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CHAPTER 1
FOCUSING YOUR EFFORTS
1.1 Whom do I have to please?
By Dave Garrett
1. Problem
Every problem can make you feel like you have to please a thousand different people who all want different things. However, the problem isn't only, "whom do I please?" It is also, "which needs are truly important?"
2. Warning Signs
• You are wasting a lot of time going back and forth between people, and trying to figure out what your project should accomplish.
• No one seems to be confident in your ability to deliver.
3. What will happen if I do nothing?
Trying to please everyone means that you will end up pleasing no one. This is how a lot of folks lose their jobs or get moved to a position that doesn't require managing people.
4. Solution
You need a clear set of goals and a real understanding of how everyone's needs affect what you're doing (shown in Figure 1.1). In short, you need:
1. A high-level executive, a sponsor, whose work is closely tied to the outcome of your project, to make the tough calls.
2. A scope document to make sure that you understand exactly what needs to be done.
3. A defined way to work with the sponsor to address everyone else's needs.
5. What should I do?
When you don't know who to please, you need to identify a sponsor as the one person you need to please most. Then, you need to develop a scope document, which essentially outlines how you will please that person and accomplish something valuable to the organization.
There are two sets of people you need to be concerned with when managing a project: sponsors and stakeholders. The sponsor is the one you ultimately answer to. He or she should work with you to define success in a way that also pleases stakeholders. You define success in a scope document, then stick to doing what is in the scope document and accomplish what you set out to do.
5(a) Sponsor
Gather what you have in terms of goals and support materials, and make sure you have the best description of what the project aims to do before looking for a sponsor. Then identify your sponsor candidates. In this context, the best sponsor will most likely be someone you know or at least know of. It may or may not be the person to whom you've been reporting status. Think about:
• Executives you report to
• Executives tied to the function
• Which executive has the most to lose if your project fails
To identify a sponsor, think about these questions:
• Who has the financial power to be a sponsor for this project?
• Who has the political influence in the organization to be a sponsor?
• Who has a history of backing successful projects?
• Will this sponsor defend the project as it runs into challenges or starts to lose organizational support?
• Would you have a good working relationship?
• Who will provide the project direction and focus, and at the same time, ask the right questions to help you be successful?
• Is the sponsor positioned to take ownership in the resulting product of the project?
The sponsor is a buck stops here person. He or she is a business leader within the organization who:
• Is tied to the success of your project in a meaningful way
• Helps define the scope and objectives of the project
• Sets priorities and resolves conflicts
• Has the power to make changes to the project in order to achieve the goal(s)
• Can approve assignment of people and resources
• Has enough influence to communicate effectively to every group involved in the project
• Communicates with the executive team to ensure continued support
Think about the first three bullet points for a moment. Someone in the business, above you, has likely committed to executive management that your project will be a success. His or her reputation probably depends on it. You just need to make the sponsorship role clear and official, so that there is a single person (or small group) who can define success and resolve conflicts.
Once the right person has agreed to be your sponsor, work with them to identify stakeholders and plan to address their needs. Also, work with them to set and document the project scope.
5(b) Stakeholders
The project's stakeholders are probably all of the people who have been asking you for things. They have a vested interest in the project, and would like to make their priorities yours. This isn't a bad thing, but you can't please everyone. Identify and group stakeholders with the help of your sponsor. Understand whose needs you can and cannot serve, which needs are incompatible with each other, and any conflicts those needs may present.
To understand what you are dealing with, you want to first separate stakeholders into groups. Ask yourself, are stakeholders:
• End-users of what the project is creating?
• People whose jobs will be affected by what you are doing?
• People who will be better or worse off in a specific way, based on the outcome of the project?
• People who are on competing projects?
• Sharing other reasons to care about your project?
Grouping stakeholders will give you a better idea of what you are dealing with. You can't give people everything that they want, but hopefully you can give them what they need by working with the sponsor to create an effective scope document.
5(c) Scope document
Then you will work with your sponsor to create a scope document. The scope document defines what you are doing and not doing. At a minimum, it defines:
• The goals and objectives of the project.
• How the project aligns with your organization's goals and strategies.
• Assumptions that you've made about the project (things you assume are already taken care of).
• Constraints that you are placing on the project (objectives you are not trying to achieve or items that you will not do).
The scope document can include other items and take various forms. Often, it is a business case or project charter, but the important part is that your participation in the project is documented, agreed upon, and reflective of the sponsor's definition of success.
1.2 How do I define success on this project?
By Dave Garrett
1. Problem
When you started the project, it felt like you understood the goals. Lately, it has become clear that what you thought were your goals are not well-defined or meaningful anymore.
It is a common mistake to take someone's word about the importance of the project without completely understanding the goals. It happens to many project managers. The project is just something to be done, and you've been chosen to do it. Or, perhaps, you knew what you were doing early on and now everything changed. Either way, the fact that goal changes happen often does not offer a lot of comfort when you're left holding the bag.
2. Warning Signs
• People seem to misunderstand the project in general.
• You have little pressure to get things done — and that makes you nervous.
• Your sponsor went away or changed.
• You can't explain the value of your project to others in a clear and unstanderable way.
3. What will happen if I do nothing?
If you do nothing, the work might be easy, but you'll regret it later when the project is cancelled or completed with little to show for it.
Your project's success depends on a unique set of needs. Your career in business depends on making measurable, meaningful contributions to the organization — otherwise, you are wasting time. The project needs to be important to your organization and important to someone who has a loud, influential voice within the organization. You'll find that:
• Everyone around you has needs, and a lot of them could be important to your organization. However, you can't be all things to all people.
• It is easier to get things done if the people you ask things of believe your project's goals are aligned with their needs. Of course, you shouldn't mislead people as to your project's goals.
Picture yourself describing what you accomplished on this project when you're competing for your next position. How does that look if you've done nothing to ensure this effort is meaningful?
Also picture yourself explaining to senior management why you satisfied another person's needs without officially changing the scope of your project. That might work for Robin Hood, but is unlikely to work for you.
4. Solution
There are always more than one set of possible goals, and people will always make assumptions about what you're doing, according to their interests. If what you are doing has no impact on them, they likely won't care about the outcome of your project. So, to get things on track, you need to reset the goals in alignment with your sponsor's needs and the overall organizational direction. As shown in Figure 1.2, you need three things to define success on a project.
1. A high-level executive (preferably one), a sponsor, whose work is closely tied to the outcome of your project, to make the tough calls.
2. A clear understanding of why the outcome of this project is important to both the organization and to your sponsor.
3. A business case to make sure you understand exactly what needs to be done.
5. What should I do?
When you are unclear about your project's goals, it is important to define your sponsor, goals, and business case, in that order. Otherwise, you will waste a lot of time.
5(a) Find a sponsor
Your sponsor is often the person who actually defines what success will look like. They may not define it clearly up front, but that is why you need to refine goals and create an actual business case for yourself. You will likely have some goals and support materials defined at this point. Use what you have to create the best description of what the project aims to do before looking for a sponsor. Then, identify sponsor candidates. The best sponsor will likely be someone you know or at least know of. It may or may not be the person to whom you've been reporting status, so conduct your sponsor search with an open mind. Think about:
• Executives to whom you report
• Executives tied to the function or functions the project will touch
• The executive who has the most to lose if your project fails
To identify a sponsor, think about these questions:
• Who has the spending authority to be a sponsor for this project?
• Who has the political influence in the organization to be a sponsor?
• Who has a history of backing successful projects?
• Will this candidate defend the project as it runs into challenges or starts to lose organizational support?
• With whom will you have a good working relationship?
• Who will provide project direction and focus? Will they ask the right questions to help you be successful?
• Is the candidate positioned to take ownership in the resulting product of the project?
The sponsor is a person with final say over nearly all project decisions. He or she is a business leader within your organization who:
• Is committed to the success of your project in a meaningful way
• Helps define the scope and objectives of the project
• Sets priorities and resolves issues and conflicts
• Has the power to make changes to the project plan, budget, and timing in order to achieve the goal(s)
• Can approve assignment of people and resources
• Has enough influence to communicate effectively to every constituent group involved in the project
• Effectively communicates with the executive team to ensure continued support
Think about those first three bullet points for a moment. Someone in the business, above you, has likely committed to executive management that your project will be a success. Their reputation probably depends on it. You just need to make the sponsorship role clear and official, so that there is a single person (or small group) who can define success and resolve conflicts. Making it official also focuses the sponsor's attention on the importance of the project, verifying their responsibility for the project's success.
Once the right person agrees to be your sponsor, work with them to refine your goals.
5(b) Goals tied to the organization's goals or strategies
If you've chosen the right sponsor, that person's interests are closely tied to some part of the organization's strategy. Reach as high as you can into your organization's strategy, goals, or objectives. Understand how your project supports those goals and your sponsor's goals in a complementary way.
First, have a talk with your sponsor. Ask him or her to:
• Describe the goals of the project as they understand them
• Descrobe how those goals tie to the strategy
• State how s/he would measure success in a way that ties to the strategy
• Point out why those measures are important to him or her personally
Then, do a little research. The organization's strategic initiatives are sometimes published as a stand-alone document, a business plan, a mission statement, within existing information systems plans, or in C-level announcements describing business problems that the organization is intent on solving. Understand the organization's short-and long-term business goals, and see if your project can help achieve those goals. The trick is to:
• Figure out how your sponsor's input ties in with the documents that define what's important to the organization
• Identify ties between project goals and specific strategic goals of the company
• Identify specific success metrics that clearly tie to the organization's strategic objectives
If you can't quantify the business goals and objectives (make them measurable), work through it with your sponsor.
5(c) Define the business case
The business case makes everything achievable by making goals and measures clear. It defines what you are doing, and why it's important, in a way that everyone can understand. Usually, you would build a case to get initial funding for the project, but you need it now as a reference point for decisions you are making every day on the project. You want to be sure that everything you do helps you to realize a business objective that you've laid out in this document — otherwise, you are wasting resources. At a minimum, the business case defines:
• The goals and objectives of your project
• How the project aligns with the organization's goals and strategy
• How you will measure the results in a very tangible and objective way
• Risks (what could cause you to fail) and how you plan to deal with them
• Assumptions that you've made (things you assume are already taken care of or are out of this project's scope)
• Constraints you are placing on the project (objectives you are not trying to achieve or things that you will not do)
• Estimated cost
• Estimated return on investment
The business case is usually done at the beginning of the project to justify its existence, so it can be very detailed. Yours can be as short as a page, but can be longer if what you're writing helps to clarify the value you are creating. The exercise of writing it will clarify the goals in your mind, as well as on paper. You want to be able to tell anyone who asks exactly what you are doing and why it's important. You also want goals and measures that guide you when deciding what will and will not make the project succeed.
1.3 Different people want different things at different times.
By Michael Flint
1. Problem
Despite following the methodology, the standard approach, and delivering what was asked of you, your project did not meet expectations and it might be considered a failure.
You know how to start a project, gather requirements, identify objectives — what is in scope and out of scope, etc. You plan, schedule, and get commitments for deliverables. You document everything and get all of the necessary approvals. The methodology helps to guide you through the process, deal with issues as you go, and manage change requests, mitigate risk, and deliver the final product — with all of this happening on time and within budget. You did what you said. The project should be a complete success. So how could it be considered a failure?
Stakeholders, and, in particular, the sponsors may have expectations of what the project will deliver and when. These expectations may be very different than the answers received during the requirements gathering process. Not all stakeholders are known or declared at the initiation, so their needs, requirements, and expectations can not all be quantified early in the project. Often, you will have to deal with cosponsorship of projects, which might provide additional guidance and support. However, it dramatically increases the chances that you are dealing with different expectations for the same project.
The bottom line is that upon completion of the project, even offer delivering what was asked and meeting requirements, some projects are still deemed to have failed. They met requirements, but did not deliver what was expected.
2. Warning Signs
• There is more than one person providing direction or requirements for the project
• There are frequent side meetings to ensure that parts of the project are looked after
• You don't understand how this project fits into the organization's strategic direction
• You feel like you aren't getting the full story from anyone about what is really wanted
• Your inability to meet expectations seems like a timing issue
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Project Pain Reliever"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Dave Garrett.
Excerpted by permission of J. Ross Publishing, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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