Effective Problem Definition

When I think of a single competency that is of the utmost importance in life it is the ability to clearly define a problem before jumping to a solution.  This applies to our personal and business lives equally.  The funny thing is that most of us are either unaware that we have this blind spot or think we have it nailed and do not need to work on it.  The hardest part is that in life, especially in US culture, those who are doers and problem fixers are rewarded.  The rewards come in the form of promotions, friends, and other accolades.  The real issue is that we learn through our increasing success and recognition, that fixing the problem is more important than clearly defining what we are trying to fix.  When you break it down, it seems counterintuitive and not logical to try to fix a problem we haven’t defined.  I mean, how do we measure success?  How do we know if it is fixed if we don’t know what “it” is?

The good news is that there is framework to follow to ensure we are defining the problem first and then going through a simple process to figure out which solution will best address the problem.  This framework is simple and easy to follow which aligns with my approach to most things.

Specifically for those in leadership, sometimes there is a true emergency that needs to be triaged and solved quickly, and other times the  problem is less time sensitive.  Each need a slightly different approach, but regardless of the type of problem you are faced with, you need a basic framework to work from so that you are able to lead your team to the best solution.  As leaders, we are generally not the ones who are actively working through the tasks of addressing a problem. We are not pushing buttons, pulling levers and turning knobs. In most cases we are supposed to lead the efforts and planning to resolve the problem.

So what tools do we have?  

The infographic above shows the basic framework to follow.  We should break each issue down into 3-4 steps.  These steps can be very simple and quick to do, but they need to be done to ensure you are fixing the real problem and finding the root cause before you head into fixing the problem or solution generation and prioritization.

A brief summary of each is below:

Problem (definition):  this is sometimes known as the problem statement.  This is the step where you slow things down, take a step back a truly evaluate the situation. A good problem definition or statement should be a short and simple description of the issue to be fixed or improved upon. It should show the gap between the current state and the preferred end state.  This is where you get the 5 W’s: who, what, where, when, and why.

You have to understand the problem before you can find the root cause, which will then help you determine the best solution(s).

 

Cause (root cause):  The root cause analysis work is a thorough look at what the causes of the problem are/were.  This is the point in the process where you will list all of the potential causes and do a quick vetting of each to determine the likelihood of them being a root cause of the issue.  If you have done a good job of clearly defining the problem, then bouncing each of the causes in your list up against it should be fairly easy to do.  Eliminate those causes that do not seem to be big enough contributors to be at the root of the problem.

Solution:  Now is the time to start working on solutions.  Again, it is always good to list the solutions to the problem by looking at the root cause you established in the previous step.  Keep it simple and focus on the solutions that will give you the biggest impact or benefit with the least amount of energy.  This is the low-hanging fruit approach.  Once you have your list of solutions, prioritize them using the biggest impact/lowest energy to implement as your guide.

Now implement your solutions and don’t forget to circle back around and do a lessons learned exercise to figure out how you can do things even better next time.

As always, I would love to hear from you.  Leave a comment below or look for me on Twitter @ScottTWaters.

Project Management and Resource Planning: Tools of the Trade

This is the part of the journey where I share some of the tools of the trade that I like to use for project management.  Remember, this is not a one size fits all type of thing.  You have to first decide what level of detail you want/need for tracking your projects and project portfolios.  There is a big difference between tracking individual projects with low levels of complexity/minimal team members and trying to keep track of complex projects individually and as part of an enterprise portfolio.  It is important to find the most simple solution that fits your need.  The more complex the solution you choose, the more time you and your teams will spend on project management administrative tasks rather than doing the actual work to get the project done.  The law of diminishing returns applies well here, so choose to track and report on only the tasks and metrics that are truly important and nothing more.

I am by no means going to give a comprehensive list of everything out there in the project management space, but I will give you a peek into the tools I have used and continue to use that make life easier.

Let’s group everything into 3 buckets:  Low-tech, Mid-size, and Enterprise.

Low-Tech:  Spreadsheets and simple task lists

At the most basic level, project management is simply about creating a list of things that need to get done, by when and deciding who is going to do them.  So, with that in mind the most basic form of project planning can take place using some form of a task list and tieing that to a calendar.  In fact, I have seen people be very successful planning and managing projects using Microsoft Outlook built-in functionality such as tasks, reminders, appointments and other calendar functions.  If you want to step it up a bit, Microsoft Excel has plenty of project management templates that can help you create simple to fairly complex Gantt charts.

Mid-Size:  SaaS PM and collaboration solutions

There are many SaaS (software as a service) or cloud-based project management and collaboration solutions out there.  The key to picking the right one for you is to decide what you need to do with the tool.  Do you need a space for documents and other files to be worked on by the team collaboratively?  Do you need to manage one or many projects?  How many team members typically work on your projects?  All of these questions matter because there are literally hundreds of project management solutions out there that offer varying functionality.  The two that I really like are:  Confluence for collaboration and Trello for more formal project management tasks such as issues and task tracking.  When you combine these two tools, you can do a great deal, and the learning curve is still very low.

Enterprise solutions: Complex project and large project portfolio management

When you get to the point where you need to manage large projects or portfolios with numerous projects in them, then a more robust solution is probably necessary.  Still, remember to keep it as simple as you can.  I like to apply the logic that if a project is highly complex, highly visible, or has a large cost or budget then it is worth tracking to a higher level of detail.  This is the space where the project management administrative tasks become much more onerous and time consuming so make sure it is worth it.  You should be asking yourself:  Is the juice worth the squeeze?  We certainly don’t want to do project management for project management sake.

The larger, enterprise tools that I have found to be the most useful are:

BrightWork,  an excellent project and portfolio management tool which allows for simple to very granular project and resource management.  If you have a Microsoft SharePoint infrastructure in place and are familiar with its use, then BrightWork is a great tool with a lot of automation available.  The one area it doesn’t address well is collaboration outside of your organization.  Since BrightWork sits on top of SharePoint, it relies heavily on Active Directory, so it is tougher to open it up to team members who are not full-time employees.

SmartSheet, is a really solid solution across the project management and collaboration spaces.  If offers a lot of flexibility through the use of mobile apps and plugins.  It is also a SaaS solution, so accommodating larger teams that are inside and outside of your organization is fairly simple.

These are just a few of the many tools out there that can help you manage your projects more effectively.

I am always interested in hearing from you.  What tools are you using to manage your projects and project portfolios?  Share them in the comment section below or Tweet them to me @ScottTWaters and I will reTweet and share them.

 

 

Project Management and Resource Planning: Prioritizing of the list of demands pt.4 – Inter-project dependencies

One of the last steps in the process of coming up with an enterprise schedule/gantt is to figure out which projects depend on which in order to get done.  This can often be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for a group of people who are trying to get a massive list of requests down to something that is realistic and doable.  This is the case because the process of getting to a “doable” list is an exhausting one if it is done right.  It is all about the long game with this stuff and it takes a significant commitment and endurance to get to the final list.

So, we have a list of requests that have been scoped, prioritized, and filtered down to something that looks like it can be done, at least on paper.  We have considered timelines, budget, resources and we are thinking to ourselves, “we are pretty good at this stuff!”  It is a little too early to celebrate because we now need to look at inter-project dependencies.

There are whole books written on the subject of how to itemize, track and measure inter-project dependencies, so I am not going to try to reinvent the wheel or cover all of them here, but conceptually it is important to look at how the list of projects interact, depend, sequence, or collide with each other.

A visual mapping exercise can be the most effective way to accomplish this.  

My biggest piece of advice is to start simple.  Don’t try to tackle every aspect or dependency on your first go.  The basic items you want to look at are:

• Timing dependencies with other projects
• Resourcing dependencies with other projects
• Operational dependencies like critical infrastructure projects that need to happen before a project can start or complete

Many projects can run in tandem to a point, but the “go live” of each must be staggered because the dependencies say so.

The most widely used approach to inter-project dependency management is to use a DSM (Dependency Structure Matrix) tool or framework.  

There are limitations in this approach if you are trying to account for any more than 2 or 3 dependency items or data points.  The complexity becomes too much to effectively fit into the DSM “box”, but I would advise at least becoming familiar with how to use a DSM because you can use concepts and elements of it to come up with something that works for you and your organization.

Go through the project list and do a dependency mapping exercise to level of detail you can.  This will help you sequence the projects in a way that is practical.  It will also show which projects are going to run into trouble and collide or stall out because they depend on another project or component of another project to successfully be executed.

This stuff is challenging.  Hopefully we are all sharing and learning together taking the nuggets and pieces that work best for us and leaving the rest.

If any of you have come up with a simple but effective inter-project dependency mapping approach, please share by adding a comment below or Tweeting it to me @ScottTWaters and I will be sure to share it.

 

Project Management and Resource Planning: Prioritizing of the list of demands pt.3 – Applying filters

Even when an organization has developed a project and resource prioritization methodology and framework that fits its culture, and it is understood by the stakeholders and decision makers, it can still feel overwhelming to get that list of 100+ project requests down to something doable.  After all of the work has been put in to prioritize the list of demands, what can be done to avoid playing a game of “Wheel of Priority” with the list?  We certainly don’t want all of the planning work to be wasted and to have things fall back into disorganization and chaos before the year/cycle has started.

So how do we reduce the “noise”?  In the end, we need our final list of approved projects to fit the following criteria:

• be aligned with organizational goals
• be supported by the Executive leadership team
• be understood, at a high-level, by the larger leadership group
• fit within the resource constraints of the organization (time, money, people)

A simple way to get to the “final” list is to go through the priorities list from the top (#1’s) to the bottom until all of the resources are exhausted and draw the line there.  Anything under the line just won’t be done this cycle.  Make no mistake, this will have to be done and is a tough pill to swallow for any of the project owners who have projects that do not make the cut.  But we must remember, this should not be taken personally.  The best leaders are passionate about what they do which is part of what makes them great leaders, but it is important to take a step back and look at the greater good of the organization and take our personal feelings out of this process.

There are things we can do to make this work easier and more aligned.  Ideally, strategy (which creates projects) should inform the budget but sometimes we can use the budgetary process to “filter” out projects from our larger list because they are not going to be funded.  So whenever possible, use a cross-walk between the budget (both CapX and OpX) process and the project/resourcing process so that we can eliminate anything from the project list that will not be funded.  Remember “no money, no mission”?  Well, “no money, no project” applies as well, if the project is not purely a process improvement project that doesn’t need funding.

If you tie the budget and project/resourcing processes together, you will find that they can help each other out by eliminating projects or budget requests that are not going to make the final cut for the upcoming year or cycle.

There are other “filters” that can be applied in addition to the budget or “money” filter.  Physics apply as well.  Time is a constraint that can also help filter out projects that are competing for the same spot on the calendar.  Sometimes, you will find that there is simply not enough time in the year or cycle to do a project or multiple projects no matter how much you increase the funding or lower the quality requirements (remember the Time, Cost, Quality Triangle?).  The time filter can be an important aid to eliminate a number of projects on the list.

Do you have any “filters” that are helpful in whittling down a list of projects that is larger than can be done?  If so, share them by putting them in the comments section below or by Tweeting me @ScottTWaters.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Project Management and Resource Planning: Supply and demand

Supply and demand applied to resource management is a simple concept that is tough to measure effectively, even tougher to communicate effectively and almost impossible to get everyone to acknowledge, accept and support.

The most simple way to explain how supply and demand work for project management and resource planning at an enterprise level is use the Time, Cost, Quality Triangle.

The concept is that you can only have two of the three elements with any project, but you can’t have all three. The business decision is to decide which two elements to focus on and which one you won’t achieve and to stick with that approach.

Let me explain further.  You can have a project (or projects) that is done quickly (Time) and inexpensively (Money), but the Quality is likely to suffer.  There are certain circumstances where “done is better than perfect” and this would be an acceptable approach.  An example of this is when you have a project that is an unplanned emergency or an opportunity that you have to act quickly to take advantage of, but don’t have the budget to do it to the highest quality.  You can have a project that is done quickly (Time) and has to be of the highest Quality, but it is going to cost you (Money).  You can also have a project that is done inexpensively (Money) with high Quality, but it will take you longer to complete (Time).

Conceptually, this usually makes sense to people, but it is important to communicate it to all of the stakeholders and leaders involved. A candid discussion about how to use your limited resources needs to occur.  How will the organization approach the situation where the demand exceeds the supply of Money and Time if you want to deliver a Quality project.

Everyone’s project is their highest priority but if looked at objectively along side the other requested projects, their project may not even land on the top ten list of high priority projects for the enterprise.  So, how do you get buy in from all of the requestors, stakeholders, and resourcing departments?  My best advice is to start by taking the list of projects that you have applied the scoping and resource need quantification exercise to(which if went over in my previous post), and make a visual display showing the capacity for each resourcing/service department along with the demand.  A stacked bar chart works well for this.  This visual needs to be the focus for a resourcing meeting with all of the key decision makers so that everyone is seeing the same picture at the same time.  The goal of this meeting is not to make any decisions, but to have everyone leave the meeting understanding that there is a gap between the projects requested and the projects that can be approved to be resourced.  

Next we post we will do a deep dive into some methods for prioritizing projects.  The type of prioritization applied matters and I will explain why.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how you have been able to effectively communicate and get buy in (or not) with your organization related to using limited resources.  Please comment below or reach out and follow me on Twitter to continue the dialogue.

 

 

Project Management and Resource Planning: Scoping and resources… “who’s coming with me?”

So, you want to do a project.  You know it’s an important project and one that the organization will benefit from.  Furthermore, it aligns perfectly with the strategic direction set forth by Executive Leadership.  Now what?

The first thing that is needed is for you to develop a scope for your project.  Ever heard the term “You can’t boil the ocean”?  This is directly applicable to scoping a project.  Don’t try to do everything that ‘could’ be done.  It is important to build some guard rails and parameters around the project to ensure that the goals are effectively articulated, documented and achieved.  The scoping exercise tasks related to project management are some of the most critical tasks that can be done in the project life cycle.

The Project Management Institute defines Scope Management as:

“Project scope is the work required to output a project’s deliverable. Change happens, and project scope management includes the process to manage scope changes and make sure the project will still come in on time and within budget. Scope is often defined by a work breakdown structure, and changes should take place only through formal change control procedures.”

In normal language, this means, document what you want to achieve with your project, by when, and spending how much.  This is your “scope” for the project.  Any changes to the established scope of the project must be carefully considered because they will most likely impact the cost or timeline of the project.

The biggest aspect of scope that can make or break your project is getting all of the human resources (people) you need to get it done set up and allocated to your project when you need them in the timeline.  This in and of itself is not that difficult, but again, remember that in most organizations (especially those who share certain service departments to achieve economy of scale efficiencies such as HR, IT, Finance, etc) the people or departments that are needed to resource projects are often being pulled in multiple directions.  How do you ensure that you have the HR or IT resources you need at the time you need them to get your project done?  This is where you need to put some resource planning framework in place, even if it is at a basic level.

Resource planning can be done at a division, department, role, or individual employee level depending on how much work the organization is willing to put into the resource planning.  My advice is to make this an iterative process that adds more detail year over year.  This will account for the change management adjustment folks need when learning to do something new.

A great place to start is the department level.  When approaching resourcing from the department level you can use a basic methodology to land on a general department capacity, which is usually hours, available to do projects.  It is important to be realistic when looking at a department’s capacity, in hours, to do projects.  Most support departments do a mix of Administrative work, Break/Fix or Routine Operational Tasks (keeping the lights on), Vacation Time, and Project work.  Keeping this in mind, one can use some basic math to arrive upon a total number of hours the department has available for new projects.  Most departments can allocate no more than 25% of their total capacity for new projects.

A hypothetical  department’s project capacity (in hours) plan would look like this:

• 20 Total FTE/Staff in department × 2080hrs per year per FTE × .25 = 10,400hrs

As part of the scoping efforts for a project, it is important to determine how much time/how many hours you are asking a department to resource your project.  When there are multiple projects vying for the limited resources of specific departments, the capacity runs out very fast.  This creates a need for prioritization of project requests.  Prioritization is a challenging endeavor which I will cover in more detail in a later post.  What is important at this step is to signal the departments that you are asking to help you out or ask ‘Who’s coming with me?’.  We know that Jerry Maguire had himself and the fish, but who else does he need to start his new project?  Those departments should know that they are needed, when and how much.  That is the magic of project scoping and resource ‘tagging’.  You are letting others know you need their help.  Whether or not the help can/will be provided is what will be flushed out later.

Do you know of other ways to calculate capacity for resourcing?  Please share them with me in the comment section below and give me a follow on Twitter so we can continue the conversation.

Next up, I will be diving deep into the supply and demand constraints of resourcing multiple projects.

 

Project Management and Resource Planning: Can we see what’s out there?

Do you remember the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Ark of the Covenant is put in a crate and stored in that huge warehouse with thousands of other crates and boxes?  I remember even as a kid, thinking ‘they went to all of that trouble to get the Ark, and then they are just going to box it up and let it get lost in the warehouse?’  We all know that the whole idea was to ensure that the Ark never saw the light of day again, but it still seemed crazy.

What does this have to do with resource planning or project management?  Well, unfortunately many organizations are so silo’d that none of the divisions or departments know what the others are doing or planning to do.  So, from an enterprise visibility perspective we have the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark full of crates and boxes that contain projects that nobody knows are out there.  How does senior leadership know that the strategic intent of the organization is being accomplished if they can’t see what is being done, from a high-level, across the various operations?  This also creates an inefficient use of organizational resources (money and people) and makes everything take longer than it needs to which leads to project execution failure.

These issues are compounded in organizations where the operations divisions share and rely on the resources in support divisions such as HR, Marketing, Finance, IT, and Strategy to execute their projects.  For the support departments it is important to know who needs them, to do what, and when, so they can plan accordingly.

The first step is to create an inventory of all the projects out there in progress and in the pipeline to be done across the organization.  But be careful here.  You can’t boil the ocean on the first attempt to get this inventory or it will be too big to provide insight.  My advice is to set some parameters for the work efforts/projects you want to track at an enterprise level.  Give the leaders some clear definitions of the types of projects, size, etc that you want to inventory.

Some basic guidelines for defining what items get included in the ‘enterprise’ project inventory:

• Projects must have a clear beginning and end
  • Not day to day operations items
  • When a project moves into production it is no longer a project, it is part of daily operations and work flow
• For the enterprise level visibility, only include projects that need multiple department resources to accomplish
• Enterprise projects to be included should be larger than 80 hours or take longer than 10 business days to complete (again, we don’t want to boil the ocean, so we can’t capture everything that everyone is doing)
• The funding source for the project is not relevant
  • Projects can be OpX, CapX, or not require any funding to accomplish (an example might be a process improvement project that doesn’t need budget, but will take a lot of time for those involved)
  • Don’t let the funding source be a distraction to getting the inventory done…cast a large net in this respect
• A project should be easily tied back to an organizational strategic goal
  • If it isn’t supporting the strategic direction of the organization, ask your self ‘why are we doing it?’

Provide the leaders the guidelines above and then create a tool for them to input their projects.  Make this part as simple as possible.  You don’t want them to run away before you can show them the value.  You only need a few data points initially:  project name, short description, when they want to do it, who they need to help them do it(i.e. HR, IT,..), etc.

There are many tools available that can help with the intake and management of the inventory, but don’t get too hung up on the tools.  I will provide a review of a few of the PM tools out there in a later post.  The important point here is the process and keeping it easy for the leaders.  Even Excel will work just fine initially.

There is a lot of value in just getting to the point where your organizational leaders have a list of projects (inventory) to start each fiscal year showing who is doing what and when.  This creates a sight line across the organization that is invaluable to those who are setting strategy and those who need to operationalize the strategy.  But we are not going to stop the journey here.

I will be covering project scope documentation and resource planning in my next post.  In the meantime, I would love to hear some of your experiences (struggles and successes) with trying to break down the silos in your organizations related to projects.  Provide your comments in the comment section below and let’s learn together.

 

 

Project Management and Resource Planning: What is this stuff and why is it important?

I don’t know about you, but any time someone comes forward with an idea my first questions are ‘why would we do this?’ and ‘what problem are we trying to solve?’.  It is very important for me to understand the underlying problem and proposed solution before I just buy into a new process.  This is especially true if the change looks like it will add a lot of work to my plate.

Too often in business and in life, people are attracted to the new shiny thing(process, approach, product, etc) and want to do it without fully defining the problem.  I will be diving into problem definition in a later blog series, so stay tuned for that.

Project management is hard and people need to really understand why they should tackle such a difficult thing. It needs buy in. It is hard to manage just a single project effectively.  There are so many details to vet, plan, track, and close.  There are challenging personalities to work with within project teams and stakeholders.  There is a lot of change management that needs to take place with most projects.  But before you get to the point where you are kicking off a project, and jumping into the fray to do battle, the project has to bubble to the top of a crowded list of wants and needs within every organization regardless of its size.

When there are multiple projects that are requested in an organization in a given period of time, you are dealing with a project portfolio and that is when things get complicated really quick.

Everyone is fighting for the same limited resources.  There is a finite supply of time available.  Most companies don’t have a never ending supply of money to fund every project that is requested.  And probably the most overlooked resource (which is always in short supply) is the human resource needed to actually do the work to get the project done.

So, simple supply and demand rules should apply, but in my experience are not always applied in a standard and repeatable way.  Usually the squeaky wheels get the grease and those projects with the loudest sponsors get done.  This approach doesn’t serve to further the strategy of the organization.

When its done well, resource planning along with project portfolio management will help to align the efforts across multiple departments and divisions to the achievement of the strategy for the organization.

Effective planning has other benefits that help to enhance the culture and overall execution effectiveness of an organization as well.  Below is a short list of the benefits:

• Creates visibility for all of the leaders and breaks down silos
• Improves teamwork
• Maximizes resource use
• Improves quality
• Aids in change management
• Reduces and controls cost
• Develops an organizational roadmap

These are only a few of the many benefits.  I would love to hear more reasons from you as to why resource planning is important.  Please provide your feedback in the comments section below so we can learn together.

In my next blog I will begin to build the framework for building an effective resource planning culture and process for your organization.  Starting with a process to inventory the demand.

Does enterprise project and resource management have to be this hard?

This picture may look a mess, but believe it or not, it represents a huge milestone on my long journey towards setting up an enterprise project management and resource planning framework.  The journey was one that taught me lot about why project management at an enterprise level is so difficult to do (let alone do it well).

Think about trying to manage a single project, with dozens of dependencies all over the place. Project tasks and resources collide with each other left and right,  constantly needing to be addressed.  Layer on an aggressive timeline and budgetary pressures, and it is easy to see why being good at managing a project can be hard.  To be a good PM you have to have many skills. One of the most important ones is the ability to keep all of the plates spinning throughout the project, so the risks and issues are kept at a minimum, ensuring you are able to deliver the project on time and under budget.  There are competing priorities that pull your resources away constantly, so you are always herding the cats (your resources or people) back to the project, and the tasks at hand.  You need to be able to prioritize the tasks using a number of different criteria and methods, and then communicate those priorities to the project team and stakeholders.  This is tough work that can be extremely complex.

Now, take that complex ball of craziness that is scoping, planning, and managing one project, and multiply it by 250!  Welcome to the wonderful world of standing up an enterprise project management office.  Ever tried to untangle a ball of Christmas lights that have been stuffed in a box in your garage for a year?  Well, getting a project and resource planning process stood up from scratch, at an enterprise level, can make you feel like Clark Griswold trying to untangle that ball of Christmas lights…only there generally is not a “Rusty” to hand it off to.

This blog will be a place where I tackle topics like enterprise project management, IT operations, Cyber Security, and general leadership, in an effort to simplify them. My first series will focus on project management and resource planning.  I hope you will join me for the ride.