The Schedule & The Project Plan

A project schedule is not the same as the project plan. Repeat after me, the schedule is not the project plan. As the name suggests, the project plan is a collection of documents used to manage the execution of a project. The schedule includes dates for tasks and milestones in the project plan and is an element of the plan, but is not comprehensive enough to be considered a plan. The project plan goes much deeper than a timeline and is the overall blueprint for the project. According to the PMBOK, the project plan may include the following: Project charter... Read More»

Failure to Follow Fundamentals Equals Failed Projects

Following the fundamentals of project management is as important as eating to feed the body. If you don't eat, chances are your body starts to fail. If you don't practice the fundamentals of project management, chances are good that the project will fail. It's the responsibility of project managers to apply project management fundamentals to their projects from start to finish. What I've found out in my almost 25 years of PM experience is that when projects fail it is because the fundamentals were not followed. I've also found that the fundamentals were not followed because either the project manager... Read More»

A Bit of a PM Pep Talk

I've recently been thinking about time Project schedules, budgeting and goals. I recently got into an interesting argument with another Project professional about being "on time", and some very interesting thoughts came out in the debate. If you think back to what we were once taught about goals, they were supposed to be "SMART" - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time sensitive. When you think about it, that's what our project plans and schedules are supposed to be - "SMART". Of course, we all want to be "on-time" and "on-budget", so we are under a fair amount of pressure to... Read More»

The high project return on piddle-mode thinking and leisurely learning

I woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago and went into a bad mood immediately. My brain went right back to the gnarly work problem I had been thinking about the night before. Big decisions looming. Complex options, no clear path yet. Why did this put me in a bad mood? Problem-solving is part of our jobs! I didn't figure it out until later that morning - and what I learned is the subject of this blog - because I think it matters for our sanity and our project problem-solving. On this particular morning I went from barely... Read More»

We Received The Wrong Equipment Again? Put A Stop To It.

What Does The Owner Want? As a consulting engineer we recently did a project where the specification called out asbestos gaskets. Knowing that asbestos has not been used for years in North America, plus the fact that a different project engineer, working for the same company, on another project did not want to use them, we assumed that this project engineer would do the same. We spent some time researching what was used in the past, made up a specification deviation (asbestos gaskets were still in their standards) and sent it to the owner. To our surprise he refused the... Read More»

Intelligent Disobedience

It's often stated that leadership can occur at any level in the organization. What's your opinion, do you believe this is true? If so, have you witnessed it? Leading is not for everyone. It takes courage and guts. During my career, I have worked for many leaders that were outstanding. I have also worked with others that are leaders in title only. To lead effectively, leaders simply cannot always make the popular decision or easiest choice. This is especially true when attempting to drive change. For an individual, project team, or organization, change occurs through dissonance. Some level of discomfort... Read More»

Testing Parkinson's Law

"But it will take 3 months for testing," was the explanation I received regarding why a design change we just implemented would extend the schedule of the project by a month, even though we were not adding any additional functionality. I wasn't questioning that the testing could take 3 months, rather I was concerned that the testing would take 3 months, regardless of how many bugs were found. We were, after all for the most part retesting functionality that had already been tested once. The words "Parkinson's Law" kept floating thru my head. Parkinson's law, "work expands so as to... Read More»

Risk Management, in the REAL World

One of the things I've observed in life, in attending PMP prep classes and teaching those classes since, is that most project managers don't spend much time or effort in performing and updating risk management activities. I also consult with companies both small and large in improving project management execution, and again I find a lack of effort in risk management areas, except in highly-regulated areas, or in highly-evolved companies. There are two kinds of risk management, PROJECT risk and PRODUCT risk. Both are well-covered in the ProjectConnections.com content. My point is that, although the methods and processes are known,... Read More»

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»