Reaching project goals

8 December 2016

Bogdan Hruban

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 Introduction

Bogdan Hruban

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 A short introduction

Who are you?

What do you want to learn in the training?

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Course objectives
At the end of the course you will understand

▪ What is a project
▪ How to get from scope to planning
▪ How to use a project planner/schedule
▪ What makes a project successful
▪ How to communicate better in the TEAM
Agenda
▪ Introduction 13:00 – 13:30
▪ What is a project 13:30 – 14:00
Break 14:00 – 14:05
▪ How to get from scope to planning 14:05 – 14:20
▪ How to read a project schedule 14:20 – 15:00
Break 15:00 – 15:15
▪ What makes a project successful 15:15 – 16:05
Break 16:05 – 16:15
▪ How to communicate better 16:15 – 16:45
▪ Wrap up 16:45 – 17:00
 What is a project?

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 Definition of a project
Project - PRINCE2
"A temporary organisation that is needed to produce a unique
and predefined result at a pre-specified time using
predetermined resources"
➢ A set of activities to reach a goal
➢ Limited in scope, time, money and resources
➢ Unique, not repeated
➢ People working together

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 Project Roles
▪ The absolute minimum:
➢ Project Steering Committee
➢ Project Owner
➢ Project Manager
➢ Project Team Member

▪ Additional roles for more complex projects:

➢ Workstream Leader
➢ Project Support

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 Project Organisation Chart

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 Project Organisation Roles
➢Steering Committee - Responsible for business decisions for the
project
➢Project Owner / Sponsor - Ultimately responsible for the overall
success of the project
➢Project Manager - Responsible for effective execution of the
project
➢Team member - Responsible for doing the work
➢Workstream Lead - Responsible for effective execution of a
specific workstream
➢PM Support - Supports the Project Manager with administrative
services

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 Typical project lifecycle

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 Project phasing, how?
▪ A basic phasing:

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 Purpose of the phases
Make clear to all parties what the project should achieve, why it is needed, how
DEFINE the output is to be achieved.
Decision: is the project worth it?

Make clear what must be done, by whom, for how much, how, when, and what
PLAN do we need to do it?
Decision: is the project plan feasible?

Do the actual work to reach the project objectives.

EXECUTE Get the team to perform.
Decision: can we go live?

CONTROL Control the execution by a range of control processes

Verify project success criteria and get the project signed off.
CLOSE Release project resources, and collect lessons learned.
Decision: can we sign-off the project?

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 KEY RESULTS
▪ Project objectives defined
DEFINE ▪ Business Case clear
▪ Requirements defined
▪ Project Owner identified
Make clear to all parties ▪ Project Manager assigned
what the project should ▪ Stakeholders identified
▪ Project scope defined
achieve, why it is
▪ Main deliverables clear (what/when)
needed, how the output ▪ Project budget identified
is to be achieved. ▪ High-level risk assessed

MAIN DELIVERABLE
Project Charter

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 ACTIVITIES TEMPLATES

Required
▪ Project Charter
▪ Requirements Specification
(includes acceptance criteria)
▪ Key Stakeholders List

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 KEY RESULTS
▪ Resources allocated
PLAN ▪ Activities planned
▪ Project budget planned
▪ Risk management planned
What must be done, ▪ Communications planned
by whom, for how
much and when?
MAIN DELIVERABLE
Project Plan

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 ACTIVITIES TEMPLATES
Required
▪ Project Plan

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 KEY RESULTS
▪ Solution Design
EXECUTE &
▪ Solution Build
CONTROL ▪ Solution Live and Stable

The actual work done

to reach the project
objectives
MAIN DELIVERABLE
Project “Product”

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 ACTIVITIES TEMPLATES
Required
▪ Meeting Agenda

Optional
▪ Go-Live Checklist

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 CLOSE KEY RESULTS
▪ Formal customer acceptance & Sign-off
Verify project success ▪ Transition to Operations
▪ Project Evaluation
criteria and get the ▪ Post implementation review planned
project signed off.

Release project
resources, and collect
lessons learned. MAIN DELIVERABLE
Project Sign-off & Handover documents

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 ACTIVITIES TEMPLATES
Required
▪ Project Completion form

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 Take-aways
▪ What was the most relevant thing from this part for you?

● In a project you have different roles

● Project lifecycle (Define -> Plan -> Execute -> Close | Decide,
Control)

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 Section rating
From 1 - 10 how useful is this to you?

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 Project Scope

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 Project Scope
Project scope - Wikipedia
“The work that needs to be accomplished to deliver a product, service,
or result with the specified features and functions.”

Product scope - Wikipedia

“The features and functions that characterize a product, service, or
result.”

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 Why having a Scope whatsoever?
▪ Scope planning works toward ensuring that key project
stakeholders agree upon the project work to be accomplished.

▪ Forms the basis for an agreement between the project team

and the customer by relating the work of the project to the
project's objectives and ensuring that the project includes all of
the work required, and only the work required to meet the
agreed upon project objectives.

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 Scope-ing main Actions
▪ Scope Planning – Creating a project scope management plan that
documents how the project scope will be defined, verified,
controlled, and how the work breakdown structure (WBS) will be
created and defined.

▪ Scope Definition – Developing a detailed project scope statement

as the basis for future project decisions.

▪ Scope Verification – Formalizing a plan for acceptance of the

completed project deliverables.

▪ Scope Control – Establishing a mechanism for controlling

changes to the project scope.

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 Action: Scope Planning
Target result
To provide guidance to stakeholders on how project scope will be
managed and controlled throughout the life of the project.
▪ The scope management plan is often created as part of the project
management plan.

Some of the activities conducted to accomplish this include:

▪ Conducting planning workshops
▪ Researching previous project experiences
▪ Developing strategies and plans

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 Action: Scope Definition
Target result
To (sub)divide major project deliverables, as identified in the project
scope statement, into smaller, more manageable components

Some of the activities conducted to accomplish this include:

▪ Identifying major project work components, deliverables, and
requirements
▪ More accurately estimating time, cost, and resource requirements
▪ Management of project components and performance measures

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 Action: Scope Verification
Target result
To have a formal plan for verifying scope defines how project work will
be confirmed and ultimately accepted by the client.
▪ Ensure that all the deliverables are accepted and signed off by the
stakeholders.

Some of the activities conducted to accomplish this include:

▪ Measuring
▪ Examining
▪ Testing project deliverable (to ensure that they comply with
agreed upon requirements)

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 Action: Scope Control
Target result
To establish a mechanism for controlling project scope changes
▪ Scope change itself is not bad if recognized early, addressed quickly,
and that project stakeholders are in agreement with the impact.
▪ Uncontrolled changes can become an issue quickly.

Some of the activities conducted to accomplish this include:

▪ Influencing factors that create scope changes
▪ Identifying when scope change has occurred
▪ Helping to ensure that changes are beneficial to project objectives
▪ Managing the actual changes when and if they do occur

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 Scope creep
“Refers to uncontrolled changes or continuous growth in a project’s
scope. This can occur when the scope of a project is not properly
defined, documented, or controlled.”

Possible causes:
▪ Disingenuous customer with a determined "value for free" policy
▪ Poor communication between parties
▪ Lack of proper initial identification of what is required to bring
about the project objectives
▪ Poor change control
▪ Weak project manager or executive sponsor
▪ Agile software development based on subjective quantifications

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 How to stay in scope?
■ Understand the outcome (the project vision)
○ Make sure you get the real need of the client.
■ Understand your priorities and the priorities of the project drivers
○ Have an ordered list that you can refer to throughout the project
duration.
■ Define your deliverables and have them approved by the project
drivers
■ Break the approved deliverables into actual work requirements
■ Break the project down into major and minor milestones
○ Have project schedule approved by the project drivers
■ Assign resources and determine your critical path
■ Expect that there will be scope creep.
○ Implement change order forms early and educate the project drivers
on your processes.

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 Take-aways
▪ What did you take out of this?

● Project scope helps making things clear to all the stakeholders

● Scope creep is bound to happen
● Act quickly in order to stay in scope

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 Working with project planner (schedule)

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 How to use/read a project schedule

Task Table Gantt Chart view

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 Critical path
■ The Critical Path is the series of tasks that must finish on time for the
entire project to finish on schedule.
● the longest path from start to finish
● or the path without any slack
● or the path corresponding to the shortest time in which the
project can be completed.

Tasks on the Critical Path are Red

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 Critical path - the importance
The Critical Path drives the project end date. The project plan and
predicted end date may be inaccurate if the Critical Path is not correct.

The only way to reduce the plan duration is to reduce the duration of a
task or tasks on the critical path
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 Types of task dependencies
■ Finish to Start (FS) - the default: The task cannot start before its
predecessor ends, although it may start later. This is the most common type
of relationship, and is described above.
■ Start to Start (SS): The task cannot start until the predecessor starts,
although it may start later. This can be useful if you have a task whose start
date depends on the start date of another task.
■ Finish to Finish (FF): The task cannot end before the predecessor ends,
although it may end later.
■ Start to Finish (SF): The task cannot end before the predecessor starts,
although it may end later. This task relationship is rarely used.

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 Lead Time and Lag Time
Lead Time
▪ Lead Time is the overlap between a running activity and second
activity that is starting.

Lag Time
▪ Lag Time is the delay between a finished activity and the time a
second activity starts.

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 Take-aways
▪ What’s new to you here?

● Split the project in as small deliverables as possible

● Follow the red line (Critical path)

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 Successful project

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 Successful project
What makes a project successful?

✓ Delivery quality
✓ In time
✓ In budget
✓ Team Spirit

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 Delivery quality

➢ Make sure that your deliverable is according to the acceptance

criteria

How do you make this happen now?

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 In Time: Improving estimates
■ Estimation is a Game (Poker cards)
○ The more you play, the better you get at it

■ How to estimate?

■ Can you estimate everything?

■ When estimates change, then what … ?

○ Refer to your baseline
○ Learn from the experience
○ Manage impact (risk)

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 In Time: Improving estimates (ideas)
➢ Use PERT technique for more accurate estimates
“Weighted average between the below variants”

○ The most pessimistic (P) case when everything goes wrong

○ The most optimistic (O) case where everything goes right
○ The most likely (M) case given normal problems and opportunities

Formula: (O + 4M + P)/6

➢ Using a peer group estimation process

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 Exercise: Improving estimates

■ Work with the board (the one from the team with the projects /
lanes)
○ Identify places where estimates can become invalid
○ What can you do in that case?

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 In Budget

➢ Usually this is not in the hands of “The TEAM”, but everyone

influences the outcome, hence the budget.

In most cases it is not a problem if you finish a project under budget. :)

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 Team Spirit
▪ As Project Manager (Team Lead) you need to pay attention the
the TEAM as much as you do for the other parts

➢ It will not help you if you reach a project in time and budget working
your TEAM overtime for a long period of time.

➢ It will not help your TEAM if you do not have a project any more

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 Take-aways
▪ What to do with this info?

● Balance between the aspects

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 Better communication

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 Better communication

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 Exercise: Better communication

▪ Game - “RO: Telefonul fara fir”

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 Exercise: Better communication

▪ Game - “domino”

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 Some causes for delays in delivery

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 Common “mistakes”
▪ Focus on the not so important things (80% - 20% rule)

Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most-reported bugs, 80%
of the related errors and crashes in a given system would be eliminated.

In load testing, it is common practice to estimate that 80% of the traffic

occurs during 20% of the time period.

In software engineering: "20 percent of the code has 80 percent of the

errors. Find them, fix them!"

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 Common “mistakes”
▪ When stuck - search for alternatives / ask for help?

1. Do not ask for help without even trying (some exceptions apply)
2. Do not become a martyr
3. When asking for help, be prepared (do the homework)

When do you ask for help?

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 Common “mistakes”
▪ Multi - tasking (at micro level)
Deep Work Score !!
1. You’re not really multitasking
2. It’s slowing you down
3. You’re making mistakes (up to 40% more mistakes)
4. It’s stressing you out
5. You’re missing out on life (cell phones)
6. Your memory may suffer
7. You’re not actually good at it

Multitasking men have it the worst.

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 Section rating
From 1 - 10 how relevant is this to your situation?

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 Team structure

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 Exercise: Team structure

➢ Share a bunch of pens

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 Team structure
▪ The 'One Boss' Structure

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 Team structure
▪ A Hierarchical Structure

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 Team structure
▪ The 'Circle' Structure

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 Team structure
▪ The 'Star' Structure

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 Appendix 1 - Belbin Team structure

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 Team structure - Belbin
■ Belbin Team Roles
○ The team roles are not equivalent to personality types

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 Team structure - Belbin

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 Team structure - Belbin

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 Team structure - Belbin

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