Bob McGannon and I talk about whether it makes sense to build a detailed project plan given that projects usually change once you start working on them.
To learn more, check out my Project Management Foundations course on LinkedIn Learning.
When project ideas flow freely, managing scope can challenging. One sure way to manage scope is to assess ownership. Unless the identified owner is appropriate, that element shouldn’t be part of your project. An owner is appropriate when:
They can provide funding. An appropriate owner will fund the development of their scope item. In addition, they can increase the funding (within business case parameters) if the cost of delivering the scope increases. If the identified owner must go elsewhere to obtain or release funds, they aren’t an appropriate owner.
They can provide resources. Appropriate owners provide capable resources for requirements, verification, and implementation of scope items. Providing new or lower-level resources could indicate a lack of dedicated ownership. Delays in getting resources could indicate that other scope items have higher priority, in which case you should evaluate whether the scope element should really be out of scope.
They can make decisions. Scope item owners can make decisions regarding how the scope will be built and implemented. While others may be involved in decision making, an appropriate owner is the final arbiter. In instances where scope decisions affect others, the appropriate owner has the means to consult with and influence others regarding the scope element (to resolve potential stakeholder conflicts).
They defend the business need. Project constraints can require scope prioritization. An appropriate owner can articulate and defend the business need for their scope items. As the project progresses, they make themselves available to discuss required changes, and assess the impacts of those changes to their business.
To learn more, watch this course.
Experienced project managers can manage agile projects — IF they make the necessary adaptations! Here’s how you need to adjust when managing agile projects:
Ditch the Gantt Chart. Agile is a fluid production approach based on progressive learning and adapting to business priority changes. As a result, the pre-planned tasks in a Gantt chart aren’t relevant. Instead, you manage a fluid set of design, build and test activities by measuring production for the client.
Revise your view to change management. In agile, change is the norm, not the exception. Project managers need to be comfortable with continually revising scope and priority to meet client needs. Change management is not a separate and distinct control process in agile; it is inherent to the agile approach to delivering client value.
Use a different status report format. Agile emphasizes velocity – the rate at which functions are produced and the productivity of each sprint. Your status reports should include these elements along with feedback from the end users who are using the functions the agile team has produced.
Rethink “project controls.” Project managers need to direct their efforts to eliminating obstacles that impede the agile team. Resource retention and team and client personnel engagement are paramount. An agile leader must ensure that the team’s capabilities are fully utilized, instead of managing a set of control processes that traditional project managers embrace.
Enjoy the differences! Agile’s focus is on collaboratively creating content that is most useful to the client – even when the client can’t describe what they need in detail! The benefit – and fun – of agile is that you can enjoy the discovery process and deliver capability in the shorter term!
For more on agile, check out the LinkedIn Learning Become an Agile Project Manager learning path.
Fast-tracking means scheduling tasks in parallel when possible. Crashing is adding people or spending money to complete work earlier. Don’t be overly ambitious with these techniques. Here are some dos and don’ts for fast-tracking and crashing:
Do look for opportunities to fast-track or crash. These strategies can shorten the schedule, but also add risk — so make sure they’re worth it. Fast-tracking increases the risk of rework because products developed in parallel might not integrate. Crashing increases cost, because you must obtain and coordinate additional resources.
Do add review tasks after fast-tracking. Adding review time lenthens your schedule, but not as much as you save by fast-tracking. Reviews mitigate the integration risk of fast-tracking. Team members who work on parallel tasks should conduct joint reviews to ensure products are compatible.
Do use skilled resources to crash your tasks. Adding skilled team members can improve the quality of the product and save time.
Don’t add marginal skills to tasks you’re crashing. Lack of skill creates more overhead – ensure you have capable people. Also, limit the number of people on crashed tasks. Too many people get in each other’s way, wasting time and money.
Don’t compromise project integrity by fast-tracking testing. Testing tasks should be exempt from fast-tracking. Testing evaluates the appropriateness of your products. You can’t conduct high-integrity tests while product development is still in progress. If you do that, you’ll need additional regression testing, which negates the fast-tracking time savings.
Don’t apply both fast-tracking and crashing to the same tasks. This increases risk dramatically and is rarely successful. I call this “fast-crashing,” because, like a car accident, you can’t help but look, though the results aren’t pretty.
For more on these techniques, watch my LinkedIn scheduling course
Agile methodologies accommodate change easily, which is why they’re called -er- agile! However, some things don’t change. Here’s an overview of what you can and can’t change with agile:
Priority. Each sprint includes a review and re-prioritization of the functional backlog, so you can change priority before each sprint. Prioritization of items commonly occurs as functions are produced and stakeholders learn from using those functions. New business challenges and the benefit of new functions can come to light and be addressed. Priority changes must comply with technical practicalities and logical business sequences. For example, you can’t build a balance sheet unless you can process both revenue and expenses!
Schedule. When you review the functional backlog, you can adjust the schedule by moving the functions the business needs or wants into upcoming sprints. However, rescheduling requires accurate effort estimating.Developers learn more about the functions they produce, which improves their ability to estimate effort. As a result, you can more easily manage the schedule as the project progresses.
Scope. New scope ideas often surface after a few functions are produced. Scope changes are not only accommodated, but expected, with agile approaches. However, this often involves trade-offs. Budget and time negotiations or dropping existing scope items to accommodate new and important functions are likely to occur.
Deadlines. Agile projects usually involve allocating personnel for a pre-determined amount of time. Scope becomes the variable. As scope changes or reprioritizations are discussed, you can adjust the sprints to change deadlines for specific functions. The overall project deadline can even be changed– assuming the whole team is still available.
Don’t count on changing cadence or personnel! Setting the agile team anda sprint schedule – and sticking to it – are major success factors with agile. A major benefit of agile is what is learned along the way. Changing personnel disrupts that learning and diminishes agile benefits. Changing sprint structures can also be disruptive. Schedules are built around the vital, focused sprint meetings and activities. Changing the schedule can throw the team off their rhythm and disrupt the estimates and sprint plans that have been created.
For more on agile, check out the Become an Agile Project Manager learning path
Dedicated project team members might appear expensive, but they provide significant benefits, which might reduce your project costs:
Focused responsibilities. Dedicated people aren’t distracted by day-to-day operational issues. They can fully examine the project deliverables and understand how the project is proceeding so they can deliver what’s best for the project. You get better outcomes and reduce rework.
The right skills for the job. Operational knowledge is important, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the person has the best skillset to create project deliverables. Recruiting people with the most appropriate skills and assigning them to project tasks can optimize your project delivery. Contractors can join the project as dedicated resources for only the time needed to accomplish their tasks, which can reduce project overhead costs.
Greater efficiency. Dedicated, skilled team members typically take fewer hours to produce their deliverables because they don’t have to multi-task. Multi-tasking wastes time while not making progress — like catching up when you reopen a novel after putting it down. Operational personnel who also produce project deliverables are multi-tasking: they need to re-acclimatize themselves each time they switch between operational and project work. This wastes time and increases costs.
Continued access to operational knowledge. Assigning dedicated team members to your project doesn’t necessarily mean losing operational knowledge. Your dedicated team members can interview or shadow operational personnel to obtain first-hand knowledge of business operations and then apply that knowledge to your project deliverables.
Quicker delivery. The efficiencies of dedicated resources can mean a shorter project. Your business value is realized more quickly, and you can move on to your next project – and deliver more business value sooner!
To learn more, watch Chris Croft’s course Managing Resources Across Project Teams.
The pessimism of Eeyore, the gloomy donkey from Winnie-the-Pooh, would make him an uninspiring project manager. But unchecked optimism isn’t good either—you come off as unrealistic. Here are some tips for achieving the balance of constructive optimism:
For more on project management, follow me on LinkednIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonniebiafore/) and check out the LinkedIn Learning Become a Project Manager learning path
There are hundreds of things you can do as a project manager to deliver a project. How do you prioritize what’s on your project management to-do list? Here are tips from the pros:
Let the environment guide you. Monitor your project environment and respond to concerns that arise. Things change day to day in a project. Teams can get stressed. Key staff can argue. Stakeholders hear rumors and get fearful. Unexpected issues arise. Ensure you address these concerns, and you’ll create a positive environment for project delivery.
Accommodate your senior stakeholders. Design your to-do list around what your stakeholders need to trust in your project management. Understand their desires. Are they detail oriented? Do they want frequent status updates, or alerts only if there’s a problem? The last thing you want are worried senior leaders, so accommodate their needs – but don’t hide bad news from them!
Focus on risk. Keep risk monitoring in the forefront. Talk about risk often with your team. Watch for risk triggers and be proactive with your response strategies. Supporting a risk management mindset is powerful – make it a significant part of your to-do list.
Complement your project team. Every project team has strengths and weaknesses. Use your experience to make up for team shortcomings. When appropriate, offer your help and teach your team members. Ensure you aren’t taking over their responsibilities — you already have enough to do as the PM!
Support your team. Your team is crucial to project success. Take care of them. Pay attention and support their needs. Thank them when they do well and guide them when they go astray. It’s easy to forget this in hectic project environments, so ensure supporting your team is a to-do list priority.
For more info, watch my course Project Management Foundations.
You manage your project schedule by focusing on the critical path. But don’t stop there! Project time management requires examination of other items. Here are things to check to proactively manage your schedule:
Examine “near critical paths.”A path with a small amount of slack means you have a near critical path. These tasks with very little slack should be monitored with the same diligence as your critical path, because almost any task delay could shift your critical path.
Watch resource work time. Monitor variances between forecasted and actual work hours on your project. Consistent under-allocation of actual work time on project tasks could lead to schedule slippage. Ensure you understand why resources aren’t working as much as planned. Work with management if a reallocation of project tasks is necessary to keep things on track.
Look for convergence tasks. Successor tasks with multiple paths leading into them are prone to delay, because many predecessor tasks must complete on time to keep the convergence task on schedule. Monitor progress leading up to convergence tasks and proactively respond if delays seem likely. Note: convergence tasks are candidates for contingency because of the likelihood of delays.
Note upcoming risks. Understand your risk triggers. Explore additional resourcing, fast-tracking or crashing alternatives if risks appear poised to come to fruition. Examine the possibilities for other risks due to delays to your schedule, such as losing staff to other initiatives or contractor agreements expiring.
To learn more, check out my Project Management Foundations course.
It’s irresponsible to promote early estimates as being accurate. Early on, there are too many unknowns. A responsible approach focuses on communicating our estimates as gradually more accurate. Here’s what you can do to produce responsible estimates.
Project management entails managing expectations. You can set expectations about estimating by creating an estimating schedule and estimating to that schedule as your project progresses. That’s a responsible and rational way to manage estimating.
To learn more about estimating, check out the estimating movie in my Project Management Foundations course.
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