PM Topic: Importance of Stakeholder Management - They can make or break your project

Stakeholder Management used to fall into the communication knowledge area in PMBOK.  Because of its importance, there is now a separate knowledge area dedicated to Stakeholder Management in PMBOK 5.  For PMs, it is important to know your stakeholders, understand the power they hold, and find ways to keep them satisfied and informed on project progress.  If you are not satisfying or managing stakeholders effectively, it can create major issues in the project. 

I've encounter situations where project goals collide with departments and I end up getting involved spending numerous hours resolving issues.  There are times, when issues arise due to some stakeholders not being adequately involved or the feeling that they should have been involved but weren't - This can create lots of complications and can negatively impact the project.  I've been involved in projects where ineffective stakeholder management has created project delays, increased scope, or canceled projects.

There are three key things that I remember to ensure stakeholders are managed effectively:

• Ensure you have all the key players - Understanding the project scope and identifying positive and negative dependencies early will ensure you have a complete stakeholder registry - You lessen the risk of last minute surprises.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate - Find ways to deliver the message by using multiple channels.  Don't just depend on e-mails or meetings - If you are launching a new product - invite them to your sprint reviews or product checkpoints.  Have engaging meetings - where stakeholders participate and provide feedback.  
• Understand your escalation path - Know your escalation path and keep them informed regularly on the project.  If a situation gets out of control, they can help remove obstacles so you can keep the project moving.

For more information about stakeholder management, please review Stakeholder Management in PMBOK.  Also, I found the below link helpful.  It is a great introduction of the 4 areas within Stakeholder Management in PMBOK:  http://www.pmhut.com/pmbok-5-boosts-stakeholder-management

One on One with Chris Wright

I had an opportunity to speak with Chris Wright to get a sneak peek into what our PMI chapter can expect on Monday, January 14th. Chris Wright is the founder and President of Tanden, which is a project management, leadership development, and professional training company based in Raleigh, North Carolina. His organization provides a wide variety of project leadership training and seminars, management and leadership development, and PMO consulting and portfolio management. Before Tanden, Chris was a project and program manager in the telecommunication and wireless space. He was part of the project to implement cameras in phones, which was first of its kind in 2003 – pretty cool!!!


The topic for Monday is on communicating the value of project management up the chain of command. He will be providing techniques that help us project managers educate the value and benefits of project management to senior management. When speaking with Chris and about this topic, he stressed that we as project managers often focus on a science of project management. What gets overlooked is the art of project management. “Projects are delivered by people – not delivered by templates or forms or tools. Tools support the delivery – but we often overlook the leadership side.”

One of the techniques about communicating up to senior management is the kingdom example, which he will detail out on Monday along with other examples. King is the upper management and they are accountable for different counties. He is going to share how project management can be used for the collective good for the “king”.

If you haven’t register – you don’t want to miss this meeting: http://pmitriadnc.org/Events?eventId=573597&EventViewMode=EventDetails

Reflection: Lessons Learned vs. Retrospective – Which one will you implement?

Throughout my career, I’ve managed several projects and one of the final project rituals which is a must do is the notion of lessons learned.  Earlier in my career, I decided that I would make lessons learned part of a weekly status reporting exercise.  I’m not a fan of doing lessons learned at the end of the project and logging it to a repository which no one will use or look.  

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about a notion of lessons learned – Are they really valuable?  Whether you do it at the end of a project or throughout, do we get the right lessons and is it agreeable with the whole team?  Here is a typical lessons learned exercise:

• Project manager holds an hour meeting at the end of the project to discuss lessons learned
• The team discusses what went well and what needs to be improved 
• Project manager logs lessons learned in a log
• The document gets filed in a repository

If you look at the above steps – how do you know if the entire team was engaged or whether the lessons learned will be reviewed by a subsequent project team?  These exercises are typically great for extroverts like me – Love to talk and love to throw suggestions – but what about the rest of the team?  

In the Agile world, Scrum introduces a retrospective ritual which is conducted at the end of the sprint.  During retrospective, the team provides feedback on the sprint and the process.  A way that our coach has trained us is by following the below framework:

• Give sticky notes to each team
• Scrum master places the following categories on a white board:  Went Well, Went Bad, One-Time Occurrences
• When the team places the sticky on the board, they make sure their statement is unique and not a duplicate
• At the end of 10 minutes, scrum master asks the team to vote by placing a dot on the sticky.  Each person will have 3 voting dots per category
• Scrum Master discusses with team their three highest vote item per category and documents the results
• Next – Scrum master places the following categories on the board:  Start, Stop, and Continue 
• The process of writing, voting, reviewing, and documenting occurs as previous
• At the end of the retrospective, the team makes the commitment to work on the highest vote and the document gets posted to a place where it is visible to the team

Sounds simple – Tools that are used are white board, sticky notes, and markers.  I have several introverts in the group and I see them engaged throughout the process.  There are two main things that allow this process to be effective:

•  Reflection vs. Brainstorming – Each team member is empowered to write their thoughts on the categories.  Since this is a reflection exercise and not brainstorming, the fear is eliminated of talking to group on your thoughts.  It eliminates the feeling that you are being judged or getting cut-off.
• Voting – The only items that are discussed are ones that have the highest votes.  This allows the group to focus and discuss items that are most important.  This process engages all personality types and doesn’t get overshadowed by the extroverts or the one that has a lot to say at all times. 

I’m sold on the notion of retrospectives – whether I run a project via traditional waterfall or agile, in order to get “lessons learned”, the retrospective framework provides the tools and techniques to effectively get team’s thoughts on how the project or sprint is going and what practices should start, stop, or continue.

Top Gun Project Managers

Richard Morreale, our June PMI Triad guest speaker, discussed with our group on what it takes to be on the top of the PM profession.  Here is a recap:

·         Most projects fail due to costs, schedule, expectations, and positive experience
·         Reasons for project failure

o   Lack of agreed requirements

o   Users/business unit are not co-located

o   Lack of proper planning

o   Poor change control – Too bureaucratic

o   Inadequate cost control

o   No agreed process

o   Poor communication

o   Lack of focus

o   Lack of commitment

This was a really interesting point:  In the late 1970s/early 80s showed a project failure rate of 70%.  Companies spent millions on project management methodology, tools and technology, project planning and control, reporting, cost and schedule maintenance, risk and issue management, project metrics, and quality assurance.  In year 2000, the statistic of project failure rate was still at 70%. 

After spending so much money on training and tools, why were projects failing?  What does it take to allow projects not to fail?  Here is a laundry list of each PM to evaluate against.  If you are lacking in any of these areas – develop a personal development plan to work on improving:

·         Hard Skills – Only 20%! – What we learned when we got our PMP certification
·         Soft Skills:

o   Enthusiasm

o   Energy

o   Commitment to excellence and success

o   Passion

o   Positive Attitude

o   Approachable

o   Go the extra mile

o   Get it done attitude

o   A “no problem” person

o   Motivator

o   Communicator

o   Interpersonal skills

Richard ended his presentation with an idea of a PM to be a master of paradox.  For example – Have the ability to be a visionary but know when to go into details.  Another example is the ability to be both a manager and a leader. 

To learn more about Richard Morreale - go to http://www.richardmorreale.com/

Saag Paneer Automation

As I was preparing a meal for my family - Saag Paneer, I thought about automating my cooking process to see if I can shorten the cooking time. Typically, the dish takes one hour. After using tools such as food processor and multi-tasking by making chapatis on side, my cooking process that takes over an hour turned to be 20 mins. I was excited that I saved 40 mins by automating simple tasks. The best thing - the dish was amazingly yummy!!! At work, often times, we do things the same way everyday. We get stuck in a rut because it is comfortable and safe. If we would take few minutes and seek alternative ways, we may save those "minutes". Thinking creatively and finding ways to get the job done faster makes us very effective. It also makes us available to take on work that can be challenging. In a competitive market place, people that can think quick on their feet and work effectively survive. The next time we are doing tasks, challenge yourself to think creatively. You may surprise yourself.

One on One with Richard Morreale - Author of Top Gun Project Managers

I had an opportunity to speak with Richard Morreale to get a sneak peek into what our PMI chapter can expect on Monday, June 11th. I was astonished when I heard about his experiences. Here is a brief bullet list:


• Worked for the Apollo Spaceship program – started out as a messenger

• Worked for Computer Sciences Corporation – started out managing small projects then ended up working on projects for the Army and Navy

• Spent roughly 10 years in Europe – working for England Revenue Services (really cool!)

• Developed CSC – UK’s first project management group

• Opened a project management consultancy group in UK

• Written several articles and books on project management such as Killer ideas for delivering successful projects and Top Gun Project Managers.

The chapter meeting is going to be on “Top Gun Project Managers” – What it takes to reach the top of the Project Management Profession. Richard will be discussing with us 8 strategies that each PMs should follow, how to become a master of paradox, and soft skills needed to be successful. He is a firm believer of a success equation that 20% of what we have learned is in the PMBOK and the other 80% is our attitude, behavior, and how we treat people.



If you haven’t register – you don’t want to miss this meeting:

http://www.pmitriadnc.org/Default.aspx?pageId=1093816&eventId=494682&EventViewMode=EventDetails

To learn more about our speaker Richard Morreale:

http://www.richardmorreale.com/

Networking for Mutual Benefit - Takeaways

Networking for Mutual Benefit – Takeaways

You know it is a great meeting when after the meeting, people stayed back to talk to each other. Here are some takeaways to share:

Must Read Books:

• Never Eat Alone

• How to Win Friends and Influence People

What is Networking?

Teddy Burriss’s motto – “Networking is finding, developing, and nurturing relationships that mutually move people forward thru life”

• Not just for job search

• It is all about building relationships

• If you are not building relationships – you will not be successful

• It is a successful way to build business, find new job, help others

How to Network?

• You can’t ASK until you have developed a relationship

• Key to networking – making it all about the other person

• Meet people that are different so that you can learn new ideas, solutions, and possibilities

• Try to meet someone new daily

• In real life conversations are best form of networking

• Leverage social media to connect with people

• Connect with your weak ties periodically – people in the past you have had a relationship with that you haven’t contacted in a while

Principles of how to win friends and influence others

Teddy went over 9 critical – When I googled the principles, I liked all of them. I’ve copied the principles from the below website: http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/win-friends.html#one

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.

3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six ways to make people like you

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.

2. Smile.

3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.

6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

Win people to your way of thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

2. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."

3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

4. Begin in a friendly way.

5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.

6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.

9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.

10. Appeal to the nobler motives.

11. Dramatize your ideas.

12. Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.

3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.

4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

5. Let the other person save face.

6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."

7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.

9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.