Archive for category: Project Management

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Want a project library that supports your project management practice and makes it easy to find information? An effective project filing system doesn’t have to be fancy and doesn’t require an expensive tool. Simply be purposeful about how you add project data to your system. Here are five tips for mindfully adding artifacts to your project filing system. 

• A project filing system is for all project artifacts, not just lessons learned. Many people talk about the importance of adding lessons learned to their project documentation. But the most valuable items in a project filing system are plans that can be edited and reused. Project plans that worked well are the ultimate in positive lessons learned! And other project artifacts, like documents, outputs, and deliverables can also be reused on future projects. Be sure to finalize and close out project artifacts before storing them in your filing system. When you do that, you’ll stock a warehouse of project templates to pick from that can save you time and money.

Lessons learned are important. To increase their effectiveness, tie them to specific project artifacts. For example, when you capture a lesson, reference the project task, change request, or risk to which it applies. If you ran into schedule delays because the database administrator was overcommitted, document the tasks that were affected. Or, add a reference to the risk about resource constraints and how those were managed. Lessons can also be about things that went well. Organizing all the lessons learned in your filing system can make future projects more successful.

• Categorize artifacts by project scope. Artifacts from previous projects are most relevant when they come from a project like the one you are managing now. But finding those projects in a filing system can be a challenge. Try categorizing projects by subject area or scope to make finding useful artifacts easier. (For example, projects that implement new financial procedures or add new functionality to the retail website.)  Classify your projects as you close them out. That way, you’ll expand your ability to reuse project management deliverables and increase your efficiency in the future! (Be sure to compare the scope on a new project to the scope of the past project and adjust for size and complexity, if necessary.)
• Focus on the triple constraints. Include a summary of your triple constraints in your project records. Files from past projects can help you estimate new ones. They provide benchmarks for costs and project duration. Need a quick answer for a senior leader who asks how much a project will cost? Want to know how long a project might take? Data that can help is in your filing system, as long as the scope, time, and cost data you captured are accurate and detailed.
• Identify the data you want to get out. Then capture and highlight what goes in. Organizations may have information that they’re interested in that projects can provide. For example, which top vendors perform best on projects? How long do decisions from regulatory bodies take? What items do regulators target when questioning results? Once you understand the questions and data your organization (and other projects) can benefit from, you can highlight that information in your archived project data.
• Appoint a curator or librarian to manage the project filing system. If everyone threw their data into the system, you could end up with duplicate terminology for the same item or the same lesson archived numerous times. To build a great project reference library, put someone in charge of curating and organizing the data from completed projects. The curator can also develop a guide to the library to help project managers and others track down the info they need.

There is no best way to design a filing system because it depends on your organization, projects, and other factors. That doesn’t prevent us from sharing tips with each other. If you have filing system tips and tricks that you’d like to share, post them in the comments section.

For more about saving and archiving project information, check out my Project Management Foundations (updated October 2022) course.

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Submitting a project for funding approval can be stressful. Will management give thumbs up or down? Doing your homework and providing critical information is the key to getting your projects approved. Here are the questions to answer to increase your chances of project approval.

How will you meet financial targets? Many organizations have financial thresholds that a project must meet to obtain funding. Others don’t. In either case, understand your sponsor’s financial expectations for the project. Include an explanation of how you will meet financial targets in your high-level project plan.

What skills do you need? As projects represent unique endeavors, you might need to train staff members or hire contractors for your project. Do your homework to identify the availability of internal staff members. Also, determine the lead times you’ll need if you plan to hire skilled contractors. If possible, check with others who have run similar projects. Identify the cost of hiring top-notch contractors. If those costs are high, using internal staff members (even if they would take longer) might be preferable for your organization.

How does your project support your organization’s strategy? Often, projects are specifically designed to support strategy. In other cases, projects indirectly support strategy. For instance, one project might make other strategic projects easier to deliver. Management might not recognize these subtle links to strategy. In your project plan, spell out how your project helps implement your organization’s strategy.

How will you measure progress? It’s important to identify how you will track progress on your project. Also, how you will ensure project outcomes deliver business value. Many sponsors are wary of spending money on projects without a solid promise of receiving business value in return. You can reassure your sponsor and management by explaining how you will assess progress and business value during the project.

How will you transition to new tools and processes? Projects create business change. Create an overview of how you will train and transition project stakeholders to new ways of working. This is important, because new tools and processes can be intimidating. Your overview helps management understand how your approach to gaining acceptance of your project’s business changes.

Do you have any tips for helping obtain project approval? If so, share it with us in the comments section.

For more about obtaining approval for a project to proceed, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

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A critical factor for using agile methods successfully is the mindset of the sponsor. With the wrong attitude about how agile works, you might as well forget about using an agile approach. A sponsor who is ready for agile must:

• Support a “learning organization.”  Learning organizations spend some time on activities that don’t directly create business outcomes. That time is used to develop capabilities within the organization that produce better outcomes in the future. This learning organization philosophy is pivotal for agile. The agile approach is itself a learning philosophy. With agile, you learn, adjust what you produce, and reprioritize features based on the knowledge you’ve gained. You learn about the product as it’s built.

Sponsors must embrace a learning mindset to support agile initiatives. In many instances, agile teams don’t do well at the start, because agile is so different from traditional project methodologies. A supportive sponsor will give teams the time and opportunity on a couple of agile projects to get into the agile flow. 

• Be open to new metrics. Sponsors with traditional PM leanings depend on Gantt chart schedules, pre-determined risk management plans, and specific milestones to measure progress. They might struggle with agile, because Gantt chart representations and fixed milestones aren’t very relevant to agile projects. Features are produced in a sequence that can change with each sprint. Agile uses measurement techniques like burndown charts and traditional budget management to provide schedule and cost status. Embedded testing and feature validation addresses the need to reduce risk. So, agile is a managed methodology — but it requires a sponsor who is open to different ways to assess progress.
• Focus on what’s needed, not how to achieve it. Agile is not the ideal approach when you have a fixed set of requirements and details for how the solution will be constructed. In an agile project, you define an objective, and then explore ways to achieve it. It’s typical for direction and approach to change along the way. Sponsors who are uncomfortable with the speculative and explorative nature of agile will struggle with its methods.
• Be willing to dedicate resources. Agile teams need to make decisions quickly and flexibly to be…well…agile! To do that, knowledgeable senior staff members need to be dedicated to agile teams. Sponsors need to assign the proper team members to agile projects and take other business activities off their plates. If junior staff members lead agile projects, teams might jump to inappropriate conclusions. This can create rework and reduce the team’s velocity. 

If you have experience with agile Projects, share your tips about sponsors in the comments section!

For more about agile approaches, check out Doug Rose’s Agile Foundations course.

Coming Up

My updated Project Management Foundations course is live! This version includes info about PMBOK7, clarifications to confusing items from past versions, a few corrections, more templates, and a new look.

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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/

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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.