My wife's first WBS

I'm so proud! My wife has a lot of things to do between preparing for Thanksgiving and the big church retreat. She was explaining them all to me so I told her she needed to create a Work Breakdown Structure. I started her off, showing the difference between projects, deliverables and activities. Then I headed outside to do some work. By the time I returned, here is what I found:

She did everything right and is using it to complete all her work. Deliverables are all nouns, activities are verb-noun format.

 

Good job Kathy!

Big idea for LaGuardia

If you've ever flown into or out of LaGuardia or JFK, you might be forgiven for thinking you weren't in the airport of the greatest city in the world. These airports and their connections to the city are just awful. Newark is better but it is in New Jersey with few connections to New York City. Most large cities have much better connections to their airports.

There is a competition to develop a better plan for these airports with a $500,000 prize.

This guy, Jim Venturi, has a BIG plan that may be what we need, rather than the Band-Aids others are applying to the systemic problem that is air travel into and out of New York.

 

PMO Creation - Week 12

With my wife undergoing a medical procedure and the CEO in California, I thought it was safe to cancel the steering committee meeting this week. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Shortly after the CEO got the cancellation message, he reinstated the meeting and took the red-eye back to New Jersey. He pulled my team into the meeting totally unprepared and criticized them for not having their charters and project plans ready.

The word from above was, "Nobody cancels the steering committee meetings." Well, at least he has bought totally into the Proejct Management approach. I apologized to my people for getting them in trouble and vowed I would stick up for them next week. We agreed to get all the charters written by next Friday.

PMO Creation - Week 11

"With all the training behind us, it's time to get into maintenance mode," I thought as I entered this week's steering committee meeting. I asked for the names of any projects that had ended based on last week's discussion that suggested two or three should be over by now. While the CEO thought one was complete, the other members said that their team members were still working on it.

A new project is about to start that is taking resources from existing projects which brought up the question: If a project is not authorized yet, should it have the right to use resources? Well, since the possibility is high that we get this project and it has the potential of making us millions of dollars - yes.

So we moved that project into the priority list at around 7 and moved around some more until we were satisfied with the top 25.

The next question was, why aren't we using the project charter template? So we agreed to ask all the PMs to use the template by the end of next week, just in time for the next steering committee meeting. Sarah and Mike will help them accomplish this task.

We also decided to ask them all to come up with the elements of a project schedule as well so we can start using the below dashboard to see which projects we have to apply pressure on.

This dashboard was a good starting point but we found improvements. 

1. Make it the first part of the resourcing worksheet so we don't need to update project priority list and PMs in two places.
2. Add variance in schedule and budget. 
3. Use conditional formatting to show project %Complete.

We made some progress consolidating this onto the project resourcing sheet as shown here:

There is still work to be done. That should take up most of Mike and Sarah's time this week. 

Notice our CEO asked the technical experts to be the PMs of their projects. As soon as we started asking them to perform PM tasks we received push-back. Luckily he was there to witness this so we had a quick conversation, reminding him of the difference between a technical leader and a Project Manager. He agreed to switch out the roles and Mike and Sarah split up some of the projects that lacked PMs between themselves. 

I'm looking forward to the progress we will make this week but I am one of the PMs so I will need to fill out a charter template and come up with a schedule for my two projects. 

One last thing we decided was that small projects could use the charter template for the few milestones that exist and need not create a schedule or status report. Their status reporting can be a tab on the dashboard file that Sarah had hyperlinked up the the dashboard. Larger projects will need more formal documents for each. 

Eighty-fourth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

          Once they were out of sight of Dale, Gwilym and Grainne held a hasty discussion. “The roads are no longer safe,” said Gwilym. “That Dale might tell him which way we went after all. He is scared of the knight. We have to hope we have at least a day before Palomides hears where we are. By then, we need to be off these main roads and traveling along open country to Glastonbury. We should be safe once we arrive there.”

          “These carts won’t be much good in the open country. Too many hills, valleys and rivers. Do you know the country here?” asked Grainne.

          “I know the main roads. They cut through forests on our way here. I don’t know if there are secondary tracks through them.”

          “I know the forests. If you can get us to the forests, I can keep us safe,” said Grainne.

          A few hours later they saw a track leading off the main road that showed promise of being more than just a farmer’s drive. They took this and then began an odyssey of tracking their way back and forth across the countryside, through farms and hamlets, around rivers and forests, up and down hills, fording small streams, backtracking around the occasional steep valleys but always heading generally west.

          Whenever they approached a settlement or even a farm, Gwilym would hide under covers in the back of the cart. His face was on the coin and he didn’t want to attract attention to their group. The sight of a beautiful woman alone in a cart attracted different attention and Bleddyn would sometimes have to stand and draw his bow to discourage the lewd advances.

          They traveled this way for a week, making slow progress toward their destination. Then they reached the edge of a great forest, one that was known to all as a dangerous place, pierced by only one Roman road from east to west and another from north to south. There were other trails reputed to be stalked by bandits. It would take two days to pass through the forest using the main roads. People spent the night at the crossroads where there was a small settlement and a contingent of the king’s soldiers. This was the place Gwilym had stayed on his trip from Huish to Airmyn.

          “Palomides may wait for us there,” said Gwilym to Grainne.

          “That’s good,” said Grainne.

          “Why?”

          “Then we can take the Roman road almost to the crossroads, skirt around it and return to the road later.”

          Gwilym thought about this and but was concerned about the logic. “But that’s only if he knows we must come this way. He doesn’t know our destination. No. Thinking about it more, I think he’ll place some trusted henchman there while he continues patrolling the roads to find us.”

          “No-one has seen you since Edithvale. How will he find us?”

          “At Edithvale they saw who I was traveling with. He’ll be spreading the word about you, the boys and the two carts. He probably went down the road that Dale pointed until he reached a settlement and asked there. He would have found out we didn’t come through. Then he would have gone back to the fork and done the same thing down the other road. We didn’t pass through any settlement before we went off the road. If he’s a good tracker he would have gone back to the fork and started making circles on his horse, stopping at every farm and asking about us. Eventually he would have come to places that had seen us and figured out our direction.”

          “Where is he now then?”

          Gwilym thought hard for a while in silence. “He may have figured out by now which direction we are traveling and that we must pass through this forest. The forest is the neck of the bottle. We either go through it on the road or around it. It will be easy for him to post a few sentries at some points around it looking for us to skirt it and one at the crossroads to catch us there. He hates to stand still so he will be patrolling the roads and outskirts.”

          “Then we are in danger here. We can only be safe taking one of the old tracks through it.”

          “That’s dangerous. They’re a haven for bandits.”

          Grainne pointed at the trees. “That’s an oak forest. I can protect us there.”

          “Do you know any paths wide enough for these carts?”

          Grainne looked at the carts. “With a little work, probably. Follow me, Bleddyn!” she yelled behind her and crossed the last bit of open field and plunged the horses into the dark. 

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

Eighty-third excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

          “Hail, good sirrah!” Gwilym cried. “What village is this?”

          “This be Edithvale,” replied the villager. “Willim, be it?”

          “Gwilym, actually! Did my knight friend give you one of these coins?” He pulled out the coin Fred had given him and compared it to the villager’s.

          “That he did, yet he gave no feeling that he were a friend of yourn. He told me I’d get a gold coin if I gave word of you.”

          A horse galloped by, the rider staring at Gwilym as he left. Gwilym looked around and noticed other villagers mounting up.

          “It’s a long story. Join me on the cart and I’ll tell you.” The man clambered aboard. “You have me at a disadvantage,” Gwiylm said as he clasped the man’s hand helping him up and turning it into a handshake.               “You know my name and I don’t know yours.”

          “Name be Dale. Where be ye headed?” He was scrutinizing Gwilym, Grainne and both carts. Gwilym stood and stretched to his full height. Dale’s shoulders drooped. They drove the carts out through the other side of the village.

          “Dale, you want that gold coin and I don’t want that knight catching me. But he has me at a disadvantage. He only has to give one gold coin to the few people who point him my way. I can’t afford to give a gold coin to everyone who doesn’t.”

          Dale nodded.

          “Now, three villagers have already left on horseback to tell Palomides where I am. What do you suppose he’ll give to the second villager who tells him my whereabouts?”

          “Another gold piece.”

          Gwilym shook his head.

          Dale thought. “He should give the first one a gold piece. But the second one will tell him the same so he won’t give him anything.”

          “And what about the third and fourth?”

          Dale nodded and said, “Nothing.”

          “Right. The next person to get a gold piece from him will be the first one who tells him where I went after I left the village. I imagine there are already villagers who have figured that out and are vying with each other to be that person.”

          Dale nodded again with a sad expression.

          “But when Palomides comes to the next crossroads, there is one person who can tell him which way I went. And that, my friend, is where you will get two gold pieces. More gold than anyone else in town. Plus, you will get something even better. Peace of mind that you were the only villager who earned money without sending an ungodly Saracen to kill a pious Christian.”

          Dale’s expression cleared with a new hope. “How’s that, sirrah?”

          “What was your opinion of Palomides when he talked to the people of your village?”

          “He were dark and hairy, with one eyebrow and a huge nose. He smelled bad and talked funny.”

          “Did you trust him?”

          “I believed he would give the gold. He showed a handful from his purse.”

          “Yes,” said Gwilym. “But did you trust that he was looking for me for good intentions. Or did you suspect that he was up to no good?”

          “I had my doubts. But he was offering gold. I could buy a fine milk cow for a piece of real gold.”

          “And now that you’ve met me. Would you feel right about sending him after me?”

          “Don’t suppose so. But it were real gold.”

          “Aye,” said Gwilym. He fished around in his belt-pouch and held out a gold piece of his own. “When Palomides comes to the cross-roads, he will ask you which way I went. For the price of this gold, I ask you to tell him the wrong way. You can take Palomides’ gold also.”

          Dale smiled.

          “Do you know why Palomides is after me?”

          Dale shook his head.

          “I have a secret about Jesus that I found while traveling in the Holy Land.” The mention of this place elicited the usual awed expression Gwilym had seen in British villagers. “Palomides wants to use this secret to hurt Christians. He will torture my children in front of me to get this secret from me.”

          Dale looked glum.

          “So Dale. I ask you. When Palomides comes to the cross-roads and asks you which way I went and you feel the warmth of this gold piece in your pocket. Which way will you tell him?”

          Dale’s expression brightened and he replied, “The wrong way!”

          “Good man!” exclaimed Gwilym and clapped him on the shoulder. “How many days ago was Palomides in your village?”

          “Two.”

          They spoke no more for the next hour until they reached a fork in the road. Dale stole the occasional glance at Grainne when he thought Gwilym was not looking. Twice he looked back at the children following in the other cart and smiled at them.

            Dale stepped down off the cart at the fork. Gwilym threw him the gold piece and the family traveled along the southern road. 

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

PMO Creation - Week 7

As often happens, work on actual projects gets in the way of creating the PMO. I was heads down all week getting my new project through a critical phase.

However, my team managed to set up two important PMO meetings:

First project prioritization session is set for next Thursday and the following Monday I will conduct a four hour Executive Briefing for them.

I'll keep you informed on progress.

PMO Creation - Week 6

We held the first steering committee meeting. This was designed to come to agreement about the rules of our committee, set up monthly meetings, a prioritization session and an executive training.

The CEO finally got the point about other projects affecting his IT projects and was very pleased I had been pushing in this direction. The team agreed to all the proposed rules listed below and we will be holding regular meetings.

The CEO also sent out this e-mail intended to gather projects for the prioritization session:

Good afternoon everyone.

We had an awesome Project Steering Committee meeting on Friday led by our own PM Guru, Bruce Fieggen. During the meeting we agreed to have the PMO manage all projects within QPharma. What does that mean for each of us? I’m not sure exactly, but a few examples are:

•  It won’t impact Professional Services
• Change control will be managed through the PMO
•  Not just Python, all systems and desired systems.

This is your opportunity to tell us what you want done, your absolute wish list.

Bruce will be the point person, but I want to see a list by Tuesday noon. Regardless of how long you’ve been waiting, now is the time to tell us. Send the lists and a brief explanation to Emily and she’ll compile and send to the committee.

Here were the rules we came up with:

Project:  Defined as a temporary endeavor to provide a unique product service or result.  All projects need a defined scope and an end date.  For QPharma, this encompasses ALL projects, not just projects related to the Python system.

Goals:

•  Cross functional input into projects and priorities.
• Run projects within budget (# of hours or $)
• New projects and priorities do not randomly derail existing priorities.  
• The Steering Committee will prioritize and re-prioritize projects.
• The committee should communicate vision and strategy

Rules and Norms:

• The Steering Committee should authorize all projects.
• The committee should prioritize and re-prioritize all projects and will be published to the company.  Re-prioritization of projects will be done on a monthly basis during PM Steering Committee meetings.  In the cases of emergency changes/issues, an Emergency PM Steering Committee will be scheduled to discuss and decision-making on the issue.
• Approve all changes to the projects.  All project related change requests will need to be reviewed and approved by the PM Steering Committee
• Review all project status and project dashboard
• Fully resource all active projects.
• Approval of all deliverables.  Business owners will need to approve all project milestone deliverables.  Approval will be reflected in the Project Dashboard.
• The PM Steering Committee will meet on a monthly basis.  The quorum requirement for the Steering Committee is 5 members.

·         Projects will have the following categorization:

o   New Product Development

o   Customer Order

o   Process Improvement

o   Facility

o   Regulatory Mandate

Action Items:

• B. Fieggen will conduct an executive PMO training to the Steering Committee members.
• B. Fieggen will schedule the monthly PM Steering Committee Meeting.
• A list of all QPharma projects will need to be compiled 2 days prior to the PM Steering Committee Meeting for prioritization.

PMO Creation - Week 4

Now that we have our schedule in place, we have been working well towards that plan. Sarah and Mike are cranking out templates for use by the team. I got them administrative rights to modify the PMO SharePoint site. Mike has been inventorying all the projects we currently have and I've been notifying people that they are on the steering committee. Everyone seems to be enthusiatic. Let's see how the steering committee meeting goes when we start asking them to make those tough decisions.

We also came up with a list of rules for the PMO to operate under:

The QPharma PMO will abide by the following rules and norms:

1. The PMO will operate under full transparency, sharing information with all interested parties
2. Escalation principles will be published and followed
3. Nobody works on projects past the research phase until the project is authorized by the steering committee
4. Projects can be authorized outside the steering committee meetings by approval of a majority of members
5. All projects within commercial operations require a charter. Professional operations can use a Statement of Work or Signed Contract as their charter
6. Project Managers will hold weekly status meetings with their teams that last 30 minutes or less
7. Project Managers will use Earned Value calculations to report on budget
8. Project Managers will provide a weekly status report to the PMO every Wednesday
9. Schedules require level of effort to be calculated for each activity
10. The PMO will provide a monthly dashboard showing all project status to the steering committee prior to their monthly meeting
11. The steering Committee will meet monthly
12. Change control will be managed by the steering committee. The PMO head will facilitate the steering committee but the signatures of the majority of members are required to approve a project change
13. PMO will meet weekly every Friday at 10 AM
14. Bruce will publish PMO status reports
15. PMO members will obtain their PMP certification by the end of 2014

Dear PM Advisor. Mar 10, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I want to create a Project Objective using the rules you teach but you ask us to use one date and we need to have three dates: The key milestone, the release date and the date 90 days after release that indicates the real project end date. What do you suggest we do? 

Torn in Portland, OR

Dear Torn,

I do suggest that a Project Objective have one date in it. In facilitating over 300 Rapid Project Start ups, I've only violated this rule twice, where there was an initial start up date followed by a the full move to production. But in your case it is not necessary. Let's look at your three dates:

1. Key milestone prior to release. This is important and should be reflected in the Schedule as a key milestone but it does not belong in the Project Objective. The Objective is the Headline of the project. Headlines should emphasize What we are doing, When and for How Much. 
2. Release Date. This is the date that management wants to focus on. This date belongs in the Objective.
3. End of the project after 90 days in the market. This is an important date to know and to emphasize to your team that they are not released until this date. Following the truism that 90% of the problems appear within 90 days of market release, we need the team members to stay engaged on the project until they have a chance to resolve all these problems. Put this date on your schedule and hold your team there until this date. Don't put it in the Objective. 

So you can get away with just using the release date on the Objective for your project. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

PMO Creation - Week 3

Now that we have a mission, it's time to determine how to put this into practice. I did a bit of research and found an excellent site that advises people on how to set up a PMO. Here it is: www.practicalpmo.com.
Simon Wilkinson offers a free 7 steps guide and plugs his book. I may yet buy that book.

With his free guide in hand, I sat down with my team and developed a Gantt chart for the work we see ahead of us. Using good PM practices, I asked them to volunteer for activities and give me their estimates for duration. We are using this to complete our activities and check on our progress as we proceed. Here's a link to the Gantt chart we came up with:

Once again I distributed this chart to those who will be affected immediately by this work. I am not distributing it to the PMs outside the PMO until we have our processes in place. We want to be perceived as an asset to their efforts, not something else that starts with the same three letters.

Dear PM Advisor. Mar 3, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

When I'm generating a Work Breakdown Structure, the pattern for the completion of documents is always the same. Draft, Review, Edit, Review, Edit, Approve. Can't I just list all the documents as the one deliverable, place all the activities underneath it and I'm done with that section of the WBS? It seems a lot easier but I'm afraid I'll pay for it later?

Short-cut in Cambridge.

Dear Short-cut,

As the CarTalk denizens of your fair city are quick to point out: "It's the stingy man who pays the most!" As you suspect, there will be a payment for taking this short-cut. But it may not be as bad as you suspect.

Just remember what your next steps are after filling out the WBS. The activities need to be placed on the Responsibility Matrix and people need to volunteer for who will take responsibility for them. If they are all the same people on every document, you could be in luck. Most likely this is not the case.

Then the activities need to be placed in the schedule. If you're using MS-Project at this point, a simple cut and paste will help but you'll need to add the word describing each actual document. I'm a big proponent of activities standing alone. You shouldn't have activities named: Review. You'll have to scroll up each time to see exactly what the person is reviewing.

Next you have to add the durations and predecessors and they will vary by document.

My preference is to have each activity broken out within the WBS. You can use this as an opportunity to involve the people who have little to add to the WBS by asking them to repeat the activities you wrote under one document for all the other documents. Great opportunity for some team building.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

PMO Creation - Week 2

The creation of the PMO is not my full-time job. I am still working on projects, making sales calls and staying on top of our operations. But I did accomplish a few things this week. I met with the two IT Project Managers who now report to me and are part of this organization. They are two very enthusiastic young PMs who are excited to be granted the structure of a PMO and the ability to assist in the building.

The first thing we did was decide on the mission of this PMO. Only one of my team was with me but we ran the result by the other and made some adjustments to come up with this:

The QPharma PMO will improve Project Management by:

1. Prioritizing internal projects
2. Authorizing baselines
3. Communicating progress
4. Managing change control
5. Managing interdependencies
6. Distributing templates
7. Training Senior Staff, Project Managers and Team Members
8. Facilitating monthly steering committee meetings
9. Managing RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies)
10. Tracking financials
11. Assessing completed deliverables
12. Storing documents and lessons learned

I typed this up and distributed it to my team and the company owner. No complaints so far!

Dear PM Advisor. Feb 24, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I'm having a real problem getting the documents we produce on our project approved. More people want to review the documents in the second round than who reviewed it in the first round. Any suggestions?

Runaround Sue in Cambridge, MA

Dear Runaround Sue,

A great tool for this is the Responsibility Matrix. The Cadence version takes teh activities shown on the Work Breakdown Structure and determines who will provide active contribution to the completion of each task. This visual tool can help you explain your problem to the management who can do something about this.

When they see, graphically, that rather than funneling down the review from a large number to a subset to one or two who approve the document, a broadening of reviews, they should understand your concern. If not, ask them the question: "Won't I be wasting time on the first set of edits if the whole set of reviewers doesn't look at it the first time?"

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

PMO Creation - Week 1

While I've been the head of Project Management at my company for the last 13 years, the owner has not wanted the 'bureaucracy' of a Project Management Office. I've busied myself with many other tasks in the meantime: Training our PMs, running projects and programs, planning customer projects etc.

But last week the owner asked me to set up a PMO for the commercial operations portion of the business. He has a lot of IT projects that are either for internal purposes or for sale to our customers and he has recognized that the lack of discipline here is delaying these projects. He gave me almost carte blanche to set it up in the way I thought best. He told me I could be dictatorial in handing down rules in which we should operate.

The downside is that the owner is very entrepreneurial and may chafe under these new rules so I expect a few fights in the future. Nonetheless, I am stepping forward to create this PMO from scratch.

Seems like a perfect source for some interesting posts on how this works versus the plan. So here goes. Check in as I post on a weekly basis showing my strategies, tactics, successes and disappointments, challenges and triumphs.

The first challenge will be getting these IT projects prioritized, fully resourced and completed on schedule. Wish me luck!

India's efficient space program

India has a space program with project budgets less than the movie 'Gravity.' They have successfully launched a spaceship that arrives in Mars orbit this September. Cost? $75 Million! Wow!

How do they keep costs down? 

Although costs for engineers are $1000 a month, that alone cannot reduce the costs to the level they need. So they use a lot of typical Indian cost savings:

• Repurposing old technology into new. Rather than starting from scratch, they refine 1970's propellant technology to work today. 
• Modularity. Everything fits together like lego blocks across all their projects.
• Less testing. (Yikes!)
• Younger engineers
• Unpaid overtime due to a motivated workforce

The projects seem to be working and I believe there is a lot we can learn from this program.

Seventy-ninth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

          This time, when he removed the last wedge, leaving the tower supported by the river jade, he did it without looking at his last few hammer blows. He did it by feel, watching the capstone behind him for Grainne’s appearance. First he saw her fingers grip the stone’s edge. Then he saw her feet swinging up, then her legs and the rest of her body as she flipped herself through the air, landing nimbly on her feet. It was a dangerous move but accomplished with the perfection of one of the King’s acrobats. Her arrival coincided with the last tap of his hammer. There was no magic involved. Just perfect timing and an athletic leap.

He welcomed her with a warm hug. She was wearing the same clothes as this afternoon. A slight breeze pressed the loose cloth against her body, revealing the curves beneath. “I’m glad to see you, Grainne.”

          She gave him a wry smile and glanced up at the quarter moon. “Gwilym. If I promise you we’ll talk after the lovemaking is over, will you not ask me any questions until then?”

          He took her chin in his hand and looked deep into her eyes. Then he slipped his hand around her neck, luxuriating in the thick hair. He bent and kissed her softly, then harder and deeper, slipping his tongue between her lips and meeting hers. His other hand dropped to her full breasts and caressed them through the cloth of her dress. She reached up and pushed her hands under his shirt, running her fingers over his chest and squeezing the muscles of his shoulders. He parted from her long enough to remove his shirt and then took her back in his arms.

          She loosened the drawstring on his pants and peeled them over his hips and off. She grasped his shaft in one hand, marveling that her fingers couldn’t meet around it. “By the Goddess, Gwilym, you are a man! Make love to me hard, now. I want to feel this for the rest of the year.”

          She led him to the rune and coaxed him into lying down. Then she stripped off her dress and stood above him, straddling his hips. He marveled at her rounded perfection, her muscular calves and thighs, her tight belly that belied the two babies she’d hosted. Her large, firm breasts with their small, pink nipples. She lowered herself further and further down onto him, guiding him deep within her. Then she raised herself with exquisite slowness, him bemoaning the loss of her warmth with every inch of extra exposed flesh. When he was almost completely out of her, she lowered herself again, warming his body and making him shudder in ecstasy.

          She repeated this pattern again and again, each time increasing the pace a little, each time lowering herself more and more onto him until her pelvis was grinding against his. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she stayed there, quivering with the thrill of her climax.

          Gwilym gave her time to recover, and then her rolled her over onto her back in the center of the rune. He mounted her and made love to her hard and strong, each stroke eliciting a small moan of pleasure. He sensed her coming orgasm and timed his own to coincide. A groan emerged from deep in his chest.

          He opened his eyes to see when the fog arrived. Not here yet. But as he pulled out of her and their mingled juices touched the rune, the fog appeared around the top of the tower. It was the thick fog of a spring morning that obscured their view of the village.

          He reached for their discarded garments and used them to make pillows for their heads. “I’d like to marry you, Grainne. What do you need to know about me to make you feel comfortable that it’s the right thing to do?”

          “I need to know that you won’t try to foster your religion on me or my sons. I’d like to know what you think of the Goddess.

          “I am still questioning all that myself. I’ve no plans to push my religion on anyone since I don’t know what I believe yet. I’ve seen the magic that Celts can perform. I have also seen miracles that Christians perform. I believe both preach respect for others and the Druids emphasize respect for natural things. These are all good virtues. Was Jesus the Son of God? So far, I believe it.”

          Her face darkened at this but he didn’t pause to allow her to argue.

          “Is God a father or is she the great goddess? I think it is what you feel comfortable imagining. I picture a large, fierce, white-haired, bearded old man. You may picture a woman.”

          “A dark woman,” added Grainne. “What do you think about the afterlife? Do good people go to ‘heaven’ and bad people to ‘hell’ or are we reincarnated into different bodies?” she asked.

          Gwilym shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The priests of both of our religions differ there but they agree on the only thing that matters. What we do in this life determines the quality of the life that follows. Therefore, let’s each do the right thing here on earth and we should end up in whatever we consider heaven. Perhaps they’re both right. Christians will end up in the presence of the Father and Celts will end up in the body of a righteous person of the future. That way, they both feel that their religion was correct and the other wrong.”

          They talked on, long into the night. As Grainne learned of Gwilym’s own search for religion and he learned of her doubts about her own, her attitude towards him seemed to lighten. They made love twice more, Gwilym falling asleep soon after the last time, her lying snug in his arms.

  

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Dear PM Advisor, Feb 3, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

What’s a WBS Dictionary and how do you use it?

Poor Speller in Chicago

Dear Poor Speller,

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is the oldest tool in the Project Manager’s toolkit and one of the more graphic ones. It is the first opportunity for the PM to express his style as he shows the way he intends to organize the project. Will he organize it by phase, function, or deliverable? How many levels will he go before work starts to be done? I always love watching the way a PM drafts his WBS; it is a look into his mind.

One thing about a graphic tool such as a WBS: there is no room for paragraphs or even sentences. Nouns and adjectives are all you have room to work with. And sometimes a chunk of work requires more than that to allow those executing the work to know what needs to be done. That’s where the WBS Dictionary comes in. It is a tool that provides more detail around a piece of work that is in the WBS. Not every WBS element must be defined, just those that need it.

I don’t strictly use a WBS Dictionary as a stand-alone tool. But when I enter WBS elements into the Gantt chart, I’ll use the Notes tab on that line to enter additional details.

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Seventy-eighth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

          During dinner the next day, Merlin rode into the village in a cart, accompanied by Grainne and her two boys. They entered the tavern and asked for some food. Grainne insisted that there be no meat in her stew and the landlord was happy to oblige. Usually he received the opposite request. The boys sat with Gwilym’s other sons. 

          Merlin approached Gwilym with a heavy box that Gwilym knew contained the river jade he needed to finish the tower. Gwilym thanked him. “Do you have enough for the next tower as well?”

          “Do I seem like a man who doesn’t plan for the future?”

          Gwilym smiled. “No you don’t, sir. Will I get the next set right before Beltane again?”

          Merlin’s eyes twinkled. “I understand you had a nice conversation with Grainne yesterday. Did you enjoy meeting your boys?”

          “I did sir,” Gwilym replied, uncertain of any irony in Merlin’s voice about the ‘conversation’.

          “And what are your intentions with her?”

          Gwilym was confused now. Should he approach Merlin with his wish to marry Grainne? Was he being warned away from her by an emissary of Avalon? Or was he Grainne’s protector? He looked at Grainne for assistance but she was busy with the landlord.

          He realized that it didn’t matter. His answer would be the same no matter what Merlin’s role in Grainne’s life was. “I intend to ask her to marry me, sir.”

          Merlin’s tangled bird’s nests of eyebrows shot up and his grey-blue eyes bored into Gwilym’s. “Do you indeed?” he asked.

          When he broke off contact with Merlin’s eyes, he noticed Grainne was watching him. She looked delicious in a light green frock. Her feet were bare and her hair was held back with a string of thin leather. She lit up the room with a broad smile and turned back to the landlord.

          “What will you do with her as your wife, assuming she even agrees?”

          “Live with her, travel from place to place for work, raise our children together. The same thing any man does with a wife.”

          “Grainne is a priestess of Avalon. The Lady of the Lake has plans for her. Marriage is not one of them. How will you overcome her objections?”

          “From what I’ve seen of Grainne, she follows her own will.”

          “Then I suggest you ask her and see what she has to say. But, for what it’s worth, you have my blessing.”

          “Are you her guardian?”

          “Male guardians mean little to a girl raised on Avalon.”

          “Well I thank you anyway, Merlin.”

          Grainne joined them with a bowl of stew for each. “Try this, Gwilym. You might like something without meat in it for a change.” She watched him as he ate spoonful after spoonful.

          After he had finished the bowl, he said to the landlord, “Excellent, sir. But I like your Thursday vegetable stew better than this Wednesday one.”

          Merlin and Grainne exchanged a glance. She asked Gwilym, “Are you not a carnivore?”

He replied, “I eat meat on special occasions and Sundays. I have no preference. Anything else you’d like to know about me?”

          She nodded to the boys, laughing while playing some game with their fingers on the board. “They seem to get along well. You’ve raised three fine sons.”

          “Thank you, Grainne. You’ve done well by yours also.”

          Her eyes shone then clouded over as she glanced at Merlin. “Gwilym…” she began but then stopped.

          “What?” he inquired.

          She wet her lips, started to speak several times but seemed to be incapable of forming the words. She sighed and said, “Never mind.”

          They had all finished their stew. “Will you walk with me, Grainne?” asked Gwilym.

          She got up and they walked through the marsh to the beach.

          “I was thrilled to see you in that clearing two days ago, Grainne. I had been thinking about you a lot.”

          She smiled at him and glanced down at his crotch. “I could tell that right away.”

          “No, Grainne. I mean that I was thinking about my feelings towards you and what future we might have together. I think I might…love you.”

          She stopped and looked hard at him. “That’s a strong word to use with a woman you’ve seen half a dozen times in your whole life. A woman you’ve had two complete conversations with. Are you sure you don’t just want to couple with me more often?”

          He looked down at his feet, then back into her eyes. “I’m not sure how I feel about you. There is that. But I want to know you more and I want to help you with our children. If they must leave Avalon, perhaps you could come with them and live with me. Our boys could all be together, I could see all five of my sons, you would have a protector and we could be man and wife. There are a lot of advantages.”

          “Advantages for you, maybe. But what’s the incentive for me? Waking up next to a boar like you every morning? Losing my place at Avalon? Following you around from shitty village to stinky town as you ply your trade? That’s not a life for me.”

          “Will you foster out Madoc? Is that why he came with you this time?”

          She bit her lips until they showed as two thin lines. “What I do with my son is no concern of yours.”

She smoothed out her dress and said, “I’ll see you on top of the tower tonight. We have work to do.” Then she left.

          Gwilym sat for another five minutes, and then walked back to the tavern. He picked up the box of jade and his hammer and wedges and walked up to the tower.
  

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Dear PM Advisor. Jan 20, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I'm looking at the different organizational structures in the PMBOK and I'm having a hard time distinguishing between weak, strong and balanced matrix. They all look alike to me.

Stuck in the Matrix. Hartford, CT.

Dear stuck in the matrix,

They do look similar so let me highlight the differences for you. First you need to recognize the PMI's bias on this. That's important since they wrote the PMBOK and write the test questions pertaining to this topic. They believe that in the best possible world, every organization has a PMO, a Project Management Office staffed with fully trained Project Managers. Thus, in Matrix organizations, the best or strongest version has the PMs coming out of the PMO. Like this:

The other extreme, as far as the PMI is concerned, is when a person is in a functional department not called a PMO, like R&D or Marketing, and she doesn't even have the title of Project Manager. That they consider a Weak Matrix:

In between the two extremes is a balanced matrix structure where the person managing the project doesn't report to the PMO but at least has the title of Project Manager:

The PMI uses different terminology than I, referring to the level of authority and influence wielded by the Project Manager. But if you're trying to pass the PMP exam, my explanation might work better. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com