Set a GOAL to plan the work and work the plan

What are Plan Goals?

What's more more difficult than developing the project plan?  Setting goals for planning the work and setting goals for executing the work defined by the plan.  Setting goals for planning and executing the work provides clarity and helps the project team members commit to executing work defined in the plan.

Setting a Goal to Plan the Work

How to define goals for creating and maintaining the plan

As a project initiates, or even prior to initiation, an agreement of how the plan will be created and maintained needs to be defined.  This is different than developing project goals.  It is also different than defining the project methodology.  Invest in setting, communicating, executing, and committing to goals for planning itself.

Some barriers for setting plan goals include:
-The people who contribute to the plan don't understand their role
-At the early stages of a project, there may not be a 'project' at all and therefore a lack of clarity that something needs to be planned
-A bridge between higher level strategy and the need for a plan may not be obvious

-Competing priorities prevent the right people from allocating time to plan
-Budgets do not account for the time and effort it takes to plan
-Urgency and eagerness to work quickly may cause proper planning to be skipped altogether

Most project methodologies provide guidelines for initiating and controlling the project.  Reinforce these methods with a Pledge to develop the plan.

Communicating Goals

How to build a team to define goals for a plan

Once plan goals are agreed, it is important to communicate the goals and ensure impacted people understand their roles.  This goes a long way to breaking through planning barriers.  As part of project initiation, you should have key stakeholders, contributors, and decision makers defined.  This is the team that needs to understand plan goals.  A face-to-face 'kick off' planning meeting is best.  Second best is a real-time video or web conference.  Plan goals should not be communicated in email exclusively.  Use email as a follow up reminder.

Setting a Goal to Work the Plan

How to define goals for executing work defined by the plan

Once goals are set for creating and maintaining the plan, set goals to define how to actually work the plan.  These goals should be agreed in advance of work commencing and may fall in line with the chosen project methodology.  Even if a methodology is available and agreed, goals for committing to exactly how the project will (or will not) follow the methodology is critical.

Committing Goals

How to agree to goals to work the plan

Finally, a commitment to how actual work against the plan will commence is needed.  This is the foundation of a project team's ability to determine progress against the plan and the Estimate to Complete (ETC).  This should fall in line with the project methodology, including a clear agreement on what part of the methodology is included / excluded.

How To Actually Get Work Done, Action Items

What Is An Action Item?
A generally accepted definition is this:  "An action item is a documented activity, event, or task. Action items are discrete entities that can be dealt with by a single person."   While this is true, the Practical Project Manager knows action items are an important part of actually getting work done.  Successful projects have solid practices and controls around definining, managing and actually completing work associated with action items.

Action items are:  

• Unplanned work associated with issue and risk management
• Often discovered during a meeting or formal discussion regarding an issue or risk
• Prioritized, assigned, managed for completion

Action items can sometimes be confused with unplanned work, that is, work that should have been documented as a task in the Project Schedule.  If there is significant unplanned work, the project may require a Scope Change.  

It is important to monitor action items to make sure there is not "Scope Creep".  Sometimes action items take on a life of their own, resulting in a significant work effort just to manage actions.  This can be an indicator that scope was not sufficiently managed or that additional scope is creeping into the project under the guise of action items.

How to Manage Action Items

The best way to manage action items is to record them in an ACTION ITEM LOG using a collaborative tool such as SharePoint or Google Apps.

Build a collaborative ACTION ITEM LOG that has the following features and includes email alerts to the responsible person, attachments, and a historical archive:

• Description - Short explanation of activity to be performed
• Work Stream - your project is probably organized into various work streams such as business requirements, technical design, user interface, etc. 
• Issue or Risk - is this action item associated with a project issue or risk
• Status - Open, In Progress, Resolved, Canceled, Transfered to Training Log
• Urgency - how quickly does this action need to be performed?  1) must do now 2) can wait 
• Priority - what is the impact to your project's critical path? 1) High 2) Medium 3) Low
• Comments - A description of what is now being done to solve the issue
• Responsibility - Who is responsible for actively working the issue?
• Created Date - Date issue was opened
• Next Step - What is the next activity for working the issue?
• Next Step Due Date - When is this person's next action due?
• Planned Completion Date - When will this issue be solved?
• Actual Completion Date - Date issue was closed

The Practical Project Manager maintains the ACTION ITEM LOG and builds an interactive tool so actions can be maintained by those responsible for resolution.  Managing the team's work against completing the action items is the project manager's responsibility. 

Refer to: #3 Know The Difference

Always refer to your company's methodology or the Project Management Institute for specific how-to.

How To Actually Get Work Done, Introduction

The Heartbeat of a Project is in Actually Getting Work Done

Actually "getting work done" can be extremely difficult if a project is bogged down by politics, bureaucracy, poor planning, a shortage of resources, or other external factors.


The Practical Project Manager actually gets work done by ensuring execution of day-to-day work activities, both Planned and Unplanned Work, with clear communication, deliberation, and enthusiasm.

• Planned Work is documented in a Project Schedule (for example using Microsoft Project).  When work is planned, it is then "baselined", and provides the initial Estimate At Completion (EAC).  

• Unplanned Work comes in two forms:

1. action items associated with issue and risk management
2. tasks that probably should be in the Project Schedule, that is, work that is required, but not previously planned.  

If Unplanned Work is significant, it may require a Plan Change, which would require an Updated Baseline and will provide a new Estimate at Completion (EAC).

Planned Tasks:  Project Scope is broken down into discrete work streams and work elements using a work breakdown structure (WBS) method.  These planned tasks include no more and no less than the work effort required to meet Project Scope.
Project Schedule:  a collection of tasks that include resources, start and end dates, dependencies, level of effort, and percentage of work completed for each activity.  There are many methodologies and software packages to create and maintain the schedule.  Typically the graphical representation of the schedule is a GANTT CHART.
Plan Baseline: once a project schedule is completed and approved it is said to be "baselined":  an agreed-upon plan for completing work.  With this original plan, performance of actual work can be compared to baseline as data points for  Earned Value Management and to provide better estimates for future projects.
Estimate at Completion (EAC):  If you plan the work, work the plan, and maintain status of work completed in the project schedule, you will always know total project cost and timeline.  EAC is a critical project metric and is determined by adding the actual cost of work performed (ACWP) plus the estimate to complete (ETC) for remaining work. 
Unplanned Tasks:  some work cannot be foreseen, however the Practical Project Manager knows work will arise from Action Items and Additional Tasks and provides enough "head room" in the plan for this inevitable work.
Plan Change:  the plan may need to change if work required is greater than expected, if there is a resource constraint, or there is an external force that causes and impact to the project.  A governance process should be in place to control changes to the plan.
Updated Baseline: upon approval of plan changes, the project schedule is updated and re-baselined.  
Updated Estimate at Completion (EAC): The new EAC is communicated and work commences against this new plan.

Refer to: #2 Balance the Three-Legged Stool

Always refer to your company's methodology or the Project Management Institute for specific how-to.

The Three-Legged Stool

Time, Cost, Quality: The Project Manager's Three-Legged Stool 

There are many analogies for "the three-legged stool", ours is all about balancing the budget with the timeline and the quality (which is usually measured by scope and thoroughness of products or services provided by the project).

"Absolutely Nothing Works!"
Yep, that was the primary complaint by one of my business owner on a large scale ERP project.  Hmmm.  Do we need to get more money to make sure we fix everything?  Do we need to push out our deadline?  Is our test plan so bad that we let a lousy solution move forward?  The impulse is to increase quality/scope, ask for more money, ask to extend the deadline to satisfy the business owner's complaint.    


The Practical Project Manager balances the three-legged stool by making course corrections.  This is done by maintaining great relationships and keeping communication flowing to ensure the best quality product or service is being produced.  Here is how:


Review your EXTERNAL FORCES CHECKLIST.   

• What resources (time/cost/quality) are MOST available?  
• Is your timeline more negotiable than your budget?  
• Do you have a resource constraint or are there available resources who can help out?
• Does your solution fit in with appropriate innovation or technology trends?  Is it off-point?
• Does your solution meet the stated objectives, realizing there may be some kinks to work out?
• Review which requirements are working / not working and how important they are to meeting your stated objective

Knowing what resources you can leverage is key, but first a little reality check on how things really work:

Constraints are set by external forces, specifically timeline and budget.  External forces also determine the value your project brings to the overall enterprise.  However, this may not be as apparent or important as the forces on  your timeline and budget.  Your Subject Matter Experts (or SMEs, pronounced "smeez") provide detailed requirements which guide your quality and scope.  


Here is the reality:  you will have a downward force to reduce the timeline and or budget, but will have upward force to increase the quality of your product or service to meet the stated objectives.  So most of your time will be spent ensuring the best quality work product is being produced within these constraints.

• Talk to people one on one.  How are things actually going?  Are there actions, issues, risks that require attention or course correction?
• Plan the work, work the plan.  Are you executing against plan?
• What is your ETC (Estimate To Complete)?  Do you know at all times what percent of work is complete and what percent is remaining to meet stated objectives?
• Conduct a DAILY STAND UP with your team (or request your team leads do this with their respective teams)
• Conduct a PROJECT REVIEW with team leads every week
• Update your plan and calculate your ETC (ESTIMATE TO COMPLETE) once a week
• Report written status to the PROJECT SPONSOR at least every two weeks
• When writing status reports, make sure to get feedback and approval for course correction; your status includes where you are at COMPARED TO WHERE YOU PLANNED TO BE AT.
• Document COURSE CORRECTION decisions
• BALANCE THE BUDGET once a month

Refer to: #2 Balance the Three-Legged Stool

Always refer to your company's methodology or the Project Management Institute for specific how-to.