بایگانی دسته ی Weekly tips

It is natural that projects attract a lot of stress, as you have a fixed set of deliverables to produce in a fixed timeframe and with fixed resources – and all with your project sponsor breathing down your neck.

Positive stress can be generated in an environment which boosts productivity and focuses your team on the end goal. But negative stress can demoralize staff, reduce efficiency and de-focus your team. In this type of environment, you need to turn negative stress into positive stress.

Step1. Team Building

Positive stress can be generated when people within teams have positive relationships. These positive relationships can be facilitated by the project manager through team building techniques. This can include lunches, morning donut meetings, positive and fun status meetings, and doing things to help each other. There are many opportunities for team-building during the work day and even after work.

Step2. Rallying

The next step is now to rally your team around a cause – your project. Make sure everyone understands the objectives and outcomes of the project and reiterate them often. Make sure the team sees how their contribution is helping to achieve business value.

Step3. Boosting

Rallying works fine for teams, but may not be enough for individuals. You need to “boost” every team member by making them feel good about themselves and allowing them to gain confidence in completing the tasks assigned. You can do this by:

• Recognizing great performance when you see it
• Conducting informal staff reviews and providing positive feedback
• Introducing team awards and prizes

You usually don’t have the ability to give financial awards, but recognition and attention goes a long way to keeping people boosted.

Step4. Pin-Pointing

Often stressed teams have an “instigator”. This is a person (or people) who generate a lot of negativity and who influence the performance of others around them. Make sure the negativity of an instigator is identified and work with them to be a positive influence if possible.

Step 5: Self-Administering

As the project manager, you need to be in the right “frame-of-mind” yourself. If you are negatively stressed, then those around you are likely to be also. So to “practice what you preach” you need to feel up-beat and positive about the team. You need to feel fit and healthy, focused, yet inspirational. If you can achieve this frame of mind, then you can turn negative stress into positive stress and give your team a real chance at succeeding.

Are your projects less than successful? Contact us today to discuss implementing solid project management practices in your organization.

Knowing how to gather requirements is a skill that every analyst, and project manager, – should have. However, it seems to be a skill that is generally lacking in many organizations. Poor requirements gathering is a major cause of project problems in many organizations.

Gathering requirements is more than just asking a few questions and then proceeding to the next step in the lifecycle. We have a four-step process for gathering requirements that all projects should utilize to some degree. If your project is small, you will go through thee steps quickly. Larger projects may spend quite a lot of time working through the process.

۱٫ Elicitation

The Elicitation step is where the requirements are first gathered. To elicit accurate requirements, the analyst must ask the right kind of questions and then listen carefully to the answers. There are a number of techniques for eliciting requirements and your project may need to use multiple techniques depending on the circumstances. This includes interviews, facilitated sessions, prototypes, questionnaires and more.

۲٫ Validation

The Validation step is where the “analyzing” starts. The purpose of validation is to make certain that the information conveyed during elicitation accurately represents the needs and expectations of the clients and stakeholders. The work here includes consolidating requirements, rationalizing them, looking got overlaps and gaps and creating models to help visualize processes.

۳٫ Specification

During this step, the analyst prioritizes and formally documents the requirements in a Requirements Definition Report. The requirements are also numbered in a way that allows them to be tracked through the rest of the lifecycle. Finally, they are checked to make sure that they can ultimately be tested.

۴٫ Verification

The final step in the requirements gathering process is verifying that the documented requirements accurately and completely communicate the needs and expectations of the client. The requirements are reviewed and formally approved. During this step, the analyst can also develop acceptance criteria and start to write test cases for the final solution.

The truth is that all team members need to appreciate the value of good business requirements and should have some fundamental skills in gathering them. Gathering good requirements up-front saves.

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Contact us today to help you implement the right requirements process for your organization – traditional or Agile.

One problem that many project managers never get comfortable with is dealing with poor performers. Some people are such poor performers that they ultimately fire themselves. Maybe the bigger challenge is trying to improve marginal performers. These are people that constantly disappoint. They miss a high performance bar, but when you lower the bar they miss that as well. In spite of these marginal performers, you still have to complete your project successfully. You should look at a number of possible causes for marginal performance.

Does the person have the right skills and experience?

Sometimes people do not deliver up to expectations because they do not have the right skills to do the job. For instance, you assign a person to complete the analysis for a new set of reports, but he is not sure how to ask the right questions or frame a discussion with the clients. If anyone falls into this category, you need to decide whether he could do the work with the right training or coaching or whether he should be replaced.

Do they understand your expectations?

If people have the right skills, ask whether they really understand what the expectations are. For instance, sometimes when a team member misses a deadline, he might come back and say that he did not think the work was due at that time. If there is some confusion on the expectations, you can have the person confirm back to you in writing his understanding of the expectations for deliverables and dates.

Are they motivated?

Some people are not motivated to do a good job regardless of the assignments and skills needed. You can take one shot at trying to motivate the person. but after that you would need to being this to the attention of the person’s functional manager.

Can you assign them other work?

Perhaps the person could do better – perhaps excellent – if they were assigned different type of work. Look through your schedule to see if you have flexibility to assign work that is valuable to you and that they can do well.

Are there extenuating circumstances?

Another area to consider is whether there are any business or personal factors that could explain a person’s performance. For instance, a member of your team may not be very motivated to work if his spouse is very ill. If you can find a cause, it will give you some ability to respond or at least acknowledge the cause.

If people have the right skills and the right expectations, then the project manager’s options become more limited, and you start to enter the realm of the performance management. It is possible that some team members are not going to do be able to perform up to expectations. They may not be willing to do the job, or they may not be able to do the work regardless of the training and support you provide. If you feel you are at this point, you need to get the appropriate functional manager involved.

It is difficult and frustrating to work with and rely upon people who do not come through. After you look at the problems and try to determine the cause, you may just decide if there are things that you can do as a project manager or if there is a performance problem that needs to be brought to the attention of the functional manager.

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Do you need help assessing your organization, deploying project management, coaching or other processes? Contact us today to discuss implementing solid project management practices in your organization.

Project management methodology is a framework that allows project managers to successfully manage projects of varying sizes. Many organizations do not follow a formal, consistent methodology of any kind. How do you start with an initiative to introduce project management practices within an organization?

From a project management perspective you would probably start the project by identifying stakeholders and formally planning the initiative. But let’s assume that work is done. Where do we start in the actual work associated with this type of culture change?

Step 1. Current State Assessment

When you are planning to change organization behavior it is usually good to understand the current state. This gives you the perspective and baseline to understand what needs to change. The Current State Assessment looks at project management practices, enablers, barriers, roles and responsibilities, tools, skill levels, portfolio processes, etc.  You can uncover the nature of the current state through a formal assessment. The assessment could involve talking to many people in the organization and reviewing evidence from current projects. The assessment could also be as simple as a workshop discussion with a cross-section of staff members that can form a consensus of the current state.

Step 2. Define the More Desired Future State

While you are looking at the current environment, you also need to ask what the future vision would look like. This is usually not so difficult in may areas. For instance, if the current state shows that project managers have weak skills, the future state will probably be that all project managers have a basic skill level, and perhaps a certification. Seeing the weaknesses of the current state will help paint a picture for the more desirable future state.

Step 3. Define the Gap Between the Current and the Future State

Many change initiatives start off by trying to define what the future vision looks like. However, describing the future state of project management in your organization is not the major deliverable at this point. The ultimate deliverable is a Gap Analysis that shows what you need to focus on to move the organization from where it is today to where you want it to be in the future. This is important because you do not want to spend your time implementing in areas where your organization already does well. At the same time, you don’t want to implement a number of changes and still see your effort fail because you did not address other important areas as well.

Next Steps

Once you have the Gap Analysis, everything else flows from there. You can describe the work required to close the gaps, the resources needed, the priorities and timeframes, etc. You can also define the organizational change management components that are required to move to the organization to your future state. You now at a point where you can move forward with the deployment project.

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Do you need help assessing your organization, deploying project management or other processes? Contact us today to discuss implementing solid project management practices in your organization.

I think most people are asked to create regular project status reports. Really, status reports are the minimum expectations for project management communication. However, when communicating status, there are other elements that should be communicated in addition to a formal status report.

When you communicate project status, you should include the following project management documents as well.

۱٫ Status Report

Yes, you need to actually send a status report. This provides a recap of the project status today and communicates anything interesting that the reader should know. This report should be detailed enough to answer questions about the current health of the report, yet not-so detailed that people who read it are lulled to sleep with trivial details.
This report should answer the following questions:

• Where do things currently stand with this project?
• What are the next steps on this project?
• What obstacles are in the way of this project coming to completion?
• What is the current state of key project metrics (schedule, budget, etc.)?

۲٫ The Risk Register

The risk register is another vital report. Risks are always lurking in the background of any project just waiting to knock it off course. The risk register identifies those risks, quantifies the potential impact they could have on a project, and then offers mitigations plans for each of the identifies risks.

۳٫ The Issue Log

The issue log report is your way of identifying, tracking and managing current problems that require help outside the project team.　 This log should show what is actively being done to address each issue and prioritize them by area of impact on the project.

۴٫ Scope Change Log

This log shows a prior and current scope change requests, and their resolution. This is important to keep the management stakeholders aware of how their scope approvals are changing the nature of the project over time.

۵٫ Other tracking logs not included in the Status Report

Generally you don’t want to track and report project information in two places. For example, you should place schedule and budget information on your status report. But the Status Report is for the summary information. You may have reports or logs that you are using to track schedule and budget details. If your stakeholders would like to see these details you can include your separate tracking logs.

You don’t want to copy/paste this information from your detailed logs to the status report. The status report contains the summary information. If your stakeholders want to see the details, just attach the separate logs for their review.

Are your projects less than successful? Contact us today to discuss implementing solid project management practices in your organization.　

Are You a Nervous Presenter? Use These Four Tips to Feel Confident.

[image source_type=”attachment_id” source_value=”96″ align=”right” width=”300″ autoHeight=”true”] It is said that all people fear two things – death and public speaking. Having to present in front of others can be nerve-racking – even for experienced speakers. You are not going to find the answers in your Communications Plan. Here are some tips to help you feel more confident.

۱٫ Prepare

Nothing gives you as much confidence as being prepared. Of course, you need to know the content, but you should also understand the structure of your presentation and how you will move from point to point. You don’t need (or want) to memorize the presentation, but you don’t want to forget things either.

You should rehearse the presentation multiple times. This could be in front of a safe audience, or even saying the words to yourself. You don’t want to read content from a slide, but having the overall session framed by some slides with bullet points can keep you on topic and make the presentation more comfortable.

۲٫ On the day of the presentation.

Get yourself mentally and physically prepared.

• Get a good night’s sleep
• Eat a healthy meal
• Try to free your schedule, so you’re more relaxed
• Before you present, spend 15 minutes going over your presentation one last time. You should have a copy of your presentation that you can review.
• Relax

۳٫ Use confident body language

Much of your message is relayed through your body language.

• Make eye contact with people
• Appear confident using an open stance. Stand tall.
• Smile and let your personality shine
• Walk around a little
• Vary your voice and use slow, open hand gestures.
• Speak slowly and carefully, but passionately. If you’re enthusiastic about the topic, then your listeners will be as well.

۴٫ Look for opportunities for interaction

Encourage interaction with others during your presentation. When others talk for a few seconds, it takes the focus off you and lets you clear your head and focus on the key points ahead. Interaction also keeps the audience engaged.

Public speaking is one of the hardest things to master. If you prepare carefully, have a great mindset and are enthusiastic, you will deliver a great presentation.

Are you looking for training or coaching to become a beter presenter or are your projects less than successful? Contact us today to discuss how we can help you.

A Resource Plan identifies the physical resources required to complete a project. It lists each of the resource types (such as labor, equipment and materials) and how many of each you need. If you would like to define a comprehensive Resource Plan for your project, take the following three steps.

First, identify the different types of resources needed to complete the project. You then need to quantify the amount of each type of resource required. And finally, you need to schedule the consumption of each resource within the project. Let’s describe each step in a little more detail.

Step 1: List the resource required

You should start by listing the resources required to complete the project.

• Labor. Identify all the roles involved in performing the project, including all full-time, part-time and contracting roles.
• Equipment. Identify all of the equipment involved in performing the project. For instance, this may include office equipment (e.g. PCs, photocopiers, and mobile phones), telecommunications equipment (e.g. cabling, switches) and machinery (e.g. heavy and light machinery).
• Materials. Identify all of the non-consumable materials to complete project activities such as materials required to build physical deliverables (e.g. wood, steel and concrete).
• Hardware/software. Identify if applicable.
• More…

Step 2: Estimate the number of resources required

The next step is to estimate the number of each resource.

• Labor, estimate how many hours you need per role
• Equipment, estimate how many pieces of equipment needed
• Materials, estimate how much material, in terms such as square meters, kilograms, number of units, etc.

As much as possible, also indicate the date the resources are needed and the consumption rate per day, week or month.

Step 3: Construct a resource schedule

You have now collated all the information required to build a detailed Resource Schedule. Create a resource schedule which specifies the:

• Resources required to complete the project
• Timeframes for the consumption of each resource
• Quantity of each resource required per week/month
• Total quantity of resource consumed per week/month
• Assumptions and constraints identified

That’s it – your three steps to creating a resource plan.

Need help understanding resource management and other aspects of project and portfolio management? Contact us today to discuss bringing a training class to your organization.

A manager once told me that they could be a better manager if they had better people to manage.

Of course, good people managers can work with all kinds of people, and don’t shy away from the challenge of working through difficulty. This is especially true when there is conflict on a project. You need to face the conflict and not ignore it. Ignoring it only makes the problem worse. The earlier you face it, the easier it will be to resolve.

Conflict can occur with your managers, your peers or your staff. Here are some examples of conflict you might experience on projects.

• Your boss is frustrated with progress and takes it out on you openly, in front of others in your team.
• Your colleague wants something from you that you can’t provide, or can’t do for them within the timeframe required so they get angry.
• Your staff think you’re being unrealistic about timeframes, so they handle it badly by raising their voice and being obstructive.

When conflict occurs, take these steps:

1. Take a time out. If you or the other person is getting heated, tell them you need to take five minutes to collect your thoughts. Even though you asked for the five minutes, it is really for the other party to cool off as well. Make a coffee or go for a walk. It might be surprising how a short walk (or a long one) can help you relax. This will help you both to calm down and reflect on what has happened.
2. Defuse the situation. When you restart your conversation, start with a disarming comment such as “Sorry. I have been under pressure.” or “Let’s start over again.”. This will make the atmosphere more positive.
3. Identify the cause of the conflict. Many times when emotion is high you may lose site of the actual cause of the conflict. State your perception of the cause and see if the other party agrees.
4. Solve the problem. The nature of “confrontation” is that you need to “confront” the problem and solve it. Both parties need to work together to resolve it constructively. Discuss the various solutions to the problem and try to agree on the pros and cons of each before deciding on the best course of action.
5. Observe body language. While all this is happening, you need to focus on your body language. Use open stances. Take your hands out of your pockets and never fold your arms. Try and use slow hand movements. Use a passive voice. Maintain good eye contact. Listen carefully and watch their body language as well.
6. Agree on a course of action – and follow-through. This helps to ensure the conflict is resolved and also builds trust that will help defuse similar situations in the future.

You can utilize this process to turn a conflict into a team-building and learning opportunity.

Need training on project soft skills – leadership, negotiating, communication, change management? Contact us today to discuss bringing a training class to your organization.

There are many tips and techniques to help you with personal time management. However, the one that seems to be universally recommended is the to-do list. It is hard to take control of your day if you don’t have a plan for what you want to do. These to-do lists can be completed daily, weekly, monthly or longer.

For now, let’s focus on the daily to-do list. Here are five tips to help you manage this list.

۱٫ Consolidate on only one list

If you have lists on your desk, in your car, or on post-it notes, merge them all into one list. Then group the items in your list and put them in a logical order. As soon as you’ve done this, you’ll immediately feel like a weight has been taken off your shoulders, because one list seems easier to manage than multiple.

۲٫ Be aware of the target dates

Just because an item is on your daily to-do list, it does not mean the work can be done in one day. It is okay to partially complete an item and then check it off for that day. For example, it might be that an activity is worked on over five days and completed at the end of the week.

You may identify a to-do action that does not need to be started today. Great, you can add it to your to-do list a few days from now. It is okay to have to-do lists for the coming days as well.

۳٫ Set priorities

You don’t want to complete 19 out of 20 to-dos, when the 20th is the one that is really most important. Be sure to identify the most important work for the day. You can do this by listing the to-dos in priority order, or perhaps placing numbers on the high priority work. For me, I simply place an “*” next to the to-dos that are the most important.

۴٫ Be aware of dependencies

Sometimes you get fired up to start a to-do action and then you realize something else needed to be completed first. The work on your to-do list should not be so complicated. Be sure to think about the work and recognize any to-dos that need to be done first.

۵٫ Manage your list

As you complete your work each day, check off the work as it is completed. This gives you the sense of accomplishment. If you do not finish all of the to-dos, carry the remainder over until the next day. Tomorrow, start the process over again.

There are many other elements of time management – personal organization, eliminating time wasters, removing clutter, etc. The daily to-do list is perhaps the key. Use it and use it wisely.

Could your organization use coaching on how to get more work done in a day? Contact us today to discuss how to identify and remove time wasters to allow you more time to get your work done.

What happens when your project sponsor wants a different outcome for the project than your other management team and stakeholders want? The answer is that each party tries to influence the project to get what they want. This is one way you get into project politics. The result is that the team is constantly pushed in different directions, trying to keep everyone happy, but not really doing what they were originally asked to do. The project team becomes stressed, confused, de-motivated and inefficient. It’s your job as a Project Manager to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Having a well defied set of project management processes will help you manage politics. People will know they can’t go around the processes to get done what they want. However, project politics can’t be solved by processes alone. You need to first work on the people element.

Step 1: Build relationships

It is easier to resort to office politics if you do not have personal relationships with the major stakeholders. It is possible that you have a relationship with some or all of them to start. It is also possible that you don’t know any of the major stakeholders very well.

When a project starts, you can reduce the politics by building relationships with the major stakeholders. Building relationships makes it easier to work in a friendly and transparent manner. This starts off with stakeholder identification and stakeholder management, but goes beyond. Stakeholder engagement is about building relationships. These relationships will help when there is conflict and can keep you from getting into the dark side of project politics.

Build close relationships by meeting each stakeholder regularly to find out what they need from the project and why they need it. By listening to their needs, you’re securing their buy-in and you may be able to save unnecessary conflict in the future.

Step 2: Create a Project Board or Steering Committee of key stakeholders

One way to get competing stakeholders on the same page is to create a Project Board or Steering Committee. This allows the key stakeholders to agree to the same project scope and objectives. The Project Board should include your sponsor, major customers and other people that may influence the project. The purpose of the board is to set direction, resolve issues, control the scope and make sure that specific targets are set and achieved.

By forming a Project Board, you create a space where the senior stakeholders can thrash out the politics themselves and come to a consensus. You then have one common group to manage. If you include all of the “influencers” within the Board, you can task them with giving you a single, consistent vision. That way, there is no confusion as to what must be done to deliver the project and people are not pulled in different directions all of the time.

Step 3: Manage Change

A big risk to a project is that the goal posts move, causing continuous change to the project scope. This is a breeding ground for project politics, because every stakeholder will have their own wants and needs to be met—and they may not all be consistent with one another.

You need to manage change carefully by putting in place a formal process for managing it. Your change process should involve documenting each Change Request, why it’s needed and the impact to the project in implementing it. The Change Request should then be presented to the Project Board for review and approval. You need to make sure that when it’s approved the board also approve the extra time, money and people needed to implement it.

Summary

Building relationships, creating a Project Board and proactively managing change  will help you cut through politics to ensure your project success.

Do you need help assessing a project to see where it has gone wrong and what is required to save it? Contact us today to discuss how we can help your organization choose the right projects.

Over the past 15 years, Agile development models have moved from the underground to the mainstream. At the same time, the nature of Agile has also changed. The pure Agile model of 15 years ago has been refined, expanded and made friendlier to corporate America.

While it is true that many companies have successfully implemented a pure Agile model, it is more common that companies implement a hybrid. In other words, they take the basics of Agile and merge in some compromises to be able to exist within organization parameters. For example, does your Agile team create a status report? If so, you have made an Agile compromise. Does your Agile team have a project manager? If so, you have made a compromise.

Sign-up for this session to hear how many companies implement a hybrid Agile model – successfully combining Agile techniques while supporting traditional organization processes as well.

The job description of the project manager normally does not include providing formal performance reviews to team members. This is usually a responsibility of each employee’s functional manager. However, there is no question that a project manager does need to provide performance feedback to team members to let them know how they are doing and whether they are meeting performance expectations. This includes recognizing when team members meet their commitments and providing feedback to them when they are not meeting your expectations.

Telling people they are doing a good job is easy. It is harder when you have to tell a team member he is not meeting your expectations. When this type of conversation is appropriate, the project manager can use the following techniques:

1. This helps managers develop a framework for providing effective feedback. The manager should think ahead of time about the behavior that should be highlighted and how the manager can help the employee improve.
2. Provide examples. Vague criticism fosters anxiety. Tangible examples are required to highlight the feedback. Typically, you do not need to provide dozens of examples. Hopefully, you can make the point with a couple representative observations.
3. Use motivational techniques in the discussion. The employee is bound to be disappointed by the feedback. Look for opportunities to build the morale of the team member as well, so that he will be eager to improve.
4. The project manager should start the session with positive comments, then get to the feedback and finish with positive, motivating comments.
5. Allow time for feedback. The process needs to be a dialogue between the project manager and the team member. So, seek feedback from the team member and allow him to agree, disagree or provide his perspective.
6. Set a timeframe for action and follow-up. The project manager should document any action items, circulate them to the team member and ensure that they are completed. Before the meeting is over, the project manager and team member should also agree on a follow-up timeframe to check progress.

The world is made up of people with various skills and talents.  Often, people’s talents drive them to work in certain areas where they excel.  In other cases, their individual talents and the jobs they perform are not aligned.  Many people have the general skills and the drive required to overcome a lack of alignment.

If everyone excelled in the job they were asked to fulfill there would be much less need for the Human Resource staff.  However, it doesn’t always work like that.  Some people are not able to meet expectations and managers must not feel guilty about working with them to try to turn things around.

Do you need help with project management soft skills? Contact us today to discuss how we can help your organization choose the right projects.

A Feasibility Study may need to be completed for your project. The best time to complete it is when you have identified a range of different alternative solutions and you need to know which solution is the most feasible to implement. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Research the Business Drivers

In most cases, your project is being driven by a problem in the business. These problems are called “business drivers” and you need to have a clear understanding of what they are, as part of your Feasibility Study. For instance, the business driver might be that an IT system is outdated and is causing customer complaints, or that two businesses need to merge because of an acquisition. Find out why the business driver is important to the business, and why it’s critical that the project delivers a solution to it within a specified timeframe.

Step 2: Confirm the Alternative Solutions

Now you have a clear understanding of the business problem that the project addresses, you need to understand the alternative solutions available. For example, if it’s an IT system that is outdated, your alternative solutions might include redeveloping the existing system, replacing it with a package solution or merging it with another system. Only with a clear understanding of the alternative solutions to the business problem can you progress with the Feasibility Study.

Step 3: Determine the Feasibility

You now need to identify the feasibility of each solution. The question to ask of each alternative solution is “can we deliver it on time and under budget?” In other words – is it feasible to complete this project for a reasonable timeframe and cost? To answer this question, you need to use a variety of methods to assess the feasibility of each solution. Here are some examples of ways you can assess feasibility:

• Research: Perform research to see if other companies have implemented the same solutions. This may tell you if the solution is practical.
• Prototyping: Identify the part of the solution that has the highest risk, and then build a sample of it to see if it’s possible to create. This will tell you if the solution is technically feasible.
• Time-boxing: Complete some of the tasks in your project plan and measure how long it took vs. planned. If you delivered it on time, then you know that your overall schedule may be feasible.

Step 4: Choose a Preferred Solution

With the feasibility of each alternative solution known, the next step is to select a preferred solution to be delivered by your project. Choose the solution that is most feasible to implement, has the lowest risk, and you have the highest confidence of delivering.

After completing these four steps, get your Feasibility Study approved by your sponsor so that everyone in the project team has a high degree of confidence that the project can deliver successfully.

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Do you need help with project definition, feasibility or business case? Contact us today to discuss how we can help your organization choose the right projects.

There are many great techniques that help you manage the schedule on your project. Here are a couple.

Investigate Further When ‘Completed’ Activities Are Not Really Completed

Sometimes a team member says that an activity is complete when in reality it is not quite done. This can happen for the following reasons:

• The activity should have been completed and the team member believes he needs just a short amount of time to complete it. He might say it is complete and then finish it up quickly, rather than deal with the consequences of the activity being late.
• A deliverable is ’completed’ by the team member but not approved. The team member may say the work is complete, but when the deliverable is checked it is discovered that it is incomplete or needs additional follow-up work.

To avoid this, make sure that there is an approval process for all major deliverables, and that the schedule leaves time for the approval process and for updates based on feedback. Then there is no question that the deliverable is completed, because it has either been approved or it hasn’t. If an activity does not call for the total completion of a deliverable, you would expect that when a team member says an activity is completed, it probably is. If you find a pattern of this not being the case, the individual team member might need coaching on how to better report the status of his work.

Use the Concept of Triple Constraint to Manage Cost, Schedule and Scope

[image source_type=”attachment_id” source_value=”918″ align=”right” width=”300″ autoHeight=”true”] At the end of the planning phase you should have an agreement with your sponsor on the work that will be completed (Charter/Scope Statement), the cost (or hours) and duration that are needed to complete the work (the schedule). These three items form a concept called the “triple constraint”. If one of the three items change, at least one, if not both, of the other items need to change as well.

This is more than an academic discussion. The concept actually has great relevance to the management of the project. The triple constraint makes logical sense and can be easily explained to your clients as well.

This concept is easy to visualize if you think of the triple constraint as a triangle, with the sides representing cost, duration and scope of work.

For example, if the scope of work increases, the cost and / or deadline must increase as well. This makes sense. If you have more work to do, it will take more cost (effort) and perhaps a longer duration. (Likewise if you reduce the scope of work, the cost (effort) and / or the deadline should decrease as well.)

Similarly, if you are asked to accelerate the project and complete it earlier than scheduled, it would also be logical to ask for less work. However, if you are asked to deliver the same work in less time, the third leg of the triple constraint (cost or effort) should increase to maintain the balance. You will need to increase costs (effort), perhaps by working overtime hours or perhaps by bringing in more resources to complete the same amount of work earlier.

Once the project manager really recognizes this relationship in the triple constraint, he will automatically recognize when one leg changes and instantly look for ways that the other legs will change to maintain the triple constraint balance.

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Expected monetary value (EMV) is a risk management technique to help quantify and compare risks in many aspects of the project. EMV is a quantitative risk analysis technique since it relies on specific numbers and quantities to perform the calculations, rather than high-level approximations like high, medium and low.

EMV relies on two basic numbers.

P – the probability that the risk will occur

I – the impact to project if the risk occurs. This can be broken down further into “Ic” for the cost impact, “Is” for the schedule impact and “Ie” for the effort impact.

The risk contingency is calculated by multiplying the probability by the impact.

Risk Contingency Budget

If you use this technique for all of your risks, you can ask for a risk contingency budget to cover the impact to your project if one or more of the risks occur. For example, let’s say that you have identified six risks to your project, as follows.

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Based on the identification of these six risks, the potential impact to your project is €۱۱۸٫۰۰۰٫ However, you cannot ask for that level of risk contingency budget. The only reason you would need that much money is if every risk occurred. Remember that the objective of risk management is to minimize the impact of risks to your project. Therefore, you would expect that you will be able to successfully manage most, if not all of these risks. The risk contingency budget should reflect the potential impact of the risk as well as the likelihood that the risk will occur. This is reflected in the last column.

Notice the total contingency request for this project is €۳۳٫۵۰۰, which could be added to your budget as risk contingency. If risk C and F actually occurred, you would be able to tap the contingency budget for relief. However, you see that if risk D actually occurred, the risk contingency budget still might not be enough to protect you from the impact. However, Risk D only has a 10% chance of occurring, so the project team must really focus on this risk to make sure that it is managed successfully. Even if it cannot be totally managed, hopefully its impact on the project will be lessoned through proactive risk management.

Spreading the Risk

The risk contingency budget works well when there are a number of risks involved. The more risks the team identifies, the more the overall budget risk is spread out between the risks. In the case above, the fact that there are six risks helps pool enough risk contingency to accumulate a protective budget. If you have only identified one or two risks, you may not be able to spread the risk out enough to be as effective as you like.

Budgeting for Unknown Risks

The EMV calculations above only reflect the risks that are known at the beginning of the project when the initial risk assessment is performed. If you are managing a large project, you need to continue to monitor risks on an ongoing basis. Therefore, you can also ask for additional risk contingency budget to cover risk that will probably surface later that you do not know about now. For example, you could request an additional 5% of your total budget for risk contingency to cover the unknown risks that you will encounter later. This is in addition to the risk contingency of the known risks that have already been identified.  

At TenStep, we can help you implement solid risk management processes as well as a full set of project management processes. Contact Menno Valkenburg or Dick van Schoonhoven for more information and to discuss your specific needs.