September 29, 2008 – Back to the Basic: Communication - What

While waiting in line at Costco to buy my $1.50 hot dog and soda, I watched the manager collect money from the tills and seal it in plastic, oblong containers. He walked over to the wall and stuck them in a pneumatic tube. With a muted *phoomp* they shot up and out of sight.

Long before email, the quickest form of interoffice communication was the dial switch message tube. Plastic cylinders were sucked from one end of the building to a central switch board. From there they were placed in another tube and pushed to their destination. Instead of having a megabyte size limit for attachments there was a weight limit.

Given the length of time that people have been communicating, the topic of communication is obviously huge. Methods have evolved from papyrus to paper and are headed to paperless…which just seems to create more paper. Communication is concerned with the entire package: what to communicate, when to say it and how to deliver it.

What to Communicate. Simply put, as a project manager you need to communicate answers, accolades, applause, bad news, budgets, briefs, causes, critiques, costs, delays, dangers, decisions, earned value…and I’m only up to the Es!!! An estimated 80% of a manager’s job is communication.

So how do you know what to communicate? That depends on who needs to know.

Delivery Team. To the team you need to articulate the vision and direction of the project. Begin with the defining documents (Charter, Scoping Document, SOW, etc.) to lay out the vision of the project. Use the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to drive discussion of what needs to be accomplished and how to get there. Set delivery expectations by laying out a schedule with assigned resources, specified effort, and agreed upon dates.

Since communication is a bi-directional exchange, require feedback. Collect status, effort, re-estimates, criticism and suggestions. Don’t accept excuses, complaints and whining without moving them beyond to solutions.

Sponsor / Management. Contrary to popular belief, management does not always want a rosy picture painted for them. They need the truth told succinctly so they can make informed decisions. They also need bad news delivered as soon as possible so they can take action.

On the other hand, management, if left to their own devices, will make assumptions that may not be true. Understand their expectations and work to align them with reality. Based on the scope definition of one project I was on, we successfully upgraded a software package. The directive for Phase 1 was “out of the box” and we and held the modifications to a minimum. At the end, the sponsor was disappointed she didn’t get the new reports she wanted. I had failed to keep her expectations focused on the scope.

Governance / Auditors. The job of the Governance (Program or Project Management Office) and Auditor groups is to ensure that the safeguards are in place to make the project a success. They want to know that you understand the processes are following them. If your project doesn’t fit the mold, meet with them up front and carve out a new mold that everyone can live with. Communicate lessons learned and process improvements to make projects work more effectively.

End Users. Usually End Users are ignored until the product is virtually complete and then they are brought in to ooh and ah over what we created for them. Your job is to understand their expectations from the inception of the product, align those expectations with the development, confirm them in the User Acceptance Testing and deliver successfully. Communication is the key through each of these steps.

Others. There are always others. Some of them can kill even the most successful project. While speaking with my PMO counterpart on a mass transit project, I asked who was handling the communications to the ultimate end users: the people taking the trains and buses. The project was to implement smartcard technology into the public transportation system. If they were unprepared to use the system, it would be a failure. Who will be impacted by your project and how should you be communicating the changes to them?

The ultimate purpose of communication is to eliminate surprises. Do that and you will be communicating the “what.”

November 29, 2006 - Surviving Directional Changes Part 4

So far we have set ourselves up for success and discussed improving while remaining constant to the purpose. Both of these prepare us for changes as long as we see them coming.

Recognize Change. Change is inevitable…unless you are buying coffee at Starbucks with a ten dollar bill. Within the context of surviving change in the QA group there are three kinds of change that I’d like to discuss: Contractual Changes, Organizational Changes and Hidden Changes.

Contractual Changes are obvious when they happen but the impact may not be evident at first. An easy consulting example of this is if your contract switches from fixed bid to a time and materials. If in the original contract the QA group was a non-billable feature it needs to be recognized and billed for or the group will soon be terminated. Our original contract included obtaining CMM Level 3 within 1 year. This forced our focus for the first 12 months was on achieving that. If our contractual agreement changed, our focus and perhaps our charter would have had to change, too.

Organizational Changes may occur without you knowing it immediately but can still have a big impact on the group. If new business management results in a heavier focus on SOX related items, your continuous improvement muscles might get stretched. If the new focus is away from process and more on speed, you will receive more push back from the development teams. As organizational changes happen it is important to identify them and begin looking for clues on their impact. We ran in to this when our direct QA manager changed. The focus moved from the corporate SQA group as our sponsor to the local management as our “client” and ensuring they were satisfied. This shift resulted in substantial changes in the way we operated.

Hidden Changes are a pain in the butt. You find out about them by accident like the party in high school you weren’t supposed to be invited to. Someone says “didn’t you know? Oh, um, never mind.” It happens during audits when the PM says “we’ve been told not to do it that way any more.” Or when someone comes back from the Architecture Review Meeting and informs the team that there is a new requirement to replace all Java code with Mocha Latte.
The best way to catch these changes is by putting yourself in the right places. Get yourself invited to development department meetings. Create a PM Forum where project managers can share war stories, complain and transfer knowledge. Pay attention during audits to the excuses for noncompliance.By setting yourself up for success, continuously improving while focusing on your purpose and recognizing changes you will be able to prolong the usefulness and impact of the QA group.

November 27, 2006 - Surviving Directional Changes Part 2

In a quest to build stability in your team 3 key activities were identified: Set yourself up for success; strive to continuously improve; and recognize change and the impact it will have on the group. Identify your sponsor was the first step to setup for success.

The second is to recognize the stakeholders. Among the stakeholders for our QA group included the Corporate SQA manager, the on site consulting management and the project teams. Our group was expanded to include the Project Office role we also trained, mentored and audited the project managers so they also became key stakeholders.

Of course recognition involves more that just naming them. Documenting the relationship and responsibilities the group has toward these individuals leads directly into the next step, create a charter and obtain approval. This formally identifies the group, draws the boundaries around their responsibilities and grants the authority to perform those duties. This is another point where the level of authority of your sponsor is important. If it is too low the charter won’t be enforceable.

The final step in setting up for success is to communicate the group purpose and objectives. It is important to let the key stakeholders know what you are charged with accomplishing. This was especially important in our group. There was a need for Quality Control function to verify the final product; however our charter outlined our responsibilities as Quality Assurance focused on ensuring the processes were defined and followed. When our purpose was questioned we returned to our charter to make sure we were meeting the group objectives.

November 22, 2006 - Surviving Directional Changes Part 1

Last night I had the privilege of speaking to the Orange County Southern California Quality Assurance Association (http://www.scqaa.com/ ) about surviving directional changes. The presentation focused on lessons learned by the Quality Assurance group at one of Keane’s largest AO engagements.

This particular Quality Assurance group combined responsibilities of the project office and the process definition and audit group. Their focus was on training, mentoring and auditing project managers to ensure that projects were performing according to the documented procedures. In order to gain and maintain stability in a changing environment the group had to do 3 things: 1. Setup for Success
2. Continuously Improve
3. Recognize Change

Setup for Success. The first key to a successful start is to identify your sponsor. The sponsor is the person you derive your authority and direction from. Ideally for a QA group the sponsorship and reporting structure should be different than the one for the delivery team. This alleviates any pressure to alter or water down the auditing if the results reflect poorly on your own management. It gives the group a route to report decisions and actions that may place the company or project at risk.

After the Thanksgiving weekend we will take a look at each of the remaining keys to setup for success.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.