Posts Tagged ‘Project Management’
Project: Migration to Google Apps – Google Change Management
I recently worked on a project to migrate from Lotus Notes and Microsoft Office to Google Apps. Google Apps offered tremendous benefits, but it was a big change. Sometimes the success of the change hinges not on the change itself, but how it’s managed and the change management process that is outlined by Google was simple and effective.
Google provides a guide explains how to address user concerns, such as:
- Why are we switching?
- What happens to my old email and data?
- How will I get up to speed?
It ensures
- Faster adoption
- Increased productivity
- Greater return on investment
Get Ready, Communicate, Train
You’ll find many models for change management. Google use the simple one Get Ready, Communicate and Train.
- Get ready: Includes tasks to understand your organization’s culture and people, and the support they’ll need to make a successful transition to Google Apps. Typical readiness tasks include profiling your user community, sending a user readiness survey, and establishing a Google Guides program.
- Communicate: Includes tasks to get your users excited about the switch to Google Apps. Typical communications tasks include creating a communications plan, launching an internal marketing campaign for the switch to Google Apps, and sending messages to users.
- Train: Includes tasks to educate users about Google Apps. Typical training tasks include creating a training plan, launching a training site, and conducting courses. Historically users had never been trained on Lotus Notes and so expectation levels were low.
What changes are managed?
- Product changes—Any new tool requires time to get users up to speed. Most users can start reading and sending messages in Gmail within minutes, but power users in your organization—executives or administrative assistants—may need more support or training.
- Policy changes—Google Apps offers lots of new features, and your organization must decide how to use them. For example, if users can now access email on their phones, does this affect your mobile device policy?
- Process changes—Some internal processes or procedures may change with Google Apps integrated into your environment. For example, if your organization used shared mailboxes to manage mail queues, you might update some processes to use Gmail with Google Groups.
The Google Apps Rollout Project Plan
For a Medium to Large company of 250 or more employees, a standard Google Apps transition is divided into four phases:
- Phase 1: Core IT
- Phase 2: Early Adopters
- Phase 3: Global Go-LiveEach phase generally lasts about four weeks, although this varies with the size of your company and the specifics of your legacy system. The transition is usually complete within 90 days.During each of the three phases, you progressively configure more Google Apps features, migrate more data from your legacy system, and move more of your users to Google Apps. For a larger company then Phase 3 can have a number of sub phases as the employees are split into manageable sub phases. In this case phase 3 included 4 phases (Blue, Red, Yellow and Green).
- Phase 4: Life After Go Live is about ensuring that adoption moves from Basic to Advanced as required by the user. This may involve more training and support.
Each of the phases includes a project plan that will include Get Ready, Communicate and Train modules.
For more detail please read this document.
Is my Prince now a frog?
Is PRINCE2 still relevant in an agile world? Or like in the fairy-tale, has it lost its relevance and changed into a frog? Well, no… it is still very relevant for two reasons:
- Certain projects do not require an agile approach
- Certain projects prefer a blended (waterfall and agile) approach. It was seen in my last post that the term Water-Scrum-Fall has been termed to indicate that the market currently seems to prefer ( or pragmatically accept) such a blended approach.
PRINCE2 is not the only option when considering a traditional methodology but it is a popular one and one that blends in well with new Agile project methodologies such as the Agile project management framework which is derived from DSDM.
PRINCE2 Structured Project Management
PRINCE2 is a formal, structured approach to project management. It recognises that there are three major levels of activities:
- Direction (Management Sponsorhip)
- Management (Project management)
- Delivery (Solution development and delivery)
The major focus of PRINCE 2 is in management and direction. Delivery it treats as a black box because it may be internal or external. Prince2 does not dictate how delivery is done but it does state the expected communication and deliverables.
A PRINCE2 project looks like the following:
In fact, the 2009 revision to PRINCE2 reiterated its underlying simplicity by recognising explicitly seven principles:
- There is continued business justification for a project (or you should stop!).
- There are defined roles & responsibilities (everyone knows what they should – and should not – be doing).
- Manage projects by stages (bite-sized chunks are easier to track).
- Manage by exception (don’t micromanage or meddle when things are going fine).
- Focus on products when you plan (think things you can measure and tick off a list, not open-ended tasks).
- Tailor the process to a project’s size, complexity etc.
- Learn from experience! If that didn’t work last time, change it!
It doesn’t say anything about how you should build your products.The only things PRINCE2 says about making things is the following:
- focus on products when you plan;
- break down complicated products into smaller ones, until each unit needs around 5-10 days’ effort to build;
- factor quality procedures into your building process;
- have a mechanism to hand a product-to-be-built over to the technical team – a spec of some kind (PRINCE2 calls this a “workpackage”) – and a way to sign off built products that come back.
PRINCE2 and Agile as a Blended Approach
PRINCE2 can be used to manage the project and Agile methods can be used to deliver the solution. The two methods are entirely complementary; they touch only in the definition of what constitutes a “workpackage” – and they even agree on how big that should be!
A paper on integrating DSDM and PRINCE2 is on the DSDM website. Another option is to use PRINCE2 for direction and use an agile Project management methodology and solution delivery. Agile Project Management is an initiative which extracts the Project Management elements of DSDM Atern and makes them available as Agile Project Management – a certified approach in its own right. This can then be combined with popular Agile solution delivery approaches such as Scrum and XP. This is detailed in this Agile Proect Framework for Scrum document.
What about “Just Agile please”?
In some cases the requirement may be to go completely Agile. This is possible as long as the direction provided is agreed and sufficient for the company leaderhip. Agile Project Management derived from DSDM (Shown in next 2 diagrams) or Disciplined Agile Delivery (Shown in bottom diagram )may be used.
Can an elephant be agile?
Who says you can’t be big and agile?
Lou Gerstner of IBM famously said “who says elephants can’t dance?” Can big organisations act in an agile way? Do they have to throw everything (traditional methodologies) out and start again? To be agile do you have to go completely Agile and use all Agile methodologies.? Most companies according to research seem to be adopting a hybrid approach. The term Water-Scrum-Fall has been coined by Forrester to describe waterfall processes at beginning and end and Agile (Scrum) in the middle. It recognizes how many firms blend an approach of writing most requirements up front, using time-boxed sprints to code, and then falling back on traditional big-bang deployments. Sure there are some companies that are fully agile and Agile but there are some that are fully waterfall but can still adapt sufficiently to their environment. Why? Because they have different problems to solve.
Different customers require different approaches
Agile methodologies tend to be better in smaller and innovative environments. Waterfall are still best for very large scale project coordination and where features must be delivered at a certain time e.g a datacentre move.
- Management need a business case. A new product development requires investment and a return on that investment within a specific time. Management require a business case and a plan and a commitment to deliver. Sufficient planning and detail is required on what will be delivered and when.
- Operations require predictability. They require new features at a specific time in a way that can be launched without causing outages, or downtime on critical services.
- Complex projects need co-ordination and formal communication. In complex projects with multiple teams they will be dependent on each other to deliver specif items with specific features at a specific time.
- Customers have their own preferences. They may or may have the time to be giving constant feedback
- Are the requirements stable and known, or unstable and unknown?
- Do critical and expensive resources require to be scheduled?
- Development teams can only predict so much. The only risk free prediction is when it is delivered. Documenting the future may kill the future.
There is no one size fits all. The trick is to apply the right approach in context, according to the needs of business leaders and recognizing the pace that the organization can successfully absorb new ideas and new methods and if they are right for the problem in hand.
But approach is only a part of a successful solution
Regardless of approach the following parameters will have a large impact on the success or failure of a project. If there is no management sponsorship then a major project will fail. If the business objectives are not clear then it will fail. The amount of information available upfront may dictate approach. Little information upfront may dictate an agile approach…but it will probably also mean that only a little money is approved and that approval will be required after every increment. A company that is dominating its market and is deciding to spend some of its cash pile on entering a new market is in a much different position than a company that is a follower in the market and is trying to deliver a large customer contract.
It is more important to be agile than to be religious about Agile methodologies.
| Parameters For Success | ||
| Market Position & Maturity | Product | Organisation Culture |
| Acceptability of Change | Management Sponsorship | Clear Business Objectives |
| Strong Customer Involvement | Optimal Project Complexity | Optimal Project Size |
| Team Skills | Team Emotional Maturity | Project Management Expertise |
| Tools & Infrastructure | Information availability |
Parameters derived from my own research and experience. Used the Chaos Manifesto 2013 for some input. (There are questions over the details of their research but some of the macro stuff seems ok)
I’m definitely agile
Agile & Waterfall
In managing a project to develop and deliver a product the traditional way of delivery are methods such as PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) which is a widely used project management method that provides all of the essentials for running a successful project. It is sequential in that one task is finished before the next starts and the product is delivered at the end and is managed by a plan. Traditional plan based sequential methods are known as generically as “Waterfall”.
A new way of developing and delivering products is Agile. It is a term commonly associated with software development. The Agile Manifesto was published in 2001, building on work throughout the 1990s, which summarised the core philosophy behind agile development philosophies. This consists of 4 key values and 12 principles.
“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.Through this work we have come to value:
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a planThat is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more”.
Agile: From Software Development to Business Change Projects
Agile started out improving software development but the term Agile has evolved into an umbrella for a group of methodologies that can be used to manage business change projects. Agile delivery teams will develop a project :
- In an iterative and incremental way. In each short phase a delivery team will build part of the system and test it and customers will have some working functionality. Priority is given to development of most value to the customer. User feedback is used to improve functionality in next iterations. Risk is reduced throughout the project as deliveries are made.
- By responding to change. A delivery team can respond to valid changes to requirements, changes in technology or customer change.
It is worth noting that Agile, recently, has had a good press and Waterfall a bit of a poor one. However, both have value and can be utilised depending on the problem to be solved. A methodology does not make up for bad management or unreasonable constraints or criteria for success.
Agile: Three Major Approaches
Three of the major Agile approaches are Scrum, XP and DSDM:
- Scrum – Team Focussed, Light, Empirical Agile
- eXtreme Programming (XP) – Engineering focussed, Technical, disciplined Agile
- DSDM – Project focussed, scalable, governable Agile
Agile: A New Paradigm for When Something’s Gotta Give
One of the major developments in thinking in Agile has been a to re-evaluate what should be done in situations where all criteria of success cannot be achieved and trade-offs have to be made – when something’s gotta give:
Traditionally the scope or features remained fixed with time, cost and possibly quality having to flex. In Agile time, cost and quality are fixed and features are flexed. Hopefully to be included in a later iteration. The breakthrough in thinking is that in many developments, too much time is spent upfront, planning and designing based on imperfect or no information, based on what customers think they want, based on technology that is changing. The Agile approach recognizes an imperfect world and tries to adapts to it in the most pragmatic way. This will not work in all circumstances. I’m sure we have all won customer contracts that include developments that are very uncertain but “cast iron” promises have been made to customers on price, on time, on features and on quality. But as I said earlier, good tools don’t make up for bad circumstances or bad management.
Agile: A New Risk Profile
This approach of developing in fixed time cost increments with usable releases at the end of each increment getting customer feedback on working software (service, product) can reduce risk, reduce cost, improve quality and be more adaptable to change. It is a seductive and compelling argument. That and the name Agile (who does not want to be agile?) has meant that Agile has become a meme that is having an increasing impact. It has become about values and behaviours, more about being agile than doing a specific Agile methodology. This is sometimes dangerous as it means that conversations can become confusing especially as media and companies will use the term agile to increase hits or attract attention. But its always the way with ideas whose time have come, that have crossed the chasm and are ripping through the rest of the market.
More on Scrum
Scrum is the most popular approach for team management at the product delivery level. Data from Forrester’s Q3 2013 Global Agile Software Application Development Online Survey indicates that a whopping 90% of all teams practicing Agile development have adopted Scrum.
User stories in the form of “As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some reason>” are used to create individual requirements that go into a product backlog that is prioritised by value. Those that are committed to be delivered in the iteration or next development cycle called a sprint are put into the Sprint backlog. Sprints can be from 1 week to a month depending on the development environment.
Daily scrum meetings are stand-up for 15 minutes where progress is monitored, commitments made and impediments aired.
There are weekly planning and review meetings . Artifacts are light and include the product backlog (requirements), sprint backlog ( deliverables in this sprint), burndown charts (a monitor of value delivered and sprint velocity).
Agile & Waterfall Comparison
A comparison of Waterfall and Agile is shown below. Please note that either tool in the wrong hands can deliver poor results and in the right hands can deliver excellent results. It’s a matter of choosing the right tool for the job.
| Attribute | Waterfall | Agile |
| Communication Bias | Written | Face-to-Face Conversation |
| Artifacts & Ceremonies | Heavier | Lighter |
| Documentation | Heavier | Lighter |
| Customer Relationship | Negotiation | Collaboration |
| Change | Costly- Control | Less Costly-Welcomed |
| Risk through project | Risky till end | Risk decreases throughout |
| Management | Command&Control | Trust to Self Organize |
| Prioritisation | By Plan | By Value |
| Delivery | At end or large increments | In smaller increments |
| Design & Planning | Mostly Upfront | Minimal Upfront&Throughout |
| When Something's Gotta Give | Time&Cost | Scope or Features |
| Strength | Large Scale Projects | Innovative software development |
| Questions | Stifle Innovation? | Corporate Governance and Project Management? |
| Team Size | All Sizes | Optimally Smaller |
| Team Location | All Locations | Optimally Co-Located |
| Predictability | Can be more | Can Be less |
| Learn and Improve | Yes | Yes |
Leadership Insights
Leadership Questions
Leadership has historically caused much debate and raised many questions:
- Are leaders born or made?
- What makes a leader?
- Do different environments require different leaders.?
- Is a leader, a leader all of the time?
The good news is that we all can be leaders. It requires the right circumstances. It requires practice.
We will not be leaders all of the time but we need only be leaders for enough time to get the job done.
The following will explore these questions in more detail.
What is leadership?
Aristotle defined leadership as requiring Knowledge,Skills and Practical Wisdom – the ability to see the good and realize it in a specific situation. All three are necessary and mutually supportive.
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu characterized leadership as a mix of five traits: Intelligence, Credibility, Humaneness, Courage, and Discipline.
Montgomery defined leadership as:
“The capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence”.
The Arbinger Institute talks about self deception & “being in the box”. Being “in the box” means being being boxed in by your fears, doubts, uncertainties and limiting beliefs such that you do not connect with others and do not focus on that you care about. Good leaders are honest with themselves and are ” in the box” much less of the time.
Peter Drucker states “Your first and foremost job as a leader is to manage your own energy, and help manage the energy of those around you”.
Steven Radcliffe talks about a leader:
- Creating a vision of a better future
- Engaging a team to commit their energy to deliver such a future
- Delivering results
As a leader, you must care for a better future
Leadership is not just about competencies, skills and personality. It’s first and foremost about being in touch with what you care about and then going for it. You won’t be a great leader for things you don’t care about!
By its nature a better future involves working in areas that are new and where you are instigating change to achieve this better future. Managers normally focus on delivery within defined parameters and deal with much less uncertainty.
A better future requires strategy and planning once the idea has been conceived. This will ensure that it is indeed a better future.
You must be at your best more of the time
Peter Drucker states “Your first and foremost job as a leader is to manage your own energy…..and then help manage the energy of those around you”.
It does all start with you, how you manage yourself to be at your best more of the time.
If you are at your best, you are focussed on the future and not held back by the present. You are more engaging and this creates a powerful platform to help others to be at their best.
The Arbinger Institute talks about “being in the box”. Being in the box means not being being boxed in by your fears, doubts uncertainties and limiting beliefs such that you do not connect with others and do not focus on that you care about. Good leaders are in the box much less of the time.
All of us have the capability to be leaders but we need to believe in ourselves as a leader and get into the right frame of mind. An effective leader is “Playing to Win” and is not just “Trying not to Lose”. As an effective leader you are “At Your Best” and not “Just Surviving” . An effective leader will exhibit high energy or low energy at different times for different tasks. These are not fixed states. We all are in all of these some of the time. We will not be leaders all of the time. But the best leaders manage to be in “Play to Win” and “At Your Best” states most of time.
You must help others be at their best more of the time
Leaders must make big requests so they must have relationships that are big enough to get the job done.
They must help people be at their best. They must help them overcome their limitations – their fears, doubts, uncertainties and limiting beliefs and to focus on what they care about.
Leaders must look for and remove obstacles in the environment that are hindering team progress.
You must engage others to care about your vision of the future.
Engage people so they want to work with you and build a future with you.
Crucially engagement is absolutely distinct from ‘communicating to’, ‘presenting at’ or telling.
It is about how you connect with people, how you stimulate their thinking and impact their energy.
Engaging others is a two-way interaction and its something that happens inside your relationships. It is about your ability to build relationships big enough to get the job done.
Engagement is about taking people through resistance, apathy, grudging compliance, willing compliance, to enrolled and finally to committed.
Engagement is:
- supported by building Relationships big enough to get the job done
- fuelled by Possibilities that others can see for themselves linked to the Future they want
- sharpened by agreement on specific Opportunities and Priorities
- creating a bridge to Deliver by making Big Requests of others to elicit Promises to take Action.
You must deliver results
Delivery is not standalone
Delivery is where we are all judged, is the most visible part of leadership but is not standalone. Without a compelling Future and without engaging in that future delivery of the right results will not happen.
Delivery requires you to mean it
To get great delivery you have to mean it when you make big requests. Meaning it means that your team is in no doubt of your expectations from what you say and from what you do.
For instance…making too many requests may well mean that none are done well. Not following up may mean that your team becomes distracted. Remember the maxim ” people do what you inspect, not what you expect”. There are no avoiding some difficult converstations when performance falls below that required or expected.
In delivery a leader is expected to exhibit fierce resolve, emotional fortitude, focus, discipline and resilience to ensure that the team remains focussed, acts with high energy and delivers results.
Deliver today but grow people to deliver even more tomorrow
Get the best from yourself and others today but commit to growing yourself and others so that the capability to deliver increases into the future.
How do we become leaders?
We become leaders through 1. Conscious Practice, 2. Using a Personal Support Team 3. Knowing and Going beyond our limits and 4. Being in the right State of Mind.
Conscious Practice.
Conscious Practice. You do most of your learning in real-life situations and the more you practice the better you get. Consciously use situations and challenges as opportunities to learn and grow.
- Be guided by the future you want
- Embrace the big picture
- Engage rather than transmitting/communicating
- Build Big Relationships
- Manage your Shadow (Don’t be “in the box”, manage yourself such that your uncertainties or anxieties do not cast a shadow on your team. Be in a position to help your team be at their best)
- Make Big Requests
- Maximise Probability of Delivery
- Acknowledge acceptable Delivery
- Fix Delivery that has problems
- Wrap Up
Use a Personal Support Team
Use a personal Support Team for feedback. Identify the specific ways you want to grow as a leader, tell selected colleagues and ask them to rate you now. Then ask them if they’ll watch out for you in these areas to help you make progress.
Know and go beyond your limits.
- Get beyond the present
- Embrace the big picture
- Accept that you will not know how to achieve your Future
- Believe you are a leader
- Be in leader mode (rather than operator/manager mode)
- Overcome: I’m only….I’m not….I’m just…
Be in the right state of mind
Recognise your state of mind and work out how to ensure you are “At Your Best” and “Playing To Win”.
Recognise the triggers that push you into “Just Surviving” mode and ensure you manage or avoid them to spend more time “Playing to Win”.
Achieving Business Growth
Challenge
The overriding challenge in sales and marketing is “To deliver business growth”.
How to Address
Take the right approach.No one size fits all. So to be most efficient and effective it is best to:
- Diagnose Challenge,
- Create Solution & then
- Deliver Results.
The challenges will fall into two broad categories
- Enter new markets or
- Develop existing ones.
Diagnose Challenge
The main ingredients of success are:
- Strategy,
- Sales team (& infrastructure),
- Customer acquisition( tailored sales process, product value, & customer references)
Create Solution
Following the diagnosis of the challenges a bespoke solution may be created.
Create/Develop Strategy
Planning means that subsequent action will effective and efficient.
- Create customer profile,
- Value proposition,
- Go to Market strategy,
- Sales process,
- Sales team,
- Targets.
Create/Develop Sales Team
This includes Leadership, Scalable Sales Model and Hiring the best people.
Leadership means that the team energised, have clear objectives, are fully engaged and deliver the required targets wit the required cost. The team is supported by a scalable sales model which includes:
- Sales Process based on Customer Buying Process
- Sales Management System to to deliver forecasts and processes for coaching and performance management
- Sales Automation that improves the efficiency of communication, customer database and reporting.
- Marketing Integration for lead generation, sales tools, messaging and effective market coverage.
Hire the best people. Utilise a clear and professional process to identify and develop people with high potential.
Begin/Develop Customer Acquisition
Customer Acquisition is vital for revenue Growth and the creation of references to enable later customers to be acquired more efficiently. Both are key attributes of business growth.
First ensure product delivers compelling value. as perceived by the customers. Then create or develop references.
To win major breakthrough accounts will require the creation of a tailored sales process based on the customers buying process. This will help harness the resources of the company effectively, manage communication and monitor progress.
Deliver Results
Results will be best delivered by effective leadership and professional project management.Leadership ensures that clear objectives are set and resources to deliver such objectives are secured.Then the team to deliver the results is engaged such that they are fully committed to deliver superb results.Finally the results are delivered with progress monitored and reported on at regular intervals to keep stakeholders informed.
3 Step Plan to Deliver Business Growth
- Step 1: Diagnosis – What are the Business Challenges? What are the growth objectives? What is the current sales and marketing infrastructure and what needs to be provided?
- Step 2: Design – How can Business Growth be achieved? Design the Solution
- Step 3: Implement & Report.
Step 1: Diagnosis
“Diagnose before you Prescribe”. Covey.
Diagnose Business Challenges to create Solution
If the diagnosis is not correct then the solution may well be inappropriate or incorrect.
What are the Business Challenges?
- What are the Growth Objectives and supporting Business Plan?
- Is New Market Entry required –
- Early (New Products to Market),
- Mainstream (Moving from Early Adopters/Innovators into broader Mainstream market or
- Geographic?
- Is Development of Existing Market required?
- Does a Business Development/Improvement Plan exist?
- Does an acceptable Sales Strategy exist?
- Does a Sales Team exist that is fit for purpose?
- Create, develop or radically improve?
- Is the sales infrastructure sufficient (Hiring Process, Reward System, Sales Process,Sales Management System & Sales Automation system)?
- Is Marketing Support sufficient and integrated with sales (Sales Tools, Sales Training, Lead Generation, Market Coverage)?
- What Major Accounts are required?
- Do references exist?
- Is there sufficient support infrastructure (Tailored Sales Process)?
Step 2: Solution Design
Having diagnosed and agreed the Business Challenges in detail, the Solution may now be designed. Depending on the Business Challenges the Solution will include some or all of the modules.
Choose Solution to fit Challenge
- Create Strategy
- Create New Sales Team
- Win New Major Accounts
- Create New Sales Team
- Win New Major Accounts
Sales & Marketing Strategy. This is designed to deliver Business Growth and other Objectives
Sales (& Marketing) Strategy
Use information on customer profile, geographic profile, product maturity, the competition and the strength of the vendor to shape the strategy. Develop Value Propositions as required to suit the particular product and customer profile.
Create a High Performance Sales & Marketing Team
Win Breakthrough Major Accounts
Step 3: Implementation
- Limited Resources
- Immature Infrastructure
- Customer Expectations too high
- Product Development Required
- Solution Development Required
- Partner Management Required