Some time ago I was responsible for a portfolio of projects that were being carried out within the financial organization of my company. One of the projects was outsourced to a large consulting firm that provided the project management, analysis, and development resources. I had weekly meetings with the project manager, who constantly gave me the go-ahead on the project until the first key milestone was reached. As the week of the first milestone approached, he announced that the milestone would have to be pushed back a week to ensure a successful delivery. The following week arrived and again the project was delayed by a week. This continued for two more weeks with the promise of “sure we’ll make it next week.” I decided to do some crawling around the project to assess where the project actually was. As it turns out, we were at least a month away from meeting the milestone that was already a month behind schedule.
Needless to say, I was less than thrilled with the consulting firm handling the project. They sent in one of their heavyweight project managers to assess the situation. After two hours of reviewing the project, he informed me that the project had slipped, not because of anything his organization did or didn’t do, but because of things we, as customers, did to cause the problems. Needless to say, I almost lost it to him. I then went through the project plan with him and went through each task and peppered him with questions about why his project manager hadn’t handled project execution and why we kept getting a “thumbs up” when in fact the project had slipped horribly. After my inquiry, he said he would follow up and get back to me. I’m still waiting.
Ah, the best plans of mice and men often go awry. No matter how nice a project schedule looks, how clear the organizational chart is, or how well articulated the risks and issues are, the most successful projects execute very well on a grand plan. Solid project management execution means pushing the plan forward, making necessary adjustments to address unforeseen issues, and removing roadblocks that may inhibit successful completion. The project manager has to stay firmly at the helm by making sure these things happen; they will not happen alone. To articulate this a bit more, here are three formulas to keep in mind:
Planning + Execution = Project Success
Execution – Planning = Random Agitation
Planning – Execution = Well-dressed inertia
Through my experience, I have found six techniques that can help you as a project manager to better ensure project success. While this is not an exhaustive list of everything you can do, it does highlight some specific areas that can help prevent a project from going off the rails:
Turn off and smash “shiny objects” – First, let’s put the shiny objects in context; to me a shiny object is not relevant to the task at hand and is not time sensitive. If something comes to your desk that can be done later without affecting your work, but it interrupts what you’re doing, this constitutes a shiny item in my opinion. It is also important to distinguish between shiny objects and garden augers. The main difference to me is that a fire drill has to be done immediately, otherwise there is some material and tangible business consequence; whereas with a shiny object there is no material and tangible commercial consequence if it is not done. This is an important distinguishing factor because many shiny object violators I know view their shiny objects as fire drills and feel comfortable responding to fire drills because of the sense of accomplishment they feel putting out the fire. Keep an eye out for shiny objects and smash them before your team goes off the rails.
View “out of work plan” tasks – I recently worked with a project team that had a pretty decent project plan with set dependencies, resources, and deadlines. However, the problem was that the project plan assumed 100% resource focus, but only about 60% of the resource focus was dedicated to the project plan. The other 40% was consumed through to-do lists that the project manager maintained in addition to the project plan. Therefore, the project was doomed to be 40% behind schedule from the start due to tasks on the to-do list. As a project manager, you have the responsibility to ensure that all project-related activities are reflected in your project plan, and that you specifically articulate the percentage of time resources that are dedicated to tasks.
Think realistically aggressive when developing estimates – I have worked with three different types of personality when estimating effort levels. The first personality type is Mrs. Reality. She looks at a given set of tasks and develops a realistic but aggressive expectation of what will be required of her to complete the task. More importantly, she comes to her appointments with a high degree of reliability. The second personality type is Mr. Op T. Mystic. Mr. Op constantly underestimates tasks and provides an “if all the stars align” projection upon completing tasks. Tasks are 90% complete quickly and then stay there forever. The third personality type is Mr. Gloom N. Doom. Mr. Gloom usually provides worst-case estimates and will slather the contingency like barbecue sauce on ribs. The secret sauce (can you tell I really like ribs?) here is recognizing the personality type you’re working with and trying to stifle reality with each personality type. Sure, he’ll get some pressure, particularly from Mr. Gloom, but unless he applies aggressive reality to his estimates, he’ll have a hard time getting sponsors and higher-ups to see him as a credible project manager.
Hold weekly status meetings – I’m a big fan of weekly status meetings and weekly status reports, particularly on high visibility projects. In fact, I’ve become a strong advocate of creating my project status report (see my status report template at the bottom of this article) right at my status meeting. The key to this is to focus on the project plan tasks, milestones, risks, and issues during the status meeting. I’ve been through too many status meetings where the focus was on each team member talking about accomplishments and effort vs. results. Now, it’s nice that everyone on the team is working so hard, but when everyone starts patting themselves on the back for the number of hours they put in at the expense of getting to schedule, you’ve got a sick project on your hands. Keep status meetings focused on schedule, risks and issues and keep them very regular. Don’t let weeks go by without doing them unless you’re willing to play Russian roulette on your schedule.
Expose the violators – So okay, before I have all the hiring managers ready to shoot me, let me explain what I mean. In status meetings, I think it’s completely within bounds for a project manager to expect project team members who don’t meet their commitments to explain to the project team why they’re not doing their job. Too many times I’ve seen project managers protect lazier project team members or fail to force them to explain their actions (or inaction, as the case may be). What each project team member must recognize is that when he or she is underperforming, it is not just the project manager who is being let down; it’s the whole team. When each project team member feels accountable to the rest of the team for the delivery and directly feels that he is letting the rest of the team down, she is more likely to perform and meet deadlines. This can be very effective in getting teams to perform, just make sure you do it respectfully. It’s about making teams work, not skewering someone’s dignity.
Use the 1/1/1 rule when planning tasks – Great execution starts with great planning. Sure, we’ve all seen acts of heroism where a project team worked 90-hour weeks to finish a poorly conceived and planned project on time. However, nobody likes to work in that mode. Projects that are well planned are more likely to be delivered on time, to customer expectations, and within the budget period. A key component of good planning is using what I call the “1/1/1” rule in decomposing the work breakdown structure, which means “one deliverable, one person, one week.” Driving to this level of detail in a project plan ensures that there is no ambiguity about who is responsible for the task and what the deliverable associated with the task should be. Also, when using a duration of one week, you’d better ensure that the task will complete within a weekly status reporting cycle. More importantly, it will minimize the surprises of a “90% complete” that takes forever for the last 10% to complete.
Excellent planning coupled with solid execution is crucial to ensure the success of any project. Subtract planning or execution from a project, and you get the random flurry of a runaway project or the well-dressed inertia of a sexy project going nowhere.
