Manager's Corner
Getting it Done: Remove Barriers to Speed on your Next Project
by Michelle LaBrosse | Published in June 2007 Departments
We live in a time when everything keeps getting faster. That means your projects need to move too. Is yours cruising in the fast lane or stuck in traffic?
To keep a project moving fast, the project team, team leader and project sponsor all have to remove or prevent obstacles that may get in the way of its success.
The Top Five Project Clogs
The first step is setting up the project correctly so that it’s built for speed and efficacy. This means getting the team aligned on what is required to do the project: setting up the project agreement and project plan together, and then agreeing on the overall project priorities.
Once a project is in motion, many things can slow it down. Here are the most common project clogs:
Feature Creep — This is the “we can make it better” disease.
There comes a time in every project when you need to silence the engineer in your head and finish the project. To make decisions about suggested feature changes, I recommend using a “change impact matrix.” Freezing the design of the product or service at a specified time in the project is another trick.
The earlier this is done, the faster your project will move. Save your feature ideas as future upgrade possibilities.
Project Agreement Changes — Let’s face it, things happen. Clients change their minds about what they thought they wanted, market forces change, new threats and opportunities arise that make the goals of the project obsolete, and new priorities surface. All of these changes pull money and resources away from a project.
When a project is directed by the project agreement, project changes often mean a relaunch of the project. In my experience, it’s better to spend half a day relaunching the project based on the new project agreement then to create a final deliverable that no one wants, or to attempt to complete a project with inadequate resources and lack of support from the project sponsor.
Poor Team Dynamics — An inability to work together toward a common goal comes from lack of commitment, interaction and interest in constructively resolving conflict. Many projects also lose and gain people during the execution of the project. When this happens, it’s important that the team spend a half hour together developing new team guidelines and meeting protocols.
With any new people joining the team, it becomes a new team.
Multitasking — When team members have to work on multiple projects or multiple tasks within the same project, there is a tendency to multitask. However, people work quickest and most efficiently when they work on one task to its completion. If people are working on multiple projects, it’s best if they set aside blocks of time to focus on one task at a time.
Over-Scheduling People’s Time — Sure, people are capable of doing the occasional marathon week to complete a project. If this becomes routine, however, they will find ways to get out of work responsibilities during the workday. The next thing that will happen is that they’ll get further behind, necessitating more over-scheduling.
The best way to prevent this is letting the team members create a schedule that they can do in a normal workweek. If things get in a crunch, do not require people to work more than one extended workweek at a time.
Inefficient Business Processes — It’s the job of the project sponsor to knock down barriers so that the project team can work fast and efficiently. If the team gets stuck mucking through the bureaucratic maze to complete their interim deliverables, it will slow down the project and cause frustration due to their wasted time and effort.
When the project sponsor identifies bureaucratic time wasters and gets rid of them, the entire team will operate more effectively.
Chaotic Work Environments — How long does it take you to find the information you need to get your job done? Office clutter, on your desk and on your computer, slows down project work. It is also distracting and causes multitasking.
A Different Approach
To keep your work productive, it’s a good idea to have a “five s” event with the team, both at the beginning of the project and as part of the project status reports. A “five s” event is a technique adopted from the Japanese quality movement and has been used effectively around the world to increase productivity.
The “five s” approach stands for:
Sort — Only have items in your work area that you use on a daily basis. Everything else gets put away in its place. Create filing systems for quick retrieval of paper- and electronic-based information.
Straighten — Have a designated place for all moveable items, such as desktop organizers. Everything is labeled in macro-work areas, and there is a logical workflow for shared office machines, such as copiers and printers.
Shine — Everything in the area looks like new and operates perfectly. Recycling bins and waste baskets are emptied nightly.
Standardize — This includes visual controls for common areas, such as how to use the copier and wall planning calendars.
Sustain — Have a daily and weekly system to keep up with the improvements you’ve made.
All of these s’s together lead to speed. Put your project pedal to the metal and make your projects faster and more effective.
About the author: Michelle LaBrosse
Michelle LaBrosse, a certified project management professional, is the founder and CEO of Cheetah Learning, an international project management training company based in Nevada.
Contact: walter@cheetahlearning.com