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Effective Project Management
Barbara Stone & Jodie Mathies
November 8, 2007
Agenda
• Feedback on presentations and
project docs
• Scott Berkun
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Controlling
Change management
Prioritization & ranking
Quality Assurance - metrics
Communication
• Adaptive Project Framework (APF)
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Comments from Status / Project
Plan documents (1)
Traffic Lights:
• Need one for overall project status, not just
individual milestones.
• Overall project status color is not an
average. When in doubt, choose the worst
color.
• If a task has not yet begun, it does not have
a color, unless it was scheduled and is late.
Marking things red or yellow when they are
scheduled to take place at a later date puts
management attention on the wrong things.
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Comments from Status / Project
Plan documents (2)
Budget review:
• The time people spend is part of your
budget; often the greatest part.
• When giving status, make sure to include the
whole budget; your audience is very
interested in whether the effort is taking
more staff time than planned
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Comments from Status / Project
Plan documents (3)
Gantt / WBS for Project communication:
• A Gantt chart without the task names is
essentially useless as a communication tool
• and that goes for charts that extend over
multiple pages; adjust the timescale to make it
fit
• Generally it is better to show a Gantt at a
summarized task level than to have multiple
pages or tiny unreadable font.
• Choose carefully what to print; columns like id
& predecessor generally don’t add anything to
the presentation. If you have a column printed
after the task on the Gantt, don’t include it as a
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column (ex: resource name).
Comments from Status / Project
Plan documents (4)
Communication Plan
• OK to extend generic communication
formation to include documents external to
project group (though Jodie would not
include documents that are product of the
project)
• If you do, need to include dates for
delivery
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Comments from Status / Project
Plan documents (5)
Formatting / Editing:
• What story do you want to tell? You tell that
story two ways:
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Content: Simple, clear, and consistent information
about the project
Format: Think about how the look of your
presentation helps you tell that story.
Here are just a few of the world of articles on ‘bad
PowerPoint’ out there:
• http://www.plasticsurgerydr.com/rpp.html
• http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com/articles/
pptsurvey_article.htm
• http://www.ispi.org/pdf/BadPwrpt.pdf
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What phase is your project in?
Probably still Execution.
You, as a Project Manager, are probably
still Monitoring and Controlling:
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Tracking task and milestone status
Meeting with your team and stakeholders
Working issues
Working risks
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Scott Berkun – Making things happen
• Priorities make things happen –
making lists, priority 1 & the rest
• Say no
• Keep it real
• Know the critical path
• Be relentless
• Be savvy
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Prioritization & Ranking - issues
• What problem are we trying to solve?
• If there are multiple problems, which
are most important? Think Pareto.
• How does the problem relate to or
impact our goals?
• What is the simplest way to fix this
that will allow us to meet our goals?
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Ways to say no
• No, that doesn’t fit our priorities
• No, only if we have time
• No, only if you make <insert
impossible thing here> happen
• No, next release
• No. Never. Ever. Really.
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‘Savvy’ = Flexible: you adjust.
• What communication style fits the
situation?
• What is the humor culture of the team?
• How do arguments get won? (data? Force
of personality? Etc)
• Who is effective at what I need to have
happen?
• What values are most important to this
person or group?
• What is the overall organizational culture?
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Guerilla tactics
• Know who has
authority
• Go to the source
• Switch
communication
modes
• Get people alone
• Hunt people down
• Hide
• Get advice
• Call in favors, beg
& bribe
• Play people off
each other
• Stack the deck
• Buy people coffee
& tasty things
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Every team member should
know:
Most important:
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Goal
Objective
Work item
Metric
Stay focused on what’s most important
Know the critical path
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Team works on project deliverable
• Strong sense of what they are doing
• Why it’s the most important thing to
do next
• How it relates to what others are
doing
• How quickly it must be done
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Team tries not to work on project
‘process’ deliverables
Bureaucracy - An administrative system
in which the need or inclination to
follow rigid or complex procedures
impedes effective action
One of the jobs of the PM is to shelter
the team from administrative process
that does not further the work of
building the product.
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Why people get annoyed
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Assume I’m an idiot
Don’t trust me
Waste my time
Manage me without respect
Make me listen to or read stupid
things
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Process
Pros
• Improves the odds of the project
being completed
• Has benefits that outweigh its costs
Cons
• Any idiot with authority gets to create
them
• Observations of the past emphasized
over needs of the present
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Checklist for good processes
• Accelerate progress
• Prevent problems
• Make important actions visible and
measurable
• Include a process for changing or
eliminating the process
• People impacted by them are in favor of
them
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The power of email
• Communication
• Weapon
• Self-destruction
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Meeting standards
• Are the right people in the room?
• Sit or stand?
• Laptops & gadgets – “I have a strong bias
against the use of gadgets and laptops
during meetings. If the people in the room
don’t think what’s going on is important
enough to warrant their full attention, then
they shouldn’t be in the room.”
• Being on time
• End with clear steps & owners
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Adaptive Project Framework
‘Core values’
• Client-focused
• Client-driven
• Incremental results early and often
• Change is progress to a better
solution
• Don’t speculate on the future
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APF
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Some key takeaways:
Requirements:
• High-level requirements early on; revisited
and re-prioritized with each cycle
• Detailed requirements only for the
functionality to be produced in current cycle
Budget:
• Fixed; job is to create the most value for
cost/time.
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Prioritization & Ranking - scope
• More requirements are not always
better
• Which are the most important –
which provide highest business value?
• Think Pareto – 80/20
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Discussion:
• How do you know ahead of time how
many cycles you can do in this
project?
• What are some projects that require
TPM (‘waterfall’) as opposed to an
iterative approach?
• Can you ever not revisit scope?
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Discussion:
• What approach have you used for
your project for this class? Why?
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Assignments for next class
• Read Saying no, a short course for
managers
• Research the Pareto theory and write a few
paragraphs on the implications for your
project to hand in
• Read Effective Project Management ,
chapter 11
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