How expensive was that project you just ran?

• The salaries of the team engaged?
• The cost of the contractors?
• The cost of the materials used to complete it?

There are many direct costs that are associated with delivering a project. Most, if not all of these, are obvious costs because they can be seen.

The people, the materials that were used, the output of the project as it takes shape.

Hidden project costs

But there are also indirect costs that should be included when you consider how expensive it is to deliver a project.

For consultancy based businesses, revenues only come from the delivery of projects/services to clients.  Without those projects, the business would not exist.

In order to deliver that business, however, there is a minimal outlay that must be factored in. The general costs of running the business in order to deliver those projects or services;

1. Rent and rates.
2. Insurance.
3. Licences for the PC under the desk.
4. Training.
5. Sales costs.
6. Phone bills.
7. ……

Every one of us engaged in business is acutely aware of these costs.  But they are sometimes overlooked when it comes to costing up a project.

It is not true to say that the costs of the projects are purely those that I indicated earlier (salaries, materials for the project).

They should also include a portion of the operational costs that the business is incurring. This ensures that the project reflects an accurate gross profit margin for the business.

By fundamentally understanding the underlying costs and factoring these into each project that is being delivered out of the business, the more complete will be the understanding of the effectiveness of those projects on achieving the bottom line margins set by management.

In essence, these costs should be attributed at a project team member level so that their daily cost to the project becomes;

Salary + cost of employment + portion of operating costs

If a business does not cost its projects in this way, then understanding profitability within projects becomes impossible. It also is difficult to assess how “tightly” margins can be cut when pricing a deal i.e. at what point it starts losing money for the business.

Are measuring all of the right costs for your project deliveries?

There are many online project management tools available to help every project manager track and monitor their projects. Though many of these tools fall under the same heading (“Project Management Tools”), the range of features and functionality on offer varies.

In order to ensure that MyProjectTracker continues to meet our audiences needs, we would really like to know what do/would you need from your online project management tool?

You have your project.

Your team is in place.

Focus on the end point and off you go.

Stick to the plan and the project will go without a hiccup or hitch.

Yeah – right! Anyone who has delivered a project or service to a client knows that it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Team problems, quality failures, over-demanding customers, budget blow-outs. The list is endless.

Add to this that the majority of projects are delivered by small business owners who are also trying to run the day to day operations and it’s no wonder that projects can go off track.

So how do small business owners deliver successful projects?

There are a few steps that the business owner can take to make sure a project goes to plan while allowing them to run the overall business.

1. Project Scoping. Know exactly what you are delivering to your clients. Sounds a bit daft – of course you know what you are delivering otherwise they would not have employed you. However, what I am talking about here is making sure that the project is defined to include not only what you are delivering but also what you are not. By doing this, you are setting the correct level of expectation with the customer.
2. Defined project deliverables. Agreeing with the customer the sign-offs that will be undertaken to get project approval and closure from them. This will help to put an end-point in place.
3. Valid project timeline. Create a project timeline/duration that you can stand over. A customer or client will always demand faster if possible, but you need to be able to commit to that timeline. If you can’t – explain why. If they still insist, start reducing the scope as the compromise. Remember – you are the expert. You know how long something is going to take you, not the client.
4. Project tasks. Break your project down into meaningful and achievable steps. It’s amazing how less daunting a project looks when you do this and as you achieve each you’ll get a great sense of satisfaction along the way.
5. Project communication. Talk to your team. Talk to your customers. Let everyone know what is going on all the time. This will help prevent the build up of problems as smaller issues will get dealt with openly and more quickly.
6. Project tracking. Have some mechanism of keeping tabs on what you are doing. A notebook, an excel sheet, MS Project (shudder), an online project management tool (sure we had to add it in!)… whatever. As long as it allows you to keep track, it’s doing it’s job!
7. Assessing Project Risk. Know what can go wrong. The more experienced you are, the easier this becomes. But it can’t hurt to plan in advance on how you will handle things that can go wrong.
8. Know your limits. You’re not Superman. Know what you can and can’t do before you start on any project and make sure you’re dealing with what you can cope with – be that on your own or with your team. Get help if you need it – external expertise, sub-contractors…

These are just eight areas that can help you out. There are bound to be more that you have come across.

Can you add to this list?

Photo: horiavarlan

Sometimes, things just go wrong in a project!

With some online project management tools, it’s a bit tricky to flag when an issue has arisen in a project.

Not with MyProjectTracker.

You can create an activity or message and give it a “red flag”.

This activity will then be marked on both the project managers and company management dashboards as an issue.

So what does this mean for you?

• Instant awareness within the management team that there is a problem to be addressed.
• Visibility for the project manager of all “red flags” associated with the project in one easy list.
• The ability for any manager to drill down into that message to see what’s going on without having to waste time asking for updates.

Early awareness of an issue in a project will save you time and money.

By providing this visibility to the management team outside of the project, it makes sure the issue is on everyone’s radar so that the decision makers can make a call quickly on the best course of action.

MyProjectTracker keeps you honest!

Not in an “we’re watching you, big brother” kind of way

More of a …

“we’re helping you get your estimations right” kind of way.

• When you setup a project, you pop in costs and timelines.
• When you save the project, this then creates your baseline i.e. the budget and timelines that you are tracking the project against.
• If, later, you come along and decide that you need to adjust the budget or the timeline – no problem, MyProjectTracker let’s you do that.

But..

It also makes sure you put in a reason why.

This allows you to review and learn from past projects and to build that information into future projects.

If you know why you had to add budget or time to a particular part of the project or the whole project, then you can understand what you need to do next time to make sure you estimate more accurately.

Useful eh?

And because it’s MyProjectTracker, this is done in a nice, simple and subtle way.

It’s always nice to know that someone is watching over you

Photo: Spring_dew

This is the first in some short and hopefully sweet posts about what MyProjectTracker can do to help your business run projects.

Don’t worry, we’ll keep the self-promotion to a minimum

So what’s on todays agenda then?

Well just as the title says – a furtive glance.

The MyProjectTracker Dashboard

We all run projects within our business.

• Some are for clients.
• Some are internal
• All have budgets and timelines.

With the MyProjectTracker dashboard, a simple glance will be able to tell you the status of each one.

Which one’s are on time/on budget and which one’s are not!

You don’t need to ask anyone – it’s all there in front of you.

Need more detail from the online dashboard?

No problem, just click on the dashboard and you’ll go into the project in question.

How often can a quick furtive glance give you so much information?

Project measurement is a key management tool within any business. Project managers will/should engage in a post-implementation review and look at the lessons learned with a view to implementing change to ensure that either;

• Things that went well are implemented into the project methodology for future projects or
• Things that went badly are understood and processes are put in place to prevent the same things happening in future projects.

From my own experience, projects are often looked at in isolation of one another – especially in smaller businesses that don’t have the luxury of a formal project management office.

I wrote a guest post on Bloggertone recently about the importance of general business measurement. But what about project delivery as a measure of business success i.e. considered from the perspective of the business owners rather than from the perspective of the individual project managers.

After all, projects are there to serve the greater needs of the business and are not isolated.

So what would I measure from project delivery that makes sense for the business?

1. Total projects that came in on time.
2. Total projects that came in on budget.
3. Total projects delivered vs total projects planned.
4. Revenue vs Costs analysis for projects that were revenue generating.
5. Costs vs savings analysis for internal projects designed to save you money/time after implementation.

Yes, these may seem obvious – but sometimes there is no harm in that.

The challenge will be how you measure each project so that the data you are looking at makes sense i.e. is in context. There is no point in saying that 75% of our projects came in on time if we don’t understand the reasons why that figure exists.

Your business management tools need to be able to easily capture this information.  In MyProjectTracker, for example, we force the project manager to put in a comment if the baseline changes – e.g. a date gets pushed out or an extra budget item is added to the project costs. This then gives the management team information as to the “why” certain things have happened so that they can be avoided in the future.

Perhaps when a certain team member is on the project, it always overruns. Why is that? A training need perhaps? Or is that team member not stepping up to the plate?

Management information and measurement gives you real insights into how your projects are running. Without it, your project delivery simply won’t improve and this costs you time and money every day.

What tools do you use to measure project success in your business?

Photo: WWarby

I was reading an article the other day about making a commercial website suitable for international markets. There were lots of helpful reminders in the areas of language, compliance and optimisation for each potential market place.

The very next day I had a real reminder of this in operation. We have a customer in the UK who logged a query through our on-line support service. The call ended up in my inbox due to the nature of the request.

I answered the call through the ticket in the usual way, but as I know the customer well – I popped in a typical Irish question into the reply asking him  “How’s the form?”.

Now if I had been speaking to him rather than writing, he would almost certainly have understood what I meant.  For those of you who may not know it simply means “How are things going with you?” or perhaps “How are you?”.

I received a response to the update I’d made that said “What form are you talking about?“.

And there-in lies the issue.

I had not made sufficient allowance for the difference in language and nuance and confused my customer. In this instance there was no problem. He and I have spoken on a number of occasions during the beta trial and get on well.

However, if I had not gotten on so well with this customer – it may have only annoyed him rather than achieving the aim that I was trying to get of being personable.

This is only a simple example, but I thought it showed the impact of localisation and language well!

Have you ever had a bad experience with misunderstandings caused by language or culture?

Photo: CherryLynx

Targets in business are generally financially focused. The number of sales we expect to hit in this quarter. The revenue we expect to make over the next twelve months. The net profit we expect to achieve in the next 6 months. All tangible and all very valuable.

Targets can be more than financial though. Targets apply to every aspect of business as they will directly effect the items above.

For this reason, targets should be something that every member of the organisation should be familiar with and also be encouraged to embrace.

Targets should be applied to every area of the business with a view to how they will impact the headliner targets of revenue, sales and net profit.

Project managers have targets – getting the end result in to time, budget, quality and scope.  They have targets along the way, however, called milestones or phases or work items. These are the smaller pieces of work (targets) that allow them to deliver the bigger target i.e. the end project. The end project then feeds into the company revenue targets. It’s all linked.

What other targets could we look at?

• Customer service – reducing wait times for calls? reducing calls full stop by fixing a problem permanently? reducing time on the phone through automation? … these will impact on that net profit target in the company for sure.
• Reduced sales cycle – how can we sell faster? how can we identify key potential customers more accurately? are the team taking the correct approach?
• Marketing – is the company targeting the right audience to help the sales cycle out? Could the business achieve the same impact by spending less?
• Quality improvement - is there a service or product that we the business is selling that could be improved? By investing X in product improvement would the return be greater?
• Staff training – is there a target in place to have the team trained up on that new process or procedure by a specific date?

These are just some ideas. There are bound to be plenty more in your business. Of course, to understand the targets and set a baseline there must be the necessary measures in place to ensure all the targets are being met.

Here at MyProjectTracker, we have some very specific targets at every level from customer acquisition and retention through to the product development. The measures are in place as well – we need to make sure we’re hitting what we said and to understand why if we don’t!

Do you have targets in place at every level of your business?

Photo: SantaRosa

Our house is on the market at the moment. The advertising is up. The estate agent has been around and there are on-going viewings.

All encouraging signs and the feedback on the house is excellent.

“They loved the house”, “the house is immaculate and ready to move in to”, “they loved the sunroom”, “they loved the attic conversion”, “they loved the garden”…..

Great! But, er, is anyone actually interested in making an offer?

Yes, they love the house. But a huge portion of the people who have come to see it won’t make an offer.

They are not committed, worried about the next budget, concerned about their own job security.. excuses all.

These are the tyre kickers. They are tempted or might be thinking about making the move or perhaps are trying to decide where they might want to live.

They have no more interest in making an offer than my youngest son has in eating his greens (none whatsoever!!).

We rush around getting the house ready for the viewing. The place is immaculate and we break out in a frantic panic if a cushion is out of place. It is bloody hard work!

And, it would appear, all for nought as we wait for a genuine viewing.

So it is in many businesses.

Whether it’s someone signing up for a look around MyProjectTracker or those folks who look at a restaurant menu at the door – there is a huge amount of “tyre kicking” that goes on.

Some is genuine with the customers assessing whether the choice they are going to make is right for them. These are the folks that we want to see. Perhaps we can entice them in the door or to click that “buy” button.

But many are not.

They browse around with zero intention of making a purchase, they just want to see what’s out there. They ask questions, log queries, flag problems (as they see them)… and essentially take your time and energy for no avail.

Or is that correct?

Perhaps that tyre kicker knows someone who knows someone who might be interested in what you have to offer. If you make it difficult for the tyre kicker to engage, you might then remove a positive image that Mr Tyre Kicker could project to all the people he knows.

So sure, you need to recognise a tyre kicker when you see one. But tread (no pun intended) carefully and treat them with politeness and respect – you never know when that positivity can pay dividends.

How do you handle the tyre kickers?

Photo: Mykl Roventine