Making life easier (and a bit of process stuff)

Projects generally have a lot of 'interconnectedness'. And please - I don't just mean railway projects.

Processs are rarely 'stand-alone'. The outputs from one process are, more often than not, the inputs fir something else. (So help me) you'll start to hear the words ecosystem and (abandon hope all who enter) 'synergy'.

In an ideal (and possible mythical world) you have ERP, CRM and EPM tools into which all your various risks, issues etc are included. But, from time to time, the enterprising PM may find themselves without these tools and forced to fall back on more prosaic mechanisms (by which I mean Excel).

I've provided a spread sheet here. I call it ACRID (derived from Assumptions, Constraints, Risks, Issues and Dependencies). You'll also come across the term RAID (minus the constraints), and you'll probably not often come across a CORDIAL log which (of course) contains the lessons learned log. Any attempt to include a quality log is headed for the rocks.

We don't want to make life too hard for ourselves and, of course, we'll want to keep an eye on the whole process ecosystem angle so we're not duplicating effort left, right and centre.

I include here a template for a highlight report. I like highlight reports as I know of no better way to bridge the divide between the poets (for whom business transformation is a mere pen stroke) and the plumbers who lie awake all night worrying about it. I take some license but there's a sliding scale in there somewhere.

So, back to the whole inputs and outputs thing. If you take a look at the highlight report template (which is aligned with Prince 2) you'll notice there's quite a bit on work packages and products. Check back to previous posts and you'll have all all you need to cut and paste into the highlight report.

In fact I'll paste in the contents page from the highlight report template and append it with where you derive the content from each section from.

1. This reporting period

Not much going on in here

1.1 Work Packages

...Or here

1.1.1 Pending authorisation

If you need them, you'll have been writing them and you'll know which ones are outstanding authorisation

1.1.2 Completed in this period

From the project plan, paste in relevant sections of WBS

1.2 Products completed in this period

From the project plan, paste in relevant sections of WBS

1.3 Products planned but not started

From the project plan, paste in relevant sections of WBS

1.4 Corrective actions taken during the period

Issue log or other sources as appropriate

2 Next reporting period

Not much going on in here

2.1 Work Packages

...Or here

2.1.1 To be authorised

From the project plan, paste in relevant sections of WBS

 2.1.2 To be completed in the next period

From the project plan, paste in relevant sections of WBS

2.2 Products to be completed in the next period

From the project plan, paste in relevant sections of WBS

2.3 Corrective actions to be completed in the next period

Could be anything - use your judgement to include what you feel is appropriate

3 Product and stage tolerance status

SPI / CPI figures as appropriate (this will have to wait for another day for detailed coverage).

4 Requests for change

From the ACRID log so long as you raise all your changes as issues

5 Key Risks

From the ACRID log

6 Issues

From the ACRID log

7 Lessons Report

From the ACRID log

***************************************
Some points to bear in mind.

1. Truncate (i.e. hide a few columns) on the product descriptions, WBS elements, risks etc as you'll not fit them all on a single landscape A4 and the detail is probably more than your audience will want
2. I'll cover off a bit on the cost performance index (CPI) and schedule performance index (SPI) another day.
3. Corrective action could mean almost anything - include what you think is appropriate
4. Some stakeholders will want detailed information about resource burn, budget status or other detailed information not included above - this is a good sign and shows that the sponsor is 'on board' and giving the project focus.

And, to wrap up the topic of the highlight report I conlude with the following key points which I hope will impress upon you the benefit of producing it, even if your stakeholders are sanguine on the topic.

• It is an excellent tool of communication to all stakeholders, both to relay issues and status concerns but also to keep all parties abreast of progress. It is a principal tool by which the project manager can relay, escalate and communicate issues and anxieties which require board / sponsor input.
• I find it amongst the best ways of structuring a project board meeting, particularly for stakeholders less experienced in sitting on project boards
• If (like me) you keep all your WBS elements, product descriptions and logs up to date, with practice, you can produce one of these in about 20 minutes.

Theories need evidence, facts need proof.

Always nice to stumble upon an academic bun fight. For the very tip of a very large iceberg on the relative merits of quantitative versus qualitative analysis see here, here or here.

But I'm a PM not an academic so what's the angle? My qualitative answer would be that knowing the difference will sometime enable a project manager to make optimal decisions . My quantitative answer is about 45 degrees - which to be fair isn't much use in this context.

For reference.

Quantitative research consists of those studies in which the data concerned can be analysed in terms of numbers ... Research can also be qualitative, that is, it can describe events, persons and so forth scientifically without the use of numerical data ... Quantitative research is based more directly on its original plans and its results are more readily analysed and interpreted. Qualitative research is more open and responsive to its subject. Both types of research are valid and useful. They are not mutually exclusive. It is possible for a single investigation to use both methods. (Best and Khan, 1989: 89-90)

Qualitative research is harder, more stressful and more time-consuming than other types. If you want to get your MEd dissertation or whatever finished quickly and easily do a straightforward questionnaire study. Qualitative research is only suitable for people who care about it, take it seriously, and are prepared for commitment (Delamont, 1992: viii)

Both these excerpts are from "An introduction to the qualitative and quantitative divide"

Whether it be the generation of the initial business case, the management of risk, key design decisions or resource planning, the project manager is faced with a veritable zoo of decisions. Some are more critical than others and on a sliding (qualitative) scale we make decisions which if wrong have very limited consequences to those 'irreversible' decisions to which great heed must be paid.

Question; has anyone ever sat down with project stakeholders and asked them if they want quantitative risk management, qualitative risk management or both? Do you understand the question? Would your stakeholders? Does it matter?

Take the following examples. First, what I hope will look a fairly typical excerpt from a fairly typical quanititative risk log. All with me so far?

 Next, something from the qualitative end of the spectrum.

R1 - qualitative assessment


Failure to provide adequant fencing, or early warning mechanisms as appropriate may result in injury or death to Donald Duck.

(A little digression here on the the two approaches to risk - if you fail to communicate to your board the potential impact of a risk with numbers (quantitative) try words instead (qualitative). On more than one occasion I've managed to elicit a response by describing in detail the consequence of a risk occuring having failed by ascribing it an impact and probability.

The Beaufort Scale incidentally makes rather good use of both qualitative and quantitative approaches - that's meteorology for you.

The PERT weigted average here is purely quantitative.

Now I could rattle on at length here, but I don't know if a blog post is quite the place for it. So I'll leave you with a couple of summary points.

1. Make a judgement of which type of data suits your needs and then go and get it
2. Personally, I prefer numbers to adjectives (with the proviso that they're right)
3. Look back at the quantitative risk assessment example above. Are your quantitative risk assessments based on analysis of the statistical likelihood of the event and the impact to cost and time should it occur? If not, then your quantitative analysis is in fact a qualitative analysis.

Stacking the odds in your favour

A project manager benefits (and is sometimes disadvantaged) by having an itinerant pair of ears and an equally mobile mouth. It may also be the case that they have some experience which can usefully be applied to the customer's specific needs.


Before I go any further, let me re-state (and supplement) a few truths I hold dear.

1. Most defects are introduced in the early phases of a project and get a good deal more costly to fix as time passes
2. Most capital is committed relatively early in the project life-cycle
3. Commercial contracts offer plenty of opportunity to write in haste arrangements that there will subsequently be plenty of time to leisurely repent

With this all said, how does the project manager take these self-evident truisms and instate a control that will serve to guard against mishaps?

I've talked about a several elements that together can serve as a foundation for project delivery. There are a number of things that can cause instability, amongst which are the following.

1. Poor scope definition
2. Inadequate product descriptions
3. Lack of stakeholder engagement
4. Poor change management

I've covered quite a bit of detail in relation to the first three but very little on the the topic of change. Incidentally, this isn't a complete list, but it's certainly some headlines.

The invidious thing about change is that it comes in many guises and there won't always be a governance product or person that can be called upon to respond appropriately.

With this said, you need a catch-all, something that informs all decisions, something that is quantifiable, and readily comprehensible to all stakeholders.

Say after me - "EVERY DEVELOPMENT STEP HAS A CORRESPONDING TEST ACTIVITY".

Put it in the brief, put it in the PID, the project charter, give it a slide in the project kick-off meeting, write it on the wall, include it in SOPs for the project team and champion it at every opportunity.

And when, as inevitably will be the case, someone deviates from this virtuous path and you've finished picking up the pieces, conduct a root cause analysis which will almost certainly find the absence of an appropriate test activity the principal culprit.

,,,and then of course, you can add it to the lessons learned log.

Conundrums in communications (part 2)

2 down, four to go.

1. You might saturate communication channels
2. Someone else might saturate communication channels 
3. Your stakeholders 'lose sight' of the communication plan
4. Your stakeholders actually tell you they should have read the communications, but they're sorry they didn't and now they're in a bit of a mess
5. You've racked your brains but you can't work out a way to ascertain whether or not your stakeholders have read, retained and understood your communications.
6. You're facing universal stakeholder apathy (this is on a sliding scale from mildly disinterested to venomous mischief making

Your stakeholders have 'lost sight' of the communication plan

The symptoms

This is one of those damning euphemisms which you really don't want offered forth in a board meeting. It's usually a response to some adverse incident which an observer has laid at the door of a communications management deficiency. A more forthright assessment might find the issue wholly predicated upon human factors.

The cause

Either you don't have a communication plan or, you're not 'managing your stakeholders'*. Or, you do have a communications plan, you are appropriately engaged with stakeholders and the assessment is simply wrong.

I take the stance that you don't treat stakeholders like farm stock, but not everyone maintains such an enlightened view.

The solution

Do not allow something that isn't a communications issue to be painted as a communications issue. If you don't have a communications plan, you'll have to bite the bullet. If you have a communications plan and the issue really is a communications issue then use something like 5-whys of other root cause analysis approach and take the corrective action necessary.

Your stakeholders are in a bind because they've not read your communications

The symptoms

You've done your job. Really, you have, You can show unequivocally the accountability for the lapse (be what it may) lies elsewhere and in this particular instance with someone who should have, would have, could have but didn't read any of the 6 carefully planned and executed communications bulletins. However, they can't work now and are costing the business money and that's starting to make you look bad.

The cause

Insufficient quality management. The key here is not the fact that your stakeholders didn't read the communications, its the impact of them not reading the communications. You cannot ensure your stakeholders read, understand and retain what is provided to them. In most instances you can manage what happens if they don't read it, understand it or retain it.

The solution

Implement poka-yoke or simliar. However you do it, don't let your stakeholders fall into a man trap because they 'didn't get the memo'.

You can't validate the efficacy of your communications (#5)

The symptoms

You've no qualified or quantified measure of the efficacy of your communications plan. Nagging doubts. Often at 2am.


The cause

You're a project manager not a mind reader

The solution

You've hopefully still got your communications stooges on talking terms from issue #1. They'll be a good help with this from simply opening up a dialogue to engaging them in test activities. I'm not a fan of surveys for this purpose. If I instate a test activity it will be designed to weed out deficiencies in communications or, what might in fact turn out to be confirmation testing. I'm not sure a survey does either one of these things well.

Apathy (and sometimes venom and mischief)

The symptoms

Rather self evident this one

The cause

Not ever so likely to be a communications issue but quite possible one which is first encountered by those project staff engaged in communications activities.

The solution

It's not a communications issue. Communications probably isn't the root cause and certainly is unlikely to resolve this independently. Escalate to the board and sponsor. Use the risk and issue logs with due prejudice.

Conundrums in communications (part 1)

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with communications. They can suck up resource, they're fiendishly difficult to get right (I sometimes even wonder what 'right' even means) and I can't be alone in having been burnt on one or two occasions by a nanosecond's lapse in concentration on the topic. 


Conversely, they give the project team an opportunity to raise their profile, to champion their aims and objectives and, done right, they can be one of the more satisfying aspects of the job.


Here's a few headline manholes.

1. You might saturate communication channels
2. Someone else might saturate communication channels 
3. Your stakeholders 'lose sight' of the communication plan
4. Your stakeholders actually tell you they should have read the communications, but they're sorry they didn't and now they're in a bit of a mess
5. You've racked your brains but you can't work out a way to ascertain whether or not your stakeholders have read, retained and understood your communications.
6. You're facing universal stakeholder apathy (this is on a sliding scale from mildly disinterested to venomous mischief making)

At this point I could espouse the virtues of a carefully crafted communications plan or stakeholder engagement plan. But I'm not going to and here's why. If you're fortunate enough to have specialist communications input, or even just a chunk of resource to throw at communications you can spend all the time in the world on soft market research, repositioning key stakeholder groups and deciding the precise colour scheme to use across the breadth of your media interfaces. So not only will you have time and money to develop specific purpose built documents and strategies, you'll be able to underwrite the resources for them, manage them and (one assumes) see them through to a successful conclusion.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, you've fought like a tiger for the limited resource you've got, your fingers are bleeding from back to back authoring of the business case, mandate project brief, project initiation document, configuration management plan WBS and product descriptions and the sponsor is wondering when you're going to start delivering something. So you make a note somewhere that the communications plan will be included in the RAM on stage 3 of the project (or something similarly vague).

This all said, you might find yourself facing problems 1-6 inclusive, or some uniquely quirky issue particular to your project and needing a bit of communication lubrication. Below I include my suitably pragmatic salve to the issues above.

You have saturated your communication channels

The symptoms

Communications have become less effective, stakeholders are grumbling, you hear the words '...not another project blah email...' in the lift, Paradoxically, because people are starting to disregard your communications you have to send out even more. People are setting up email rules to junk your mail.

The cause

You've overcooked it. You might even simply be following the communications plan (that needs an update by the way).  You've got no temperature check or feedback loop in your communications so you keep on spamming the entire stakeholder pool whenever you feel slightly anxious that your message might be getting lost in the corporate soup.

The solution

Prevention is better than cure. You need to recruit communications stooges (confederates in the stakeholder pool or business) who will primarily assess your communications from the receiver end of the equation as well as being your eyes and ears in those environments. If you've missed the prevention boat, take a two week communications holiday while you recruit your stooges - that should kill two birds with one stone.

Someone else has saturated your communications channels

The symptoms

Broadly the same as before. You have the satisfaction of knowing that you are not directly responsible for the blunder, but the annoyance that you will have to directly fix it.

The cause

Could be a lot of things but two spring to mind which I cite specifically because you'll approach the matter differently.

1. Poor email etiquette from co-workers. You're getting a lot of reply alls on emails or, other, similar blanket channels of communication are springing up. You're not managing them (in fact no one is), messages are getting garbled and coherence lost.
2. Someone in the customer's organisation, the stakeholder pool or simply someone you need to do business with is suddenly and deliberate fielding a great deal of communications, most of which is making your day a good deal harder than it needs to be.

The solution

In the first case, you're going to need to get that someone some feedback on email etiquette or simply the fact that communications for project blah start and end with the project team. That'll probably get you fixed.

The second case is a bit more of a curve ball and is correspondingly a little tougher to fix. Remember the communications plan we were going to right in stage 3? You need to get that thing written promptly. Don't kick yourself - having it earlier wouldn't have done you any good. 

You're going to need to define your communications interfaces, media, authorised and approved communications providers and get the plan approved by your project board. You will of course ensure that you've specifically outlawed stakeholders exploiting project communications channels to prosecute their own agendas and you'll also include that breaches of the communications plan will result in a project issue being raised to the board.

I can't promise you this is the panacea to every stakeholder that decided their views superseded those of the project board or sponsor - but this does tend to either quiesce over active stakeholder communications or, in the event it does not, reduces your exposure as PM to the problem as you've got some structure and a readily available channel of escalation.

I'll see off the remainder in the next post. If anyone has any communications issues not listed, do add a comment - I can't promise to have an answer, but my readership is almost into double figures - we'll crowd source an answer!

Sewing up a few lose ends and knitting it all together

Time to wrap up (for now at least) on the WBS and allied products.


I mentioned that sometimes there was a lot of work and not much product. If you need better control around this or simply better control period then I enclose a work package template here.


The first half is pretty much Prince 2 all the way. The second half incorporates specific test management activities intended to root out defects.


Two interesting points about work packages - sometimes resource pools really respond well to them. They can definitely accelerate delivery. Secondly, if you ask for written checkpoint reports from assigned resources you can rely on finding out problems after they've happened. If you take the time to verbally engage with the assigned resources you might be lucky to catch sight of problems before they occur.


Next I include a small but useful resource which is distilled from the WBS (which we have talked about) and the project plan (which we haven't) which nicely sows up all the delivery dates for all the products. 


For ease of administration I recommend including the WBS dictionary, the product descriptions and the product handover log on different work sheets in the same work book. I've never done anything clever with this using SharePoint / Excel Web Services but doubtless they'd be some value in exploring this.


I'm a bit cautious with the illustration below but felt it was worth including even in its slightly flawed state. The PBS is a bit nomadic, and there are one or two abstractions too far. But I think there's more right with it than wrong so I include it here and welcome suggestions for how it can be neatened up a bit.

There's a heck of a lot more worth exploring, both central to the illustration above (testing, estimating, tracking and controlling progress) and peripheral (benefits management, value management, business case writing) to name but a few. But, that's all for another post on another day.

Defining the output via product descriptions

This post and other recent posts relate to one approach to progressively distilling the voice of the customer into project plan.

It shouldn't be adopted in a vacuum and other posts here on quality and requirements are important as is (doubtless) a world of detail specific to your particular ecosystem.


I have focussed in detail on the WBS (3) though elaboration of the WBS itself, a useful supporting narrative for the WBS and the WBS dictionary. This post will look at product descriptions and touch a little on the composition of work packages.

The schema for the product descriptions is quite large so I've transposed it as shown below. Again, it's Prince 2 aligned and you can download the template here.

1. Identifier- needs to be unique and should be traceable to the corresponding WBS element
2. Title - something meaningful
3. Purpose - Important. Be accurate, succinct and clear - what's this product for?
4. Composition - What's in it? If it's a document, you might describe the particular section headings
5. Derivation - how will this be derived or what from? 
6. Format and presentation - speaks for itself
7. Development skill required - if you need a rocket scientist, here's where to state you case
8. Quality criteria - how will the product's fitness for purpose be measured or ascertained
9. Quality tolerance - and how much can it deviate
10. Quality method - how will it be checked (review, inspection, external audit?)
11. Quality skills required - anything specific? Subject matter expertise, certification or other.
12. Quality responsibilities - who's head is on the block?
13. Status - draft, approved, completed, late and so on and so fourth.

There's probably more detail than is needed for most products and that's fine. Understandably, you're not likely to add additional columns just because you come across a specific product for which you wish to define additional detail. So include all the fields but leave them blank where appropriate. The additional structure can serve as a useful handrail for reviewers.

Those of you with keen analytical eye might have observed a discrepancy. All this work to elaborate and specify detail corresponding to products - fine. What about for all the work for which there isn't a product or for which there is a disproportionate amount of time / money committed for the given product? Where do we instate the control necessary to govern the activity? The answer is in a formal documented 'work package'. I have some views on this so will hold off going into too much detail and make it the topic of a future subject specific post. I'll include a template and some particular content around testing which adds value.


In summary then. A while back I looked at the following abstraction and talked quite a bit about 'achieving quality' and defined quality as 'meets requirements, fit for purpose.

I laboured (but didn't finish) requirements and requirements management, talked in detail about the quality risk assessment and just touched incidentally on defect management and the quality log. (By the way, my quality log is the opposite of the defect log - i.e. it records stuff that's okay as opposed to defective. This is distinct to the Prince 2 quality register which records 'quality activities'. Technically you don't need a quality log, but it can be quite a bleak experience going into project board meetings with a defect log and nothing to illustrate the more positive end of the equation).


This post and the last few posts have dealt in the development and implementation space. Taking the customer's vision, I generate a WBS and an accompanying narrative and get it reviewed and signed-off. I then elaborate the WBS into a WBS dictionary and identify any products. Where products are identified, they are elaborated via product descriptions. Note too that work packages play a part in controlling work without obvious products or for which the cost was disproportionate in comparison to the output. For the WBS elements with products we can probably take items straight off the QRA and apply them to the product descriptions as appropriate.