Let's talk about project management (PM) & really great free training!
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© 2009 Created by Mike on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
Let's talk about project management (PM) & really great free training!
© 2009 Created by Mike on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
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You asked: "So I said 'can we put these [projects] in order of importance?' and I was told that 'they are all equally important.' Ha ha, very funny. What do you suggest as a remedy..."
Check out my new online article -- created and posted just today -- in response to your question: Too Many Projects? Prioritize Them!
http://www.michaelgreer.com/prioritization.htm
Also, you asked: "we have a project lifecycle in place which is pretty good - but I'm confused as to the difference between that and a "white paper."
A white paper is typically a policy statement or a statement of recommendations based on research or experience. According to WikiPedia a white paper is "an authoritative report or guide that often addresses problems and how to solve them. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions. They are used in politics and business. They can also be a government report outlining policy." And in my experience, they can be on any topic in any field.
In comparison, the formal definition of a project life cycle is: "A collection of project phases whose name and number are determined by the control needs of the organization involved in the project." The phases in a project life cycle are typically linear. You complete a phase, then get sign-off/approval, then move on to the next until the whole project is completed. Here's a couple of PDF files that will show you some sample life cycles and how they relate to key generic PM processes:
Sample Life http://www.michaelgreer.com/sample-life-cycles-and-key-pm-processes.pdf
Expanded Definition of the 5 Key Recurring PM Processes (initiate, plan, execute, control, close): http://www.michaelgreer.com/20-actns.htm
Finally, you asked: "... how do you deal with your team all talking at the same time during meetings? This is epidemic in our business culture."
I'd discuss this problem in the abstract with everyone in the context of upgrading our meeting efficiency. I'd tell them that I really learn a lot from meetings. However, lately when I'm trying to hear good points being made and hear opposing arguments, sometimes these are getting lost or drowned out in the process of everyone talking at once. Then I'd ask for everyone to "take turns!" Then I'd simply wait until it happens again and say, "Bill...wait! I can't hear what Jenny's saying! And I want to hear the good ideas from both of you!" Then I'd repeat this process until I made such a nuisance of myself that they quit doing this!
You asked: "How crucial is having a budget?...How do I encourage budgeting?"
In my PM Basics workshop, we spend lots of time on hands-on activities to generate "high resolution" project plans, including detailed estimates of deliverables, tasks, time, resources, and costs. Clients who hire me help me decide which exercises to emphasize in their organization. Believe it or not, about 80% of my clients choose NOT to do the cost-estimate exercise! (And this is the basis of the budget, of course.) Their reasoning is usually that the biggest costs are incurred in employee wages and that to accurately compute these costs, we would have to use confidential info about wages.
This isn't as bad as it sounds, however. In the case of the "we don't track costs" clients, we instead focus on making accurate time estimates and carefully "budgeting" labor hours. So, indirectly, this gets at the issue of carefully managing costs.
So, to answer your questions: 1) It's not crucial to have a budget, as long as you have a solid time-effort estimate that you can track. 2) You can encourage budgeting (or time-effort estimating) by gathering info about a) how similar companies or your competitors do it and how they benefit, or b) the "real" time and money spent on a project, including unpaid overtime that "comes out of the hide" of team members. When you have this info, you can make your case for better time/cost estimates.
You also asked about "how to pinpoint the company's vision and then get everybody on board." The best way to get people on board is... well... to get people on board! What I mean is that the vision (mission, etc.) will be shared when it has been created by everyone you want to share in it. So you can run a series of brainstorming sessions focused on creating a vision from scratch or reviewing/validating the existing vision.
For example: Barack Obama, as nominee, knew enough to get the Clintons involved in creating and validating the party platform. And he gave them time to vent, to engage the process, and to help create, then embrace, a "shared vision." This processing time is essential and it definitely got everyone on board!
I hope these thoughts are helpful.
Thanks for your kind feedback! And I'm glad your boss got a kick out of the 10 Ways to Screw Up... article. That one is really popular. I had one guy email me and tell me that his company was so bad at PM that he ended up quitting. On the way out the door, he said, he gave the 10 Ways to Screw Up... article to his former supervisors and told them they managed to practice ALL of them! Talk about burning your bridges! But he said it felt great to do so!
I've found that sometimes people pass around this article as part of a grass-roots, guerrilla PM renewal effort. They also use the Post Mortem Review Questions to debrief at the end of a couple of projects to see if they can get the discussion going about "How we can improve PM around here..."
Anyway, keep me posted on your PM evolution. If I can brainstorm with you about issues you face, just let me know.