Refueling Your Team on a Lengthy Project

This is my 100^th post on this site and I was racking my brain trying to come up with a monumental topic…but I couldn’t. Then last night I was at our church service and the sermon was about refueling and re-engergizing and this thought came to me. It’s not monumental, but I hope it’s helpful in some way.

Many of us manage long, multi-phase projects all the time or from time to time. And many of us manage projects with remote resources who rarely or never see each other. So…what happens when a project runs for months on end with a lot of ‘heads down’ hardcore work happening? How do we as project managers keep both ourselves and our team members from becoming burned out or from losing focus on the end goals of the project?

Let’s look at a few actions that can be taken to possibly limit the impacts of burnout and isolation on a long-term project.

Recreation

I’ve led projects where some of the resources never meet in person ever for the duration of the project. It’s unfortunate, but it happens and it can’t be helped. However, if you have the opportunity to get everyone together – either for the beginning of one of the phases of the project or at a company meeting during the project – make a point to go out as a team and do something fun and non-work related. Get management approval for the budget – do whatever you have to do – but it’s a great team-building activity and it helps give all team members a different and more personal perspective of the other members of the team.

Remember, some of them have only heard you – the PM – speak by phone and read your emails and most of the time it’s telling them what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. Stepping outside of that position to get to know everyone in a different way will help to re-engergize everyone going forward.

One thought – as the PM, and with budget approval, of course, is to try doing something fun and creative that can help build team spirit; for example, come up with a team name and logo and print them on custom t-shirts.  The whole process will get everybody’s creative juices flowing and help everybody relax and work together more easily.  I’ve done this for generating interest in events that I’ve put on such as small golf tournaments, etc. with great success.

Recognize

Recognition is a great motivator and a nice way to let the team know that their work is appreciated. If done right, it can also be a great way to let the entire organization know about the accomplishments of your team. One project I was leading performing an enterprise-wide software installation for a leading industrial supply company was broken out into three separate phases. At the end of each phase, once deployment had been accomplished and the implemented modules were up and running, I put out a ‘press release’ to everyone in the company recognizing the successful efforts of the team and the satisfaction of the customer. I wrote it, but it ultimately was distributed by one of our VPs so it would carry even more weight. If you want a copy of one, contact me and I’ll try to locate a sample to send you.

Reward

Look for ways to reward your team members for jobs well done. On a very successful project or phase, this should probably be for everyone on the team. For individual efforts that go above and beyond the normal call of duty, it’s fine to reward individual team members. Get this ok’d through management, and give them gift certificates or gift cards to restaurants, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, or similar venues that are pretty mainstream and frequented by nearly everyone at some time or another.

I realize this one has been practiced for years, but it works and it’s a nice thing to do for outstanding efforts exhibited, for example, by a team lead performing a long software configuration effort or a data specialist solo-ing a very difficult data load that had to be accomplished by ‘x’ date.

Summary

Your project resources are critical and without them there could be no success. Even if you as the PM aren’t getting much recognition – and that’s often the case – don’t let that pass on to your team members. They are YOUR resources and their success is your success. Try hard to recognize pending burnout and mitigate it with some sort of action. Getting the team together for an activity, recognizing the team’s efforts in print to others, and rewarding outstanding efforts are a start. I’m sure there are other ways – and if you have suggestions I’d appreciate hearing them.

The Project and the End User Perspective

When is the end user part of the project?  On many projects the end user is the one who needs the solution and gets the solution and that’s the total of their involvement. 

I read a quote the other day that applies to this concept:  “A user is somebody who tells you what they want the day you give them what they asked for.”  This can be taken to mean that the user often does a poor job telling us at first what they want and then gives us a better definition once the project is over and the solution doesn’t really meet their needs. 

End User Input is Minimal

For this article, I’m going to look at this from another perspective.  This quote can also mean that the project was derived from the users’ wants/needs, created without their full input, and then handed to them only to find that it doesn’t really meet their needs – and they’ll tell you that.  I’ve seen frustrated users before who are forced to use a newly deployed system that doesn’t really meet their needs…because they weren’t consulted when the requirements were being defined at a more detailed level leaving the company with a solution that doesn’t get them where they need to be.

From my experience, often the true end user is involved in the project only at these points:

• A need is expressed
• A developed and implemented system is handed to them to utilize

In my opinion, the end user should – at a minimum – be involved with the project at these points:

• Pre-engagement during business process definition
• Pre-engagement and early engagement during requirements definition and for some drill down to more detailed requirements
• Training
• User acceptance testings (UAT)
• Deployment

Another quote brings to life how critical it is that we pull the necessary information from those that will ultimately be using the developed solution:  “A user will tell you anything you ask about, but nothing more.” 

The End User IS the Customer

The end user knows their job…and sometimes that is as far as their company knowledge takes them.  They may even be performing some fairly mundane tasks within the organization.  But they are critical tasks – otherwise there would be no project.  In essance, the end user is the true customer – the one who will actually be using the solution. It is the organization’s responsibility, the subject matter expert’s (SME’s) responsibility, and the delivery team’s – if access is granted – responsibility to pry the right information from the final end user of the solution.

They can’t tell you how to develop the solution.  They don’t always know how what they do relates to everything else that is happening within the organization.  But they know their job and they know what frustrates them and what doesn’t seem to be working.  It goes back to the concept that often the customer doesn’t really know what they want – it’s our job to ask the right questions so that we don’t end up developing a system that misses the mark. 

I covered this to some degree in the article “When the Customer Doesn’t Know What They Want.”  In that article I stated, “it is up to the Project Manager and the delivery team to ask the right questions, drag the ‘real need’ out of them, and help them to form it into a vision of the to-be processes and application.”

Summary

Developing the solution for the true end user is critical.  They aren’t the ones paying the bills, signing the checks, approving the change orders.  But their needs and wishes must be addressed and a successful and useable solution is much more likely if they are part of the project at key points rather just at the time of request and at the time of deployment.  They provide very valuable information and can make or break the project in terms of useability.

ProjectOffice.net: Getting Started – Part 2

For the second installment of this “getting to the know the software” series, we’ll be looking at the Projects & Tasks tab and what we can do from there with this web-based project management and collaboration tool.  Some of the text I post will be information straight from the site tour and some will be my own findings and interpretations. 

Projects & Tasks

The Projects & Tasks tab is the starting point for your projects organization.  This module allows you to add projects, and tasks within the project as well as create your resource pool.

The first step is to invite new users to create their ProjectOffice.net space.  This will allow you to have resources in the system to utilize in creating your resource pool, which will become your assigned resources on projects.  Afterwards, you can create projects manually; import projects already created in Excel or create projects from predefined templates. At the end, you can add tasks, assign tasks to team members and track the task progress through the Gantt chart 

There are 3 main sections in the Projects&Tasks Menu: Projects; Tasks and Resources. By clicking on each you will be redirected to that particular section.

Projects

This is the place to officially start to manage your projects. This section offers you core project management functionalities needed to effectively manage your projects.

By clicking Projects in the Projects&Tasks menu you can import projects from Excel and create projects from templates, along with the standard Create new projects option.

Tasks

After you have created your project, the next step is to assign tasks to your team members. 

Tasks are the work elements that are required to deliver the project as a whole.  No task can exist without being attached to a project.  This is the case in the real world as well as all project management software you have likely ever utilized.

Resources 

Before you create projects and tasks you must have resources that will work on your projects and tasks.  Resources on your project must be authorized/licensed users of the ProjectOffice.net software.  That way they will be part of your resource pool and can be assigned to tasks in the project.

Resources in the Projects&Tasks menu allow you to invite people to join your team i.e. to create your resource pool.

In my next installment, we’ll begin to look more in-depth at setting up an actual first project.

Begin with the End in Mind

“Begin with the End in Mind.”  This is a quote from Stephen Covey and it is Habit # 2 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  I was recently reminded of this quote by a post on Twitter and it struck me…this is key thinking for Project Managers and, in fact, all business professionals who have responsibility for success in some facet of their existence.  Begin with the end in mind.

“Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.”  This is straight from the 7 Habits book.  In my opinion, this applies to both the project view and the daily view of what a project manager is up against.

Daily View

First, let’s look at the daily view.  From a daily standpoint, the PM is interested in completing tasks, delivery status, communication and updates and getting to the end point of the day with both the delivery team and the customer team well informed and the proper progress made on the current tasks. 

Now, does that mean that every single day the PM needs an update on every single active task?  No, I don’t think so.  That would be overkill.  However, the critical tasks and the tasks that may be in danger of causing the project timeline or budget to slide – basically what’s hot right now and what’s at risk – need to be watched daily.  At the end of the day, those are the tasks that the PM, the delivery team, and the customer team need to know are being taken care of and are still in alignment with the overall project goals and timeline.

Project View

From a project view standpoint, the end goals have already been set in the sales process, reviewed in the Kickoff session and well documented in the Statement of Work.  And, of course, the end goals are laid out in detail in the project plan that is being revised and delivered every week and reviewed as part of a formal weekly status meeting with the customer. 

Everything that happens on the project needs to be looked at with the project’s end goals in mind.  That includes issues that come up, risks that are reviewed and hopefully mitigated, and definitely any potential scope issues that arise.  All scope issues must be reviewed in detail and analyzed to ensure that additional work that must be performed is still in alignment with the project’s end goals and the customer’s “to-be” business processes.  If project changes in the form of change orders are not in alignment with the end goals of the project, then the SOW must go back for detailed review to ensure that these potential changes are not moving the delivery team and the customer off track leaving everyone with an end solution that, once implemented, will not satisfy the customer’s needs and goals for the project.

Summary

It is critical to not be blind once the project is underway.  It’s easy to get bogged down with the everyday tasks of managing a project and developing and implementing the customer solution.  What’s sometimes hard is maintaining the high-level view of the project’s end goals and ensuring that the final solution is still aligns with the customer’s wants and needs.

PRINCE2 – 2009

London, United Kingdom, May 29, 2009 –(PR.com)– Project management training and practice is about to undergo a fundamental change. PRINCE2, the most widely recognised professional project management certification in the UK and in Europe, has just undergone its first major refresh.

On 16 June 2009 the PRINCE2 2009 launch party will release three new core PRINCE2 manuals, new PRINCE2 examinations and a modern, stream-lined project management framework.

Changes will include scrapping the wordy, prescriptive detail of PRINCE2 2005, in favour of a more lightweight, generic project management method. Alongside the core PRINCE2 2009 manual will be a high-level guide aimed at members of the project board, who need a basic grounding in PRINCE2, but not the detailed understanding provided by the PRINCE2 Practitioner course.

Perhaps most exciting will be the launch of the PRINCE2 ‘Knowledge Centre’, an online PRINCE2 project management resource. The Knowledge Centre will include PRINCE2 templates, checklists and tutorials available for all PRINCE2 practitioners to download.

Knowledge Train, a leading PRINCE2 training organisation, has recently announced that the new PRINCE2 examinations will be available from the beginning of July 2009, although the old exam will still be available at student request.

Simon Buehring MD of KnowledgeTrain says: ‘Giving students the choice to decide their own PRINCE2 course and exam structure is a priority at Knowledge Train. All students will be provided with the up-to-date PRINCE2 2009 official manual (Managing Successful Projects), but both old and new exams will be available throughout the overlap period.”

For more information about PRINCE2 certificates and project management training-courses, please visit the http://www.knowledgetrain.co.uk website or call KnowledgeTrain on 020-7148-5985.