Book Text
This work is licensed under the "Creative Commons" License.
Excerpt from: Scrappy Project Management®
The 12 Predictable and Avoidable Pitfalls Every Project Faces
By Kimberly Wiefling
A Happy About® series
20660 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 210
Cupertino, CA 95014
Copyright © 2007 by Scrappy About™
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author(s) assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
First Printing: September 2007
Second Printing: January 2008
Paperback ISBN: 1600050514 (978-1-60005-051-0)
Place of Publication: Silicon Valley, California, USA
Paperback Library of Congress Number: 2007935615
eBook ISBN: 1600050522 (978-1-60005-052-7)
Trademarks
All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Scrappy About™ cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark. Scrappy About™ is a trademark of Happy About®. Scrappy Project Management®, Scrappy Project Leadership®, Scrappy Leadership® and Scrappy Dialogues® are trademarks of Kimberly Wiefling. Scrappy About is a Happy About® series.
Warning and Disclaimer
Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and as accurate as possible, but no warranty of fitness is implied. The information provided is on an “as is” basis. The author and the publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damages arising from the information contained in this book.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
“Political correctness is the doctrine holding that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.” – Anonymous
SCRAPPY PROJECT MANAGEMENT® contains guidelines that you and your team can use to your advantage to deliver results when the odds are against you. Whether you are a project manager who is new to the field, a seasoned project manager in the midst of a project gone haywire, or a participant in a project where no one appears to be holding the reins, SCRAPPY PROJECT MANAGEMENT will prime your neural pump with ideas that can get you unstuck, moving, and then steering in the direction of your goals.
Like all challenging projects, writing this book was peppered with its fair share of brushes with disaster. For a nearly true look at the hair-raising final moments in the making of SCRAPPY PROJECT MANAGEMENT, see our video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDCJBu3rdvk
Congratulations on picking up this SCRAPPY PROJECT MANAGEMENT guide, and welcome to our scrappy world!
- Kimberly
Meet the Scrappy Guides®
The Scrappy Guides™ is a series of books to help you accomplish the impossible. Those of you who say it can't be done should stay out of the way of those of us doing it!
Scrappy means ATTITUDE.
Scrappy means not relying on a title to be a leader.
Scrappy means being willing to take risks and put yourself out there.
Scrappy means doing the right thing, even when you don't feel like it.
Scrappy means having the steely resolve of a street fighter.
Scrappy means sticking to your guns even if you're shaking in your boots.
Scrappy means being committed beyond reason to making a difference.
Scrappy means caring about something more than you care about being comfortable, socially acceptable, or politically correct.
Scrappy means being absolutely, totally committed to extraordinary results.
Scrappy means EDGY!. . . and is your edge in achieving outrageous results even when they seem impossible.
The Scrappy Guides™ help you muster the courage and commitment to pursue your goals—even when there is no evidence that you can succeed. They are your shield against the naysayers who will try to undermine you, and they will give you comfort during the inevitable failures that accompany most worthy pursuits. When you fail, fail fast, fail forward, in the direction of your goals, lurching fitfully if you must. Sometimes success is built on the foundation of a very tall junk pile.
Let's get scrappy!
BECOME A SCRAPPY GUIDES AUTHOR
Have a “Scrappy” streak in you? Want to write about it? Contact me and let's talk! Email me at kimberly@wiefling.com.
ENDORSEMENTS
“At last, someone has come along who rejects the bland world of 'blah blah blah' project management books that live in the academic ether. Scrappy Project Management has given us the REAL 'dungeons and dragons' equivalent of achieving a SUCCESSFUL project despite the odds and oddities of company culture. Kimberly Wiefling tells you how to fight for what's right and stop being spineless without getting the worst of it. Put this spine on your bookshelf, or in your survival kit. This is THE resource for the power starved PMs who need to learn how to street fight for resources, deal with customer insanity, and dodge the falling rocks as you stay on top of everything. A fighting spirit and a confident strategy is the RETURN ON THIS INVESTMENT.”
Michele Jackman, Michele Jackman Enterprises and Adventures, co-author of Star Teams, Players.
“You can take the long, hard road to your dreams, or you can accelerate your success by grabbing a copy of Kimberly Wiefling's Scrappy Project Management and following the rock-solid advice there to achieving results. If you want to build energy, velocity, and momentum toward an outrageous goal, Kimberly's Scrappy Project Management is just what you've been waiting for to help you get those results with more pleasant surprises and fewer disappointing shocks along the way. Some of my favorite nuggets of wisdom from Kimberly's tome are:
· The top reasons that teams fail are completely avoidable, and due to leadership in absentia. Wake up before it's too late!
· How to avoid the rip-tide model of teamwork, where everyone jumps in and drowns together.
· Ignore the voice of the customer at your own peril. They are the ones with the money, after all!
· Are you a wage slave? If you want to be a great project leader you'd better be able to put your job on the line.
· Stop pretending that everything is top priority. Sometimes you've got to choose between your heart, lungs, and kidneys!
Whether you're on the hook to deliver results for your company or you're getting your business off the ground, you'll learn a lot and avoid some common pitfalls by reading this book.”
Christine Comaford-Lynch, CEO of Mighty Ventures, author of Rules for Renegades
“The power of Scrappy Project Management stems from the vibrant, fascinating, and shocking (to some) picture it paints of what is required of the project manager to be truly successful in our incredibly messy project world. The title, the stories, and the no holds barred language Kimberly uses bring to life a unique and powerful view of the PM role—one I think holds important insights for new and experienced PMs alike.
The Scrappy Project Manager may be a shocking persona to those who have been taught that good project management is about the techniques—scope statements, schedules, change control, status reports—rather than about active, highly-involved project leadership laced with huge dosages of personal drive and courage. For those readers, this book makes real what the ephemeral “leadership” term really means on the ground, brings to life what MUST be added to the typical project manager job description for a PM to have a chance on any challenging project, and hammers home the key ingredients for being the kind of project manager that can consistently “deliver the goods” for the business. (What else matters, after all?)
Other project managers have likely sensed and even acted on the need for more than just mastery of specific PM techniques, but felt limited by the culture or manager or process and unsure of how to expand their PM role and influence. For those readers, this book should produce a resounding “YES!” of recognition, a fresh dose of moral support for acting beyond any boundaries they've been saddled with, and practical, energy-reviving, scrappy-esque techniques for doing so.
In short, this book unabashedly puts forward a new, unambiguous, non-shrinking, and ultimately empowering view of what we all as project managers should commit to be and do every day in our project roles.
Cinda Voegtli, CEO of Emprend, Inc. and President of ProjectConnections.com
TESTIMONIALS ON KIMBERLY’S WORK
“Kimberly’s ‘Leading From Any Seat in the Org’ class is the single most powerful class I’ve attended, and the highest rated class I’ve participated in. Her teachings have fundamentally changed me as a leader, a coach, and a team member.”
Lesley Kew, Intuit
“If you have the opportunity to take a workshop with Wiefling in person, don't walk, RUN to sign up at your earliest opportunity. Her classes are Fun, Entertaining, high energy, and you learn some of the most incredible things. Don’t miss it. The only downside to her class is that everything else you take thereafter will pale in comparison. One of the finest class experiences I've ever had.”
Dan in California
“Kimberly is one of the most enthusiastic and up-beat people I have ever worked with. She is driven by the belief that it is more than her job, it is her obligation, to make those around her successful. She is an exceptionally quick study with a firm grounding in science and engineering. Kimberly. . . easily identifies choke points to progress as well as opportunities for leverage. She is a model of persistence. . .”
R. H., Director of Engineering
“Kimberly took me to the next level in taking on a leadership role. She encouraged me to success.”
Sherry Parsons, Executive Administrative Manager, Earthbound Farm
“Kimberly got me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to pursue my passion for teaching. She eliminated my fears.”
Debbie Gross, Chief Administrative Assistant, Cisco
“Kimberly is a whole energy level unto herself. I call it the “Kimberly Factor”. Her passion to give, teach and mentor accelerates people, programs and companies.”
Bonnie Savage, CEO Assistant, JDSU
“Kimberly is a driving force of positive energy. Because of her, I'm following my passions. She continues to inspire me to follow my dreams and reach for the stars.”
Linda McFarland, CEO Assistant, Seagate
Dedication
For Gram and Pap.
Acknowledgements
This book is living proof that “impossible” is just a measure of difficulty, and requires a team to accomplish. Thanks to all of you who have helped make this book a reality. Am I crazy enough to even TRY to mention all of you? OK, I'll give it a shot, but I'm sure to leave someone out, and besides, people naturally tend to over-estimate their contribution to any success. So, please accept my apologies in advance for any minor or egregious omissions. I will also be delivering my copious thanks in person. For now, please consider yourself tremendously appreciated, because you are. I will never forget everything that you have done to make this dream real! May your karmic debt be significantly reduced by the loving support that you have shared with me through the hardest project of my life (so far)!
Big honkin' thanks to my family, who raised me scrappy. My dad, Alvin, taught me to ignore those who cautioned “It can't be done!” and I love you for that, dad! My mom, Shirley, is the smartest and hardest working person I've ever met. Thanks for always being there for me, mummy! My brothers, Derek and Russell Wiefling, are so scrappy that they make me seem normal and well-balanced. I love you, my bros! I'm grateful to the whole extended Wiefling Clan, the scrappiest family on the planet, for their lifelong modeling of ever-more scrappy behavior.
Huge heaping piles of thanks to Douglas McIntyre, the only person I know of who thinks I'm cute when I am trying to be intimidating and bossy, and who always believes in me even when my own confidence wavers. Considerable boatloads of appreciation to William Andrejko, who keeps the Wiefling Consulting office humming, and fully stocked with rubber chickens and pushing the edges of respectability. Gal-pal hugs to Cynthia Meyer McShane and Algelique DiCio Yoseloff, my truly scrappy grade school girlfriends. Thanks for sticking with me all these years!
Boat loads of thanks to my many colleagues from HP, Candescent, ReplayTV, and Groupfire, who were my constant teachers in the school of life. Buckets of gratitude to my scrappy entrepreneurs, my dear friend Brenda Keiner, who makes me laugh like a hyena, Andy Do, Ralph Scott Penza, Richard Sayle, and many others who did me the great favor of including me in their start-up adventures. Roof-raising cheers to my many fantastic colleagues and friends at ALC Education in Japan, especially my Japanese sister, Yuko Shibata, and her whole family, who adopted me like kin, strange foreign person or not. Also Toru Yoshikawa, Makoto Honjo, Kenchiro Tachi, Kumiko Saito, Ian Cross, Michael Jones, Mitsuyo Sunada, Megumi Taura, Ryoko Suto, Miki Nema, Yayoi Nakanishi, Ikeda-san, Otsu-san, Shiose-san, and the magnificent Mishima-san... and many more . . . ohmygawd, the list of people I love, admire, and appreciate at ALC is ENDLESS!! Oh, for Pete's sake, I knew I would get into trouble by trying to list each one of you fantastic people individually! These “menaces to mediocrity” at ALC surpass even my own level of scrappiness in their commitment to project excellence and their dedicated support of my work with Japanese businesses all around the world.
Hogs and quiches to my editor, DeAnna Burghart, without whom I would never have let this book out in public, and certainly would not have punctuated properly. (DeAnna, you are the first person ever to make it fun to have my mistakes pointed out to me!) Endless gratitude to the Happy About® team, especially Mitchell Levy and Sneha Laxman, for giving me the impression early on that I really could finish this thing. Rounds of applause for Margaret Di Maria, whose graphics are the scrappiest this side of the Pacific! Copious nods of acknowledgement to those many friends who have opened doors for me that have led to unimaginable possibilities, including the doors of my mind, especially Sherry Rehm, Barbara Fittipaldi, Shampa Banerjee, Sandra Clark, Susie Miller, Francine Gordon, Jeanne Parrent, Alex Gray, Natasha Skok, Mara Crags, Ed Gaeta, Bob McDonald, Bonnie Savage, Linda McFarland, Sherry Parsons, Debbie Gross, Joann Linden, Jennifer Vessels, Matt Schlegel, Irina Elent, Todd Cass, Antoinette Burkett, Linda Holroyd, Stephanie Oberg, Julian Simmonds, Jeff Richardson .... Ah, now I know why I resisted listing all of your names. I have been richly blessed by so many generous souls. Even though at this moment I find it impossible to name you all, I can feel your spirit. Thank you all most deeply from the bottom of my scrappy heart!
– Kimberly Wiefling
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Customer? What Customer? 21
Be completely & unrepentantly obsessed with the “customer.” 21
Chapter 2: If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going,
Provide shared, measurable, challenging & achievable goals as clear as sunlight. 25
Chapter 3: Communication? We've Got Real Work To Do! 31
Engage in effective, vociferous & unrelenting communication with all stakeholders. 31
Chapter 4: Hey, It Wasn't Me! It Was “The Others”. 37
Ensure that roles & responsibilities are unmistakably understood and agreed upon by all. 37
Chapter 5: Why Plan? Let’s Just Get Moving! 44
Create viable plans & schedules that enjoy the team's hearty commitment. 44
Chapter 6: Risk? What Could Possibly Go Wrong? 52
Mitigate big, hairy, abominable risks & implement innovative accelerators. 52
Chapter 7: Priority? Everything Is #1! 58
Prioritize ruthlessly, choosing between heart, lungs & kidneys if necessary. 58
Chapter 8: Change? What Do You Mean Things
Anticipate and accommodate necessary and inevitable change. 62
Chapter 9: Assumption Is A Mother 67
Challenge assumptions & beliefs, especially insidious self-imposed limitations. 67
Chapter 10: So, What Were You Expecting? 73
Manage the expectations of all stakeholders: under-promise & over-deliver. 73
Chapter 11: Lessons Not Learned. 81
Learn from experience. Make new and more exciting mistakes each time! 81
Chapter 12: Sure We Appreciate You –
Didn't You Get Your Paycheck? 87
Attitude of Gratitude: Celebrate project success... and some failures, too! 87
Create Thought Leadership for Your Company. 107
Why wait to write your book?. 108
Table of Figures
Graphic 1: Scrappy Project Management Checklist………………………………………………..5
Graphic 2: Back-of-the-Napkin Style Project Scorecard Example. 28
Graphic 3: Overly Simplistic Version of a Communications Map. 33
Graphic 4: Bare Minimum Project Team Org Chart 39
Graphic 5: High Level Project Flowchart with Swimlanes. 48
Graphic 6: Scrappy Project Management “GET IT DONE” Guide. 50
Graphic 7: Priority List for Sharing Resources Across Several Projects. 60
Graphic 8: United Way Thermometer Visual Goal & Status Tracking. 79
Graphic 9: Project Timeline with Duration Range Estimates. 83
Preface
Preface
There are plenty of books that attempt to explain how to be a successful project manager. The Project Management Institute (PMI) has created an entire “Body of Knowledge” — the PMBOK — that codifies a neat, clean, surgical description of how a project should be managed from start to finish. It’s a nice concept, and in an ideal world these strategies might actually work. In our world, the project leader may not even be involved in the project kick-off, less-than-ready-to-ship products are launched prematurely, and projects run a torturous route that barely resembles the neat, tidy, well-defined process described in the PMBOK.
Real projects are messy! The PMBOK is the #1 best selling project management book on Amazon. That’s like having the dictionary being the #1 best selling book in English literature! Scrappy Project Managers know that the PMBOK is a sanitized version of what happens in the real world. It’s only the beginning of what it takes to get the job done. My first project management instructor told me, “Get complete, accurate, and validated requirements at the start of the project.” This is excellent in theory, and I’d love to work on a project where we have this luxury. Mind you, people in hell want ice water too. That’s not happening either. It’s just wishful thinking, and that just doesn’t cut it in many of the hurricane-like project climates out there. In fact, there are now entire methodologies that specifically recommend not waiting until requirements are complete before implementing them.
Many projects start in the deep recesses of some corporate hallway, or over a beer in some dank little pub. Sometimes the project manager only hears about the project long after it is well under way. Even when a project is carefully planned and formally kicked off, the plan usually changes before the ink is dry on the paper. After that it’s victory by successive approximation to an ever-evolving goal. Waterfalls of sequential project tasks have been replaced by cyclones of rapid iteration and massively parallel projects. In the real world, from the time the starting gun is fired, all manner of changes, surprises, and disasters befall a typical project. Teams struggle to keep their footing on the quicksand of rapidly-shifting markets, customer whims, and the vicissitudes of circumstance. Have you ever been on a project where nothing changed? Me neither, so why be surprised when there are changes to requirements, dates, budgets, or staff? Forget the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s usually just a break between tunnels. Learn to love the tunnel!
Change is expected. It need not be the surprise guest at your project dinner party. The good news is that most of the obstacles or catastrophes that delay or derail projects are predictable and avoidable. Many project post mortems produce lists of “Lessons Learned” that are identical to the lessons learned in the last project. If we’re going to learn the same damn thing every time we might as well call them “Lessons NOT Learned.” There’s not a whole lot of learning going on when the #1 reason why teams fail to achieve their goals is that they don’t have clear goals, and the #2 reason why projects fail is that communication sucks (or, in more politically correct form, is less than sub-optimal)[1].
Behold the Scrappy Project Manager. Scrappy Project Managers don’t settle for hysterics and management by crisis, and they certainly don’t let something as mundane as so-called reality limit them. They either find a way to seize success from the snapping jaws of defeat, or they invent one. This book is a collection of wisdom on how to get results when the odds are against you, when precedence says it can’t be done, and when the majority of humans believe your project is impossible. It’s a book for people who aren’t bound by convention, assumptions, or self-limiting beliefs. It’s for people who can be counted on to get the job done through hard work, creative thinking, basic common sense, and sheer persistence.
SCRAPPY PROJECT MANAGEMENT is the real deal. It cuts through the BS right to the bone. Structured around the dirty dozen of worst project practices, the 12 predictable and avoidable pitfalls that every project faces, this book describes what REALLY happens in the project environment, and how to survive and thrive in the maelstrom. The converse of the dirty dozen are 12 common sense practices for project management that have been proven to enable leaders to steer their teams clear of avoidable disaster and as much as double their chances of project success.
SCRAPPY PROJECT MANAGEMENT is for those who have the stamina to do what needs to be done in their businesses, and the resolve to go the distance.
The role of project leader is not for the faint of heart. As in many worthy causes, tact and diplomacy can only get you so far, so be sure to have some spunk and attitude on hand when you run out of road with the gentler approach. Sometimes an outrageous act of bravado and nerves of steel will serve you far better than any fancy-schmancy Microsoft® Project Gantt chart. It is during these defining moments that you’ll come to appreciate and benefit from the scrappy approach to leading a project. Let’s all chant together the scrappy words of Will Willis: “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.” Enjoy the ride!
Kick Off
“When you're going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
Project management is one of the most hair-raising jobs in the world. Enormous responsibility, itty-bitty positional power, and the fast pace of many project environments make managing a project one of the world’s longest-running stress fests. Many project leaders have no direct access to people, budget, or other critical resources upon which results hinge, and yet they are pretty much completely responsible for the success or failure of the project. And they sure as heck don’t get paid anything close to what they’re worth! If the project is a success, the project leader has probably broken enough rules and ticked off enough important people that they may not even be able to benefit from the very success they helped create. If a project is a complete and utter failure, the project leader usually takes the rap, and is at serious risk of slapping their hand against their forehead full force while muttering, “What was I thinking?” In this altered state, they may momentarily regret having worked so hard and taken so many risks for a bunch of ungrateful bastards. Fortunately, I have not allowed this kind of experience to make me jaded or cynical. Like Nietzsche said, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Exceptional project leaders are the most amazing business leaders I’ve ever met. They take on their leadership responsibility with absolute passion and commitment from start to finish. They work without a net, risking failure and daring the impossible to become the unavoidable. They clearly chalk out what needs to be done, define who is supposed to do what, and hold people accountable for following through on their promises. They steadily track status and progress against seemingly unattainable goals, urging everyone involved to make the leap of faith and commit fully to these results. They offer a helping hand or a word of encouragement to those who stumble along the sometimes-rocky road. When they have to deliver unpopular messages they do it with courage and conviction, even when confronting execs with extremely negative news that’s guaranteed to twist their knickers. Those who bear bad tidings are frequently unappreciated for the valuable contribution they are making. No one likes to go to the dentist or see the undertaker heading in their direction. A skilled “specialist” who is handy when the godfather needs someone to disappear may be an unwelcome guest at dinner.
Wage Slavery. If you are absolutely dependent on your paycheck to survive, then do yourself a favor—don’t be a project leader! In most of the scrappy high-tech organizations where I’ve worked, the role of a project leader cannot be successfully filled by anyone who can’t put his or her job on the line in pursuit of doing the right thing. Never fear, you’ll get your reward in heaven. Meanwhile, if you’re going to be a courageous project leader you’d best keep at least three months’ salary in the bank and an up-to-date resume on file.
In order to deliver results in the challenging circumstances typical of many business environments, project leaders must be absolutely committed to leading their team to success. Frequently, they must execute this feat without explicit high-level support, sometimes with active resistance, and occasionally in the complete absence of any evidence at all that the project is even possible. All of this calls for courageous leadership in the face of fearsome obstacles. Truly extraordinary project leaders must be able to muster an enthusiastic attitude that buoys the spirits of their team members. The attitude of the project leader sets the tone for everyone else on the project. Discouragement is the devil’s sharpest tool. You can’t afford to be caught monkeying around with that implement of destruction.
LEARN FROM THE MOVIES: In the movie “School of Rock,” actor Jack Black plays a loser rock band wannabe. He pretends to be his roommate and takes a substitute teacher’s job for a bunch of 6th graders. Spurned by his musical cronies, he soon realizes that he can form his dream rock band from his enthusiastic students. His passion and vision never waver until the jig is up and he’s unmasked as an impersonator. Now this guy didn’t have a lot of project management training, but he did have tremendous guile and resourcefulness, dodging the principal, parents, and his roommate (the real substitute teacher), while convincing the students they had a shot at achieving their dream of playing the battle of the bands. He and his unlikely rock stars succeed through sheer determination by staying focused on their vision and fending off failure at every turn. Finally, when even he feels beaten and wants to give up, his team refuses to let him quit. By this time they are so committed to the vision he sparked in them that they refuse to give up and drag his sorry ass out of bed to finish it. How cool is that? I’m sure that every project leader has had moments of exhaustion or despair when they needed their team to inspire them. As leaders we’ve got to inspire them first so that when we hit a low and need a dose of energy they can give it to us. Personally, I frequently look to my teammates to recharge my energy. We don’t have to do this alone!
Being a project leader involves being almost ridiculously committed to doing what it takes to deliver the goods in the face of second-guessing and doubt from executives, peers, and even one’s own team members. It requires the kind of resolve that can only come from working on a worthy cause, something we care about more than our own security or comfort, something beyond mere “wage slavery.” That’s fearless project leadership—or at least courageous project leadership even while scared, since we don’t always have the luxury of fearlessness. Sometimes we’ve just got to get it done while we’re freaking out about how impossible it seems. That’s “Scrappy Project Management” baby! Make this book one of the tools in your get-it-done toolbox, your guide to the vast unknown, where never the spineless shall tread.
Here’s the Scrappy Project Management Checklist that we’ll use throughout this book (Graphic 1). Tear it out and keep it with you at all times. Really, I’m serious. Tear this page out of this book and keep it in your back pocket. You’ll need it. It’s what a Scrappy Project Manager would do! Make a copy to nail up to the wall of your office, too. Tape another copy to the dashboard of your car, and yet another on the lower surface of your favorite toilet seat. Why? Because these common sense principles are the ones most frequently overlooked or short-changed on projects, even by those who ought to know better. Knowing “how,” all by itself, has never been enough to change a damn thing. Throngs of smart, experienced people have tumbled down the stairs of failure because they overlooked exactly these basics.
Graphic 1: Scrappy Project Management Checklist
[1] Ref: The Bull Survey (1998), The KPMG Canada Survey (1997), The Chaos Report (1995), The OASIG Study (1995).
Chapter 1: Customer? What Customer?
Be completely & unrepentantly obsessed with the “customer.”
“There is only one boss: The Customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton
I haven’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something about the human condition that retards our ability to be successful project managers. Maybe it’s genetic. When we see someone else fail, it’s easy to assume that they’re just stupid; but when we fail, it’s simply an honest mistake or sheer bad luck. “They” should have seen it coming, but “we” were understandably taken by surprise, an innocent victim of circumstances outside our control.
I think psychologists call it the fundamental attribution error, but to me it’s the biggest barrier to avoiding predictable pitfalls in a project. It’s relatively easy to see where someone else’s project is about to hit the skids or could have avoided the long, slow slide into project hell, yet somehow we are still blissfully unaware as our own projects creep inexorably toward Dante’s Inferno.
Consider a couple of well-publicized project failures from the 1970s. The first is from a March 15, 1972 article in the San Jose Mercury News.
The Moose is Not Loose. Scientists tracking the migratory behavior of moose asked some engineers to design and build a satellite receiver/transmitter for them. When it was ready, the researchers fitted it into a collar that would fit around a moose’s neck. They stealthily crept out of their camouflaged den, tranquilized and tagged the object of their scientific desires, then scurried back to their observation post. They patiently waited and watched, but the blip on the radar screen showed no movement. Moose were known to be highly territorial, but the researchers were still a bit surprised at how very small their territory seemed to be. They finally went to check on their reclusive hoofed mammal, only to find him dead in the very same spot where they first attached the tracking collar.
Cause of death? The transmitter weighed so much that the animal was unable to stand while wearing it. Aghast, the scientists went to the engineers, exclaiming, “You killed our moose!” to which the engineers replied, “What moose?” They were oblivious to the fact that their product was going on a moose’s neck. Yes, this really happened.
We had a Whale of a Time. This was a bad week for mammals. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle that same week described similar misadventures with a whale that wandered into the San Francisco Bay. With much media hoopla, different—but no less ill-fated—scientists laid their plans to track the whale. This giant oceanic creature, affectionately named Humphrey, was escorted from the Bay and encouraged to resume his sub-oceanic travels. Cameras clicked and reporters vied for position on the dock as a tracking device was affixed to the whale’s back. The crowd cheered as Humphrey submerged... and immediately disappeared from the radar screen. The transmitter wasn’t waterproof!
The indignant scientists accosted the hapless engineers and proclaimed, “You lost our whale!” to which, of course, the engineers retorted, “What whale?” Sorry to say, I am not making this stuff up!
This kind of incredible “oops” in projects isn’t limited to mammals or to the last century. In January 2004, Der Spiegel chronicled the mishaps of German and Swiss engineers connecting their respective parts of the new Upper Rhine Bridge, who discovered that one half had been built 54 centimeters lower than the other. (That’s over 21 inches for those of you in the three countries that still have not converted to the metric system: Liberia, Myanmar, and the US.) Reconstruction costs were massive.
You see how these things go. The most astonishing things can and do happen. What are we supposed to think about a project team that fails to mention that the product they want their engineers to design is going on a hoofed mammal with a pendulous muzzle and enormous antlers? Or one that fails to mention that the product will be riding the back of a sodden vertebrate, destined to go far below the H2O? Or a team that didn’t bother to specify the height at which their bridge will meet up? Assumption is the mother of all such project management calamities. Assume nothing! We’ve all heard it: “when you assume you make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.” But it’s a slippery slope, and projects are awfully busy, so, gee, I guess I can understand why keeping the end result and the delight of the customer clearly in mind gets shunted to the back burner. Gimme a break. I truly would have loved to hear the excuses offered at these post-mortems.
The obvious question for me is how many project teams are creating products and services in the absence of what’s going to delight their customers? Smarter people than me have made these mistakes, so I am highly attuned to keeping the customer’s desires top of mind in any project where success matters.
Note these statistics. Let me be the first to admit that I am not a marketing genius. In fact, what I know about marketing could be shoved up an ant’s ass and still rattle around like a BB in a boxcar. But consider this: more than 50% of all new products fail to meet their goals because they don’t meet the needs of their target customers and because they are released with unacceptable quality issues. Even when the quality is acceptable, between 60% and 90% of all new products fail to meet customer expectations.[1]
Do the math. The world is full of gizmos and gadgets that people don’t want, don’t need, and certainly don’t want to pay for. Buoyed by hopelessly optimistic marketing revenue projections that are achieved less than one time out of 600, they get to market before anyone finds out just how off the mark they are.[2] Clunky user interfaces, products that fail to perform as promised, or annoying bugs in the released product create doubt as to whether the designer ever thought about the end user, ever used the product themselves, or, gawd forbid, had talked with even a single real customer. All too often the response is … Customer? What customer? Oh, shoot, we were so darn busy that we forgot about the friggin’ customer!
Who is your Customer? Every team member has an image of the customer in their head, and typically, that customer looks and acts just like they do. However, this image may in no way resemble a real customer. In actuality, many people working on projects have little or no experience of their customers. Their information is secondhand, gathered by sales, filtered by marketing, and interpreted by the project manager and designers. I once worked with a team of people who’d been designing complicated chemical analysis equipment for decades. Several of the lead designers had never operated the instrument. In as little as an hour or a day they could have easily acquired some real insight into what it was like to use one of their instruments, but it simply wasn’t a priority. Needless to say, I required them to learn to use the products when I was leading the project. Maybe I’m kidding myself, but I think they actually enjoyed their work more knowing personally how real people in the real world used their product.
Sometimes the customer of a project is an internal person in the same company, sometimes they are an outside person who buys or uses the product or service. In any case, knowing who will be the ultimate judge of success or failure is critical to defining success. Some people are oblivious to the fact that there is a living, breathing customer out there whose needs and wants should be the driving force in the project. Or they assume that the customer is just like their very own self, and create something they think the customer will be happy with. Save us from these kinds of products! That’s how Microsoft Windows® was created.
SCRAPPY TIP: The first characteristic of a successful project manager is to be completely and unrepentantly obsessed with the customer. Get out of your office, visit delighted and dissatisfied customers, ride on sales calls, call angry customers who have abandoned your products for other solutions, interview your family, friends, and strangers on the street. Shadow real customers throughout a day or a week. Swim in the customer's fishbowl so that you know exactly what their pain is and how your product or service is the painkiller that will surprise and delight them.
Ignore the Voice of the Customer at Your Peril. Of course, no amount of customer-centric thinking will save a team led by someone who doesn’t value customer input. A high-level manager at a Fortune 500 company once declared to me, “Our customers should be required to take an intelligence test prior to purchasing the product.” While some customers aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, I believe that truly customer-focused designers can make any product easy to learn and use. Besides, stupid people have money too!
While the key to delighting customers has always been to under-promise and over-deliver, just asking customers what they want is not enough. Henry Ford said that if he’d listened to customers, Ford Motor Company would have been designing faster horses. Customers rarely have the imagination to ask for things totally outside of their experience, like overnight package delivery or fax machines, until after they are invented. But customers can be terrific sources of information about what causes them headaches, what they worry about, and the seemingly impossible challenges that they face. “What seems impossible, but if it were possible, would transform your business for the better?” Ask that simple paradigm-shifting question and you may find the seeds of a billion dollar business.
There is no substitute for personal experience with the customer. As Steve Blank of the Aberdeen Group says in Making the Case for Collaborative Product Commerce (July 2001), “There are no answers inside of this building. Getting project teams out swimming in the customer fishbowl is critical to enabling each person on the team to make decisions in alignment with real customer problems, wants, and needs.” Cultural anthropology is studying what it’s like to be immersed in the customer’s world, and I believe that it’s the best way to find out what real customers want and need. Ignoring the voice of the customer significantly raises the odds that your product will be in the huge heap of new products that fail to meet customer expectations.
SCRAPPY TIP: Most teams don't take the time to include the customer until it is far too late. Too busy to develop a thorough understanding of the very people who will judge their project's success, they stumble onward, mistaking activity for progress. Those that do invest in understanding of their target market gain a significant advantage, more than doubling their chances of creating a result that will surprise and delight their customer. Don't settle for “no time to include the voice of the customer” in your projects!
SCRAPPY TIP: If you are going to be a great project manager, you'd better keep your backbone intact. Be prepared to be respected but not necessarily liked, and keep your resume up to date!
The Scrappy Project Management Checklist. There are many people passing themselves off as project leaders who are merely occupying the position without being willing to take a stand and do the right thing in the face of opposition and temptations. If you want to be the kind of project leader who inspires commitment from your team, hope from your stakeholders, and the admiration of your colleagues, these common-sense guidelines for project management excellence will serve you well:
· Be completely & unrepentantly obsessed with the “customer.”
· Provide shared, measurable, challenging & achievable goals as clear as sunlight.
· Engage in effective, vociferous & unrelenting communication with all stakeholders.
· Ensure that roles & responsibilities are unmistakably understood and agreed upon by all.
· Create viable plans & schedules that enjoy the team’s hearty commitment.
· Mitigate big, hairy, abominable risks & implement innovative accelerators.
· Prioritize ruthlessly, choosing between heart, lungs & kidneys if necessary.
· Anticipate and accommodate necessary and inevitable change.
· Challenge assumptions & beliefs, especially insidious self-imposed limitations.
· Manage the expectations of all stakeholders: under-promise & over-deliver.
· Learn from experience. Make new and more exciting mistakes each time!
· Attitude of Gratitude: Celebrate project success... and some failures, too!
SCRAPPY TIP: To dramatically improve your odds of achieving success—even during the most challenging projects—sleep with The Scrappy Project Management Checklist under your pillow. Dream of the success you are poised to achieve while embracing the checklist concepts; wake up, and make the dream come true!
Parting Thought. Leading a project successfully without this kind of toolkit is like trying to design an integrated circuit with pencil and paper. A fool with a tool is still a fool, but perhaps we won’t make such foolish mistakes with a guide during the wild and woolly experience of leading a challenging project. What does it take beyond a checklist?
DISCIPLINE: This toolkit, and the discipline to apply it consistently and depart from it thoughtfully, will make you and your teams a lot more “lucky,” as much as doubling your chances of success.
COMMITMENT: Your commitment to doing what is required time and again, whether you feel like it or not, whether people totally support you in this or not, will distinguish you as a true project management professional.
PASSION: The enthusiasm of the project leader is contagious. Projects are hard work! Your team deserves a leader who is completely and authentically passionate about the project.
Passionate, disciplined, and totally committed—now that truly describes the Scrappy Project Manager. The road is sometimes rocky and treacherous. Everyone gets discouraged from time to time. When you feel like giving up, hang in there for at least five minutes longer. And if you do fail, remember what Winston Churchill said: “Success consists of going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
Ride it like you stole it, baby! – Kimberly
Index
INDEX
A
accelerators 58, 60, 103, 125, 126
accountability 34, 37, 53, 111
actionable targets 18
adapting to and implementing change 38, 75
alliance partners 38, 75, 87
appreciation 40, 46, 88, 115–117
Asia 59
assumption 46, 55, 81–88, 125, 127
attitude of gratitude 113–122, 127
B
Bandura, Albert 97
best-practices 124
branding 17
budget 14, 17, 49, 79, 81, 95, 117
budget cuts 62, 75
business goals 70, 103
C
celebrate success 113–122
CEO 28, 111, 117, 125
change xviii, 24, 73–79
Charan, R. 111
charter 94–96
checklist 5, 123, 125, 126–127
Churchill, Winston 1, 30, 52, 128
collaboration 18, 111
co-location 20, 25, 27, 37
Colvin, G. 111
comedy corridor 120
communication 23–31
communication plan 26
communications map 26
compensation 116, 122
competition 41, 109, 111
control, items out of your control 55
corporate downsizing 76
Cox, Danny 113
criteria 13–18
critical path 49, 52, 77, 78
cross-functional 18, 35, 38, 103
customer 7–12, 75, 76
expectations 10, 12, 89–99
visits 28, 85
D
Darwin, Charles 73
dashboard 18
deadlines 46, 65, 93
decisions 12, 14, 15, 58, 108
design 8–12, 14, 38, 78, 86, 92
Diamond, Jared 39
documenting your demise 58, 108
downsizing, corporate 76
drum circle 41–43
E
email 24, 28–31, 43, 95
end users 18
engineers 8–9, 79, 92, 93, 105
escalation cards 92
estimates 48, 93, 103, 104, 106
executive sponsor 58, 62, 70, 87
executive team 70, 94
expectations, manage 89–99
F
fact-based decisions 108
fact-based schedule 48, 125
failure
design 8, 38
disguised as success 14
not allowed 34
predictable 124
preventable 21
project 1
rewarding 122
failures, project 7
fear of failure 33, 62, 109, 110
feature creep 76, 99
features 17, 27, 49, 67, 78, 90
flocking behavior 34
flow chart 27, 50, 52, 55, 105
Ford, Henry 11, 89
Fortune 500 11, 59
Franklin, Benjamin 108
fundamental attribution error 7, 108
G
Gantt chart xix, 27, 48, 50, 77, 93, 103, 105
Go/No-Go meeting 15
goals
achieving 13–22, 45–47, 108
business 70, 103
clarifying 92, 97, 99, 123
failure to meet 10
for meetings 124
performance 63
prioritizing 68
project 27, 39, 76, 78, 98, 107, 126
setting 33
unclear 62, 101, 109
Goldratt, Eli 60
gravity 110
gravity items (out of your control) 55
Gumperson's Law 107
H
HALT test chamber 86
hardware design 86, 92
hierarchical staffing diagram 37
Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) 86
HP 91
Hull, Arthur 43
hunch-based decision-making 125
I
impact
negative 60
of appreciation 116, 117
of change 77, 78, 107
on schedule 74
personal 17, 40
impossible
challenges 11
changes 79
commitment 34
projects xix, 88, 90, 114
schedule 48, 60, 84, 85
task 24, 61
initiative 115
innovation 62, 93, 122
innovative accelerators 58, 60, 103, 125, 126
innovative teams 122
instinct for competition 109
integrity 125
interpretation 52, 64, 110, 121
IT Department 28
IT system 78
J
Japan 62, 120
Jones, Arthur 33
K
Knowing-Doing Gap 108, 109
L
leadership scorecard 17–20
learned helplessness 82, 90, 109
Lencioni, Patrick 39
lessons learned xviii, 48, 102, 103
lessons not learned xviii, 101–111, 122
leverage 68, 103
M
manufacturing 18, 74
matrix organization 35, 38
McConnell, Steve 47
McGrath, Michael 35
measurable goals 13–22, 126
meetings 23, 25, 93, 124
milestone 18, 27, 46, 89, 93, 95
mitigation 21, 46, 49, 88, 95
motivation 115, 121
multi-tasking 68
N
NASA 121
negotiation 104, 109
Nelson, Bob 115, 121
O
objectives 21, 22
optimize 53, 67, 103, 124
org chart 34–44
overview 126–127
P
paycheck 2, 40, 115, 122, 124
peer-to-peer 117
perception 14, 90, 121
personal scorecard 17–20
PERT chart 77, 103, 105
Pfeffer, Jeffrey 108
plan 27, 103, 104, 105, 107, 123, 125
planning 15, 26, 45–56, 74, 104, 109
post mortem xviii, 78, 101
pre-emptive pessimism 87
prioritization 18, 67–72
priority list 69, 70, 71
process 17, 20, 22, 46, 50, 124
product development 17, 20, 35, 62
production 14, 59
project charter 94–96
project flowchart 51
project leader 17, 29, 125
project timeline 27, 28, 49
projects
context 9
failure 7, 16
objective 21
prototype 14, 59, 85, 86
psychologists 7
pushback 29, 104, 107
Q
QA 14, 102, 107
quality 10, 17, 49, 65, 76, 86, 95, 101
R
recognition 40, 64, 115, 117, 119, 121
Reinertsen, Don 69
relationships 17, 35, 37, 40, 116
reliability engineer 58
resource allocation 69, 70
resources 1, 38, 68, 69, 71, 75, 87
Responsibility Allocation Matrix (RAM) 35, 37
reward 40, 63, 114, 115, 117, 118
rip tide model 15
risk 57–65
risk mitigation 46
roles 35–44
rubber chicken 110
S
Sandquist, Jeff 30
schedule accelerators 58, 60, 103, 125, 126
schedules 48, 52, 55, 60, 75, 93, 102, 103, 126
scorecard 17–20
Scrappy, definition iv
Silicon Valley 17
single-number estimates 48, 104
Smith, Preston 69
software 14, 74, 76, 85, 86, 92
sponsor, executive 58, 62, 70, 87
stakeholder 13, 46, 52, 55, 68, 89–99
Stanford Business School 108
Starbucks 117, 119
status tracking 98
stochastic estimation techniques 104
success criteria 13–18, 27, 46, 68, 69
Sutton, Robert 108
swimlanes 50, 51
T
teams, innovative 122
Theory of Constraints 60, 103
timeline duration range estimates 106
timeline risk analysis 60
timeline, project 27, 28, 49
Tokyo 25, 50
tracking 57, 98, 117
tracking changes 27
trade-offs 14, 20
triple constraint 15, 17, 67
U
United Way Thermometer 98
use cases 92
V
VP 39, 59, 76, 93, 94
W
Welch, Jack 24
win-lose thinking 109, 111
worst case 48, 104
Y
YouTube 118
Author
About the Author
Kimberly Wiefling is the founder of Wiefling Consulting, LLC, a scrappy global consulting enterprise committed to enabling her clients to achieve highly unlikely or darn near impossible results predictably and repeatedly. Her company has helped individuals, teams, and organizations realize their dreams through a combination of courageous leadership, project management excellence, sheer determination, and plain old stubbornness. She has worked with companies of all sizes, including one-person ventures and those in the Fortune 50, and she has helped to launch and grow more than half a dozen startups, a few of which are reaping excellent profits at this very moment.
Kimberly attributes her scrappiness to being raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and to the sheer luck of genetics—her whole family is seriously scrappy. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) A physicist by education, she earned a Master’s degree in Physics from Case Institute and a Bachelor’s in Chemistry and Physics from Wright State University. Kimberly spent a decade at HP in engineering leadership, product development, and project management roles. She then spent four years in the wild and crazy world of Silicon Valley start-ups before leading one to a glorious defeat during the dotcom bust of 2001 as the VP of Program Management. (Indeed, the company was purchased by Google, but as luck would have it, for pennies on the dollar... Drat!) Vigorously scrappy, she reemerged from the smoldering remains of the “Silicon Valley Mood Disorder” to launch her own company, consulting worldwide from Tokyo to Armenia, as well as the once-again-vibrant Silicon Valley.
Kimberly is the executive editor of The Scrappy Guides™, and a regular contributor to ProjectConnections.com. She is also the lead blogger on the UC Santa Cruz Extension’s The Art of Project Management Blog.[14] Feel free to contact her in person at kimberly@wiefling.com.
Postscript
Congratulations on making it all the way to the end of this book!
Now you know how to be scrappy, but here’s the real test—putting what you know into action! I know as well as anyone that it takes real courage to implement these practices, and there will be days when you may not feel like you have a scrappy bone in your body. No worries! Live out of your commitments, not your courage. Every day make a renewed commitment to what you believe in, what you stand for, what other people can count on you for, and then go about living up to those high expectations—or falling short of them, and getting back up and stumbling forward when necessary. Reach, stretch, learn and grow every single day. Beware of the creeping temptation to settle for anything less than your scrappy best. Shine like the blazing sun that you are!
And if you’d like to write your own Scrappy About book, please contact me:
kimberly@wiefling.com
Stay Scrappy! — Kimberly
Purchase this book at Happy About
http://happyabout.info
or at other online and physical bookstores.
[1] Aberdeen Group, “Making the Case for Collaborative Product Commerce,” July 2001.
[2] Hammer and Company, “Accelerating Innovation: New Urgency, New Approaches.” 2003
[3] Ref: The Bull Survey (1998), The KPMG Canada Survey (1997), The Chaos Report (1995), The OASIG Study (1995).
[4] Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size (New York: Penguin, 1999).
[5] http:/jeffsandquist.com/The10CommandmentsOfEmail.aspx
[6] M. McGrath, Setting the P.A.C.E. in Product Development, (Burlington, MA: Elvesier, 1996), pp. 54-58.
[7] Steve McConnell, Software Project Survival Guide. (Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press,1998), p. 36.
[8] Preston G. Smith and Don Reinertsen, Developing Products in Half the Time: New Rules, New Tools, 2nd Edition (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), p. 207.
[9] Science, August 31, 1962, Vol. 137, No. 3531, pp. 665-666.
[10] Learned Helplessness Research, University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/lh.htm
[11] Albert Bandura, “Health Promotion by Social Cognitive Means,” Health Education & Behavior, Vol. 31, No. 2, p. 143-164 (2004). http://heb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/2/143
[12] Charan, R., & Colvin, G., “Why CEOs Fail,” Fortune, 139(12), June 21, 1999, p. 68-78.
[13] Nelson, Bob, 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, (New York: Workman Publishing, 1994), p. 2. See http://www.nelson-motivation.com/ for more.
[14] www.SVProjectManagement.net