WBS Lecture Video

Hello

It's often unclear how the WBS should flow from the scope statement. Here's a sample lecture from our new PMP Prep course shot on snowshoe in the Rockies. Watch the Flash Video Work Breakdown Structure to see how to do it and also watch a project team building their WBS the right way.

Enjoy

Dick
Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

The WBS: Making the First Mistake

Far too many PMs start off their projects building an impressive "to do" list of everything that has to be done. Initially, the client or boss is impressed at the tight control and attention to detail.

The project starts and within a week or two, so much is changing that the project manager is spending hours trying to keep up. Soon the PM can't keep the plan current and soon no one uses the schedule anymore. At the same time, the team is confused and getting concerned about what they should deliver so they gold plate the work and worry that they'll get blamed.

The PM and team get within a few weeks of the due date and worry mounts so the slap together some piece of crap and then spend 6 months fixing it.

There is a better way. Read the article and watch the WBS Video.

Best regards,

Dick

Dick Billows, PMP,GCA
President 4PM.com

Micro-management

No one thinks they're a micro-manager but it's a prevalent affliction in project management. Learn the signals of micro-management and the consequences for your project performance. Then learn the cure and how it leads to better team performance.

Me a Micro-manager? Never

Don't Micro-manage: Hold Them Accountable for End Results

Today's article talks about an alternative to micro-management that is based on defining exactly what you want from an assignment before you make it to the project team member. That is a rare thing for most project team members. They usually have to guess about what the PM wants and that does bad things to accountability, estimating and performance. Holding people accountable for their end results saves you time and yields more committed and productive team. For more detail on this measured achievement technique, see our Achievement-driven Project Methodology (AdPM) .

Regards

Dick Billows, PMP

Project Scheduling: The Finish Date Miracle

Executives like finish date scheduling because it’s fast and decisive. Then the PM produces a schedule to hit that date by backing into a finish date for every assignment in the project. Easy! Everybody leaves this astoundingly fast process with the illusion that they're in control of the project. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The illusion comes from one blindingly stupid assumption…that people will work themselves to death to turn out high quality work by the dates that the sponsor and PM have plucked out of the sky.

Because people are afraid of losing their jobs they usually can turn out some “piece-o-crap” deliverable by the finish date that the PM imposed on them [or close to it]. Then they spend months trying to clean it up and usually fail. No wonder 70% of the projects that organizations start are late, over-budget and produce little business value.

Aside from the above small flaw that comes from this scheduling approach, there is also the issue of how it cripples our problem solving.

If a PM assigns me task #523 on a project and tells me I have to be done by the 19th of January, two things happen. First, I will start work when I have time between my real job and the other four projects I’m on. Second, every time the PM walks past my cubicle and wants to know how I'm doing on #523, I will give the PM the thumbs-up sign and a 50-tooth smile. I do this despite the fact that I've forgotten the name of the project, the PM and what #523 actually involves. This status reporting works because the PM has no way to measure my progress.

How long can this overly optimistic status reporting continue? Up until January 19 at 4:30 p.m. Only then will I be forced to admit that the task is going to run a little late. The PM has no chance of recovery…it’s too late and that is the real curse of finish date scheduling.

Setting task finish dates with no consideration of the assigned resource’s availability or the amount of work in the task dooms project's manager to failure. The estimates are unrealistic and the team members know they will fail before they start; a poor basis for commitment. The PMs loses all ability to solve problems because they find out about them when it's too late to do anything. They have a thankless chore of solving big problems when it's too late.

That's why, consistently successful project managers schedule with work estimates usually made with the person who will do the work (so we can get a little commitment) and realistic assessments of the person's availability. But that'll be the subject of another discussion.

Best regards,
Dick Billows, PMP, GCA
CEO 4pm.com

Fast-food Project Initiation

Do you ask nothing more than "Shall I Supersize that requirement for you" before starting work on a new project? If so, then you are well into fast food project initiation where you will start more projects, and more pointless projects, than your project team handle. You won't have delighted users or stakeholders at the end even though they loved you for starting work so fast. Read our article for tuning this "loser" project process around.

Regards

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Classic Project Blunders

Project Planning Blunder #1.

Watch as an organization faced with a serious external threat assembles its senior management to respond with a PM to manage the effort. Watch the video and spot where the PM made his mistakes and decide, just like our 4PM.com students do, what the PM should have done to carry the day.
Watch the Video

Add your evaluation and recommendations to the blog

Regards,
Dick Billows, PMP

Yeah, I Communicate Real Good

While the grammar in the title is offensive, I think it captures the attitude many project managers have towards their communication skills. Everybody thinks they're a good communicator, particularly those with well recognized technical skills. But the vast majority of project managers are poor communicators largely because they use the same communication techniques and style for every stakeholder, team member and sponsor with whom they deal.

Project managers must communicate with people who possess a wide range of personality types. We deal with extroverts who enjoy discussion, debate and like to think on their feet. The way you communicate to the extroverts in your meeting is very different from the best communication technique for the introverts who want time to think and internalize the information before making a decision or even expressing an opinion.

These differences in communication techniques are not just how you talk but also how you organize your PowerPoint presentation, what body language techniques you should use, the structure of the presentation, what kind of information you give them advanced and how you follow up afterwards.

Take a look at the video lecture on presenting to diverse personality types with 10 minutes the scene from project meeting with project managers who are failing and then see them adapt their communication style to the audience and they are much better securing approval in building support.

Very truly yours,

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

President 4pm.com

Project Methodology

Watch the video and see the steps in a straightforward project methodology, based on driving projects to produce measured business results. The Acheivement-driven Project Methodology (AdPM™)is scalable so you can use it on all size projects. It improves estimating accuracy, provides measured checkpoints for executives and assignment clarity for team members. AdPM also complies with all the best practices of the PMBOK 3rd edition.

Contribute you ideas on methodolgy

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA
President 4pm.com

Psychological Typing

Using personality typing gives project managers a tool for tailoring their presentations and meetings to fit the personality preferences of their team members and stakeholders. Take a look at the sample video of a change request meeting and the analysis from our psychologist, Maria Hunt, PhD and then add your comments.

Dick

Dick Billow, PMP, GCA
President 4PM.com

Project management to do lists

There is a disease in project management called to do listing and the infection is spread by micromanagers and sponsors who think the project management is nothing more than making a list of everything that everybody should do. This focus on activities leads to team members who mindlessly follow the nitpicking project manager's lists, even if all the steps are not necessary. It also creates team members who have no stake in the project and no interest in active problem-solving or overcoming obstacles. They just follow the to do list.

Our newest article, managing with achievements not activities highlights the difference in techniques used by project managers who are consistently successful and those who just have long to do lists.

Best regards

Dick

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA
President 4pm.com

537 Ways to Screw Up A Project: Episode #122

There is a new episode of our ongoing PM satire. Episode #122 deals with how to screw up status reporting. Watch the team at Lonegan Enterprises do everything wrong, despite the best efforts of Stephanie Rollins who tries to implement the best practices. Join us for a good laugh and some interesting less ions...you may even see dumb things your organization does.

Regards,

Dick
Dick Billows, PMP, GCA
President 4pm.com

Project Estimating

The phrase "duration and cost estimates" sends shivers down the spine of most project managers because no matter how carefully you qualify the numbers they are instantly carved into stone. The most difficult estimates are the ones that you're asked for at the beginning of the project. You may be 10 minutes into your first conversation with an executive about a brand new project when you're asked, "how long will this take and what will it cost?"

For some reason executives have convinced themselves that anybody who's a project manager can come up with accurate estimates with little or no data. The gut wrenching part of this is that your project will be view it as a failure, no matter how fantastic the deliverable, if you miss those initial estimates.

Read the article about estimating and then add your comments and ideas to the blog.

The best regards,

Dick

Dick billows, PMP, GCA
President 4PM.com

537 Ways to Screw Up A Project

Take a look at the project blunders committed by the sponsor, team members and staff of Lonegan Enterpriese. They manage to doom a customer service project to failure during the first hour of planning, Watch the video and spot the blunders and add your comments, anonymously, about your organization's project screw ups.

Regards,

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Status Meetings with a Tough Sponsor

Savvy project sponsors know that putting too much pressure on project managers or their team members doesn't produces benefits. Instead, the most common result tis that he project manager or team member hides problems until they're too big to conceal and much more difficult to solve.

Project managers have to learn to cope with project sponsors and other executives who use intimidation as their technique for improving project results. Take a look at the Status Meeting Video. Then add your evaluation of how the project manager did in the status meeting.

Best regards,

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Coping with Demanding Project Spsonsors

There is nothing wrong with executives asking a great deal of their project managers. The problem comes when executives deflect project managers away from best project practices. In the videos we made available this week, you see three project managers trying cope with a project sponsor who doesn't want to plan or discuss scope. Instead the executive wants due date commitments without defining project outcomes, the resources the project manager will have to deliver it. See how they handle it.

Take a look at the Sponsor from Hell video then critique the performance of the PMS.

Best Regards,

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Designing the Work Breakdown Structure

Some people build a work breakdown structure by listing everything they can think of that the project team might do. Others go from office to office assembling wish lists of goodies that people want and make that into a work breakdown structure. Either way, these PMs launch their project with a long "to do" list WBS. Accountability is unclear, performance expectations are vague and the process of gathering more items for the WBS never ends.

There is a better way of designing your work breakdown structure so it support crystal clear accountability and a management style that lets the PM hold people accountable for end results not frenzied activity. Read the article about Designing your Work Breakdown Structure and then add your comments pro or con.

Regards,

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA
President 4PM.com

Change Control & Satisfied Customers/Users

Many project managers face an impossible change control challenge. On one hand, the users/customers present the project manager with a new list of additional requirements and changes every week. They're always sure that the PM can squeeze in the new items without making the project late or over budget.

On the other hand, all the PM's boss talks about is how important it is to keep the customers are users happy.So the project manager engages in a never-ending discussion with the project stakeholders about what was, and what was not, included in the original scope.

To learn how to handle these three-way pressures, read this month's PM talk article about change control and then enter your thoughts and ideas here in the project management blog.

Best regards,
Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Project Office

We look at three types of project management office(PMO) and offer ideas on which is right for your organization and which types are a disaster for project performance and project managers.

Regards,

Dick Billows, PMP. GCA
President 4pm.com

Dumb Things Project Managers Say

Project management methodology

Having a project management methodology to follow is a cornerstone of consistent project success for individual project managers and their organizations. A methodology allows us to avoid reinventing the wheel every time we start a project and it allows organizational level control of project priorities and resource allocation because all projects are consistently planned. Unfortunately there aren't many fully developed methodologies available. The Project-Management Body of Knowledge, published by the Project Management Institute, is not a methodology it's a vast encyclopedia of the best practices in project. In fact, the PMBOK makes repeated reference to organization having their own project management methodologies without providing any.

Our Achievement Driven Project Methodology (AdPM) is unique in a couple of ways. First, it's scalable and gives project managers guidance as to "how much" project-management they should do on different size projects. The methodology can be scaled down for small "puppy projects" where the whole plan is a few lines long. It can be scaled up for hugh "pachyderm" projects and several steps in between. Second, the methodology at all scales maintains its focus on accountability for measured results and the measurement of business value. Third AdPM keeps paper work to a minimum through the use of our templates and dynamic project scheduling techniques.

That focus on measured performance & metrics provides great support for the individual project manager making assignments. It gives team members a crystal clear understanding of the performance that's expected of them. Finally, it gives executives responsible for managing a portfolio of projects a powerful tool for measuring progress accurately in solving problems early.

To learn more about AdPM, watch the video on the five-step ADPM method for small projects.

We also have a video on organizational implementation of ADPM methods

Add you comments about project methodologies.

Best regards,

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Work Breakdown Structure

This week's video is about the work breakdown structure and the debate about how much detail we need to include. Is the WBS just a big to-do list? Or, is the WBS a list of verifiable business outcomes that we decompose from the scope definition which is also a verifiable business outcome.

There are lots of people walking around who favor the to-do list approach. The idea is that if somehow we can manage to list everything everybody should do, we'll have a successful project. This approach leads to monstrous work breakdown structures. They don't require much thought to assemble and they are quickly irrelevant but they make a very impressive thump, when we toss them on to an executive's desk. These monster WBS are also very difficult or impossible to maintain because at this micro level of detail many many things change each week. Most project managers don't spend the time to keep the to-do list current and so three weeks into the project the schedule and plan are largely irrelevant.

The decomposition approach which is a core technique in our achievement driven project management methodology (ADPM™) takes a lot more thinking. The sponsor and the project manager need to actually decide what outcome they want from each assignment in the project. This goes hand-in-hand with the philosophy of holding people accountable for their end results rather than micromanaging. The resulting ADPM work breakdown structures are much smaller, much easier to maintain and give us unambiguous checkpoints for project tracking.

Add your comments about this critically important project management issue.

Regards,

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Persuading a sponsor about project planning

One of the very difficult barriers to doing projects the right way is the reluctance of sponsors and stakeholders to participate in the planning process. Its much easier for them to avoid making the the tough decisions that should be made at the beginning of a project. Project managers have to muster effective arguments or they wind up starting work without a plan which is the seed of project failure.

The current edition of our PM talk newsletter has a video of a project manager trying to persuade a sponsor that Project planning is worthwhile. Watch the video and examine the two attempts the project manager makes to persuade the executive. Then add your comments to the blog about how to handle this difficult situation.


Best regards,

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Gathering Project Requirements

The wrong way to gather project requirements is bottom up planning, where the project manager talks to people and makes a long laundry list of "requirements." This is similar to talking to children and gathering their Christmas wish list to send to Santa. The whole idea behind requirements is not to identify everything everybody wants. Rather, PMs need to identify those business achievements that are required to deliver the project's measured business result.

Watch the Video Q&A Session on gathering requirements. It's an excerpt from our just released Video Book: Project Basics.

Best regards,
Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Outsourcing and Contracting for Resources

PMs have to be able to cope with the issues involved in bringing in outside resources for their projects. The contract stuff can be tricky and so can dealing with lawyers and producing RFPs and conducting bidder's conferences.

But the really tough part is dealing with the politics from your team members, stakeholders and sponsor. Often everybody has a buddy who can "do the work we need perfectly!" Watch the video.

In fairness, consultants and vendors are all looking for an "in" so they can secure the contract. How should PMs deal with these internal marketing efforts, often from team members and stakeholders?

I've shared my thoughts in the video, add your ideas here.


Sincerely,

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA
President 4PM.com

Handling Poor Project Team Performers

Handling team members is always a challenge, particularly when you borrow the people from other departments. Take a look at the PMI Best Practices Video and comment on the three approaches this PM tries with a difficult team member.

Best Regards,
Dick Billows,PMP

Risk Management Vs. Fighting Fires

Far too many projects crash and burn as a result of risks that could have been avoided. An even higher proportion of projects don't take advantage of positive risks that could shorten duration and/or decrease costs. Why this hesitancy to engage in risk management?

The image of project managers as skilled "firefighters" often gets in the way. I've had more than one discussion with executives who want us to train their project managers to be good at fighting fires. I always suggest that the organization will benefit much more from having project managers who are skilled at identifying risks and planning responses to them. The response I often get is that risk management takes too much time and will slow things down.

Take a look at this sample video from our 1-on-1 project training courses and see if these lean and agile risk management processes make sense to you.

Answering executives' questions about your project plan

It certainly would be handy if organizations gave project managers the authority to:

• directly assign work to team members "borrowed" from other departments,
• reward authority for outstandintg performance and
• the authority to measure performance.

But they don't, so we need to make the case for having that authority on every project. Arguing that these authorities increase the odds of project success is a good start. What other ideas do you have?

Regards,

Dick Billows, PMP

Executives with foolish project management ideas

Project management is tough enough without having executives and project sponsors lead project managers astray with demands to manage the project that are just plain foolish. We've filmed three of our favorite executive demands so you could think through how you'd handle them if you were sitting across the desk.

Take a look at the Project managers in action video, think through how you'd handle the sponsor's demand and share your ideas.

Regards
Dick Billows, PMP, GCA
President 4PM.com

Why do some organizations have one failed project after another?

Some organizations just can't seem to succeed with projects. Even their big strategic initiatives achieve little and are late and over budget. Its not that their people don't work hard or that their management is inept. So what's the cause?

Watch our intrepid report, Lisa Lamore as she eavesdrops on team members, PMs and execs and then tells all. Are these the signs of failure? Did she spot all the reasons for failure or are other, more important causes she missed?

Work Breakdown Structure(WBS)

When we look at failed projects, they almost always show the same flaw; a "to do" list work breakdown structure. Too many people think the WBS should be a listing of everything that has to be done in the project. That's the wrong way.

The right approach to the WBS is that we are designing assignments for our project team. That is, the WBS is a listing of the "hunks" of the project we will manage, not a procedure for doing the project.

What's you approach?

Dick Billows, PMP

Operation Rescue: Saving A Failing Project

But when we go in to rescue a failing project, the techniques are little different than starting with a clean slate. In my mind a couple of issues are critical:

First, the most important way to increase your odds of success in the rescue is to get senior management agreement's that the scope of the project must be re-examined and almost certainly changed. You need this authority because failing projects have scope problems. The easiest way to free up resources, restore focus on the business value the project should deliver is to slice away the blubber surrounding the core business value. So you start by going through the scope planning process all over again. This is not popular as it unearth's problems and that's why you get authority to spend your first week or so cleaning up the scope until you have a crystal clear and measurable definition of the business value the project should deliver.

Second, with the scope defined with clarity you can start to carve away the blubber that almost always surrounds it. It's not that projects are filled with bad ideas. It's that they're burdened with good ideas that are not necessary for delivering the scope. Once we clean away the blubber we suddenly have resources we can reassign critical path tasks and maybe gain some improvement in duration.

That's always our starting point. What ideas do you folks have to contribute?

Dick billows PMP, GCa

President 4PM.com

Project Sponsor from Hell

We had a little fun with our Project from Hell Saga and filmed a new episode, The Project Sponsor From Hell, which I trust you wil find humorous. It may even remind you of a sponsor you know. If not, share your own sponsor from hell story with us. Or, give us your ideas for the next episode in the PFH series.

Dick Billows, PMP, GCA
President 4PM.com

Does the PM have to be a technical expert?

One of our bloggers asked about the level of technical expertise required of project managers.

10 years ago, most organizations felt their project managers had to be the most expert member of the project team. The PMs were the technical gurus and the theory was they would have influence to direct the team due to their technical mastery. This didn't work too well when the team was bigger than 2-3 or when they involved people from non-technical areas who thought the guru was a geek.

This thinking provided a nice career path for subject matter experts but far too often the technical experts wanted to do the technical work of the project. This was just fine on very small projects with one to three people. However, as the size of the project team increased the technical guru had to move into the people management business and deal with other functional areas. Very often the gurus were not too good at cross-functional stuff and did not want to manage people in the first place.

Today, many organizations have suffered through the mis-management and failed projects led by technical gurus. They recognize that project management is a separate set of skills and that a project manager can control a team made up of people who are more technically expert in their disciplines than the PM.

So I'm a strong advocate of having PMs who are expert in managing projects and don't feel they need to know more than everybody on the project team.

Regards,
Dick Billows, PMP
President 4pm.com

The slippery slope

I had an interesting conversation this past week with a new project manager who works for one of our project office clients. Our staff was reviewing newly submitted project plans and found one that was extraordinarily detailed (it may be a new record for micro-management). I called the PM and asked why her work breakdown had so many tasks of such short duration; some as small as one and two hours in durations.

She said, "My boss wants no mistakes on this project and really tight control."

I asked, "But will your team members be submitting twice daily status reports?"

She laughed and said,. "That would be ridiculous; it'll be hard enough getting weekly status information on all these tasks."

I agreed and said, "Then don't you think you're going just a touch too far to have one and two hour tasks that we'll never actually track while they were in-process."

"I guess that's right. But how will people know what to do?," The new PM asked.

What's the answer to her question? Can we save her from micro-management?

Is it just the PMs who determine project success?

A lot of organizations kid themselves that project success or failure rests solely in the hands of the project managers. In reality organizations that do projects consistently well have a high level of competency at several levels.

First, executives know how to initiate projects and set a clear strategic framework within which project managers and team members operate. Lack of this framework is the major source of scope creep and it comes from executives who don't know how to play their role.

Second, senior management needs to set priorities and allocate people's time based on those priorities. When there are no priorities or allocation of resources we have chaos and 70 and 80% project failure rates.

Third, subject matter experts and managers need to know how to develop requirements, not in terms of wish lists but in terms of the business value that is needed.

Only when this foundation is in place can project managers and team members achieve consistent project success. Does your organization have all these pieces?

Coping with a tough sponsor

Video: Three ways to handle a tough sponsor

Handling a difficult sponsor is a challenge for any PM, particularly when the sponsor is your boss or outranks you by several levels. Watch the video and comment on the consequences of how each PM handled this tough sponsor. Don't just think about the immediate sponsor reaction but also what's likely to happen as the project moves through the lifecycle.

This video is drawn from the library of "PMs in Action" videos that we us in our person 1-on-1 web classes.

Best Regards,

Dick Billows PMP, GCA
President 4PM.com

Project Estimating

Can a project manager refuse to make an estimate of when a project will finish?

Well it's reasonable to say. "I can't tell you when I'll finish until I understand exactly what you want.

But some sponsors want a completion date committment before the scope is clear. How should we handle them?

Project Management Office: Friend or Foe

In some organizations, the project management office turns out more rules, regulations and forms than the IRS. The anal retentive, nit pickers in the Project Management Office want to correct all project work, challenge every assumption and risk but be responsible for nothing. What is often the result is the PMO drives projects underground. Efforts that would normally be called Projects are now renamed and called; task forces, study groups, committees or water cooler meetings in a desperate attempt to avoid the bureaucracy of the Project Management Office.

In other organizations, the project office teaches a lean, scalable methodology that everyone can use. It gathers data is data, resolves resource conflicts and gives top management a high level view of the state and status of all projects. This is a far more valuable project office but also a difficult one to implement, as we need to fight off the "Big Brother" mentality that often surrounds the PMO.

What kind of project office do you have and how does it work

Top-Down Project Planning

Watch the video on top-down planning and I think you'll see why it is far preferable to the usual approach to planning which is a "What should we do first?" That always leads to scope creep and over-runs. Does this happen in your organization?

Dick Billows, PMP

The Project Office; Control not Paperwork

Some Project Management Offices (PMOs) have bad reputations, often when they are run by nit-picking micro-managers who setup paper work jungles that do little but slow projects down. The result in those organizations is that people are still overloaded and have to cope with conflicting project priorities.

But a project office doesn't have to be like that. We worked with a couple of clients over the last ten days to set up Project Office functions... No departments or even full time people...Just systems and processes for control and reporting. We used our achievement-driven Project Methodology (AdPM) and these PMOs are achieving two big benefits:

• By requiring people initiating a project to committee to delivering a measurable business value from the project (the Measure of Success or MOS in AdPM). A lot of pointless projects are being killed before they can waste any resources.
• Projects are now prioritized and work loads are managed so everyone knows what to work on first

Best of all there is no new paper work, everything gets done in AdPM digital templates.

Here are a few more ideas on project offices

Best Regards,

Dick Billows PMP, GCA
President 4PM.com

Getting started fast on projects

In lots of organizations, starting fast on projects is a disease. They talk about being dynamic, aggressive and fast to market. What they're really doing is turning loose a project teams that starts work on the first few tasks with very little idea of where they are headed or how they will get there. No wonder that 80% of these projects fail. Anybody else see this going on?

Best Regards,

Dick Billows PMP, GCA
4PM.com

Managing with just due dates

Lots of project managers complain about executives who pluck due dates from the sky with no consideration for:

• the work to be done,
• the availability of the team or
• the other projects that are underway.

That kind of due date setting leads to high failure rates but the project managers are also to blame because they give executives only one corner or dimension of the project to quantitatively manage.

These PMs don't quantify the scope, risk or budget so the executive only has one dimension to manage that has hard-edged data. Read the article about Project having 4-Corners and cure your executives of the dates only disease.

Best Regards,

Dick Billows PMP, GCA
4PM.com

Estimating Project Duration

A PM asks. "Why should I spend a lot of time working with the team on estimates when the sponsor always cuts the estimates anyway?"

There are several ways to handle that situation. That kind of sponsor decision-making always goes along with high project failure rates. Project teams may slap together some piece of crap by the deadline the executive set. But then they spend 6 months cleaning up the crap. I promise you the executive is sick of failure too. The exec may even be more worried about the failures then you are.

In that very typical situation, it can be effective to tell the executive something like, "We're getting nowhere setting these impossible due dates that have no basis in fact. The team has no commitment to them and knows they are impossible. So on every project, the whole team knows we are going to fail before we start. Let's try managing a project with realistic dates that we can hit."

Anybody have other ideas on handling this situation?

Are all project managers like this?

A professional engineer who works on projects full time wrote in and asked:

I haven't been working on project very long but every project manager I have worked for is a clown. Here's what they do. They call you in and tell you how important the new project is and how the big bosses are "really watching this project."

I guess they think that I'll be really impressed by this talk about the importance of the project. I was the first time, but not since.

Then they tell you when your task has to be done, usually even before they tell you what you have to do. Next the describe all the bad things that will happen to you if you're late.

Then they explain what you have to do. But its vague with no specifics on the deliverables so you know they'll change it every week.

Are all Project managers like this?

Best Regards,

Dick Billows PMP, GCA
4PM.com

Project Status Reports that Stupefy

Too often project managers deliver progress reports that stupefy executives and tell them nothing about what's going on. This undermines the PM's credibility. These mind-numbing techniques range from "techno -babble" to the "Girl Scout cookie approach." Read the full article and add your comments about status reporting.

Project Failure Rates

This week there was another survey showing that 70% or more of all projects fail. It may make some wonder how well managed organizations with highly intelligent and experienced executives let this happen. Well, when we go in to help a new client with project problems we always see the same thing…

The “activity trap” that engulfs all too many projects is where stakeholders, team member or project managers focus on what they want to do, not what they want to achieve. The activity trap is not an evil conspiracy. It’s the result of good ideas from stakeholders and project managers who lack the technique to keep everyone focused on business outcomes. People always want to add goodies to projects. Experienced project managers know you can’t control scope by arguing with stakeholders (most whom outrank the PM), about the merits or value of a goodie they want to add. PMs always lose those discussions. It makes executives or clients angry and the scope expands anyway, without any increase in duration or budget.

So what so you think is the best way to handle this?

Project from Hell Podcast #3

Listen to this month's Project from Hell Podcast and hear four conversations between executives, sponsors, project team members and PMs. Then diagnose what's wrong with this organization and why so many of its projects fail.

Share your diagnosis and the remedy you would suggest for chronic project failure.

Most of our projects fail

Here's an e-mail from a frustrated PM

In our organization, they talk all the time about how we can deliver on projects. But once you cut through all the BS, you see that everybody is starting projects at the drop of a hat. We probably start projects each year that require 300% of our available person hours. So lots of projects are started and not finished, they just fade away. Others are catastrophic failures which produce nothing of any business value. The rest are finished close to the original due date (which was never possible) and then we spend 6 months fixing the crappy deliverables.

Who gets blamed? Not the sponsors who started more projects than they can remember. Not the executives who could not set priorities or enforce any kind of discipline. Its the project managers who get blamed. Happy New Year.

Dealing with difficult sponsors

Many project managers lack the proper technique to handle a project approval presentation with an executive who demands an earlier completion date than the the PM presents. The PMs whine, whimper and moan but still walk out of the meeting with a project they know is doomed to failure with an impossible due date.

The best way to handle these demands is with tradeoffs between scope, cost, duration and budget. That data gives a PM a chance.

Listen to this month's podcast to hear how to do it

A Big WBS for Tight Control

Do we get tighter control when we build a big work breakdown structure? Lots of executives think so. They like it when PMs drop the schedule on their desks and it makes a big thud. Their reasoning is that having lots of small tasks will let their PMs have lots of things to check on and so they'll spot problems instantly.

Micro management

Micro-managing is a Disease (Listen to the Project from Hell podcast on Micromanagement)We heard from a PM the other day who blamed the high project failure rate globally (70%+ on IT projects) on PMs coddling their team members. -----She said, "If these wimp project managers would spend less time nurturing and more time checking up on the work their team members do, their projects wouldn't fail all the time! I promise you that when I check someone's work 3 or 4 times each day, know the work is important and get off their butt to get it done. That's the key to project success."-----Has nuturing gone too far?

Estimating with your Team

Estimating with Your TeamWhy doesn't this technique work?
A reader wrote in: "Estimating with your team members is really easy. There is no sense asking them how long a task will take, all they'll do is pad the estimate to build in a little vacation time at work. No, the best way to do estimating is in three steps:
1. Tell them when they have to be done which you figure out by counting backward from when the sponsor told you to be done.
2. Tell them all the bad things that will happen if they're late.
3. Repeat the due date louder."
What's wrong with this approach?

Project Initiation Podcast

Saga of the Project from Hell-Podcast Project Initiation

Listen as a new project manager gets advice from a PM mentor about how to handle a really tough sponsor. Then read the comments to see what our mentors think about the situation and add your thoughts.