Sad Moments; Thick Skin

Just a quick departure from my measurement focus; to say that we project managers need to have thick skin if we are going to survive.

You hear seasoned project managers talk about their scars. These come from projects that didn't go as originally planned; usually in a non-favourable direction. So I am dedicating this post today to all those project managers out there with heavy hearts, for whatever reason you are feeling somewhat dejected, cheer up - your going to wake up tomorrow with the same insane passion that put you where you are today, doing what you love most!

Project Measurements - First Pilot

Yeah!!!.. The first pilot of the new Project Performance Index went exceedingly well today. The project group consisted of 7 team members (plus me = 8). I consider this an optimal size to get a fair cross section of opinions. The team was asked to rate the three performance categories across the range of "Great", "Good", "Caution" and "At Risk". These rating scales are used elsewhere in other project status reporting tools so they were a natural fit to use here.

Before asking the group to rate each I framed up the context within the three categories. This gave them a common understanding of what was to be considered, and hopefully educated them about what is considered important.

Initially I was surprised at the results. The team rated both Business Performance and Project Performance as Caution to Caution - At Risk. And to their credibility, these brutally honest results were shared among the group. However at second thought, I now consider these results as to be expected. The rationale behind this is that the project team has only been together for one month now, and would be feeling somewhat disjointed and unsure about the project.

The real test as to whether doing this measurement was time worth spending is if anyone saw value in it. Fortunately this did occur, and I suspect because not only did we surface some undisclosed concerns, but because we came up with actions to move the rating towards great.

The exercise also gave me further insight towards representative samples. In order to assess project performance across the corporation I need to survey projects at different times within their lifecycle.

PPI - Stakeholder Survey Template

Ok.. here is a model of a template I'm contemplating as part of the Project Performance Index toolbox. This template is a survey for assessing stakeholder engagement. It is one method for testing the business performance component. The survey has 8 categories:

- Risks
- External Dependencies
- Sustainment
- Resource Management
- Strategic Alignment
- Documented Procedures
- People, Process, & Systems Alignment
- Short Interval Control

Each category has one question, posed in the form of a statement. For example, the question for assessing stakeholder engagement for Risks reads:

"I am comfortable that management manages the main risks and issues on the project."

and the 5 possible responses are:
Always, Frequently, Infrequently, Never, and Not Applicable

This design is repeated for each question in the 8 categories.

Here is another example, the question for People, Process, & Systems Alignment reads:

"Training is aligned to address gaps with technical, customer, and process requirements."

Now I don't propose that these questions are very deep or complicated. And that is by design. The intent is to encourage your participants to complete the survey. If you make it too complicated then it will require more effort from them. The end result will be that you trade off quantity versus quality. In my opinion, your going to interpret the results anyways, so why not put the effort back on your shoulders. Remember in an earlier post I suggest that you try things on yourself before engaging others.. well allocating the effort onto you is a spin off from that advice.

Please feel free to forward suggestions on other simple questions to use.

Being cognitive of the...

....

Ok so your probably wondering two things.

1. What relationship does the pygmalion effect have with the Project Performance Index
2. What is the pygmalion effect.

Well according to the book titled "The Knowing-Doing Gap"; by Jeffrey Pfeffef and Robert I. Sutton, it is the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy on performance.

I belive that the pygmalion effect is one of many factors to consider when developing a good measurement set. Another is the Hawthorne effect (you influence what you measure). The pygmalion effect tells us that project performance will be influenced merely because we believe that it will, and visa versa.

So if this is the case, then why go to all the bother to develop and track a measurement system? Hmmm.. the answer is because nobody will want to trust and/or act on faith alone. However that shouldn't preclude you from using this effect to your advantage.

So my advice is to tell everyone how great adding a measurement system to projects will be, and how much better projects will perform once they start getting measured... trust me..

Project Performance Index - Part 1 of Many

I am committing to make this blog posting one of many pertaining to establishing a project measurement system called "Project Performance Index". The interesting aspect of this is that posts will be listed top to bottom, latest to earliest. So I apologize in advance to the reader who may be totally confused about the content they are reading.

In general, the project performance index would be a validation of Business performance, Project Performance, and Team Performance. Tangible criteria that can be evaluated early and often is recommended however this does not preclude using less tangible criteria such as customer satisfaction or instituting change.

Business Performance: Meeting or exceeding the projects value proposition and the sustainment effort required to position the end product for success into its life cycle.

Project Performance: Meeting or exceeding time, cost, and technical performance objectives (ie: delivery of a product or milestone on or before the time it's required, at or below cost, and within the range of design or performance specifications).

Team Performance: Meeting or exceeding the behaviours that ensure the team functions as a unit and not single entities. Collaboration, sharing of idea's, respecting one another, and contributing to a common goal.

I want to close off this entry at this point but before I do I'll leave you with two thoughts;

1. Despite best practices; organizational culture will influence what measures are accepted.
2. I quote a section out of the book titled:
   
   The Complete Project Management Office Handbook
   by Gerard M. Hill (ed)
   Auerbach Publications © 2004
   
   From Chapter 3: Standards and Metrics
   The "standards and metrics" function enables the PMO to:

• Identify accepted concepts and practices for use within the project management environment
• Establish consistent oversight and control for cost, schedule, and resource utilization
• Manage project, technical, and business process performance to desired standards
• Achieve compliance with industry standards, regulatory mandates, and business policies
• Conduct benchmarking related to competency, capability, and maturity goals

These are great points. The next step is to explain what they mean using a language that the people who sponsor and lead projects understand.

Quick and Easy - A tip 4 You

This is a special post - call it a quick tip:

1. Since Communication makes up about 80% of your project; then communicate early and often
2. Don't wait till your project is fully planned before starting; it will only change again tomorrow
3. If your going to insist on doing something, then start off doing it yourself first.
   

Project Measurements

So let's say your interested in measuring the performance of your project. How do you go about this? Do you go for a plain vanilla measurement set; measuring quality, time, cost, and scope? Or do you get a bit more creative and measure team effectiveness, management effectiveness, and project process compliance (risk management, change control, phase closures, lessons learned.. etc).

The altruistic reason to measure performance is so you can do something about it before it is too late. Therefore adopting measures that indicate outcomes of a process will likely be ineffective. These are sometimes referred to as lagging measures. If you want to do something about a process before it is too late, then your going to be in a better position to do so by adopting leading measures. Leading measures look at the process while it is still active. As project managers you recall the control chart (run charts). This is an example of a measurement system designed to provide in process measurements.

So if your considering adopting a project measurement system, consider then that projects get behind one day at a time; and your measurement system needs to be dynamic so that it can give you the timely information required to steer the project back on track.