Lessons in Setting a Project Schedule

Deadlines! They can be like quicksand. The harder we fight to meet deadlines, the more of them we seem to miss. The anxiety practically whispers in your ear, "you're about to miss another deadline." If your current project life is an anxious one where you feel like you're trying to swim out of quicksand, I can relate. I remind myself of what that felt like often so I don't forget the importance of a project schedule. When I've found myself in project quicksand it's usually because I didn't create a detailed, well thought out, and accurate schedule or because my... Read More»

Seeing Clearly with Scope

Upon starting a recent project, my team and our clients gathered for discussion. We wanted to talk about this new project and collaborate about scope. For the clients, we were simply having our first project kickoff meeting. For me, this was the most valuable time of project initiation. As they expressed their wants and needs, their expectations for the project, I was able to gather facts and see the scope. Once my team and I returned from our meeting, we were able to discuss in depth the needs of the client and define our scope. It's a fact! Without defining... Read More»

Time to dig out the calendar

Summer is upon us here in the northern hemisphere, and as we make our list of things to do to fill the long, lazy days of summer, might I recommend taking a moment or two to... locate a calendar and add it to the pile of things you carry around with you? In this world with electronic planners, with "smart" phones that have their own calendaring devices, not to mention the instant access almost all of us have to some sort of web mail that also has a calendar attached, with MS Word's plethora of templates for calendars, or the... Read More»

There Will Be SOME Form of Execution

As a project manager for the last 30 years or so, I've seen many projects go off-track. In the real world, almost every project is challenged at one point or another, and this is usually due to one of a very few reasons. I will enumerate and discuss the most common I've observed. Inadequate planning detail or buy-in Most projects have components that have not been done before or at least not been done by the specific project team. This means that the project planning cannot be based on history or the team's experience. These components need to be planned... Read More»

Being a “list master” instead of a “task master”

Last month, I shared some tips around breaking down the work into the right list of tasks. This month, let’s go to the next logical step…managing the right set of details within the list, and managing the list in the right way. Whether you have a full-blown project plan in a high-end project management software tool or a simple list of to-do’s on a spreadsheet, as project manager, you’re still accountable for making sure the work gets done. What do you need to know about each task, to manage it successfully? I’ve found that there are really just a few... Read More»

Project Management Survival Tools - Part C (Planning Iterations)

As a project manager, you face many challenges in a project. Each of us can use all the help we can get. For this 3rd post on this subject, I'd like to focus on the value of iteration planning / iterative development. One of the most difficult parts of project planning is breaking the project up into appropriate-sized pieces or phases so that the team does both the right things and does things right. In the classic waterfall model, the first biggest challenge is to essentially fully understand and specify the system, then plan the execution, then execute. In many... Read More»

Assumptions, Communication, and Donkeys

There’s an old saying about what happens to you and me when we assume things. I recently had an experience that brought this to life, especially when you don’t confirm or share your assumptions. Imagine this scenario, you are preparing an estimate for a project at the time when you normal prepare an estimate for a project – at the beginning when you have the least amount of information available suitable for that purpose. To keep from getting wrapped around the axle you make some assumptions to provide key data points. Sometimes these assumptions are specific numbers or metrics that... Read More»

How to Survive a Layoff: A Project Plan

A friend called me two days ago and announced that he, along with 600 other employees, has been laid off from the company where he's worked the last 12 years. My aunt called to let me know that my cousin had been cut from a full-time job with benefits to 40% time, hourly pay and no benefits. These are intelligent, professional people who are hard workers and top performers. Last night on the evening news an economist projected that in California alone, one million - that's ONE MILLION - people will be laid off in 2009. And the problem isn't... Read More»

Estimating Accuracy – What are we really after?

I took part the other day in a discussion about standard processes and metrics for estimating project costs. It occurred to me as we discussed comparing actual time spent on projects with the estimates to measure how well we were estimating, that perhaps we had lost track of why we want accurate estimates, or should I say reliable estimates. We rely on estimates to aid our planning. When can we deploy this new system? When do we have to have all of our users trained? When can we release this new product? What kind of impact can we expect to... Read More»

Strategic & Business Planning: a Project Manager’s Role

When your company does “strategic” planning or yearly budget planning, do they come to you and want you to estimate the expense budget, the capital budget, the headcount and schedule for one or more projects in a single day? How do you do this quickly and but still come up with estimates that you can live with? The first thing to remember is that this comes up on a yearly cycle, so if they came to you last November, they’ll be back again this November. Remembering this might give you a little notice and time to do your homework. Set... Read More»