MyProjectTracker – The Blog

The human body is an amazing creation. It works in total harmony to allow us to engage with life as we desire. When things go wrong, it tells us – the central nervous system sends a warning or alert to our brain and tells us that we have a problem that needs fixing.

We take the medicine. We go and see a doctor. We rest up for a while… whatever it takes, we sort out the problem and move on with life.

We don’t ignore the warnings.

We make sure that we take as good a care of our bodies and minds as we possibly can. We are in tune with ourselves instinctively.

Effective project management is the same. In order for the “whole” to work, we must understand each part of the projects make-up and how they interact with each other towards success.

If we use the human body as an example, the project manager is the brain. It is the project managers responsibility to be in tune with the rest of the team and to be aware of things that are possibly not going according to plan.  The rest of the body is the remaining elements of the project management process and the team engaged to make it happen.
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“In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire… The A-Team.”

The leader of the A-Team is Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith. Hannibal has a very unorthodox but effective style of management. As a leader, Hannibal displayed a number of distinct qualities:

Dedicated to the Cause:
Sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit, the A-Team, strive to clear their names. Project Managers can learn many lessons from this. Despite dealing with a different challenge each week, the A-Team always remain focused on the end goal.

Become a Master of Disguise:
Hannibal styles himself a “master of disguise“, though his skill lay not so much in how convincing his disguise was, but in his ability to assume any role and convince others that his role is genuine. This applies to the best Project Managers. Project Managers must often play many roles: Negotiator, Mediator, Judge, Juror and sometimes even Executioner.
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Project managers the world over, at some point, end up in conflict with the line managers of team members working on a project. This can be especially true when the resources working on that project are operationally focused.

A project resource could be scheduled to attend a critical workshop when suddenly, there is a production based problem and that person is called away to deal with it. The workshop is suddenly pointless and the project manager is aggravated!

When it comes to a “battle” between a project manager and a line manager, the latter will generally “win” when it comes to identifying where the resource ends up unless he or she is over-ruled from on high – which takes time and energy. The other issue for operational people is that, if they are called on for an operational reason, the chances are something is going wrong and customers are being effected so it will generally take priority anyway.

So how can a project manager plan for this?

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A project sponsor is a prerequisite before embarking on any project in your business. In smaller businesses or projects, the project sponsor can be the project manager or business manager responsible for implementing the piece of work. This would be typically true in smaller consultancies.

Where do I find my project sponsor?

Let us assume that you need a project sponsor for a program of work who is not the PM. Perhaps you are looking at replacing a financial system in your company and a project sponsor needs to be appointed.

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Project planning is something that requires time and focus.  Effective project planning goes along way towards completing a successful project with a positive outcome.

Whether you plan using the infamous gantt chart, write the plan down in a notebook, pop it into a spreadsheet or use a project management tool, the accuracy and detail behind that plan will determine how well you run your project.

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For the dedicated project managers out there, this may seem like a bit of an odd question because you are! However, there are many out there who perform many of the tasks of a project manager but who do not equate what they are doing with being a project manager.

I am talking about the thousands of small and medium business owners who are delivering services or products to their customers. Most have no project management training, nor do they have the inclination to be called project managers. Does this sound like you?

What is project management?

Well if your business, here goes the definition part, is involved in running temporary endeavours to produce a specific result of objective then you are in the business of project management and consequently are a project manager (albeit not necessarily in name). Projects are different to normal day to day operations which tend to be generally amorphous in nature and are often repeated. Normal operations don’t follow the same set of practices engaged in as part of project management.

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Project scoping is a critical element in effective project management. The project scope can often be, if not managed correctly, amorphous in nature with scope creep being one biggest nightmares in any project that is undertaken. It kills budgets and timelines along with frustrating both the delivery team and the client.

SMART Project Scoping

One of the most effective ways to prevent creep is to ensure the use of SMART objectives at the project scoping/objective setting stage. Most of us have seen this mnemonic as it relates to performance management but it has also been used in project management for nearly thirty years.

While all elements are important, to me, the two most fundamental elements of SMART in a project management scoping context are the first two S (specific) and M (measurable).

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When delivering any piece of project work to a client, an effective project manager will ensure that the project is broken down into smaller pieces. In project management terms, this is called a work package.

In essence, it allows the project manager to create a piece of work that can be done in isolation and managed as such that will, in turn, make up part of the overall project delivery.

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Operating a truly effective fighting team of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can be daunting. It requires skill, dedication, tolerance, an ability to rebound from failure, and a desire for righteousness. Mastering many Martial Arts is also useful. You’re probably asking how did “Splinter, a giant rat become Sensei and paternal figure to the most incredible fighting Turtles the world has ever seen?”
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Yesterday, I had a very strong lesson in the power of the written word and the impact that it can have in determining the success/failure of a business proposition.

I was doing some work for a client on a tender response.  During the engagement, numerous emails were going backwards and forwards to gain clarifications on certain aspects of the tender.

As can sometimes happen, the emails started to become a little less structured as both parties feel that they “know” the person at the other end simply through this communications channel. “Dear” becomes “Hello” which becomes “Hi”. Punctuation and the language used can become less constrained and it becomes, in effect, a casual written engagement.

During one of these email sessions I created a response to a question, re-read the message and sent it off. I received a most direct and unexpected reply questioning the motivation for the response that I had made and the seriousness under which the tender process was being taken.

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