Project Management Tools

This week I explore a couple of tools designed to help Project Managers with their planning and scheduling tasks.

Smartsheet - Project Tracking Online

 Smartsheet - https://www.smartsheet.com/

Several years ago while working for Pearson Education Inc., I found I needed some decent project management software to help keep track of tasks and schedules. As I was lucky enough to have a copy of Microsoft Project, I tried that. I soon found a major drawback however, I could not share the data directly with coworkers unless they also had a license for Project, which almost none of them had. Most vendors we were working with at the time also lacked copies of Project. I could export data, but that would mean extra work every time a change was made. It also meant I had to be the one making all the edits. Pearson US had built some custom server solution that we reviewed, but onboarding even internal team members was going to be a political, technical, and logistical nightmare.

I wondered if a better solution existed somewhere. Surely I was not the first person to have this issue? Sure enough, when I looked online there were a few other options. The one I found that best met team needs was Smartsheet. At the time they had a free account option where one person could create several sheets and share them with multiple people. That seemed perfect to try out on my current project list. While Smartsheet did not replicate all the functions of Project, it was certainly good enough, and far cheaper. It was so good I suggested to management, on several occasions over the next few years, that the company invest in an enterprise license for Pearson Canada. Nobody listened to me, but thankfully some team in the US also discovered Smartsheet, and did a better job convincing their managers, because about three years ago Pearson purchased a global Smartsheet license.

So, what is the good, the bad, and the ugly about Smartsheet? The first draw for me was the lack of any software to install. Most Pearson Canada employees at the time needed to get approval from a manager to install new software, and then book someone from IT to come and install it, a major barrier to getting buy-in for a new workflow process. With Smartsheet’s web interface, I could just send co-workers a link and say “check your tasks and due dates here”. The interface was also simple enough it was easy to get collaborators to update their progress or change due dates without a big learning curve. The third main selling point was that it was easy to import and export from Microsoft Excel and Project. This meant easier integration into existing workflows, or migration from old workflows into a new Smartsheet workflow.

The main drawback was that Smartsheet is not as powerful a spreadsheet program as dedicated spreadsheet software like Excel, nor as powerful and deep as Project when producing reports or charts. But for the project managers I worked with, the ability to easily share and collaborate with other project team members was well worth the trade-off. This might not be true for many PM’s with large complex projects, but it was for us.

That was my background on Smartsheet, based on experiences several years ago. I have been off work sick for a few years now, so I was not up-to-date with the current state of Smartsheet. Checking up on it for this assignment I discovered a few interesting things, but first, I will describe Smartsheet a little more.

As mentioned earlier, Smartsheet is mainly accessed via web browser. Customers can either use the main cloud instance, or an on-site license. You can also now use either an iOS or Android App to access your projects and many features (Titterington, 2016). The free version is now gone, replaced by tiers of monthly subscription, and an enterprise license (Titterington, 201). Smartsheet has four main “views”, Grid, Card, Gantt, and Calendar. The grid view is similar to a basic spreadsheet, and you can start with a general, or custom template, depending on your project type. You can set up basic dependencies, and use drop-downs for prepopulated content. The Gard view can be used for Agile style project views where tasks are arranged in columns based on progress, from “Not Started” to “Complete”. The Gantt view is a fairly typical Gantt display of tasks over time, including any set dependencies. Calendar view can be used to display tasks based just on start date, or with the full duration.

In addition to project scheduling, Smartsheet also supports Resource management (“Resource Management & Allocation”, n.d), but I was not able to review this with the free trial version. Including this feature helps Smartsheet provide better one-stop support for project management tasks. Other features that make Smartsheet better than a regular spreadsheet program, are the ability to attach files, add comments to task lines, track changes, set up notification emails (when a task is overdue for example), and generate a variety of reports.

Smartsheet helps you track project tasks including who they are assigned to, when they are due, and overall progress. It provides several views and reports to help surface data. You can share viewing, or editing rights with various other team members, or anyone with internet access and a web browser.

Float - Project Resource Management

 Float - https://www.float.com

The second resource I found is Float. This tool is primarily aimed at resource management, specifically employee task and time management. Float provides a calendar view of team activities, or, as they say on the Float web site at www.float.com  “Float gives you a bird’s-eye view of who’s working on what and when”. If you use a non-enterprise version of Smartsheet, or some other tool that lacks resources management features, Float may come in handy.

                Beyond the basic overview, Float has several other important features. You can tag workers with skills, and then search for those skills when forming a project team, and then assign teams to projects with just a few clicks (Noorani, 2016; Perez, 2012). The Reports view is a dashboard that displays a lot of useful information including available hours, scheduled hours, and overtime hours. This data can be filtered for all staff on all projects, or by specific projects and specific people. Being able to clearly visualize this data is very helpful when trying to maximize efficiency and keeping resources at 100% capacity, which is an important goal for project managers (“Project Management and Resource Planning”, n.d.; Watt, 2014).

                Float is designed to be simple, and work alongside other project management tools (Perez, 2012). It is probably best used by large agencies, that need to keep track of many workers that move constantly from project to project (Perez, 2012), making it much more about “people” scheduling than “project” scheduling.

                It did find the interface fairly clean and light, but had some trouble with the view/filter system. I kept looking for navigation tools to get me to the view I wanted, only to finally realize I needed to reset the filters. After drilling down to an individual team member view to see their hours allocated for example, there is no button or link to go back to the full team view, you have to deselect the team member name from the search field instead. I’m sure I would get used to this in time, but it would increase the learning curve.

Robin

References:

Noorani, M. (2016, February 14). Float software review: overview – features – pricing. Project-Management.com [Web site]. Retrieved from https://project-management.com/float-software-review/

Perez. S. (2012, February 28). Float does simple scheduling for teams (and simple is hard!). TechCrunch [Web site]. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/28/float-does-simple-scheduling-for-teams-and-simple-is-hard/

Project Management and Resource Planning. (n.d.) Project Insight [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.projectinsight.net/project-management-basics/project-management-resource-plan

Titterington, J. (2016, December 1). Smartsheet review. merchantmaverick [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/smartsheet-review/

Resource Management & Allocation (n.d.). Smartsheet [Web site]. Retrieved from https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/1346969-resource-management-allocation-team-enterprise-only-

Watt, A. (2014). Project management. Retrieved from http://open.bccampus.ca

Project Management - Communicating Effectively

This week we examined a sample communication resource in which the message was delivered via three different media formats; email, voice mail, and face-to-face. The medium used for communication can have a significant impact on how it is received by the recipient (Rajkumar, 2010). Communication effectiveness is also influenced by the attitude of the sender, the tone, body language, timing, and the personality of the recipient (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.). Some media are better at conveying the non-verbal aspects of a message than others, with face-to-face being best for conveying non-verbal information (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.; Nolan, 2017).

I found the tone of the email fairly friendly and warm. It was also quick to read, and pretty clear what the requested deliverables were, with clear reasons why they were needed, and clear options for a response. I would have happily responded to this email.

The voicemail, while technically polite, sounds a little cold and nasty in some way. I found it harder to remember the details of the deliverable request, as the tone is what makes the strongest impression. These emotional variables are often referred to as “noise” (Gillard, & Johansen, 2004; Nolan, 2017; Rajkumar, 2010). I felt distracted with wondering if she was really mad at me, and I had done something wrong, or it was just her phone voice. As a receiver of the message, my past experiences and expectations affect the meaning of the message (Gillard, & Johansen, 2004).

With the face-to-face communication the tone certainly came across as nicer than the voicemail, the sender seemed fairly warm and just asking for help. I still found it harder to pick out what the deliverables were though. It takes longer to listen to, and I feel like there would be even more time spent on follow-up conversation.

When communicating face-to-face there is less room for misunderstanding of tone and intent than with an email or voicemail (Nolan, 2017), although the recipient still applies their own understanding based on past experiences (Gillard, & Johansen, 2004). I found that I personally preferred the email, as it seemed friendly, clear, and was time efficient. I can see that other people may read it in a negative tone however, especially if they had previous negative experiences with the sender.

I think you have to take your past interactions, or lack of interactions with the recipient, into account when choosing a communication mode. You also have to consider the content of the message, and any political, cultural, or linguistic factors that may affect understanding or emotional response (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.; Rajkumar, 2010). You may also have to consider if there are any requirements laid out in a project communications plan (Nolan, 2017), and even if not, you may want to have a record of the communication (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.).

Robin

References:

Gillard, S., & Johansen, J. (2004). Project Management Communication: a Systems Approach. Journal of Information Science, 30(1), 23–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551504041675

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (n.d.). Communicating with stakeholders [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Nolan, P. (2017, March 17). Effective and efficient project management communication. Linkedin [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/effective-efficient-project-management-communication-nolan-pmp--1

Rajkumar, S. (2010). Art of communication in project management. Project Management institute [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/effective-communication-better-project-management-6480

Thoughts on PM and ID Roles

I think we have to be careful to think about the role of the PM and the ID separately, even though one person often takes on both roles. The role, and primary responsibility of the ID, is the instructional solution. The usual role, and primary responsibility of the PM, is to get the project done on time and on budget. Meeting acceptance criteria is also important for both roles.

Various versions of the ADDIE method and ADDIE process help guide the ID in developing the instructional solution, and by extension, the “project management” of developing the solution. However, this is a very different focus than the role of the PM. The PM role does not deal with ADDIE, or any similar ISD model, directly. This is why you find references to stakeholder information already being gathered before the ADDIE analysis phase. The PM deals with the overall project acceptance criteria, project resources, and project evaluation. Thus, it is the PM role that deals with the Project Charter and getting sign-off from the sponsor and other management approvals. The PM role deals with hiring and firing SMEs. The PM roles sets up meetings with outside vendors and stays on top of them regarding turn-around times and deliverables and payments. The ID role just reviews the deliverables and confirms they are up to standard.

Often a PM will not have much choice in their stakeholders. The project sponsor brings the PM the project. Upper management is upper management. You may get to hire a development team, but often you just use what your business unit has in place. You may get to choose outside vendors, often this will be from a company approved list. You may get to choose SMEs, but often there are political implications that make that tricky. With instructional solutions you probably want some sample learners, but these should probably be selected at random. You could replace representatives that fail to provide feedback, or cause other issues, but you can’t really cherry pick the initial crop.

Mostly you just need to learn how to manage the stakeholders you get, as best you can.

Robin

6145 Week 2 - Project Postmortem

Completing a project postmortem can help teams avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. In this post I will review a project I was part of in the role of developer, and a sort of co-project manager.

For more than 50 years project manager and project success has typically been defined by the common image of the Iron Triangle. The three corners of the triangle include budget, schedule and quality. Yet these are not the only way to measure project success (Atkinson, 1999). I project that I worked on a few years ago was a success by these three common criteria. However, it was widely viewed as a failure by upper management. The main reason is that even though we met the schedule, kept within approved budget limits, and produced a product the customers loved; it did not result in the long-term revenue that management was looking for.

By including long-term revenue in the success criteria, management stakeholders virtually guaranteed the project would be a failure. An extensive project plan included the assessment that these revenue goals would not be met. It was clear to most of the team (including the project manager) from the outset, that the stakeholders responsible for the marketing, sales, and business plan of the project, were not sufficiently motivated, or adequately skilled for the task. These specific risks were not included in the project plan for political reasons.

This type of organizational culture is a frequent cause of project management problems and projects being viewed as failures (Atkinson, 1999). This project was actually Phase 2 of a longer-term strategy. Because of problems during Phase 1, the project management team was far more proactive and on top of things during Phase 2. The problem however, was that overall corporate and management culture did not change. The project management team lacked the authority and the trust of management stakeholders that would enable them to do their jobs properly. In my opinion however, even a perfect project manager could not have made this project a success in the eyes of management stakeholders, as many of those stakeholders simply did not want the project to succeed. There are probably a variety of reasons for this including fear of change, and possibly the self-sabotage of failure avoidance, by setting impossible goals (Ormrod, Schunk, & Gredler, 2009). Of the organizational biases outlined by Barry Shore (2008), I feel that conservatism and groupthink were the main factors at play, although sunk costs certainly were a factor in some decisions.

Sometimes all a PM can do in those circumstances is try to document everything well enough that they are saddled with as little blame as possible. Perhaps a knowledgeable enough project manager could have found a senior manager willing to fight to make the long-term sales the primary measure of success. If this had been done, it might have been possible to force the rest of the stakeholders to include having a business plan, customer support team, and marketing plan, as part of the overall Project Plan and Charter (Brownlee, 2009). As it was, the Charter only covered development aspects. Lacking these other elements, the project was dead on delivery.

References:

Atkinson, R. (1999). Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, it’s time to accept other success criteria. International Journal of Project Management, 17(6), 337–342.

Brownlee, D. (2009, Dec 23). The project manager's guide to dealing with difficult sponsors. ProjectSmart [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-project-managers-guide-to-dealing-with-difficult-sponsors.php

Ormrod, J., Schunk, D., & Gredler, M. (2009). Learning theories and instruction (Laureate custom edition). New York: Pearson.

Shore, B. (2008). Systematic biases and culture in project failures. Project Management Journal, 39(4), 5–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.20082