Communication on Small Projects

In the July 2007 edition of PM Network magazine, the cover story is entitled "Small Projects, Big Results". What a great edition of this magazine, especially the Point/Counter-Point Article featuring yours truly. :-) Anyway, back to the small projects piece. It speaks to the importance of doing sufficient planning even on small projects. I personally use a 4 tier category framework in which I apply various levels of rigor, which I wrote about here.

My only point of contention is regarding communication. Communication management seems to be taken as an implicit assumption by both Olivares and Toledo in their described approaches. Personally, I made a breakthrough on my small projects when I stopped taking communications for granted. That happened after I listened to The PM Podcast Episode 64 with Margaret Meloni as the interview guest. (That is an awesome episode, I recommend it highly) Since then, I have included a short communications plan in my small project plan template. It is a short, simple table that has fields for ‘communication activity’, ‘timing/frequency’, ‘responsible’, and ‘stakeholders’. It normally has 2 lines on it, one for a weekly status report, and a project closure report distribution where ‘timing/frequency’ = upon project completion.

Basically what this does for me is provide a reminder to communicate proactively and hold myself accountable for it. Since I’ve been doing this the major benefits have been less rework and making stakeholders more at ease. They know when to expect regular communications from me, so they feel more in the loop and I’ve found they reciprocate by communicating better with me regarding scope and limitations in the project.

There were several references in the article to regularly scheduled meetings taking 1-3 hours in length, sometimes on multiple days during the week. I disagree with this approach to communications on small projects. From my personal experience, this approach tends to yield a waste of time, fruitless pontification, and inattentive participants especially over a conference call. I have an alternative suggestion.

I have started using SCRUM at work along with my team, and I think the communications guidelines in the SCRUM methodology match my personal preferences for small projects. During the project, you have daily meetings limited to 15 minutes or less, and each team member talks in turn about 3 things:

1. Things I've done since yesterday's meeting
2. Things I'm going to get done today
3. Obstacles in my way

Now, this technique in SCRUM is geared towards communication between developers on the project team. I want to suggest an adaptation for stakeholder communications on small projects.

First, meetings might be weekly or bi-weekly instead of daily. Instead of everyone providing the 3 points of information, the project manager uses these 3 points as a framework for the discussion. I suggest keeping the meeting to the 15 minute limit. Here's the new set of points:

1. Progress since the last status meeting
2. Plans from now until the next status meeting
3. Status of risks and issues, and is there anything new?

Here is the catch. Don't try to solve problems in the status meeting. This meeting is only for the 3 things above. Speak in terms of identification and status only. To actually address risks and issues, have a separate discussion with only those people who can contribute.

Of course, most of this can be applied to larger projects too. Communication should be like a laser; focused, efficient, and consisting of only necessary wavelengths (people and content). Instead, it usually turns out to be more like a floodlight; scattered, wasteful (of time), and involving many unnecessary parties.

The moral: Value communication on small projects. Make it explicit, planned, focused, and the best use of people's time.

PMI PDU Secrets And A Fiddler On Your Roof

Today I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, The Project Management Podcast. Cornelius did a great job of putting it all out on the table as far as earning PDU's are concerned. Check out the episode here.

In the helpful resources, the last link is toThe Fiddler on the Project collaborative workspace. This sounds like a really great project and the authors are soliciting feedback from the PM community to help them write this book. I think what they are doing is excellent. I did the quick survey and added to their Wiki tonight. Click over and give Rich and Ranjit some feedback!

My Interview On The PM Podcast

Cornelius Fichtner over at The PM Podcast surprised me a while back by inviting me to be an interview guest on his show. I was obviously flattered as he puts out the grand daddy of project management podcasts, and I've been listening to the show for many moons. In my opinion Cornelius' The PM Podcast and Dina Scott's Controlling Chaos are in a league of their own.

The interview focuses mostly on my background and the differences between the academic and working worlds of project management education. I also mentioned one of my favorite project management books, "Project Management in the Fast Lane" by Robert Newbold. It is one of my favorite because it does a great job at teaching the mechanics and "how to" of doing Critical Chain Project Management.

Take a listen, and if you haven't already discovered The PM Podcast, I highly recommend going back to listen to past shows. Cornelius does an interview format for most of his shows, and has a lot of great guests. Don't worry, most of them have much more project management experience than I do!

The PM Podcast Episode 065: BS and MBA in Project Management


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Becoming a Project Manager

In episode 62 of The Project Management Podcast, Cornelius interviews Thomas Cutting on the subject of breaking into the project management profession. This episode was helpful for me and reinforced some of my ideas on the subject.

One obstacle I've run into is that many of the project managers I work with now have a history where they worked in operations for 5+ years in a specific area, and worked up to be a team manager, etc. until their where either promoted or fell into a project management role within that specific department. Many don't have project management specific education or started with a goal to be a project manager.

My situation is completely different. While I have many years of industry experience with information systems and technology in general, I've never been in a specific department for any longer than 2 years. I've approached my career more from a focus of developing my PM skill set rather than industry expertise. So, the formal education and PM focus is very helpful, but how do you actually get into a job this way?

One of the recommendations Thomas made was to go in as a Project Assistant of some sort. This could be a controller, scheduler, coordinator, etc. Sometimes the title would actually be Project Management Assistant. The only problem is that PM is still a newborn thing in most companies and many do not have specific project management administrative roles like this. The project manager does everything.

If you are interested in getting into the project management profession, check out this episode.

Links:

The PM Podcast - Episode 062: How can I become a Project Manager?
http://www.thepmpodcast.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=9

Cutting's Edge - Thomas Cutting's blog which has a series of posts on this topic as well
http://cuttingsedgepm.blogspot.com/index.html

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Idea for a Project Mangement Podcast

I posted the response below to a post about project management podcasts on this project blog, and wanted to share. I especially want to give a shout out to Dina and Cornelius, and any other experienced project managers that have been contemplating a podcast or even a new blog. I think it would be excellent to do a series of shows like what I describe below, almost like a soap opera for project managers!

Josh Nankivel wrote:

I really enjoy both the PM Podcast and Controlling Chaos. I think both Cornelius and Dina do an excellent job of getting great guests and having discussions with valuable content.

Perhaps it's because I'm a student and haven't been in a PM role for many years like some people, but I don't find their shows long.

Personally, I'd like to see another show with a different format that follows a story line from the beginning to the end of a project. It would be great to be able to get inside the head of the project manager and stakeholders, and tell the story from alternating narrators. Each episode could focus on a specific phase of the project or milestone, with the end of the show being the success (or failure) in reaching the milestone.

I think a project manager with a lot of experience under his/her belt, and who is a good storyteller could pull off this type of show rather well.

Josh Nankivel

http://www.PMStudent.com

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PMI Member Forum Response- Critical Chain

I responded to a question on the PMI member forums that I wanted to share:

Subject: Critical Chain Project Management

Does anyone have experience with this PM approach/toolset. I have run across some people proclaiming it as the savior of project management (unfortunately, the biggest proponent I met seemed to think that a Project Plan is all there is to Project Management and expressed enough negativity regarding PMI and the PMP designation that I found it hard to give credence to the validity of his information).

I am interested in any validation of its effectiveness beyond anecdotal evidence.

RE: Critical Chain Project Management
Posted by Joshua Nankivel on 01/18/2007

I personally have not had the opportunity to implement critical chain on anything except very small projects. I can give you some good resources however, citing individuals and organizations that have had success with critical chain project management.

1. The PM Podcast Episode #57. - I don't recall specific examples Alan cited on the show, but I might be wrong. You may be able to contact Alan Elder at the email address listed on Cornelius' site directly for some direction.
2. The Critical Chain Yahoo Group - has a lot of active contributors who utilize critical chain on a daily basis
3. This whitepaper from Boeing can be downloaded upon request, I requested and read it and it's a really great overview of how critical chain was used in a real project. Very well written.
4. More case studies
5. Yet another case study

I would add that I have run into some people/articles that seem to be overly confident in critical chain. I think it has great potential, but it's only a piece of the puzzle. I look forward to using it myself on larger projects in the future.

Also, one of the things I post fairly frequently about on my blog is critical chain project management. If you're interested in critical chain even the broader scope of project management in general, I'd (of course) suggest it!

Cheers!

Josh Nankivel

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