The Challenge of Project Communication

We’ve all heard the clichés about communication. But putting the ideas into practice is often a lot harder than applying the theories. This is even truer for project management than for departmental management.

For the purposes of this article, I’m looking at department managers who take on the role of project managers for one-off projects or for organizations that regularly rely on department managers to act in the role of project manager, because not all PMs have the ‘luxury’ of focusing solely on project management tasks. Some are temporarily thrust into the PM role while their primary responsibilities – and ultimately skill set – is outside the role of the project manager. We’ll look at the communication challenges faced in these types of situations.

The Communication Challenge

While managing your department, you’re in constant contact with your staff. Their tasks are well defined and recurring. Your people are focused on performance, and their careers depend on how well they execute their tasks. A project, by comparison, is often seen as an intrusion, a departure from the normal routine—even when it’s “normal” to disrupt that routine with a series of projects.

In addition to the manager-team dynamics, you must contend with communication on three other levels:

• The assignment. The executive (or committee) that first assigned the project to you may not agree with your idea of what the project should achieve; or he may change his mind about the outcome wihtout letting you know.
• Other departments. The managers of other departments have their own priorities and may resist your schedule. This usually applies in two situations: when members of their department are on your team or when you depend on that department to supply certain information.
• Outside resources. Your project may depend on help or information from “outside” resources—companies or individuals not part of the organization. These include other divisions, subsidiaries, or offices; a vendor or separate corporation; or a consultant.

Your budget and schedule are your best communication tools. They are useful in communicating with both your team members and outside resources. Each can be used in a number of ways.

The Budget as a Communication Tool

The budget defines the company’s financial commitment, and is used to ensure that project expenses are kept in line. If variances do occur, they often anticipate a scheduling problem as well.

The budget also measures the degree of risk involved with your project. Any change in the company is accompanied by risk, and when time and money are spent, the decision to go ahead is based on a judgment of risk. Management will proceed with the project if it is convinced that the risk is acceptable and that future profit potential justifies that risk. So, for example, when you propose a project, you should communicate in terms of risk and likely reward. Approval will be granted as long as you can convince management that there’s a good chance that future profits will recapture this investment within a reasonable period of time.

The Schedule as a Communication Tool

The schedule defines the project, and, as long as you share it with management, it is a useful tool for ensuring that your definition conforms to theirs. When it’s broken down into phases, with deadlines tied to the final result, management has the opportunity to validate your direction, and you can ensure that your understanding of the project’s goals is correct. At this early stage, you can define exactly what the project should achieve.

You also need to use the schedule during the later phases of your project in conjunction with review meetings to ensure (1) that you are on the right course and (2) that management’s desired outcome has not changed.

Finally, the schedule improves communication with your team, and helps avoid delays. By identifying weak links and by communicating with other department managers and outside resources, you will avoid unexpected problems.

Working with Other Department Managers

For relatively simple short-term projects that are executed strictly within a single department, you, as department manager, have direct control over the time commitments and priorities of each team member.

Because you are aware of your department’s deadlines and workload variations, you can build your schedule around the workload and adjust it as needed. You can also balance departmental and project demands on the basis of your knowledge of each and the scheduling flexibility and control you’re able to exercise.

As the scope of your project grows, your task assumes a greater dimension, and you will begin to work with people from other departments. This is where your communication skills are tested.

A common complaint often heard from other managers is, “You didn’t tell me in time,” regardless of whether problems arise because of deadlines, the use of an employee’s time, or conflicts in commitment. But you can solve most of the problems you will encounter in working with other departments by remembering this key point:

Keep other department managers informed at all times: before and during the project.

By applying a few basic rules for communication between departments, you will be able to defuse the problems that beset all managers at one time or another: territorial motives, power struggles, and—in cases where communication breaks down completely—outright refusal to cooperate. Most of the time, the breakdown of cooperation arises not from a political or personality problem but from a failure in the communication link—especially when you have made the effort to communicate, but only once. People need periodic reminding, so don’t assume that a single message will be remembered.

Project Management from a Distance – Part 4

In Part 3 of this six-part series, we covered the concept of what type of project and IT work seems to work best for telecommuting. In Part 4, we’ll discuss what setup you need to make it work for you if you choose to try to go with the telecommuting option for managing your projects:

Part 1 – Why remote?

Part 2 – Will it work for you?

Part 3 – What type of job enables remote PM?

Part 4 – What setup do you need?

Part 5 – Negotiating when it’s not an obvious move

Part 6 – Staying the course

Basic Setup

There is not likely to be anything groundbreaking discussed here. What you probably assume you need is exactly what I’m going to list here. In fact, if I leave something out, I’d appreciate hearing from you, but I’ll list what’s worked for me:

• High-speed cable modem or similar internet connection
• Secured wireless router
• Laptop (or two…I’ll explain)
• Mobile phone (go Blackberry or similar if you can with access to email)
• Regular phone with a good speaker phone option connected either to a land-line or to a VoiP option
• All-in-one printer for printing, scanning and the rare need to fax
• Free online fax sending (easier than using your all-in-one)
• Freeconferencecall.com account (good for a backup if your company conference line is tied up or if you are independent)

I won’t go into detail on all of these…most are pretty self-explanatory. However, there are a few I’ll touch on in a little more detail:

Laptop(s)

I’ve gone Mac and love it. But I hang on to my XP machine just in case. And I probably will always make sure I have one around as a backup. MS Project isn’t made for the Mac at this point and it may never be. There are other options available to the PM like Open Projects and many web-based options including ProjectOffice.net. However, having that option – just in case there’s a problem and I’m at the 11^th hour – to utilize a legit copy of MS Project on a Windows machine makes me feel more comfortable. I’ve not needed to do that since I purchased my Macbook in March of this year, but it’s nice to know I can if I ever have to.

Free Online Faxing

I hate using my HP All-in-one printer for faxing because I only have one home line – no dedicated fax line. Using one of the free sending services where you’re essentially uploading a pdf file and faxing it is very easy and it’s never let me down. I highly recommend it. Receiving faxes can be a little trickier – I usually have to talk the sender into scanning it in and sending it as a pdf or an image file. If they want me to have it bad enough, they’ll usually do it.

Home Phones with a Good Speaker Phone Option

This one was on my critical list. I was recently on a six-month project that required nearly daily conference calls. Some were vendor demos through webex meetings with associated conference calls and they could last up to six hours. I needed a good speaker phone option so that I could hear and sound like I was on a regular phone. There was no way I was going to wear a headset for that long! I found a setup – ultimately going with an offering from Philips.

Summary

The key is to have all the communication methods available to you just as you would if you were at the office. It doesn’t need to be high-end, it just needs to work. This is basically the setup I’ve had for the past three years and it’s not let me down yet.

Defining Risk Management – Part 3: Risk Identification

Ok, so I decided to make the two-parter into a six-part series. I’ve received emails and comments on the first two parts and decided that I couldn’t end it until we dove further into defining risk identification, quantification, response, and control. In this entry from the book “The Project Management Question and Answer Book”, we’ll look further into Risk Identification.

What is risk identification?

The first step in risk management is identifying the risks that we will see in our project. These are the things that threaten to stop us from delivering what we have promised on the schedule we promised for the budget we promised. If we were completely certain about everything in the project and how it was going to turn out, we would not have to worry about risk management. From this lack of knowledge of how the project is going to unfold come the problems that we will have to deal with. These are the risks we want to identify. Every practical means must be used to discover the risks that are associated with the project. Meetings must be held throughout the project to discover new risks that have appeared and to dismiss risks that can no longer take place.

All of the assumptions that have been made to date on the project are potential risks as well and should be listed among the other risks identified.

The first thing we must do in risk identification is recognize the areas of the project where the risks can occur. This means that we will have to investigate the following areas:

• Scope. We must look at the work of the project. The work breakdown structure (WBS) will be useful here. The project scope must be clearly defined in terms of both the deliverables and the work that must be done to deliver them. Errors and omissions on the part of the project team and the stakeholders must be minimized. As always, the WBS will be very helpful in doing this.

• Time. Estimates for the duration of the project and the duration of the project tasks must be done accurately and reliably. The sequence of work must be identified, and the interrelationships between the tasks must be clearly defined.

• Cost. Estimates for tasks must be done accurately and reliably. All associated costs must be considered and reported accurately. Life cycle costs should be considered as well as maintenance, warranty, inflation, and any other costs.

• Customer Expectations. Estimates of project success must be considered in terms of customer needs and desires. The ability of the project to be scaled up or manufactured in different quantities or for different uses and sizes must also be considered.

• Resources. This involves the quantity, quality, and availability of the resources that will be needed for the project. Skills must be defined in the roles that will be necessary for the project.

• Organization. This is the ability to interface with the stakeholder’s organization in terms of communications and knowledge.

Many people both inside and outside the project will be necessary for risk identification. This includes input not only from the project team and all of the stakeholders but also from project managers who have managed this type of project before and even consultants who have special expertise about certain kinds of risks. It may be necessary to organize the types of risks into categories so that separate teams of people can be brought together more efficiently.

Many of the risks that will affect the project are risks that have happened in one form or another on other projects of this type. Utilizing the information available in the previous project’s lessons-learned documents will be very helpful in identifying risks for this project. An organized review of past projects should be done as part of the risk identification process.

Since much of the risk identification process will involve large numbers of people, formal group dynamics techniques should be used.

Brainstorming Technique. Most people are familiar with this process, and many have had disappointing results. In brainstorming a facilitator briefs the meeting attendees and asks the participants of the meeting to name risks that they think could occur in the project. The facilitator encourages the participants to name any risk they can think of, even ones that seem silly, and makes a list of the risks on a board or flip chart. What happens in brainstorming is that the ideas of one person generate new ideas from another person, and a kind of chain reaction takes place, producing the identification of many ideas about risk.

There are some problems with brainstorming that will affect the success you have with the technique. The main problem is that unless you have an excellent facilitator, there will be minimum participation from the attendees and few risks will be identified. This problem is even worse when there is a large difference in the status of the individuals attending. A person who is the supervisor of some of the participants may intimidate them or dominate the meeting.

Delphi Technique. This technique of group dynamics eliminates the problem of dominance, shyness, or intimidation that sometimes occurs in brainstorming meetings. In the Delphi technique the participants are anonymous to each other. This technique can be conducted with Internet messaging or even by e-mail and has the advantage that people can participate from many different locations.

In this technique the facilitator asks for input from the participants. He takes their ideas and consolidates them into a list that is sent to each participant. The participants then add ideas to those already listed. This circulation of the lists continues until no additional ideas are generated.

The Delphi technique creates a lot of work for the facilitator. All ideas have to be listed by the facilitator, who also usually has to telephone many of the participants in order to get them to participate in each round. The overall time to do the Delphi technique can be weeks depending on how dedicated the participants are.

Nominal Group Technique. This is another type of meeting technique. In nominal group the participants are known to one another as in brainstorming, but the ideas are submitted to the facilitator as written lists. This makes the ideas, if not the participants, anonymous. The facilitator lists the ideas on a flip chart or a board, and the participants add more ideas in another round of written lists until no additional ideas are added.

This technique reduces any status concerns or intimidation that might be present in a brainstorming session but does not eliminate it entirely. There is more work for the facilitator, but the nominal group method can be done in a single meeting, and participation improves over brainstorming even if some enthusiasm may be lost.

Expert Interviews. There might be experts available either inside or outside the company for a new project and a new kind of business. Expert interviews must be handled with care. If the project team is not prepared for the expert interview, much time can be wasted with the expert simply telling stories about his or her past exploits. An effort should be made to develop a list of questions for the expert.

Ishikawa or Fishbone Diagrams. Fishbone diagrams or cause-andeffect diagrams, also called Ishikawa diagrams after their founder, Kaoru Ishikawa, a Japanese quality engineer, are useful in identifying risks.

Making networking meetings work for you

Last week I wrote about using project management industry insiders to help you gain insights into what hiring managers are looking for right now, in this tough economy.  But how do you get time with an insider and how should you act once you’re in front of them?

For a start, nobody really needs you to buy them coffee or lunch in order to ‘deserve’ their time, attention, and advice. Networking meetings cloaked in social guises are expensive, time consuming, distracting, and, let’s face it, fattening. Not to mention, maybe just a little humiliating:  no one who is working wants to have someone else – who is looking for a job – spend money to feed them.  Besides, project managers generally love talking about their work, and many will be more than happy to take a small chunk of time out of their day to spread the work about a profession that they enjoy.

I asked Duncan Mathison and Martha I. Finney, authors of Unlock the Hidden Job Market, for the essential ingredients of an ideal networking meeting.  They recommended that it should be:

Flexible: You are available to make an appointment any time of the day; whatever is convenient for the people you want to meet with.

Convenient: It must be convenient for them, not you.  Ideally, they shouldn’t even have to get up from their desk to meet you.

Efficient: You’re there for exactly one hour (or shorter: whatever length of time you have agreed). You start on time and you finish on time.  Be like a project manager and stick to the schedule!

With easy access to important information: When your networking partners are sitting at their desk, they’re going to have all the important names and phone numbers of additional project management people you should meet within reach.

Respected: This is a time when no one takes phone calls and other interruptions. Make sure your phone is off, or at least on silent.  Emails shouldn’t be checked.

Focused:  You’re not there to discuss what’s on a menu or compare opinions about news, weather, sports. This is a business meeting.  And when you meet at your networking partners’ office, it’s easier to stay focused on business.

All project managers are busy, even those who sincerely want to help you on your job search path. Their time is much more valuable than the gift of a lunch or the price of a cup of coffee. Make your meeting as simple and straightforward as you can. Have an agenda and prepare questions in advance. You’ll be saving time. You’ll be saving money. You’ll be saving calories. And you’ll be helping them help you.

Good luck with your job search!