Gold Star

I was working with a Venture Capitalist who observed, “I hate when I get three quarters of the way through a project plan and see a gold star with a footnote that says, “Breakthrough required here.”

Hunh.

Me too.

Here’s another secret for Cutting Development Time

One Pagers

How do you start your new projects?

How do you remember what happened in meetings six months later?

Saturday I started two projects in a whole new area of my life. I had been collecting information for a week, and needed to figure out what I knew.

I wrote two one page descriptions, one for each project, adding everything I had written in my notes, using the internet to fill in what I hadn’t taken the time to find previously. A venture capitalist once said, “You don’t write what happened in the meeting, you write what should have happened.”

In less that an hour I had two one page descriptions of what had been accomplished. I was able to circulate them to other people on the project and get valuable additions in less than an hour.

After a meeting, I will type my written notes, answering any questions noted while the conversation was occurring, using the internet to flesh out the beginnings of ideas, related details, and taking the time to improve the first draft questions and ideas of real time.

I put in links, telephone numbers, quantities, dollars, knowing that later they may be important.

That one page provides the foundation of further work for me, for others, and is usually highly valued by the other people in the meeting, reminding them of ideas and actions that were lost in the conversation.

Tools For Knowledge Workers – Your Journal

Cutting Development Time

I read that Jeff Bezos of Amazon makes champions of new projects start by writing an imaginary press release about the benefits of the new project. That’s nice.

Then after a while, I understood. This is different from typical development, where you build something and then try to figure out the benefits.

By starting with the benefits, when there is still energy to edit and improve, we get the very best benefits, the sparkling benefits. That cuts out a lot of trial-and-error development, and makes a more purpose-designed product, slimmer and more elegant.

Instead of picking up the castoff ideas from the shop floor, or going from version 1 to version 2 to version 3 to come up with a successful product, why not spend your energy to define what good is and start there?

WordPictures – Phrases That Lit The Bulb!

Experience Causes Scope Creep

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a customer develop world class skills using a tool, going from no presence to a highly customized, effective environment.

Then they run beyond the capabilities of the tool.

And they have to change.

Which is going to cost time.

And make everyone have to learn new ways to do the same things.

So they complain.

“If we had known this was going to happen, we wouldn’t have started with the tool!”

Nonsense.

That first tool took you from nothing to excellence. Instead of using 15% of the capabilities, you use 105%.

You figured out things the people who designed the tool didn’t know. And you surely figured out how to provide results that went way beyond your starting competence.

Some project managers want to design in a vacuum.

“Tell us what you want and we’ll go away for six months and bring you what you asked for.”

More nonsense.

Experience causes scope creep. The purpose of learning is a better solution.

If you have misguided managers telling you you can’t afford to do a better job, they are taking money out of your pocket, now or later.

Find some buckets to overfill. It will improve your total project average.

The Dune Leadership Lessons – Ancient Texts Of A Future

Cost Goes Both Ways

I was invited to view a new software product, JAPMS, Just Another Project Management System. I was in a roomful of people who had letters after their names that meant they were experienced project managers.

The builders showed us screens that represented projects in multiple views, and multiple projects that rolled up into programs, and dashboards for most of the management belief systems.

They were showing us how incredibly easy it was to move a project to the right due to unforeseen circumstances. Man, one thing goes wrong and your whole project recalculates!

I’ve used many project management systems, from the sublime to the blue screen. I’ve even built and sold a couple. So I was surprised at the response when I asked, “What happens when you do something that cuts time from the project?”

They didn’t know what I was talking about. Obviously not owners. Not one in the room.

“What do you mean?”

“Well suppose somebody comes up with an activity that takes a couple of weeks off the delivery date?”

From the discussion, I realized I was in a room with a group who had never considered running a project in less time than expected. They were more interested in that than in how the software worked.

Back when I was running the construction company, I would tell the estimators to figure out how the competition would price a job, so we could figure out if we even wanted to bid it. The estimators would then figure a better way and bid that.

Then I would go to the site supervisors and tell them that if they couldn’t beat the estimators’ numbers, I didn’t need them on the project. They got very good and very bonused beating expectations.

In selling we see similar situations all the time. If we can’t get better with every implementation, where’s the fun?

Winning a bid just creates another opportunity to excel.

I really enjoy finding a similar requirement after enabling technology has improved. One time I built a second marketing services factory that could create better results in less than two thirds of the time and cost of our original factory. Of course, I had had a heavy hand in building the prototype operation.

Anyway, the project management software turned out to be another record keeping application, but several of the reviewers said they were going to look into building ways to shorten their projects into their project plans.

Who knew?

Sales Lab Resources – Tools for a new economy

The Difference Between Promised And Produced

I keep getting glimpses that there is a difference between promised and produced. At the most basic level that may be a broken promise. But what if there is something more?

Did you ever hear, “But you promised...” Probably not good.

I’ve also heard, “This is SO much better than what I was expecting!” That’s a way rememberer.

Sometimes you agree to something because you don’t understand what you are agreeing to. Ask the Native Americans about that.

Are customers not allowed to mature, to develop, to learn more while you are producing? That’s a hard rule to enforce. Hard on you, hard on them. Not to mention futile.

I enjoy when customers learn something new on my watch. They tend to enjoy the experience and ask me back again.

Promise what will initiate the transaction. Deliver what will delight the customer. The good guys make that look easy.

Any stories that might support my contention?

Project Management by Henry Ford

Imagine the situation as Henry Ford was planning production of the Model T : over 5,000 parts; multiple manufacturing vendors; skilled to semi-skilled production processes; and growing demand.

He addressed part of the production process by determining an optimal assembly sequence and moving the vehicle along to workstations which have the required parts, tools, and trained workers to do the next step in the process.

Contrast Ford's approach to the projects today: many parts or inputs; multiple vendors or suppliers; wide range of skills needed to deliver results – all still apply; and - a twist that Ford did not have to consider – multiple collaborating organizations, locations, time zones, and perhaps languages. The assembly line won't work here. As technology, communications, software, and economic conditions changed, managing projects has evolved in complexity and offered tools.

What has remained virtually unchanged is the need for rapid updates about significant elements of the project – about progress on the schedule, needed or excess resources, identified conflicts or barriers, and project against budget analysis. The changing reality is there are less resources available to process this information and less time available for operations resources to report it.

In this New Normal tools are being developed and refined to respond to the changes: meetings are being replaced by asynchronous communications; reports are changing to email, text message updates and video documentation; needed information is being targeted only to those who need it or want it instead of blanketing everyone (did you hear the one about a new president of the board who decreed all emails will be sent to all board members; killed all communication).

Are we getting better than Henry Ford?

What do you see?

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There's Talk, and There's Communication

Peter Drucker said '60% of all management problems are the result of poor communication.'

Why is this true?

Communications break down when losing focus on three areas:

• clarity of what's expected
• accuracy of what's completed, and
• timeliness of what's needed.

Clarity of What's Expected – Projects which do not have clear goals, vision, and mission set out in specific and measurable terms cause confusion and fall short of desired results. Keeping the goals in front of team members helps to focus on outcomes.

Accuracy of What's Completed – Detailed, appropriate input from team members about what is completed and the status of in-progress activities is necessary to manage project completion – appropriate data verses extensive data is the key here.

Timeliness of What's Needed – Timely reporting of appropriate data permits effective allocation of resources and contingency planning, when necessary, to make use of idle resources or target resources to correct delays..

How would you approach improving these three related areas?

Weekly status meetings for the team was popular when everyone was in the same facility. As the team expanded beyond the immediate area video, audio, and computer-aided technology added, but did not appreciably change the result. A weekly one-hour meeting of eight people 'invests' one person day (8 hours) per week during which 88% of the time is waiting to present your information. Getting the data without the meeting seems may be an alternative.

Weekly reports don't require simultaneous attendance, but do need preparation and production time to compile the information in the prescribed format and distribute it to the project leader. Week old information, no matter how quickly distributed is still old information when received.

As project teams evolved to teams from several organizations, locations around the world, and perhaps different languages, communications have become more complex and critical to successfully completing a project. Project software is intended to communicate data to the project leaders and staff in an organization. Does this solve the needs?

An example - for a membership project, I received a report from a software system which was a ½ inch thick sheaf of paper with tasks, priorities, and benchmarks – and a person with a full time role of keeping it up to date and complete. Although detailed, it did little for clarity, accuracy, and timeliness needed to improve project success.

How do we get the needed information, to the right people, in real time, wherever they are located, in a simple, straightforward fashion, and also have a means of sharing with others what the team members have learned working toward the results?

What's needed in your organization to simplifying prompt, accurate complete communications to make projects get more successful results?

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