We’re going to have a bit of fun in this blog. I’m going to ask you three questions, and if you can hand on heart answer ‘yes’ to all of them, I think it fair to assume you are a good project manager. If you answer ‘no’ to any of them, then get excited, because here is an opportunity to improve your project management skills by doing a few simple things – and I’ll share exactly what they are.
Now, when I ask these questions, you can’t refer to your project documentation. Just give me an honest ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So, are you ready? Then let’s get started.
Question one. Do you know what each of your team members is doing today?
If you are reading this on the weekend it doesn’t count! I’m assuming this is a workday!
So, do you honestly know what each member of your team is doing today? It’s important that we know this, because as project managers, we control the resources. If we don’t know what our resources are doing, we are not really controlling the project.
I learned this lesson the hard way. I was leading a project where, for the first time, I was managing the IT resources directly. Up until that project I had always been a business project manager (PM) with an IT PM reporting into me, but on this project, the IT PM left and I just ended up taking on their responsibilities. I remember I had a meeting with the programme manager and him asking me what one of the IT resources was doing that week. I didn’t know. He then asked me what another of the resources was doing that week. Again, I didn’t know. By this point I was quite embarrassed but, thankfully, he was an understanding programme manager. He just smiled and said kindly ‘it might be a good idea to get a handle on what your team is up to’. He then mercifully moved onto another subject. I was probably a bit red in the face but after that conversation I made it my business (literally) to know what the hell each of my team members was doing on any given day so I would never get myself into that awkward situation again.
This especially applies if a team member is resourced 100% to your project, i.e. they are not working on anything else. You are paying for this resource, so it is your right and responsibility to know what they are doing and to know you are getting value for ‘your’ money. Even if a resource appears to be working hard, don’t mistake busyness for productivity. Base their value on results, not on how busy their diary is. I see over-resourced projects and programmes far too often. It’s a waste of money. As you become more experienced, you’ll be able to sense if a resource on your team is really busy with value-add work, or if they are bullshitting (it does happen, unfortunately). It’s your responsibility as the PM to spend the budget wisely, and you cannot do that without knowing what everyone is doing every day (or at the least every week). Moreover, having this knowledge makes it much easier if you need to reprioritise work, as you have the best view of how to most efficiently allocate work among the team.
Question two. Do you know what your next three key milestones are, including their exact dates?
As project managers, we should be able to answer this quickly. We should know what key milestones we are working towards. And by the way, you will know which milestones are key and which are not. Not only should we know which they are, we should know the exact date they are due. ‘The end of the month’ isn’t good enough. What does the ‘end of the month’ mean? The 25th? The 31st? The 1st of the next month? ‘End of the month’ is too vague. Get specific. What is the exact date? You should have that in your plan, and you should have that etched in your mind.
How much more impact are you going to have and how much more confidence will you give people if you can answer the question ‘when is this milestone happening’ without skipping a beat? ‘The 25th’. Boom. No ‘ums’, no hesitation, no ‘hold on, let me check the plan’. You just know.
Now, you should know what the key milestone dates are because you are so familiar with your plan and you have control of the project. You’ll know when they are due and if they are on track or at risk. If you answered ‘no’ to this question, then you need to ask yourself if you really know what’s going on. You should be checking and updating your plan at least every other day.
In the cases where a key milestone date has not yet been agreed then you need to at least set a target date. Just make an assumption. You can RAG it amber until it has been agreed but get a DATE down on your plan.
Question three. Do you have a documented ‘route to green’ for all your key issues, with specific owners and due-dates for each step?
Many project managers will have an issue log but don’t manage the issues. If we are to manage projects well, we need to be all over our issues like a rash. If you have issues in your project but you don’t know how you are going to resolve them, you are going to have anxiety and that will make you less effective. I don’t care what the issue is, as soon as you have a concrete plan of how you are going to resolve it, much of that anxiety vanishes. Instantly. Know the steps to resolution or the ‘route to green’. As a project manager, the question I ask the most in meetings (and some of my longstanding colleagues have teased me about this) is ‘what is the next step?’ What is the next step? I must know that to be able to sleep at night!
Our senior stakeholders will always, always want to know the specific route to green (RTG) if there is an issue that they care about. Know this. Anticipate this. I remember reading a story from an Elon Musk biography, where one of his employees was giving an update about a huge issue in SpaceX. Because the issue was so big, he thought it best to report it to Musk immediately. When Musk asked what the plan was to resolve it, the employee said he didn’t have an answer. Musk was furious. ‘Why not? Why don’t you have the answer!?’ he demanded. You might think that harsh, as the employee just thought it better to let him know as soon as possible. BUT, as a project manager, you don’t want to get yourself in a situation where you have someone very senior asking you what the RTG is, and you don’t know. Know your RTG. Know all the steps. Who is doing them? When do they need to get them done by? Have it all documented.
It will reassure your stakeholders to no end if you can calmly describe the issue and the impact, then follow up with a clear plan to resolve it. E.g, ‘Unfortunately, this issue has arisen, it means ‘such and such’ to the project, but we know we need to do ‘such and such’ to resolve it. Now, to get there, we need to do this, this and this. We’re going to do it by this date, this date, and this date’. How good does that sound? That is a real project manager, right there. If you do this, people will respect you and you will build a reputation as a very good project manager, someone that can be counted on to resolve problems.
So, those were the three questions! How did you do? If you could say ‘yes’ to all three, then give yourself a pat on the back. If you answered ‘no’ to one or more, this is an opportunity to get better, and quite easily.
Now, please take this quiz with a pinch of salt. If you answered ‘no’ to all of them it’s possible you are still an effective PM. However, if you don’t know what your resources are doing, and you don’t know when your key milestones are coming up, and you don’t know how you are going to resolve your issues…then you could certainly be a better PM.
So, let’s go into some quick tips for each question –
Tips for knowing what your team is doing –
- Have daily stand-ups
- I’ll be honest. I’m not a huge fan of ‘Agile’. Seems like a lot of time spent moving tickets around and having epic debates about what the ‘Definition of Done’ should be. However, it does have some valuable practices and the daily stand-up is one of them. Now, having a daily 15mins call with your team has been around long before Agile. However, Agile does mandate the need to keep it short and snappy by focusing on priorities for the day and flagging any blockers. This is a great way to know what your core team is doing. In a short 15 mins you can know all the activity and you can let people know if you think they should be doing something else. I tend to use this for IT/engineering resources due to the variety of their technical tasks
- Have fortnightly 1-2-1s
- Schedule a fortnightly 1-2-1 with each team member and go through their priorities for the rest of the week and the following week. This is better suited if your team are completing longer termed activities that are going to take a few weeks
- The daily email
- I have never used this one but if I were to, I would reserve it for contractors or new starters, as it can be a bit too much for seasoned co-workers. However, it’s very simple and effective. At the end of each day, the team member is to send you a very short email. Three bullets; what did they get done that day, what issues did they have and what they are they going to do tomorrow?
Tips for remembering the next thee key milestones –
- Write them on a ‘post it’ note every Monday
- Incredibly simple. Just make it a habit to, every Monday morning or Friday afternoon, pull out your project plan and identify the next three key milestones. Write them on a post-it and stick it on your monitor. Then you’ve got them in front of your face all day and you will quickly internalise the dates
- The two week look ahead
- This one is best done with your project team. A good time to do it is during your weekly project meeting. Just review together the milestones over the next two weeks. Doing so ensures you are ready for them, and everything that needs to happen to start and achieve them is getting done. You’ll quickly identify the key ones
- Review your project plan on a daily basis
- Maintaining a good project plan takes work. You should be updating it everyday to mark tasks complete and look ahead to upcoming milestones
Tips for defining the RTG for issues
- The emergency meeting
- I’ve called it the ’emergency meeting’ because it sounds better, but it can just be a normal meeting! If an issue comes up, don’t ignore it, don’t procrastinate. Deal with it quickly. The easiest way to do this is with your team. If it’s urgent, put in a diary buster as soon as possible. Then together, you can document the impact, the solution, and the specific steps to get there. Be sure to assign owners and deadlines for each step. Once you have done this, you’ll feel much better. The plan may not always work, but at least you have a plan!
That brings us to the end of the blog. Thanks for staying with me until now and I look forward to sharing more project management content with you next time!
Project Manaverse 