Dear PM Advisor. April 29, 2013

Dear PM Advisor,

My team has a SharePoint site where I post all the documents relevant to the project. But I still get Team Members complaining that I never sent them the document they need to make their decision. Or they missed something that was clearly on the status report. What can I do?

I told you so in Morristown, NJ

Dear I told you so,

Life was so easy when we typed up a status report and hand delivered it to our team members. We could look them in the eye and say, "I put it on your chair yesterday."

But that was before all these new technological ways of avoiding doing our jobs came along. First there were e-mails that could be deleted unread, now there is a SharePoint site that need never be opened.

There is a trend that moves us away from 'Push' communications to 'Pull.' We used to push the communications onto people. We told them the information they needed to know or we wrote it down and handed it to them. Now we update the SharePoint site and expect our Team Members to check it regularly.

But people haven't become more proactive in the meantime. We are all still busy and won't go out of our way to find extra work to do.

So push the communication onto them. Send them an e-mail with the link in big letters for them to click on to get the updates. And follow up on them. I don't know how they do it but Cadence knows whether or not I have downloaded the updated files they send to me because they will nag me if I haven't done it.

Don't hide behind technology. It is still your job to make sure everyone reads what they need to. If you've seen the communication model, I'll write a post about this soon, the key point is that the person communicating, you, must ensure that the communication is received as intended.

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Send me your questions at bfieggen@gmail.com

Electric car batteries smooth out power distribution

In a previous post I discussed the use of home water heaters to store excess electricity generated by wind farms. The problem is simple, Electric companies want to deliver to a constant demand of power at 60 cycles per second. But with wind and solar power generation being up to the whims of mother nature, supply is not so constant.

An unexpected solution to this is the growing numbers of electric cars that are plugged in to charging units during this unstable time. With the addition of a small gadget, these cars can send electricity back into the grid when needed. While the cars will still charge, they will do so in fits and starts, evening out the peaks and valleys of the power supply.

Why should electric car owners do this? Presumably it would take a little longer to bring the cars up to full charge and, if you unplug it after it has just discharged some power, you may be starting off with less than a full charge. The answer, as always, is money. Cars with the gadget added will earn $5 a day. That adds up to $1,800 a year for a gadget that costs $400.

This won't work until there are a lot of electric cars out there with this capability but pilot programs are starting up. Pretty cool, huh?

Electric Cab Project in New York

New York want to experiment with replacing their fleet of yellow cabs with electric versions in a continuing effort to make the city greener. As this article presents, they will start this week with six but hope to convert 1/3 of the fleet by 2020.

Since NY cabbies want to maximize the time they spend driving during their shift, the Limousine commission needs to encourage these drivers to make up for the 60 - 90 minutes they will be charging their cabs. They have done that by reducing the daily rental rate and allowing them to decline fares that put them out of range of charging units when they are nearing the end of a charge.

The big surprise I received when reading this article is that a typical cab only drives about 100 miles in a typical day. Since the car goes 80 miles on a charge, only one charge a day is expected.

One cabbie suggested placing charging units near restaurants with bathroom facilities so that the drivers can be efficient during their charging times.

It seems like a better solution would be to have 23 cabs for every 24 drivers and allow them to switch out one per hour with the car they are driving on a regular schedule. But maybe drivers are particular about which car they use.

Dear PM Advisor, April 22, 2013

Dear PM Advisor,

I'm a Team Member on a couple of projects, plus I have a regular boss. That means I have three bosses! Sometimes they tell me to do opposite things. What should I do?"

Whipsawed in New Mexico.

Dear Whipsawed,

Even though this column is all about Project Management, I'm going to tell you to listen to your Functional Manager (FM), not your Project Manager (PM) whenever there is a conflict. First of all, the FM is the person who reviews you at the end of the year so think of her as the one who signs your paycheck. Secondly, the FM is the person with whom you will have the lasting relationship. She is responsible for developing your skills, mentoring you through difficult stretches and grooming you to take her job.

The PM, on the other hand, is a blood-sucking leech. All he wants to do is take your knowledge and skills and squeeze them out of you for the life of the project, then throw away your dried up husk when he's done. He has no loyalty to you and wants no long-lasting relationship. If you are really good, he might ask for you again on his next project but chances are that his next project doesn't need anyone with your skills.

So when there is a conflict, listen to your Functional Manager. Tell the PM that she must resolve the conflict with the FM then duck your head and get back to work.

Good luck,

PM Advisor.

Fifty-eighth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

          The boys had a happy reunion with Fred when they awoke and questioned him all about his new life with Heilin. After they had broken their fast, Gwilym prepared the room for his planning session. He and Fred laid out all the sheets, quills, ink and pieces of leather. He posted the charter on one of the walls and prepared scrolls titled Scope and Requirements.

          The crew entered and Gwilym had them all introduce themselves to everyone with their name and the role they would play on the project. Gwilym introduced Fred to the crew. He was surprised to find that many had met him already.

          Gwilym led the team through the planning steps that were becoming familiar to him by now. He read them the charter and asked about any stakeholders he didn’t know about yet. He led the team through a session where they determined the requirements of the tower. Then he led them through the scoping session, documenting everything on the appropriate scrolls and posting them on the walls when completed.

          Then he led them through the Work Breakdown Structure and Activity Definition sessions, obtaining all the leather pieces containing the drawings of the activities to be completed. The ‘Remove shit from palace’ piece received much laughter along with some concern about the immensity of it. When the activities were doled out, no-one wanted to volunteer for this job so Gwilym took it himself.

          When they were sure that all the activities had been documented, they laid them out on the large bull-hide in the order that made the most sense. While some work could continue while the palace was being mucked out, it became clear that this activity would have to be completed before early activities like digging the foundation hole could be started. The men became dejected on reflecting that the real work wouldn’t even start this year.

          Gwilym then asked the people who had volunteered to lead each activity to estimate its duration. He left the cleaning the palace activities until last. All the men looked at him to see when the real tower building activities would start.

          “All right. Let’s see. The duration of this activity will be one day. Now, what does–”

          He was interrupted by the cries of incredulity from his team.

          “How can you–”

          “That’s not poss–”

          “Are you kidd–”

          He held up his hands and the shouting stopped. He had everyone’s attention now. “Let’s make a deal. I promise to complete my activity on time if you promise to meet the duration of yours. Is that fair?”

          They all laughed at this and swaggered about, sure that they didn’t need to try too hard to finish their activities on time.

          They all broke for dinner at this point, some of them questioning Gwilym on how he intended to clean it out in one day by himself. He gave nothing away.

          After dinner, Gwilym worked with the men to determine the cost of the project. Each activity now had a responsible man, the other resources needed to complete it and the duration. This allowed Gwilym to assign a cost in man days to it. Some had material costs involved so Gwilym asked the locals the price of timbers, etc. and added that to the labor hours. Then Gwilym aggregated these costs to each deliverable and then to the overall project. Due to the low daily rate of the men, he saw that he would complete the project under budget. Of course, that assumed nothing went wrong. Something always did, so Gwilym had a reserve in hand.

          The men were dismissed and Gwilym transcribed the schedule onto the calendar. Fred asked to be dismissed. “What are you up to, man?” Gwilym asked.

          “All will be clear tomorrow, Gwilym.” Fred touched his nose and walked out. He returned after dark again.

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

Cool Wheelchair car project

For those who are wheelchair-bound and don't want to spend a fortune for a wheelchair accessible van or hassle their friends and family to drive them around, here is a neat option for driving around town.

It only goes 25 miles per hour and has a range of 45 - 60 miles. But some advantages are that it only costs $25,000 and runs on electricity. But the big plus is the convenience. You simply wheel yourself in, harness up, grab the handlebars and drive. You can park at right angles to the curb so that you can wheel right out onto the sidewalk. So for running errands around town, the Kenguru is perfect.

The story behind the story is how this came to be. Stacy Zoern, who was wheelchair-bound and had just totaled her $80,000 van was Googling wheelchair vans and came across this company in Hungary who had just lost their funding. She made friends with the owner, got some financing and now they are being made in America.

Next up is a slightly larger one that will accommodate an electric wheelchair so that Stacy can finally have her own version.

Automatic Sheet Music Turner

Watching my son's concert last night I was surprised that the musicians still had to turn their sheets of music by hand. Especially the pianists, causing a brief stoppage of music. I asked my wife, "Why isn't there an app for that?"

This morning I saw that someone had invented a battery operated page turner but that seemed a little primitive. So I searched and found this App that almost does what I pictured.


While my idea had it scroll at a certain speed given the song's tempo, this app listens to you play and keeps track with when you need to turn the page. It follows along, even as you change tempo, make mistakes and pause. It can distinguish your playing above background noise and even other people playing music in the background.

The only problem is that the app still moves one page at a time. Can't someone create an app that scrolls down the lines so you always see the line you are working on, one above and two below? Or is everyone so used to pages of music that they cannot adjust to a scroll?