Then I got to watch this great interview of Gartner’s Daryl Plummer on Youtube

While I agree and understand Business’ frustration with IT, there are a few things that make IT behave the way it does. It cannot be a coincidence that most IT shops behave this way, right?

Some thoughts:

• Do Less with More – Supporting the same or increasing number of applications with less personnel, less money, outsourcing headaches, at a time when costs are going up is forcing IT to think about survival and not about innovation! If you are firefighting everyday, where is the time to think long-term?
• Technology Innovation and Adoption cycles don’t match – While new mobile platforms can come up quickly, supporting them in the Enterprise is a nightmare with untried devices
• Security Risks are discounted – with the qualification that the discount is valid till a breach occurs. For example, giving mobile support to Enterprise applications seems the way to go, but supporting Blackberry, iPhone and Android phones increases security risks manifold. There is very less experience out there on how to do it safely. Social Media, Cloud Computing/SaaS,  Data Storage are some other examples where security breaches can cost the company dearly
• Business still does not want to “own” decisions concerning IT. Moving to the cloud vs staying in-house is not IT’s sole responsibility. After all, if IT systems are down, the Enterprise is down!. In short, Business must move away from the “Get IT done somehow and don’t tell me about it” (pun intended!) mindset
• Like Business, IT has some processes and while they can be flexible, there are some constraints. Everyone has to live with constraints these days, so why be unreasonable only towards IT?
• Finally, the most important thing (at least, it seems that way to me) – the thinking that IT is a magical system that can bend however needed while Business processes are fixed in stone must be changed. I am reminded of my teacher in school, who admonished me – It can be done as long as the doer is someone else. When you have to do something, you get all the problems in the world!

So, who will bell the cat? (That’s just a saying, don’t take it literally folks)

IT. We must do a better job at communicating these to the Business. Much has been said about how to align IT with Business, but how should this alignment happen? Some case studies are listed here.

• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s CIO does a good job of Governance in this CIO.com article
• This CIO’s team congregates to discuss every business project that has an IT component (I like that) – Read here
• This paper from SAP America discusses the challenges and offers some solutions (Needs free registration) – Link here

I wrote some shorter posts on this here and here last year, but this seems to be a perennial subject.

Do you have other things in defense of IT? Or are you, perhaps, from the Business? Me, you ask? I believe in this quote (I have quoted this earlier too on this blog):

None of you are in IT; all of you are in business.

-Andy Kyte, vice president and Gartner fellow

Related posts:

1. Forrester research on what CIOs want in 2010
2. Business-IT Alignment (Yet Again)

No related posts.

For those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving last week, here’s hoping you had a blast. For those of you who did not, well, have a nice week

I was reading Josh Nankivel’s How to be a Project Manager in 5 steps and was reminded of the time a team lead who had about 7-8 years of experience, came to me and asked the same question “I want to become a Project Manager, but need more experience. What can I do now?”

Of course, I did not have Josh’s post to point to then, so I gave him some suggestions on what he could do in the next 6 months and sent him on his way. I thought I would share them with you, just in case you have the same question. Oh, and he had another question immediately after his first, “Do you think I can become one?” The answer, dear reader, must wait until you have become one!

Okay, here are some things I told him he could do to gain more visibility and experience, while working on getting the formal education/certification. [My friend could do these things on a smaller scale since he was responsible for development tasks of a portion of the project]

1. Scoping, WBS and Change management

I know, these 3 are related but distinct areas, but the reason I grouped them is that these are related to understanding what needs to be completed and managing that till the end. I was not referring to the entire Requirements Management discipline here, but only understanding the boundaries of what was assigned, breaking them into smaller chunks and managing those chunks carefully.

We often see that once we start design and implementation, there are items that come up due to ambiguity in the specs and we start “interpreting” them. These can potentially become scope creep and hence needs to be watched carefully.

2. Estimation and validation of estimates

The team was asked to go through the assigned work and produce an estimate of time and effort to complete them. My friend was an experienced person and hence could quickly see if some piece of work was underestimated or padded up. Although, he had been doing this for some time, it was until later that he realized that tracking completion against estimates actually gave him more insight into accuracy of estimates.

3. Schedule planning and tracking

Historically, the project manager took the WBS and estimates given by the individual teams and prepared the schedule, which was then distributed back to the teams. In this case, I advised my friend to prepare a detailed schedule and send it with the WBS and estimates. This would enable him to see how much work could be allotted to different people with different capabilities and capacities, how to sequence task, how to adjust for early/late completion of tasks etc.

4. Reporting of project status

The project manager usually had a weekly meeting with all team members and compiled a status report based on different parameters. My friend could do the same – he can simply take the standard status report template and fill it based on his team’s inputs, add his own inputs/suggestions and send it to the project manager. You are right. This is what I suggested to him.

5. Identifying and tracking risks

The risk meeting was a chore to be done and after all, it was a PM’s responsibility. Moreover, the risks were generic and carried forward from project to project!

Of course, there were many things, especially at a technical level, that my friend cautioned his PM about – delay in procurement of the test bed for one week could push back the schedule by 2-3 weeks, licensing issues, less time for reviews or inspections could jeopardize quality of the work being produced etc, but these were mostly watercooler discussions. I suggested that he make this a little formal by entering it into the risk tracker the project had, so that it was interesting and valuable to the project!

I cheated a bit early on in this post – there is another one, but that’s because it is not just relevant to Project Management, but in any work stream. Maintain a personal journal: record every analysis that you made, every decision that you made along with the possible alternatives and record why you chose that, record every mistake you or your team made and why, record how the project manager handled a problem. The single most effective tool to learn something is to learn, try, introspect and learn.

If you were in my place, what would you have said? Better advise? Wisecracks?

Psst: If you are a wannabe Project Manager, read the Zombie series by Derek Huether or if you are contemplating a career move, start with this by Josh

One more Psst: The answer to the question “Do you think I can become one?” is another question, “Can you think of two things simultaneously while talking about a third thing confidently?” If yes, then…See ya

Related posts:

1. Series: Project, Program and Enterprise PMO
2. PMO Series: Change Management
3. Some thoughts on Risk Management

[Oh and if you are looking at an approach for defining Real Metrics, look no further than the Goal-Question-Metrics approach. You don't need to look further than How Do You Know Your Metrics Are Worth It by Derek Huether]

Standard Templates

I can’t stress this enough. Without standard templates for capturing, reporting and presenting, you will be firefighting every reporting period. Period.

Capturing raw data: Have a standard template in a spreadsheet or a tool to capture data as activities are being performed. For example, if you are going to collect information on bugs, use a bug-tracking tool for the entire Defect resolution process. This will get you the information much faster.

Capturing aggregate data: Once you have defined the granularity at which your data is going to be represented, have a standard template for aggregating the raw data into this. For example, if you are planning to capture helpdesk calls and have some categories for the types of help desk calls (hardware, OS, Standard software installation, network, email etc), aggregate the data for each type into this template for the current reporting period. Be sure to keep this information in some sort of a Document control system – this is the heart of your reporting system!

Presenting data: Create a standard presentation template with dummy data and create charts using the dummy data. Play around with different chart types until you are comfortable with the presentation. Most people don’t think about this much and are left wondering why the chart does not show the one point which the audience should notice. There is a wealth of information on the internet and elsewhere on the presentation of data (think Edward Burke), so I’ll not go over it now.

Tip 1: A good resource to determine which chart type suits your data best is at http://chartchooser.juiceanalytics.com

Tip 2: Have a standard template where people can enter data, but cannot edit the charts themselves. People do try to gloss over bad information by using “tricks” such as changing the axis’ values etc. If you have an honest organization, feel free to ignore this!)

When you are finished with creating the standard presentation with dummy data, make sure you drive it by the key stakeholders – those who are going to produce this information and those who will consume this information. Most of the arguments during presentations are around the representation of the information – how it gives incorrect/incomplete picture, the axis values not starting with zero, colors/fonts not being consistent etc. So, ensure you have buy-in on this part so that people focus on the content subsequently.

Bonus Tip: Automate your templates as much as possible, if you are not using a tool. It makes everyone’s life that much easier. Initially, you will spend a lot of time fixing problems with the automation, but believe me, it saves a lot of pain later.

I have tried to crystallize my learning around getting your metrics accepted and implemented. What has worked for you? Do you have any specific templates/resources that has helped you in getting the numbers out? Share with me below in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Metrics Definition – Gaining Agreement from your Stakeholders – Part 1
2. Do your Metrics report performance or help improve performance?
3. 4 different ways to use your Metrics

These are usually quantitative and provide guidance on correctly prioritizing risks (and therefore allocating the planned contingency budgets). One other term that I usually recommend when talking about Risk is “Risk Clarity Date” – a term I use to describe the possible date when more information about the risk becomes known to re-evaluate it.

Typically, projects look at the Risk log every x weeks to go through all the risks and figure out if something needs to be changed – this is not very realistic, since many risks are either time-based or event-based.

For example, if there is a Risk that a software component being developed will not be on time, but this is not going to change unless more information on the actual progress is available.

How do you do risk management? At Project levels only or do you have a Enterprise-wide Risk Management process? Share with us.

Related posts:

1. Moving into Project Management? What you can do now
2. PMO Series: Change Management
3. Series: Project, Program and Enterprise PMO

If it has a short memory, mistakes happen repeatedly, while a long memory causes fear of failure by thinking “Oh, we have tried it”

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The second part looked at the role of PMO in setting up and monitoring Change Management processes and activities.

The third part discussed the Quality Management responsibilities of a PMO and provided a table of contents to a Quality Management Plan

This post shares some information and experience on how the PMO can review projects and what to focus on in such reviews.

One of the most important functions of the PMO is to periodically review projects, to be able to answer the  following questions:

1. Where is the project wrt where it should be?
2. Will the project deliver on its objectives – timelines, quality etc?

We have all worked on projects, where the status is green for weeks and even months and suddenly moves to  “Red” one fine day.

The best early warning system is effective and in-depth reviews by the PMO for each project in its portfolio. The frequency of such reviews depends on:

Size of the project

If the project is large and complex, one review meeting with all stakeholders is not effective. There is usually too much discussion on some items, especially those that are over the tolerance levels, while routine ones are not given much time. Instead, multiple reviews with separate teams will provide the necessary focus and insight into that area.

Separate reviews also help you to validate information being provided by one team with others. with a single meeting, contradictory statements are not voiced due to fear or a desire to avoid conflict.

If the project is small or medium sized (<30 – 40 people and less number of cross-domain teams), a single review can be effective as all stakeholders can present information quickly.

A typical review should not be more than 3 hours, as information overload sets in and people become mentally tired.

Criticality to business

Review depth also depends on how important the project is to the business. For example, a public-facing market solution will need to be monitored much closely than a project for generating MIS reports.

Current status

• If the project is progressing smoothly, with interediate deliverables on time and within quality limits, you may want to schedule a monthly meeting with offline status reports weekly.
• If the project is just about surviving, weekly reviews are necessary to tightly control the ship.
• Iif the project is behind on timelines or there are escalations from customers (can be internal such as marketing, end-users etc), day-wise monitoring may be required.

This does not mean having long meetings everyday, but you may request for daily status reports to be circulated to the governance team, with meetings held twice in the week.

What should you review

At the minimum, the review should focus on

• Verify status of tasks with respect to the Plan
• Reviewing Key accomplishments during the reporting period
• Understanding key deliverables and activities during the next period and the progress on them till now to determine if they will still be met. A good way to do this would be to ask for Estimated time to complete in-progress activities and verify against the plan
• Check for Dependencies for the upcoming activities to see if there are any impacts due to external and internal dependencies (such as staff from another team, software or hardware availability etc)
• Status of top issues and any new issues added
• Status of top risks and any updates to the Risk profile
• Change requests created/modified during the period
• Quality indicators such as defect trends, incident escalations etc

How to review effectively

• Instead of having a template which can restrict information, ask the project to develop something incorporating the above. The main point of this is to ensure they don’t feel constrained to report in a manner they feel uncomfortable with
• The report can be simple to start with, but must be able to provide enough information for the PMO to decide on the true status of the project.
• Status is usually shown in Traffic-light symbols, but this generally is not accurate or atleast consistent. Insist on objective criteria to determine what is yellow and what is red.
• Watch for tasks that rapidly change in progress completion, especially ones that slide downwards.
• When people use vague qualifiers like “I think it should be done in a couple of days” or “I believe we are on track”, look at start and end dates of the activity to gain an idea of the effort consumed. Ask for time to complete to gain a true understanding of the remaining work
• A major factor in missed deadlines is underestimating the time it takes to solve operational issues. A solid issue management mechanism will help PMO understand the blocking issues that could impact the delivery
• How is product doing with respect to Quality? Are defects being captured accurately? Schedule and review external audits that verify this one process specifically, since defects may not always be reported under the belief that they are minor
• Take the time to review customer feedback, if any and see how it dovetails into the performance of the project
• Periodically reviewing risks is one of the most important tasks of the PMO. Risk profile must be kept updated when more information is received on a subject that is impacted by a risk

Important Note:

The critical part, I cannot overemphasize this, is that the project must feel that the PMO will do anything to help the project solve issues and move forward. This may mean releasing additional funds or add experts for short durations to solve problems. If the project team feels that the PMO is only reviewing/policing, it will find ways to hide information.

You can find an example of a status report template (and some other good ones) at Derek Huether’s blog Critical Path.

Conclusion

A project review is a good opportunity for the PMO to demonstrate leadership to the projects. Transparent communication, accountability, decision-making and support are necessary elements to conduct a good project review.

What’s your take? What have I missed completely? Do you have something more to add?

Related posts:

1. PMO Series: Quality Management
2. Series: Project, Program and Enterprise PMO
3. PMO Series: Change Management

The second part looked at the role of PMO in setting up and monitoring Change Management processes and activities.

This post looks at the Quality Management/Assurance responsibilities of the PMO.

Quality Management is a less-emphasized function of the PMO. In large IT organizations, primary Quality guidance is provided by a centralized Quality function and actual implementation guidance by the PMO. For smaller IT organizations, the PMO.

However, it is important that the PMO incorporate the Quality Management aspects into its guidance and governance systems, since process-orientation can bring in discipline and streamline all activities in the Programs/projects.

The key responsibilities of a PMO for Quality Management include:

Setting up quality standards if none exists or tailoring organizational standards
Provide guidance on defining acceptance criteria to measure successful completion of the project
Provide guidance on setting up Program and project specific metrics for monitoring, tracking progress and quality
Schedule, conduct and review Program and project audits to ensure they are following the guidance provided by the PMO.
These aspects can be detailed out in a Quality Management Plan. A well-structured QM Plan can help the Program/Project adhere to the accepted practices in their projects. In addition, the PMO may also provide
Quality management support to projects through a dedicated team of people.

A typical QM Plan will have the following Table of contents (sections):

• Reference to organizational processes (if available)
• List and reference to any adaptations to the organizational processes, templates and checklists
• List and reference to program/project specific processes, templates and checklists
• List and reference to all standards/guidelines (including technical, industry-specific regulations, domain etc)
• Release Reviews performed by the Quality function before any customer/production release
• Program/Project specific metrics and tolerances
• Work product reviews that will be performed by people in the Quality function
• Tools and techniques used for Quality activities
• Defect prevention, causal analysis activities and techniques
• Reports and Dashboards
• Frequency and timing of project reviews and audits by the Quality function

If you have implemented the Quality Management function as part of the PMO, we would love to hear your experiences and challenges.

Related posts:

1. PMO Series: How to Review Projects
2. Series: Project, Program and Enterprise PMO
3. PMO Series: Change Management

We started off the PMO series with a basic introduction about the PMO – terminologies, the different types of PMO and some of its typical functions.

Let’s talk about one very important part of a PMO function – Change Management. Change is the only constant in life – cliched? Of course, but true nevertheless. It is also one of the biggest causes of “project death” – those projects which go on indefinitely, but always overdue and a cost sink (read an extreme example of how change in scope resulted in a 12-year project that was also a massive failure!).

In a large project/program, change management becomes very important to ensure that something remains stable or atleast manageable.

Change Management has become the norm in the industry today and there are dedicated “Change Managers” too sometimes, but there is enough change mismanagement too. One of the biggest reasons for this mismanagement is because it is used synonymously with managing Requirements Change.

Managing change does not only mean managing changes to scope (“scope creep”, as it is called, but that is a creepy term). Architecture/Design decisions, standards and tools also must be controlled to prevent chaos. This is where most change management processes fail.

Let us look at some change management mechanisms and then we will revisit how change management can be applied.

Change Control Board (CCB):

One of the most common responses/techniques, but often under utilized. The CCB need not be a single, all-powerful entity, but there can be more distributed ones at different levels. For example, for large architectural changes, there can be a high-level CCB, but smaller design decisions can be changed by a lower level CCB. It is usually good to organize such mini-CCBs by the amount of control they have rather than by phase – this will create cross-functional teams at all levels, rather than more silos by function

Change Request Creation and Tracking processes:

Having a formal Change processes itself is a barrier to most spur-of-the-moment change decisions. At the minimum, change request processes should describe how a change request is created, who reviews it, criteria for escalation, stakeholders to be involved and change closure. It also needs to tie in Configuration Control for effectiveness.

Incorporating change (and its consequences) into planning:

Usually this is a fatality in most change processes. Changes to non-scope areas of the project are considered to be immune to schedule or cost effects, which is rather unlikely. Sometimes, the development team is asked to absorb the effect as the price for not understanding or doing it right the first time. Managers in charge of change control must resist this thought process or risk losing much more at a later stage in the project.

Stricter controls as Project progresses

At the start, change is more likely, since everyone is feeling around in the dark, establishing sign-posts and installing lights, figuratively, but as you progress in the project, it is important to ensure that every change request is asked “why” several times. Any change later in the lifecycle, especially with respect to decisions, is likely to affect work products already produced and accepted. A common victim of this syndrome in an application development project is the User Interface, which is thought to be like a skin – easily replaced, but is it? In services, Change is more tightly connect to configuration than with Application development, but the principle still holds true.

Having looked at some mechanisms for managing change, let us go back on how and where to apply change management. Change Management in an application development scenario can be used at:

• Scope management
• Technology stacks
• Architecture
• Design
• Standards to be followed, such as branding, user interface etc
• Third-party components
• Development environments

In a services environment, change needs to be managed for

• Hardware
• System Software (OS, standard application software etc)
• Communication equipment
• Services and their endpoints
• Processes and
• knowledge databases

Note: In IT Service Management circles, the CCB is termed as CAB, shortened for Change Advisory Board (though why it just “advises” stumps me).

That’s alright, I know this stuff, but where does the PMO fit in, you ask? PMO must be the oversight for managing change. The PMO establishes the procedures for change control and provides necessary direction to the Program on the levels of CCB (scope of change control, escalation criteria etc). It is also the final arbiter for changes to Project scope, schedule or cost.

In fact, for rescuing troubled projects, one of the first things a PMO should do is to take a hard look at the project for change leaks and based on the amount of leakage, institute an appropriate level of change control. I say “take a hard look” since it is almost guaranteed that a typical derailed project has issues managing change.

What are you experiences in managing change in your projects or services? Is there something else? Think and let me know about it.

Related posts:

1. Series: Project, Program and Enterprise PMO
2. PMO Series: Quality Management
3. PMO Series: How to Review Projects

Collaboration is a dance of contribution, requiring that people alternately step forward to contribute and step back to let others contribute.

Old, on the Internet timeline, but timeless on the timeline of human endeavours.

I cannot possibly write anything on this that is better than what Alistair has already said. Maybe, some experiences/observations, but that is for a later date, when I have really understood in depth his thoughts. Read the complete post “Collaboration is the dance of contribution“

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