Tips to Reduce Project Chaos

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People problems, business pressures, and creating unique results come with unexpected challenges. Dealing with chaos is one more thing project managers must do. Here are a few tips for reducing project chaos.

Research past lessons learned. Capturing lessons learned is often like wishful thinking. People talk about doing it, but rarely get around to it. If that’s the case in your organization, don’t give up. Instead, ask project managers and sponsors in your business about the problems they’ve seen on their projects. If your organization has a lessons learned database, examine it thoroughly. By understanding past issues, you can build insightful risk and contingency plans. And those plans can help you quickly identify the root cause of potential issues and address them before they create chaos in your project (and your life!) 

Watch for changes in stakeholder behavior. When stakeholders get stressed, their behavior usually changes. They might get more talkative, less talkative, or voice concerns about your project out of the blue! Don’t just wonder what that’s about. Initiate 1-on-1 discussions with stakeholders to identify what’s going on with them. Showing compassion for your stakeholder and your project outcomes creates trust, which can lead to learning more about potential problems. That leads to greater insights and less chaos!

Evaluate and respond to baseline variances. Be sure that you understand your baseline metrics for scope, schedule, cost, and quality. When Those metrics are off by more than 5%, determine the cause of that variance. And when the variance goes beyond 5%, jump into gear to get things back on track — and share the status and your actions with your project sponsor. Proactive communication about issues and responses can instill confidence in your project leadership, which means fewer “please explain” type of meetings, and – you guessed it — less chaos!

Focus on what’s important versus what’s urgent. If something is important and urgent, by all means, focus on that first! After that, work on important issues and don’t get distracted by urgent yet unimportant things like a ringing/chirping telephone. Minimize distractions by turning off your phone, pausing email notifications, and hanging a do not disturb sign on your door. That way, you address the most vital tasks on your project. Less chaos! 

 

Projects will always involve unexpected or sudden changes. These tips can calm things down for you and your project team. Do you have tips to share for reducing project chaos? If so, share them in the comments!!!

 

For more about reducing project chaos, check out Chris Croft’s Project Management: Solving Common Project Problems course.

When You Need to Justify Your Project Manager Role

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Project management is often viewed as overhead, which is a typical target when cost cutting is in the air. As a result, you might find yourself in the uncomfortable position of justifying your role as project manager. Here are several approaches you can use to educate leaders about the value of project management and skilled project managers.

Dispel managers’ fears. Managers typically have two big concerns about project management: its cost and that it will take more time. Start by pointing out that most organizations assign team leaders within a department to coordinate tasks, assign roles, and review results. Then, explain that project management is essentially the same, except it works across many departments and with a variety of stakeholders.

Correct the impression that line managers can manage projects. Organizations sometimes turn to line managers to deliver projects. It rarely works. First, line managers are already too busy. They are easily distracted from project management duties by their operational leadership requirements, which are ongoing and often urgent. In addition, line managers might not be perceived as objective: they might favor their technical area and management goals in their project decisions. Finally, line managers are rarely trained in project management techniques, which is the focus of the next point.

Emphasize the importance of training and experience. Remind leaders that the organization screens job candidates based on their education and experience, calling references to verify candidates’ claims. Given the expense and business value that projects add, why not evaluate project managers in the same way? Focus on project management education and verify project delivery experience and results. Doing so increases the chance that projects are successful. 

Stress the cost of project failure. According to Projectsmart, the average cost of a failed IT project is $12,000,000 (https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-real-costs-of-failed-projects.php). And that figure doesn’t include the opportunity cost of benefits that weren’t realized. While that statistic doesn’t represent every industry, it demonstrates the substantial cost of project failure in real dollars and lost benefits. Remind leaders that its good business to invest in activities that increase the probability of success. Embracing and improving project management helps protect the money and time invested in projects and ensure that those projects deliver the outcomes they’re supposed to.

If you have had to justify project management or your role as project manager, what techniques have you used? What worked and what didn’t?

For more about the value of project management, check out the LinkedIn Learning Become a Project Manager learning path.

Coming Up

LinkedIn Office Hours Session- Communication Tips for Challenging Situations

Remote work looks like it’s here to stay and that means effective communication is more important than ever. Bonnie Biafore and Tatiana Kolovou, professor in the Indiana University Kelly School of Business, will talk about how to apply communication theory to everyday situations. Some of the topics we will cover include handling resistance to your ideas, responding when caught off guard, being a strong listener in a virtual setting, and more.

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Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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5 Ways to Amplify Project Management Benefits

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As a project manager, you know that effective project management increases project outcomes and delivers improved business results. Here are ways to strengthen the benefits your project management practices provide to your projects and your entire organization.

Deploy repeatable methods. Applying consistent project management processes across projects is a great way to beef up the benefits of project management in your organization. You save time and effort — and increase productivity –because people don’t have to learn new approaches and processes every time they work on a project. Your teams already understand the project artifacts and expectations for delivering a successful project.

That’s not to say you can use only one project methodology across the organization. Each project should use common practices for the methodology that is most appropriate to the project. For example, standard WBS structures in waterfall projects and standard sprint structures for agile projects provide iterative learning as team members apply familiar practices time and again.

Continuously improve your project management methods. On every project, make a point of reviewing your approach, whether waterfall, agile or hybrid. Monitor their effectiveness and make adjustments to enhance the benefits project management delivers. 

Measure benefits through standard project metrics. As the saying goes, “You get what you measure.” Standard metrics provide the compass heading for increasing project success within your organization. And increased project success means better business results. Look for trends in metric results: in different product areas, business divisions, and personnel. These trends can highlight areas of weakness and enable focused improvement initiatives.

Project management benefits only become evident when you apply standard metrics across your entire project portfolio. Of course, agile and waterfall projects are controlled differently, so you apply different metrics for those approaches. For example, baseline versus planned schedule and cost variances are typical project metrics used in many industries. In agile projects, sprint burndown and velocity are typical metrics.

Improve results with supportive reviews of projects, project managers, and project teams. A supportive review differs from an audit. An audit is considered successful usually when faults are identified. In contrast, reviews set out to discover what worked well, so those successful approaches can be implemented across the organization. Reviews find areas that were suboptimized and explore the source of ineffective action. In addition, you can identify and address issues that weren’t handled well – or not at all. The focus is on learning from the past rather than finding who is to blame. This focus on continual improvement not only delivers better project outcomes but also increases your team members’ confidence in delivering projects.

Demonstrate benefits with cumulative project results. Metrics such as estimation accuracy, customer satisfaction with project outcomes, and actual ROI against plan are telling when examined across many projects within your business. These metrics are powerful indicators of the impact of project management on your organization. Ongoing improvement in these performance indicators leads to improved organizational health and increased agility because projects are delivered faster and with better outcomes. (Keep in mind, these metrics require diligence and effort to collect, so you need to encourage management to support their consistent use.)

What project management benefits have you seen in your organization? What actions have you taken to enhance and promote those benefits?

For more about project management metrics, check out my LinkedIn Learning Project Management Foundations course.

Coming Up

Tatiana Kolovou and I will talk about communication techniques in a LinkedIn Office Hours broadcast on September 30 at 1pm MT.

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Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

Is Your Project a Good Candidate for Agile?

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Photo by Leon at Unsplash

Don’t force agile onto every project you run just because agile and iterative methodologies are “in.” To succeed with agile, make sure your projects are good agile candidates. Here are questions to ask before choosing an agile approach for a project:   

  • Is the project important enough to get the right people dedicated to it? Agile produces results quickly so it’s time-intensive for your team members. Agile teams are made up of business and technical folks who are vital to your business operations. Make sure they have enough time to contribute to your project. This often requires difficult tradeoffs between project work and operations.
  • Do your team members have sufficient depth and breadth of knowledge? What makes agile methodologies agile is responsiveness to evolving needs. Business experts work closely with expert technical team members to deliver what’s needed — fast. For that, your team needs in-depth knowledge of the business and technical areas touched by the project. The team consistently reassesses the project’s product, macro and micro-level business needs, and function priority.
  • Does your sponsor have an agile mindset? Agile responsiveness to changing business conditions and its learning environment are very different from traditional project methods. Your sponsor must be comfortable with changing business needs and priorities, willing to participate in frequent reviews of the evolving product, and ready to step in to get the project the agile resources it needs.
  • Can your team be co-located or virtually co-located? Agile involves deep, interactive, and often challenging dialog, which requires the richest environment you can create. Co-locate your project team members if possible. If you can’t, simulate co-location with the best video and audio tools you can obtain.
  • Is there synergy between your business and technical team member? Agile requires dedication from business and technical experts who are open to new ideas and supporting each other. You need an agile coach who understands and can manage human dynamics, and who can foster an environment where team members readily share their ideas and concerns. An agile team has to get along well to be successful. 
  • Can the product be built iteratively? Agile’s best qualities come from delivering solutions in pieces while learning from each iteration. Although it’s most common with software products, other products can be produced this way, too. With a bit of creativity, facility moves, process implementations, and even some construction projects can be produced in iterative steps.

For more about agile methodolgies, check out the Become an Agile Project Manager learning path in the LinkedIn learning library.

Coming Up

Tatiana Kolovou and I will host a LinkedIn Office Hours session about communication on September 30 at 1pm MT.  Watch for more details in my LinkedIn feed.

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Want to learn more about topics like these? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

The Top Tool for Developing Your Influence as a Project Manager

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Photo by Leon on Unsplash

Stakeholder management is crucial to project management. And influencing others is crucial to stakeholder management. Don’t count on charisma or positional power for influence. Experienced project managers use project information as their go-to influence tool. Here are ways project information can turn you into an expert influencer.

Keep people informed about the project schedule. How many days have you had when someone hasn’t asked, “When will the project be done?” or “When will you need my resources?” or “Can we change the schedule?” A detailed project schedule answers all these questions. It can show the impact on important tasks if you change the schedule or alter the date a critical resource becomes available. Let your project schedule do the heavy lifting when it comes to influencing stakeholders.

Address risks and costs. Stakeholders, reacting without thinking, might request changes or actions that add scope, reduce testing, or deliver sooner. Address the risks and potential costs of such actions — in advance — by including them in risk, scope, and cost management plans. That way, you have ready-made arguments for sticking to agreed-upon plans. 

Highlight trade-offs. In other instances, stakeholders request changes to plans based on wise business decisions.  Show the trade-offs within these decisions. Fast-tracking a schedule adds risk. Crashing the project schedule adds cost. Presenting trade-offs is powerful: you either underscore the impact of change or end the discussion if the impact is deemed unacceptable. Either way, stakeholders move forward understanding the impact of their decisions.

Leverage experts. Building project deliverables with the help of technical experts strengthens your project planning. Use the influence of your team’s experience to confirm your approach. If you don’t have experts in-house, reach out to contractors or other project managers and technicians who have delivered projects like yours. Real-world experience boosts your ability to influence stakeholders.

For more about stakeholder management, check out Natasha Kasimtseva’s Managing Project Stakeholders course.

4 tips for Making the Most of Limited Office Time

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How to return to working in the office – or not – is hot news in 2021. The pandemic has proven that many people don’t have to work in the office all the time. However, collaboration is challenging when your project team has limited overlapping office time.  Here are tips to make the most of precious time when most of the team members are in the same place.

Prioritize face-to-face time. According to Steve Knight of The Be Human Project, “At our core, we humans are tribal. Constantly, our subconscious is bombarded with cues that identify who is us and them.” Video conferencing tools are better than phone calls or email. However, being in the same room leads to more meaningful conversations. Think about how often you’ve heard, “It’s great to finally meet you in person.” That’s because we desire connection that a screen doesn’t provide. Even if deadlines loom, schedule together time for your team and allow for chit-chat. It’s how individuals connect as a team.

Focus on creativity and collaboration. Rich solutions require unhampered idea generation. Sure, video conferencing has become sophisticated. Yet, it doesn’t allow for spontaneous side conversations and body-language that trigger the conversations that generate new ideas. Use your team together time to brainstorm solution ideas.

Address contentious topics. Speaking of body language, it’s critical to be supportive when teammates disagree. Virtual connection tools aren’t great for expressing your thoughts and intent. Plus, groupthink becomes more likely as people consciously or unconsciously eliminate contentious ideas. And groupthink introduces risk to the project. So, take advantage of face time to work through contentious topics.

Schedule office time purposely versus “every Monday” or “twice a month.” Resolving issues and generating ideas doesn’t come “every Monday.” Scheduled face time doesn’t leverage that time when it’s needed most. If possible, schedule time for your team to be together when it’s really needed and you’ll get fewer complaints about coming into the office.

For more about going back to the office, check out Jodi Smith’s course — Navigating New Professional and Social Norms When Offices Reopen.

Four Reasons to Consider Specializing as a Project Manager

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Should a project manager be able to manage any project in any industry? Yes, if industry experts are available to supplement the project manager’s skills and experience. Is that efficient? Do businesses want PMs without specific industry experience? Here are four reasons to consider specializing to promote your project management career. 

Vocabulary and regulations. Each industry has its own vocabulary, including slang, acronyms, and unique descriptions of regulatory items. If you have to learn the lingo, you take your time and effort away from the project team, making it difficult to build respect. By specializing, you understand the lingo and solidify your reputation as a knowledgeable industry insider. 

Keep up with trends. In almost every industry, equipment, vendor capabilities, techniques and available resources change quickly. Bottom line: it’s taxing to keep up with the changes in multiple industries. Specializing allows you to increase your value by introducing latest trends, rather than learning about them from your stakeholders. 

Develop foresight. Specializing in an industry or type of project builds experience that helps you anticipate issues and take advantage of successful approaches from prior projects. You can anticipate and understand project-related risks and how to address them. Keen foresight can positively impact all three elements of the triple constraint: time, scope and cost. Projects deliver more value when you add your industry skills to those of the project team.

Build a network and reputation. The best project managers don’t have to look for work – they are pursued by business sponsors because of the reputation they’ve developed. Working consistently in an industry enables effective networking with project team members, peers, and key stakeholders. Promoting yourself within a single industry is simpler and allows you to spend more time delivering your current project, with fewer worries about your next assignment or corporate position.

For more about building your project management career, check out the course Become a Project Management Entrepreneur, co-authored by Seyi Kukoyi and yours truly.

How to Inspire Accountability in Team Members

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As a project manager, you need to inspire accountability from people who report to other managers. It’s enormously challenging! Here are tips to get your team members to be accountable.

Collaborate to build and confirm understanding of your work breakdown structure (WBS). When you collaborate on the WBS, team members get a deeper perspective and understanding of how their work fits into the overall project. Ask people who understand each section of the WBS to explain it to the rest of the team. That way, everyone on the team understands how their work contributes to the project objectives. When a team works together to decide how to approach a project, the sense of ownership grows. And ownership builds accountability because nobody wants THEIR project to falter.

Make sure task relationships are understood. After you’ve built your project schedule from the WBS, ensure each team member understands and agrees to the pre-requisite tasks that need to be completed for them to complete their work. Equally important, make sure each team member understands the tasks they need to finish so other team members can complete their deliverables. Doing this reinforces the value their deliverables contribute and cultivates accountability amongst the team.

Acknowledge completed work. Good project managers acknowledge deliverables completed by their team members. Great project managers foster a sense of pride within their team members by acknowledging something specific about the work each team member delivers. This reinforces the sense of accountability which will manifest itself in future project work.

Provide formal recognition. Formally acknowledge the work of each team member by writing an email to their manager. This reinforces the contribution project work provides to the organization and the value their employee provided to generate business outcomes. The enthusiasm this act generates in the team member not only boosts accountability on future project work —  it can boost accountability to deliver projects for the entire organization.

For more about teams, check out Mike Figluolo’s course building High-Performance Teams.

Don’t Let Human Foibles Hurt Small Projects

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Small projects don’t always get the respect they deserve. Here are a few tips for keeping people’s peccadillos from derailing your small project: 

Consider team members’ personalities. Small projects have only a few people, so – um —  harsh personalities stand out. With small teams, you need people who work well together. Coax your team members into getting to know and understand one another, even if the project duration is short. Don’t forget about your own personality and that of your sponsor to minimize potential conflicts and leverage your team’s strengths.

Protect your team from excessively detailed reporting. Your sponsor may want detailed reporting even on a small project. Try to discourage this — if possible. On a small project, discuss status with team members and capture the information you need for status reports. Keep your sponsor in their comfort zone of status detail and your job will be much easier. 

Watch for competing priorities. Small projects don’t necessarily mean small amounts of work for the team. Others may be clueless about that and pressure your team members to take on other work. Emphasize the commitment needed to meet project timeframes with your folks’ managers. Small projects can yield big outcomes – make sure all stakeholders understand your project’s value.

Stay on top of change management. Even a small change can significantly affect business processes. To ensure you deliver the intended business value, don’t skip change management in your project. Make sure stakeholders understand, are comfortable with, and can use your project outputs to generate business value. 

For more about managing small projects, check out my Project Management Foundations: Schedules course.

5 Tips to Reduce Scheduling Tool Headaches

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Photo by Windows on Unsplash

Like a sharp knife for a chef, a scheduling tool is a must-have item for a project manager. Scheduling tools, like any technology, can help or hurt. Here are five tips for using your project scheduling tool with less drama. 

  1. Use a template or copy a successful plan. Although projects are unique endeavours, they are rarely totally different from past projects. Use a project template or copy and modify a schedule from a successful past project. You can save time, leverage the success of these schedules, and capture tasks you might otherwise overlook. 
  2. Keep task relationships simple. The straightforward finish-to-start task relationship works most of the time and it’s the easiest for people to understand. Use that simple relationship unless there is a pressing reason for start-to-start or finish-to-finish (or lag and lead time).
  3. Customize calendar and hours/day defaults. The calendar settings you use need to match your organization’s and team member’s work schedules or your schedule won’t be accurate. Don’t forget to add holidays and other non-working days like factory maintenance periods to your project calendar. Also, consider adjusting the default hours per day or other calendar settings to reflect the actual project work time. While an 8-hour workday is common, team members rarely work 8 hours on your project tasks. Team meetings, other project and operational work is often required. You might change the hours per day to 6 or even lower based on your environment. Or you can assign people at less than full time to their tasks. Talk to your team members about what’s realistic.
  4. Keep resource assignments simple. Managing and modifying resource assignments is a huge source of scheduling headaches. A best scheduling practice is to break down project work so tasks are shorter than your reporting periods and have one or two resources assigned. With tasks like these, it’s a lot easier to create resource assignments – and change them once work gets underway.
  5. Train people to use the scheduling tool. Scheduling tools help you produce easy-to-understand reports. Sometimes, people believe they can modify your schedules or produce project reports without any training. That is a recipe for inaccurate reporting, expectation management issues, and a project manager migraine! Make sure everyone who will use the scheduling tool to maintain the schedule and produce reports is properly trained.

For more about scheduling and Microsoft Project, check out my Project Management Foundations: Scheduling course and Microsoft Project Essential Training course.