Flogging dead horses

We all see the statistics associated with project failure. For instance, according to a study by Gartner, almost 40% percent of IT projects fail or are abandoned before completion. Most project managers are afraid of being labeled as quitters or failures. Perhaps it takes more courage to admit that your project is a failure than to accept it (with no choice) when you finally walk over the cliff’s edge. Let’s be frank, continuing with a hopeless project is like flogging a dead horse …and wasting huge amounts of money in the process. It doesn’t make very smart business sense does it.

Managing yourself and others

All managers have a team to manage but all managers have themelves to manage too. It’s tough being a manager. You need to get through the day getting your own work done and looking out for your team. As managers move further up the ladder, they receive less mentoring and training.

100 Rules for NASA PMs

These have been floating around the net for quite a few years and I happened to stumble across them again and thought I should share them with you. All credit goes to Jerry Madden at NASA for this compilation. None of it is rocket science but they’re all good reminders for anyone in management. I know it’s a long list and I thought of separating them into easily digested bite sized chunks. But then I thought not, so here they are for your travel reading or for pasting on the walls of the office.

What’s going on?

I’ve always made a big effort to keep my team members in the picture when it comes to project or programme status. Aside from the usual discussions which go on throughout the week, I’ve used weekly status meetings, weekly messages and intranets for doing this.

All change

A fomer colleague in the UAE asked me for a Change Request Process and Template yesterday. I sent him a change CR log too. By putting a change process in place, you can easily monitor and control the amount of change that takes place, providing the process provides each of the key steps for managing change within projects are included.

PMI 250,000 Race

I was renewing my PMI membership yesterday and noticed that the PMI is fast approaching 250,000 members. To celebrate, they are holding a PMI 250,000 Member Race in which the winner will be the person who correctly guesses the month, day, hour and minute that the 250,000th member joins PMI. The other winner will be that 250,000th member. They’ve got some nice prizes on offer actually.

Sitting on Risk

An old colleague popped up on Skype yesterday and asked me if I had a Risk Plan he could use. If you’ve approached your project or programme well, you’ll have a Risk Plan/Strategy document. If you don’t, then why not? My old colleague was ‘attending to the missing Risk Plan’, but in reality, he was merely out to get a tick in the box in his project schedule.

66% fail, delay or overspend

Over the weekend I was in touch with Steve Lynn - a doctoral candidate at Kennedy Western University, USA and a Project Management Practitioner. Steve very recently conducted a survey among ProjectsAtWork.com subscribers to gather quantitative information on the importance of specific project management initiatives to their organisations.

OGC Successful Delivery

The other day I met up with Paul Byrne – a Programme Manager who used to be based in Prague. Paul is an MSP (Managing Successful Programmes – OGC) Practitioner, and as we enjoyed a glass of Gambrinus in a local Prague bar, he kindly shared 300mb of programme management material with me. Cheers again Paul!

OGC’s P3M3 Version 1.0

You, me and thousands of others including the OGC, know that too many projects fail or run horribly over-budget or late. Always proactive in the advancement of project and programme management, the OGC has identified the following key areas of failure which we should focus on in our efforts to manage and deliver projects and programmes successfully:

Jack of All Trades Recruiter

In my years as an independent consultant, I’ve received hundreds of calls from recruiters. Like many, I have suffered the recruiter who has no idea of what a particular job he is trying to fill entails. He has never participated in an IT project, has no idea of what the letters PMP, PRINCE or ITIL actually mean, and does not understand the full range of qualities which make a high calibre IT Project or Programme Manager, particularly in the Middle East.

Documentation

Documentation is the physical expression of any project or programme. Unwritten codes, concepts, risks, etc are but ideas that float around. When they are documented, they are suddenly taken seriously and take on a new look.

Whilst all project and programme managers should have the communication ability to create clear and concise documentation, nothing beats the added luxury of a good Technical Author.

Should PMs be tech experts?

I was flicking through my blog role this morning and I came across an interesting article by Dick Billows which discussed the question of whether a PM should be a technical expert. I say ”no, providing they are supported by a strong lead architect or technical workstream leads”. I know plenty of people who feel otherwise, but I have also seen PMs pull rank (on technical issues) on technical gurus who have far more technical knowledge than the PM.

Take a look at Dick’s view on this at http://www.4pm.com/atom.xml

PRINCE2 Vs PMP

When it comes to requested job qualifications, most of us realise that PMP is the favoured PM method among the more ‘American’ organisations, whilst PRINCE2 is very British and vastly popular throughout Europe and Australia.

PMs with no experience

I’ve been surprised at the number of people who have applied for the Telco PM ad that I posted last week when their CV is full of technical jargon, with no mention of project management except perhaps; ‘led team of people’. It brings to light the lack of understanding that technical folk have for Project Management, and of course their misconceptions of what a PM actually does.

Project Managers wanted

If you are looking for a stable yet exciting opportunity to manage projects in some of the most attractive regions of the Middle East, then read on.

I have been asked to source no less than six Project Managers for one of the most dynamic organisations in the Gulf region. The successful candidates could have the opportunity of living in the UAE, Bahrain or Kuwait to manage Banking or Telco projects in these and other GCC countries.

Risk management tools

A former colleague asked me about Risk Management tools last night, hence this post.

Most of us have used the old faithful Excel spreadsheet and MS Word templates to manage risk. When the project is small and risks are minimal, that might be a sufficient approach. But what if the project is expensive, high profile or destined to be home to an extensive catalogue of risks?

Risk – it’s not rocket science

I read an interesting article about risk and opportunity in the aerospace industry this morning. Whilst PMBOK considers risk as both negative and positive, the folk in aerospace consider risk as negative and opportunity as positive. Good risk management is not about fear of failure, but removing barriers to success. After all, project and programme management is success oriented, focused on producing products and services for customers. When the success orientation is combined with risk management, opportunity management emerges, which is the identification of opportunities to help attain project goals, and the identification and implementation of actions to capture those opportunities. Below are the keys to success taken from a Space Risk Management Symposium. Whilst their view on risk is slightly different from PMBOK’s, the points are not rocket science and can help most managers running IT projects and programmes.

• Sound risk and opportunity management cannot save a poorly planned program with bad processes
• Prevent the competition between risks and opportunities
• Prevent unhealthy competition between teams
• Risk and opportunity management provide diminishing returns if overused
• The costs of pursuing opportunities and managing risks must be weighed against the expected benefits
• An environment should be created to encourage risk and opportunity management
• Risks and opportunities are not just normal variations in plan
• Recognise the difference between risks and opportunities
• Opportunities are not “positive risks”.

Change

I had a phone call this morning from someone complaining about the change going on in his software company in Prague. Yes change …it’s something that many resist, especially when it involves some effort on their part or fear of the unknown. Yet process improvement can and does work when performed well. But it’s not just about process and planning – it’s about smart communication.

Due to human nature, whether your objective is to achieve a CMMI level of maturity, ITIL compliance or otherwise, the human element of the change involved is often the greatest challenge.

Pain is a great motivator for changing the way people work. Show them their pain and demonstrate the benefits of moving away from that pain by adopting the change.

Another key to change involves communication – lots of it! Many managers are so focused on the process, the schedule, the risk, etc, that they forget that the change involves real people and that overcoming their resistance will make their task of implementing change a lot easier. Show people the price being paid for current process, explain clearly the benefits of change. Allay their fear of extreme change by involving people in the process of designing the change and look for allies. All this is done through clear and considerate communication.

Emotional intelligence also comes in handy. Read my recent post on that subject here.

PRINCE2 updates

I’ve spoken to a few aspiring PRINCE2 Practitioners recently who are gathering PRINCE2 material from colleagues, including the PRINCE2 manual.

Make sure you get yourself an up to date PRINCE2 manual to study with. It only costs £55.25 and you can buy it directly from the TSO in the UK. The older version that your colleague might give you could mean the difference between a pass and a fail at the exam.

This document lists some of the changes that can be found in the latest version.

Milestones

I’m 43 today, and as Bernard Baruch once said; “old age is always 15 years older than I am”. The first snow of winter fell on Prague this morning too.

It’s another milestone in that all important programme called ‘life’ which has been a superb adventure thus far. We’re all managing a similar programme and we all do it in our own unique way, experiencing a blend of wins and challenges along the way.

But as well as these pre-defined milestones called birthdays, our years should include other major and minor milestones. A few of my recent milestones have been to move home, climb Kilimanjaro and launch a new business. I’ve done them all in the last 3 weeks so it’s been a busy time.

Now I have some birthday cake to cut so excuse me …

Planning

I’ve just moved home in Prague, hence the few days since I last updated the blog. Nevertheless, things went exceptionally well. It was incredible to watch the three removal guys in action as they strapped solid mahogony pieces of furniture to their back and carried them up 8 sets of stairs.

We had pre-packed, sealed and labeled everything well and the move was complete in just four hours, whilst the removal company had planned for eight. The cable tv, phone and internet lines are in, the paintings are hung and the 2500 books are stood nicely on the shelves again.

Good planning was key here. The words of a Czech removal guy and the words of an IT manager. Simply put in PRINCE2 terms; planning provides information on; i) what is required; ii) how it will be achieved, by when and using what equipment and resources; and iii) when events will happen. It’s not rocket science is it, although it’s an element of project and programme management which some of the most well educated and positioned professionals fail on.

Believe it or not, I’ve seen a large programme involving hundreds of IT resources move forward with less than 20% of the projects having a basic project plan in place. Of course this is an example of poor project management. But it’s also an example of poor programme management and poor leadership too. The fault begins with senior leadership for allowing this flakey approach to filter down from the highest level.

It’s simple, well known, yet it still holds very true; “He who fails to plan, plans to fail” – said Dr. Esdaille.

People issues and PRINCE2

We all know that project management is about being methodical, logical and consistent. But as PEOPLE make projects happen and not machines, all PMs need to deal with the often unenviable task of managing folk who can cause difficulties for the manager who is trying to plan and run a good project.

The handy sized “People Issues and PRINCE2″ helps us prepare for some of the characters we will inevitably come across when managing projects and programmes. To give you a flavour of this interesting read, I’ve listed a few of the section headings below;

Dealing with resource conflicts
Typical people issues
Managing performance and dealing with non-delivery

I like the part where the book looks at ”Traits of project board memers” and discusses 5 common types;
i) Senior ditherers
ii) Natural leaders
iii) Terrorists
iv) Micro-managers
v) Statesmen

Now doesn’t that make you think of a few people you’ve crossed paths with?!

You can buy the book direct from www.tso.co.uk (direct link to book)
ISBN: 0113308965