Cheeky Monkey Business Solutions » Project Management

The Killer Issue

Michael Ryan — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:20:08 +0000

The second series of The Killing started on Saturday on BBC4 and I am hooked already.

The Killing is a Danish crime drama that concentrates on a murder investigation led by Detective Inspector Sarah Lund. What makes The Killing very different is the pace in which the story develops; instead of the usual action sequences and high speed chases, it takes its time to focus on the events that unfurl over the course of a day.

Because of this, the plot twists and turns as the police investigate every piece of evidence or lead. Some of them turn out to be important, while others turn into red herrings that slow everything down.

Sometimes working on a project can be the same. There can be so many pieces to bring together, and so many new developments over the course of a day, it can be difficult to distinguish which ones need a lot of focus and which ones are just distractions that don’t require the same level of attention. The real challenge is how do you decide which is which?

In the case of The Killing, they do have a saviour in Sarah Lund. Though there are precious few lessons to be learnt about teamwork here, she is always one step ahead of the investigation. While the rest of the team are pressuring the obvious suspect into a confession, Lund is out with her torch at the scene looking for facts.

But it’s not just about cold hard detail, there is a strong sense of intuition there too as she constantly questions her observations in search of the real motive; often uncovering the one obvious piece of evidence that moves things forward.

Sometimes on a project there can be so many pieces to bring together and so many new developments, it can be difficult to distinguish which ones need a lot of focus and which ones are just distractions. The real challenge is how do you decide which is which?

Who or what is driving your team to focus on the right details? Or, do they need to be challenged to find the missing piece of the jigsaw that brings everything together?

Sexy IT?

Michael Ryan — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:20:50 +0000

The UK Government have published a strategy document as part of an efficiency drive after they found that the previous government ordered expensive IT to make their policies “sound sexy”. The man in charge of the strategy, Ian Whatmore, told the Commons public administration committee that rather than problems with the technology, the issues had been caused by poor project management and fuzzy policies. He also blamed the “big bang” approach where large scale changes went live in one day. The BBC’s report of this story is available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12905303. If you look at the scale of these projects is it hardly surprising that there are big problems. An annual budget of £5bn is a huge amount to manage. In reality, huge projects like this should be broken down into programmes that are easier to manage and address of all of the areas for people, process and technology. Technology is only ever an enabler. However, in these “big bang” implementations, switching it on in time can often turn into the main focus. In the long term, it is whether the user takes to it or not that determines its success. This also has a massive effect on the way that the project has to be managed. In these cases, the projects have generally been led by large scale consultancies, whose typical approach is to make the change according to a template. In reality, there is a real need for the leader of the project to engage more with the organisation to understand where they are, where they are going and then to map out the journey to deliver what they want. In doing so, it is important that the leader also challenges any areas of uncertainty in the policy or the approach. Managing change in the public sector presents its own issues. Budget cycles mean that the budget must be spent in that year and deliver benefits immediately. The sector itself needs to look at ways to reform how they fund these huge initiatives so that they are getting the best value. Aside from the budget questions, long term strategies are difficult to develop especially when a potential change in Government could mean that the emphasis changes every few years. In this respect, the plan to focus on smaller projects is a sensible approach. The Government’s intention to broaden the net to contracts outside of the large suppliers is a positive step. The recognition that there are smaller independents that are willing to provide the same service on more competitive terms should level the playing field and urge the majors to think differently. However, I am less convinced by Ian Whatmore’s focus on open source and Apple software as an alternative to Microsoft. His concerns about open source software being “hacked” seem totally unfounded. Surely the ability to access private data is down to where it is stored not the application. And I doubt that anybody would expect that important government information would be stored on the web. Furthermore, his enthusiasm to move to Apple is particularly pointless. In my opinion, it sounds like borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. Reliance on Microsoft products is not exclusively an issue for civil servants, it is a reality across most businesses. The fact is that people are familiar with them and therefore they are great enablers for people to get on with their work. Replacing these tools with open source or Apple software would put them in a position where they are implementing new IT systems for the sake of it … just like the people they have replaced. After all, isn’t a reference to Apple the ultimate use of “sexy IT”?

I’m a minor player in my own life story

Michael Ryan — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:09:19 +0000

When I moved to Manchester 14 years ago to start university, The Hacienda had just closed. However, the popularity of the club and the Factory label continue to this day. This year alone, Shaun Ryder of The Happy Mondays and Peter Hook of Joy Division / New Order are still performing the music of their heyday and the radio still plays Hacienda anthems on a regular basis. Yet despite their popularity, Factory and The Hacienda were never successful. Their story, immortalised in the film ’24 Hour Party People’, is a guide to how not to make a profit. Tony Wilson’s mission statement, “The artists own everything” meant that running his business turned into a popularity contest within his team.

As a project manager, it’s possible to run into the same trap. The desire to keep your team and stakeholders happy can often mean that tough decisions don’t get made earlier enough or at all. As a result, project managers can find themselves in a position where unnecessary time is spent debating decisions, supplier costs spiral through lack of clear direction or teams lose motivation because some members are not delivering. In some cases, the desire to remain popular may even push a PM to continue a project that they know will fail. So are there things that can help a project manager make the right decision without the fear of being seen as a tyrant? Make sure that everybody understands what they need to achieve from the outset Definitely don’t follow Tony Wilson’s example here. Factory famously left their artists to their own devices to their detriment. While the Happy Monday and New Order flew off to far flung locations to make an album, there were not limitations placed on when they needed to be delivered by and how much they were allowed to spend. By the time, Factory realised that their money was being spent on everything but making an album it was too late. In the case of The Happy Mondays they were presented with a tape of instrumental tracks and a demand for more money. Hopefully, your project team are less excessive but it is still important to set clear, prioritised objectives that all deliver to the ultimate end goal. But don’t just focus on setting project goals at the outset, clarify everybody’s roles and responsibilities and get them to buy into what they are going to deliver. Establishing a project charter or documenting roles and responsibilities helps you to make those tough decisions with confidence. Factory famously never had contracts with their artists which ultimately meant that they didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to exerting any form of authority. Be honest with yourself and do the right thing You need to be clear with yourself about why you are avoiding conflict in a particular situation. Are you taking the easy way out? You need to put yourself in the situation of thinking how the project will benefit from your intervention so that you can be confident that you are acting for the right reasons. Tony Wilson was fond of the phrase, ‘If it’s a choice between the truth and the legend, print the legend’ so it seems unlikely that he would be keen to put himself in a position that would let common sense get in the way. The mission statement of “the artists own everything” might have been great for building the legend of Factory Records but it didn’t help them in keeping the label afloat. The success of your business strategy depends on your initiatives being delivered profitably and efficiently. Most of all, think about these decisions within the context of your general behaviour. If you consistently work in a positive, collaborative way then your team are more likely to understand that you are acting in the project’s best interest. Do you want the truth or the legend?

I should practice what I preach

Michael Ryan — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:01:06 +0000

There are bits of paper everywhere …. I’m not sure what has been done, what’s in progress, what is late … I’m not sure where the budget is up to … There are 4 months until the big go live and I’m getting stressed. No it’s not work – it’s my wedding day!

As far as I can tell there are two ways to go when you are trying to organise anything to do with a wedding:

Do it yourself
Get somebody else to do it

Obviously, each has own advantages. Take wedding favours for example; who really wants to spend all their time sticking little things in boxes? But then, who wants to pay a fortune to get somebody else to stick little things in boxes, especially when you have to specify every little detail? And then there’s deciding what’s critical, what’s ‘nice to have’ and what is out of the window. If you listen to some of the ‘experts’, the answer is simple; “It’s all critical. After all it’s the best day of your life!” I want it to be perfect, but not ‘paying it off until I die’ perfect. Every decision is a balance between getting the right level of quality without having to spend too much time or too much money. Both of which are pretty precious resources at the moment. How are we getting it back on track? Well, we need to get organised.

We’ve agreed what we want and within that what we need
We’ve agreed how much we want to spend
We’ve agreed how we are going to do each bit
We’re keeping track of everything

You may have noticed that ‘I’ has switched to ‘we’ at this point. My fiancée has been doing this all along while the naive romantic in me has been fighting it assuming that little cupids would be beavering away in the background to make sure everything runs smoothly. Alas, it is time to face facts … Romance is dead, long live project management! Sometimes it seems easier to avoid the initial hard work and just get on with it but in the long run it generally causes stress and frustration. Planning ahead gives you the luxury of knowing where to focus your efforts rather than worrying about everything at once. Like any project, the key piece is keeping track of time, cost and quality. There are no shortages of people who are keen to add a bit on because they hear the W word. There is a constant balance to decide whether to accept the extra cost doing it simpler and cheaper or doing it yourself. An easier decision if you know where you are up to. The best thing is that it helps you focus on why you are doing something in the first place. The main bit of the wedding day is the wedding itself. And after a few drinks, who even cares what the favours look like? Are you panicking about the big day? Who’s going to help you keep on track?

I am a Project Manager and I LOVE it!

Michael Ryan — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 09:06:25 +0000

I numbers – that doesn’t make me an accountant I the English language – that doesn’t make me a journalist So why do many businesses believe in order to manage a successful project they need someone that is organised and enthusiastic and that they will be able to do it as well as their ‘day job’ Don’t get me wrong they are important ingredients but without all the ingredients you don’t have a recipe and you can’t deliver the expectation! I believe over time peoples perception of project managers has become diluted – in many peoples opinion its about managing a timeline and following a process which is why they feel anyone can do it….I don’t know about you but in my experience these are just the elements that help make the roux! No one just wants to eat a roux – it doesn’t do anything on its own you need to add lots of other tasty ingredients to ensure it reaches expectations A successful project manager needs all the competencies of a Senior Manager – they need to manage, lead, negotiate, make decisions, mitigate risk, manage a budget and guide the team to victory. I have experienced time and time again situations where a large business change project is initiated through a financial appraisal only – not a business case but by looking at the bottom line – the Senior Management team look at the attractive return on investment and sanction the project. Its at that stage someone usually realises they need someone to manage it and as they hadn’t factored any costs of actually delivering the benefits into the financial appraisal they have to find someone internally that has a bit of spare time – often the person asked is flattered and feel like they have been given an opportunity but very quickly without support this opportunity can turn into a noose – it is unfair to set an expectation for financial delivery at a senior level then pass the responsibility for delivering that expectation to someone who has no experience to be able to do it – it can turn a future star into a jibbering wreck! Who you get to run your projects is just as important as who you get to run any other area of your business – investment in this area will have payback. People don’t resist change they resist badly managed change…. I chaos I numbers I people I negotiating I solving problems I making decisions I am a Project Manager and I it!

How can you engineer success?

Michael Ryan — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:25:50 +0000

Human beings have evolved over millions of years through a process of natural selection. It’s a pretty cruel process when you think about it; those fortunate to have been born with a particular genetic makeup survive while others don’t.

Only kidding! I’m not saying we’re the next evolutionary step. I just think the monkey gets a bad deal sometimes. Now think about your product development process, are you trying to following the process of evolution or do you need something more? Evolution implies that you are constantly launching products that may or may not fail, when in fact what you need to do is to breed for success. Your process needs to help you to define and measure success as you develop your products. But how can you do that?

Hold a kick off meeting to define your project

In simple terms, get everybody together to define what success is by asking:

Do we know what we are doing this for?
Is what we are doing it for measurable?
What needs to happen for it to be success (or what would we stop the project for if it wasn’t happening)?
Which individuals are going to do deliver what and by when?

Document the answers to the above

Make sure that everybody leaves the meeting understanding the project and their actions. Here are some suggestions how:

Project definition document
Time plan
List of actions

Get agreement from the top that what you are intending to do meets their requirements.

Measure your development against the output

If you are using a stage and gate process, make sure that each stage review aligns to what you outlined originally. Your project might change but it needs to align to what you set out to achieve. Sometimes, everybody needs a reminder of what they set out to do.

Measure risks and issues against your outline

If you are not going to deliver one of those critical areas of success, you need to take action; even if it is stopping everything. It can be hard to be objective about something that you’re passionate about. You might need a reminder of why you started.

Review the final product against the initial definition

Remember, you’re only trying to play God. You still need to learn.

There is no ‘I’ in team but there is in community

Nina Dar — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:03:54 +0000

This summer the way people work has been in the media spotlight. Look at the England football squad. Many people saw the paralell to their own lives and took the view that if we went to work and under performed on a regular basis we would expect to be disciplined by way of warning or performance review. If we didn’t fulfill our objectives we would be trained and if it was evident we would never be able to fullfill the job requirements and there was someone better who could, we would be sacked and replaced.

Would we ever expect our manager to be sacked because we weren’t performing?

Being a member of the England football squad is like being part of a project team. It’s not your day job and you have two bosses. You are bringing together a group of talented individuals that are going to work together towards a common goal… like winning the World Cup (we wish). The components that have to come together to succeed are complicated. It is not as straight forward as an employee having the fear of losing their job, or even that different people are motivated by different things… money, recognition and sense of achievement. The key to successfully managing a team of this nature is more about building a community than traditional managerial motivators.

Community Management what does that mean?

It has more to do with understanding the bigger picture, seeing the vision and getting people to buy into their part in that vision. This is not in the traditional corporate mission, vision, values context but in a more pragmatic, holistic way that exposes the fact that you do not have control over all the decisions you would like to make and because of that you put more accountability and ownership on those indiviuals who have the skills you require to deliver the end goal.

When Fabio’s management style was being scrutinised by the media, my contribution was “I wonder what would happen if Fabio asked the players “who is up for it today?” “where would you like to play?” and the ownership was on the players themselves to say for the good of our end goal this is what should happen! This may sound like nonsense but when you strip all the crap away these are guys that love nothing better than to kick a ball around a field and win – sometimes we add so much more to these situations than there should be and the simplicity is lost.

Why have a Manager then?

Someone has to pick the members of the community and getting that right is essential. Here there needs to be the courage and strength to pick the stars but also pick the players with potential who are hungry to show what they can do. Then there is the huge task of managing and motivating the individuals. Teams who do not work together on a daily basis have different needs to those that do and the motivation to succeed is different. This is not about money, it is more about how the world see you and may be even an opportunity for you to give something back, develop in a different way. There has to be much more focus on what an individual will get out of this so that the team bond can be formed and developed.

Football like work is a big part of our lives, real change here could inspire us all

When Did Projects Become Business As Usual?

Nina Dar — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:56:31 +0000

I have been practicing change management and delivering projects for the last 17 years. All those years ago I knew this was my destiny because Project Management meant you did things a different way. I had never been able to settle in a “functional role” and god knows I tried them all.

Projects were (and in my book still are) a vehicle for change. An opportunity to step outside of business as usual, break down barriers and find the fastest most effective way of delivering the desired change. Then carefully, integrate that back into the business as a new way of working, nurturing it like a sapling that needs to take root.

The philosophy was a real hit. Now most companies have some kind of Project Management function and there are so many Project Managers.

BUT HAVEN’T WE MISSED THE POINT HERE?

They have become part of the establishment, surely the antidote to what they are there to do?

Truly successful projects are still in the minority and change on the whole is still managed badly.

WHY DO COMPANIES WANT (OR PUT UP WITH) THIS DILUTION?

Have we got so used to projects not quite making the deadline or failing to keep to budget that we have lowered our expectations?

OR ARE LEADERS CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT THEY ARE COMFORTABLE WITH?

When I was an employed Project Manager I was a total pain in the arse for all my bosses because I challenged everything. Not to be obstructive but because I always believed there was a better way, I believed it was my job to lead change. This did not always sit well with my bosses who, some saw the benefit and promoted the success, others distanced themselves waiting for me to hang myself.

CHANGE CREATES HEAT AND LIGHT

If you have an internal change team then the management team need to be enlightened, the mavericks, the ones who don’t care who is going to be upset, they see a vision and know they can get there.

The best creations, most innovative ideas, advances in ways of working and process need heat and light. Make a difference, create a lightening bolt today!