This article was originally authored by me for the Projects@Work website and published there on 10/8/09. Go here to view the original article. PM Customer Service The first thing I would like to discuss deals with the concept of the project manager in the role of customer service. There are a lot of things we do as project managers when we’re leading our high-visibility engagements. We can be prudent project budget managers, great leaders of skilled resources, organized reporters of project status, well-versed speakers during weekly customer status calls, and confident managers of our own personal project portfolio as we report status updates to our PMO and company leadership. This is all well and good, but if the customer is not happy, we’re not successful. Read that carefully before you disagree. We may have done everything right. But if our company’s mission includes making money, being profitable, and retaining and growing the customer base, then we must make our customers happy. Referenceable, returning customers is what distinguishes a growing successful company from a short-term fad. How Do We Keep Them Happy? So, how do we make and keep our customers happy? Usually, if we do our jobs right, it should be easy. The key is to keep them informed – even bad news is good for the customer (and I’ll address that in another article). Here are the basics of what we need to do for our customers on delivery projects as the project manager:
If we do all of these things well and deliver on-time and on-budget (relatively speaking, of course), then the customer will be satisfied, right? Wrong. They may be, but there’s no guarantee. What are we missing? What else can the customer possibly want? Accuracy of the End Solution The customer may be unhappy with you personally for reasons that don’t seem to make sense…that can always happen because customers can be very needy and quirky and you simply may not be properly feeding that need in them. If that’s the case and you’ve done your job well, then don’t worry too much – there’s not much else you can do. But, thankfully, those instances are relatively rare. A far bigger concern is whether or not you deliver a workable solution to the customer. You can be the most informative PM, deliver the project on-time and on-budget and do so without any change orders, but if the solution that is delivered is not what the customer’s end user base needs, then you won’t have a happy customer. Period. Unfortunately, I’ve seen this happen on other projects with other project managers and even more unfortunately I’ve had this happen to me. How Did we Get Here? What could have been done differently to prevent such a predicament? Let’s look back to what I call the Exploration phase - where business processes and requirements are defined in detail and the Functional Design Document (FDD) is created. This is a make-or-break phase for many projects as the issue of poorly defined requirements will become a bigger issue in the next phase – Design – in the form of a poorly designed solution. The problem is only exacerbated from there in the next phase – Development – in the form of a poorly developed solution. At this point, the likelihood of being quite a ways off base from where the customer subject matter experts (SMEs) envisioned the solution to be is quite high. Now fast forward to deployment and what do you think happens when those end users start to use the system you’ve just implemented only to find that it’s functionality strays from what their needs are for the solution? Two words…customer dissatisfaction. Requirements are Key The key is to spend as much time as is absolutely necessary to properly define requirements before ever moving forward with a design session. Forget what the schedule demands. Forget – to some degree – what the budget demands (because in the long-run you’ll save it back with well-defined requirements). Spend as much time as you need to on the Exploration phase and ensure that your customer has provided you with well-documented and well-defined business processes and requirements before ever signing off on the FDD. Only two things can happen with poorly defined requirements and they are both bad – either you come back to define the requirements in more detail later when you realize the problem thus costing the project extra time and dollars or you deploy a system that doesn’t give the customer what they want. It doesn’t matter who is to blame for the poor requirements, in the end it will be the customer who is unhappy and they’ll be unhappy with you…and your customer leadership will likely not be too happy either. The customer may not want to hear it early on in the project, but if it’s necessary to halt the project and go back to further define requirements, just do it. Both you and the customer will realize great benefits from the extra work. February 2010 PMP Survey Results 03/04/2010
This article was originally authored by me for the Project Management Tips website and published there on 2/23/10. Go here to view the original article. First, I want to thank all of our readers who took the February PMP certification survey. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was very pleased with the number of responses and found the results interesting. Certified or not? Since this was basically a survey on PMP certification, I thought it might draw more certified PMPs to the site to take the survey. I fully expected a majority of the responders to be PMP certified project managers. I was somewhat surprised to see that a solid majority of the responses were from non-certified project managers. 60% of the survey responses were from non-certified PMs. Passed on the first try? 45% of responders indicated that they have taken the exam by virtue of their 'yes' or 'no' answer to this question. In all, 88% of our survey takers passed the PMP exam on their first try. PMI statistics have shown that 72% of PMP test takers pass it on their first try. Therefore, we definitely have an above average group of PMP readers on this site. Length of certification Because I placed ranges rather than specifically asking how long individuals had been certified, the next figure is not exact, but was actually more ‘derived.’ By using range midpoints as values, I was able to determine with less than exact accuracy that the average length of certification for our 40% of responders who are certified is 3.3 years. I don’t have anything specific to base this on, but I know at one time last year I saw a study stating that the average PMP had been certified for just over 3 years, so we’re right on average with that figure. Reason for certification The next question on the survey asked what your primary reason for becoming certified was, or what your primary reason would be if you were to become certified. Interestingly enough – and maybe predictably enough – for PMP certified project managers the primary reason they became certified was to meet a personal goal. 42% gave that response – nearly double that of any other response option. For non-certified PMs, their primary reason for potentially become certified would for job-seeking purposes – 41%. Again, nearly double that of any other response. Here’s the breakdown for this category: PMP Certified responders Personal goal – 42% Job-seeking purposes – 24% Company requirement – 18% (I thought this would be higher) Future resume builder – 13% Other – 3% Non-certified responders Job-seeking purposes – 41% Personal goal – 24% Future resume builder – 21% Company requirement – 9% (again, thought this would be much higher) Other – 5% Combined Job-seeking purposes – 34% Personal goal – 31% Future resume builder – 18% Company requirement – 13% Other – 4% Career booster? And finally, the subjective question – has the PMP been beneficial to your career, or for non-certified, do you feel it would be beneficial? Here we had the highest percentage answer of any category as the PMP certified PMs overwhelmingly stated that earning the PMP certification has been beneficial to their careers. A full 71% responded this way. 18% were not yet certain, while 11% stated that they had not experienced any career benefits yet for having the PMP certification. For non-certified PMs, 47% thought it would bring benefit to their careers to have the certification, 40% were not certain, and 14% felt that their careers would not benefit from having the PMP designation. When we combine the PMP responses with the non-certified responses, we have a total of 56% who thought their careers have benefited or would benefit from the certification, 31% were not certain, and 13% felt that their careers have not or would not benefit from having the PMP certification. This article was originally authored by me for the Real Deal Technologies website and published there on 8/20/09. Go here to view the original article. At first thought, cloud computing reminds me of the old concept of a flow chart that would have this big box that said “and something happens here” when no one could figure out the right process to show or how to solve the problem. Defining Cloud Computing Cloud computing isn’t quite like that…it isn’t something that just happens…but done right it IS basically something that sort of “just happens.” Like the internet…you turn your computer on and there it is and your connected to information, networks, servers somewhere else, a remote printer, etc. You don’t really worry about it, it’s there. And that’s the concept of cloud computing. Cloud means Internet. The computing takes place on the Internet – in place of the software you use executing on your desktop pc, it’s hosted on the Internet on a server installed in a data centre usually staffed by people who are experts in managing technology. This type of “cloud” software is sometimes called “on demand” or Software as a Service (SaaS). I was watching an online video the other day where some IT industry experts were asked what cloud computing meant to them. You can view that video here. It’s funny how it means something a little different to everyone and some of them were at a loss of words to describe which gives you an idea of how new it still is to everyone…and yet how simple the concept really is. And that’s mostly what it is…a concept. After all, the cloud idea came from the image used to display the concept of the Internet in diagrams. Like a big cloud that we connect to not caring really what is in that cloud and how we get information and services from it. Back to the video I was watching…one individual described it simply as…”if you need more than your laptop and an Internet connection, then it’s not cloud computing." Cloud Computing and the Small Business So what does cloud computing mean to small businesses? What does it mean for their? At a minimum, this is what I believe it means to me as a project manager when considering the small businesses and startups that I’ve worked with:
To me, as a Project Manager, cloud computing means a more green, less costly, and more carefree processing environment for the customer. Does this mean a more carefree and less costly implementation? Possibly less costly, but from and implementation or project manager perspective I don’t believe it’s any more carefree. Everything must still be tested, everything still must work upon deployment, and everything must still be supported. Effective Business Communication 11/01/2009
This article was originally authored by me for the Real Deal Technologies website and published there on 6/19/09. Go here to view the original article. This one is probably common sense, but needs to be discussed. For you married business leaders out there…how many times has your wife been absolutely certain she told you ‘x’ when you either heard ‘y’ or nothing at all? And how many times has that worked the other way around? My guess is that it’s at least a weekly occurrence. Granted, we’re often very casual with our ‘at home’ communication methods and we certainly aren’t committing discussions to notes like we do during our client conversations and status calls. But our communications with our spouses are very important and we often drop the ball on them knowing full well how important they are and how much ‘in trouble’ we could get if they are misinterpreted or ignored. Listen Effectively What I’ve been trying to say so far in this article basically is that effective communication begins with effective listening. As the business owner or leader, our primary communication comes mainly from the following sources:
Document Well If you develop a reputation for taking good notes and distributing critical notes and meeting updates to members of your organization, then your documentation will be well trusted on current and future undertakings. This has worked well for me as I have a reputation for frequent emails to my project team members as well as providing follow-up notes following meetings and discussions. My co-workers, employees, and customers know I take detailed notes on calls – they like to joke about the keyboard noise they hear in the background while I’m leading meetings. But they also never question me when I backup things that were promised or said on calls with notes that I’ve captured from those conversations because they know I’m listening and taking accurate notes of important project discussions. Review Your Communications In order to preserve this reputation, read, read and re-read communications that you are sending out. If it’s not an emergency communication that needs to be made immediately, then take the time to proof-read your communication, check for appropriate email attachments and view your communication from the receiver’s point of view. The last thing you want is to have the reputation as the one how always has to send communications twice because you forgot the attachment the first time (you know who you are!). Nor do you want the reputation of the one who sends rambling emails and documents that leave the reader confused or that fail to make a strong point. If you struggle in this area, trying outlining your thoughts first and treat every written communication as if it were the most important thing you have to do today. Summary How you communicate information on your business projects can have a profound effect on the outcome. Do whatever you can to ensure that you listen effectively and pass on information accurately to your team or employees and to your customer. Misunderstood and miscommunicated information can result in improper actions taken, assignments missed or misunderstood, and overall major negative impacts to timelines and budgets. IT Consulting/Project Management Blog 11/01/2009
Hello! Over the past 10 months I've written 300+ professional articles for various websites. I am now going to start writing a few new articles and provide select articles of mine from other sites in this space. Hopefully you'll find it interesting and helpful and, as always, I welcome your comments. | Check these out!
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