Excerpt
Introduction
Thinking About Your Project
Communications in a New Way
Today, business is changing faster than ever, and most of
those changes are being implemented through projects
that require even stronger project management. Demand
for project management methods and skills has driven
the dramatic growth in organizations such as the Project
Management Institute. However, just using sound project
management methodology will not guarantee successful
projects, as many project managers have learned to
their dismay.
Why Isn't Good Project Management Enough?
Too many project managers have been in the situation where a project,
which was a technical success from a project management perspective,
was viewed as a business failure from the point of view of
an operations group. How can that be possible—to be a "technical
success? and "business failure?? In the Information Technology
world where it frequently happens, it means the software application
works as advertised and therefore is, by definition, a technical
success. However, the user groups either don't use the application
correctly, or they don't use it at all! As a result, the project never
produces the projected business value—and is considered a business
failure.
This book is designed to help you overcome that daunting
hurdle and several others that are caused by the wrong communication
strategy. I will show you in a step-by-step way how to use
communications to deliver a successful business project and bring
the business benefits promised.
Why Are Project Communications
So Important?
As recently as twenty years ago, the only time you might come
across the use of project management techniques was in the development
of high-technology products at places like NASA or in engineering
or heavy construction. Outside of the military, aerospace,
defense, electronics, and building industries, project management
tools and techniques were rarely used, and then only portions of
those available were put into action. Even in companies and organizations
where project management methodology was well established,
the focus on communications was minimal. Usually, these
companies were building large capital projects where people could
often see and mark progress. Also, people had different expectations—
when they moved into a new building or plant, they fully expected
things to be different—and better! In today's era where more
and more projects are centered on information, progress and other
factors are not so clear. And the expectations are different. People
expect the project to allow them to do the same work, only faster
and easier. Managing expectations is a key driver for effective project
communications.
Another piece of data about the importance of communications:
My company, MCA International, was conducting a series of
workshops for the project managers for an oilfield services company
with locations literally all over the globe. In conducting these
workshops, we worked with over 500 project managers representing
over thirty countries. As part of the workshop evaluation, we
asked these project managers to assess what made projects successful
and what caused projects to fail. The number one success factor
identified by this diverse group was communications. When we
asked for more details, what we learned was that when communications
were strong among the project team members and between
the project team and the customers within the energy companies,
the projects were nearly always successful. If the projects failed,
poor communications was always identified as a critical factor in
pinpointing what went wrong.
The other key success factor these project managers identified
was the support and engagement of leadership in their projects. It
seems that all project managers recognize the need for leadership
backing, but are often frustrated in their efforts to get it. That is why
the second chapter in this book, titled Preparing the Leadership, is
right at the front of the book. It will demonstrate how you can keep
the company leadership interested in your project from beginning
to end. With vigorous project communications, your chances of
success soar and your frustration will fall off dramatically.
What Happens If You Ignore
Project Communications?
To illustrate the consequences of ignoring communications in managing
expectations, I would like to relate the personal experience of
one of my clients. His team was installing a new software application
for traders who buy and sell commodities. He had used most
of the communication techniques you will read in this book, and
things had gone very well. However, my client found himself in the
same tough situation that all project managers find themselves in
at one time or another. It was a long project coming into the final
months. However, because the project team began to get sloppy
with its communications, the traders' expectations were not being
managed carefully, and a storm of resistance to the new software
began to build up. Unfortunately, if something wasn't done quickly,
the final few months threatened to undo all the goodwill that had
been built up over the previous 18 months within the commodities
group. While many of the issues that caused the resistance were
more complex than is necessary to detail here, the critical failure
factor
in this instance was a basic flaw in his communication strategy
(the earlier reference to "sloppy?). The project manager and his
team had fallen into the habit of communicating with the business
users only through email. As most of us know, between the tremendous
amount of daily email (most of it barely necessary) coupled
with spam, most people will ignore email after a while, particularly
if it is seen as simply "a status update.? This is what happened to
this project manager. So how did he fix the problem? First, the team
worked together and, instead of relying on only email updates, he
built a new and more hearty communications plan (see Chapter
10: Developing the Communications for the Project) that provided
several "rich? communication events such as brown-bag lunches
and town hall meetings (richness is explained in more details in
Chapter 5: Common Elements for All Communications) in addition
to email updates and personal phone calls. We also created a series
of very targeted messages to key commodity traders who could influence
others on their team. These changes, and some other technical
fixes, helped him to finish the project with the amount of
goodwill that the project team deserved based on the terrific job
they had done.
So What Will You Get from This Book?
This book will give you the foundation of all communications,
whether written or oral. Chapter 5: Common Elements for All
Communications covers the basics for all types of communications
and helps you build those communications for the maximum effect.
Throughout the book, you will see a wide variety of tools,
templates, and techniques to help you prepare and deliver these
communications for a wide range of audiences and purposes.
In Chapter 12: Using Communication to Handle Risks, you
will see how effective communications can help you manage an assortment
of risks. This is important because new technology has
increased business risk and, consequently, the requirement for high
degrees of project management competency in communications. It
has raised the ante for project success due, in no small part, to the
extraordinary investments companies have made by implementing
new technologies and systems. Now the management teams of these
organizations are demanding the same Return on Investment (ROI)
that they would expect after building a refinery or any other major
capital project.
A good illustration of the growing acceptance of project management
methodology is the phenomenal growth of the Project
Management Institute (PMI), the world's largest nonprofit professional
organization that promotes the art and science of project
management. Founded in 1969 with fewer than 100 members, by
1979 membership was still only 2,000. By 1990, the organization
still had less than 10,000 members. However, by the turn of the
century, membership had swollen to 50,000. As of the writing of
this book, PMI boasts over 150,000 active members residing in 140
countries across the globe.
Business Project Management
The wide varieties of demands placed on organizations today quite
naturally affect your individual approach to work. If you want to
survive and thrive in these changing times, you must be effective in
both your field of expertise (the ordinary work you do) as well as
in your ability to rally with others to solve problems, pursue
opportunities,
and effect change (the project work). That requires competency
in both project management and communications. Most
people would have a tough time trying to figure out the link between
project management and change management (change management
is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and
organizations from the status quo to a desired future state; the
current definition of change management includes both change
management processes and individual change management models,
which together are used to manage the people side of changes)
as disciplines. Project management is seen as more of a methodology
with defined tasks, hard deliverables, and standard techniques.
Change management, on the other hand, is seen as the "soft? side—
the people side. Project managers who have thought about change
management usually think about it as communications, including
posters on the wall, and maybe some training. However, ask most
project managers some pointed questions such as, "What is the
most difficult part of your project?? and nearly all of them will
respond,
"People!? If you follow up with another question, "Why
are people the hardest part?? they will usually respond, "Because
they always resist the changes that my project requires.?
If that is generally true, then maybe there is a link between
project management and change management. But most project
managers are probably like me: We think in processes, meaning we
like a systematic set of steps to reach a predictable conclusion and,
while we multitask, we do much better with methodologies such as
the approach proposed by the Project Management Institute, or
PRINCE2 developed by the Office of Government Commerce in
the United Kingdom, than "flying by the seat of our pants.? This
linkage is called "Business Project Management.?
So this book will show you how to link project management
methods, as outlined by the Project Management Institute (PMI),
with change management methods and how communications impacts
each phase of a project. The book will follow the four phases
of PMI's methodology and show you how to build them together
at each phase.
Finally, throughout the book, you will find a series of reminders
that will aid you as you work your projects in the future.
They will allow you to recall the major points to consider without
the effort of reading the book again or trying to figure out where
those points are in each chapter. I believe that will allow you to
replicate your success over and over again.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Thinking About Your Project xi
Communications in a New Way
Why Isn't Good Project Management Enough? xi
Why Are Project Communications So Important? xii
What Happens If You Ignore Project Communications? xiii
So What Will You Get from This Book? xiv
Business Project Management xv
Case Study xvii
The Payoff xix
1 Linking Projects and Strategy Through
Effective Communications 1
Projects to Change the Business 4
Start with the Expected Business Benefits 6
Conducting a Feasibility Study 7
Developing a Feasibility Study for Project Renewal 8
Clear Project Goals Make Sense to Everyone 9
The Primary Goals of Every Project 10
2 Preparing the Leadership 13
How Involved Should the Leadership Be? 13
Providing the Leadership with a Script 17
Developing a Working Committee and Working Groups 22
Communications and the Working Committee 25
Communications and a Working Group 26
3 Writing the Project Charter 31
Contract 33
Statement of the Business Problem 34
Goals and Objectives for a Successful Project 35
The Primary Goals of Project Renewal 35
Project Scope 36
Assumptions and Constraints 37
Risks and Benefits 38
Project Budget and Schedule 40
Tips for Writing the Charter 40
4 Establishing the Team and Communicating 45
with the Business
Communicating the Sale 46
Relationship with Each Other 48
Level of Knowledge of the Goals and Business Case 49
Credibility of the Project Team 50
Questions or Concerns 50
Information or Techniques to Gain Acceptance 50
Communications Within the Team 51
Managing the War Room 54
Listening Is Part of Communicating 55
5 Common Elements for All Communications 59
Step One: Analyze the Target 60
Step Two: Plan the Approach 64
Step Three: Deliver the Message 68
6 Writing the Case for Change 73
What Is the Secret to Writing a Case for Change? 74
Influences on Behavior 74
Communications Create Perception 76
Process for Building a Case for Change 78
The Results Can Be Dramatic 82
7 Analyzing Changes to Business Process 83
Communicating a Change 90
Building Changes into the Training Plan 91
Building a Leadership Plan 93
Developing Preliminary Performance Measures 94
8 Developing Support for the New Business
Processes 97
Addressing the Fairness Factor 97
When Leaders Backslide 98
When Other Key People Backslide 100
Urgency and Decisions 102
9 Developing an Operations Integration Plan 105
Case for Change 107
Understanding the Process Changes 108
Support Provided 109
Preparation for Project Deliverables 110
Understanding the Timetable 111
Napoleon's Thirds 112
10 Developing the Communications for the Project 115
The Basics of Communications: It's All About 115
Perceptions
What Does a Communication Plan Look Like? 117
Developing Effective Messages 125
11 Writing the Project Plan Memorandum 129
for the Executive Team
Review of the Common Elements for All 130
Communications
Writing the Project Plan Memorandum 133
12 Using Communications to Handle Risks 139
Managing Business Risks Through Communications 142
Managing Organizational Risks Through 145
Communications
Managing Risks Through Communications 146
13 Presenting to Stakeholders During Project 149
Execution
Decide Your Purpose 150
Analyze the Audience (Stakeholders) 152
Strategy 157
Build It in Three Parts 158
Practice 159
Questions 160
Visual Aids 161
14 Communicating About Problems 169
Effective Meetings 172
15 Communicating Scope Changes 177
Basic Assumptions 178
Requesting a Change 180
Communicating About a Change 182
Presenting the Options and Reaching a Decision 183
Communicating the Decision 185
16 Communicating with Operations 189
Good News—Bad News 190
Dangerous Assumptions 192
Build a Storyboard to Explain the Project 198
17 Preparing Operations to Accept the Deliverables 201
Providing the Training Operations Needs to Be Ready 202
Performance Evaluation and Project Deliverables 206
Readiness Assessment Checklist 210
18 Overcoming Resistance to Change 215
Reasons for Resistance 216
Types of Resistors 218
Overcoming Resistance 221
19 Handling Competition with Other Initiatives 225
Maintain Situational Awareness 226
Horizontal and Vertical Communications 227
Address Potential Conflicts Quickly 228
Project Renewal 229
20 Writing the Close-Out Report 235
Business Stakeholders 237
Project Stakeholders 240
Packaging the Report 242
21 Providing Feedback to Your Project Team 247
Quality of Work 249
Timeliness and Consistency in Meeting Deadlines 250
Creativity 251
Administrative Performance 252
Ability to Work as Part of a Team 252
Attitude 253
Communication Skills 253
Technical Ability 254
Cost Consciousness 254
Recommendations for Improvement 255
Developing a Matrix 256
Celebrate 257
22 Crossing the Finish Line 259
Communicate with the Business on the Value Created 259
Performance Measures in Operations 260
Communicate with All Team Personnel 262
The After-Implementation Review 263
In Conclusion 264
Index 265
About the Author 268
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