Newsletter Volume 3 No.2

Volume 3, No. 2

“Helping You Accelerate Your High-Tech Development Projects”

Welcome to the ANGOTTI PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT e-mail newsletter! 

The goal of this newsletter is to help you accelerate your development projects by sharing some of the many tips, techniques and strategies we've honed during two decades of providing high-tech consulting services.

This issue discusses another significant part of supporting the team and making it function well. It amplifies the information contained in the ninth strategy to keep engineering projects on track -- the critical function played by follow up on team decisions and promises by the project manager (PM) and upper management.

THE KEYSTONE OF PROJECT SUPPORT

The last two newsletters ( See http://www.angotti.com/docs/0402%20E_Zine%20Std.txt and http://www.angotti.com/docs/0103%20EZine.txt ) discussed the critical area of supporting the team for project effectiveness, but the keystone of team support is management support. Without this support, very little of value can be achieved on a project, especially if it encounters problems.

THE HIGH TECH PROJECT SITUATION

The project management situation for the vast majority of high tech project leaders is that they have considerable responsibility without much authority. Still, when a project gets in trouble, they are expected to take corrective action.

Corrective action often involves redoing the project strategies and schedule to meet a critical need. The team usually assesses the
critical need, and decisions are made to improve the situation. Often, this requires the PM to create team agreements and to get appropriate support from management in the form of added resources or schedule changes.

Being human beings, PMs can become afraid to follow through seriously on these commitments to obtain approval for changes, or if they are not approved, to involve the management in creating alternatives. Similarly, management sometimes does not want to approve the changes or be involved in the difficult decisions that need to be made because they are not easy or pleasant.

SOME TYPES OF TEAM AGREEMENTS

Here are some of the project agreements that are made with a team or a team member to receive some form of support from cross-functional or upper management.

1) Handling excessive work schedules
2) Purchase of capital equipment critical to a project
3) Adding Resources to the project – manpower or dollars or both
4) Obtaining follow through from Project Sponsor on the above
5) Creating a real sponsor to replace the “Invisible” one – or one that has left the organization

Having made these agreements, some project managers try to sidestep them, because they can be difficult to resolve or accomplish. They often require the PM to “bring the bad news” to the management. Unfortunately, failure to follow through can create a sense of a lack of upper management concern for the team members or the project. If this occurs, it most definitely will impact team productivity.

While the PM is effecting these agreements, and to keep up team motivation, the PM must keep team members informed of progress on the agreeements to close the support process loop.

PROJECT SCENARIOS

Usually the requirement for these follow-through agreement strategies becomes especially important at three general points in a project.

1) The very beginning
2) When serious schedule slips occur
3) When the team is suffering burnout from an impossible schedule

AT THE VERY BEGINNING

Sometimes projects just can’t seem to get started. (See “Value the Early Days of a Project”, http://www.angotti.com/docs/0101%20E_Zine%20Std.txt ) They are supposed to begin, but can’t get going because of lack of resources, or just plain inattention,(project drift). This is caused because personnel aren’t assigned, attention is focused elsewhere or the budget isn’t approved. This results from one or more of the following:

1) The purchase of critical capital equipment has been delayed
2) Needed Resources are on other projects
3) The Project Sponsor isn’t following through because their attention is elsewhere.
4) There is no viable sponsor due to conflicts with other projects
5) The sponsor lacks the authority to control the project requirements.

In these cases, the Project Sponsor must become a temporary part of the team to get things moving, or the project manager must meet with upper management to get focus on the project and a viable sponsor. The PM must remake the project business case, and be sure that they can define accurately what is needed to get the project started quickly.

WHEN SERIOUS SCHEDULE SLIPS OCCUR

Sometimes, unforeseen events cause significant schedule slips from the original plan. Hopefully, this was picked up in the Risk Management plan (See “Use Risk Management to Help Make Projects Work”, http://www.angotti.com/docs/0301%20E_Zine%20Std.txt ). This situation calls for gathering the team and reviewing the alternatives to get as close to back on track as possible. The team meets, and creates an alternate plan. Now the PM must “sell” the plan to the sponsor and/or upper management. These solutions often involve:

1) Purchase of additional capital equipment critical to a project
2) Adding Resources – manpower or dollars or both – to the project.

As with the schedule drift problem previously discussed, the PM must go to the sponsor, or get the focus of upper management on the problem and the proposed solutions. Once again, the PM must follow through with management and “sell” them on the alternate solution. This can be hard, because no one wants to articulate problems on a project to management since this looks like failure. Still, the PM must go forward .

Sometimes after hearing the recovery plan, the management won’t accept the plan the team is presenting. In this case, the PM must regroup the team to include management representatives to create a more acceptable solution. Its up to the PM to make this happen.

WHEN THE TEAM IS BURNING OUT

The methods of creating project schedule can be a challenge for management and the team. All too often, the methods of setting up a schedule create a circumstance of overly optimistic planning for the project (See “Make Projects Work with Proper Planning”,
http://www.angotti.com/docs/0401%20E_Zine%20Std.txt).

As time passes, it becomes clear the team is working up to, and beyond, its capacity to meet schedule. This is when the “Emperor’s New Clothes” effect with regard to project schedule becomes obvious to the team members.

Again, the team must meet, and put together an alternate plan similar to when there are significant schedule slips. Sometimes, this can be done before schedule slips actually are significant.

As with the previously discussed schedule slip circumstances, the team creates a new project plan, and the PM sells this plan to the
management. Now even more interpersonal skills are required to “sell” alternatives to upper management because the schedule slips have not yet occurred. The PM must effectively communicate the situation with the team members, and show a good plan to overcome it. Failure to correct the situation may create the predicted significant schedule slips, and may also cause disaffection of team members causing them to leave the company, further compounding schedule slips.

If the PM is unable to convince upper management of the situation, team motivation and productivity can be greatly impacted.

THE PROJECT MANAGER MUST FOLLOW THROUGH

The PM is the only person on the team who can assure that the needs of the project team are met by the organization. They accomplish this by detecting problem situations, getting the team to create alternative plans to correct these situations, then following through with the project sponsor, and ultimately upper management, to create conditions to fix these problem situations.

Failure to follow through on the agreements for corrective actions and failure to give timely and accurate feedback to the team can have very costly, and possibly unrecoverable, impacts on any project.