Experience Matters

Government technology organizations are learning (the hard way?) that experience matters. A project organization should have a mix of experience and skills, so that a pipeline of talent is being developed by more senior staff and there is adequate diversity of situational experience. ...

... "The latest Lessons Learned report from the Office of Government Commerce focuses on experience from the office's Gateway Reviews, which are the government's official assessments of its own projects and how they should proceed. " ...

Via Computerworld: IT project chiefs need experience

Rollercoaster Project

Projects have their ups and downs, but leave the roller-coaster rides for the team-building event or celebration party. ...

... "Stewart Cooper, director of operations for Dunfermline described the implementation as a rollercoaster ride. The Temenos product had never before been used in the UK building society sector and the company identified 100 gaps in functionality ... " ...

Via Finextra: Millions lost on IT project

Leverage Checklists for Success

Whether you are a project manager or surgeon, don't hesitate to take advantage of the simple checklist to improve the quality of your actions. Recycle appropriate project lessons-learned into your checklist to keep it evergreen. ...

... "But a year after surgical teams at eight hospitals adopted a 19-item checklist, the average patient death rate fell more than 40 percent and the rate of complications fell by about a third, the researchers reported. " ...

Via NYTimes: Simple Checklist

UPDATE: Cool and recent reference post on checklists via ProductiveWise.

Project Manager Creates Collaborative Relationship

Healthcare continues its information transformation and progressive project management practices can accelerate the change. In this case, the project manager collaborated with the target department to understand the business challenges and the process capability --- creating the proper working relationship for a transformation journey. ...

... "Make cross-departmental understanding a priority - During implementation, our IT project manager sat in the HIM department until he fully understood our daily frustrations, processes and challenges. " ...

Via ADVANCE: Lessons Learned

Project Lessons from a Disney Vacation

I recently returned from a vacation to Disney World with the family. I hadn't been there since 1984. Still beautiful. Still a shining example of unparalleled customer service and impeccable presentation.

A few thoughts came to mind while I was there.

1) Words matter. They refer to their employees as "cast members" and their customers as "guests." These are far more than words. They create a mindset that encourages everyone to live the Disney principles. What words can we use that will change the mindset of our people?

2) When it comes to managing projects, Disney has their act together, as evident by the sheer magnitude of their accomplishments and their feats of logistics and technology. I'm now reading The Disney Way, by Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson, as well as Inside the Magic Kingdom by Thomas Connellan to find out a bit more (both are excellent books). Right off the bat, I'm seeing that prioritized core values combined with common sense, appropriate risk-taking, extensive training, and long-term thinking permeate everything they do.

The core values are especially critical, and are what has helped Disney begin its return to form, after a slight detour during an internal civil war (read Disney War, by James B. Stewart).

More to come.

3) Even our own vacation experience brought an interesting lesson. When preparing for a vacation, I typically do extensive research, exhaustively reading every book on the destination (not unlike Napoleon preparing for a battle). But once I'm there, I'm not so hung up on sticking to a rigid schedule. I like to allow for random discoveries (also not unlike Napoleon).

In this case, we had to reserve the dinners months in advance, so we planned a loose agenda around that (by loose, I mean we planned which parks we wanted to visit each day, along with attractions we didn't want to miss, but we kept things open otherwise). On day 4, we intended to go to Disney's Hollywood Studios, and day 5 our plan was to visit the Animal Kingdom.

The days were mostly 80 degrees and sunny. But lo and behold, on day 4, it was cool and slightly drizzly in the morning. As we waited for the shuttle bus to take us to Disney's Hollywood Studios, I noticed another bus came first---the bus to Animal Kingdom. I made a quick decision, suggesting we hop on the Animal Kingdom bus instead. Of course, my wife looked at me like I had two heads ("What, you're going against the plan???") and my daughter just followed along (she's 6).

Here was my rationale. Having done the research, the Animal Kingdom has no shade and can be exhausting on hot days. By siezing the moment, we could use the cool, overcast day to our advantage at Animal Kingdom, and visit the Hollywood studio the next day.

We hopped on the Animal Kingdom bus, and, luckily, it worked out perfectly. It also served as a reminder that, despite whatever plan may be in place, it pays to be flexible and seize an opportunity, even if it means altering the plan.

Project management is not about blindly following a rigid plan, ignoring the variations that reality brings. It's about doing the up front research, planning, and then adjusting to the current situation and latest information. That's quite a bit different than "winging it."

End of sermon.

Leaders Challenge the Norm

I recently had the pleasure of hearing this person speak about his life adventures (pretty extreme) and how his lessons of leadership translate to business and life, in general. The speaker's name is Pete Goss. Pete uses a story-based presentation style to share his nuggets of knowledge, with some Brit-humor tossed in. He is a yachtsman and an inspiration.

In this talk, Pete emphasized the importance of leaders to "challenge the norm", reinforced the need to break challenges into achievable pieces, and dared his audience to dream. See Pete's book.

Leadership Lessons from the Movies

Anyone who knows me is aware that I have many interests, and one of my passions is film (in fact, one of these days I'm going to make good on my personal committment to write a screenplay). I enjoy all genres, especially independent and international cinema. In fact, I could probably start my own rental agency with my DVD collection (I'm, of course, also a home theater buff). No matter the film, I usually come away with some kind of lesson.

Needless to say, I found this article from Mike Hofman on Inc.com to be fascinating. In the article, Hofman highlights 10 films that have particularly relevant lessons for leaders:

- Apollo 13
- The Bridge on the River Kwai
- The Dead Poets Society
- Elizabeth
- Glengarry Glen Ross
- It's a Wonderful Life
- Norma Rae
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Twelve Angry Men
- Twelve O'Clock High

You don't need to have seen the films to benefit from the lessons. Curious as to what the lessons are from each film? Read on.....

Everything I Know about Leadership, I Learned From the Movies, Planning and Strategy Article - Inc. Article

Counting the benefits of failure

Anyone who works with clients on setting up Project Management support structures knows that it is essential to have a senior sponsor who 'gets it'. That is, who understands the benefits that come from well managed projects that are delivered successfully - consistently. Sadly, there are many organisations who like the idea of having an established project management capability but balk at the change that is necessary to achieve it.
On the hunt for references that would appeal to the budget minded, I came across this paper from Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester in the UK. Many of the costs of failure he lists would apply to projects in any field, not just eGovernment projects.
The Impact of eGovernment Failure

One intriguing heading in the paper that caught my eye was 'The Potential Benefits of eGovernment Failure'. This turns out to be a list of opportunities based on the principle of learning from one's mistakes. This sounds obvious but, sadly - again, so many organisations are not geared up to capture lessons learned. Which makes it all the more important to share experiences broadly so that there are more people in all organisations who 'get it'.

Lesson Learned: The Importance of Followup

I was just reading an article about how the DHS (Department of Human Services) never followed up on 17 of the 36 recommendations that were made after child deaths under their watch. The recommendations were supposed to lead to policy changes.

It's a harsh reminder that, while it's nice to gather lessons learned at the end of a project, the lessons are entirely useless if they're "put back in the drawer" with the rest of the project archives.

Lessons learned are supposed to either lead to permanent policy changes or changes in future similar projects. It's important to identify any actions to be taken as a result of lessons learned, along with a clear owner and target date. Ideally, project audits should look to see that lessons are followed up on.

This was an extreme case, but it should serve as a reminder to all of us who are associated with fostering best practice project management processes.

Project Failure Brings Great Lessons

Andrew Makar has an excellent article on Projects@Work outlining key lessons from a prior project failure. I even like his tag line stating that he is "focused on effectively translating project management theory into actual practice." Indeed, that's where the real lessons are to be found.

It looks like it's part of a series---at least a two-parter. This one has lessons about defining clear roles up front, keeping the same project manager throughout the project, maintaining a "living schedule," prioritizing elements in project scope shoulud tradeoffs be needed, and establishing a clear change control process.

I couldn't agree more. Read on...

http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/235962.cfm

Getting Projects Off On the Right Foot: The Pre-Flight Checklist

Something you don't hear much about, but is a critical success factor for projects, is what I call the "pre-flight checklist." As projects are completed, not only is it important to review lessons learned, but it's vital to have a checklist that can be updated as a result. This checklist would be the first thing a project manager would look at upon undertaking a new project.

This is especially true for agile projects, where adjustments are constantly made based on user feedback. Of course, not everything would go on the checklist, but any item that could save time later on a future project is well worth adding. Why reinvent the wheel?

If warranted, there could even be a checklist for various types or categories of projects.

This checklist is different from a pre-project assessment (another underrated tool), where preset questions pertaining to objectives, risk, value, organizational alignment, and more, can be asked.

As the adage goes, projects fail at the beginning, not the end.

Project-Lessons-Learned From Walter Reed

There are more lessons to be learned from the experience at Walter Reed, but here's a good one ... sustaining quality (of service and infrastructure) in the face of closure. If you haven't already, you may be faced with a project to dismantle, decommission, or divest part of your organization. Be ready for this situation. ...

... "When we plan to shut down an operation, the longer the lead time between decision and action, the more discipline we have to apply to making sure that that operation is not victimized, directly or indirectly, by our natural instincts. " ...

Via Snohomish County Business Journal: Lessons

Child's Play: Project Management Lessons From the Classroom

Ah, there's someone else that finds project management lessons in everything. It's a sickness I tell you.

Elizabeth Harrin has an article on Projects@Work about project management lessons she extracted from teaching a group of nine year olds in Paris. Whether it's the importance of giving clear instructions, understanding your stakeholders' environment, or negotiating win-win solutions, everything you need to manage a project you probably learned in kindergarten.

Read on...

http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/235373.cfm

Learning from experience

We've discussed the value of sharing lessons learned before. Here is another good example of a team that took the time and trouble to write up their experiences from real life. Earthquake monitoring is, by its nature, a very distributed activity and a project to support the service involves a very widely distributed set of stake holders.
Lessons learned from the NEES Cyberenvironment project

This paper really points up several critical aspects. Everyone will find something of value. For me, the section on the criticality of effective communication contains some quotable nuggets. For instance "We recommend, in fact, that on the very first day of the project, the project team should make a "mockup" - in as simple a form as a set of presentation slides - available to the user community". The effective use of prototypes as a communication tool across the stakeholder community is described well.