Archive for June, 2009

Project Forms

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Over the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to work with Portland Metro (an organization led by an elected board to manage the development of the Portland, Oregon  metropolitan area).  Through Portland State University, I have taught almost every member of management the subject of tools for project management.  This includes a standard set of forms that help guide every phase of projects.

I was delighted to find recently that the Metro staff has taken ownership over their internal use of the toolset by modifying many of the forms to fit their particular needs.  In fact, they have moved beyond using the tools just for project management and have extended into using some of the forms for process management.  (They refer to processes as programs).

The tools they have adopted include the following:

  • Project Complexity Assessment…is a checksheet and form that allows the project sponsor to evaluate how rigorous the project management approach should be.  Some projects are fast and easy, requiring very little approval or oversight.  Other projects are large, complex, and/or politically important enough to require the careful guideance of the elected officials.
  • Project Proposal…this form outlines everything a typical project should have specified before starting, including specification, cost, timing, and responsibilities.
  • Council Project Proposal…this is a special form of the Project Proposal that adds certain information important if the Metro Council of elected officials approval and guidance will be required.
  • Stakeholder analysis…in the very public arena of Metro, it is important that all stakeholders have the opportunity to participate in projects.  This tool not only identifies who the stakeholders are, but encourages the development of a communications plan to ensure participation at the right times and in well designed forums.
  • Responsibility matrix…outlines who does what on the project.  Metro decided to use the PARIS format to determine roles (Participant, Accountable, Review Required, Input Required, and Sign-off Required).  The form encourages not only project team member responsibiities to be identified, but also key stakeholders.  It relates responsibility to each task.  For project that involve elected officials or other high profile individuals, an alternative Responsibility matrix using RAPID rather than PARIS was developed.  The RAPID approach (Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, Decide) provides more distinction between those who decide and those who agree.
  • Risk assessment… provides a way to list all major risks, assess them into red, yellow or green levels of concern, and establishes a methodology for ongoing monitoring and reporting.
  • Project status reports…focus on budget, schedule and approval of deliverables, using a red, yellow, green at a glance approach supported by more indepth data.  The report includes a listing of issues and concerns, as well as next action items for the project team, senior management, and the Metro Council.
  • Program status reports…are very similar to project status reports, except they focus on processes.  Any appropriate set of metrics replaces the budget, schedule and approval of deadlines used in the project status report.  This form uses the same red, yellow, green at a glance approach supported by more indepth data to track the performance metrics.  Besides listing issues and concerns and next actions included inthe project status report, it also includes and area for the analysis of risks and opportunities.
  • Scope change form…provides a way to request and receive approval for changes to a project or program.  It is supported by a detailed log providing a complete history of changes.
  • Project Evaluation guide…provides a review of the entire project from aspects including framing, work plan, personnel, analysis, communications, tools, and outcomes.

The Metro tool set is a great example of an organization proactively adapting generic tools to meet their individual needs.  Each of these forms is used by the project team and managed by the project manager and sponsor.

In AccomplishTS, forms like these are placed in the document library in each work area associated with each project or program.  All team members, project sponsor, and authorized stakeholders participate in continuously keeping the forms updated and current.  Tied to the built in metrics and structure of AccomplishTS, a powerful, fully customized solution evolves, leading to powerful results.

The lessons I have learned from Portland Metro have stimulated me to begin to expand the chapters on project management and process management in my book, Action with Traction.  It is clear to me that a second edition is not far off!

Tags: ,
Posted in Project Management | No Comments »

Creating a strong strategy is more than good words – it is about learning and involvement

Monday, June 1st, 2009

There is a strong need for executive management teams to periodically check out from day to day operations and check into a retreat focused on developing strategy.  This import effort is a chance for the leadership team to focus on the future direction of the organization and to identify or update metrics that are critical for the organization to score well on, as well as to identify specific goals and strategies to achieve those metric scores.

This is hard work.  It requires careful consideration of what the mission of the organization is, what the organization is capable of achieving in the near future, and extending that understanding as far out into the future as possible.  It includes analyzing what is resisting short and long term results and determining what effort is worthwhile to expend on each obstacle.  That information must then be translated into a set of metrics that will indicate progress and establishment of goals against those metrics that will stretch the organization as well as be reasonably achievable.

All this must be followed with an ‘unpacking’ of the this vision into a set of goals and associated strategies that will set the direction of the organization for some reasonable time.  Often this is aided by reviewing previous goals and strategies, competition, industry trends, and other information that  give the leaders ideas as well as clarify constraints.

The strategies that evolve are the result of tremendous learning.  However, at the end of the retreat, that learning was only experienced by those that attended.  An important step is to work with the rest of the organization, at all levels, through an involvement process to not only share the results of the retreat, but also to advance it and help everyone experience as much of the learning as possible.  By holding meetings with cross-sections of the employees throughout the organization to explore the metrics, the metric targets, the strategies and their associated goals, many good ideas, concerns, and new directions will emerge,  Even more important, employees will develop their own sense of direction for the organization and the mindset of ownership will evolve – and thus commitment to the directions that eventually emerge in the form of initiatives.  This is critical, since the work of those initiatives will be carried out by those same employees.

Ownership and commitment evolve if employees feel they have the opportunity to not only give input, but to also make a contribution to the final plan.  While the leadership team will have a great deal of their own blood, sweat and tears in the outcome from the retreat, there is huge value in making sure that they sincerely listen to what the employees say, not only to understand their words, but also to consider the view from the employee perspective and to make changes when appropriate.

After members of the executive team have engaged the employees in interactive sessions, holding a second retreat is a good idea.  In that retreat, the metrics, targets, goals and strategies should be updated, and a first attempt at creating initiatives started.  All of this should then be taken back to the employees and evolved yet again.

If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. This interactive approach, however, is the best way to help the organization learn and contribute to the direction of the organization.  It is the only way to ensure that the direction has been evolved with the best thinking of the whole organization and at the same time ensure that the majority of employees will be committed to support that direction.

Since this is a big effort, consider only focusing on a portion of the whole set of strategies at a time, cycling through continuously so the conversation between the executive team and the employees is nearly continuous and the plans of the organization are current yet fluid.

Tags:
Posted in Strategic planning | No Comments »