Dear PM Advisor. Mar 31, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I'm very good at breaking down a big project into smaller, manageable chunks. But my main hindrance is the procrastination. I put off the work for a later time. Any tips to overcome this issue?

Regards,

The late Robert from China

Dear Robert,

It has been my experience that people react to urgent activities before they react to important activities. Perhaps it is built into our DNA. We were bred to run from the lion before planting wheat for the winter food supply.

One finding we have discovered in Project Management is that activities scheduled for three weeks or more are more likely to come in late. When faced with a deadline that far into the future, people will work on activities with a nearer deadline rather than the further one, regardless of the effect on the critical path.

How do we deal with this? Simply by breaking down these activities into sub tasks and sub tasks into work packages until the lowest level of detail results in a task that is scheduled to take no longer than three weeks.

In most cases this is quite easy but there are two exceptions which can be dealt with in different ways.

1. The activity that must take 3 months like aging studies. Simply put the product on the shelf or in the incubator and set an alarm on your calendar to take them out and examine or test them on that date. Those tasks won't come in late because you are typically waiting until the second you can remove them and test to see if they still work..
2. The vendor with a six month lead time. Try to ask them to break down their activities to the sub task level so that you can follow up closely on their progress. But they may not do it. Therefore, you need to manage this activity closer than other activities on the project. Call them often to ask about their progress. Visit them. Be a pain in their side so that the only way they can get rid of you is by finishing the activity. 

This should help you with late activities throughout the team. But you admitted that you are the procrastinator so how can I help you with your problem?

Once you have broken your activities into smaller than three week units, work on those that are on the critical path. Be honest about the %complete these activities are on a daily basis. For example, if the activity is scheduled to last two weeks, every day you should be 10% further along. Set yourself a goal to exceed that percentage and give yourself a little reward if you achieve that goal. If you get behind on one day, you don't get the reward unless you completely catch up the following day. 

Good luck,

PM Advisor

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Pope leads by example

How do you encourage a billion Roman Catholics to attend confession? By example!
Pope Francis, after a sermon on the importance of confession, went straight to a local priest to publically confess rather than heading to his own confessional first to hear the sins of his faithful. See the full story here.

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.

Dear PM Advisor. Mar 24, 2014

Dear PM Advisor,

I am a team member on a project and my Project Manager is strict about me meeting my activity deadlines. So I add a buffer when she asks me how long an activity takes. Recently I admitted I was doing this and she got real mad at me. She gets a buffer; why shouldn't I? 

War On Buffer in Cambridge, MA

Dear War On,

Buffers are a very tricky thing. Let's take your example to the extreme to see why not everyone should get a buffer and then show you why the way your PM is acting is correct.

Say the project is composed of a bunch of activities and all the team members add 25% as a buffer to the schedule and cost of each of these activities. Then their functional managers add another 25% to ensure their departments don't look bad. Then the PM adds 25% to make sure she can hit the baselines. The Steering Committee adds 25% before they decide if they want to pursue it. What does this do to a project that should have taken a year and cost $1,000,000?

12 mo x 1.25 = 15 mo. $1,000,000 x 1.25 = $1,250,000 (Team Member buffer)
15 mo x 1.25 = 19 mo. $1,687,500 x 1.25 = $1,562,500 (Functional Manager buffer)
19 mo x 1.25 = 23 mo. $1,562,500 x 1.25 = $1,953,125 (Project Manager buffer)
23 mo x 1.25 = 29 mo. $1,953,125 x 1.25 = $2,441,406 (Steering Committee buffer)

So our project more than doubled in size by adding all these buffers. Sounds good to you, right? But the steering committee may look at this and decide the project is not worth doing. And your leaner competitor will beat you to the market. So you won't be doing projects much longer here either way.

Buffer given out it is rarely given back. If you realize that the three day activity has been buffered to seven days, you probably won't start it right away and you won't feel the pressure to finish it in three days. So you'll start it on day three and finish it on day seven and feel proud of your accomplishment.

Here is the right way to add buffer to a project:

1. Each Team Member estimates the activity duration and cost given the most likely scenario while feeling pressure. They don't add buffer.
2. The Functional Managers review the TM's estimates and make adjustments if they think the TM made errors. They also don't add buffer. 
3. The Project Manager adds up all the costs and durations and determines the overall budget and schedule for the project. She also looks at the risks associated with this project and suggests a buffer based on all the known unknowns. She adds that to the request to the Steering Committee. 
4. The Steering Committee adds a buffer to account for all the things that go wrong on projects that we don't identify during the planning session. These unknown unknowns are taken care of using the Management Reserve, usually around 20%.

Let's look at what this does to our project:

12 mo x 1.00 = 12 mo. $1,000,000 x 1.00 = $1,000,000 (Team Member NO buffer)
12 mo x 1.00 = 12 mo. $1,000,000 x 1.00 = $1,000,000 (Functional Manager NO buffer)
12 mo x 1.10 = 13 mo. $1,000,000 x 1.10 = $1,100,000 (Project Manager Risk buffer)
13 mo x 1.20 = 16 mo. $1,100,000 x 1.20 = $1,320,000 (Steering Committee Management Reserve)

Now our project has an appropriate buffer but is still doable. The Team Members will feel pressure but they can accomplish their work.

But pay close attention to how we use this buffer. When you estimated three days on an activity, you need to do it in that time. Even though the overall project's schedule has been increased by 32%, you don't get to use that on every activity. That buffer belongs to the PM and she gets to distribute it when needed. She should be stingy with it. Remember it was placed there for Known Risks and Unknown Risks.

So you get three days for your activity. If you run into a problem you hadn't expected or hit a risk you had identified and you need another day, the PM should provide this from her four-month buffer. If you finish the next activity a day early, give that day back to her so she can add it back to the buffer. She will need every day she can get for that big problem that hits every project.

Wow! Long answer for a simple question but that was an important question that a lot of people get wrong.

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Send your questions to Bruce@RoundTablePM.com

Eighty-second excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

          At night, after the boys were asleep, they would make love quietly under the covers. These sessions were slower and gentler than their love-making on the runes. Was it due to the presence of the boys or the absence of the rune? Either way, they enjoyed it and he slept afterwards, her wrapped in his warm, safe cocoon. On stirring in his sleep later, he often found her gone. He looked for her the first few times and found her studying the stars. Gwilym learned she was a night-owl who preferred to stay up late than to greet the dawn. Gwilym was the opposite. Usually, Gwilym lifted her in his arms while the boys packed away the pallet and he carried her into their cart.

          The bumping caused by Gwilym’s inexpert guiding of the horse woke her before long. She would get up, rub her eyes and sit next to Gwilym. She would look from him to the horse and back again for a few minutes then shake her head. She would take the reins and, with a few clicks of her tongue and shakes of the reins, guide the horse along the smoothest trail. Her head would droop again and she would appear to sleep while the horse continued down the trail. She would wake at each road turning and, with a quick glimpse at the sky, direct the horse down one track and doze off again. Gwilym learned to give her a couple of hours to wake up then prepare her a bowl of the leftover oatmeal. He had to add a surprising amount of honey to meet her satisfaction. After eating she would be ready for a conversation. 

          One day Gwilym re-opened the subject of Avalon. “You said you were being told to breed with me as part of your goal to become Lady of the Lake. Yet I am not of the royal line. Aren’t you diluting your royal line so that you can never be Lady?”

          “Viviane also bred with the other royal line. It meant she could never have daughters and her offspring could never be Lady following her. But the sons she had! Launcelot, and Ban and… All great knights and leaders. I have no doubt that Madoc and Brice will do as well.”

          Gwilym studied her face. What was she saying? Then he noticed something else. She was suffused with happiness, glowing. “You’re breeding again,” he said.

          She smiled in contentment and nodded her head.

          “That’s wonderful! How long have you known?”

          “I felt the baby start in me the night we lay on the tower. Just as I felt them start the last two times. He will share a birthday with Madoc and Brice.”

          Gwilym hugged her tight, and then stroked her belly. “I can’t wait to meet my next child. I hope it will be a girl this time. I’ve a hankering to dress up a girl in pretty clothes.”

          She shook her head. “It will be a boy, Gwilym. I will only have boys. Didn’t you hear me? The curse of the other line.”

          Gwilym put the puzzle together. “You are saying that I am of this other line. This line that only breeds boys. This line that includes Sirs Launcelot, and Ban. How is that possible?”

          “It’s simple, Gwilym. Your father was of the line, so you are too. The better question is: Who is your mother?”

          “She was a Cambrian woman my father met while searching Glastonbury for the Gospel of Joseph. They made love at Beltane. She fostered me out with my father when I was a baby. I know no more than this.”

          “You know enough now.”

          Blood was rushing through Gwilym’s head as he took in this information. He needed confirmation.

          “What is the origin of this other line?”

          “You already know the answer, Gwilym. It entered Avalon almost 500 years ago. Do the math.”

          Gwilym shook his head. “That old rumor? The Holy Grail? The bloodline of Jesus?”

          He looked at her for confirmation but she was looking around her. He hadn’t noticed before but they had entered a small village. The Roman road was intersected by a muddy track. An open square covered in straw occupied one corner. This was crowded with people hawking wagons and barrows full of produce. Goats, sheep and cows strained against the ropes held fast to poles driven into the ground. Pens held squealing pigs. The smell and sounds of market day assaulted his senses.

          The opposite corner held a prosperous round building, most likely a church. The other corners were occupied by a small inn and a house. People filled the square and the intersection.

          He looked down at a villager to give a greeting and then he saw what Grainne had noticed. The man was looking from Gwilym to a coin he held in his hands.
 
To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

PMO Creation - Week 5

This week we worked on more of the templates and Mike got the change control system working within SharePoint.

I started choosing members of the steering committee. My preference was to have representation from all the functions of our organization. So I started with IT, Operations, Finance, Quality, Marketing and IT QA.

I immediately received resistance from the CEO who wanted a small team. He saw no reason to include anyone other than IT and IT QA. He isn't understanding that projects from other areas are taking resources away from the IT projects he cares so much about. But he trusts me and is willing to give it a try in the first meeting.

Meanwhile he argued with me on some of the PMO rules so I adjusted them a little, mostly to give him veto power over some steering committee decisions:

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 – or just by PDB.
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 – commercial projects will use hours rather than dollars to determine Earned Value.
8. Project Managers will provide a weekly status report to the PMO every Wednesday – status reports should be updated weekly and available always on SharePoint.
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
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 or Pat DenBoer are required to approve a project change
13. PMO will meet weekly every Friday at 10 AM
14. Bruce will publish PMO status reports via e-mail and place them on SharePoint
15. PMO members will obtain their PMP certification by the end of 2014

McCain challenges Obama on Russia's invasion of Ukraine

For those are curious what John McCain would have been like as president rather than Barack Obama, here's a chance to see what the old war hawk would do in today's Crimean crisis.

In a recent Op-Ed, McCain criticizes Obama in his lead up to and handling of the crisis. He says Obama lacked resolve in Afghanistan and Iraq and allowed Bashar-al-Assad to cross his 'Red Line' without repercussions. He claims that Putin sees this lack of resolve as weakness to exploit.

McCain doesn't recommend military action other than NATO exercises, but he strongly insists on sanctions, removing Russia from the G8 and refusing Russian oligarchs places in the West to "park their ill-gotten proceeds."

It's a rare occasion to see how two leaders would deal with a crisis. Let's see what Obama does.