Author: Linky

Linky

Finish the race strong in 2016

inspiring storyJohn Akhwari from Tanzania represented his country in the Summer Olympic Games of 1968 as a marathon runner. During the race he suffered a fall that badly cut and dislocated his knee. Medical personnel bandaged his wounds and told him his knee required more treatment. However, Akhwari stood up and continued his race. An hour after the winner he crossed the finish line and when remaining reporters asked him why he continued running in his condition, he responded:

“My country didn’t send me 5000 miles to start the race. They sent me 5000 miles to finish it!”

My hope for you is that you will finish your year strong. It’s always a good idea to reflect on your past year, your accomplishments, what you’ve learned and what you’re grateful for.

As founder of Virtual Project Consulting, I want to share some of the books I’ve read in 2016 and to make you aware of the reviews I’ve done for a few really good project management books.

Book Reviews

  1. The Conscious Project Leader by Colin Ellis from the perspective of how to create a culture of success for your projects, your team and yourself. Colin is also a speaker, writer and mentor on Conscious Project Leadership. One of his outstanding qualities, seems to be his sense of humour which makes for an engaging read.
  2. “The Power of Project Leadership: 7 Keys to Help You Transform from Project Manager to Project Leader” by Susanne Madsen, is an easy read and it’s applied specifically to project managers who are seriously aspiring to become better leaders. The book will help make the transition from project manager to project leader.
  3. “Leadership Toolbox for Project Managers, achieve better results in a dynamic world” by Michel Dion, is to help equip project managers to manage projects in a dynamic, complex and unpredictable environment. The book is focused on Leadership including self-awareness, vision, strategic thinking, decision making and interaction with others.
  4. Project Management for SME’s by Gren Gale is written with small businesses in mind, is very practical advice and insight with regards to the application of project management as a discipline in the Small Business sector.

Other Books that I can recommend

  1. “Mindset – changing the way you think to fulfil your potential” by Carol Dweck, a must read for people who want to have a growth mindset to help achieve success.
  2. Lead with a Story by Paul Smith is about the use of storytelling as a leadership tool.
  3. TED Talks Storytelling by Akash Karia gives 23 storytelling techniques from the best TED talks.
  4. Act like a leader, think like a leader by Herminia Ibarra on how managers and executives can step up to leadership by making small, crucial changes in their jobs, their networks and themselves.
  5. “Lean in – women, work and the will to lead” by Sheryl Sandberg, impactful for woman who want to be empowered to achieve their full potential.
  6. The 12 week year by Brian P Moran for a boost in productivity.
  7. “Procrastinate on purpose – 5 permissions to multiply your time” by Rory Vaden, giving insights on overcoming procrastination, improving self-discipline and increasing productivity.
  8. “Surge – time the marketplace, ride the wave of consumer demand” by Mike Michalowicz for the entrepreneurs among us.

Virtual Project Consulting

On my project management blog I’m reaching almost 300 blog articles covering various topics like Leadership, Project Management, Change Management and Social Media for PM’s .

In 2016 topics included:

  • Innovation in project management,
  • Agile
  • Current trends in project management
  • Project basics – how to start a project, how to do cost estimation and budget development, project planning, decision making skills etc

Enjoy the read and remember to tell your colleagues who are looking for materials on specific topics.

Of course there are always listings of Events taking place all over the world, as well as recommended Project Management resources like Training, Software and Products. Don’t forget about the Podcasts! Our Project Success Stories are still growing and if you have a good story to share, please send it to me for publishing!

Growth Program for new Project Managers

Lastly, my flagship for the year, The Growth Program for New Project Managers. I would like to introduce this to as many people as possible in order to help new project managers to get up and running quickly. If you know of any “Accidental Project Managers” at your organisation, please refer them to this program. It will only take them a month to complete and extended coaching is also available.

Virtual Project ConsultingPlease subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting not to miss future articles, tips and success stories!

Linky

Project Management: How to foster creativity in your team

By Linky van der Merwe

Advances in technologyWhen we look at the new all electric cars that are storming the market today, we see amazing speed (0-100km in 3 seconds), top speed of 250km per hour and a range of 250km – 295km. Clearly innovation is evolutionary, brought about by many incremental advances in technology and revolutionary because it’s often disruptive and new, like the electric cars.

This is according to James Hebbard, a Snaptech Trainer and consultant who presented at the Project Management South Africa Conference in November 2016. He said the death of innovation is BFH, an abbreviation for Big, Fat and Happy! Below are his recommendations to foster innovation think.

6 ways to foster creativity

#1 Inside Game

Although ideas, inspiration and innovation seem to come from outside you, they don’t – it always comes from inside, sometimes within small intimate teams.

#2 Obsession and Focus

Innovative thinkers were all obsessed and extremely focused.  Albert Einstein was obsessed with light, Steve Jobs was obsessed with design and product perfection and Elon Musk is obsessed with space flight and electric cars.

#3 Perseverence and Patience

Keep yourself in your chair and the break-through will come as this picture illustrates.

perseverence

#4 Creating a culture of innovation

Culture is a mindset that is shared by a team. There are ways to create such a culture. People are afraid to make mistakes so you can start by creating an environment where it’s safe to fail. Create learning experiences, do brainstorming and problem solving facilitation, root cause analysis. Create space like 15% paid time to work on own creative projects. Look at the work environment.

#5 High performing teams

Know the strengths of team members, the level of the team maturity and their personalities as explained below.

  • Thinking styles: Ideation, Strategic, Learner, Input, Intellection, Analytical
  • Executing styles: Achiever, Arranger, Focus, Restorative, Responsibility
  • Relational styles: Achiever, Arranger, Focus, Restorative, Responsibility
  • Influencing styles: Activator, Communication, Maximizer, Significance, Self Assurance

This is what you need to know how to get the best out of your team.

#6 Identifying problems

Innovation is born from necessity. Without a pressing problem there is no need for a solution. Identify the problems around you because finding problems will help you solve them. How do you as a team identify problems?

Conclusion

innovation1 A few points to remember.

  • Innovation is often born out of necessity (AKA Problems).  Get to the root cause and see innovative ideas being born.
  • Humans are a product of their environment.
  • Teams are made of Individuals.

As a project manager, you need to know what their strengths are in order to get the best out of your team.

Here is an interesting article about virtual team management by Rob Rawson, co-founder and CEO of Time Doctor.

 

Virtual Project ConsultingPlease subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting not to miss future articles, tips and success stories!

Linky

8 Lessons in Innovation

By Linky van der Merwe

Power of innovationRecently I attended a Project Management Conference with the theme: “Harnessing the Power of Innovation”. As project managers we are in the position to create environments where people are creative and more innovative.

One of the speakers, Nneile Nkholise, the co-founder of Likoebe Group; a medical innovation company, spoke on the topic of moving away from an efficiency-driven economy to an innovation-driven economy, through innovation. The role of innovation has become explicitly important for any organisation with a vision to make an impact in the global market.

Nneile is one of 100 entrepreneurs out of the US who were selected to represent their countries at the Global Entrepreneurship summit, 2016. She shared 8 lessons to explain what innovation is.

Lesson 1: Journey

Learn about Jay Samit, an American digital media innovator, who pioneered advancements in music and video distribution, social media, and ecommerce. He is the author of the bestselling book, “Disrupt You! Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation”. It is a fascinating story on the journey of innovation. You need to work on innovation every day and re-invent.

Lesson 2: Purpose

At Adidas they have the credo of “Impossible is nothing”. They believe you need to explore the power you have to change the world. Impossible is just temporary and it is potential.

Create purpose and find your passion, that is a sure path to innovation.

Lesson 3: Solve problems

By just focusing on everyday real-life problems, it will lead to much innovation and innovative products that provide solutions to difficult problems.

Think of Google Translate that provided a translator to 100 different languages.

Lesson 4: Bring new possibilities

Like the oldest television that came out, it brought about new possibilities. People were able to see news from all over the world and enjoy the creativity of entertainment at home.

Lesson 5: Learning opportunities

Things will change, but don’t let that scare you. Learn to learn and learn to learn fast. In today’s world there are many opportunities with technology and children learn to code from a very young age.

Lesson 6: Build Human networks

Innovation happens through Innovation Hubs. Innovation hubs are social communities, work spaces or research centers that provide subject-matter expertise on technology trends, knowledge and strategic innovation management, and industry-specific insights.

If there are three types of people: 1) Those who talk about it …. 2) Those who want it … 3) Those who make it happen ….  We need to decide who we want to be. As project managers we are in a position to be the type of people who make it happen.

Lesson 7: Global responsibility

Global goals for sustainable developmentIn September 2015, 193 world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development. If these Goals are completed, it would mean an end to extreme poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030. Click here to find out more and to help share the Global Goals.

We need to keep the global goals for sustainable development in mind on all the projects we undertake.

Lesson 8: Embrace it

There is evidence of innovation in the products all around us. Support your local entrepreneurs and use their innovative products.

A few examples of innovative products are:

  • SaferMom is a social enterprise that addresses the high maternal and infant mortality crises in Nigeria. SaferMom delivers vital health information to new and expectant mothers using interactive, personalized low cost mobile technologies, including SMS and voice calls. The purpose is to help mothers have access to quick, affordable and hassle-free healthcare.
  • Mellowcabz – Mellowcabs manufactures, and operates new electric mini-cabs that provide an on-demand, flexible and affordable taxi/transport service in cities. These services can be provided through our mobile app, call-center or website. It has dual income sources, passenger fares and selling advertising space on, and in the vehicles. They are equipped with on-board tablet computers, which offer an interactive experience to the passenger.
  • PAN Test Kit for precision testing Malaria PAN/PF rapid test diagnostic test kit with a shelf life of 24 months.

Virtual Project ConsultingPlease subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting not to miss future articles, tips and success stories!

Linky

Innovation in Project Management

By Linky van der Merwe

Innovation in project managementAccording to Forbes.com innovation needs to be seen as a discipline of learning to use the right methods, tools and approaches at the right times, in other words: “learning to harness innovation”.

Harnessing the Power of Innovation was the theme of the latest Project Management South Africa (PMSA) National Conference that was held from 9-11 November in Johannesburg. The call is often for creativity and a shift in culture which will enable leaders and employees to optimize change. The question on how to achieve this was answered by a number of excellent speakers on the topic of Innovation!

PMSA Conference Nov 2016Project management often provides the ideal environment in which to harness innovation. It requires project managers’ skills sets to include the ability to encourage and develop creative thinking to achieve results.

The keynote speaker, Vasitha Pather, set out to demystify innovation by presenting a view of the bigger picture thinking required to integrate innovation into our projects. She helped project managers to think how we create an environment for innovation to take root and flourish.

Listening

According to Vasitha listening creates a safe space and increases trust. In the context of listening we enter in a psychological state where we are more receptive to be creative. A key ingredient of innovation is to slow down in order to move fast.

Find your flow

In sport they talk about getting into the zone, where they describe an altered state of consciousness, an increased mental state and even a heightened state of enjoyment.

We need to be in environments that are fun and innovative. As project managers and change managers we need to enable that through conversation, having fun and giving meaning to work. Let people engage all their senses, because we think with our whole body.  We’ll immerse ourselves in a state of productivity that can increase our productivity by up to 60%.

Social sensitivity

Diversity is a core aspect of innovation. It helps to have different perspectives, to care about each other and to have authentic leaders.

Vasitha also referred to the work of Peter Block, called Social Fabric which is centered around the need to belong. He believes in building a community that gives a sense of connectedness, where collaboration is a choice and people realise that they can create more together than on their own.

For project managers who value high-performing teams it’s good to encourage a culture of appreciation. Reward and acknowledge people by their name, give empathy that will increase the feeling of connectedness and will contribute to people feeling safe and connected.

Where projects often consist of self-organising teams, project managers need to build resilience in the system to handle the uncertainty. It’s important to remember that you cannot innovate without disruption. Where people play, insights and knowledge come out, because you give people a higher experience, while staying productive.
Virtual Project Consulting Please subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting not to miss future articles, tips and success stories!

 

Linky

Thoughts on PMI Global Conference 2016

By Louise Worsley, a non-US attendee

The Project Management Institute Global Congress in North America is big!

PMI Global Conference 2016Nearly 3,000 attendees from 67 countries representing some 1,368 organisations.

Just to give you a feel – the European equivalent PMI Congress in Barcelona attracted some 100’s of attendees.  And at other related events; the International Institute of Business Analysts had 1,400 attendees at their global conference in Las Vegas (2015,) while the Association for Change Management Professional achieved just 1,100 attendees at their 2016 global conference in Dallas, Texas.

The brief initial survey, conducted via the excellent conference PMI App, suggests that attendees valued the learning from the sessions and the networking almost equally.  In speaking with delegates, I found that a big incentive for attendance was to get PMI PDU points quickly and efficiently.  All delegate attendance in sessions was recorded, and within weeks of the congress, it was added to attendees PDU records.

Picking the ‘good’ sessions is important

Over 100 sessions were available over the three days, divided into the three streams of ‘leadership’, ‘technical’ and ‘strategic and business management’.  Given the varying length of the sessions (ranging from 1 hours to 1.5 hours) and the scheduling approach, the maximum number of session you could attend over the three days was about 9, plus the three keynote sessions.  Attending the ‘good‘ sessions was thus pretty important, but as I heard some delegates comment – the choice process was a ‘bit hit and miss’.  Popular sessions filled up quickly and places in the room were limited.   By the second day, wise delegates had adopted the habit of simply getting to their preferred sessions very early.

Agile and soft skills attract audiences

Although the actual numbers and overall feedback have not been released yet, my feeling is that the big attractions were the Agile sessions (10 sessions) and the streams in leadership around communications and the soft skills.  Sessions like Sherri Thomas, speaking on “Career Stories for Project Managers” inspired comments on Twitter (#PMIcongress) with her statement:

“Make connections with those who inspire you, teach you new things, or promote your ideas.” 

Lessons and language from the keynotes

PMI Global Conference 2016Perhaps the most discussed sessions were the keynotes.  Not surprisingly given the San Diego venue (the home of the USS Midway and Top Gun) there was a military theme to the first session, with the ‘Afterburner’ consultancy team, made up largely of ex-military aviators.  This was an upbeat and inspiring discussion of project management using a military flying metaphor, and had some great linguistic take-aways.

  • Task saturation leads to mistakes
  • Project managers need a bias towards action
  • Don’t wait for the perfect
  • We’re drowning in data but starving for information

For me, the highlight of the conference was the keynote presentation by the Canadian, Sue Gardner –  a former executive at Wikimedia; and named one of the most powerful women by Forbes.  Her statement:

PMI Global congress 2016“Good project managers don’t expect other people to adapt to them.” clearly caught the attention of a number of Twitter users.

She argued that disruptive business models such as Itunes, Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Bitcoin have changed the ways we listen, ride, stay, buy and pay.  As she puts it “software is eating the world” and IT is increasingly moving from a staff function to a line function, where it directly contributes to the strategic value of the business.

Following this, she poses her challenge: “How can large organisations that are trapped between the ‘sunrise stages’ and ‘sunset stages’ transform themselves to provide new disruptive business model innovation?”

Thinking of attending the next Congress?

PMI Global Congress 2016The 2017 PMI Global Congress is in Chicago.  Not quite such a glamorous venue as San Diego, and I suspect this may affect the numbers attending.

Interestingly, this will now be known as the PMI Global Congress (dropping the title North America) which does beg the question – are the European global congress being abandoned, or are they no longer ‘global’?

I won’t attend next year.  I think one global Congress every 3-5 years is probably enough.  Also, I find that hearing local stories and meeting local contacts is possibly more valuable, and hence I would prioritise the South Africa and Southern hemisphere conference in Australia and New Zealand.

Should you be thinking of attending the Congress in Chicago, here are my suggestions:

  • Research the speakers and sessions well beforehand. Of the five sessions I managed to attend (I was also speaking at the event)  only two of them were really valuable.  I didn’t pick the right sessions.  Partly this was because I just didn’t know the names.  Sherri Thomas, for example, is clearly well known in America for her book “Bounce back” and articles in the Huffington Post.  If I had found this out before hand…
  • Make connections before the Congress and seek them out once there. The PMI App provides the names of all the attendee at the Congress, but in most cases, this does not include the company and nationality information.  I was particularly interested in seeking out attendees from the African continent and certain industries.  Bar peering at 3000 name badges – this proved very difficult to achieve.
  • Be prepared to use the conference backchat on both Twitter and the PMI App – this had some really interesting additional information and potentially provides a way to make connections.

And finally, if Chicago is just too far, don’t forget the next PMSA National Conference in Johannesburg, 9-12th November.  I will be there launching my book “Stakeholder-led project management: Changing the way we manage projects” and will be happy to share more experiences from the PMI Congress.

Linky

How to Structure and Build a Project Team

By Linky van der Merwe

How to build a project teamNew project managers will find it challenging to organize, manage and lead a project team.  The project team consists of people with assigned roles and responsibilities for completing the project. Project team members have varied skill sets and they may be assigned full or part-time. Team members may be on-site, or co-located as it’s called, or remote in which case the project manager needs to know how to deal with a virtual team.

It’s key for project team members to be involved in decision making and project planning as that will add their expertise to the process and strengthen their commitment to the project.

Project Roles

The various roles in a team will depend on the nature of a project. Normally there will be core team involved through-out a project, but the team structure will change at each stage to meet the evolving nature of a project. Roles may include examples like Business Analysts, Designers, Developers, Application Specialists (IT context), Testers and more.

For example, you may have a high-powered team to define the business solution, followed by a broader team, including virtual team members, to deliver it, then a smaller operational team to operate it.

Team Structure

Quite often, especially on complex projects, there are different work-streams or sub-projects happening in parallel. For example, on a new website project (or replacement of an existing), a website designer might be working with business managers and network specialists to create a storefront, another website designer is working with different business managers and developers on an intranet application to present management information on sales. This is where you end up with a project team as a matrix where various resource types need to work together to share knowledge and to create a consistent solution. Each of the sub-teams will need a leader and team members need to understand their individual roles.

When you structure the team consider the importance of generating collaboration, knowledge sharing and skills transfer.  In the example below, the team would have a mix of people so that all the necessary skills, knowledge and understanding are collectively within that team, subject to any further specialised support that is needed.

Source: www.epmbook.com

How to structure a project team

 

 

Team Build

The team development is equally important. This is the process of improving competencies, team member interaction and the overall team environment to enhance project performance.

The team needs to be organized in order to maximize the team effectiveness. The project manager will foster good work relationships and motivate team members to complete quality work on time.

It’s good to be aware of the team development model, called the Tuckman ladder, which includes five stages of development that teams may go through:

  1. Forming: team meets and learns about the project and their formal roles and responsibilities
  2. Storming: team begins to address project work, technical decisions and need to be collaborative and open to different ideas; else the environment become counterproductive
  3. Norming: team members begin to work together and learn to trust each other
  4. Performing: team is a well-organised unit who work through issues smoothly
  5. Adjourning: team completes the work and moves on from the project

 

Barriers to effective team development

Many barriers can be in the way of effective team development. For example, if team members have disjointed priorities, it may cause conflict within the team. Communication gaps originate if a project team doesn’t stay aligned, or there could be misunderstandings. Lastly, a team member may show a lack of commitment to a project especially if the person is working on several projects at the same time or is over-allocated in terms of project and operational responsibilities.

You will find that each project team’s dynamics are different. As long as you lead the team to a place of synergy where the combined effect is more than the individual contributions.

 

For more on Virtual Teams, read the article series:

Virtual Teams – 6 Lessons for success

Working with Virtual Teams – Useful Tools

Working with Virtual Teams – Techniques for maximum efficiency

Working with Virtual Teams – Critical Success Factors

Virtual Teams Communication challenges:

Communication challenges for Virtual Project Teams Part 1

Communication challenges for Virtual Project Teams Part 2

 

Please subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting not to miss future articles!

Virtual Project Consulting

 Print

 

 

Linky

Project Management: Harnessing the Power of Innovation

The speed of change is increasing exponentially. Organisations struggle to determine which change is applicable and how to manage it to their benefit.  There’s a call for creativity and a shift in culture which will enable leaders and employees to optimise change.  Many see “innovation” as the solution.

INNOVATION is a Discipline

According to forbes.com, innovation needs to be seen as a discipline – learning to use the right methods, tools and approaches at the right times. In other words: learning to harness innovation.

Creativity is about individuals coming up with ideas. Innovation is about “bringing ideas to life.” For example, we use creativity in our project teams to come up with the ideas. Then we use innovation to move these ideas from vision to reality.

Enabling Creative Thinking

Project management often provides the ideal environment in which to harness innovation. It requires project managers’ skills sets to include the ability and know-how to encourage and develop creative thinking to achieve results within the parameters set by the project. It’s about developing the ability to marry the traditionally structured, output-driven project management approach with “out-of-the-box thinking.

Innovation is a collaborative process; where people in many fields contribute to the implementation of new ideas. This occurs throughout the execution of a project.

Method and Practice

This means learning, practising and honing innovation skills including what the various methods are and how they are applied in different contexts, as well as measuring the methods and their results, determining what works and what doesn’t.

Creative Project Management

According to Business Improvement Architects (bia.ca) creative Project Management requires that the Project Manager will create a project team. This will begin the process of engagement and commitment. The team will collectively develop their team’s roles and responsibilities – so that everyone knows who’s involved in project success and what skills, knowledge and experience each of them adds to the overall team.

The project team will scope out the project to ensure there is a common understanding and agreement of scope. By engaging the entire team in the process it will be done faster, with more comprehension and complete team buy-in. The project team will then develop a detailed project plan. Research has shown that by creating the entire plan with the full team, teams will get a plan that has four (4) times the detail. And they will accomplish this in about one-quarter of the amount of time it takes compared to the project manager creating the plan on their own.

PMSA Conference 2016

Project Management South Africa National Conference

In South Africa, the PMSA is hosting the National 2016 Conference with the Theme: “Harnessing the Power of Innovation”.  The aim is to aid project managers in developing their own innovative skills which they can apply to their teams, as well as to intrinsically innovative projects that they have to manage.

The 2016 Conference Programme consist of keynote sessions, plenary sessions presented by experts and thought leaders, case studies, academic research presentations, master classes, an expo with interactive exhibits as well as plenty of networking opportunities.

Please subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting not to miss future articles!

Virtual Project Consulting

Linky

Project Basics – Cost Estimation and Budget Development

By Linky van der Merwe

Cost estimation and budget developmentDuring the Planning Phase of a project an important responsibility for a project manager is to plan cost management, to estimate costs and to determine the project budget. When I work with new project managers, budget development is an area where they need most help. This article aims to give standard practice guidance to project managers who have not done budgeting before.

Cost Management

Part of cost management is to establish the policies, procedures and documentation to be used for planning, managing, expending and controlling project costs. The PM needs to have the scope and schedule baseline and understand what financial controls the organization is using. The cost management plan is part of the project management plan and will describe how project costs are planned, structured and controlled.

Refer back to the article about the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) as a planning tool. Once you’ve defined all the lower level tasks and you allocated resources to the tasks, you are ready to develop the project schedule and project budget.

Time estimate

Normally you will work on deriving the work effort estimates for each of the tasks using various techniques like bottom-up estimating, top-down estimating, phased estimating and so forth. Then the duration of the tasks is dependent on factors like the assumptions made, availability of resources (are they full-time or shared between project and operational work), risks and historically how long the tasks would typically take to complete.

Cost estimates

Next you can estimate costs after you assigned your resources. There are different types of resources that will make up the costs of the projects. They include direct costs:

  • Labour (People)
  • Consultant fees
  • Equipment or hardware
  • Software licenses
  • Expenses like travel
  • Training, team building

Then there are indirect costs including:

  • Facilities
  • Materials
  • Overhead costs such as rent and phone bills

To estimate the labour costs you should know the resources and the cost of the resources. The non-labour expenses include all costs not directly related to salary and contractor costs.

Supporting data

It’s important to document supporting data for all the cost estimates. This includes a description of the scope of the work for which cost estimates were calculated. You need to describe how the estimates were calculated for each work package. Mention the techniques used to estimate the costs, for example expert judgement, if reference was made to any historical data to make the cost estimates and vendor/supplier proposals. Document all of the assumptions made when creating the estimates.

Contingency reserve

A contingency reserve or buffer is added to projects (usually a percentage of the total project cost and time) to cover risk. This fund is used when encountering unexpected events during the project. You should adjust your contingency reserve to the risk level identified for the project. If there are many risks or unknowns, the contingency fund will be higher.

Monitoring the budget

Once the budget is determined your project has a cost baseline.  The PM is responsible to monitor and control the project costs by regularly checking actual spending against budget estimates by using a spreadsheet. This will tell you whether the project is progressing as planned or if corrective action is needed.

Calculations/budget tracking

There are various calculations that need to be made through-out project execution. A sample of a Budget sheet can be seen below. To the left are the task descriptions, as per the WBS. Then you see a break-down of the budget and actual hours, then to the right is the break-down of the budget and actual costs. Using these numbers, calculations are made, including:

  • Estimate at completion (EAC)
  • Budget at completion (BAC)
  • Variance at completion (VAC)

Sample Budget Sheet

Source: Cioarchives.ca.gov

Budgeting is a team effort and cannot be done in isolation. It’s important to obtain buy-in on the budget from the people who will actually perform the work.  This participation gives people a stake in the success of the project and fosters accountability.

A project manager needs to monitor the budget and manage the expenses in order to finish the project under budget. This will reflect well on your ability to create an accurate budget and stick to it. Therefore, it’s important to review it often and make sure that you stay on track.

Please subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting not to miss future articles!

Virtual Project Consulting

Linky

Project Story: Sensitivity around change

By Linky van der Merwe

Medical Aid Migration ProjectThis story is about a Medical Scheme Migration Project with the goal of having to migrate company staff from one medical scheme to another within six months. The project manager, Cathy Rodrigues, was working with a 3rd party admin organization in the medical industry dealing with medical schemes. They were experienced external consultants who helped to make a strong, dynamic project team to enable a smooth migration.

It was mandatory for the affected staff to migrate onto the new scheme. The fact that there was a cost difference between the two medical schemes and that the scheme they migrated onto was more expensive, complicated the migration especially due to the staff resisting the migration. The project also involved a large stakeholder audience of 1472 people.

Resistance

The project required a huge change management intervention, yet there was no change manager assigned and it became the responsibility of the project manager to facilitate the change.

Due to the sensitive nature of the project, people having to leave a medical scheme that they’ve been on for years, to go to a different and more expensive one, and medical aid being a very personal matter, a petition was started against the migration. It was mitigated by giving staff a month’s grace. During the month’s grace Exco gave staff an ultimatum: they could get quotes from other schemes, and if it was cheaper they didn’t have to migrate to the new scheme, if it was more or the equal to, it was company policy to follow through with the original plan to migrate.  A month had to be added to the project timeline to allow for this grace period.

Extensive information sharing

Much information had to be shared about the new medical scheme and group awareness sessions were arranged for this purpose. However, attendance of group awareness sessions was poor. In addition, provision was made for staff to have individual sessions with a consultant, but many were not attending the one on one sessions.  Some of the managers would not allow all call centre agents to attend one on one sessions. Or people would leave it to the last minute.

Later the project team discovered that staff actually experienced IT difficulties in booking seats for the sessions through a booking system that was setup which caused some of the appointments to be double booked.

When disgruntled staff members complained to their direct managers, they would contact the project team, which again flooded their mailboxes.  in some cases, line managers also weren’t aware of the awareness sessions and kept staff members from attending.

Migration successful

Despite all the resistance and initial setbacks caused by technology and the logistics of having to assist a large number of people personally with migrating to a new medical scheme, the project was delivered successfully. Only one month’s delay was experienced, with no scope creep because all staff members were migrated onto the new scheme.

The project team was a very diplomatic “no nonsense” team who worked well together.

Lessons Learnt

It is recommended to adopt a top down approach – engage with HR, Exco and line management before engaging with staff. Projects like this have to be handled with extreme sensitivity, people could be getting a worse deal than they had before. The petition that caught the project team by total surprise is an indication that it wasn’t addressed and handled correctly.

Change Manager is essential

On projects with a large stakeholder audience and of a sensitive nature, having a change manager onboard from the beginning, is essential. A project manager needs to focus on execution of the plan, achieving deliverables and reaching milestones. Most project managers are not equipped with the required change management skills and experience to compile a separate change intervention that could address stakeholder’s fears and concerns using words that would speak to their hearts.  A change manager would be able to focus on the human side and take care of multiple communication strategies required for awareness, information, training and acceptance.

If no budget provision was made for a change manager, the project manager should motivate and even insist on bringing a change manager on-board to ensure a smoother transition and to take care of the human factor of change on this scale. For a professional project manager it would be the right thing to do to negotiate funding with the sponsor, because your reputation is also at stake.

Stakeholder engagement

It’s very important to have project kick-off sessions with the line- and top managers of the company explaining the project scope, timeline and change plan due to the sensitive nature of the change. They could then be empowered to assist as change agents to the staff members who approached them with their objections and complaints.

The communications need to be positioned well, not as was the case of the team who flooded inboxes with impersonalised messages promoting the medical scheme which probably from the start didn’t position the scheme very well. They also didn’t have any banners or visual posters to promote the scheme.

Technology

Although technology is there to help us on projects, it can cause havoc, like the double-bookings that were experienced. Always have backup plans in place and if the worst happens, then put workarounds in place to limit the impact of the issues.

Without sufficient and formal change interventions taking care of all the communication requirements with a large audience, using email makes it very difficult to track and measure effectiveness of dealing with people’s experience of the change.

*********************************************************************************

Cathy Rodrigues started out as a Project Administrator. Then she moved to a leading international bank and transitioned into a Junior Project Manager and eventually became a Senior Professional Project Manager. Her passion for being a PM remains unchanged, with her overall objective to manage tangible, soul satisfying projects that result in a positive outcome for all end users and stakeholders.

Cathy may be contacted on Cathmvdk@gmail.com or 083-6298389