Tag Archives: project manager

The Debate about Project Managers

Posted on February 29, 2016 | Leave a comment

project managementAre project managers really needed for IT success?

GREAT QUESTION !

What do you think?

The question is, , , “Can you be successful without having an IT Project Management focus?” Give me your perspective in the poll below before reading the rest of the article:

 

OK, I hope you responded to the poll above and checked the results.

Now, it’s time for me to give you my opinion.

question

The question is, “Do you need project management focus to achieve IT success?”

My opinion, , , , ABSOLUTELY YES!!!

Projects are not successful on their own, , , they are successful because project managers make them successful.

Without a project management focus, the tasks that need to happen when they need to happen simply do not get completed without a project manager pushing them along.

Let me repeat, , , project managers make projects happen, , , projects do not get completed successfully on their own, , , they just don’t. In fact, projects will not be completed successfully unless someone:

  • pushes the project forward
  • checks to see that all tasks are completed on time
  • anticipates the obstacles that might jeopardize the project’s success

I’m a big believer in placing project management focus on the projects we undertake within an IT organization. To me, it is absolutely essential.

Let me back up just a second. Certainly, an IT organization can achieve some level of success without project management focus. Thousands of small and mid-size companies do it every day. However, your success will be limited and exposure for failure is significant, , , especially with large complex projects.

So, where does the project management debate occur?

What happens is that organizations that apply traditional project management methodologies tend to require quite a bit of overhead, , , too much, in some cases.

My sense is that there needs to be a reasonable amount of “monitoring”, “reporting” and “management” when you manage a project.

I’m not a proponent that says you need to produce all the reports and do all the things that are defined in PMI’s PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge) or similar resources. I believe it requires too much overhead and administrative time.

What I do endorse is that you need a certain amount of structure (methodology) you follow and regularly scheduled status checks to help move a project along.

Operations people often do not want to spend the time to meet every week to discuss project status, identify risks, or discuss problem resolution strategies. They just want IT to complete the project so they can get on with their work.

The bottom line is that operational business people don’t always see the need for project management. Their approach is often, “Just do it, and leave me out of it.”

This is where the debate happens. How do we manage a large complex project so it doesn’t require an excessive amount of time and administrative effort but is sufficient to do the job, , , i.e., deliver the project successfully?

Without the process, odds are extremely high your project is going to fail. “Just doing it” simply won’t be reliable.

At a minimum, projects need seven things to consistently be completed successfully – on time, within budget and meet client needs:

  1. Requirements definition – Some call this a scope document. No need to create a voluminous document here but you must quantify:
    1. Project goals and objectives
    2. Specific deliverables
  2. Project Sponsor agreement on Item #1
  3. Project Schedule that lists all tasks to be completed, completion time frames, and responsibility for completion
  4. Budget that has reasonable amount of buffer
  5. Staff the project with capable resources
  6. Project Kickoff Meeting to get project team members on the same page and to reinforce commitment required
  7. Weekly Project Status Meetings to check status and keep the project moving (i.e., to monitor and manage the Project Schedule)

All of these elements can be accomplished practically and simply, , , without lots of overhead. The point that needs to be made though is that each part needs focus and must be addressed if you want to deliver projects successfully.

it project management ebookFor additional insight on managing successful projects, take a look at my book,
IT Project Management: a practical approach

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6 Keys to Successful IT Projects plus a secret

Posted on January 26, 2016 | Leave a comment

projectDelivering projects successfully is critical for your IT organization; in fact it is the key to IT credibility, , , not just the IT organization’s but your credibility as an IT manager as well. That means you need to do things that position your organization for project success.

What is “project success”?

Simply put, project success includes delivering projects that are:
–  completed on time
–  delivered within budget
–  achieve the stated goals and objectives
–  meet client expectations

In my experience, there are 6 keys to delivering IT projects successfully:

1.  Manage the project’s scope
There are two parts in managing scope – defining the project goals and quantifying the deliverables. Being specific about what the project will achieve and what you will deliver is how you manage your client’s expectations. First rule of delivering a successful project is that you must establish realistic and achievable expectations with your client in the beginning before you actually start working on project tasks. If you don’t, you have no chance in delivering the project successfully.

2. Develop a solid project schedule
A good project schedule identifies all the tasks that must be completed to deliver the project successfully. Once you know exactly what must be done, you can staff the project appropriately and budget the project. Project schedules define:
– tasks that must be completed
– task responsibilities (accountability for completing each task)
– task completion timelines

In a nutshell, a good project schedule defines what, who and when.

3. Staff the project with competent people
It goes without saying that you won’t be very successful if you do not have competent people taking care of the required tasks. Once you identify the tasks required to deliver the project successfully, focus on the people that have the required skills who need to take responsibility for each task.

4. Be conservative when budgeting and estimating task completion time frames
There is a golden rule in IT, , , “Things take longer and cost more than you think they will.” Believe it, it’s true. If you do not have buffer in your budget and project timeline estimates, odds are high that you will either be over budget or deliver the project late, , , or both. Be conservative when estimating project costs and task due dates. You want to position your project team to over deliver. No one gets upset if you complete the project early or under budget.

5. Schedule a Kickoff Meeting to get everyone on the same page.
A great way to get the project started on the right foot is to hold a Project Kickoff Meeting with all project members attending. It allows you to set expectations with the project team members, to identify bottlenecks or key risk areas that might prevent project success, and to outline the guidelines for future project status meetings, , , i.e., “come to status meetings with your tasks completed and prepared”. An effective Kickoff Meeting helps you get everyone on “the same page” and started on a positive note.

6. Manage the schedule with weekly project status meetings
Projects don’t happen on their own. They are successful because project managers make them happen, , , they push and guide projects to the finish line so they are delivered on time and within budget. An important tool project managers use to do this is by holding weekly project status meetings to understand issues that arise, make corrective actions as needed and to push the project forward. You can build a great schedule and budget, but if you do not “manage the project” with regularly scheduled status meetings, the project won’t be delivered successfully.

meeting-3OK, these are what I consider the 6 keys to managing projects successfully, , , but there is a secret component you need to know about. Three of these key elements require strong communication. Unfortunately, IT managers have a tendency to be weak communicators. I’ve discussed this issue many times in prior posts. It’s a very real problem.

The bottom line is that poor communication is the root of much of our IT failure.

That’s right, in order to complete three of the six key parts of successful project delivery, you must communicate effectively:
1. Manage the project’s scope – This requires you to quantify the goals and objectives and spell out specifically what will be delivered to your client so you can gain agreement. It requires you to communicate with your client.
2. Hold a Project Kickoff Meeting – This requires you to communicate the schedule and obtain “buy-in” from all project team members that they can complete the tasks by the scheduled completion dates.
3. Hold regular Project Status Meetings to manage the project – Again, strong communication skills are required to make this happen.

My sense is that 70-80% of projects that fail are caused by poor communication and not doing these three key parts just listed effectively.

Let me give you two quick examples:

1. Often, IT people are so eager to start the work on a new project, they don’t spend time to define the scope and gain commitment from their client on the specifics that must be delivered. In many cases, they don’t even take the time to define what they believe are the requirements of a project, , , they simply start working. Doing this will spell “disaster” every time.

2. Another example is that I’ve seen IT organizations stop holding Project Status Meetings and updating the project schedule because “it takes too much time”. Yes, it does require time, but if you fail to monitor and manage the project by reviewing the weekly tasks that must be completed, , , you might as well go ahead and ring up another project failure to your list.

it project management ebookRemember, projects don’t happen successfully on their own, , , they are successful only when someone manages the project and pays attention to the details. A big part of this detail work is the communication aspects of three of the six key parts of successful projects that I have laid out to you.

If you are interested in a practical resource and tools to help you deliver projects successfully, check out my book, IT Project Management: a practical approach.

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Project success is path to IT credibility – Step 3

Posted on July 24, 2013 | Leave a comment

project successThe path to IT credibility is by delivering projects successfully, , , and more.

In Step-1 we discussed the most obvious – building an appropriate project schedule and managing your projects so you deliver them on time, within budget and meet your client’s expectations.

In Step-2 we discussed the need to communicate the status and key issues of active projects, , , in other words, what’s going on in your IT organization.

Effective communication is just as important, if not more so, than actually completing a project successfully.

Step-3 is also about communicating effectively, , , and this one may be the most important of all.

IT organizations need to make others aware of the value they contribute to a company. If you don’t, I can assure you people in your company won’t have a clue about what you are getting done for them and the contributions your team is making.

It’s even worse than that. If you don’t continue to communicate your value and keep this in front of your client, , , they soon forget. You see, clients have very short memory when it comes to the IT organization, , , unless it’s something bad that has happened.

Most do not remember what you did for them last week or last month, , , and if you haven’t been telling them they won’t even know how much you are doing to help your company succeed at all.

I’ve heard IT managers say quite often things like, “My clients know what we are doing, , , how could they not know? Surely, they can see how hard we are working.”

Let me make something very clear, , , most of your clients aren’t paying attention to IT and how hard you work. They are focused on trying to meet their objectives and to take care of their own issues.

Now, it’s not necessary that everyone in the company know what IT is doing and what you are accomplishing. The people who do need to know are senior managers and department managers, , , these people are your key client groups.

Value, , , value, , , value. Most senior executives have a very difficult time determining what the IT value is for the company. They know we spend lots of money on IT support and technology but it’s difficult for them to quantify the value. In most cases, they simply do not know.

If they can’t place a value on their IT investment, , , even if it’s as vague as Good, Average, or Poor, , , it puts you and your organization in a difficult position.

Let’s get to the point. Your key clients, especially senior managers, need something that can help them place value in what your IT organization is accomplishing, , , and you certainly want them to view IT as a GOOD INVESTMENT .

Your clients need to know two key things:
– How successful you are in completing projects on time and within budget
– The benefits (value) your company receives from the projects you deliver

Are you aware that some studies suggest there is as much as a 70% failure rate in IT projects? That’s right, the studies point out that 70% or more of IT projects fail to be completed on time, are over budget, or do not meet the client’s needs.

Well, let’s say that this is grossly over exaggerated. Even if it’s only half of that, say 35%, , , this is still a huge problem. Project failure costs companies billions of dollars in lost capital and productivity every year. It’s recognized worldwide as a big problem.

What you want to be able to show is a positive track record of delivering projects successfully that contributes tangible value to your company.

You want everyone to see that while the world experiences as little as a 30% success rate in IT projects, your team has an 85-90% success rate or higher.

While other IT organizations struggle about how to show value, you want a report that shows the benefits and value derived from every project you do for the company.

I like to use an IT Initiatives Portfolio to do this.

I’ve written about this tool before. It is possibly the one tool that has helped me in my career the most. The reason – it shows in clear terms how good my IT organization performs in regards to delivering projects successfully and the value we are contributing in a very simple report.

Here it is:

IT Initiatives Portfolio

There are six key parts, , , this report tells you a lot:

1.  Success in completing projects on time

2.  Success in completing projects within budget

3.  Benefit results. In this report I have columns for expected results and achieved results for both 6-month and 12-month intervals. You won’t use these columns for every project but it is certainly helpful to list some type of business value benefit for every project you work on, , , this is the value contribution your team is making.

4.  Success in meeting client needs

5.  Overall success rate of each project – on time, within budget, achieving expected results, and meeting client needs.

6.  Ongoing run rates of completing projects on time, within budget, and meeting client needs plus overall project success rate. This is your track record and you want people to know how good your team performs in completing projects successfully.

Let’s take a closer look at this report, , , click on the image for a larger view:

it initiatives portfolio_results

In this example I’ve rolled it up so you can see the results of three projects. The nice thing about Excel is that you can summarize all the projects to calculate overall performance indicators at the bottom as I’ve done here.

In the example it shows we have achieved the following performance track record:
– On time percentage – 66.6%
– Within budget – 100%
– 6-month actual benefits of $21,500 which is $500 better then expected
– 12-month actual benefits of $63,500 which is $5,500 better than expected
– Meets User Needs percentage of 100%
– Overall project success of 66.6%

It helps to prepare an annual report that lists every project the IT team completed during the year and keep copies for every year to show progress and to analyze to determine how you get better. You will find this information becomes valuable to have handy at times.

Something else to consider. When people know you are tracking performance and you are serious about it, , , two things happen:
1.  Your IT team focuses harder to complete projects successfully.
2.  Senior managers view you more as a business manager than a technical manager.

Both of these are important for your credibility.

Summary
Project success is the path to IT credibility, something you must establish if you are to attain any level of IT success. To get there you need to do more than just complete projects successfully, , , you must also communicate the status of active projects and make others aware of the track record and results your team achieves in delivering projects successfully.

The tools and insight provided in this 4-part series will help you do all of this.

it project management ebookMore details of the entire project management process and customizable tools I use are available in my book, IT Project Management: a practical approach

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Project success is the path to IT credibility

Posted on July 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

arrowsupDelivering projects successfully creates IT credibility. Project failure causes you and your IT organization to lose credibility.

You must establish credibility to achieve IT success!

So, if project success is so critical to your success, what do you need to insure project success?

Well, it’s a little more than simply delivering a project successfully, , , there are other things to consider.

There are three key components to get the credibility you need. I’ll outline them for you in this article and we will follow-up with articles that dive into each to give you the substance you need.

3 Key components in managing projects successfully

First, you must be able to build an appropriate project schedule and manage a project to deliver it on time, within budget and meet your client’s expectations. To do this, you need a project management methodology and a few simple tools.

There are dozens of project management methodologies and thousands of tools and templates, even PM certifications to help you schedule and manage projects.

I use a simple spreadsheet to develop most of my project schedules unless a company requires me to use something like Microsoft Project. The tools are not nearly as important as how you go about the process of managing projects. I’ll show you my process in the next ITLever post.

Second, you need to communicate the status of active projects. At any given time, your IT organization will have several projects underway. Your ability to communicate the status and key issues associated with each project will help you deliver projects successfully as well as contribute to your credibility.

blindfoldedRecently, I provided management consulting services for an organization. When I got there they were in the midst of running many projects. I could tell there were a lot of projects underway or in the stages of getting started, , , but there was nothing in place so we could see what was going on. In fact, we couldn’t tell how many projects we had.

It’s sort of like driving blindfolded!

Understanding the importance of communicating project status effectively, I quickly developed a simple monthly report that showed the status and key issues of each project.

I’ll give you all the details in a future post in this PM series.

Third, you need to demonstrate your organization’s project success rate and the benefits derived from your efforts.

This is key. Your clients (senior managers, department managers and their employees) have short term memory, , , or no memory at all. They quickly forget what you and the IT organization have done for them.

You must keep a positive message of “IT value” in front of your clients. Otherwise, they don’t know what you are accomplishing for them or they quickly forget.

Again, I use a simple spreadsheet to track IT projects and to show the track record of our project success. In this simple tool, you will show how effective you are in delivering projects on time, within budget, and meeting client expectations, , , plus the benefits that were achieved.

I’ll talk more on this in the 3rd post to follow this one.

Summary
There will be three posts written this week that explains each of these three important components of gaining IT credibility with project success. In the posts, I’ll explain what you need to do and provide tools or templates to help you make it happen.

The additional articles follow this post or can be located at the links below:
Project success is path to IT credibility – Step 1
Project success is path to IT credibility – Step 2
Project success is path to IT credibility – Step 3

it project management ebookMore details of the entire project management process and customizable tools I use are available in my book, IT Project Management: a practical approach

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IT Project Management: a practical approach

Posted on April 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

IT Project Management: a practical approach
The key to IT credibility is delivering projects successfully. Doing this is not as complex as you might think, , , I’ll give you a simple yet effective process to use and tools that will help you make it happen consistently.

Managing projects effectively is crucial for any IT manager. Establishing a reputation that you deliver projects on time and within budget with minimal problems will position you for many more responsibilities in your company.

This publication provides a “short cut” to effective project management techniques that I learned at IBM and other companies that have helped me for over 30 years. Tools are included to simplify the entire process.

Table of Contents

Book Excerpts

Tools

————————————————————

Buy the entire
Practical IT Manager GOLD Series

$279.00

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Project scope creep is going to get you

Posted on August 31, 2011 | 1 comment

Do you know what “project scope creep” is?

Who do you think are the main cause of scope creep in your company?

Scope creep happens after you define the scope and deliverable of a project and make a commitment to deliver it. As your team works on the project, over time you discover your client’s expectations of what you will deliver has increased, , , in some cases quite substantially more than what the original project scope was defined to be.

Here is an example. Your original project to develop a new software feature was going to take 300 hours but 60 days into the project the client thinks you are going to develop functionality that will probably take 500 hours, , , your project has mysteriously grown by 40%.

As a result, your project will not be successful, , , you will either deliver less than expected or you will complete the project much later than expected.

Why did this happen and what caused this huge increase in scope, , , better yet, who caused it?

The phenomena of scope creep comes back to “who caused it”. Most think the client is the culprit.

It’s usually not the case, , , most of the time scope creep is caused by your own IT people. That’s right, , , we are the primary cause of scope creep. It is like “shooting ourselves in the foot”.

Here is what happens. Your people, in this case programmers and business analysts, are very bright and conscientious people. They want to do a good job for your clients.

As they begin working on a software feature enhancement to address a client issue, they think of things that could make the product even better, , , little things, mind you, , , but great ideas that will help the client beyond the initial scope of what we originally agreed to do.

Before you know it, the client is all excited about what he is seeing and hearing about his new software feature. As parts of the code are completed, more discussions take place because the programmer and business analyst identify additional things that can be done to improve the situation, , , all good things.

The problem is that these “good things” add work to the project and will make the project run longer and cost more than originally planned.

In many cases, these discussions take place in the background and the project manager is not even aware he is literally being set up for failure, , , albeit unintentionally and more of people trying to do good things for the client.

Coach your employees and teach them about scope creep. You want them to be creative and to come up with good ideas, , , you just need them to bring these ideas to the project manager first to discuss them, , , not to get the client all excited and have his expectations get out of line with what has been committed to.

If the idea has value, we will take it to the client together to evaluate the situation. If it has enough value to change the scope of the project, we will do it in a way that will manage the client’s expectations as to delivery date, cost, etc.

Teach your employees about scope creep and ensure they understand there are only two people who can add additional scope to a project, , , the project sponsor or the project manager. All good ideas need to go through one of these two people.

Projects have to be managed and one of the elements of project management is to manage scope creep.

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IT Project Management: a practical approach

Posted on April 29, 2011 | 1 comment

In my last post, I discussed the importance of project management in creating IT credibility. You won’t be credible unless you deliver projects successfully. Period, , , end of story !!!!

My company mission is to “help IT managers of the world achieve more success”. The very first thing I did in this effort was to write a few books (10 actually) to provide insights and tips on things that actually help you achieve more success as an IT manager.

One of the keys is to deliver projects successfully, , , so naturally, there is a book on project management.

Delivering projects successfully is so important. The book is based upon my experiences in delivering projects successfully, , , both as a young IBMer and later as an IT manager and CIO.

IT Project Management: a practical approach is straightforward and includes the simple process I use and the tools to help you deliver projects successfully. It also includes insights and tips from my experiences that will give you an advantage or edge, , , something we all need.

Short, straightforward, practical, , , and to the point. That’s what we want so that’s how I wrote this one. It is one of my best sellers.

Buy the e-book for $29.95.

Buy the whole series of 10 e-books plus BONUS IT Manager ToolKit (a $175.00 value on its own) for $279.00

$279.00 — Full series + IT Manager ToolKit

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Getting IT credible, , , project management is key

Posted on April 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

In an earlier post, I mentioned, “The most important part of creating IT success is being able to conduct a thorough IT assessment so you can determine what your organization needs to work on.” CLICK HERE to view.

The second most important element required for IT success is that you must become a credible organization.

“Credible”, , , what does “credible” mean?

Credibility only comes when your client trusts you can and will do what you say you will do. Simply put, it means you deliver projects successfully.

You can conduct a great IT assessment and deliver an eloquent strategy that gets lots of acceptance, , , but if you can’t deliver projects successfully, you will not have credibility. Getting credible is absolutely a requirement to become a successful IT manager at any level. 

That’s why project management is so important for an IT organization.

There are three main parts to all of this:

First, you have to define and prioritize the projects. This happens during an IT assessment.

Second, you have to deliver the project, , , this is actually the project management component.

Third, you need to track your projects and demonstrate your success rate in delivering projects on time, within budget, and meeting client expectations.

All three components are very important. If you don’t identify the appropriate projects to work on and prioritize them so they help your company the quickest, clients don’t think you are focused on the right things.

Deliver a project successfully but fail to communicate your success and no one will know about it, , , so it’s important to “bookend” the project work with an appropriate assessment on the front and effective reporting on the back.

See my IT Initiatives Portfolio post and download a simple tool to help you quantify and report your project successes, , , CLICK HERE to view.

There is absolutely no excuse for failing to deliver a project successfully in today’s world. With the methodologies, tools and training in this area you would think that most IT projects are delivered successfully, , , but to our dismay they are not.

Studies show there is a high failure rate with IT projects, , , year after year.

You don’t have to have a PM certification like a PMP to deliver a project successfully, but you do need to know something about project management and it helps to have a few tools. A PM certification doesn’t say you are a successful project manager, , , it says you have knowledge about project management and passed an exam.

I’ve delivered hundreds of projects successfully with some of the simplest tools. The key is knowing what to focus on and doing a few key things that positions you to deliver your project successfully. Do these things well and success is achievable.

In a future post, I’ll give you my “Tips to project management success”.

If you are looking for project management help, I recommend you take a look at two resources:

  1. IT Project Management: a practical approach – I wrote this book to give managers a simple and practical process in project management and it includes the tools I use myself to deliver a project successfully. It’s a quick read and gets right to the point. Learn more.
  2. TenStep, Inc. and Tom Mochal – The company that provides the most in project management in the world is TenStep, Inc. Tom Mochal has created an international force in providing project management tools, training and consulting services.  Check out www.tenstep.com.

Project management is the cornerstone of credibility

It is why you should focus quickly on delivering projects successfully when taking responsibility for a new IT organization. Get credible and IT success is just around the corner.

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Managing client expectations

Posted on March 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

A big key to IT success is the ability to manage your client’s expectations. In my last post, I talked about the “client is always right”. I’ve encountered many situations where the client was not factually correct, , , but their expectation was exactly what it should be given the situation.

Let me give you a perfect example. In one company I joined as their new CIO several client managers told me during my initial assessment that I should fire one of the IT employees in my organization.

Not one, not two, , , but three managers told me this. When you get this many, there is an issue to be sure. My job is to determine what reality is and take appropriate action. In such a case, there will be one of two issues to exist:

  1. The employee is not performing.
  2. The client’s expectations are incorrect.

What I discovered in this case was a bit of both. The employee was not performing to the level needed, , , but it was because there was considerable more demand than staff to provide such support. The employee in question had a good attitude and tried to do the job well but there wasn’t enough capacity to get it all done, , , we needed 3 or 4 more people to do what was necessary in this support situation.

In this case, it was not an employee problem, , , it was a management problem because we weren’t managing the client’s expectations about what to expect from their IT organization. Now, the client was correct about support not being sufficient for them to do their job, but they were incorrect in what the problem really was, , , and especially wrong about what the solution should be.

Once I fixed the staffing deficiency problem, no one felt that I should fire this employee, , , in fact, they thought the employee’s morale had improved immensely. That’s really funny because the employee always had a good attitude, , , just could not possibly get all the work done to support the client. I didn’t do anything but fix the real issue, , , insufficient capacity to support the business.

Learn to be conservative
To manage client expectations, you must be conservative. What I mean is you need to set expectations that position you to over deliver. That means telling clients you will complete a project in 6 weeks when you think you will be able to do it in 4 weeks, , , and telling your client the cost of a project is $120,000 when you think you should be able to complete it for $100k to $110k.

There is what I call a Law of IT principle in that, “IT projects always take longer and cost more to complete than you think they will.”

If you are not conservative when you commit to do things for your client, it’s going to be rough going for you and your team. Teach your employees how to be appropriately conservative when they commit to do things for others.

Another example – programming productivity
There are approximately 160 work hours in a typical month. I know from experience you should get 110 to 120 hours or more a month of productive programming time on average from a programmer over the course of a year. Some months will be much less due to vacation, training, meetings, etc. and some months will be a lot more, , , but over time you should average around 120 hours of code produced a month by every programmer on your team.

When setting your client’s expectations, tell them you can produce 100 hours per month per programmer. If you have 5 programmers working on the same application, that means you position your client for your team to produce on average 500 hours of code each month when you expect to be able to produce 550 to 600 hours a month.

By doing this, you position your team to over achieve.

Another simple rule
No one gets upset if you complete a job faster than you say you will or less expensive than you say it will cost, , , but someone always gets concerned if you are late or over budget.

Learn to be conservative every time you tell someone you plan to do something for them and teach your staff to do the same, , , it is going to help you deliver what you say you will do, when you say it will be completed, , , and within the budget you submit.

This makes you a reliable manager and that’s something everyone wants from you.

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Donald Trump and Project Managers

Posted on October 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

One of the few reality TV shows I like to watch is Apprentice with Donald Trump, , , one of the most successful real estate developers in the world.

I find it interesting to watch the dynamics among the participants trying to become Mr. Trump’s new apprentice, , , to go to work for him.

In this particular series, every participant is without a job. All have been successful in the past but due to the bad economy they have been impacted by layoffs and downsizing that have occurred in the last two years. Each candidate is looking for work.

To give you just a bit of background of the show, , , the participants are divided into two teams and each week they compete in a business project of some type, , , it could be selling ice cream on the streets of New York City, creating an ad display for a new product announcement, hosting a charity event, , , or any type of thing a company might get involved with.

Every week each team selects a project manager (PM) and the teams are given basic information about the project objectives and key things that will make it successful. Then the two teams go their separate way to develop the project and deliver on the objectives that have been communicated to them.

Pretty simple – right?

You would think so, but it never fails to amaze me how weak most people are in managing a project, , , and some of these people are supposed to be quite capable professionals.

It also never fails to amaze me as to the dynamics that play into a project because of the different personalities and egos of people on the team. It can be quite ugly at times and illustrates the difficulty that can exist in trying to manage people.

Does the vision of “herding cats” ring a bell?

Rarely does a contestant manage the project really well. Basic things like confirming the objectives and deliverables up front almost never occur. As a result, many projects deliver less than what they should or miss the target completely.

Most conduct a Project Kickoff Meeting of sorts but the quality ranges from excellent to unsatisfactory with most leaning toward the poor side.

This week’s episode was quite interesting and showed just how frustrating a manager who is responsible for projects in his company can be, , , in this case, Donald Trump.

The objective was to conduct a fashion show that night for a large company to highlight their shoes and the “walkability” of the shoes. The guests were to be a list of celebrities and friends of Donald Trump.

One team did a great job, , , the other team was simply awful.

At the end of each project, Mr. Trump fires someone after meeting with all the participants in a Board Room session to critique the two project teams and to announce a team winner.

In this case, Trump was so disappointed (and probably embarrassed) with one team that he ended up firing both the Project Manager and one of the key participants in the project.

The key participant was the person assigned the task of MC (Master of Ceremonies), , ,  or announcer who described the shoes each model wore as they walked down the fashion show runway to display the shoes. Nice guy but just a terrible speaker in that kind of setting, , , and totally unprepared.

Trump focused in on the key points in the Board Room as he ripped the project manager (PM) and a couple of members of the team who had done so poorly, mainly the participant assigned the task of Master of Ceremonies for the event.

Trump asked a few key questions any manager should ask his PM:

  • Was the person (MC) capable of doing what you asked of him?
  • Did you inspect to validate he was capable?
  • Why didn’t you have a real rehearsal beforehand?
  • How can you expect to succeed with no rehearsal?

There were several problems in this project:

  1. The PM did not assign people tasks they were capable of.
  2. The PM did not inspect to insure each task would be executed well.
  3. The MC (presenter) had no clue about how to prepare for a presentation of this type (more on this in a second).
  4. There was no real rehearsal to prepare so they ended up “winging it”.

The bottom line is that the PM did a terrible job and allowed some of his team members to be put in a situation where they had no ability to succeed.

Being named Project Manager does not mean the PM will actually deliver.

Having a credential that says you are a PM does not guarantee success.

And certainly just because someone tells you they can do something as in the case of the MC does not mean they can actually do it.

If the PM had inspected the MC before rehearsal time, he would have discovered that the MC was making a mountain out of a mole hill. He was developing detail notes to use to talk about the shoes as a model walked down the runway. When I say detail, , , it must have been minute detail, , , way more than what you need for such an event.

When the show started and they handed the microphone over to the MC, he gets up there with a laptop in hand and starts, , , or let’s say “tries”, , , to introduce a model and talk about the shoes she wears. Right off the bat it was obvious he was not prepared, and holding the laptop was awkward and looked idiotic.

He scrambled and was obviously uncomfortable, , , mispronounced many words, , , did not describe the shoes properly and when he did it was not what you want to say about them, , , had long pauses of uncertainty.

TERRIBLE !!!

All he needed was a 1-page PowerPoint slide for each model with a couple bullet points on a card describing simple elements of the shoes that reinforced “walkability” and “style”, , , simple, , , easy, , , and to the point. It took the MC all day to develop his comments, , , for a task that should have taken 30 minutes, , , OK, maybe an hour at most, , , there were only 8 models.

Get rid of the laptop and walk up there with a few note cards, , , and above all know what you are going to say. Much easier.

The only thing that did not go wrong was that the laptop battery lasted through the presentation. If the battery had died I’m not sure it would have been worse.

The key problem, , , the MC did not know what he was doing or even how to go about his task so he over complicated it, , , and the PM was not close enough to the project task to determine if it would be successful.

Mr. Trump was truly frustrated with this team as any manager would be. They failed dismally and embarrassed him in front of his friends and the company he was conducting the projects for. He skipped through some of the protocol he normally goes through in the Board Room and fired both participants without giving it additional consideration, , , first time to ever do this.

A couple of lessons in all of this, , ,
– You can learn a lot by observing others.
– Assign tasks to people who can do the work.
– Inspect to insure they can do the work, , , and are completing the work.
– Make adjustments when you see something isn’t working.

At the end of the day, the objective of any project is to succeed. Making an adjustment might hurt someone’s feelings but that’s better than failing and getting yourself and possibly others fired.

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