PM Insights: Communication Concerns

Over the next few weeks here on the Project World blog we're going to be featuring some of the insights shared at the 2011 Your Space session at the ProjectWorld® & World Congress for Business Analysts® event.

A repeat favorite, Your Space offers PW&WCBA attendees a chance to debrief on topics covered, come up actionable plans for their return to the office and share in the collective knowledge and expertise of other PW&WCBA attendees and speakers


 This week's topic comes from Table 6: Communication—between all groups 

So many projects are delayed or break down altogether due to miscommunications. Why is this?

Our team at Table 6 identified some common causes of communication breakdown, including:
- Silos: Left hand is unaware of what the right hand is doing 
- Over use of acronyms and terminology 
- Overlooking a communication need
- Problems with information data source and usability

As well as some steps towards improving communication:
- At the start of your project, identify your communication timing and details (how much/when)
- Find the appropriate use of technology and human touch for your stakeholders
- Remember the cost of not getting it right the first time
- Lead by example:
         - Define goals and set communication strategy. Ownership- Buy In continuous communication
         - Customize delivery approach and audience (explain how and why)
         - Train your team and direct to info source. Provide responsible leadership on usability
         - Use accountability, agreements and commitment
         - Encouragement, websites, develop, sharepoints, generic, servers, guidelines, byu in, WITFM,
           Support stories
- Use a stakeholder roster, org charts, or a communication tree

What would you add? What are your best practices for communication?

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA and the voice behind the @Project_World twitter. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com

PM Insights: Resource Management

Over the next few weeks here on the Project World blog we're going to be featuring some of the insights shared at the 2011 Your Space session at the ProjectWorld® & World Congress for Business Analysts® event.

A repeat favorite, Your Space offers PW&WCBA attendees a chance to debrief on topics covered, come up actionable plans for their return to the office and share in the collective knowledge and expertise of other PW&WCBA attendees and speakers

This week's topic comes from Table 4: Resource Management


As we discussed last week, there is often a conflict on project teams that occurs as a result of limited resources. In many cases, there is nothing to be done about these resource constraints, but conflict can be lessened or avoided entirely through good resource management.

Our attendees at Table 4 had a lot of questions when it came to achieving common disciplined resource management, such as:
- With 1000s of resources to manage, how do we stay effective and efficient with project resourcing?
- Vendor resources: how to have control over quality?
- How do we forecast resource demands at different phases of a project?
- How do we deal with resources being informally reserved for “pet” projects?
- What tools and processes are best for effectively managing assignments and notifying stakeholders?
- At what level of granularity should resources be measured?
- How to manage availability/contention for key resources?

It wasn't all unresolved questions, the team also came up with a number of ideas for addressing this issue such as: "Solution: use capacity management tools and best practices (Not a trivial task!)" and "Solution: Strong portfolio and pgm management best practices and tools," as well as managing vendor quality issues at the contract level, and using a PPMtool or Access database for notifications and managing assignments.

Still, there are some lingering issues here, how do you manage resources? What advice would you give? Let us know in the comments or contact me if you'd like to contribute a guest blog on this issue.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA and the voice behind the @Project_World twitter. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com

PM Insights: Managing stakeholder expectations

Over the next few weeks here on the Project World blog we're going to be featuring some of the insights shared at the 2011 Your Space session at the ProjectWorld® & World Congress for Business Analysts® event.

A repeat favorite, Your Space offers PW&WCBA attendees a chance to debrief on topics covered, come up actionable plans for their return to the office and share in the collective knowledge and expertise of other PW&WCBA attendees and speakers  

This week's topic comes from Table 5: Managing stakeholder expectations

This is obviously a huge topic for PW&WCBA attendees. The main problem that we saw emerging was that stakeholders get missed or overlooked or are otherwise not engaged or participating in the project, and this leads to overruns on time or budget or conflicts that derail progress.

The group at table five identified some strategies for preventing this and managing expectations more effectively:
• Using methodology or diagrams to identify all stakeholders
• Keeping stakeholders informed and engaged  with regular status updates on milestones & deliverables
• Define scope, define the project upfront, including risks and end date and educate the stakeholders on cost, time and materials.
• A lot of and clear communication
 • A documented approval process
• Prioritizing what is included in each release and understanding what a stakeholder is wanting a certain feature
• Stakeholders coming together in agreement on prioritizing issues as an outcome of testing or what is not in release
• Staying proactive to prevent reactive
• Be brief in your presentations, 3 min elevator speech
• Present stakeholder with all information about project steps
• Spend time to understand requirements, include end steps

What would you add to this list? Have you found a particular tactic effective for managing stakeholder expectations?

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA and the voice behind the @Project_World twitter. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com

PM Insights: Overcoming Challenges with Leadership

Over the next few weeks here on the Project World blog we're going to be featuring some of the insights shared at the 2011 Your Space session at the ProjectWorld® & World Congress for Business Analysts® event.

A repeat favorite, Your Space offers PW&WCBA attendees a chance to debrief on topics covered, come up actionable plans for their return to the office and share in the collective knowledge and expertise of other PW&WCBA attendees and speakers  

This week's topic comes from Table 1: Overcoming Challenges w/Leadership
An ongoing topic in the PM & BA world, and certainly one well covered at ProjectWorld® & World Congress for Business Analysts®, this was a popular table. The first takeaway from this group?

"When it comes to politics & group segregation: Build positive relationships, know who to approach and when"

Across a company in leadership (or even within your team,) individuals are coming from different backgrounds with different perspectives. They may be working towards different goals or have differing understanding of the same goals. The company may be working in different silos that have conflicts, and the conflicts between those silos may be causing roadblocks for your project. Before conflicts arise, get to know your stakeholders. Build those relationships so that you have a clear understanding of how to approach certain team members, or when to address a problem.

What strategies have you used to overcome internal politics or group segregation?

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA and the voice behind the @Project_World twitter. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com