EPM, Microsoft Project and You

BY: Collin Quiring

I see life through the prism of Project Management.  And, depending on the situation, how Project Management affects or is affected by customer service.  I am in the middle of having a very bad experience with the TSA – the Transportation Security Administration.  On a trip some six months ago now, they broke some of the items in my luggage.  I know it was them, and not the airline, for a number of reasons – the most obvious being that my contents were not in the same places in the suitcase that they were in when I turned the suitcase over to their care. 

Here is the part about customer service and Project Management that bothers me.  First, the TSA sets the rules under which I file a claim.  Then, they determine if the claim is valid or not, AND, they do it in their own time frame.  They decide if they did the damage or not.  They decide if they will pay or not.  They also make up the rules for you to follow if you want to appeal their other rulings.

While the overall situation is frustrating, it does make me think about how the Project Managers, or Project Management Office, is judged.  When a project is completed, who decides if it was successful or not?  And, from what criteria?  During a project, who decides if it is going well or not?  And, again, using what criteria?  I know that there are some quick and easy answers – time, budget, and quality – but are those the only criteria for if a project is going well or completed well?  And, how do the stakeholders view it? 

I have worked with some stakeholders that don’t care at all about Project Management or the “normal” criteria that Project Managers like to use for measurements.  To them, all the Project Management did was get in the way.

Which leads me back to the TSA – they use their own criteria to decide if something went well or not, and from their perspective.  As a Project Manager, on your projects, are you being your own judge and jury?  If so, perhaps it would be good to see how the stakeholders are viewing your processes, rules and measurements.

By: Collin Quiring

Two interesting articles that I have recently read have me thinking about how the best plans by a Project Manager can be controlled by the unexpected reaction of stakeholders to live events – that have nothing to do with your project.  A Project Manager may be good at Risk Analysis but it is impossible to analyze the risk of a specific real-time event occurring during your project.   I am referring to events such as news or of general interest that are happening somewhere in the world.

My only point is that despite the best efforts of a Project Manager, current events can overtake the best plans – and you have to adjust to it!

For example, take the case of Air Canada, which experienced a flight delay due to a hockey game.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – Canada’s largest airline has learned it sometimes has to take a back seat to the country’s biggest sporting passion, ice hockey, the head of Air Canada said on Tuesday.

The airline was forced to delay a flight from Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games because passengers watching the end of gold medal final on airport televisions ignored repeated calls to board.

“We incurred a flight delay for a reason Air Canada had not yet encountered in over 72 years of existence,” chief executive Calin Rovinescu told a business gathering.

Or, from the city of Edmonton, Alberta, the water utility, comes this report:

The water utility in Edmonton, EPCOR, published the most incredible graph of water consumption last week. By now you’ve probably heard that up to 80% of Canadians were watching last Sunday’s gold medal Olympic hockey game. So I guess it stands to reason that they’d all go pee between periods.

But still—the degree to which the water consumption matches with the key breaks in the hockey game is stunning.

BY: Tim Gryder

This accountability thing…such an important term yet subject to so much variance in opinion as to what it really means. In today’s world, accountability is constantly being redefined to us by a political and culture flag that shifts with every change in the direction of the wind. While terms and opinions vary, it’s good to know that some things never change…for example: gravity.

While gravity isn’t a social topic it is definitely a physical force which keeps us accountable to something…such as the ground. It is well defined and absolute and not up for debate as to what it means. In dealing with gravity we apply many points of physics and as a result, we are able to achieve flight but always within the boundaries of rules and physics of gravity.

So what does this have to do with Project Management you might ask? Well in my mind, Project Management is simply like the rules and physics of the absolute of time. If we apply the right business rules, sequences and events, we can manage time and ultimately cost. I recently heard an associate claim the being a Project Manager is like being a glorified note taker and task chaser. I also heard another associate claim that we never get anything done on time and on budget. These perspectives are symptomatic of not understanding the absolutes of time and its best and most profitable use.

Today, we have proven techniques, logic and technology that allow us to manage time. Never before in the history of humanity have we been able to define, plan, schedule, analyze, resource, cost, track, report etc, etc. The access to these tools are great, the use and understanding is maybe not so much.

Look at the resources at our disposal; we have tools like Microsoft Project that allow us to manage the absolutes of time. These tools are way underutilized. What is the biggest reason for not using these tools? I have come to this conclusion: Its accountability! Yes there can be other reasons but I truly believe that accountability is the culprit that deters us from unfettered time management.

Project Management tools and techniques are extremely oriented towards absolutes and holding us accountable to a “Due Date”. There….I said it…yes, time is an absolute.

Does this sound familiar?

•       “The reality is if we don’t ship our product by this date the customer will reject it”.

•       “The buyout transition must happen by a certain date or we will lose our tax advantage”.

•       “Yes, the interest will accumulate on the mortgage note if the construction is not completed on
time”.

These are simple realities that have real implications when not met. Yet I see where it is still often easier to avoid accountability than to manage these processes with business rules, techniques and tools that drive us to deliver. Human nature hates to be run like a machine, but the bottom line sure likes it.

The reality is… we all need accountability. Project Management gives us techniques and processes by which to manage time. Tools such as Microsoft Project and Project Server enable us to acknowledge the absolutes and manage them as fact. Dealing with the truth is well worth the investment of using these techniques and tools….as opposed to the cost of not being on time.

When a schedule is built and changes are made over time (whether with Resources or other areas) and the dates move.  Sometimes unexpectedly.  There are a number of items that could affect this such as Calendars, Predecessors/Successors, Deadlines, Constraints and so on.  One of the fundamental drivers for how the task changes is based upon the task type and how Microsoft Project re-calculates the task.  These task types are duration, work and units.  Even without Microsoft Project, it is good to understand the differences between these task types.

A new White Paper explaining how this works is now on our White Paper section at www.PMPSpecialists.com/WhitePapers.html  Look for the document titled “Task Types – Fixed Duration, Fixed Work, Fixed Units“