Project Management Resources for Determining Costs, Effort, Durations

I found an on-line provider of a Gantt chart service called SMARTSHEET. This project management tool resides in the cloud and offers features to manage the simplest to the most complex of projects.  It literally only took the promised 10 seconds to sign up for a free trial with my email and get right to a two minute feature overview video-cast. “Gantt charts can represent different views of the project activity against a calendar”(Russell, 2000, p. 45).  This data sheet allows several different views of the data, uploading of previously created data files or a selection of templates to set up a new file.  This powerful data management tool allows you to easily change, edit, drag and drop and reorder information in a number of ways.  You can set up dual views of your spreadsheet information and associate corresponding files with tasks by attaching them into any row.  This service also lets an unlimited number of users to contribute data to the spreadsheet given the authorized access.  These contributor groups can then also do any uploading of PDFs for matching tasks, etc.  There is also a really neat discussion board feature that maintains a pop-up thread of comments specific to individual rows and cells inside the spreadsheet.
 

I think this is the most powerful tool because analysis of the data or costs or timelines or resources allocated for any project can be collected collaboratively inside these little discussion boardlets.  This would be an extreme time saver since your project “audience list” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton & Kramer, 2008, p. 275) would have all the information needed to run the project for the entire team.  A close second on the most important tools inside this SMARTSHEET is also the search and filter capabilities.  Every single move made on the document is tracked and can then be mined for administrative reporting.  You can search by key term, by contributor, by date, etc. to produce a myriad of different valuable reports from the project SMARTSHEET.  Plus you can set up automated email alerts of any change to the entire team’s broadcast email list.  It contains intuitive tools on a left bar of the desktop document and numerous short tutorial videos to get started. Lastly, there is a Google App for download of the SMARTSHEET to a mobile device…pretty cool.

Bright Hub, the Hub for Bright Minds is a terrific online community of experts and enthusiasts that blog about a broad range of useful current topics including project management topics.  This LINK directs you to a page within Bright Hub that is dedicated just to providing tips, tricks and other good advice for managing projects, including ID projects.  I like this blog board because it is a collection of advice from numerous credible experts.  It is a searchable site so you can find exactly what topic you want quickly.  But the most useful part of this site is the right scroll box where the most popular articles related to project management appear. I poked around this scroll and learned some very useful basics rapidly including how to do a RACI chart.  The articles are brief but informative.  I added this site to my RSS feed.

I also found THIS review site that lists the top ten project management softwares available for fairly cheap.  I liked it for the feature chart comparison.  It really helped me to orient to all the basic capabilities of most project software tools.  THIS Google site also provides a top ten list of Google Apps for project management tools which are amazing as well.

Hope you find my resources helpful!

References

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008).

Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects.  Hoboken, NJ:

John  Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Russell, L. (2000). Project management for trainers. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

The Art of Effective Communication in Project Teams

“The long-term success and sustainability of project teams require motivating behaviors from project managers”(Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton & Kramer, 2008, p. 310).  One major key to success is good communication or “sharing the right messages with the right people in a timely manner”(Portny et al., 2008, p. 367).  The chart below evaluates three different modes of communication for the same message as presented at this LINK 

in my graduate course studies this week.

Mode of Communication	My Interpretation of Message	Factors Influencing my Perception
Text Email Mode	Jane needs Mark’s report soon, but it is not necessarily an urgent priority.	-Text email let me take my own time to read or re-read the message. -There was no bolded or numbered specifics to the  task request. -The request gets a bit lost in all the words.
Audio Voice Mail Mode	A personal friend needs Mark’s report urgently.	-Tone of voice was personal and friendly, but a bit stressed and rushed.   -Wording was rapid and voice evidenced emotion that caught my attention.  Voice sounded very appreciative. -I had to replay the message, however, to discover what the actual request was asking for: ETA data.  That detail got lost in the rush of sound.
Video Face to Face Mode	A professional colleague requests Mark's ETA report as soon as convenient.	-Co-worker’s face to face presence and smile was friendly and subdued. -Eye contact was hard to ignore, but warm and not urgent.  Her in person presence distracted a bit from her message. -Tone of voice was sort of sing song, so the message did not feel super urgent.

Synthesis of Thoughts

For this particular message, the most effective mode of delivery for me was the audio mode in the voice mail.  That’s because I sensed both a sense of urgency and a sense of gratitude in the person’s recorded voice.  Both those tonal messages hit me more deeply than the other two modes because I felt an emotional connection to the person requesting the report.  This little message mode activity has taught me to carefully consider customizing all my communications according to task and audience in a project. “Communication can be formal or informal, written or verbal. Whatever form communications take, however, project managers should plan and prepare so their messages are received and correctly interpreted by project audiences”(Portny et al., 2008, p. 367).

I also learned that while email communications help people record, document and keep track of communications, a lot of the message can be lost inside a text paragraph. I realize that project managers cannot avoid this mode of communication, but I also now realize that selecting that right moment for a voice message can help to create a sense of friendly urgency when needed. “While managers today typically write fewer memos than 10 years ago, nearly all project managers must write some type of report on a regular basis – as well as dozens of emails each day”(Portny et al, 2008, p. 371).  That’s why I think we are lucky to have the podcasting tool for conducting team communications as well.

Our course text even provides an example of using podcasts for regular team communications on page 365, which can also be found at this LINK. This manager tools website provides many helpful and downloadable podcasts that deliver accompanying tools such as project delegation worksheets, meeting agenda templates and effective email outlines, all for successfully coordinating the behemoth of communications in any project.

References

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008).

Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects.  Hoboken, NJ:

John  Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Learning from a Project "Post Mortem"

Project Phase I:  Need and Feasibility

Back in the day, I spearheaded a project to create a competitor training guide for the sales force at a technology company.  The notion of spending money and time to develop an actual training on competitor products was a brand new concept for the company, but one they had to admit the sales force was pleading for.  This was even before the rapid evolution of technology products we experience now, because it was during the dawn of email, computers (no laptops anywhere) or even wide spread distribution of cell phones.  The pricing and bundling packages for network connections to the internet were the real competitive “products”, and so quick to change as just promotional deals really.  The sales force was experiencing demoralizing undercut bids at the last minute of a close on the deal and their results were dipping, and the company’s profits were plummeting.  The need was clearly evident, but how to fill the need was not clear.

I was blessed to have been recruited fresh out of the field into the training organization, having just completed my most successful sales year ever.  So I really did understand what the sales force needed and I set to the ADDIE process immediately. When my team and I began to gather information, we had no idea of the enormity of the task.  It seemed there was a mountain of competitor information that came at us like a good New England Nor’easter.  The deadlines began to slip from the get go.  It was impossible to size the scope of the project as it had never been done before…anywhere in the entire industry in the entire country.

Project Phase II:  Create the Project Plan

We had the right personnel with the right expertise, but we underestimated our timeline by about three months. We projected about 3 months to be able to deliver the single most coveted artifact in the company:  a competitor’s product comparison guide complete with sales strategies to beat competitor product strengths and hype our own product strengths.  It took 6 months.  When I tell you that there were literally towers of competitor promotional materials on four desks, I mean the new Freedom Tower going up in NYC.  We made a hypothetical table of contents and split up the parts.  

It was a stealth operation because we had to pose as real potential customers to our competitors in order to get the latest information and the best pricing that they provided.  We also meticulously documented the competitor’s sales pitches and scripts and closing strategies.  Our big milestones were weekly update meetings to status our boss, who was sponsoring the project exclusively from his training budget, but who trusted us entirely.  His organization’s credibility had been seriously mocked in recent years as being a useless entity pushing outdated curriculum.  Our boss was desperate to win company favor back.

Phase III: Create Specifications for Deliverables  

The deliverable was to be a guide, a binder of sorts with easy tab sections and clear labels in which simple update packets could be inserted.  This was pre-computers, pre-cell phones don’t forget, so the binder idea was our only option. That three ring monster grew bigger and bigger by the hour it seemed.

Phase IV: Create Deliverables

Finally, the dates for delivery were set and the sales people trickled into the presentation room where they picked up their “quick reference chart” (basically the table of contents for the binder).  There were some snickers, but also some warm hellos from my previous colleagues, a tough bunch to please.  However, all the skepticism evaporated when the power point visuals displayed the long hours of valuable, price crunching analysis on chart after chart, all in hard copy in the binders.Then we handed out one segment at a time during the training.  It was so satisfying to watch their shoulders relax and their noses turn into the pages, avarice for more.  We hit the bull’s eye.  It was exactly what they had begged for…now, they exclaimed, they could sell because they knew what they were up against.  The feedback was glowing.

Phase V: Test and Implement Deliverables

It didn’t take long for the sales force to accept the guide as their own personal encyclopedia to improve quota results.

Sales overall improved within weeks of distributing the guide and conducting the training seminars. I was proud and relieved, but our success grew another sort of monster.  Who was going to maintain and update the binder so that it too would not become obsolete?  This was the one thing we didn’t actually anticipate, but really should have.  There were no job positions officially designated for “competitor product expert”.  Eventually, three new employment vacancies were posted to support this binder of materials and the effort to stay abreast of competitor products in general.  From our long and hard won training and design processes of developing the guide, sprang easy to write product specialist job descriptions and a whole new department, which our boss assumed control over and which earned him a nice pay raise as a result.

Conclusions:

Our training and design team’s expertise and contemporary expertise contributed to the success of this project. Unlike most instructional designers at the time who “are ill-prepared to manage the resource, schedules, and budgets associated with ISD projects” (Allen & Hardin, 2008, p. 75), we were well equipped from the sales environment to handle all these aspects of the project.  “These project objectives include planning, budgeting, scheduling and [especially] managing relationships with stakeholders” (Allen, p. 76), which are all very familiar tasks and roles in the quota driven world of technology sales.  Also,the company's diminishing bottom line helped propel our little project into high priority status, so we pretty much received anything we asked for and that made a huge difference in meeting objectives.

References

Allen, S., & Hardin, P. C. (2008). Developing instructional technology products using effective project management practices. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 19(2), 72–97.

Copyright by Springer-Verlag, New York.