Mark Zweig writes an always-provocative column in the weekly newsletter The Zweig Letter. This week was no exception. Mark offers nine axioms -- unifying characteristics -- of the project-oriented firm:

There are no problems in this business that can't be addressed with enlightened managing, leading, and preparing.

• Clients are king.
• Internal initiatives take a back seat.
• HR problems WILL fester.
• The people who do well in the firm are those who seek out the attention and resources they need.
• No one can say for sure what comes first -- the chicken or the egg, the project or the people who can do the project.
• Selling is easy if a client brings a problem or opportunity to the firm.
• Stars can be your greatest blessing and your greatest curse.
• You live and die by cash flow.
• Your worst clients and projects end up with your best people.

Mark titled his column The Problem with Project-Driven Businesses. I can't believe that Mark actually sees these nine items as problems. Mark is always writing about managing, leading, and preparing for the future of your business. You'll find the above "problems" when your not managing, leading, and preparing.

Are there "problems" with the project-driven business? The biggest problem is not recognizing that your firm is project-driven. A/E firms don't do one project at a time; they are multi-projects firms. A second problem is thinking that whatever "problems" you have are your problems alone. Mark and I visit with enough people in A/E to see the same symptoms over and over. For each axiom above there are a host of solution sets.

There are no problems in this business that can't be addressed with enlightened managing, leading, and preparing. Get to it!

posted by Hal at 1:07 AM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

Last week I proposed a set of meeting protocols for conducting projects on a lean basis. These protocols are used with the Last Planner System®. The first protocol is for the Look-Ahead Planning (LAP) meeting.

The point of the LAP meeting is to establish a plan that can be accomplished that closely matches what should be accomplished to meet the overall objectives of the project. I think of this meeting as the occasion for crafting or preparing the set of requests that will be made of the performers in the coming weeks. It is a meeting that the would-be performers attend. Those would-be performers look for the conditions of each up-coming task that would keep them from making a reliable promise at the time that a promise is needed. The lean project community calls those conditions constraints.

There are four objectives for the LAP meeting:

1. Establish the basis for weekly work planning -- promising -- in the coming week including identifying workable backlog.
2. To surface constraints.
3. To secure and manage the promises for removal of constraints.
4. To introduce the performers to the coming work.

A usual look-ahead plan has a six-week horizon. The meeting starts with a review of the coming week. Care is given to assess any remaining conditions (constraints) that would keep someone from making a reliable promise on the coming week's workplan. The project manager reviews any remaining constraints, the promises for removal, and then with the performers authorizes a set of requests for the coming week.

Next up is looking at week two on the LAP to see what work can be made available as workable backlog. The group evaluates what unconstrained work could be performed early if either a performer gets ahead or if there is some reason that would prevent the performer from doing the work as promised. The planning conversation ends by authorizing some subset of the second week's work as workable backlog. The group understands only the work authorized in the group conversation is to be workable backlog. This keeps people from doing work that could be out of sequence that would cause difficulty or rework for themselves or others.

The conversation then moves to a review of weeks three through five. There are two keys in this part of the meeting. The first is to review the completion of the promises for removing constraints. The second is to surface more constraints. The process of reviewing the coming work for six weeks has the effect of sharpening the group's attention. Invariably, no sooner has the group removed all the known constraints for a set of tasks than someone comes up with more constraints. During this conversation people are asked to make clear promises including completion dates for removing the constraints. People report complete on previous promises. The project manager updates the plan marking those tasks with no constraints "Ready for Promising".

Finally, the new sixth week of the plan is introduced to the group. For many of the performers they will be quite familiar with the new details because they were involved in establishing those plan details. The project manager highlights interactions of performers in the new work and asks them to identify constraints.

The meeting ends with a Plus-Delta (what produced value? and what might produce more value?).

Depending on the complexity of the project and size of the project team these meetings can range anywhere from 30 minutes to 90 minutes.

Next up: the weekly work planning meeting...

posted by Hal at 1:03 AM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

Keep your team ready to respond and adjust to the changing circumstances of the project by including them in regular planning conversations.

The Project Reformer's e-Tip of the Week

039: Prepare Your Team for Uncertainty

Project managers spend way too much time tweaking their plans -- without guidance from the team -- only to be faced with the inevitable oops!! There is a higher probability that things will accidentally go wrong in a project than that things will accidentally go right. Fundamentals of Project Management, James P. Lewis Planning is preparation for those who will be in action. We waste our time when we plan by ourselves. Have planning conversations. Engage your team -- the project performers -- in those conversations. Review the overall plan on a regular basis. Add details to later phases of your project as you go taking into consideration what really happened, what you've learned, changing client conditions of satisfaction, and the innovations that you've put in place. When you plan with your team they will be prepared to adjust to the inevitable uncertainty. Thanks go out to Dr. Gerry for reminding me of the quote. The Project Leaders' Studio™

©2004 Hal Macomber | weblog.halmacomber.com | e-Tip Archive | PDF | Submit Tip

Send me your proposals for Project e-Tips.

posted by Hal at 1:50 AM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

Tonight I speak at the Seattle chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI) on the paper I co-authored with Greg Howell, Leadership and Project Management: Time for a Change from Fayol to Flores. A few months back when I was exploring what the talk would be about I had no idea that Stephen Covey had a book he would be publishing, let alone that he would tackle a subject as grand as greatness, The Eighth Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.

I started this weblog 2½ years ago to explore what was working and not working in the field of delivering projects. I had no idea where that exploration would take me. Early this year I found myself writing about team member and team leader resignation, patterns of not speaking and not listening, and the pervasiveness of thinking that a plan can be put in place that others will be controlled to. Greg Howell and I wrote a second paper, Two Great Wastes in Organizations and Teams which together with the first was presented at the International Group for Lean Construction 12th Annual Conference in Denmark (IGLC-12). Along the way I began to notice others writing about my discomfort, Feudal Model for Project Management? Eventually, I prepared a concise posting for this weblog, Leave Behind Century-Old Management Theory. But with all my thinking, conversation, and writing, it's taken Stephen Covey to bring this into focus for me.

Covey calls the 8th habit (action): finding your voice and helping others find their voice. Covey says that in doing so we can move from effectiveness to greatness. For now, I will limit my thoughts to just being effective on our projects. I have yet to read the book; I will. Until then, I have two clear thoughts (for now) on what we must deal with to reach effectiveness.

• Interrupting My Resignation
  How is it that we are stuck with our resignation? What story do we keep telling ourselves about who we are in the world and who others are? Where did that story originate? What must I do to start telling a new story?
   
• Engage Committedly with Others
  All work on projects is for keeping some commitment to a client or customer. We call that work a project in part because it takes more than one person to fulfill that promise. We need a habit of making and securing reliable promises with other project participants. It is only through our collective committed actions that we will keep our promise to the client and leave ourselves in a condition to learn, to cope with changes, and to innovate.

We're long overdue for replacing Feudalism with an enlightened form of leadership and management. As Covey says, "Find your voice." Decide for yourself there's no reason for resignation. Speak. Listen. And create a habit of promising.

posted by Hal at 4:17 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

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