In honor of International Project Management Day: Sponsor Buy-in
Today is International Project Management Day. I bet there will be quite a few posts on project management as a profession and a methodology.
I would like to talk about something that is to often forgotten in projects: the importance of the sponsor in the project.
No project without the sponsor
If no one wants the product or end results of the project, there will be no project. The sponsor is not only the initiator of the project, she is the reason for the project to exist. The sponsor is not just the flag-waver in the race to deliver the project on time and under budget. The sponsor must be involved with the project at many levels:
- At project kick-off. It's a communication issue that is too often glossed over: the project team should understand who is initiating the project, and why it's being done. This should be learned from the project sponsor directly. The project manager saying "the sponsor told me" just doesn't have the same value, or the same credibility for that matter.
- For all major changes to the […]
Project Management is a craft
Jorge Domingez asked the question: is project management science or art?
I agree with Jorge that project management cannot be reduced to only art or only science. Rather, I see project management as a craft .
Wikipedia defines craft as "a skill, especially involving practical arts. It may refer to a trade or particular art."
Project management is about skills
Project management is being able to put people together, to organize work and to motivate the team to achieve the objective. While some are from the art world and some from the science side, these are all skills.
Project management is about the practical world
Project management is about achieving a defined goal. Projects are not theoretical endeavors.
Project managers are craftsmen and wormen
Project managers must bring together skills from different, almost opposite worlds (art and science) and work with their team to deliver something tangible at the end of the project.
What do you think?
Do you see project management as a craft?
An Underestimated Collaboration Tool in AceProject – The Discussion Forum
Nowadays, we hear more about wikis, blogs and tweets than forums. Actually, forums are not as "Web 2.0" as these collaboration tools. Nevertheless, discussion forums are incredibly useful in a project management application, from a collaboration standpoint.
Everybody's talking about Twitter and how cool it is to post 140-character messages. I definitely agree with that. However, let's not forget that a forum enables you to post both short and long messages. With Twitter, if you have a lot to say, you'll have to post several short messages, which is not always convenient and interesting to read. A forum still remains the best of both worlds.
In AceProject, there's a comment thread at the task level and a discussion forum at the project level. Both empower involved users to share ideas, knowledge, tips or any other useful information. The discussion forum is more powerful however. In addition to general discussion, it permits creating topics. Messages are then posted in a specific topic and replies to these messages can be posted thereafter. Hence, collaboration capabilities using this feature abound. […]
Managing expectations
I love our product, AceProject. I have unwavering faith in the system as it is now, and its potential in the future. When the whole gang here sit down to have lunch, I really like to dream up the future's AceProject together. To share our vision of what AceProject could be in five years.
And it's all good.
Because the team and I know what can really be done, and how much of our dreaming is just dreams. When we sit on the next version planning meeting, things get more practical: what CAN we do? True, we could recode the entire system, but that would mean no new features for our users for a long time. That would make our users unhappy.
We need to balance both the expectations of people who use AceProject everyday, and the expectations of the visionaries we have on the team. Our clients expect us to release new features at least twice a year. Our dreamers on the team (and I am one of them) expect AceProject to […]
The new quiet revolution?
Webcom in Montreal today was a very stimulating conference. While the last one, in May, was all about being open (APIs, OpenID, etc), this one seems to be all about 2.0. The revolution in marketing, medias, products and doing business in the modern world.
In the spirit of the conference, I decided to use Google Wave to document the conferences I was going to attend during the day. A few participants joined me in my documentation of the wave. I’ve had a Google Wave account (and the envy of more than a few of my peers) for a few weeks now, but I hadn’t had a chance to really use it.
With Webcom, everyone was taking notes and sharing their impressions of Webcom. While I was more inclined to summarize what was being said, others we adding context and reference links. The result is a rather complete document of the talks. It was more than a wiki (no coding required) and it was more than simple collaboration (everyone is in the same document and […]
Live Google Wave at Webcom today
Today I am at Webcom 2009 in Montreal. I've decided to use Google Wave to take notes from the presenters. So far it's going really well! I'll tell you more about my experience later this week.
Have you ever tried to nail jello to the wall?
How about fitting a square peg in a round hole? Or attracting bees with vinegar?
With these examples, it's obvious that the wrong approach is used. It could be the wrong tool, the wrong strategy or just the wrong idea.
Why do we keep doing it then?
We like our tools. Even if they don't work. We like them because we're used to them and we've learned to work around their shortcomings. Even when our tools have big problems, we tolerate them because at least we know what the problems are.
Alas, it comes a time where we must move on from our old, clunky, comfortable tools to shiny new ones.
Understand it's time for a change
Before we can start looking for a new tool, we should make the case against the old one.
- Focus on the pain points of the tool. Get a list of the tool's shortcomings, and explain them in a way that sounds as neutral as possible.
- Stay away from blaming the people using the tool. We must remember that people like familiarity and making them feel […]
Something to think about: the project’s impact on our planet
Can our project management style affect the environment? Most of us would say yes, as long as we're working on a type of project that is physical in nature. For example, if we're building a bridge or a building, it's obvious that the project has an environmental impact. It's also obvious that the building style and practices chosen will have an impact.
But we don't think about the environmental impact of office work. Beyond telecommuting to reduce our carbon footprint, here are three areas where we can affect climate change in our project management practices.
- The paper-free office is not a dream. As project managers, we have an impact on how we produce our status reports and other documentation to support the project. We have a choice on the media we use to distribute this information. Let's keep this in mind when we have a choice between printing and emailing a PDF file!
- Kick-off and team building activities with the planet in mind. Even if it's only choosing reusable glasses and mugs, our project team's carbon footprint […]
Nobody likes having a rash
If we wear an ill-fitted shoe, there will be friction between our foot and the shoe. If left unchecked, this friction will turn into a painful blister. Afterward, we will be unwilling to wear the shoe again because of the pain that friction cause our poor foot.
The same process happens if there is friction in our projects. If friction prevents someone from doing their job on the project, they will associate these negative impressions with the project as a whole.
This is why we should work hard at removing friction and making things easy for the project team, internal and external.
It should be easy
- It should be easy for the stakeholder to request changes
- It should be easy to a member of your team to raise a flag about an issue with the project
- It should be easy to the sponsor to know how the project is going.
- It should be easy for everyone involved with the project to know what's the next step
How easy are these things in your project?
Using AceProject for document check in/check out
Document management is a very convenient feature in
AceProject. Documents can be associated with a task or a project. AceProject’s document management features include: Versioning, Locking and Public/Private Availability. Locking a document doesn’t hide it. Actually, anyone who can view the document can see it even when it’s locked. It’s simply put in read-only mode.
One might be interested in document management for storage, archiving and collaboration, among other things. Today, I’d like to focus on version control (a.k.a. check in/check out) which can be achieved using the locking feature in AceProject.
Locking a document protects it against deletion and overwriting. Several scenarios can require locking documents. Here are a two examples:
Set in stone documents and document templates
Documents that should not be altered by anyone should be locked. For instance, final/approved versions, legal documents, quotes, invoices, documents from clients, etc. All templates that users start from should be locked as well. It may be forms, invoices, quotes, web pages or any other relevant source that is used over and over again in your organization.
Prevent conflicts when several users […]