Managing the project team and maintaining strong communication with the project customer can consume most of the PM’s time that is allocated to the project.  Needless to say, there are a lot of tasks and much effort that goes into what sounds like a fairly simple activity.  Well….it’s not – I have 9 kids and I can tell you that managing a project team and keeping the project customer happy and focused is harder than keeping 9 kids managed and focused.  I’m not complaining - both are rewarding in very different ways….

So, we – as project managers – must manage all these different skills sets and, of course, egos.  While doing that, we must also ensure that we’re doing everything possible for our project customer and keeping their confidence and satisfaction level high.  Remember – our approval rating with the project customer is still one of the three key determiners of project success…so don’t take that part of the responsibility lightly.

Stick with basic best practices

We must do weekly status calls with our customer and we should always provide our customer and team with revised weekly project schedules and up-to-date status reports – both of which are great tools to use to drive the weekly status call or meeting with the customer.  To that end, I always plan an internal call or meeting with my team one or two days prior to the weekly call with the customer so I can ensure that everything is up to date.  If I’m working with a collaborative PM tool, that means my team must be in there in advance make sure their tasks and info are up to date as well. 

Who will you collaborate with?

Now consider this…in a collaborative project environment who all should be involved in those collaborative activities?  The project sponsor?  Yes, probably – especially if they are hands on and want that type of access.  Some don’t, but when they do it’s more of a help than a hindrance, in my opinion.  What about other external entities?  Which external entities need access to the platform to view, update and close tasks?  Which additional project resources outside of your immediate team and possibly the project sponsor should have access to make changes to their tasks in the project schedule and the issues that have been assigned to them in the issue management tool?  That’s can be a tougher call because it can really open the project manager up to more effort, more tracking, more oversight, and more babysitting depending on how reliable these external project entities are and how accountable they are to maintaining useful information in the online tool.  If most are updating their own tasks and two people are constantly slacking, then you may rely on their updates only to find that you walking into a status meeting with only 80% accurate information.

When you are considering opening the collaborative issue and project tracking platform up to the entire team – meaning all resources and stakeholders beyond just your immediate delivery project team – education will definitely be in order.  Kickoff the project by setting expectations for all involved as to how you will manage the project and how you expect information to flow from them into the tool and to you. It’s very important that you make them own their own tasks and drive home the concept that without their accurate weekly updates,  your project information will not be accurate and the project and customer may suffer as a result. 

For issue management and project tracking on your ongoing engagements, check out Gemini.  Gemini is extremely flexible as a collaborative project tracking and issue-tracking tool and gives the project manager and team a full-featured dashboard for great oversight into ongoing project and issue status.

I  suggest your check out Comindware and try their 30-day fully-functional trial of their new workflow automation software. It's free and it supports an unlimited number of users, tasks and subtasks. The graphical Workflow Builder enables visual drag-&-drop design and editing of workflow processes — no IT programming or technical expertise required. Go to http://www.comindware.com to check it out and signup for the free trial.  Your feedback to them is welcomed on the site.

Recently I was brought in to manage a data warehouse IT project for a global software giant (name withheld to protect the innocent…and my client).  I did the usual stuff since the project had already been somewhat defined…I grabbed the statement of work and any pre-engagement documentation I could find, I talked to some of the stakeholders, got an idea of the resources I’d be working with, was able to get my hands on the estimate (hours and dollars) for the project, and then sat down with my project scheduling tool of choice.  And I sat.  And I sat.  Where to start?  I hadn’t managed a project just like this ever.  And I hadn’t managed a project somewhat like this in a while.  I hate this part…building the schedule from scratch or taking a recent schedule and starting from there only to dismantle it and end up with something far different…but still maybe not right.  If only there was an interactive tool that could help me build a good schedule from the start that I could then tweak along the way.  You know, something that would get me 80% there….and I do the rest.

Good news…there actually is such a product.  It’s called The Project Butler.  Designed and developed by adaQuest, this tool uses some interactive Q & A to get you on the path to a great project schedule.  It will use the answers you give to build a framework of pre-defined tasks into your schedule.  After a few minutes of interacting with the tool, you have a workable project schedule that is nearly complete – you put the finishing touches on it and you’re ready to kick off the project.  No more headaches, no more wondering where to start, no more frustrations during the first month of the project as you work and re-work the schedule to get it to where you want it.

Don’t take my word for it…adaQuest is offering a free webinar on this new product on three different dates.  It’s only one hour and it will be well worth your time to check it out.  Times are 10-11am PDT on 3/26/12, 4/2/12, and 4/9/12.  Go here to sign up for one of the three sessions…you won’t be sorry.

In Part 1 of this six-part series on issue management we discussed understanding our users and project types in terms of how we go about managing project issues.  In Part 2, we discussed the practice of identifying and understanding the business processes that are part of the customer’s organization on the projects we manage. 

Now, in this third part of the series, I’d like to discuss the how we determine the data requirements for our issue management and our change control needs on the projects we manage.  We capture issues, but what else do we need to capture?  What data is needed to fully understand the issues, track them, assign them, and ultimately resolve them?  What data do we need to capture and track for change requests and change orders on the projects we manage?  All of these are key questions and all highlight the fact that the data we capture is critical to the ongoing nature of the work we do and report on for these engagements.  Without the right data, what are we tracking?  How can we know that we’re working on the right stuff and resolving the right issues?

What issue info do we need?

What is critical to capture when we’re performing issue tracking, management and resolution?  First, we need to know the normal who, what, and why information.  Who is reporting, who and what is affected, what the issue is at a high level and why it has been reported…meaning basically what are the symptoms or problems that brought it to someone’s attention.  We need to know if it’s a showstopper, top priority issue or if it’s a small bug that can be taken care of with the next release or the next batch of work that gets performed.

What else do we need?  As we perform further analysis of the issue, we certainly need to capture additional detail – much more than the initial high-level detail we captured when the issue was first reported.  We need to capture dates as well.  When was it reported, when does it need to be resolved, when do we think it will be resolved…realistically.  Next, we need assignment and accountability information.  Who is the issue assigned to – which individual or group?  And finally, we need to  understand how we’re going to test this issue upon resolution to know that it’s resolved and ready for implementation.  Along with that, we need to capture customer signoff and approval including dates for these.

What change request info do we need?

Does the change request info differ from the issue information we must capture, track and report on?  Well, yes and no.  Basically, it’s the same.  However, since change requests concern work that is to be performed beyond the original scope of the project, there is definitely a financial aspect to them.  Estimates may be gathered for issues – and likely they will be.  But they MUST be for change requests because they’ll be affecting the bottom line on the project.  The budget will change as a result of change requests and often the customer must pay additional funds so there’s documentation, accountability and customer approval of any effort and cost estimation that goes into the change request.  Beyond the cost info, most other key data will remain about the same – we still need to track the who, what, why, and when.  It still must be assigned, tested and implemented.  That’s why issues and change requests are generally very closely related and are often tracked together and reported together on project engagements.

If you’re looking for a solid enterprise issue management tool, check out Gemini.  Gemini gives maximum flexibility with minimal effort to manage real world problems efficiently and quickly.

To me, the customer relations aspect of project management and consulting is a top priority.  I goes right along with effective and efficient communication as the most important acts that the project manager or consultant must carryout throughout the engagement. 

I pride myself on excellence in the customer relationship area of project management.  I certainly don't do all things perfectly.  Far from it.  But when it comes to managing the customer, interfacing with the customer, understanding their needs, and doing whatever I can to meet those needs, I believe I am always giving 110%.  I may not be always getting it exactly right, but I know I’m always trying - and generally, I see that reflected in the feedback I get from my customers.

That doesn't mean that every engagement goes well.... and it certainly doesn't mean that every customer is happy with me and that none have complained.  They have...and I do tend to take it personally because of the way I always try to approach the customer.

If you find yourself on this situation or if customer relations are not your forte, what do you do to try to mend a strained relationship with a customer?  Something has to be done obviously or the customer's frustration level and dissatisfaction will likely only mount.  Soon you may be shown the door on the project and even with your company if the customer starts calling your CEO....and some customers just may do that.

Let’s lay this out again – you’re project is having issues or you’re having customer issues and you have a strained relationship with the customer.  The project may not be on the verge of collapse, but your relationship with the customer definitely is.  What do you do?  How do you get back to a reset point with them?  How do you win them back over to your side?  Based on my own knowledge of managing customers, as well as any difficulties I’ve encountered with customers and discussions I’ve had with other project managers with troubled customer relationships, I’ve narrowed the actionable responses to these three:

Have a frank discussion with the customer

I’m a firm believer that the best thing you can do is go directly to the offended or dissatisfied party.  It’s your best chance to get real, solid information on what’s wrong with the situation without running through any he said, she said scenarios.  Go in with a few questions in mind…

• What is your opinion of the status of the project?
• How do you feel about the way the project is being managed?
• Are there issues or concerns that you feel aren’t being adequately addressed?
• Are there members of the project team that are specifically causing you concern and why?

After you get some real answers to those questions, take it from there.  Project managers are creative problems solvers – you should be able to unearth some information from one or more of these questions or similar questions.

Involve your senior management

If you feel like you can’t make any discussion progress with the customer, take the leap and sit down with them and someone from your senior management.  Do it before they sit down with your senior management by themselves.  Take the initiative to schedule this meeting so that you are on the inside of the information-sharing process … not on the outside looking in.  Ideally, this will be a PMO director or even a CEO depending on the size of your organization and the visibility of the project (or the whininess of the customer – that’s sometimes a factor!).

Formally present a new course of action

If you feel like you can make some progress with this customer and if you think (or know) that some of their discomfort is due to their interpretation of how the project has been run, then by all means set up a reset point meeting.  Gather all critical parties and take it back to a kickoff meeting type discussion.  Review – or revise – how things are going to be done on the project.  How project status will be reported going forward.  How financials will be managed and reported.  How issues and risks will be managed, assigned, and worked.  How meetings will be led and what will be covered.  Do everything you can to get that customer back to the point where they are comfortable that everything on the project is under control – your control – and that their needs will be addressed.

Summary

No matter what, the customer is unhappy and you have to do something.  It may not even be your fault, but you can’t get past it with the customer until you resolve it.  So resolve it in any way you can.  And, in the end, if none of these three steps do the job – whether they are taken individually or stacked on top of each other – you may have face the reality that some other project manager needs to be at the helm of this project and manage this particular customer.  Most situations can be turned around – but some simply can’t be.

One key thing that any project manager or consultant can do to help ensure good customer relations is to provide an accurate project schedule at the beginning of the project and throughout.  One great product that can help you get there is The Project Butler from adaQuest.  Through a Q&A type situation, The Project Butler will help the project manager build a more accurate schedule so that he can kick the project off right.  For more information, signup for one of these free hour-long upcoming webinars…

Mon, Mar 26, 2012 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT.

Mon, April 2, 2012 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT.

Mon, April 9, 2012 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT.

As a project manager, when I think of issue tracking, management and reporting I think…..spreadsheet.  Or a table on the weekly status report.  After all, that’s how I’ve always done it.  It’s adequate.  It’s there.  Reporting from it isn’t really possible – save for the spreadsheet version where you can write tedious macros or do some sort and filter combos.  But it’s not easy and it’s not fun. 

Fast forward to my introduction to Gemini.  My PM life may never be the same.  What does Gemini do you ask?  Well…it does a lot.  It does issue management very well.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Gemini can perform many of the functions that simply run your organization and help you stay in control.  For example, Gemini can perform bug tracking, project and task management functions, help desk and ticketing, integrate with QuickBooks for your financial tracking needs, and plan and manage testing and quality assurance for you.

Gemini has so much to offer so I probably didn’t test it out as much as I would have liked to…but I ran it through it’s paces for a few days and I better understood why organizations like Disney, Motorola, Domino’s Pizza, and Intel are already using various functionality within the Gemini Platform.  It freakin’ performs…that’s why.  I don’t have enough space here to write detail on all of its functionality, so let me briefly tell you about what it can do…

Key functionality

Issue management.  Gemini provides you with full-featured issue management, tracking and reporting.  This is where the wheels meet the road for Gemini – this is its key feature….and it performs mightily.  I wish I had thrown out the spreadsheet and discovered it long ago.

Project management.  The PM functionality within Gemini focuses on task and time management, provides detailed dashboards to monitor project progress and activity, and does an incredible job of managing resources across projects and throughout the organization.  Forget MS Project resource pools…go with Gemini.

Bug tracking.  Like issue management, Gemini provides the organization with great bug tracking oversight and reporting.  Know what’s outstanding, know what’s a priority, and know what’s resolved.  Unlike other organizations I’ve consulted with or worked for, Countersoft actually uses their own product – this product – for this functionality.  That says a lot.

Testing.  While I didn’t get to really ‘test’ this feature out, the product purports to help with test cases and test plans and integrate with Visual Studio.  Managing quality with Gemini will become a less complicated process in your organization.

Financial analysis.  Gemini fully integrates with QuickBooks making your financial planning and analysis a snap.  No other comparable product offers this level of integration.

Help desk functionality.  Finally, Gemini can offer your organization it’s very own help desk and ticketing functionality…it’s built right into the Gemini platform.  Again, I played with this functionality enough to see that it was very full-featured and could definitely perform what it proposes to do on their website, though I couldn’t run it too far through it’s paces in my limited testing.  I was very impressed with this feature as it can be a critical tie-in to your support organization as you deploy project solutions.  The inclusion of this functionality alone would sell me on the product.

Pricing

Countersoft offers pricing plans for their Gemini product starting at 5 users for $399 up to 1000 users for $4,899 with several incremental prices in between.  There is even an unlimited user license for the larger organizations.

Bottom line

It was a pleasure to test out the Gemini product.  Any one of the key functionalities would be valuable standalone products, but all these features are available to you for the one user-based pricing structure.  Buy it for issue management and the help desk features and then reap the extra benefits from all the rest of its included functionality.  

The site offers a free 30 day team trial.  You either download and install or take advantage of the instant on-demand trial.  Both are available here.

If you could build a project schedule up front from scratch that was right for your project, you would want to do that, wouldn’t you?  I know I would.  Usually I take an existing template and force my new project to fit into it.  What I’m left with is a project schedule that needs constant tweaking and revisions for the first few weeks as I become more aware of the garbage I left in it from the last project that doesn’t apply to this project.

Starting out with a more meaningful project plan from the outset means you assign real, meaningful tasks to your team at the beginning of the project instead of handing them tasks that aren’t really applicable this time around – they’re just still in the schedule because you neglected to remove those old tasks that really don’t apply.  Same goes for tasks you’ve assigned to the unsuspecting customer.  And what you’ve now done is confused your team and your customer and left them less than confident in your ability to fully understand this project’s tasks and lead them on a successful engagement.  Ouch!

There is a webinar coming up later this month that we should all think about signing up for.  The Project Butler is a new, interactive product from adaQuest that helps walk the project manager – and team if applicable – through the process of creating a meaningful and accurate project schedule – FOR THE CURRENT PROJECT - at the outset.  And it’s all done through a series of questions and answers.  You answer the questions about your specific project and let The Project Butler build the right task structure into the project schedule for you.  Period.  Easy.  Accurate. 

Go to the adaQuest webinar site to signup – it’s one hour, it’s free, and it’s scheduled for Monday, March 26th at 10:00am PDT.  

AtTask is a recognized leader in the PM software industry and is definitely a great choice for your project management software solution. 

AtTask originated in 2001 and have positioned themselves as thought leaders over the last decade.  Collaboration is critical to project success and the AtTask user interface lends to easy adoption for the project manager, team and customer. 

Beyond just regular projects, I found that AtTask excelled at helping organizations manage reactive work and template best practices to better manage repetitive types of tasks and projects. The changing nature of the way organizations manage work and the workforce demands tools that provide value at every level of the project management process. AtTask seems to do this very well. A UI which will seem familiar to project professionals used to current social media tools facilitates the collaborative environment where project team members can share contextual information along with status information about projects, tasks and issues - giving project managers and executives a more complete picture of exactly what’s going on within projects.

The cost

AtTask is very reasonably priced at $25 per user.  There are special packages available if you want to rollout it out at an enterprise level.

Requirements

AtTask doesn’t require much – since it’s cloud-based it only requires a current web-browser to run so it runs well in either a Windows or Mac OS environment.

Who is it for?

AtTask is really intended for any business that needs to better understand and organize their work.  This can mean traditional IT or software shops – large or small – consulting practices, professional service providers, general business operations, or marketing-focused companies.

As tested, the project management software was very robust and should appeal to project mangers across the board regardless of industry.  That, along with the business intelligence tools needed by executives to inform decisions and a UI designed to engage individual team members makes AtTask a great solution for more experienced project professionals as well as organizations new to managing project-based work.

AtTask is available in seven different languages to it is truly a global solution for any organization that needs a good project management software tool.

Some key features

Easy to use interface

Project management software usually isn’t known for making it easy for anyone but experienced project professionals to use their software and participate in the process. However, AtTask appears to have broken this stereotype by seemingly making their software accessible to everyone on the project team: project managers, individual team members and project stakeholders should all have no trouble mastering this web-based software. The TeamHome interface makes project management accessible to everyone by leveraging the familiar collaboration metaphors associated with social media.

Seamless integration with Microsoft Outlook

Outlook users have access to all the sophisticated project management tools available in AtTask making it possible for project managers and team members to organize and understand their work without ever leaving Outlook. It’s as easy as simply dragging an email message into the AtTask tab and naming the task.

Available for iPhone and Android

There is an iPhone and Android app for AtTask making it available for PMs and teams on the two most popular smartphone platforms. Everything available on the desktop via TeamHome is available with both the iPhone and Android apps.  While I didn’t have the right equipment to test the Android app, I do have an iPhone and was impressed with the interface and functionality.

Comprehensive reporting

The reporting capability of the product right out of the box (figuratively speaking, of course) was solid.  If you need more, though, it’s easy to create customer views and dashboards as needed.

What is wrong?

Local vs. cloud

Because AtTask operates in the cloud, offline users are out of luck.  But this is usually only a rare or periodic need.

Too much configurability?

I immediately recognized that AtTask offers a significant degree of configurability.  This is a good thing, unless you get overwhelmed or a very novice user – or possibly a new PM.  Just be careful and you should be fine.

Who is the competition?

• Daptiv
  
• Innotas
  
• Clarizen
  
• Microsoft Project
  
• Liquid Planner
  
• CA Clarity
  
• Primavera

Bottom line for business

AtTask offers one of the most innovative solutions for managing not just projects but all kinds of tasks. Its unique approach to UI makes it easy for project team members (with little or no training) to start using AtTask to organize and execute on their work right away.  To me this is an important consideration as few busy project professionals have time for additional training tasks. (NOTE: Information I was given by AtTask indicates an upswing of 400 percent in end user adoption attributed to their new UI.) Whether you’re a seasoned project professional or the CEO of a small to midsized business, AtTask can help you get your work done and keep your team working together cohesively.

Your competition is using me and my 1.5 million connections, fellow group members, contacts, and followers - you should, too.  If you aren't at least doing what your main competitors are doing, then you may be losing ground.  Whether it's my expert written content, your own PRs, whitepapers, and product overviews, or my relevant tips of the day, I can draw followers, traffic and buyers to your site, products and services just as I have been doing for some of your competition for the past three years.

Content marketing is creating your own valuable, relevant and compelling content to position yourself as the true industry expert.

Contact me to discuss - we can get started tomorrow.  Content marketing and social media is critical in the very competitive web-based project management and IT software world.  I can bring your products to the forefront - I'm doing it now for your competition and I can do it for you.

There’s no question that issue management is a big-ticket item on many projects.  In my entire project management career, I’ve never managed a project that was completely issue free.  And the longer and bigger the project, the more potential for issues, the more likelihood that bigger issues will arise, and absolutely it becomes more critical to identify, track and review those issues.

What do we do to track those issues?  Sometimes we just wing it, right?  Raise your hand if you sometimes do almost nothing to separately track issues.  Raise your hand if you handle them through some handwritten list or through email or similar weakly managed process.  It’s ok…admission is the first step in fixing the problem.

The bottom line is we often don’t give issue management and issue tracking enough of a focus to help ensure that we’re properly managing critical problems.  We don’t often give it enough attention to ensure that we are not adversely affecting our customers and threatening our projects.  Denial, ignorance, or just plain laziness…whatever the reason…it still isn’t good and it’s no excuse.  As project managers and experienced project professionals, we need to give as much focus to issue management as we do the rest of our critical project management tasks. 

Let’s consider what type of process or system we need.  What considerations should there be when deciding how to track issues and what tool or tools we should be using as part of the issue management process?  Two key areas of consideration are these: our users and the types of projects we’re managing.

Users

Knowing who will be using the issue management system and processes and how they will be used is an important consideration as you move forward on implementing an issue tracking platform.  Are the users technical?  Are they key project stakeholders?  How many will play a daily role in the projects themselves?  And what type of reporting will be required for each type of issue management platform user?  Of course, the more users and the more detailed the reporting and tracking process needs to be, then the more formal and evolved the tracking tool needs to be.

Project types

Another important consideration is the types of projects that you are managing.  Certainly government projects require a different level of tracking, management and documentation then do, say, some private sector projects.  Are your projects long term, high dollar engagements?  Or are they very short term, one-off projects with small budgets.  Certainly the length of your projects, the criticality of those projects, and the size of the project budget can play a determining factor in how much detail you build into your issue management system process and how much money you inject into it.

This issue management discussion is part of an ongoing six part series.  In part 2 will look at issue management in terms of the business processes that must be managed. 

If you’re looking for a solid enterprise issue management tool, check out Gemini.  Gemini gives maximum flexibility with minimal effort to manage real world problems efficiently and quickly.