• Topics

  • Log In

October AM on PM Summary: the 4P’s for Project Success

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Joanne Greene-Blose

Our speaker at our October 14th AM on PM was Don Pillittere, MBA, Subcontract Program Manager at ITT and author of the book, “Are we there yet? Diary of a project manager”. Don discussed his four “P’s” of project success; People, Process, Parts, and Phenomena and how the application of these can either hurt or help your project depending on how you execute them. He provided us with the background of a project he was asked to take over where there had been very little process used but how he was able to apply the four “P’s” successfully and saw improvement.

Regarding the People portion, he saw that very few team members had ever been given any type of formal training, something that he felt was important to not only make them more successful in their jobs but to improve their morale. Additionally, there were only 16 people but at least 16 projects at any given time. Far too many to support all 16. This led to the Process portion where he provided them with a mechanism for prioritizing their projects so that resources could be applied towards those high impact projects. He also helped them institute a phases and gates process as well as other project management-related processes such as the use of action items, metrics, weekly project reviews, and monthly reporting.

Regarding the Parts portion, he helped them with supply chain issues, and regarding Phenomena he advised us that the Murphy’s Law phenomena is still alive and well.

Don describes this all in detail in his book, Are we there yet? Diary of a Project Manager. If you attended October’s event you had an opportunity to purchase it there but it’s still not too late, we’re offering it on our website at 20% off. Additionally, all of Dons’ proceeds for sales through the end of year will go to Hospice that supported Don’s sister and family (2009) during her final days fighting cancer.

See you in November!

Filed under: AM on PM Summaries, Integration Management | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Summary on September’s Forum on Decision-Making

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Joanne Greene-Blose

Another great session today! Great turnout and excellent speaker and discussion. We had Anthony (Tony) Ciero, PM at National Grid, walk us through a tool he created to enable data-driven decisions for the company. In particular the tool facilitated project selection through a prioritization scheme that takes key attributes into account. Total cost, expenditures to date, net present value, options and benefits are some of the attributes used and a scoring mechanism is provided that allows you to weight and then qualify on a high, medium, or low scale.

Each project’s data is compared against a baseline so that the scores given are realistic (i.e. not all high priority). Results are graphed, the optimal project determined and then the remaining projects scored with a variance against that optimum. For example if project B is determined to be optimal, you’ll see that project A would be 20% less desirable than B and that project C would be 15% less desirable than B.

Results are used to both justify and prioritize project selections and to back up decisions when reviewed by the public service commission.

Tony shared with us one case where prior to entering the data into the tool the team had already decided which project would come in last place. After data was entered however the last place project ended up in first! This caused them to ask the questions; were the weights correct? Were the categories correct? Were the scores correct? Or – is it a case of the data is showing what we really should be pursuing, that the last placer really should be first?

Tony closed the presentation by sharing with us why he created this tool (which was something he’d done in his spare time) — he’s passionate about tools and as Aristotle said (in the quotation from his last slide), “Where talents and the needs of the world cross, therein lies your vocation.”

Stay tuned as we are discussing how we might make this tool available, perhaps in the form of a half day workshop…

Filed under: AM on PM Summaries, Integration Management | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

August’s Forum Summary on Negotiating

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Joanne Greene-Blose

We had a really great event today with a wonderful speaker and over two dozen people in attendance! I walked away with a number of tips that I can use in the future for better negotiations. Michael Shacket, President of Corner Office Consulting provided us with Eight Tips for Successful Negotiations and he did so in an entertaining and enlightening way.

Tip #1: Decide what you REALLY want. Mike advised that sometimes it’s easy to get off in the weeds and forget why you’re negotiating in the first place. Never lose sight of your goal.

Tip #2: It’s nothing personal, it’s business (a quote from the Godfather). Therefore don’t let emotions interfere with your negotiations. The more emotional you are, the more power you lose.

Tip #3: If it ain’t in writing, it ain’t. Meaning all the verbal promises in the world are meaningless. Mike gave the example that there may have been a lot of verbal promises and handshakes between the city of Rochester and Paetec, but when it came down to it, the key aspects of the deal weren’t in writing (such as what happens to us if you pull out?).

Tip #4: There are NO rules: their internal “rules” are not your concern.

Tip #5: Never say No. There are three answers to a question in negotiations, Yes, I’ll look into it, and “I understand” (and you can even combine 2 and 3). Saying no outright may actually hurt the negotiation and relationship process.

Tip #6: KISS – keep it short and simple. Usually the less you say, the better.

Tip #7: Never expect rationality (from the other party). It may seem perfectly rational from their point of view even if it’s not from yours.

Tip #8: Negotiate Progress Payments. Mike likes to get a certain amount upfront (e.g. 20% down) and higher if the second check is going 60+ days out.

Excellent talk overall and I’ll be posting an audio snippet of it, as well as some pix and Mike’s powerpoint.

See you on September 9th!

Click here to see pictures of the event.

-Joanne

Filed under: AM on PM Summaries, Procurement Management | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

July Summary: Purchasing & Contracts

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Joanne Greene-Blose

Al Gubiotti, our VP at The Project Solver’s, has a long and varied history (over 30 years) of employment with companies ranging from automotive to insurance to computer and IT, including 13 years as a business owner – all before joining us at PSA. Along the way he’s had to deal with a contract or two. So it was quite interesting to hear his perspective on the purchasing and contracting process and the gotchas we should be thinking about on projects.

Al is also in the process of building a four-hour seminar on this topic and the overview of this is what he provided for us today. He touched on the following points in today’s presentation:

  • The purchasing and procurement lifecycle: there are six basic steps
  • How a contract relates to the purchasing function
  • What are the consequences of not following the correct management processes
  • The basics of an RFP and RFQ
  • The creation of a favorable binding contract
  • How to monitor and enforce rights and warranties
  • How to effectively closeout a contract

This was a whole lot to cover but as an overview it was great and we heard some very salient points. For example, beware of contracts with the same party within the company that conflict with each other. A PM down the hall could have one set of arrangements with Vendor ABC and you have a different one and that could create trouble.

There was also quite a bit of debate on whether a PM should have signature authority on the contract. Some felt yes, others no (of course many of you realize that PMI says no – but this can also create a situation where we are “cut off at the knees” so to speak).

Another interesting discussion was whether you as a PM should ever act on a verbal PO #? Al provided an explanation as to why this is really not a good idea. Always have something in hand before beginning the procurement process.

A couple within today’s group also brought out the importance of having the PM’s role and authority level explicitly defined in the charter document; definitely a good idea!

We’ll reprise this topic in August (where we hope to hear from an attorney from their perspective – stay tuned!). In the meantime here is a link with a few pictures of the event as well as a 5 minute audio snippet of the discussion:

Click to hear a snippet from today’s Forum.

Click here to see more pictures.

See you soon!
Joanne

Filed under: AM on PM Summaries, Procurement Management | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Critical Chain and the Theory of Constraints

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Joanne Greene-Blose

Our March AM on PM featured guests David Neale of Energy Wise Partners, LLC and Carla Kinder of Xerox. David, who is an expert on the Theory of Constraints (the underpinnings of Critical Chain) led the first half of our forum with an interactive and fun game that demonstrated why/how TOC works. The group was divided up into teams with two subteams each. Their work involved moving and organizing colored stones in a timed exercise of six minutes. The subteams were representing projects which were more or less occurring in parallel.

Upon completion David led a postmortem asking the group how stressed they felt with two projects and what would happen if a third project had been added to the mix. “I’d quit.” responded one person, reflecting the difficulty in keeping up and completing before the time ran ran out (much as in the real world). Another person commented that “Some people people had to work harder than others.” reflecting how the utilization of resources was not optimum.

Performance-wise teams completed their tasks anywhere between 2:50 and 8:50, with team 1 outperforming team 2 each time. What this showed was the impact of beginning new work before the previous work had completed (teams had start times which were offset). In order to best meet project objectives, work in progress needed to be allowed to complete in as optimum a timeframe as possible.

The second part of the forum was led by Carla and she described how Critical Chain was implemented in her area at Xerox. She told us that the initiative began in 2004 in response to their being unable to meet their project commitments. Their situation was worsening as the number of projects they were being asked to do increased each year. Therefore they thought they’d try something new and enlisted the help of a consulting firm to lead them through a Critical Chain implementation.

The results were successful; they can now deliver 15-18 programs concurrently to five different lines of business, their bug rate is at an all-time low, they deliver when they say they will, and perhaps most importantly, their stakeholders are pleased.

Thanks again to Carla and David – who’ve also agreed to participate in an upcoming podcast for us! Stay tuned…

Filed under: AM on PM Summaries | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »

  • PSA Tweets

    Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page.

  • Previous Months

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

%d bloggers like this: