Author: Carl Pritchard

Carl Pritchard, PMP®, PMI-RMP® is the author of seven project management texts, and co-produced “The Audio PMP Prep: Conversations on Passing the PMP® Exam” with Bruce Falk. He is the U.S. Correspondent for the British Project Management Magazine, “Project Manager Today” and serves on the board of directors for ProjectConnections.com

Are You an AMAZING Project Manager?

Imagine you’ve just finished an incredible meal at an incredible restaurant. The food was flawless. Everything was perfect. Your significant other was duly impressed. What would it take to make you cough up a 25% gratuity? Many of us wouldn’t even consider such a thing, but there comes a time when it seems appropriate. I have asked this question dozens and dozens of times. And the answers are pretty consistent. The server would have to be downright clairvoyant. They would have to bring what I want before I even have a chance to ask for it. They would only appear when they’re wanted. Otherwise, they’d leave us alone. The meal would have to be incredible and memorable. The server would have to really know the menu and share the chef’s capabilities. The server would have to genuinely like their job. Sounds like an amazing server, don’t you think? The interesting aspect of this question is that many of those self-same traits could be ascribed to amazing project managers. We have the opportunity to be truly amazing, if we take the time to build our knowledge base to that of a top-flight server. Clairvoyance You don’t have ESP. Really. But you can predict the future. If you build a networked schedule, know the plan inside and out, and have a clear sense of the potential trouble spots on the horizon you can predict when certain deliverables are going to be on time and when they’re going to be late. And, if you know that the (insert your least favorite deliverable here) is perennially late, you can warn the customer when they put in their order. Honesty is often mistaken for clairvoyance. It can actually can be a “two-for.” Be honest with your customers and be given credit for foresight. It’s one of the amazing project manager’s win-wins! Timely Appearance Meetings run late. Teleconferences run long. Some clients want daily attention. Others rarely want to see your smiling face. When it comes to being “timely,” one size definitely does not fit all. The advent of the modern, web-driven, reminder-based calendar has made this aspect of an amazing project manager’s behavior an easier hill to climb. Want to make it easy on yourself?  Maintain an alarm-based calendar with a wide window to allow time to respond before an event actually hits. Want to make it easy on your customer?  Make your calendar readily and publicly available, so they’ll know the right time to hit you. Making the customer your time-based ally is an amazing behavior. Incredible Menu Knowledge You know your organization’s gifts. You know what they’re good at, and why. You know which customers they love and why they love them. You have the leverage to actually create better customers as a project manager. Organizations tend to favor the customers who play to organizational strengths. You can create alignment here by identifying your strengths and selling those aspects to customers as being in their best interest. And if they want something that’s not on the menu (or on its weaker side)?  Let them know the positive aspects of their choice, as well as the drawbacks. We can’t afford to un-sell our organization, but we need customers to have an honest understanding of how we are good stewards of the relationship capital we expend every day. Loving Your Job I count myself blessed on a daily basis that I have a job I truly love. I also have a son who can make the same claim. He’s a paleontologist. (Yes, like Ross on Friends). He wanted to be a dinosaur guy when he was two years old. He’s 30 now, working at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I bring this up because I did not know I wanted to be a project manager when I was two. I didn’t know I wanted to be a project manager when I was 30, but I am one now. And, turns out, I love my job. People gravitate toward my son because he seems impassioned about his work. People who never cared about a drepanosaur, find it intriguing because Adam does. People will gravitate toward you if you can show them the amazing capabilities of your team, your organization, and your outputs. People will genuinely see you as their ally if you can highlight how your passion translates into better outcomes for them. Again, it’s a win-win. The Road to “Amazing” The road to amazing is not a long trail. The path is wide and clear, and paved with understanding an honesty about what we do, what we do well, and how that serves the interests of those we serve. When we take others down that path with us, both they and we become progressively more and more amazing. If you’d like to learn more, watch my webinar, “10 Traits of Amazing Project Managers”, now available on-demand. In this session, I’ll take you through a dynamic presentation on the critical skills and talents it takes to move project managers from good to AMAZING. I’ll explain why instant access to contracts is a crucial consideration and why Microsoft Project can be used to makes us verifiable tellers of truth. Related Content Webinars (watch for free now!): From Task Manager to People Manager – The Next Generation of Project Managers Collaborative Project Management – Process & Leadership Articles: Three Activities That Help Create an Authentic Workplace Ten Project Management Truths Communication: 5 Ways to Improve Your Project’s Lessons Learned

The Three Most Common Risks in Project Management

Projects hit the same risks over and over again: The requirements may not be adequately defined, causing re-work; The team members may not collaborate adequately, causing delays and cost overruns; and/or The client may prove mercurial, causing delays, cost overruns and re-work. As you look at those three risks, you probably have a reasonably high confidence level that they’ve happened on your own projects. They’re common. They’re pedestrian. They happen on virtually every project. People are human and change their minds. Requirements are generally difficult to define. And yet, we still act surprised when these three things evolve on our own projects. Assuming you are immune to common risks is like assuming you are immune to the common cold. It’s a lovely thought, but… Perhaps the more amazing thing is that these three common risks actually have common strategies for risk response: Take sufficient time to define the requirements; Give team members the opportunity and rationale for playing nicely together; and Get information from the client and give information to the client in writing while looking for any dangerous language along the way. On Defining Requirements “Forget the requirements! Start building!” Oddly enough, that’s the real-world sentiment of many organizations. To show physical, visible progress, they want to start creating something before they fully understand what it is that they need to create. Sometimes they succeed, but more often, they don’t. What’s a major risk to almost any project? Unclear or undefined requirements. To validate whether you truly understand a requirement, it takes at least three participants. One should be a representative of the ultimate product owner. That person can define what they need. Another should be a representative of the product provider or generator. That person can define what they’re going to deliver. And the third person should have been an English major in college. This individual will be responsible for determining whether vague language is included in either of the other parties’ statements. The easiest way to find iffy requirements is generated by an adjective hunt. Seek out the adjectives. User-friendly. Legible. Sufficient. Fast. Limited. Uninterrupted. Reasonable. Those are the words in a requirement that anyone can leverage/exploit to their own advantage. They are the holes in what may otherwise be a reasonable document. Or better still, they can be defined down the road. Suggesting that terms can be defined later generates huge risks. Don’t do that. On Helping Team Members Play Nicely Together The Internet era has brought about a strange phenomenon. Workers can communicate real-time with someone halfway around the world. They can also use the same communications tool to talk with someone two cubes down the hall. Just because they can, doesn’t mean they should. When staff are deployed in the same physical space, it’s a good idea to allow them some face time. Faces matter. They provide a human touch and a human connection. And for those team members that are halfway around the world? We need to make sure we find some ties that bind. Little things matter. Dogs. Children. Cars. Vacation spots. Hometowns. Familiar landmarks. The more that we can do to find the small threads that bind us to the rest of those with whom we work, the less chance they will assume anything less than positive intent. As managers we want positive intent. We want our team members to feel like they are genuinely part of something larger than themselves. And they need to know that we appreciate them and believe they add true value. Team members are often left in isolation under the assumption they’ll get more done if they just get basic direction and someone to point the way. Don’t do that. On Getting It in Writing From virtually any perspective, this risk strategy sounds cold and calculating. Sign it. Someone asks you to do them a favor. You say, “Sure! Happy to! Just sign here that you wanted that favor done!” It sounds impersonal and like you’re doing harm to the relationship. But nothing could be further from the truth. Signatures have meanings. We only sign things that truly matter. If someone really wants a favor, they’ll be willing to sign a piece of paper saying, “I wanted that favor.” It affirms what’s been said. I always confirm that everyone knew what was requested, when, why and how. It clarifies relationships. Sadly, many relationships die on the altar of miscommunication, but the written word affirms communication. In a somewhat ironic twist, many managers refuse to ask for a signature because they feel it creates more distance in a relationship. In the long term, it’s the documentation that affirms the relationship existed in the first place! Managers often refuse to ask for promises in writing because they’re afraid the other party might be hurt. Don’t do that. These three “don’ts” may not seem like much in the scheme of a multimillion-dollar project or a decades-long relationship. But they represent three of the simplest, clearest, most readily implemented risk responses you could put in place. Do you have risks you’d add to this list? Let the MPUG community know in the comments below.

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