After answering project management questions on LinkedIn and other sites for years, I’m happy to be able to field questions directly off the Vertabase blog.

Questions I’ve answered in the past include:

• Who defines the project objectives?
• What should I do if a client doesn’t want to hear about problems?
• What are alternatives to MS Project?
• Is a task list enough to manage a project?

Use the button on the right to submit a project management question.

I look forward to answering your questions.

While reading about information science in Ambient Findability by Peter Morville I came across the concept that gossip is an important source of information and that gossiping is an important mechanism of finding information.

One aspect of gossip is that, while it may not be 100% accurate, it can provide advance knowledge on an upcoming event or help the attuned listener prepare for what’s coming in the future.

This type of information can be incredibly valuable when managing projects. The more advanced knowledge you have on the status of tasks, projects, budgets, etc. the better prepared you can be, the better you can manage the project/plan for changes and the better you can communicate to stakeholders about it.

So I was thinking, what are the informal/gossipy type cues or communication channels that one can build into a project management process that will give managers advanced knowledge?

A mid-level manager I know expressed concern that adopting project management software would give him less control of projects. He thought that if there were a plan everyone could see and update themselves, they wouldn’t need to contact him for instructions.  And thus, he would have less control.

I explained to him that, on an objective level, he would actually

1. Have more control
2. Identify people who aren’t performing more easily and
3. Could get more done.

He would have more control since he could objectively measure progress against the plan.  He could point to specific deliverables and deadlines.  Sure, their would be less politics -and fewer meetings, but he would still be able to direct people’s actions. Only this time, instead of it seeming like the random instructions of a manager, the directions would be part of a coherent plan to accomplish specific goals. In fact, politics could be further removed from the process by having upper management sign-off on the plan before it goes into execution.

Those same objective measures can help identify where people aren’t performing and make it easier to document.  If a manager continuously needs to harp on someone for them to get anything done, it might not be a good fit. Fingers could be pointed at either the manager or the team member. But if you can consistently show that someone is not meeting the stated objectives, the finger pointing becomes much less.

His team could get more done since less time would be reporting on what they were doing or waiting to find out what they should be doing.  Updates can be made and populated automatically in the software. There will be less time in meetings. More time would be available for people to get things done.

MANAGEMENT STYLE

Of course, their may be other factors at play within the organization that make this manager reluctant to put a plan on paper or in a collaborative tool. This is totally legitimate.  A huge percentage of managers still rely on a direct and personal authoritarian approach. It can be very effective.

The vision for a good implementation of project management software is a well-oiled machine. People doing their work and following a plan, following a process that sets-up a constructive feedback loop between management and team members.  While there will always be hiccups, project management practices and project management software can help overcome them quickly and efficiently.

Regardless of management style, collaborative project management software like Vertabase gives a level of visibility, control and accountability without the administrative overhead of having meetings to find out who is doing what.

An interview with me from CFUnited 2009 was released today from CF Conversations.

It spans a wide array of topics including:

• Making project management work in an organization
• Open Source software
• Managing a software business
• Railo, OpenBD and Adobe ColdFusion

It starts out with a brief intro from Brian Meloche on things that he’s been working on then soon after moves into the interview.

We are excited to announce the latest version of the Vertabase Timer. This coincides with the launch of a new try-before-you-buy service from Adobe. We were honored to be part of only a handful of applications chosen to help launch this service.

The new Vertabase Timer (version 3.0) has a ton of new features like:

• A sleeker new look
• New charting and graphing functionality
• New personalization options including user names, skins and more
• Billing rates for profitability analysis
• Adding notes and contact information per task
• Reminders when you are working on tasks

As with the previous versions, it runs on Adobe AIR and is written Flex. It works on Windows and MAC as a desktop timer. It is a fast and fun way to track time on projects, clients or tasks.

The new Vertabase Timer is available for Trial Download or Purchase. There is a special introductory price of $5.

I have a few coupon codes from Adobe to offer the application for free. Contact me directly on the contact form if you’d like one of codes.

I’ve been talking to a number of people lately who don’t know what project management is all about and how it can help them. They tend to think of project management as something reserved for large engineering projects or specifically IT projects. Project management can be used on projects of all sizes and in almost any field. It is a way of organizing, tracking and managing resources.

At its most basic, project management and by extension, project management software, can help them:

1. Assign people to tasks
2. Keep all those task assignments in one place
3. Let people know when to start at task
4. Let people know when a task is due
5. Give managers visibility on where everyone is on their tasks
6. Keep all that information in one centralized place

It differs from creating simple tasks lists in that tasks here, are done in the context of completing a project.

That is, the tasks are a coordinated effort by individuals working over a period of time to achieve a specific goal.

Often, that goal has a defined due date and thus knowing how people are doing on their tasks gives you good information for knowing how likely you are to hit the due date or what may need to be done to get to that due date.

Project management software provides a framework for those tasks and the projects they roll up into. It makes it easy to what’s going on. The project owner or manager can track progress and make course corrections as necessary.

Project management software, like Vertabase, can also do micromanaging with automatic email reminders to managers or team members and notifications of when things change.

This question is central to project managers and clients.

Its a tough question because every project has its own unique characteristics. Even if its something that you’ve done before, many factors can throw off a schedule.  As a friend of mine says:

Its not the stuff you know that throws you off. And its not the stuff you know ‘you don’t know’ that throws you off -you can cover that by doubling your estimate or so. Its the stuff you don’t know that you don’t know that can throw you off, 5x or more.

Nevertheless, an estimated due date is a reasonable thing to ask for.  In fact, it is critical to successfully scheduling work, achieving goals and managing people.

So, what’s the best way to answer the question?

First, understand that a due date is a best guess of how things will turn out.  It should be based on the most accurate information available like:

• past estimates of the amount of work tasks took
• past estimates of the calender days tasks took
• comparisons between those estimates and the actual data from past projects
• familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of the project team and
• the current resources available for the project.

But when you present the schedule to your client, frame it as a basis for communication.  Let them know that, while based on the best information available, it is not a definitive prediction of the future. What it does do, though, is become a definitive guide for you to provide them updates on the schedule and for them to ask for the status of the project in very specific terms.

Second, carefully understand the constraints at play on your project. Every project has at least three constraints:

• Time,
• Money and
• Scope - all of which should center around
• Quality.

Explain to your client that each of those constraints directly impacts the others.

If your client requires a hard deadline, you need to have the right amount of resources and a limited scope. Your ability to meet deadlines further improves if you can scale up the resources allocated to the project to meet unforeseen challenges or pressures on the scope.

In any case, it is the project manager’s job to help control these factors and, most importantly, to communicate to the client how changes, challenges and surprises impact the estimated due date of a project.

That’s what a friend who heads the client service group at an interactive agency complained about over lunch. He wanted to know how he could stop his implementation team from being late.

I asked how they currently communicate.

“For each implementation we submit a ticket through a home-grown Microsoft Sharepoint based system. The ticket has the date submitted, the general scope of work and the due date.  They then let me know when an implementation is ready to go. Or, I have to pro-actively call to find out the status of an implementation. Then, inevitably, I have to call the client and tell them their launch is going to be late.”

I suggested putting together a short work plan that described the steps the implementation team goes through to prepare for a launch. In his case, there are generally 5 major steps, each with around 10 sub-tasks. To start with, skip the sub-tasks. Make a bullet-point list of the five major steps. This will give you and the implementation team a single point of reference to gauge the progress of the project. 

Instead of touching base only when it is due, you can touch base at each of the 5 major steps.  This will bring more visibility into the process. It will also give you early warning of when an implementation is starting to run late, before it is actually due, so you can do something about it.

This is a first step. 

This also sets the foundation for more sophisticated and accurate planning using start and due dates for each step and estimating hours, as well as being able to scale the process through resource planning and project templates. But that can come later. The first step is to map out the implementation process in easy, big block steps that become a basis for meaningful communication.

Estimating a project’s schedule can be a real challenge.  There is potential uncertainty and unkowns to consider when creating a schedule.  I’ve found it helpful to categorize projects when estimating a project’s schedule so you know what kind of margin-of-error to build into it. Three categories I find useful are:

1.  New Work
2.  Old Work
3.  Combo Work -Combination of New and Old

New work is an effort or process you’ve never done before. This could be using a new technology, an upgraded tool, developing a new type of solution, implementing a new program or designing an entirely new asset e.g. a website, if you are used to designing print pieces.

Old work is an effort or process you’ve done many times before with the same tool set.

Combo work is a combination of new and old. This could be doing a standard project using a new tool or technique or working on something you’ve done before but which you wouldn’t call yourself an expert at just yet.

MARGIN-OF-ERROR

Each of these categories carries a different degree of uncertainty. You can capture that uncertainty by creating a margin-of-error for your schedule estimates. Here are some guidelines for margins-of-error. 

1. New Work - a margin of 8x.
2. Old Work -a margin of 1.5x
3. Combo Work -a margin of 4x, though you can shift that higher or lower, depending on how much is new vs old.

DON’T FORGET CLIENTS

Clients are another element to consider when deciding what category to put a project into. Doing work for a new client or a new contact person at the client can add as much uncertainty as using a new tool or developing a new solution.

1. DON’T OVERPLAN
2. Change the plan as needed
3. The more you invest in a plan the less likely you are to want to change it
4. The more you invest in a plan the less likely your team will be to give you accurate information
5. Leave room in your schedule for changes to the plan
6. Don’t try to predict everything that will go wrong
7. Just leave room in your schedule for things to go wrong
8. Not every process can be dissected into easy to monitor steps
9. Let team members update the status of their tasks

10. FEAR SILENCE
11. Keep stakeholders appraised of your progress, always
12. Tell stakeholders ahead of time when the plan looks like it’ll need to change
13. Insist on feedback from your team on their progress
14. Give your team the detailed blueprints they need to develop
15. Don’t ask your client or stakeholders to build that blueprint
16. Don’t even ask your client to sign-off on the blueprint
17. Spend time understanding your client’s needs, in detail
18. Spend time understanding your team’s skills and abilities
19. Trust the feedback you get from your team
21. Relay relevant information to your client
22. Communicate always -especially when things go wrong.

23. TEST EXTENSIVELY
24. Test early and often
25. Test proven techniques a lot
26. Test innovation even more
27. Test functionality to make sure it works
28. Test the implementation of it to make sure the functionality works when put into a workflow
29. Test its deployment to make sure the functionality works in the users’ technology environment
30. Monitor users’ interactions with your solution to make sure it works for the user and that the user gets it
31. The latest greatest techniques are not always the best solution.
32. Users prefer not to learn new habits
33. Find solutions that seem effortless to your users