Elements of a good Project Plan

Dan: Hi Tom. Do you have a moment to talk about what makes a good project plan?

Tom: Sure Dan. First of all actually having a plan is a good first step. You would be amazed at how many projects stumble along without any plan at all. It is a wonder that anything ever gets accomplished in some organizations.

Dan: Is there a 'standard' plan that will fit every project?

Tom: There are lots of frameworks that can be used but it important to remember that you should always tailor your plan to fit your project. Under-planning is a common failure but over-planning can also be a problem in terms of unnecessary overheads and wasted time.

Dan: Do you have any guidelines that I could follow to make sure that I get it right?

Tom: Here is a checklist to help you assess whether your plan is correct, and don’t hesitate to add to it any factors which are important in your project environment.

• Is the plan do-able?
  When you look at it, do you feel comfortable that the plan is realistic or, deep down, do you know it to be unrealistic? You have to be really honest with yourself on this one.

• Is the plan in balance?
  Following on from the first question, are the resources, timescales, scope and required quality in balance? Can you say "yes, I can deliver that scope, with those resources, in that timescale to that quality level"? Don’t be fooled by those triangle diagrams that show just three elements as there are actually four to consider.

• Does the plan fit the project?
  Are you content that the plan is a good fit to the project? If it doesn’t show enough detail to control the project then it will not function effectively. However, if the plan is in great and unnecessary detail (perhaps following some site standard) then you have already wasted some time, but will continue to waste more keeping the plan up to date unless you chop it down to size.

• Are the deliverables clearly identified?
  Many planning approaches focus on activity and there is a great pre-occupation about what is done. But projects are really about delivery. Are your deliverables clearly identified and specified? Activities should be identified once it is known what is to be delivered, rather than deciding what is to be done and then trying to figure out what will be delivered!

• Is the plan clear?
  Is it easy to understand for all who will come into contact with it? That means Project Board members as well as you and the Team Managers. If not, clarify it. It is unfair to ask a Project Board to commit to a plan that they barely understand, and if they do commit, it will almost certainly lead to problems later.

• Is contingency included?
  Something is going to happen that you haven’t thought of, so contingency must be in the plan. The amount of contingency will depend on the risk of the project, your experience and a range of other factors. Try to establish an open relationship with the Project Board so that contingency is clearly on the plan, not hidden away in inflated estimates.

• Is the scope clear and agreed?
  Scope creep is a major cause of project difficulty. Make sure that the scope is absolutely clear. It can be very helpful in many cases to list what the project will NOT cover, as well as what it will cover. This helps manage expectations. If additional scope is required during the project, then change control becomes easier because it is apparent that the plan does not currently cater for the element, and extra time and resource will be required if the change is to be accepted.

I hope that helps you Dan.


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The Project Sponsor - Responsibilities

Tom: Hi Dan, how is your new project doing. Are you getting all the support you require?

Dan: The project is going Okay. I'm just going over to the Project Sponsor to discuss it. He seems to be quite enthusiastic about the project but I'm not sure if he understands all the responsibilities that come with the role. Do you have anything that could help me?

Tom: I have found that most Project Sponsors are unaware of all their responsibilities. Here is a checklist I use when speaking with them. It may help you.

Project Sponsor Responsibilities

• Clearly understands the business need (time vs. cost vs. quality)
• Understands who the project end user is
• Clarifies roles and responsibilities with Programme Manager / Project Manager as appropriate
• Defines and communicates success criteria for the programme / project
• Makes him/herself available to the PM as appropriate
• Sets realistic but challenging targets
• Chairs the steering group/board (if one has been established)
• Signs-off the Quality Plan
• Makes resources available to the project team if appropriate
• Communicates the project vision and its business priority
• Believes in the intended outcome (is enthusiastic)
• Demonstrates commitment
• Sells the project to key stakeholders
• Removes obstacles
• Manages the political barriers and removes obstacles to success
• Resolves conflict
• Monitors progress
• Controls or limits changes to objectives, scope, requirements, timescales and budget
• Keeps stakeholders informed
• Ensures business review of the programme / project
• Monitors the realisation of the business benefits
• Formally closes the project
• Provides feedback to the contributors
• Learns from experience

Tom: I'm sure there are other responsibilities you may want to add to the list and some of the responsibilities I have listed may not apply in your situation. However, the list should come in handy as a discussion document with your Project Sponsor.

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Handling difficult questions during presentations

Tom: Hi Dan. Have you made your presentation the multi-cultural group you spoke about a few days ago?

Dan: Hi Tom. Yes, I followed the advice you gave me and it went very well. I have another presentation coming up in a couple of day and this time it is to a group I know I will have trouble with. The last presentation I made to them did not go well. They asked me a lot of very difficult questions and I really did not know how to handle them. To be quite honest I think my reputation took a bit of a beating. Do you have any suggestions for handling tough questions during presentations of meetings?

Tom: Yes, I do but the preparation start well before the meeting. Here are some guidelines for you:

1. Before the presentation, anticipate the six most likely difficult questions your group will ask and practice your answers.

2. Also, plan how to answer the easy questions. For each one identify two or three key points you wish to make and practice them. Avoid the temptation to talk for too long on questions you are comfortable with.

3. Pause before answering, then respond succinctly with (at least an appearance of) confidence.

4. Maintain eye contact with the entire audience, not just the questioner.

5. When a difficult question is asked ask for clarification: it will give you more time to prepare a response.

6. If you do not know the answer to a question, then ask a colleague or even ask the audience. Do not guess, admit that you don’t know but offer to find out and contact the questioner later.

7. Rephrase hostile questions in neutral terms.

8. If you have a persistent questioner, suggest that you discuss the issue during the next break.

9. Always try to turn negative questions into positive points (i.e. ‘we’ve all learned from our mistakes and things have improved’).

10. Don’t finish on the last answer. Close on a high note by repeating your key messages.

I hope that helps. Good luck, or should I say, good preparation for the presentation.

Dan: Thanks Tom.

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Using Games and Simulations for Learning and Development

Dan: Hi Tom. I'm going to be holding a project team 'learning day' in a couple of weeks and one of the team members suggested that we use either games or simulation for the training instead of just having someone come in to lecture to us. Some of the team got a bit bored at the last learning day. What do you think of the idea?

Tom: I think it is an excellent idea. There are many reasons to use interactive learning during training sessions. Some of the reasons I would use games and simulations are:

1. Learning becomes enjoyable, challenging and stimulating.

2. They enable participants to quickly realize their strengths and weaknesses in a relatively safe environment.

3. They enable the transfer of theory into practice.

4. They enable participants to see and experience the gap between what they think they believe and what their behaviour demonstrates they believe.

5. Games and simulations encourage participants to take risks and experiment with new behaviour.

6. Participants often know more than they think they know. Games and simulations help participants to discover the underlying principles that make them competent.

7. They stimulate participants to ask more penetrating questions, about themselves, their colleagues and their organization, than a more formal learning process would trigger.

8. They can produce more powerful insights than were planned for the learning experience.

9. ...and, best of all, games and simulations are FUN.

I think it is a great idea Dan. Let me know if you decide to do it.

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Making change projects 'stick'

Dan: Tom, one of the issues that concerns me about projects that attempt to change the way people in the organization think or work is ‘will it actually happen’? We do a lot of work and spend a lot of money and it would be terrible if everyone reverted to the old way of doing things and nothing really changed.

Tom: Can you be more specific about the type of project you are thinking of?

Dan: Well, I’m not really thinking of what I would call a straight forward project like building a new store, installing a new computer system or working on a new marketing campaign. These projects usually have a business case that spells out what the costs and benefits are. People may not agree with them but they are usually quite straightforward. I am thinking more about the types of projects to introduce a new way of thinking in the organization. It could be a new focus on quality, the introduction of a 'creativity and innovation' program or a management initiative to simplify everything. These are the projects I am having a problem with.

Tom: You are quite right, Dan. Many organizations have difficulty making the changes they want from these projects ‘stick’. They are usually the type of projects that are initiated through the organizations strategic planning process and are intended to change the ‘culture’ of the company. For the changes to take affect there has to be something more than sending out some emails and putting a few posters on the wall.

Dan: Do some companies really expect the changes to take place by just doing that?

Tom: Yes, unfortunately they do but to make things happen they have to do a lot more than that.

I believe that in order for strategic objectives and initiatives to 'stick' in an organization they must be cascaded down and personalized at every level in the organization. They must also be embedded in the appraisal system for every employee.

The way to make it work is to start with the company vision and the strategic objectives that will enable the company to reach its vision. These are cascaded down through ALL the levels in the organization. This could be country level, region, division, department and the individual. That means communicating the vision and strategic objectives to every member of staff no matter what level they are and what they do. However, the key is to 'personalize' the vision and objectives at each level. There must be a logical link to the level above but they must also be interpreted in a way that makes sense to the individual.

So, for instance, a company goal may be "Make it easy for our customers to work with us". At a business analyst level that could be personalized to read "Simplify all our processes", at a janitor level it could be "All public areas must be clean, tidy and free of clutter at all times". The test is when you ask anyone in the organization what they are working on and they should reply in a language that demonstrates a clear link up through their department goals to the company goal. So, if you asked a programmer what they were working on they would not answer, "I'm working on program 123" but they should instead reply with something like, "I'm working on a program to provide a simpler user interface to the mortgage calculation function which is in line with our goal to simplify all our process resulting in an environment which will make it easier for our customers to work with us." It may seem a little long-winded but it does indicate that your staff know what they are doing and how it contributes to the overall goals of the company. When this happens it means that you can be sure that everyone in the organization is truly aligned.

In practical terms the personalized goals and measurements must be imbedded into the personal planning and appraisal process. This would happen at ALL levels in the organization.

We can take this concept a little further. If someone is working on something that is not traceable up through the cascaded vision and goals then we must ask “Why are they doing this?” Many times I have found that half the work being done in a department is not contributing to the current goals of the organization.

Dan: Making the changes part of the appraisal system is a great idea. Is there anything more that can be done to encourage people to change the way they normally do things?

Tom: That’s a good point Dan. There is something I used to do in one organization that I worked in. The objective was to encourage an individual to take risks. When you are introducing changes to a company culture it is not always clear what has to change. It is therefore important for the staff to take risks. But why should they if it means getting into trouble? They way I did this was to encourage any of my staff who had an idea that was out of the ordinary and carried some risk with it to put a case together and presented it to me. It did not have to be formal but it did have to be accurate. If I felt that the idea was worthwhile pursuing then I shared that risk with the staff member and supported them. I also wrote it into their appraisal in a way that if they were successful with their idea then they would in effect receive bonus points but if they were not successful then they would not be penalized for the failure. They would, in fact, get credit for taking a risk.

I would summarize the process of making changes in an organization ‘stick’ by doing the following: identify company vision and goals, cascade these down through all levels in the organization personalizing them at each level, cascade right down to the individual, embed the vision and goals in the personal planning and goal setting process.

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Project justification

Dan: Projects in this organisation seem to start for very sound business reasons. Is that always the case?

Tom: We would like to think that every project is necessary and founded on good business rationale. However, they have been started for some unusual reasons. For example there is the case of a senior manager who request a project to be started for a new piece of software because he read about it in an in-flight magazine and thought it would be ‘neat’ to have it in his organisation.

There was also the time when a director of a large international computer manufacturing company asked his secretary how much it cost to produce a single copy from one of the many copiers that they had around their office. The secretary was very efficient and started a small project which involved about half a dozen people over the course of a few days as they gathered and checked all the relevant data. After about a week the secretary informed the director that they cost 10.2 cents a copy. He thanked her for the information and gave her a dollar to put in the petty cash as he had made five copies for his church the previous week. This is a very good example of why you must be absolutely clear about your project right form the start.

Dan: But surely nobody would start a project just on a simple question like ‘How much does a copy cost?’.

Tom: You would be surprised Dan. Projects do start and companies do invest lots of resource based on very informal requests. It is not unusual to be asked to start a project through an email, a casual conversation in the hall or at the water-cooler or by someone asking us to just ‘check this out’. It is not the way to be in control or to be professional, but it happens.

Dan: If that is the case then should all requests for projects come on a formal project request?

Tom: In an ideal world all projects would start with a formal request. The benefit of using a standard method is that the project request form would prompt the person filling it in to provide the right information for a quick and efficient start. If you are asked to manage a project and you do not have a formal project request then fill one out yourself and have the person who requested the project to review the details and sign it. It will save you a lot of time later.

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Project work

Dan: Is all the work that we do in the organisation a project?

Tom: Not really, Dan. The work that you do every day we usually call operational work. That could be activities such as serving customers, shipping finished good, ordering parts on a regular basis and, of course, going to meetings. It is when we do something different that has a clear beginning and a clear end then we call it a project. It could include things such as building a new factory, designing and building a new payroll system or launching a new product line.

Dan: I hear people talking about projects more and more. Is that because we are doing lots of different things?

Tom: It could be but it could also be because managers in organisations are seeing the benefits of good project management that they are applying the tools and techniques of project management to operational work. We call this ‘Management by Projects’.

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Presenting to multi-cultural groups

Tom: Hi Dan. How’s your presentation going.

Dan: Well I know what I want to say and I have all the materials ready but, to tell the truth, I’m nervous about making the presentation. The group I’m making the presentation to is made up of people from different parts of the world and I’m afraid that with the cultural differences I may not be able to make myself understood.

Tom: It can be quite challenging addressing a multinational audience, it is easy to be misunderstood. Here are few simple guidelines for getting your point across.

1. Keep it simple. Think from the audience’s point of view. Never assume that participants speak or understand the English that you use.

2. Do not use double negatives. For example, ‘I’m not suggesting you couldn’t solve the problem, but…’ could leave the listener confused. Try changing it to, ‘we all know you could solve the problem but…’.

3. Expect to take more time to achieve your objective.

4. For key messages use alternative media such as visual aids, images, handouts or translations to make sure your point is understood.

5. Consider using professional interpreters to enable all participants to contribute equally.

6. Keep to one idea per sentence.

7. Make positive direct statements. For example, instead of saying ‘we don’t want to hurry you but…’ you could say ‘we need this as soon as possible. Is this OK with you?’.

8. Ask others to repeat what they have understood.

9. Look out for alternative interpretations. For example the phrase ‘to table’ a document has a different meaning in England and the USA.

10. Provide regular, concise summaries of a discussion.

11. Paraphrase or repeat a question before answering.

12. If you use humour, make sure it is simple and obvious.

If you follow these suggestions you should be OK. Let me know how you get on.

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Introducing Tom and Dan

Welcome to the Management Coaching blog for the discussion of management and leadership topics. There could be discussions about the characteristics of a manager, project management issues, change management, the difference between managers and leaders, creativity with purpose, presentation skills, coaching skills, training, the use of games and simulations, teambuilding, process improvement, etc. We hope that you participate and enjoy the discussions.

Tom and Dan will introduce the discussions, however, we will probably meet other people from time to time.

Here is a short profile of Tom and Dan to get us started. You will learn more about them in future posts.

Tom is an experienced Project and Change Manager. He has managed both small and large projects all over the world in a variety of organisations. The projects have been business projects, IT projects, building projects and many other types. Tom has a vast amount of management experience. He is the mentor and coach of Dan.

Dan has managed a few small projects in the past and struggled through with only a few bruises. He did not use any frameworks or methodologies for his projects and only did what seemed right at the time. Dan has no formal training in Project Management or any other form of management. He is determined that his next project is managed more professionally.

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