Project Management Notes - a field guide for project managers or aspiring project managers

JOHN.CAMPBELL@fast2value.com
Project Management
Notes
(or quotes, anecdotes & quips for reflection and motivation)

CONTENTS
PROJECTS MANAGINGPLANNING TIME & COST HUMOUR
john.campbell@fast2value.com

PLEASE READ
Quotes attributed where known
• If any attribution is missing or incorrect, please advise by email to info@fast2value.com
Photography (unless otherwise stated) from www.unsplash.com All photos published on Unsplash are licensed
under Creative Commons Zero http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ which means you can copy, modify,
distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from, or providing
attribution to, the photographer or Unsplash. However, I am happy to provide attribution and thanks!
Quotes are shown on the top half of the page.
The bottom half is my interpretation of its meaning in a project context. All errors are my own!
There is a section labelled “Humour”. Project Management is a stressful activity and this is included as an aide to escaping for
a few minutes the sometimes all-consuming day-to-day overload of the average project manager.
Enjoy!
If you would like this presentation in “pptx” format please visit www.fast2value.com and register for the free newsletter and
you will also receive this slide deck, alternatively email me at the address shown .
Feedback welcome at john.Campbell@fast2value.com

PROJECTS
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Project Management is NOT overhead! In
everything you do you should follow the
Equation: VO > EI.
That is “Value Out is greater than Effort In”
CIO.com
Project management adds value by reducing waste and
improving performance. Therefore project management is a
value add.
It is not enough to create elaborate project plans you need to
deliver real value to the organisation by delivering projects
successfully. Delivery is King!!

By prevailing over all obstacles and
distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at their
destination.
Christopher Columbus
Project Managers are “Finishers”, they focus on the end game.
They know what is In/Out of scope. They recite “Earned Value”
as a mantra.
Prioritize the important deliverables so they are captured
soonest. Then through efficient planning, target the next
activities to deliver. And keep in mind,
sometimes “Perfect is the enemy of good!”

As has been taught to teachers of the Harvard
Business School, the art of asking good
questions is often the most important
element of managerial tasks.
Parte Bose
The Project Manager needs to ask questions with some specific
goals in mind, thereby making progress with deliverables,
providing an opportunity for team growth & development, and
building relationships.
It is not an opportunity to make participants feel uncomfortable
or to portray yourself as the smartest-guy-in-the-room.

Change before you have to!
Jack Welch
Welch, named Manager of the century by Fortune Magazine,
expanded upon this to say "Never be happy where you are. Get
a culture at your company that loves change. And every time
there's a quantum change [in the business world], jump!"
Project managers must embrace change, “stretch” their project
targets and harvest the benefits

Momentum is a fragile force.
Its worst enemy: procrastination.
Its best friend: a deadline (think Election Day).
Implication no. 1 (and there is no no. 2):
Get to work! NOW!
Tom Peters
A Deadline is a positive force for a project. It shines a bright
light on accountability and generates a call-to-action.
The deadline is your friend!
…. And “DO” is 50% of “DONE” so start now.

We will either find a way, or make one!
Hannibal Barca
Hannibal was the master of the bold strategy and in traversing
the Alps with his elephants he kept the Romans on their back
foot and victory was his.
Project managers set the agenda.
Project managers show determination.
If you can’t find a way, then make one!

Project Management is like juggling 3 balls;
time, cost & quality. Programme Management
is like a troupe of circus performers standing in
a circle all juggling 3 balls simultaneously and
swapping balls from time to time.
Geoff Reiss
There is often confusion between project & programme
management. So let me throw in portfolio management also.
What the differing management types mean can be more easily
remembered by: ……
Portfolios Select
Programmes Direct
Projects Deliver!

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to
victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise
before defeat.
Sun Tzu
The Plan articulates the project vision and goals. The schedule
works hand-in-hand with the plan to identify what work needs
to be done, and by when, to provide those deliverables.
You need a Plan AND a Schedule. Neither is optional!

PLANNING

Everyone has a plan 'till they get
punched in the mouth.
Mike Tyson
You are a project manager, you have prepared plans, analysed
the situation and held your kick-off meeting. Things are
progressing and then “wham” you get hit by something
unplanned, unexpected.
Things don’t always go according to plan. At that moment of
getting hit, is when you dig down, draw on your experience
and react. How you react will be the measure of your success.

Unless commitment is made, there
are only promises and hopes; but no
plans.
Peter F. Drucker
The plan cannot exist in isolation. Task ownership (i.e.
commitment) is essential to execute and monitor the plan.
This needs committed resources, agreed dates, agreed task
content, agreed deliverables ….. Otherwise the plan is
“aspirational”..

The time to repair the roof is when the
sun is still shining.
John F. Kennedy
Keep the plan current, when the project is in good shape,
revisit the plan. Reaffirm the assumptions, validate the
resources and % complete, update those EVM charts.
When the sky falls in on the project is not the time to find out
that the plan hasn’t been updated and that it is being
executed against an invalid set of circumstances.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon
the work in hand. The sun’s rays do
not burn until brought to a focus
Alexander Graham Bell
A project manager is surrounded by distractions to which it is
easy to succumb. Email, reports, staff, Users, vendors, huge
information flows.
A disciplined routine is essential, but more than that is the
ability to recognise the urgent and prioritise before the
important..

Stressing output is the key to improving
productivity, while looking to increase
activity can result in just the opposite.
Paul Gauguin (French post-impressionist artist)
It is not about the number of hours clocked-up while sitting at
a desk. Rather it is about meaningful delivery; achieving
milestones and producing recognised value.
This is the basis of Earned Value Management [EVM]

MANAGING

One accurate measurement is worth a
thousand expert opinions.
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
Project Managers should get to reproducible testing as early as
possible. Nothing better demonstrates if the product works (or
doesn’t work) than a robust test.
Don’t debate, don’t hypothesize, don’t guess …. Just test!

If everyone is thinking alike, someone
isn’t thinking.
General George Patton Jr
Project Managers are the enemy of “Groupthink”. You need to
encourage team members to promote viewpoints outside the
comfort zone of the consensus.
Groupthink can lead to a rush to decision making by sweeping
aside individual doubts to reach agreement without any
critical questioning.

The time to audit a project is when you
can still add value. Auditing a project at
the end is like bayonetting the wounded.
Joy Gumz
In-flight project audits provide an opportunity for the Project
Manager to get confirmation of his/her approach while there
is still time to make adjustments and reap the benefits.
Audits are an effective tool when deployed by the Project
Manager, but a signal of bad times to come when invoked by
the Project Sponsor.

Pulling together essential cost, schedule, and
technical information in a meaningful, coherent
fashion is a challenge for most programs. Without
meaningful and coherent cost and schedule
information, program managers can have a
distorted view of a program’s status and risks.
US GAO
Clarity, traceability, specificity, completeness are the hallmarks
of good project reporting
Target the audience, try to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach.

The single best payoff in terms of project
success comes from having good requirements
definition early.
THE RAND CORPORATION
It is of paramount importance that requirements and scope
are well specified and agreed by the stakeholders before
launching into the resource consumptive phase of the project.
User Acceptance Testing is not the time to uncover that the
requirements are “ambiguous”.

There is no such thing as scope creep,
only scope gallop.
Cornelius Fitchner
Scope Creep is adding features and functionality without
addressing the effects on time, costs, and resources, or
without approvals.
Not to be confused with Progressive Elaboration which is
giving more details within the already defined project scope.

In NASA we never punish error. We only
punish concealment of error.
Al Siepert
People make mistakes. It is to be expected. Foster an
environment which is receptive to anyone recognising they
have a problem and seeking some help.
Transparency is important. That extends to the expanded
project team, stakeholders and users.

It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more
important to heed the lessons of failure.
Bill Gates
When mistakes happen, often people run for cover. How the
Project deals with mistakes indicates how it will deal with
change and bring out the best in the team.
Capture “Lessons Learned”, especially from how things did not
go according to plan. Re-read, often.

You can only elevate individual performance
by elevating that of the entire system.
W. Edwards Demming
Quality is progressively accumulated throughout the project
lifecycle. It is always better to get things right first time. But if
you cant, be sure to take corrective actions to realign the
deliverables.
And quality is measured by how well the deliverables comply
with the requirements. This requires good communication
between the Project Manager and the Customer(s).

Talent wins games, but teamwork and
intelligence wins championships.
Michael Jordan
Projects are typically a one-time event bringing people
together to deal with complicated issues against the backdrop
of a fixed deadline and constrained budget.
Look for cooperation, flexibility, positive attitude and
willingness to share information. Team players can leverage
each other.

The real problem is what to do with problem
solvers after the problem is solved.
Gay Talese
Intended as a witty aphorism, it does reflect a moral
responsibility.
As Project Manager you are best placed to look within and
outside the organisation to ensure there is life-after-the-
project for the individual team members.

Project Managers will not get the staff they need
so long as they succeed through overtime, ulcers
and super-human effort. Only when deadlines are
missed will senior management approve the staff
who, had they been available at the outset, have
prevented the missed deadlines.
Woehlke’s Law
If going into the project it begins to look like “Mission
Improbable” then gather the data that leads to that
conclusion. But you need to demonstrate to the project
sponsor that there are valid concerns which s/he can address
by making budget or resources available.
“Mission very-hard” however, is why you are doing the job!

In life, democracy.
In Project Management, aristocracy.
John Campbell (with apologies to Toscanini)
As Project Manager you are leading a team on a difficult
journey.
There is a time for consensus, the democratic approach.
Shared values and buy-in are essential.
But, when you are trying to achieve transformation or build
excellence into the organisation, there is a time for
decisiveness which may be unpopular.
Great things are seldom achieved by just consensus.

TIME & COST

Time is what we want most but what we use
worst.
William Penn
Time is a limited resource; value project time as well as your
own time. Schedule meetings and expect everyone (Project
Manager included) to arrive on time. It sets the tone; schedule
is important.
Be effective (do the right things) and
be efficient (doing things right) …… use time wisely

Better three hours too soon than a minute too
late.
William Shakespeare
(The Merry Wives of Windsor; Act II Scene II)
Project delays are expensive in time and energy. Get the
schedule right, stick to the schedule, manage contingency …. I
have yet to encounter a project sponsor who would not
welcome the news that the project would be delivered early!.
Procrastination is the thief of time. Do it now!

While you can practice good project
management without EVM, you cant practice
EVM without good project management
Steve Crowther
Earned Value Management is a technique for measuring
project performance and progress in an objective way.
EVM can eliminate the “Good News” reporting culture which
is often seen in projects and it allows for early detection and
intervention of schedule and cost problems.

The same work under the same conditions will
be estimated differently by ten different
estimators or by one estimator at ten different
times.
Unknown
Perhaps, but estimation is an essential discipline. The act of
estimating provides an opportunity to further drill down on
what has been requested and how it is to be delivered.
A Budget is an essential pre-requisite for the project.
Estimation helps confirm the budget or trigger adjustments.

Doveryai, no proveryai (Trust, but verify)
Old Russian Proverb; used by Ronald Reagan
Verifiable, quality information is the life blood for any
manager trying to deliver a complex project.
Develop other checks and balances; discuss ideas across
organisation silos …… and remember, spreadsheets are not
infallible!!

HUMOUR
New Old Stock - http://nos.twnsnd.co/

• A User will tell you anything you ask; but nothing more.
• A little Risk Management saves a lot of fan-cleaning.
• “Deja Moo” – the uncanny felling you have heard this bullshit before.
• What we learn from lessons learned is that we don’t learn from lessons
learned.
• Meetings move at the speed of the slowest mind in the room.
• I don’t know the key to success but the key to failure is trying to please
everybody.
• Change is inevitable; except from a vending machine.

Strategies to deal with proverbial dead horses
• Changing riders.
• Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this horse."
• Appointing a committee to study the horse.
• Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
• Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
• Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
• Comparing the state of dead horses in today's environment.
• Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
• Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."
• Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
• Do a cost analysis study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
• Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.
• Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
• Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
• Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
Unknown

Top 10 reasons NOT to use project management
10. Our customers really love us, so they don't care if our products are late and don't work.
9. Organizing to manage projects isn't compatible with our culture, and the last thing we need
around this place is change.
8. All our projects are easy, and they don't have cost, schedule, and technical risks anyway.
7. We aren't smart enough to implement project management without stifling creativity and
offending our technical geniuses.
6. We might have to understand our customers' requirements and document a lot of stuff, and that
is such a bother.
5. Project management requires integrity and courage, so they would have to pay me extra.
4. Our bosses won't provide the support needed for project management; they want us to get
better results through magic.
3. We'd have to apply project management blindly to all projects regardless of size and complexity,
and that would be stupid.
2. I know there is a well-developed project management body of knowledge, but I can't find it
under this mess on my desk.
1. We figure it's more profitable to have 50% overruns than to spend 10% on project management
to fix them.
Copyright 1996, Jim Chapman

LAWS APPLICABLE TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT
• Brooks first law
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
• Brooks second law
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something
which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition
• Brown’s law of business success
Our customer’s paperwork is profit, our own paperwork is loss.
• Cohn’s law
The more time you spend reporting what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything.
Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you
are doing.
• Golub’s law of computerdom
1. Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid the embarrassment of estimating the corresponding
costs.
2. A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully
planned project only takes twice as long.
3. The effort required to change the direction expands geometrically with time.
4. Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so manifestly demonstrates their
lack of progress.
• Fyffe’s Axion
The problem solving process will always break down at the point which it is possible to determine
who caused the problem.
• Peter’s prognosis
Spend sufficient time in confirming the need and the need will disappear.
• Truman’s law
If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

GOLF
A clergyman, a doctor and a project manager were playing golf together
one day and were waiting for a particularly slow group ahead. The
project manager exclaimed, "What's with these people? We've been
waiting over half and hour! It's a complete disgrace."
The doctor agreed, "They're hopeless, I've never seen such a rabble on
a golf course."
The clergyman spotted the approaching greenkeeper and asked him
what was going on, "What's happening with that group ahead of us?
They're surely too slow and useless to be playing, aren't they?"
The greenkeeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind fire-fighters.
They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we
always let them play for free anytime."
The three golfers fell silent for a moment. The clergyman said, "Oh dear,
that's so sad. I shall say some special prayers for them tonight." The
doctor added, rather meekly, "That's a good thought. I'll get in touch
with an ophthalmic surgeon friend of mine to see if there's anything
that can be done for them."
After pondering the situation for a few seconds, the project manager
turned to the greenkeeper and asked, "Why can't they play at night?“
http://www.businessballs.com

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If you would like this presentation in “pptx” format please visit
www.fast2value.com and register for the free newsletter and you will also
receive this slide deck, alternatively email me at the address shown .
Feedback welcome at john.Campbell@fast2value.com

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