risk vs business value balancing act. Here are tips to balance risk and bring in the project delivery date. 

Cut requirements and initial product reviews. When working with a homogenous stakeholder group, cutting reviews can save you time, with controllable risk. Before proposing this, ensure your stakeholders all have the same business goals. Also, ensure they are attending status meetings, so they understand project decisions. Alternately, you can perform requirements and product reviews while development continues. This introduces the risk of needing to back up to make corrections. But it is less risky than skipping reviews.

Logically cut testing. Logically approaching test plans can be effective when looking to deliver early. Test only those functions where faults will have a notable business impact. That way, you can fix errors found after delivery with minimal impact on stakeholders. This is different from cutting testing altogether. Broad testing cuts deliver mixed results, at best. Often, the impact of recovering from substantial errors overcomes any time savings.

Reduce scope. Cutting scope can be the easiest way to deliver early but often has hidden risks. Stakeholders’ disappointment with the reduced scope can diminish confidence in the project outcomes. Also, confidence in the project team, and in project management can suffer. Before cutting scope, poll stakeholders. Understand their views on delivering early, versus reducing scope.

Fast tracking or crashing tasks. Save time by changing your schedule and working on tasks in parallel (fast tracking). Or, you can add people to complete tasks earlier (crashing). Fast tracking adds product risk, as working tasks in parallel can create rework. For example, let us say I decided to write book chapters in parallel. The risk is what end up with in Chapter 5 might mean I have to change something already written in Chapter 6. Crashing adds a different risk. Crashing adds cost, as you spend more to perform the task. This is because crashing requires more coordination between people to avoid errors. The lesson? Apply fast tracking or crashing with consideration to the added risk.

Deploy agile methods. Agile often results in early delivery of business value. But it isn’t for every project. If you aren’t using agile techniques, before making the switch ensure you have a leader versed in agile. That leader can confirm what projects are right for agile. They can also guide the team, and management, through agile to improve success.

Do you have any tips and tricks to handle the pressure of delivering a project early? Share with us in the comments section.

For more about how to handle the pressures of delivering a project early, check out my project management foundations course.

Coming up:

I have an Office Hours in the works for September with Doug Rose and Chris Croft, two of my (many) idols in the LinkedIn Learning instructor community. Look for more info soon!

The Relationship Between Project Management and Supply Chain Management

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Guest post by Daniel Stanton, Mr. Supply Chain

Main point up front: Project management and supply chain management are both relatively new professions, and they are highly complementary. Supply chain managers have always spent a lot of their time working on projects to reduce costs and increase efficiency. These days, many project managers are learning the hard way about “supply chain issues” and the risks that they can pose to a project. And there is a growing demand for supply chain project managers – professionals who have the skills and experience to lead projects and transform a supply chain. Aligning project management with supply chain management can help companies increase resilience, improve sustainability, and enable digital transformation. 

This newsletter was inspired by a recent conversation with Bonnie Biafore. If you know us, then it won’t be a surprise that Bonnie and I found ourselves talking about the relationship between project management and supply chain management. We agreed that project managers need to learn about supply chain management, and that supply chain managers need to learn about project management. You can listen to our chat here: 

Project managers can’t truly address the risks to their scope, schedule, and budget if they don’t understand the supply chain in which they are working. On the surface, this involves learning about the procurement processes and systems. But supply chain management is really about integrating all of the processes that a company uses for creating value, which goes deeper than just procurement to include operations management, logistics, and more. 

In many cases, project managers have to work with procurement people a lot more closely. (Bonnie Biafore) 

Supply chain managers can’t implement or adapt to changes effectively if they don’t understand the tools, rules, and language of project management. Project management is about delivering value by developing or changing products, systems, and processes. Depending on the situation, today’s project managers can draw on a range of tools such as Waterfall, Agile, and Lean Six Sigma. 

It’s particularly interesting to see the growing demand for supply chain project managers – professionals who have knowledge and experience with supply chain management, and who understand how to lead projects which focus on improving supply chains. (At last count, there were more than 20,000 job postings for Supply Chain Project Managers in the U.S. on LinkedIn.) Given the rapid pace of change that’s being driven by technology, geopolitics, and the pandemic, I think the future is particularly bright for supply chain project managers!

Project Management Tips for Supply Chain Managers 

Projects are how businesses make changes. Project management is about defining and balancing constraints such as scope, schedule, and budgets. There are lots of different techniques for managing projects that can be tailored to the needs of your business. In construction projects, you will typically use the predictive Waterfall technique. For manufacturing and distribution, it will often be a Lean Six Sigma approach. For software development projects, Agile techniques have become common. Regardless of the techniques that are used the project leaders always have six key responsibilities to their project teams, that I describe as the DIRECT framework: 

  • Define the objective. Be clear about the change that needs to happen.
  • Investigate the options. Research alternatives and benchmark with others.
  • Resolve to a course of action. Build a plan and get buy-in from your stakeholders.
  • Execute the plan. Monitor the progress and address challenges as they emerge.
  • Change over to the new systems and processes. Manage your acceptance and launch.
  • Transition the people. Make sure that your stakeholders are prepared.

Supply Chain Management Tips for Project Managers 

A supply chain is a complex network made up of people, processes, and technologies that is engineered and managed to deliver value to a customer. Supply chain management requires you to view each business as part of a complex system that creates value for customers. In part, that involves integrating the internal functions in a company – especially procurement, operations, and logistics. But it also involves collaborating with customers and suppliers. In simplest terms, the goal of supply chain management is to get the right stuff, in the right quantity, to the right place, at the right time, for the lowest total cost. 

Supply chains are dynamic. How do we make improvements in a supply chain? By making changes. How do we respond to disruptions in a supply chain? By changing what we’re doing, or how we’re doing it. In other words, supply chain management professionals are responsible for launching and managing projects all of the time. 

The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model illustrates the six groups of processes that are key to managing the supply chain in any company. 

  • Plan. Develop your supply chain strategy and forecasts.
  • Source. Build and manage relationships with suppliers.
  • Make. Assemble products and create service capabilities.
  • Deliver. Take and fill orders from customers.
  • Return. Build and manage a reverse supply chain.

Enable. Manage all of the additional processes, including project management.

How does this affect supply chain professionals? Supply chains are how businesses create and deliver value. Projects are how we make changes in a business. Project management skills can help supply chain managers be more flexible and adaptable, and supply chain management skills can help project managers mitigate risks and be more resilient. Combining both skill sets can set you up to be a supply chain project manager, leading projects involving process improvement, sustainability, digital transformation, and more. 

What do you think? Have you needed to lead and manage projects in your supply chain? Would learning about supply chains help project managers anticipate and respond to risks? 

To watch the Office Hours session where Bonnie and I talk more about the relationship between project management and supply chain management go to https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6958149360392056833/. 

Early Indicators of Project Trouble

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Photo by Airfocus on Unsplash

A slipping schedule, lack of engagement, and cost overruns are common and easy to spot indicators of project trouble. Here are five other early indicators of trouble that aren’t often recognized.

Team member hours are less than planned. Hours dedicated to project tasks can fall short due to differing business priorities or lack of confidence in the project direction. These shortfalls often start early and get worse as the project continues. Check the actual hours worked by team members. If those hours fall below plan, find out what’s going on to see whether there is a problem.

Stakeholders aren’t arguing (when they should be!) Stakeholders often have different opinions about project requirements, priorities, or the solution approach. If stakeholder response to projects requests is lackluster, hidden dissension may be present. Ask your stakeholders direct questions about their concerns. This helps you avoid problems before it’s too late to change priorities or direction.

Inadequate sponsorship is in place. An effective sponsor must:

  • Have access to funds
  • Control areas where the project will create process change
  • Secure team members for the project
  • Be able to establish project-related business priorities 
  • Have time to be the sponsor

Sponsorship inadequacies can create project delays and arguments. If this happens, encourage management to form a sponsorship committee. This can help cover the authority needed to guide the project.

Requirements address “what to do” and not the business problem. Requirements often convey how something is to occur. An example is “Reconfigure the mail room business processes.” What’s the intended outcome? Is it a desire for fewer people, or is mail processing taking too long? Is automation to support mail processing working as hoped? Requirements that don’t specify the actual business issue are a problem. Projects that satisfy these inappropriate requirements might not fix the underlying business problem. Ensure that every requirement focuses on the real issue. Perform business analysis to figure out the best options to address the problem.

Requirements and deliverables are validated with the customer and NOT the end user. Let’s start with definitions. The customer is the person who supplies requirements and reviews your deliverables. They sometimes provide funding. The end user is the person or group who will use the deliverable regularly. What if the end user and the customer differ? For example, the customer and end user are different when a project is creating a product for the marketplace. In this case, validate requirements more thoroughly. More testing might also be appropriate. Extra validation and testing can be time-consuming and costly, but it is vital to success. 

If you have experienced other situations that cause problems early on, share with us in the comments section.

For more about identifying indicators of trouble early on in the project management process, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

Coming Up:

Overcoming Obstacles for Global and Remote Project Teams

Working remotely is a reality today: it’s increasingly important to pay attention to the quality of our interactions with our distant colleagues. Language, culture, and distance influence the way we work together with stakeholders on our projects. We can either leave these factors to chance, or we can learn to leverage them to improve our project outcomes.
https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6950852588556722176/

August 9, 2022 11am MT
I’m almost done updating Project Management Foundations. In a few months, you can look for the updated edition, which includes some info on PMBoK7 and other changes.