Adventures in Project Management

Write it down

kerrywills — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:34:36 +0000

As I have progressed in my career I have taken on larger programs and portfolios of projects and programs. I also like understanding the details of the programs (so that I can articulate them when presenting to senior management or being asked questions). Combine those two things with a bad memory and attention/focus challnges that I have and the result has been a need to write everything down. I have a “book of truth” that I use to write down the background and litany of events for each program I manage as well as pages for one-on-ones or other key initiatives. I tend to review it cover to cover once a week as a way of reminding myself about the programs and where they are.

I also find writing down the notes and key issues helps me to remember the information and have an auidt trail of key facts (which I do reference a lot). I know some people struggle with the time investment it takes to write things down but I find that if I do it during meetings it actually helps me to focus on listening to the key points better.

“And so it shall be written…”

For me, I always find it interesting when people don’t write anything down in meetings. Maybe I am just projecting my memory issues on other people, but I find it hard to beleive that people can remember all key items from meetings let alone any takeaways or action items. I have seen a few people who had this skill, but not many.

So I encourage you all to write down key points and then reference them back again on a regular basis. Hopefully you are doin that with my nuggets of wisdom from this blog each week.

Travel Etiquette

kerrywills — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:09:32 +0000

Yes another posting in my workplace etiquette series. I am writing this posting as I sit in the airport so I figured it was appropriate to write one on travel etiquete. There are so many things to consider when traveling for work that I have put down some of my random thoughts and recommendations on the topic.

Do I sit next to the boss or co-workers on the flight? On one hand you can discuss work and make progress but on the other hand you may want some piece and quiet (granted you may also get the screaming kid next to you so I guess everything is relative)
Never check your bags as this will just add time to the trip – however use a dufle bag as those roller bags are horrible to find a spot for and then you become ‘that guy’ who is moving other people’s belongings and holding up the entire line entering the plane
Bring iron-free clothes to wear. The worst thing is getting to a hotel only to have to spend another hour ironing clothes
Sharing of rental cars is always fun especially when you become the designated driver – get a big enough car to fit everything but make sure there are other drivers so you dont have to be the chauffeur all week.
Take the earliest flight possible – having flights that originate in other places just increases the probability of missing a flight and hanging out in the airport
Understand preferences if traveling with co-workders. For exmaple some may not like the prior bullet which requires being up and out by 5am (no wonder no one wants to travel with me)

Have safe travels!

Trust but verify

kerrywills — Fri, 03 May 2013 08:25:49 +0000

Ronald Regan was famous for saying “trust but verify”, and it means that while a source of information might be considered reliable, one should perform additional research to verify that such information is accurate or trustworthy. This is true for all program information, and it is the responsibility of the Program Manager to ensure that the information is accurate since decisions and actions will be based on it. For example, a Program Manager may have schedule updates from their Project Managers but how will they know that a milestone is really 80% complete? While they should trust their PMs, they should also look for ways to confirm (with facts) that their forecast is accurate.

Staying on top of activities, having the right performance metric such as schedule tracking or financial tracking, conducting peer reviews and having open discussions with team members are all ways to verify information. Again this shouldn’t be viewed as a lack of trust but rather using facts to validate information. Just as Program Managers need to use this technique for their Project Managers, these Project Managers should be using it with their team members.

Grattitude in email

kerrywills — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:17:25 +0000

On any given day I probably get around 300 e-mails and those who know me know that I can’t deal with piles of any kind so my anxiety forces me to react and close e-mails as quickly as possible (which is like a never ending game of whack-a-mole). Therefore, I view e-mail responses which just say “thank you” as inefficient and just another one that I need to delete.

So the question is whether or not putting gratitude in e-mail is good or not. On one hand, it is polite to thank people and show recognition for their efforts but on the other hand, it is yet another e-mail to read. And then how far does it go? Do I need to then say “you are welcome” and then they say “any time” and then I say “ok” and so on, and so on.

I think the answer is to use this situationally. For example, if there is a resource who spent time researching something or responding to a critical activity, then gratitude makes sense especially in a way that recognizes it to other people or management. But thank you messages should not be sent as a reply for every message and certainly not a ‘reply to all’ to all people.

What do other people think? Oh yeah, and thank you for reading my blog…

The art of being succinct

kerrywills — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 08:27:13 +0000

I always tell people who work for me that if they send me a message that I have to scroll to read, then it is too long. In today’s world most people have meetings all day, constant instant messaging and texts, and hundreds of e-mails. Therefore spending a large amount of time on an e-mail that requires scrolling and reading the ‘chain’ on is way to inefficient. People need to learn how to be succinct in their messages to get to the point. There should be just enough information to explain the background and impact with next steps. If it requires lots of information and explanation, then it is probably best to have a meeting instead of sending a small novel.

Some techniques for being succinct in e-mails include…

Organize work into categories (e.g. background, impact, options, next steps). This way it doesn’t look like a run-on sentence and the content can be structured
Use bullets to call out key points
Read the message to look for non-critical content

In the age of twitter I think we should also disable the ability to send long e-mails or forward a chain with more than one or two messages already attached to it. The result may be losing the key messages in all of the noise embedded in the message or not having the recipient read it at all.