The Scrum Master plays a pivotal role in fostering Agile practices within a team or organization. Beyond facilitating ceremonies like Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, and Sprint Retrospectives, an advanced Scrum Master acts as a mentor, coach, and catalyst for continuous improvement.
Let’s delve into some advanced techniques that can help you excel in this multifaceted role.
10 Techniques a Scrum Master Should Use
1. Facilitating Cross-Functional Collaboration
A skilled Scrum Master fosters collaboration among cross-functional team members. Encourage open communication, ensure shared understanding of goals, and eliminate silos to promote a holistic approach to project development.
2. Advanced Sprint Planning
Go beyond the basics of Sprint Planning. Develop techniques for effective backlog refinement, prioritize user stories based on business value, and facilitate discussions to define acceptance criteria. This ensures a well-defined and achievable sprint goal.
3. Real-time Adaptation
Agile is about embracing change. Equip yourself with the ability to adapt in real-time. Identify impediments, address them promptly, and adjust theSprint Plan as needed to maximize value delivery.
4. Conflict Resolution Mastery
In any collaborative environment, conflicts are inevitable. Learn advanced techniques for conflict resolution to maintain a healthy team dynamic. Encourage open dialogue, mediate disputes, and guide the team towards constructive solutions.
5. Advanced Retrospective Facilitation
Elevate your retrospective sessions by introducing innovative formats and activities. Create an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing feedback, and collaboratively identify actionable improvements.
6. Coaching and Mentoring
Move beyond traditional guidance. Develop coaching and mentoring skills to empower team members. Help them identify and achieve their career goals while fostering a culture of continuous learning.
7. Stakeholder Management
Successful projects require effective stakeholder management. Advance your skills in identifying and engaging with stakeholders. Ensure their expectations align with project goals and keep them informed throughout the development process.
8. Metrics-driven Decision Making
Utilize metrics to make informed decisions. Develop an understanding of key agile metrics and use them to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven improvements.
9. Continuous Improvement Leadership
Be a catalyst for continuous improvement. Foster a culture of experimentation, innovation, and learning from both successes and failures. Encourage the team to seek better ways of working and adapt processes accordingly.
10. Mastering Agile Tools
Stay ahead by mastering the latest agile tools and technologies. From project management tools to collaboration platforms, being tech-savvy enhances your ability to facilitate efficient and effective development processes.
Becoming a masterful Scrum Master involves going beyond the basics and continuously refining your skills.
By implementing these advanced techniques, you’ll not only enhance your ability to guide your team but also contribute significantly to the success of your software development projects.
Remember, agility is not just a methodology; it’s a mindset that evolves with continuous learning and improvement.
Every project is managed differently. Their failure and success are totally dependent on how well the project or task is managed. It requires general management skills to keep the project under control. Since last few years, Orangescrum has been sharing knowledge, experience, and learning on project management through its blogs, eBooks, videos, and tutorials.This chapter is a collection of Project Management Reports and Metrics along with tips and required information that you can use to make project management easier.
What Is Project Reporting?
Reporting… it’s what a project manager does. No matter whether you are a travel freak or a professional learner, you must have created a report once in your life, either by hand or with reporting tools.
A Project Management Report is an overview of the current status of the project. It is a record of the state of a project at a given time.
According to the size and complexity of your project, the project report may be required weekly or monthly. This report is provided to all stakeholders to keep them up to date on the project progress.
It is the use of formal and informal reports to communicate the status of your project. It is an effective way to manage expectations from your stakeholders and team members as well as provide the scope, time and budget for your project.
Project reports may not seem the most glamorous part of your job, but they have the power to ensure whether or not projects finish according to the plan.
Why Project Reporting Is Important?
The project report is a way in which you can communicate with your stakeholders and team members. Whether it’s done weekly or daily, you get a quick and easy way to keep team members focused on the goal. Ultimately, it results in less micromanagement and interruption.
Most of the project managers see project reporting as a little more than a box-ticketing exercise. They know, they need to create a report. They know the fact that they have to tell customers and stakeholders about delays, progress, spend, and any issues that have arisen.
It is an important cornerstone for setting up an enterprise. It is a business plan to convert a business idea into a productive venture. The significance of a project report is as follows;
Serves as a Master Plan
For successful management, effective planning is absolutely essential. A project report serves as a business plan indicating the objectives or goals of the enterprise & states in detail how these objectives are going to be achieved at various stages of the enterprise.
Provides Roadmap
A project report is like a road map. It describes the direction in which the enterprise should go & how to reach the goal. Without well-defined goals and methods as mentioned in the report, most enterprises land in troubled waters and struggle on the rocks of hard times.
Shows Feasibility
A project report also shows the feasibility of the project and the possibility of achieving profit. Whether a project is feasible from different angles such as financial, commercial, social, etc. can be determined while preparing a project report.
Real-Time Tracking
Despite the name, project reports highlight so much more than just the amount of time you spent on a project or task. They keep clients up to date with real-time data and improve communication. Reporting allows you, your team, and stakeholders to track the current project progress against the original plan. Through reports, you can track tasks, issues, risks, budget, and overall project health.
Helps in Decision Making
Important decisions have to be made at various project stages and they can be taken with the help of a project report. Anticipated issues can be highlighted for discussions & decisions can be taken for the required course correction. It also allows for timely review of key open items.
Assess Profitability
Project report helps assess if the CAPEX and OPEX are in-sync with the expected profitability of the proposed project. You can quickly gauge the planned vs. actual time and cost to decide if it’s still a profitable venture.
Improves Visibility
Visibility is the most important aspect of project reporting. You gain complete insight into your project performance, whether it’s on schedule, within budget & are the risks under control etc.
Evaluates Organizational Goals
A project report helps to evaluate the organization objectives, to what extent they are achievable. For this purpose, an entrepreneur is expected to consider the input data, analyze the data, predict outcomes, choose the best alternatives, take action, measure results with predictions. It also helps to quantify the objectives. It makes them measurable, tangible, attainable, and verifiable.
Provides Better Customer Experience
Being professional, reliable, and transparent can lead customers to trust your brand more. And project reporting is a vital part of this overall customer experience. If your project report is clear, compressive, and easy to understand, then it can build confidence in you and your professionalism. It is a key to maintain a strong relationship.
Provides Control on Overall Project
Reporting puts you in control of your project. It allows you to see the progress, stagnation, or regress of certain elements, how team members are performing, and the quality of work completed.
Drives Project Success
If there’s an element of your project that requires reporting, people report on it. If there’s an element that doesn’t, people obviously don’t. The knock-on effect? That neglected part of your project falls by the wayside and you and your team are not working as efficiently as you could be.
Types of Project Management Reports:
Project reporting is not only communicating with your team and stakeholders about the latest project updates. You can also use project reports to reduce risk, monitor timeliness & budget, and build accurate project plans.
Here are a few project reports you might find useful:
Status report
Time tracking report
Resource Availability & Utilization report
Risk assessment
Baseline reports
Status Report
A weekly status report is an easy way to keep your team and stakeholders informed about the project progress. This report provides detailed information about the project like which task is completed, which is about to complete, which resource is assigned to what task, what are the risks, and budget status.
Time Tracking Report
A time tracking report shows how much time your team is actually spending on project tasks. This helps you to identify the potential budget shortfall before they occur and provides valuable insight for future project estimates.
Resource Availability & Utilization Report
A time tracking report shows how much time your team is actually spending on project tasks. This helps you to identify the potential budget shortfall before they occur and provides valuable insight for future project estimates.
If you want to build a perfect project plan, then you need to know what resources are available to get the task/project done. Availability shows how the tasks and activities are assigned across the project team & to avoid resource overloading.
At the same time Resource Utilization shows how your resources performed w.r.t their assigned tasks, schedule and estimates. A combination of the two helps you in effective resource planning and tracking the estimated vs. actual effort burndown.
Risk Assessment
A risk assessment enables you to identify and categorize project risks based on their severity. According to that you can prioritize issues and solve them before it wrecks your project success.
Baseline Report
This report compares your estimated timeline with your spent timeline. So that you can know the flaws of your past. It shows how the changes and delays affect the overall project timeline.
For many PMOs and resource managers, project reporting is seen as an essential activity, yet one which offers little value. We know we need to do it to keep customers and stakeholders up to date, yet it’s something that no one enjoys doing, and something we usually expend the bare minimum of energy on.
However, by taking a different perspective on project reporting, we can see just how important professional, transparent progress reports can be. And a good project management tool can help to do the same.
How Project Management Tools Can Help?
An online PM tool can improve the report building process. You can generate reports easily and quickly. Along with that, you can also monitor your team’s progress throughout the project.
Cloud-based PM tools collect data in real-time. When your team updates their timesheet or status, that information is fed instantly into the tool. So that you can get an accurate picture of the project.
PM software has made the project report creation easier. In just one click, you can create a project report. Get data from project status, tasks, timesheets, expenses or other project metrics. You can simply pick the data you want and with a single click, you can get the project report ready.
Easy customization can be done with PM tools. Your PM tool can gather various metrics and probably you don’t want everything. You can get those data which are required just by applying relevant filters.
Metrics In Project Management:
If you want to track the progress of a project team, then Project Metrics are important. Project metrics include budget performance, project progress, safety, and others. By definition, a metric is any type of measurement which is used to measure some quantifiable component of performance. It can be collected through various observations such as the number of days late, or the number of defects found. When it is used in a monitoring system to assess a project, a Metric is called as an Indicator, or a Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
So in short, Project Management Metrics is a way to measure the success (or performance) of a project.
Project Metrics can be categorized into 3 main categories such as;
Pure project management measurements
Indicators of project success
Indicators of business success
What Do PM Metrics Measure?
As we mentioned earlier, metrics are used to determine the success of the project. But how do we actually measure success?
Answer the following questions can help you to measure how successful your project might be;
How well your project is doing with time? (i:e- is the project meeting the planned time frame?)
How the project is meeting its budget? (i:e- is your project going over the planned budget?)
How is the project utilizing resources? (i:e- how many hours and employees are being utilized to complete the project?)
How well the project is meeting the scope? (i:e- how many changes have been requested and how many of them have been implemented?)
Key Requirements and Challenges of PM Metrics
Project Management Metrics help us to
Measure and understand the maturity of the IS organization
Manage projects and resources more efficiently
Improve project performance year-over-year
All metrics should be
Simple and make sense for the organization
Measurable with clarity
Traceable and supported by real data
Key Requirements
There are certain key requirements for the measurement of project management metrics:
Repeatable and sustainable project management processes
Data collection using a project management tool
A performance baseline
Clear communication of metrics, baseline, and any subsequent changes to metrics or the data collection process
Avoid repetitive metrics
Challenges
Project management metrics implementation may face some challenges that need to be handled with proper processes and controls:
Initial figures may go down as process compliance improves
If the base data changes, the metrics change and have to be recalculated
People may not pay much attention to metrics unless it impacts them individually
When multiple deliverables are involved, people don’t want to set baseline until all requirements are defined
Certain projects pose unique challenges such as requirements/analysis projects, as-time-permits projects, and internal maintenance projects
Different project management metrics can be defined based on a project’s objective and complexity.
Conclusion
Project Reporting isn’t just Box-ticking expertise. It’s much more than that. They keep the lines of communication open with clients, allowing you to resolve issues before they arise. Project reporting means you are covered if a client ever questions delays in progress or even threatens you. And, reporting means your customers see you as a reliable and professional partner.
By providing great project reports, you’re doing a lot more than just ticking boxes. You’re taking project management to the next level.
Consistent, project management metrics tracking helps project managers gain greater control over the projects and better odds for success. Organizations gain insights into which initiatives are successful and which ones need finer tuning. This can also allow time to make improvements for future projects. Finally, implementing project management metrics can build historical data to help improve future planning, and allow for comparisons.
Motivated people not only think about what they want to achieve, but they also give attention to processes and take actions to accomplish their goals. They frequently think about what blocks or obstacles they might encounter & where they can get help.
78% of a group of IT and business professionals reported that their business was not aligned with project goals.
All project managers vary in what triggers them. Most of them are motivated by 3 primary things: the opportunity to work with other professionals, the capacity to convince the organisation, and the desire to meet the objectives with task accomplishment.
Project success depends on each person taking responsibility for their own actions and developing appropriate change and improvement goals.
Only 64% of projects meet their goal.
Before you get too far into the project, you need to step back and plan the work. If you want successful project management, you need a bigger picture view of everything that needs to be done and how it can be leveraged.
That’s what proper goal setting and planning offer. Yes, it might slow down the start of doing, but definitely, it can save you a ton of time in solving the flaws.
Read on to get everything you need to know about proper goal setting and project planning. It’s our ultimate guide to taking off your project right.
SMART Goal Setting For Project Management
Goal setting is an essential part of project planning. Good project managers understand the importance of setting the right goal to deliver projects successfully and impress clients and stakeholders.
With projects getting bigger and complicated, project managers have to look beyond the general requirements, timelines, and budgets and start emphasising setting SMART goals.
Pause!
Before implementing SMART goals, do you know what exactly a Project Goal is?
What is the Project Goal?
A project goal defines the project results. It provides a link between the project and its direct effects.
More than 80% of managers say that their goals are limited in number, specific, and measurable.
Poorly defined goals or goals without objectives push a project into overruns, conflicts, missed milestones, territory battles, and unhappy clients.
Why do you need to set Goals?
The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.
Ok, so this isn’t the first time you’ve heard someone talk about the importance of goals, and it’s surely not going to be the last
But apart from these things, understanding the importance of goal setting and knowing how to set goals for you is vital to accomplishing great things. Here are the top 6 major reasons why you need to set goals for yourself. So proper goal setting-
Propels you forward
Transforms impossible ways into possible ones
Helps us believe in ourselves
Holds you accountable for failure
Tells you what you truly want
Help us to complete our project on time
SMART Goals in project management:
Technology is rising vigorously. Project managers are trying to figure out the best solution to succeed. Now the question arises, what type of goal should be set up? What are the guidelines to follow while creating SMART goals?
In project management, SMART is a term that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound
It mainly refers to the criteria of setting goals and objectives in a way that they can be easily achieved. The whole concept behind this is to increase effectiveness.
Specific: Goals must be clearly defined
If you aim at nothing, you will hit every time.
Imagine you have to shoot an arrow without being given a target. Where would you aim? This is a common example of what you may face without a goal or target in mind. Just like how sun rays can’t burn anything without a magnifying glass.
The same thing may happen in project management as well, without a project goal.
Most organisations have a 70 percent project failure rate.
Project goals must be easy-to-comprehend and well-defined. Multiple members work on a project & it’s possible that each one of them may have a different understanding of the objectives.
So the project goals must define the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, and why) regarding the project.
A clear goal can
Give direction
Show progress
Help prioritize
Kill procrastination
Give motivation
Measurable: Your goals must be trackable
Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress towards the achievement of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you reach your target dates, stay on track, and experience success.
Proper measurement indicates your actual position in the progress chart and how much work is left to do.
Before wrapping up the day, it’s important to check the work you’ve done on that particular day, as it might boost the morale of team members and encourage them to work harder
When you identify goals that are important to you, you start to figure out the ways you can make them come true. You develop strategies, abilities, and skills to achieve them. You can achieve almost every goal if you plan your steps wisely.
Goals that may have appeared far away gradually move closer and become attainable. It’s not because your goals shrink, but because you expand to match them. When you list out your goals, you build your self-image. You see, your goals can be achievable and develop the attributes that help you to achieve them.
Similarly, every project manager should set goals that are actually feasible and respectively accepted by the team members. For a project manager, it’s helpful to have a complete idea of the strengths and weaknesses of team members. Hence, the project manager can be able to know what should be assigned to whom.
Realistic: Make sure your goals are practical
Only 2.5% of companies complete 100% of their projects successfully.
A realistic goal accommodates real-life challenges and allows room for improvisation by the individuals involved. It is impossible that everyone’s focus will be on the same goal all the time. There are always other major issues needing attention. Moreover, the goal must be relevant to those who are going to work on it.
Setting unrealistic expectations could lead to failed projects. All the goals, milestones, and objectives included in the project should be achievable. It is vital to consider factors like resources, costs, time, and risks
Realistic is therefore about the feasibility of the goals. They must have the capacity, resources, and authority to get started and achieved. Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished.
Time-bound: Your goal must have a deadline
Organizations with 80% or more of projects being completed on time and on budget waste significantly less money due to poor project performance.
If you have no idea what is a fair deadline to set for a goal, then I’m sure you should set one. You must prepare one to properly invest time on that particular project. Along with that, if you’re not setting up your deadline, then you can’t be able to finish your project in-time. Properly manage your resources so that deadlines won’t suffer.
Goal setting isn’t limited just by writing down your goals on a paper or a project management tool. Rather it also comprises multiple other practices like getting the right people on board, building an effective framework, finding high-impact initiatives, and so on.
So you’ve found the goals and objectives of your project. Then what’s next?
Build a PLAN.
A proper plan helps you to define the full scope of a project but it also helps you stay focused, set goals and objectives, meet deadlines, measure success and debrief the entire project.
The Ultimate Guide to Project Planning
Specific: Goals must be clearly defined
There’s a misconception that many people think- project planning and project scheduling are common. That is the list of tasks and dates that define you what to do and when.
But let me clarify- the schedule is a part of the project plan, but it is NOT the only part.
Project planning is a method for asserting how to complete a project within a specific time frame, with defined stages, and within assigned resources.
49% of 840 federally funded projects were found to be poorly planned, poorly performing, or both.
Project planning carries the following activities:
Setting objectives
Planning the schedule
Identifying deliverables
Making supporting plans
P.S.- Supporting plans include those related to- risk management, human resources, and communication methods
Proper project planning keeps everything running smoothly. It carries different processes like the budgeting process, change management process, what quality measures are important, and so on.
Why have a plan?
Well, think in this way- can you build a house without a plan? Well, chances are probably NOT. it sounds stupid even think of building a house without a plan. Then why to do this in business?
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now”
Many people don’t see the value of having a plan. But we must comprise the benefits of properly planning your projects. But we must comprise the pros of proper project planning. It’s the first step to success and without your first step, you can’t move forward.
Hundreds of reasons are there for proper project planning. Here, I’ve shortlisted 5 common reasons why a project plan is important!
Defines the scope of the project
Identifies the key roles of resources
Finds out challenges
Helps in project estimation & management
Defines goals, objectives, and deadlines
Planning streamlines the doing.
So follow proper project planning and keep your projects on track.
Suppose you’re convinced to go for the project planning. Now the next question arises, how long does it take to plan! Let’s see…
How long it takes to plan?
The best way to estimate how long your project planning will take is to look at similar projects which have completed before and check how long it took them to complete.
The elements of project planning
A good project plan makes any project manager’s life easier. From restricting scope creep, missed goals, and over budget to minimising frustration and stress.
But what exactly goes into a good project plan?
Include these 10 essential elements in your project plan to keep your team running smoothly and your stakeholders satisfied!
Outline business and stakeholder needs
List of requirements and project objectives
Project scope statement
List of delivery and estimated dates
Detailed project schedule
Risk assessment and management plan
Defined roles and responsibilities
Resource allocation
Quality assurance or QA plan
Communication plan
How to create a project plan?
Spend more time with your team:
clarifying what you need to achieve together
working out the processes you need to get there
developing a plan for how you are going to take this forward
Ultimately, the project manager is responsible for making the project plan, and while you can’t make up all the content yourself, you’ll be the one banging the keys to type it all out. Use templates where you can save time.
5 Basic stages of making a project plan
Define the direction
Identify tasks and set up online tools
Be fearless and link tasks
Assign resources
Set the baseline and monitor the process
Goals help people to build clear plans for what they need to achieve and how they will leverage those achievements. Without a goal, a person has no clear plan for success.
Cost is usually one of the first questions that come up in any project. Making a project budget is an important part of any project management. Various things are there to take into consideration while calculating a budget for the project, like employee cost, software expense, necessary equipment purchase, etc.
Project budgets are a reflection of project work and the timing of that work. A comprehensive budget provides management with an understanding of how the budget will be utilized and expended over time for projects.
A report says, “55% of project managers cited budget overrun as a reason for project failure.”
In project management terms, an S-Curve is a mathematical graph that portrays relevant cumulative data for a project, such as a budget plotted against time. The reason it’s called S-Curve is that the shape of the graph forms a curve like a letter “S”.
The S-curve in project management is used to track the project’s progress. In today’s business climate, ensuring that a project is on track and on a budget is compulsory to its success.
Budgeting and cost control involve the estimation of costs, the setting of an agreed budget, and the management of actual costs against that budget.
What is Project Budgeting?
Don’t let the idea of project budgeting frighten you.
The budget for a project is the sum of the costs of individual activities that the project must accomplish.
Budgeting is important in the development of any major business project. Without a well-planned budget, projects can scatter and be left incomplete. Budgeting is not an easy process. It provides a number of different advantages that a project manager should consider.
The advantages of budgeting in a business:
Establishing Guidelines
A project budget allows you to establish the main objectives of a project. Without proper budgeting, a project may not be completed on time. It allows the project manager to know how much he can spend on any given aspect of the project.
Cost Estimating
Once you set the budget, you can determine how much money to spend on each component of the project. You also decide what percentage of the available funds to allocate to the remaining elements. This clarity helps you decide whether you can complete the project within the available budget.
Prioritizing
Another advantage of having a project budget is that it helps you to prioritize the different tasks of the project. Sometimes it might seem to be completed at once, but it doesn’t happen due to some inefficiency. A budget will allow you to prioritize which parts of the project can be completed first.
Before we check how the budget is developed, it’s important to understand why it’s important.
Why the project budget is important?
Organizations with 80% or more of projects being completed on time and on budget waste significantly less money due to poor project performance.
Basically, there are 2 main reasons for which your project budget is important. These are;
The approved budget is what pushes project funding. It shows stakeholders how much money is required and when it’s needed. The ability to get materials, equipment, and people when they are required is dependent on the funding provided as a result of your budget.
Budgeting provides the basis for project cost control. By properly measuring the project’s actual cost against the approved budget, you can be able to determine if the project is progressing according to the plan or not.
Benefits of Budgeting
On average, projects go over budget by 27% of their intended cost.
A carefully planned budget allows a business to track where they’re financially standing. This allows for long-term, strategic planning for everything from current operating costs to potential expansion.
Other benefits include
The potential to attract investors
The ability to set sales goals
The chance to open lines of credit
The ability to make decisions about salaries, bonuses, benefits, and overhead operating expenses
Easier tax preparation
Budgeting is important for small-business owners. Being even a little off of the track on cost projections can have a devastating effect on a small operation.
How to Create the Right Budget for Your Project?
Now you know what a project budget is and why it is so important. Now, you need to know how to prepare a budget for your project.
Most organizations have procedures, policies, and guidelines for handling cost budgeting. The first is to ensure that you are familiar with your organization’s tools and budgeting processes.
To prepare your budget for your projects, 5 vital factors are there to take into consideration. Those factors are described below;
Activity Cost Estimates
Basis of Estimates
Scope Baseline
Project Schedule
Resource Calendars
Activity Cost Estimates
It is the process of accessing the possible costs to different activities involved in a particular project management strategy. It also involves controlling the costs so that a project can be completed within the estimated budget.
During activity cost estimation, changes to the activities may arise which can affect the cost estimate. To resolve this issue, having a cost management plan is necessary. Without this, it is difficult for projects to commence.
Basics of Estimates
It is an important tool in project management. It includes project managers and estimators to calculate the total cost needed for the entire project. In short, it is a method of documenting different important aspects of the project cost estimate to eliminate the cost risk of the project.
It should be a clear document so that those involved in project management can be able to understand. It makes it easier for those in project management to determine the funding option, cost, cost risk, opportunities, and many others.
Scope Baseline
It is a part of the project management plan and acts as the reference point through the entire project. It has several components like the project scope document, the WBS dictionary, and the WBS itself.
The project scope document explains the product scope descriptions, project deliverables, and acceptance criteria. WBS is the detailed description of the set of activities that are required in the project.
Project Scheduling
Project scheduling is a process to communicate what tasks need to be done and which resources will be allocated. A project schedule is a document collecting all the important work needed to deliver the project on time.
You can use the project schedule to determine the cost budget over time. For any specific calendar period, you combine the planned activity costs to create the time-phased budget.
Resource Calendars
Resource calendars will let you know which and when resources are assigned to the project. Using each rate for each resource and combining them with the project schedule, you can determine resource costs over time.
It refers to the specific calendar that lists all the working days as well as all the holidays that the project management team and the project manager need to utilize. So that they can be able to determine which specific resource is being used and on which dates they may be inactive.
So this is how you can create the right budget for your project. But after creating the right budget, the next important thing is to keep your projects in the budget.
How to Keep Your Projects in Budget?
Most of us are acquainted with budget overruns. We’ve all had those projects that end up over budget, and we are left wondering WHY! Keeping projects on the budget is extremely important for overall profitability and employee morale.
Here are 5 strategies to keep your projects on budget-
Set a realistic budget at the initial stage
One of the best ways to create an effective budget is to look at the expenses from past projects. If this is your first project, then review your budgets from similar projects. If you have worked with the client before, then review past budgets to determine potential hiccups.
Avoid scope creep
Scope creep refers to the changes or uncontrolled growth in the scope of a project. Though it’s common to have some aspects to have a project change once it’s in progress, it’s helpful to create progress for changes and to have a team skilled in this area.
Create a framework to discuss the changes with the client. That will definitely help project managers to keep the goal in mind. This is vital for properly budgeting your team’s time and keeping the project moving forward.
Track resource time
In most companies, your team is your most valuable asset. Some firms don’t closely track staff hours. Without proper time tracking, it’s hard to know how profitable certain projects are.With accurate time tracking you can show your client exactly how much time and effort their projects take. You can figure out if your employees are spending more time on those work which doesn’t result in a better project outcome.You can extract who is working for what, and for how long, so you can adjust task schedules and keep projects running on time.
Know your bill rates
Most companies can’t bill for every hour of time. Suppose your team worked 40 hours last week but only billed for 30 at the rate of $100 per hour. That means, your effective bill rate is $75 because it takes the non-billable time into account.
Knowing your bill rates make it easier to create accurate budgets. Hence you can get to know which resource got paid how much. Many software solutions are there which can make this process simple and easy.
Use project management software
77% of high-performing projects use project management software.
More than expected, PM tools are providing valuable business insights for project management. Such tools help to determine where projects are going and provide project managers with a structure they need to strategically utilize their teams.
Orangescrum is an innovative project management software with time tracking, task management, resource management. It is a valuable tool in tracking staff time and calculating key performance indicators, such as your effective bill rate, utilization rate, and profitability.
To create your project budget, simply you just sum up the estimated costs of the individual activities. This can give you the information that you need to create a cost baseline.
Cost Control
Cost control is the process of identifying and minimizing business expenses to increase profits. A business owner compares actual results with expectations. If the actual cost is higher than planned, then management takes action.
For example
As an example, a company can obtain bids from other vendors that provide the same product or service, which can lower costs. Cost control is an important factor in maintaining and growing profitability.
Key Takeaways
Cost control is the practice of identifying and reducing business expenses to increase profits, and it starts with the budgeting process.
Cost control is an important factor in maintaining and growing profitability.
Outsourcing is a common method to control costs because many businesses find it cheaper to pay a third party to perform a task than to take on the work within the company.
Project managers are the backbone of the day-to-day running of many businesses. They are at the forefront of bring out the best from the people, process and technology at their disposal. From managing organization resources, defining procedures to keeping them all relevant, a project manager must plan and organize every aspect of the project, while also motivating everyone involved. In the end, effective project management means successful projects.
Study says, “80% of high-performing projects are led by a certified project manager”.Project Managers are working harder than ever before to adopt and work with more knowledge, tools and technology available to them. The rapid changes of the business world, increased competition, technology advances have raised the bar for all project managers. Average would not cut it anymore!With the added uncertainty, Project Management can turn out to be stressful. But then there is always scope for consistent improvisation, effectiveness and going beyond the traditional ways of running projects.We will go through some of the proven do’s and don’ts when put to good use have reaped huge benefits for all involved starting with the project managers, projects, teams, the business and most importantly the Customer!
Things Project Managers should DO
Focus on Customer Needs
A report from 2008 says, “Price is not the main reason for customer churn; it is actually due to the overall poor quality of customer service”.
Easier said than done! The single biggest success factor for a project is whether it delivers what the customers really need. Don’t get caught focusing too much on what they want or their requirements because these are often not equivalent to what they truly need.
You need the right mix of the business acumen & domain expertise to nail this one. I am more inclined towards the business acumen here because it’s a tricky one. Its need adaptability, your ability to step into the customer’s brain & understanding your most important stakeholder’s vision.
E.g. I want a world-class data center with the top notch technology available! Well this requirement of your customer is not out of a sudden new found love for technology. A domain expert would dive straight into the best architecture and tech he can make available. But the one with the business acumen will look right at the center as why, what is it that has made your customer willing to spend millions in building a state of the art facility.
Direct your thoughts towards his business, his outcomes and you will find the answers there. Show your customer that you understand and agree what is of most value to him and you have won the most important battle of the project while sealing the success of your project right there. You built yourself the bridge that will sail you through tough times ahead!
I say this because, I haven’t seen a project fail that had the full backing of the Customer! Have you?
Get the team EXCITED
The early stages of any endeavor are the stepping stones of its success. Uncertainty, anxiety, true nature & expectations of the endeavor at hand must be dealt with adequately.
Project Initiation & Planning is when you work with the team to define exactly what needs to be done. Share the vision as precisely as possible!
Set the expectations right with all involved to make that everyone understands the objectives, their roles and deliverables. There should be no beating around the bush.
It’s worth phrasing all desired outcomes in terms of business value or benefits: in other words, answer the What, Why, When, Who and How of your project.
Monitor the Schedule and Budget
Be disciplined! Project Schedule & Budget Management is all about discipline and foresight!
Start small, start slow. It is very important to depute enough hours to have a 360 degrees view of the entire project. Hold stakeholder meetings with all the key stakeholders and domain experts to define as robust and realistic a schedule and budget possible.
Incorporate sufficient padding in terms of time and money for unexpected twists. They can be changing business landscape, regulatory changes, technology shifts etc
Constant Monitoring & Control of your schedule and budget is a MUST! As a project manager deploy all relevant mechanisms to have the real time picture of how your project is progressing. Is your actual implementation in sync with the allotted time and cost?
It’s a given that projects rarely ever stick to the original plan, but staying as close as possible to the schedule and budget is important. Before the project veers too far away from the original plan, it’s best to notify the relevant stakeholders for timely actions and adjustments.
Share Information
We re-emphasize the value of meaningful, timely communication from the previous chapter here. For the uninitiated, know full well that “information management” is one of the cardinal responsibilities of a project manager.
What does that mean? Well for starters, information was never meant for hiding. It is there for a purpose. Information is all about sharing. Hiding key project information directly affects the progress of the projects. It creates conflicts among the project team, distrust with the stakeholders, prevent timely resolution of issues & sow seeds for mishaps waiting to happen.
Well, we can all argue that not all information is for all the people. And rightly so! And exactly why it’s all the more important for a Project Manager to define the Who, Why, When, How and What while undertaking projects. Disseminating information is a Critical Success Factor (CSF) for a project’s success. Open door & transparent organization policies are there for a reason. They save and generate far more revenue than what is spent in withholding them.Easy sharing & access to information is one of the keys to keeping everyone on the same page at all times. And a very simple reason for doing it is to have the right support at the right time. Team members would be more than willing to lend a hand when they know what they are getting into, they have the skills to help and should step up.Isn’t this enough for you to take a quick check on what policies and procedures do you have in place for communication flow for your projects?
BE supportive of THE Team
It’s easy for a project manager to forget to appreciate the high performing individuals in the team. Project managers always tend to look ahead, focus on the next steps, and simply forget about the present wins and achievements, but recognizing that someone is doing well in a project team boosts morale, commitment and overall long-term project performance.As a PM step up to take ownership of any team failures or misses. If you are quick in reprimanding the team for a lag be equally and more appreciative of their efforts. Ensure that all team members have the pre-requisite question – “What’s in it for me?” well answered and follow through to deliver on that promise.Report says, “About 75% of employers rate teamwork and collaboration as the most important aspect”.
Prevent Unnecessary Distractions
It is very important that the project team’s singular focus must be to deliver with quality. This also means the project manager has to shield the project team from distractions, requests or external feedback.
Prevent direct & unhindered access of the customer to the team at all costs. It will help you in the long run. Keep in mind that not all team members are capable of understanding the language of the customer. Communication and understanding gap can wreak havoc on the project and all the good work done so far.
Study says, “44% of employees want a wider adoption of internal communication tools”.
You will have an uphill task if your teams aren’t habituated being exposed to changing priorities and objectives. It is best to have them discussed and agreed without involving the team until required, to keep the focus and motivation high.
Scope creep and uninitiated feedback can act as dampeners and must be prevented as much as possible. Have well-defined processes, objectives and time bound goals in place for effective planning and execution. Leave no scope for guess work as productivity is high when each member involved knows what’s required of him and when.
Stay Positive & true to the goal
A report says, “Only 64% of projects meet their goals.”
As a project manager, you should learn to remain positive in all situations irrespective of the project stage, challenge or set-back you are faced with. Stay focused on the end goal: delivering value toyour client.
Maintain trust in your team and the project plan and don’t lose hope at the first sight of trouble. Share the situation as transparently as possible with your team, be open to feedback and suggestions, seek help and invite them to be an integral part of the solution.
Do not ever try to be the Hercules of the project. Get the team to rally and unify their efforts in making things better together. It’s always a team effort.
We’re in it together!
Collaborate, Collaborate AND Collaborate
Collaboration must be second nature to a Project Manager. He MUST always encourage and invite collaboration from all possible sources. A collaborative attitude makes you accessible and approachable thereby people find it easier to communicate with you.
97% of employees and executives believe lack of collaboration within a team impacts the outcome of a task or project.
Not only that, it also makes people shed their inhibitions and be more forth coming in sharing their ideas. People thrive when they are provided an environment of free and open communication. As a PM you must enable and propagate its benefits.
Provide the team relevant platform(s) to communicate ideate and brainstorm freely. It makes solving roadblocks easy & quick, enables faster learning, removes information silos and reduces administrative overhead.
Encouraging a collaborative environment where team members are free to work together will ultimately lead to high quality deliverables in the long run.
The team is not meant to work in silos – they’re there to work together!
Things Project Manager should NOT do
Don’t be the Mailman
Being a PM entails lot of communication, reports, statistics, updates and email management. Basically tying you to the desk. Don’t be chained.
It is imperative that there will be lot of emails and inbox management too. And that’s the trap you want to avoid. Emails kill your time, distort relevance of information at times are not an all-weather communication friend.
We all understand its utility but over-reliance is a burden. There are umpteen aspects of your project that need your attention and emails won’t cut it. Nothing ever beats the Human interaction and connect.
You have to be out there, building rapport with the team, gaining the stakeholder’s trust and confidence of your customer. Try to be available for your teams and customers alike to reach out to you in-person where possible. Things happen quick with less communication barriers
E.g. you don’t get the true picture, view of the other person’s thoughts over an email or skype chat.
We all have had our share of email fiascos and so let’s keep them to the minimum if they are unavoidable
Be an active Project Manager!
Do not procrastinate
Yeah! This sounds like been there done that! We all are guilty of it at some point. But when it creeps into your profession as a PM things are bound to turn worse.
Dealing with problems and obstacles head-on is an important attribute for a project manager. You cannot close your eyes, delay or ignore a lurking issue. Instead you must have an eye for such issues and address them on priority.
Timing is essential in handling all project related issues. You delay and you drop the ball. What’s worse is, the delay increases the harm manifold. Nip them in the bud by all means.
It is true for all other aspects of project management too – status updates, review meetings, UATs, PMO review etc. A delay from your end will result in reduced interest by your stakeholders or worse make them anxious and undo the trust you built so painstakingly.
Once identified, share all relevant info regarding the issue/risk on priority with the stakeholders. Clearly articulate the issue, its impact to the project, possible actions, who can action and the time & cost involved.
43% of highly engaged employees receive weekly feedback.
As you know – Prevention is always better than cure!
Micromanagement – No Thanks
My PM – You are meant to be a leader not a book keeper! Face it!
Micromanagement has never helped achieve great results. If only it delays progress, impedes success, and reduces the quality delivered.
Study says, “79% of employees have been micromanaged.”
There is a significant effort and time drain when micro management is the norm of the day. Not only you propagate distrust, negativity and pessimism but also drive the team away. For a very simple reason – no one likes to work for someone who isn’t appreciative of their efforts.
Productive time that could have resulted in business growth and success is spent on massaging egos, wasteful activities that do not support the concerned endeavor and the worst of all building evidences that will be of no use.
And, the result being a huge energy drain for you and all involved. Instead setup mechanisms for timely update sharing and progress reporting. Enable forums to share and solve identified problems and maintain transparency around their cause, priority and resolution.
The organization has to pay handsomely for your micromanagement. Remember that! And hence, in the greater good of the business and teams it MUST be discouraged at all times.
No Meetings without Outcomes
My PM – You are meant to be a leader not a book keeper! Face it!
Meetings are necessary, yes. But, they are also one of the biggest distractions we face as project managers. Author Jason Fried gave a very compelling presentation at a TED event titled Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work. He cites two primary causes, what he refers to as the “M & M” factor – Managers and Meetings.
Before setting up meetings, define a clear agenda for the meetings & the outcomes you wish to achieve and invite ONLY the “real” attendees of the meeting who can help you get there.
Stick to your meeting schedule and steer clear of the meetings within the meeting syndrome. Any identified points not relevant to the current meeting must be parked for another meeting if time doesn’t accommodate them.
Similarly, avoid the temptation to attend every meeting you’re invited to. If the invite misses out on the 2 O’s – objective and outcome decline by all means or ask the organizer what is expected of you in the meeting. Or a simple – “Why am I invited?” mail would help.
Note, the billing meter is on for every minute your resources spend on these no outcome meetings and so is your schedule clock!
Think before you schedule!
Credit is all Mine!
OK! Quiz time! How many times have you come across managers, project managers or members who are all about themselves and take credit for everything under the sun irrespective of their doing?
If you’re lucky very few. But sadly that isn’t the case for many others. A leader is someone who would never indulge in hogging the limelight.
PMs, you must realize that you are there to enable outstanding outcomes. Your success is not these outcomes, but enabling and replicating these outcomes over and over again. Possibly very frequently!
Imposing yourself on every good outcome harms the team’s morale and sets a vicious chain of unproductive actions. You shine when the teams believe in the cause and go beyond what is required to achieve more than optimal project success.
Demotivated troops do not win wars and you taking credit for other people’s work does just that. Rather celebrate small wins, highlight your team’s strengths, appreciate their efforts and encourage them to push boundaries – mentally and physically.
Allocate some part of your project budget for a rewards and recognition program.Encourage healthy competition within the team to outdo themselves which will motivate them to help each other and in turn the greater cause – Customer Success, Increased Revenue and Productive Employees that are not easy to come.
Note: if you are one of those people who shine by diving into other’s success very soon you will have only failures around you!
Rise above your pettiness and let others shine!
So what do you think?
It is very clear that a project manager has to juggle between numerous stakeholder priorities and wear different hats throughout the day, every day!
Difficult as it may be, but it is the truth of the day and it is this diverse demand that makes Project Managers an integral part of all organizations. We all have the right intentions at heart, are motivated but it is the chaos around us that blurs the vision we set to realize in the first place.
Thus, before a PM takes on a project, he must organize himself, start with the end goal and never lose sight of it till achieved. We must understand that it’s the PMs that hold the entire initiative together. A PM connects and drives budgeting, resource allocation, resource utilization, time management & tracking, stakeholder expectations, business continuity, organization priorities, technology, polices and processes to be used, team productivity and customer success. All of them simultaneously
The sheer responsibility involved here makes it crucial for a Project Manager to have high business acumen, some level of domain expertise, knowledge of technology he is dealing with to high emotional intelligence and the whole gamut of soft skills.
Moreover, a PM is under constant watch and it doesn’t make things easier for him either. Thus it is all the more important for him to build a high performing ecosystem around him.
Our effort with this chapter is just to give all PMs a little more ammunition and incentive to build that dream team that can turn those collective dreams into reality!
You can never put a value on Project Communication or the lack of it. Simply put, it is invaluable and outright precious to every sphere of your life. More so when it comes to your work and professional success. Take a quick walk down memory lane, and you will find many small incidents that could have turned out better or changed decisions in your favor. It can be as simple as getting buy-in for your idea, saving a friendship, or winning that big deal you’ve worked tirelessly for. So, what is it about Project Communication that makes it so crucial for us irrespective of who, what, and where we are? From my experience, there are four specific elements that must be attended to in all our communications
1. What?
You should be absolutely crystal clear in knowing “what is that you wish to communicate”. One must accord that extra care in segregating the emotion and the facts in your communication to ensure the point is well received. Else emotions will generate a further emotional response thereby diluting the facts & defeating the very purpose of your communication.
It is furthermore important to be very concise and crisp with no beating around the bush and neither keying in info that can be shared at a later stage.
Now, this is no rocket science, each one of us are aware of it, and even then one can safely say that it is overlooked 95% of the time and practiced far too less. And this is what separates the hugely successful people from the not so lucky ones!
2. Whom?
The second element in your communications is to “identify & understand” your audience. You must filter information based on who needs to know what and to what extent. In most cases, we fail to identifythe right people and share far too much or too less. And in both the cases you run the risk of confusing and/or alarming them. Not very helpful, is it?
On the other hand, knowing what to be shared is very crucial in meeting your objective in the first place. This where understanding your audience comes into play.
A simple e.g. you cannot go to your steering committee with a list of bugs or open Change requests while presenting a project status. That is more valuable to your project team who will actually work on them. Your leadership just needs to know the bigger picture, the figures and facts, what is on track, what is causing delay and what needs their attention and help.
3. Why?
Once you have taken care of the What & the Whom you must very clearly indicate as to Why the information is being shared with them. What’s in it for them? It is evident from experience leadership is always over burdened with things that need their attention. Not having it called out explicitly in your communication will add to the delay and may derail your project or request altogether.
On the other hand, with proper action items, the recipients would be forthcoming in giving their support, buy-in or take required action in a timely manner thereby contributing to the project success.
Know full well that once you miss the opportunity to garner their attention or support, you are setup for an uphill task which obviously means more time and work at your end. And in cases of urgency you may not have that luxury there by making matters worse!
4. When?
You may have got all the above elements perfectly sorted, but you skew the When and you lose! As the saying goes, being at the right place at the right time! Timing is the most important element in your communication.
Timely communication not only sets things in motion but is also helpful in prevention of mishaps and reduces response times in crisis situations. And yes, it definitely helps in setting the right expectations thereby eliminating any cause of unpleasant surprises in the future!
The When is basically well understood by the proverb – Prevention is better than cure!
Having understood the 4 key elements in communication, let us explore the challenges & strategies we can deploy to maximize benefits of optimum communication in our business and projects!
Information Flow in our Projects
Organizations across the world run multiple projects simultaneously involving multi departments and geographies as well. Some projects may be with in a single team and straight forward and some may be strategic in nature. Thereby, organizations have to be nimble to handle varying levels of project complexity and execution. Add to it the cultural differences or preferences that comes in with a diverse workforce.
So, a typical communication challenges list would look like:
Emails & Spreadsheets – tons of it!
Remote Teams spread across geographies and time zones
Use of multiple tools
Communication styles and preferences
Building rapport and Trust issues
Getting timely updates
With the above glimpse of the mess we are all capable of getting ourselves into, let us take a pragmatic approach on how to turn each of these obstacles into opportunities for
Greater project success
Higher customer satisfaction
Happy and energized workforce
Matured organization processes
And rising revenue levels
Emails & Spreadsheets
Ah! A project manager’s eternal love Not exactly. Project Managers across organizations are synonymous to emails and spreadsheets for their project team members. It is sad but true.
Emails and excel sheets are powerful communication tools in their own right but do not always fit in the greater scheme of project management activities. You cannot wait for emails or excel updates when you are fire-fighting or amidst major product/service release with the ever so tight deadlines right around the corner.
Just take the following aspects of managing projects that need our utmost attention:
Misunderstood requirements
Conflict resolution
Stakeholder perception or expectations
Customer reviews & approvals
Risk mitigation
And imagine addressing these via emails. Not a great idea is it?
Each of these require beyond the edge planning, transparent and timely communication via a medium that enables real-time information sharing with all involved and most importantly one that is relied upon by one and all.
Emails are great for not so urgent notes, ideas and plans. Or when you have to reach a wide audience spread across various time zones. You can rely on emails for one on one conversations and discussions mainly involving confidential information.
Consensus building, troubleshooting and ideation cannot happen over emails and excel sheets. They require the human touch, instant collaboration and quick answers.
And these are the very building blocks of a successful project delivery that teams rely on collaborative software and platforms. The primary benefits being
Accessible from anywhere, anytime
Ensure the right people receive the right message at the right time
No distractions & focus on actual work and outputs
Negligible unnecessary manual efforts
No scope for administrative delays
Remote Teams spread across geographies and time zones
Technology has reduced boundaries like never before and distances do not matter when it comes to running your business. This also means increased access to the global talent pool to build the best team possible for your projects.
Having remote teams is the new business order as the benefits far outweigh any perceived drawbacks.
A business may deploy remote teams for better work-life balance, proximity to customer locations, delivery centres or cost-effective locations in terms of labour & real-estate, compliance & regulatory requirements etc.
Now, to ensure maximum output and optimum success of the remote team model, the communication aspects must be well-addressed.
Time-zone lags & information delays are the most common communication disruptor when it comes to delivering with remote teams at the helm. And these can be best handled by defining:
The right communication medium
Communication frequency
And a robust communication strategy
The most common strategy deployed is that of having regular checkpoint meetings at a time that is conducive to stakeholders from different time zones. “Follow the sun” is a successful and widely popular model deployed for collaborating with teams at either ends of the globe.
Having a business model is one thing and running that model successfully is an uphill task. Visionary Project Managers are quick to lay out
With the above actions rightly executed, we move closer to strengthening our business model, deliver optimally & providing a thriving environment for our teams to perform and excel. All of them with a direct positive impact on the customer happiness index and revenue.
Use of multiple tools & Communication styles and preferences
This one is a bummer! Major project discrepancies begin when the teams start building their own “source of truth”. A highly dangerous trait that must be curbed with utmost diligence. Within no time you start seeing information silos being created that send mixed signals to the team members. And before you realize there is absolute chaos. No one knows which source to rely on, what data to trust and present.
The consequences and disruption to your overall project plan and execution is just unimaginable. And the most heart-wrenching aspects are
You now have maybe 100s of hours of data cleansing & massaging which were never part of your original effort estimates
Unavoidable non-billable work
Absolute waste of time and money
Immediate resource requirements and burn
Customer and Stakeholder trust at risk
Most importantly a major loss of face for a Project Manager
Worst nightmare of any project manager ever! So how do we prevent from this data storm?
The foremost thing to do is have your “ground rules” established. Use your experience and knowledge of the company culture to understand what works best for the team.
Note: nobody likes managing data, writing updates, maintaining time logs etc.
The idea is to provide mediums that encourage your team to be forthcoming with sharing updates preferably very precise and on time. So what must the ground rules be?
Single source of truth at all times
Team’s benefits and greater good over personal preferences
Grant relevant access to all project members to this source
Define the frequency at which they are expected to update the source
Make it as easy as possible for them to share and receive the required info
Ensure each team member knows what info, format and update is expected of him
When you have a platform that is easy to adopt, obtaining team buy-in becomes easy. We all want to spend our time on things that we excel at, have passion for and love doing. And like it or not, giving updates is never part of the above list
Also, being the Project Manager, take time to understand how your teams like to communicate & what is most time saving and efficient for them.
Help them realize the benefits of having access to the right information augurs well for them. And the fact that ambiguity can never deliver tangible outcomes or anything of business value and it is highly detrimental to the overall success of the project, the team and the business itself.
Building Rapport and Customer Confidence
I have saved the most important challenge at the very end of this chapter for a very simple reason that “Customer” is the North Pole, the guiding light or the very glue that ties everything we have discussed so far.
The business, the products, services, projects all exist because of the customer and the success of each one of these endeavours lies in the success of the customer.
For the Customer, success is outcomes that have business value. Independent products and services mean nothing to them. Hence, the project manager must himself have the customer’s mind set the moment he sets foot on the project.
It is about having a clear understanding of not only the customer’s requirements and business needs, but also the outcomes that the customer so very much desires, the vision he wants realized and the mission to be achieved.
Easier said than done! You need to be one with the customer in terms of articulating, helping him shape his project’s mission and finally deliver it. This needs more than the technology know how or the implementation expertise.
Remember that you are not the only one with these skills. There are lot of other options in the market, but the customer chose you for a reason –Alignment with his definition of value and success.
You have a good start now, but how do you maintain and build upon it?
You can set a few things in motion as soon as you take the reins in your hand and build upon during the course of the project:
Define, agree, and sign off on the Scope
Ensure the customer is in total alignment with what you intend to deliver at the agreed timeline
Have a delivery schedule in place with some acceptable buffer
Invite constant feedback
Keep engagement levels high with constant communication
Be forthcoming in sharing the accurate info when things turn for worse
Do not hide behind the contract or indulge in blame game
Take full ownership of the project, its success and failure with equal gusto
Steer your course and prevent the customer from deviating from his original goal and mission
Have an in-built buffer in your project plan to accommodate any change in their business priorities and strategy – “Show them you are in charge and in full control”
Deliver as promised within budget, on-time with optimum quality
I derived this list from years of hard work and experience, though it’s not exhaustive. And if you successfully manage to follow half of it, you will have realized what many project managers still dream of achieving.
And yes, as I said, the list goes on, but the above points have always helped me and many of my colleagues in good stead under trying circumstances. No project comes without its own share of hiccups. Things will and always go awry once in a while, and that’s why it’s fun to be a high-performing Project Manager!
Other benefits include
A report from 2008 says, “Price is not the main reason for customer churn; it is actually due to the overall poor quality of customer service”.
