Method123

A plant manager walks past the assembly line and notices a puddle of water on the floor. Knowing that the water is a safety hazard, he asks the supervisor to have someone get a mop and clean up the puddle. The plant manager is proud of himself for “fixing” a potential safety problem. The supervisor, however, is suspicious. He is not sure why the puddle is there. It wasn’t there yesterday. He wonders what caused the puddle to be there today. Therefore, he looks for a root cause by asking ‘why?’ He discovers that the water puddle is caused by a leak in an overhead pipe. He asks ‘why’ again, and discovers that the pipe is leaking because the water pressure is set too high. He asks ‘why?’ again and discovers that the water pressure valve is faulty. He asks ‘why?’ again, and does not get a further answer. The faulty valve is the root cause of the problem. So, the valve is replaced, which solves the symptom of water on the factory floor. Root cause analysis is a way to identify the ultimate ...

Branding is a more sophisticated form of marketing communication. The purpose of branding a project is to associate an emotion or a feeling with your project. This is exactly what marketing people try to do when they brand a product. For instance, The Coca-Cola Company hopes that you feel good about its products and that you will choose its products from a crowded store shelf because you like the image and emotion associated with it. Maybe it works. The purpose of branding a project is to associate a positive image and emotion with your work. This is not something most projects need to be concerned about. However, ask yourself some questions regarding the impact your project will have on the organization. Does it impact a large number of people or maybe the entire company? Will it require a culture change or a change in the way people do their job? Will your project make people nervous or afraid? For instance, will it result in efficiencies so that less people are required to do ...

Perhaps the place to start is to understand whether there are employees available in the timeframe needed for your project. It usually doesn’t make sense to hire contract people when you have employees that are available and otherwise would have nothing to do (assuming the employees have “close-enough” skills). Let’s assume that you do not have current employees available to staff your new project. Let’s also say you work for an organization that is open to utilizing contractors or hiring employees depending on the needs of the specific project. Let’s look at some of the criteria that you can use to make the hiring decision. Urgency. If you need to get started very quickly, you may need to hire contractors. In most organizations you can put a call out to the local contract companies and be interviewing people in a couple days. Most organizations can’t (and don’t want to) hire employees that quickly.      Length of the need . If you need a resource for a short, finite duration,...

Proactively Manage Project Resources Without Authority If team members are missing their deadlines you must first try to determine the cause. For example, if it is due to a lack of skills, this should be addressed through training or replacement resources. If it is because they do not fully understand the expectations you have, then you may have some changes to make as well. Although the team members do not report to you functionally, their work on the project should still be input into their overall performance review.  You can try to hold people accountable by making sure they understand that you will be providing performance feedback into their review. This should also be reiterated and agreed to by the functional managers From a process management side, there are project management techniques and processes that should be utilized. First of all, if the availability and performance of the team is in doubt, you should raise this early as a project risk. As part of risk management, yo...

Schedule Estimating Threshold When you create a schedule you generally don’t know enough to enter all of the detailed activities the first time though. Instead, you identify large chunks of work first, and then break the larger chunks into smaller pieces. These smaller pieces are, in turn, broken down into still smaller and more discrete activities. This technique is referred to as creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). A question people ask is how small the activities should be before they do not need to be broken down further. This is referred to as your “estimating threshold”. Work can be broken down into smaller activities than the estimating threshold, but normally no work would be left at a higher level. The threshold can be different based on the size of your project and how well the work is understood. You can use the following criteria as a guide. For a typical large project (say 5000 effort hours or more) the activities should be no longer than two weeks. Medium and smal...

Assumptions and Risks - Two Sides of a Coin Let's take an example of a common statement that is included in many Project Definitions - that the resources needed for this project will be available when needed. What kind of a statement is this? Most people would say it is an assumption. After all, when a project starts, you always assume you will get the resources you need. However, is it really an assumption? Can you imagine starting a project where the people and equipment were not available and there was a realistic possibility that they would not be ready when you need them - perhaps because another project needed to finish first? It is not too difficult to imagine that scenario. In that case, the same statement would definitely be a risk - not an assumption. The same statement might be an assumption or a risk depending on the circumstances of your particular project. There is some degree of uncertainty to an assumption. If the event is negative and there is a low probability tha...

Manage the Schedule for Small Projects All projects need a schedule. If you have a small project perhaps the schedule is a simple checklist or Excel spreadsheet. As projects get larger they need more formal scheduling templates and tools . The processes you use to manage a schedule also vary depending on the size of the project. Large projects need a lot of schedule management rigor. Small projects can use a lighter process. The following steps can be used to mage the schedule of a small project. Review the schedule on a weekly basis. Identify activities that have been completed during the previous week and update the schedule to show they are finished. Determine whether there are activities that should be completed, but are not. Work with the individual that is assigned to the work see what is going on. Determine how much additional effort and duration are needed to complete the work and update the schedule accordingly. Evaluate the remaining work to see if the project wil...