Terrapin Agrada

Project and change management expertise

5-week Project Tune Up Challenge (PTUC – I just made that up)

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Ok, so somehow it is Q4 2018 already!

A few too many of my to-do list items / continuous improvement ideas I was going to get to this year are still ‘undone’. I have several projects on the go, plus a few Training assignments intermixed throughout my schedule, so I’ve been very busy. However, as the really astute quote goes, “Being very busy is no excuse!” (Susan Tuttle, October 2018).

So to rectify my current patchy (if not straight out deficient) punctuality with these efforts, I’m setting myself a 5-week Project Tune Up Challenge.

Who’s with me?!?!

WEEK ONE: Documentation.   30th October

Theme for the week: Clean Up and Clear Out

Challenge: Do a health-check on my project documentation and folder structures. Ensure I have all the right documentation, at the right level of formality, stored in the correct folder, and labeled correctly, for each project. (Clean Up).

Also, must admit I’m a bit of document hoarder…sometimes (well, a lot actually) I keep drafts on my system for way to long, well after the final version has been approved and signed off.

Challenge: where final versions exist, and there are no requirements to keep drafts, delete drafts appropriately according to any standards or regulations that apply. (Clear out – massive one!).

WEEK TWO: Stakeholders and Communications.  6th November

Theme for the week: Shake Up and Shake Out

Have I become complacent with Stakeholder Engagement – am I falling into the trap where I start to believe that just because I said it, people heard me correctly, much less heard me at all? Stakeholders’ number one complaint about Project Managers is that they don’t feel that they are being communicated with. How long has it been since I’ve followed that up and checked in to see how effective my communication efforts are?

Challenge: Review my Stakeholder profiles, check in with key stakeholders to ask if they are getting the right information at the right times in the right format for them. (Shake Out). Based on feedback, shake it up – try new communications methods, channels and frequencies to meet their needs. (Shake Up).

WEEK THREE: Risks. 13th November

Theme for the week: Catch Up and Call Out

Everyone can do a bit better with risks. The irony is that you don’t ‘feel’ like you have time to look for risks, but by not looking for them, they tend to come looking for you! Each of my clients has their own Risk Management Approach, though lately I’ve noticed I am managing risks the same way across all my projects.

Challenge: Reacquaint myself with each of the different Risk Management Approaches and check whether my actions are in-synch or need adjusting. (Calling myself out on that one!). For each project, set a new risk meeting with the team to review, discuss and set an appropriate time-based risk reviews for each project. Agree with the teams to be more diligent. (Call out on each other to keep accountable, as well as Catch up).

WEEK FOUR: Plans. 20th November

Theme for the week: Group effort, group effort, group effort

Too many times it’s seen as the Project Manager’s responsibility to come up with, execute and monitor a plan. Ha! One person’s view? One person’s experiences? One person’s understanding of complex and complicated dependencies, intricacies and multiplicities? Impossible. Should always, always, always be a group effort.

Group effort to put the plan together – ideally all estimates are coming from the actual resources who will be doing the work. Group effort to review and agree the plan after looking for risks, assumptions, lessons, dependencies, clarifications and consensus. And group effort to follow the plan – team accountability and self-accountability not to ‘go off piste’ in pursuit of something more interesting. Stick to the plan (unless re-planning is needed, then see above for ‘put a plan together’).

Challenge: Check with teams to ensure they feel it has and is currently be planned and monitored as a group effort. Ask for ideas where they think it could be even better. Use these ideas in week 5’s challenge!

WEEK 5: Lessons Learned (not Lessons Identified and not Lessons kept to myself). 27th November

Theme for the week: In & Out AND Good & Bad

I, like most Project Managers, have lain awake at night after some unexpected event on a project and reflected in the early hours how that might have gone a bit better (ahem, understatement). I have also done this more productively during daylight hours – captured and reflected on different ways of approaching situations to get better results next time.

What I’m not so good at is looking outside my projects for inspiration and I hate to admit it, I’m not that good at sharing…Me and my teams are the only ones to benefit from our musing and reflections. Finally, I’m quite a positive and optimistic person, but for some reason, I tend to focus on learning negative lessons. I don’t remember actively searching out positive lessons. I may do it intrinsically, because I do end up repeating a lot of good things project to project. However, with a more concentrated effort, I could repeat good and great things, consistently!

Challenge: Make a conscious effort to seek out good and bad lessons from previous projects. Schedule in time to spend with other Project Managers to share lessons – easier said than, done. So any advice on good (and I mean good – as in you’ve tried it and it really works good) way of doing this would be appreciated!

Wish me luck!

Join me if you can and let me know how you’re getting on. Is there anything else you want to tackle? Maybe we can squeeze in a BONUS sixth week challenge before the end of the year?!?!

The importance of Workshop Artefacts

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I once spent three days of my life in a facilitated workshop away from home and away from the office with 100 other managers in a newly merged organisation. I brainstormed, I networked, I participated, I contributed, I listened, I voted, I built consensus, I presented.  I talked in pairs, in triads, in foursomes, in medium-sized groups and in large groups. I reflected, I bonded, I awoke fresh in the morning to do it all again for two more days. At the end I felt gratified that we’d actually done a lot of great work in such a short amount of time.

And then…

Nothing.

Not a word of thanks, acknowledgement, next steps, minutes, pictures or any artefact whatsoever.

Years later I question the certainty that it actually happened at all… I’ll never know if A) nothing was done with all that input B) something was done with it, but it wasn’t helpful or C) something was done with it and I (and the other 100 managers) deserve a lot of appreciation because it turned the company around. I’ll never know.

Sending out workshop artefacts is equally as important as creating them in the first place.

Artefacts from such an intense, focused exercise as a facilitated workshop demonstrate acknowledgement, thanks and appreciation. All of which goes a long way in motivation and increases the likelihood of a repeat performance when needed next. No artefacts, no motivation. All of a sudden everyone is ‘unavailable’ for your next workshop. Say goodbye to collaboration and inspiring ideas. No one will be there to generate them.

Anything is better than nothing.

Ideally there will be meeting minutes, encapsulating the rundown of the event, the participants, the results, and the next steps.

At a minimum, pick from any of the following and be sure to send it out (as soon as possible after the event):

  • Thank you message
  • Summary statement
  • Next steps
  • Ideas explored
  • Decisions made
  • List of participants (contact information, especially for groups that didn’t know each other at the beginning)
  • Presentation, slides from the event
  • Resources
  • Sources for further information
  • Leaflet, pamphlet, brochure, publication, broadsheet, flier, bulletin
  • Pictures of participants and/or flipcharts and other writings captured throughout the event
  • White paper of the topic
  • Link to blog, vlog, podcast, video, webinar about the event or at least the topic
  • Summary or typed up list of posters, flip charts, notes, whiteboard drawings, sticky notes created

 

What other artefacts have you found to be helpful after a workshop?

Even if you’re not a visual learner, a picture can speak a thousand words

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Sometimes a simple picture can cut through complexity. Even if you’re not a visual learner, having a picture can help to refine your idea(s) and then put them into words. The picture above is a simplified, visual aid from a concept described in PRINCE2®. It is a breakdown of a table from page 138, another table from page 146 and a bunch of text in between. It obviously doesn’t represent everything about the complex topic of change and how a Project Manager can deal with it. It is, however, a great starting point for discussions (for the aural/auditory learners) and something to describe (for the verbal/linguistic learners) and something to copy down (for the more physical/kinesthetic learners).

AgilePM® also recommends pictures, models, prototypes just for this reason. All learning styles can benefit from having a picture. On top of which, it reduces mis-communication due to language (I’m both American and British – I know there is more than one use of English, not to mention ALL the other languages), due to cultural differences, due to cognitive biases, or other. A picture can help explain, identify, diagnose and spot alignments and disagreements in ways of thinking.

It’s not the end all be all, instead it’s a great starting point.

Everything’s a draft until it’s not

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AKA: overcoming paralysis by analysis

Lately, I had been feeling overwhelmed with starting some new projects, both personal and professional. So overwhelmed that I found I hadn’t started anything, much less made any progress or finished, even though I could have easily been close to finished by now if I could have just gotten started.

Reflecting on this behaviour, I tried to understand why I was doing, or not doing in this case, what I wanted to do. Through this reflection, I realised that for some reason I wanted to do things perfectly the first time. Scared that I couldn’t produce perfection straight out of the gate, I was not doing anything at all. Except for procrastinating tactics – those I did, completed, and even perfected!

So what to do about it?

Well, I came up with a mantra to help me overcome this incredibly ridiculous, but real nonetheless fear:

Everything’s a draft until it’s not

With this mantra I allowed myself to make mistakes. I knew I would make mistakes. I even welcomed making mistakes because what I was working on was only a draft. So I could use my mistakes as learning experiences. This shift in attitude could continue as long as it took until I felt my draft was good enough to be my final.

The results? [Read more…]