Archive for June 2007

In my last post, I discussed change and how it is always present in projects. In this post I would like to discuss a particular area of change: what we often call changing requirements. Changing requirements are typically blamed for most ills in software projects. How can this be resolved with my [...]

In the Dance of Change by Senge, et. al., the authors present five disciplines for individuals and teams to study and practice that enable organizational learning. The disciplines are Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Learning, and Systems Thinking. Today I thought it might be useful to explore one of these, Mental Models.

Technorati [...]

I know a pilot who has flown 7000 hours. The other day I asked him, “Chuck, the next time you fly are you going to use your pre-flight checklist?” “You bet!”, he replied. Now why would a jet pilot with that much experience use a checklist? . . . because that’s what professionals do. Professionals [...]

The most frequent mistake project teams make with regard to risk management, is an absolute kick in the head. The #1 mistake is to identify risks but do nothing about them. This is known as “documenting your demise.” Although people enthusiastically contribute to the long list of how the project team might meet with disaster, [...]

Communication is pretty much the only means we have of leading effectively as project managers. While listening is a big part of that, when we DO speak, we need to find ways to be heard above the surrounding din. If you want your messages to get through the commotion surrounding most projects, keep it short, [...]

Mediocre organizations are often plagued by the rampant abdication of responsibility of the very people who are supposed to be leading them. At every layer of management, these evasive characters somehow avoid committing to anything outside of their minuscule comfort zones. They fog their agreements with weasel-words that foreshadow their impending failure to deliver [...]

Ignoring the needs of real customers is just the start. When most project teams hear the shot of the starting gun, they leap into figuring out HOW to do the project – before they clearly understand WHAT the project is intended to accomplish, and what is expected of them. When goals are fuzzy, instead [...]

More than 50% of all new products fail to meet their goals because they fail to meet the needs of the target customers and because they are released with unacceptable quality issues. Depending on the industry, between 60 and 90% of all new products fail to meet customer expectations.
Do the math. The world is full [...]

Common sense says that when working on a project with results that really matter, one should agree on a plan of how to achieve the goals, consider what might go wrong, and make sure everyone who needs to deliver results is committed to doing what needs to be done to make it happen. However, here’s [...]

There’s a new book out called “Scrappy Project Management.” How do I know? Because I wrote it. Well, someone had to! Wildly optimistic, I’m the kind of person who likes to focus on the bright, sun-shiny side of pretty much everything, even project management. But sometimes it seems that, in [...]

Total Participation Starting From the Top
This point speaks to the need for (1) commitment from top management and (2) commitment from everyone else in the organization. Quality is everyone’s job, and if any implementation is not total, it will not fulfill its full potential.

Technorati Tags: 14-points, Commitment, Deming, participation, point-14, quality, total

Training Not Related to Job/Task
In order for continuous improvement to become organizational culture, it must also become a personal goal for every employee. Self-improvement should not be limited to immediate application, that would be an example of short-term thinking. Employees are the most important assets of an organization, and therefore require effort to [...]

Enable Pride of Workmanship
Deming claimed that the sense of having helped other people is the most significant motivator and source of job satisfaction. It is one of the biggest enablers for pride of workmanship.
Of the projects you have worked on, think about the ones you are most proud of. What is it that [...]

Attribute Results to Processes
This may be the most controversial point, but in my opinion it is aligned with the rest of Deming’s philosophy nicely, and I agree with this point totally. In the US especially, Management By Objectives (MBO) is very much the status quo. I’ll give a short explanation of my opinion [...]

No Slogans or Disingenuous Pep Talks
This point consists of two elements as I see it. (1) Walk the talk, and (2) hold systems accountable.

Technorati Tags: 14-points, Deming, pep, project-management, slogans

Break Down Departmental Barriers in Pursuit of a Common Goal
Many processes are cross-functional. The same is true of projects. This point is about dissolving the “us versus them” scenario that so often exists in one form or another within organizations. In most projects that I work on, there are individuals from departments [...]

Drive out Fear and Create Trust
Fear encourages short-term thinking. One of Deming’s classic stories was about a foreman who didn’t stop production to repair a worn-out piece of equipment, because he feared that stopping production would mean missing his daily quota. Instead, he let production continue. When the machine failed, it forced [...]

Teach and Institute Leadership
It is the age-old distinction that usually merits much lip service and little true implementation. There is supervision/management, and then there is leadership. Project managers can either be supervisors or leaders, regardless of their job title.

Technorati Tags: 14-points, Deming, Leadership, quality

Job/Task-Related Training
A quality organization understands the value of the people who work in it. The same goes for project management. Training project managers, analysts, and everyone else who regularly works on projects in the company methodology, soft skills, etc. can bring significant rewards.
Many companies use the cop-out of “on the job training” to [...]

Continuous Improvement
This is one of my favorite points from Dr. Deming. I see so many mistakes that are made again and again, and lessons learned that are either completely undocumented or filed away after a project, never to be seen again.
Do all of the other project managers in the firm get exposure to lessons [...]

Consider Costs and Benefits of the Entire System and Deliverable Lifetime
The textbook wording of this point varies, but is usually something like “Stop making decisions purely on the basis of cost.” When I read the various descriptions however, I believe the textbook title is not an adequate summary.
When Deming talks about not making decisions purely [...]