Project Management Presentation Skills (Part 2 of 2) [32:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (733)

In today’s second of two podcasts in a series on project management presentation skills, we conclude our discussion with Joe Friedman, of the consulting group Zehren-Friedman Associates, Ltd. 

Show Commentary

In Part 1 of 2 Joe and I discussed why people tend to become anxious when it comes to public speaking, how to overcome the jitters of speaking in front of a group, and the steps to take to prepare for an informational or persuasive presentation.  In Part 2, Joe and I continue our discussion on presentation skills with discussions on visual aids, basic delivery tips, answering questions during a presentation, and being prepared when interviewed by the media.

Visual Aids

Once you have put your content together as we discussed in Part 1, you need to determine what visual aids you want to use during your presentation.  As part of the planning process you need to determine what is the best method of getting your message across - will you be sitting, standing, using presentation handouts, or maybe a demonstration tool to help make your points during the presentation?  You also need to determine if your environment will allow you to use the method that aids you in the most effective way.  For example, if a particular room does not have the capability to allow you to demonstrate how you can blow up a car using only a match and a piece of string, you may need to find another room (or a nearby fire station).

Frequently people create their visuals, especially PowerPoint slides, so that they can be “read” later by the attendees of the presentation or those folks that were unable to attend.  The problem with this approach is that the visuals now contain so much content that it is difficult to effectively present it.  The slides become too “wordy” with multiple sentences instead of bullet points, causing the audience to focus on reading your slides while you present rather than listening to your presentation.  Worse yet, presenters frequently end up reading each of the wordy bullet items to the audience, while adding redundant paraphrasing that causes monotony and overkill on points.  Can you say “Hello snooze-ville?”

The solution to having overly wordy slides is to keep your visuals extremely simple.  If you need to provide supporting information, provide it as a separate appendix to your presentation rather than part of your presentation.

Joe recommends the “five-by-five” rule:  use a maximum of 5 bullet points with no more than 5 words per bullet point on a slide.  Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson also features some easy-to-apply techniques to help you clarify, visualize, and present your ideas using PowerPoint that stresses minimizing the amount of words on a slide.  By giving your audience a relevant graphic and limiting the number of words per slide you will be able to help them remember the message of your presentation better.  Also, stay away from the dancing baby graphic that eveyone seemed to love in the early ’90’s.  No presentation exists that can be improved by using that!

Three Delivery Tips

Here are three simple delivery tips to remember for your presentation in order to have the biggest impact on your audience:

1. Stand up straight
2. Look at one person at a time
3. Speak loudly

Once you master these three tips, you can focus on all 9 skills of presenting which focus on:

1. Movement
2. Stance
3. Hands
4. Gestures
5. Eyes
6. Volume
7. Speaking pace
8. Animation
9. Non-words (”ums”, “ahs”, “errs” “like,” etc.)

You should practice your speech using pauses instead of non-words.  Also, practice using pauses instead of “ums” or “errs” during meetings, on voice mail messages, and with friends.  I personally would also like to recommend practicing elimination of non-words to those of you that like to talk to yourselves on the train or bus.  I would like to see a little better presentation from you in those situations.

Videotaping yourself is a great way to help you become better at presenting while practicing skills and detecting your use of non-words.  In most cases you will discover that you appear a lot more confident than you feel while presenting.

Answering Questions During Your Presentation

The reason that some people get nervous while answering questions during a presentation is because they have not planned how they will answer questions to their subject matter.  This can be compensated by thinking through what questions might be asked and how you would answer them.  Being honest and answering a question with “I don’t know, but I will get back to you,” is better than stumbling through an answer…  However, using “I don’t know” should be used sparingly throughout the Q&A session, or you will come across as the village idiot in the subject area.

Dealing with the Media

When a celebrity like yourself is being interviewed by the media, the first question you have to ask is, what is the intent of the interview?  If you or your company is being made to look bad or evil, be sure to weave into your speaking points short answers that get your message across.  By keeping it short and to the point, you don’t have to fear having your interview edited in such a way as to make your message unclear or even the opposite from what you are trying to convey.  Ask yourself, “how are my comments going to be used, how much editing might be done, and how do I stay on message?”  If those techniques don’t work, try having a little dog tucked under your arm during an interview like Paris Hilton.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

And finally, when it comes to presentations the biggest thing to remember is that there is no substitution for practice!  There is simply no way to stress that enough!  The more you practice, the more comfortable you will feel during your presentation and the more comfortable you are going to appear to your audience.

And that’s the conclusion of our two part series on Project Management Presentation Skills.  Be sure to check out Joe’s company, Zehren-Friedman Associates, and their website at www.zehrenfriedman.com.  You can also contact Joe directly if you have questions at jfriedman@zehrenfriedman.com.

If you liked this episode, show some love by posting a review on The pm411.org iTunes page for all the world to see!  It would be greatly appreciated and will take you all of 30 seconds!  So what are you waiting for?

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I recently studied Frederick Hertzberg’s article on his motivational theory, in the Harvard Business Review. The title is “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?” Read it here.

I’ve heard about the theory before of course, vaguely referred to as the hygiene/motivator theory and it usually managed to earn about 1 slide in a presentation flooded with motivational theories. I was excited to read the author’s article and understand the theory in more depth. There is a lot of value in it for project managers, and I’d like to share some of my notes and thoughts.

Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are NOT two sides of the same coin

• Job satisfaction does NOT result in motivation
• Job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are not opposites of each other
• Job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are separate issues and need to be investigated separately.
• The opposite of job satisfaction is no job satisfaction, or ‘the absence of job satisfaction’
• The opposite of job dissatisfaction is no job dissatisfaction, or ‘the absence of job dissatisfaction’

Hygiene factors - dissatisfaction avoidance - EXTRINSIC to the job (primary causes of dissatisfaction)

• Company policy and administration (policy constraints)
• Supervision
• Interpersonal relationships
• Working conditions
• Salary
• Status
• Security

Motivator factors - to experience psychological growth - INTRINSIC to the job (primary causes of satisfaction and true motivation)

• Achievement
• Recognition for achievement
• The work itself
• Responsibility
• Growth or advancement

The biggest takeaways for me were:

• The clear distinction between satisfaction and dissatisfaction as two divorced entities
• My agreement that hygiene factors do NOT contribute to motivation
• One or more of the motivator factors needs to be present for everyone on a project team in order for those team members to truly be self-motivated.
• Motivated project team members will take their piece of the puzzle and make it great.
• Unmotivated project team members will require extensive supervision and time from the project manager. These people may not be dissatisfied, just not satisfied (or unmotivated). Again, there is a big difference between dissatisfied and not satisfied.
• Confirmation of my experiences in 8 years of managing people and working on project teams.
  Specifically wage increases and working conditions changes do not motivate people; they are only hygiene factors that keep them from being dissatisfied. When you elevate hygiene factors in an unnatural way in an attempt to motivate, all it does is raise the minimum level required of that factor to avoid dissatisfaction. Raises tied to achievement and recognition can have a positive motivational impact if that correlation is transparent and obvious.

How do you motivate your project teams?

 

 Podcast episode 032: Project management presentation skills [30:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1729)

In today’s first of two podcasts in a series on project management presentation skills, we welcome back Joe Friedman, of the consulting group Zehren-Friedman Associates, Ltd. 

Joe holds a BSBA and MBA from Ohio State University and has over 25 years of sales, sales management and training / consulting experience.  With many years providing sales and management training programs at Northeastern Illinois University, First National Bank of Chicago, and The Executive Technique, a firm specializing in presentation skills training, Joe teamed up with David Zehren in 1993 to create Zehren-Friedman Associates, Ltd.  Their 13-person firm is entering its 18th year in business and specializes in teaching the “persuasive arts” of selling, presenting, negotiating and influencing.  Clients are in a wide variety of industries, from banking to healthcare to printing to advertising to services to manufacturing and everything in-between.  Joe is responsible for client development, program delivery, people development within the firm, and holds the title of CFO.

Show Commentary

People generally dislike public speaking because it tends to make us nervous; no one wants to look foolish, which creates even more us even more nervous.  With communication being 90% of a project manager’s job, the ability to effectively communicate in front of an audience is a necessity.

Ways of Overcoming Nervousness

There are several things you can do as a speaker to help overcome nervousness.

1. Be prepared! There is no substitution for preparation to help reduce nervousness prior to a presentation. By practicing your presentation, you will reduce the likelihood of tripping over your words and improve the chances of getting your point across to your audience.
2. Understand that nervousness is natural and to be expected. Everyone gets nervous before a presentation to some degree. When it comes to nervousness, you actually are the one in control and you can decide whether you “use it, or whether it uses you.”
3. Try talking a little bit louder than you normally would. This will help “burn off” some of the nervousness and allow you to come across as more confident. Speaking louder than you normally would at the beginning is also a easy psychological trick to pull on your brain since if you hear yourself better, you will quickly hear the power in your voice and start to relax.
4. Look at the entire audience one person at a time. Speak to the group, but make eye contact one person at a time just as if you were talking to each person individually. Most of us are more comfortable with one-on-one dialog than speaking in front of a group. Frequently when we are nervous, instead of focusing on conveying our presentation to each individual in the audience, we quickly scan the audience as we speak, and start wondering how our audience perceives us. Then the worry begins and we start making up stories about what the audience must be thinking about us. By not focusing on connecting with each individual, we start to spend too much time thinking about “us” rather than about conveying the content of our presentation. Then we start getting nervous. By spending 3-5 seconds “speaking to each person” in the audience we can come across as more comfortable and become less nervous at the same time.

Preparing for Your Presentation

Although content is the most important part of you presentation, style closely follows it.  If you don’t deliver the content well, we will likely fail in persuading or informing our audience based on our content.

The following are the recommended steps in preparing for a presentation:

1. Understand the time requirements that you have been given. Once you know the amount of time you will be given for your presentation, prepare just enough to cover one-half of the time allotted. When we speak live, we are more likely to elaborate or go into side tangents than what we typically plan for up front. By cutting your content in half, you will have time to successfully cover your material despite questions or other potential delays and interruptions during your presentation.
2. Do an audience analysis:
   • What is your objective for this presentation? Is your presentation persuasive or informative? What do you want your audience to do with the information you provide once your presentation is done?
   • You want to do as much upfront analysis of the audience as you can since it will help drive how you are going to give your presentation. What do you know about your audience and do you as a result need to change your content of your presentation? Are there “hot-buttons” with your audience that you can influence, or “land mines” that you want to avoid? Are there attitudes or biases that you need to confront or avoid? Perhaps there are certain examples that you want to address or avoid; like mentioning a past failed project. How does the decision process with your audience get made? Are there key stakeholders that you need to approach prior to giving your presentation in order to get their support? What is the audience’s level of understanding of your topic? Should your presentation be at a 30,000 foot level or a 50 foot level?
3. The next step is putting your content together. The general structure of your presentation should be in the form of the Introduction, the Body, and then the Close. In other words, “tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them.”

• For persuasive presentations:
  • The Introduction includes the greeting, the rapport, and what is the benefit of the presentation to the audience
  • The Body includes the problem and solution
  • The Close includes your call to action for the audience
• For informative presentations:
  • The Introduction includes the greeting, the rapport, and what is the benefit of the presentation to the audience
  • The Body includes the agenda of the presentation
  • The Close is the summary and call to action

And that’s part 1 of 2 on Project Management Presentation Skills.  In Episode 033 we will cover the second half of our conversation with Joe.

If you liked this episode, show some love by posting a review on The pm411.org iTunes page for all the world to see!  It would be greatly appreciated!

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Today’s guest poster is Dina Garfinkel, PMP, from Flightpath.com.  After earning a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton, Dina went on to build her eclectic resume with stints as an educational technologist, webmaster, Ford Motors analyst, and goalkeeper for the Jerusalem women’s soccer team. These days, when she’s not managing the United Jewish Communities account at Flightpath, she’s a youth group leader, novice tri-athlete, and mother of two future Mia Hamms.

Early in a project, so many of the specific details of the nature of the software being built, specific requirements, project plan and staffing details are all very unclear. Because there are so many variables early on in the project, it is crucial to include a large degree of uncertainty or variability in the project estimate. This is not about being purposely misleading or avoiding commitment to an exact number with your stakeholders, this is about accepting the reality of software projects that leave so much to be defined early on. To commit to an exact number at the very beginning would be misleading yourself and your stakeholders and presenting a false sense of confidence in something that still has so much yet to be defined.

Steve McConnell, CEO and Chief Software Engineer at Construx Software, presents the idea of a “Cone of Uncertainty” in his book “Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (2006)”.  

The horizontal axis shows significant project milestones. The vertical axis shows the degree of error that has been found in estimates created by skilled estimators at various points in the project. What is obvious from the diagram is that estimates created early on in the project are subject to a high degree of error (from .25x lower to 4x higher). As the details of the project become defined and understood, the cone narrows. Obviously the most accurate estimate is made at the very end of the project development, but the challenge in the software world is to find somewhere in between where we know enough about the project to make the best estimate possible while still allowing major stakeholders to plan financially. More about the Cone of Uncertainty, and other estimation resources can be found at http://www.construx.com/Page.aspx?hid=1648

In his book Steve McConnell explains several different techniques used in making software estimates. He also made a very interesting and entertaining blog post recently, where he shared similarities between building a fort in his backyard and problems people run into with software estimates. The general idea here, and very humorously explained, is that in the beginning of a project it’s easy for us to assume that everything will go as planned and the project will proceed smoothly and in a timely manner, but it’s very common for things to take longer than expected. In his case, it was the little construction project in his backyard.

I haven’t built any forts lately, but I’ve managed many projects at Flightpath, and some that have taken longer than the original estimate, for one reason or another. But I also see this concept clearly illustrated in my day to day life outside of Flightpath. I find that it’s almost impossible to make any type of time or schedule commitment when a toddler is involved. I’m fortunate to be the mother (or project manager) of two little girls, and have the pleasure of bringing the older one to preschool every morning. What should take only 15 minutes, can sometimes take up to 40…and this is why:

1. The 2nd and 3rd bowl of cereal (6 mins)
2. Trip to the potty before leaving home, which can sometimes include the mandatory reading of the Dr. Seuss book while waiting for the potty business to complete. (8 mins)
3. Sneakers that get taken off and put back on again, only to get taken off one more time (and of course put back on again) before the final trip out the door. (2 mins)
4. Unexpected meltdown about which jacket to wear, and wanting to wear rain boots and bring umbrella on a perfectly sunny day. (6 mins)

You catch my drift…

So, I’m learning more about how to properly include uncertainty in my estimates at the appropriate times in the project development, both in the projects I manage at Flightpath and the mini-projects I manage at home every morning. It’s a good thing that our preschool allows us a 30 minute window for morning dropping off!

 

 Podcast episode 031: PMOs and portfolio management [19:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1481)

Recently I interviewed Nayan Patel, PMP, who works as a Corporate Manager of Portfolio Management for a major Healthcare Network.  I talked to Nayan about his role in creating and supporting project management, project management reporting tools, and project governance within his organization.

Nayan Patel, a 16-year veteran of Information Technology, currently serves as the Corporate Manager of Portfolio Management for Baylor Health Care System, Information Services.  In this role he is responsible the project management and reporting tools, time reporting, and project governance.  Among his project management roles, Mr. Patel also serves as a consultant for strategic business processes solutions for the healthcare system, which includes value model realization for the electronic health record, the executive portfolio management, and has developed departmental logical-physical work flows of all system interfaces for the Baylor clinical infrastructure.

Prior to joining Baylor, Mr. Patel delivered leadership and management experience for various technology and strategic solutions, led large development teams for mission-critical IT projects, and established project and quality management methodologies.  Previous senior management roles include experience at Verizon, 3dfx Interactive, and Texas Instruments. 

Nayan received an MBA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas Texas, and a BSEE and MSEE from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee.   He is currently a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and the Project Management Institute (PMI).  He currently serves on the Board of Directors for DFW-HIMSS.

Nayan describes Portfolio management as a means to allow an organization to look across a number of projects and determine how to prioritize, staff, and fund the projects.  Portfolio management also includes the tracking of progress of projects against their metrics.

Frequently a governance board will review the portfolio and determine which projects to approve and which projects to reject.

The PMO framework that Nayan works in helps to provide methodology, guidance, reporting, and templates.  In addition, there are some projects that Nayan’s group specifically manages.

The biggest challenges in setting up a PMO is user adoption of formalized project tracking and reporting as well as providing project governance.  The key is to make the PMO and its tools useable for the long term.  Changes promoted from within the PMO needs to be first examined for long term impact and sustainability within the organization.  To do this, Nayan often looks at any change in methodology from the point of view of a project manager and sees if it will in fact add value to everyday activities.  At the end of the day, if the change isn’t adopted by users, then it is useless to the organization.  In creating a PMO, you need to start with something simple that will work, and then iterate and improve upon it over time.

Within Nayan’s organization, they use basic PMI principles with a 4 phase gate waterfall methodology of Initiation, Planning, Execution, and Closing.  The templates that they use then are further tailored to fit their project needs.  Their templates and methodology are also customizable to the size and scope of the particular projects.

In Nayan’s organization, the governance board reviews all project charters and requests on a weekly basis prior to any work starting on the project.  The board uses an internal weighing and scoring model with eight key metrics to help prioritize the projects.  Nayan recommends that metrics should based on quantitative data that allows for easy comparison across projects.  This also helps to get away from people pushing for a particular pet project without data to back up its importance to the organization.

One of the key lessons that Nayan has learned in setting up a PMO is that once the methodology is adopted, frequently stakeholders, such as management, request having further data reporting at their fingertips.  Providing a means of allowing users and stakeholders to provide feedback and allowing the easy implementation of suggestions is also important to the improvement of the PMO over time.  Another suggestion is to get involved in the local PMI chapter to allow networking and benchmarking with other organizations.  Although every company is unique and there is not a single method of creating a PMO, by networking with others you can learn what worked and what didn’t when they instituted a PMO in their organization.

In Nayan’s case, it took about six months before their PMO started to really add value to the organization and they often make improvements to their PMO every three to six months.

My thanks to Nayan Patel, PMP for talking to us about PMOs and Portfolio Management.  If you would like to get in touch with Nayan, please send me an email at show@pm411.org and I will put you in touch with him.

Hey also please show us some love and leave us a review in iTunes.  You can find our podcasts in iTunes by just doing a search on pm411.org within the iTunes Store.

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I believe that you cannot change anyone’s mind.  And no one can change your mind.  Only you can decide to change your own mind. 

But, you can influence others to decide to change their minds.  It is also possible to manipulate people to decide to change their minds.  A website chocked full of examples of both techniques is ChangingMinds.org.

I am pretty intrigued with the art of influencing others and I am constantly looking for new ways to do so.  However, this is different than manipulating others.  I make a conscious effort not to manipulate others.  So what is the difference between influence and manipulation?

Merriam-Webster defines influence as “the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command”, whereas manipulation is “to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one’s own advantage.”

David Maxfield states in The Influencer Blog that a good check for whether you are trying to influence or manipulate someone is through using a discovery test.  Would your action lose power if people knew what you were doing and why?  If your action would lose power, then it is manipulation.  If it doesn’t lose power, it is influence.

For example, if you went to the manager of a team member, without the team member’s knowledge, and said “I need your support with insuring Frank is 100% dedicated to the project” you might have some explaining to do if Frank ever found out.  Since you probably wouldn’t desire Frank finding out, going directly to Frank’s boss behind his back is considered more manipulation than influence.

But, if you were to go to Frank first and explain that you see Frank being torn between multiple team commitments and that you would like to see if you and his manager can come up with a solution to insure Frank is not overloaded, Frank would probably actually appreciate the support from you.  This action would be seen more as using influence to insure the success of the project while still supporting Frank.

Great leaders influence; they don’t manipulate.  You should want to try to influence others rather than manipulate them.  You should want to influence your team, manager, department, or even company rather than manipulate them.

The next time you are considering ways to motivate others to action, use the “discovery test” first to determine if your plan is based on using influencing or manipulation.

So, What do you think?  Do you have any examples of influencing or manipulatating that you would like to share with others?  Hopefully, I can influence you to share your thoughts by asking you to leave a comment!

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 Podcast episode 030 - Pink Floyd project management [8:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1658)

The British rock band Pink Floyd has held a significant place in my life.  I discovered Pink Floyd when the line “We don’t need no education” from “Another Brick in the Wall” was ubiquitous on the radio waves and it definitely seemed to make a lot of sense to me as a rebellious 10 year old.

Later while I was in junior high, my rather conservative father took me to my first R-rated movie, which was “Pink Floyd:  The Wall”  This somewhat awkward outing between a man and his son had a dramatic effect on me.  It wasn’t just the darkness behind the music, the visuals, and the tormented rock star who began his decent into madness.  It was mostly because I actually saw my father in a whole new light - he could actually be pretty cool.

So, after having Pink Floyd shape my early adolescence, it really came to be no surprise to me when I discovered much later in life an interesting (and somewhat eerie) connection between project management and what is considered Pink Floyd’s magnum opus, Dark Side of the Moon.

Pink Floyd’s conceptual album Dark Side of the Moon was released in 1973 and spent over 14 years in Billboard’s top 200 album chart.  The musical and technological experimentation found on the album, even its themes of money, time, and madness were all considered revolutionary at the time.  Even the album artwork has become iconic in pop culture.

Much has been written about an effect known as “The Dark Side of the Rainbow” where apparently when The Dark Side of the Moon is played simultaneously with the classic film The Wizard of Oz, numerous images from the film appear to synchronize with the music and lyrics.  However, I have not been able to find any writings or articles on the also apparent associations between the album and the project management triple constraint of time, cost, and scope.

Album Artwork

The front cover artwork shows a triangular representation of a refracting prism, changing an input of pure white light into the product of all of the colors of the visible light spectrum.  The transformative “scope” of the prism allows light to be separated into its constituent parts by laws of refraction, most of which I have repressed from my high school and college physics classes.  But, what is interesting to us as project managers is that the album cover represents an equilateral triangle, similar to the equilateral triangle frequently used to represent the triple constraint of time, cost, and scope found in project management.

Time

It just so happens that The Dark Side of the Moon contains a track called “Time” that deals with the “refraction” of time that appears to occur as one transitions from life’s beginning to end.  In other words, time has the appearance of speeding up as one gets closer to the end of one’s lifetime.  Often at the end of one’s life people find themselves saying, “If only I had more time.”  I suggest that this even happens on projects.  How often do we “fritter and waste” upfront time in a project due to poor planning or requirement definition only to rush and try to make up the lost time later in the project lifecycle?

Cost

The sixth track on The Dark Side of the Moon is called “Money.”  And even the line “Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash” appeals to the triple constraint’s fundamental “Cost” constraint.  The more money your project is funded with, typically the more successful your project will be in meeting the other tenets of the triple constraint.

Scope

Wikipedia refers to scope within the context of the triple constraint as “requirements specified for the end result.”  I believe that it would have been slightly too obvious if there was indeed a track on the album simply titled “Scope.”  Those that know Pink Floyd know that “the obvious” is just not a theme usually found in their repertoire.  However, there is a three-and-a-half-minute instrumental jam on the album known as “Any Colour You Like,” giving the impression that if you gave the band particular specifications and requirements (i.e. scope), they could paint any picture with their music that you wanted.  What is further interesting is that the “end result” of a prism, as depicted on the album cover of The Dark Side of the Moon, is basically any color within the scope of the visible spectrum.

Of course my suggestions in this article to a connection between The Dark Side of the Moon and the Triple Constraint of project management may be considered by some to be just hyperbole.  But, consider that without a doubt, as Pink Floyd wrote and recorded their masterpiece in the expensive Abbey Road studios back in 1973 they battled with the same triple constraint of time, cost, and scope that we all face on our own projects.  Luckily for us, their project deliverable is still considered unparalleled in the music world to this day.

 

 Podcast episode 029: project cost budgeting [28:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2005)

furniture VidenovToday, I have a special treat in store for you.  Today I am going to let you preview one of the 89 PM PrepCast episodes that we offer through The pm411.org Project Management Podcast!  Today’s episode is on Project Cost Budgeting which is, of course, one of the many PM processes within PMI’s Cost Management Knowledge area.  During this episode, Cornelius Fichtner, of the PM Podcast, walks us through the difference between Cost Estimating and Cost Budgeting. Then discusses using the project schedule, the WBS, parametric estimating, the cost baseline, project funding requirements and other topics you need to understand to successfully pass the PMP.

Cost Budgeting is concerned with rolling the cost of individual work packages up to a total project baseline cost that can be monitored as part of the project’s overall performance.

Cost Budgeting Process Inputs

In order to estimate the project budget needed successfully, Cost Budgeting uses several process inputs including:

• The Project Scope Statement
• The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• The WBS Dictionary
• Activity Cost Estimates
• Activity Cost Estimate Supporting Detail
• Project Schedule
• Resource Calendars
• Contract
• And the Cost Management Plan

Each of these inputs are required when using the tools and techniques to estimate the overall project cost.

Cost Budgeting Process Tools and Techniques

Some of the tools and techniques used in Cost Budgeting include Cost Aggregation, Reserve Analysis, Parametric Estimating, and Funding Limit Reconciliation.

Cost Aggregation is simply estimating the cost estimate for each of the project schedule activities and work packages.  These can then be rolled up and “aggregated” to various cost management levels by using the WBS and combining the various related work package costs.  These are then further rolled up into the various control accounts and finally the overall project cost.  Simple enough, huh?

Reserve Analysis creates emergency or contingency reserves.  An example of such a reserve is the Management Contingency Reserve.  These reserves are for unplanned, but required, changes to project scope and cost.  These reserves are used for risks to the project that have been identified as “unknown unknowns”.  These reserves are not part of the project cost baseline, but should be included in the overall project budget.  Since they are not considered a part of the project cost baseline, they are not used for earned value calculations.  Think of Reserve Analysis as your extra money you keep in your checking account to prevent you from accidently bouncing checks to pay for your daughters highly variable wireless phone bill.  So, BTW did or didn’t Bettylou break up with her b/f? 

Parametric Estimation always reminds me of using a cookbook recipe and changing it slightly to either feed more or less people.  Basically you use an actual measurement from a similar previous project to estimate the cost of the current project.  For example, perhaps a previous project had a labor rate of $40/hr for 2500 hours for a total project labor cost of $100,000 .  You estimate through Cost Aggregation that this new project will take approximately 4000 hours.  By using parametric estimation with the same labor rate, you estimate the total labor cost for the new project to be approximately $160,000.  That’s a lot of pies!

Funding Limit Reconciliation is about “smoothing” out project expenditures to prevent sudden periodic over expenditures from occurring.  Fund disbursement is discussed early with the customer to determine the when exactly work can be scheduled to prevent over spending during a particular period.  If it is determined that Cost expenditures are constrained, then the Project Manager needs to know what effect this has on the overall project schedule and resources.

Cost Budgeting Outputs

The outputs generated by the Cost Budgeting Process include the project Cost Baseline, Project Funding Requirements, updated Cost Management Plan, and any requested changes.

The Cost Baseline is where the project budget is plotted against time to help monitor and control the project cost performance.  Once the baseline is created, actual project costs can be compared to the baseline to track project performance.

Funding Requirements are determined prior to the project commencing to allow funding to exist for early progress or particular cost overruns.  The total amount of the funding required for the project is determined by adding the cost baseline to the management contingency reserve amount.

Any updates to the Cost Management Plan are typically found as an output of the Cost Budgeting Process.  These updates require an approve change request to allow the Cost Baseline and any other cost attribute of the project to be updated.

And speaking of Requested Changes; requested changes can also be an output of the Cost Budgeting Process to allow the Cost Budgeting outputs to be updated as needed.

Hopefully, you will find Cost Budgeting a beneficial process for your project that provides you with early estimates, planned changes, and successful performance metrics for measuring your project’s budget success.  Now, I think I am going to go get some pie!

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 Episode 028: Project Management in the Real World with Elizabeth Harrin [35:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2132)

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I recently had the opportunity to speak with author and blogger, Elizabeth Harrin, of London, England.  Elizabeth is the author of the book Project Management in the Real World and has nearly a decade of experience in managing projects. She is a PRINCE2 practitioner and is trained in the Six Sigma process improvement methodology. Elizabeth has led a variety of IT and process improvement projects including those involving e-commerce, communications, and managing business change.  In addition to writing books, Elizabeth also writes the irreverent and popular blog A Girl’s Guide to Managing Projects.

During our conversation Elizabeth and I chatted about her book, her blog, and lots of other great stuff…   like extreme ultraviolet imaging space mass spectrometers!

Project Management in the Real World

Elizabeth decided to write the book that she had wanted to read when she started in the field of project management.  There were plenty of books on theory and techniques, but not too many on real-life experiences.  Early in her career Elizabeth found that by working closely on teams with other project managers, she was able to learn the trade quickly from others sharing their experiences.  So, with the goal of writing a book by the time she was thirty, Elizabeth decided to get information and experiences out of the heads of varios PM practitioners and into a book.  In writing the book, Elizabeth found people rather willing to share their experiences openly.

One particular contributor, who was responsible for managing the assembly of mass spectrometers for measuring ultraviolet light images from space, was focused on directly eliminating every risk his project faced.  When you are talking about a £30 million project, you cannot risk finding a problem once the spectrometer has been assembled and has been launched into space.  However, instead of addressing risks by using a “textbook” approach of looking at the impact and probability of each risk occurring, the team looked at any impact as being unacceptable.  They had to adapt to the need that the impact of every single risk had to be eliminated as long as the probability of its occurrence was greater than zero.

Office Politics and Self Promotion

Office politics, as you can guess, is not something that Elizabeth recommends getting involved in.  Rather, she suggests being “organizational aware;” be astute and understand the background and motivation of your stakeholders, since they are critical to how you manage your project.

Transparency is something that is very important when it comes to projects.  When you and your stakeholders have open communication, it is far easier to get things done.  Unfortunately sometimes you will run into people that have their own hidden agendas or “play people off each other” to get things done.  Stay clear of playing these games.  These behaviors are not good for building team relationships or morale.  Since most project managers have indirect line manager roles, burning bridges now with your team or stakeholders through office politics will only make your job more difficult later on.

Self-promotion is something that Elizabeth feels is tricky to get right.  Project managers are often times the “unsung heroes” of project delivery.  If a project is on time, on budget, on delivery often times the team gets the majority of the credit, or even worse, stakeholders may feel that the team could have been pushed even harder.  In cases where projects do not meet their deliverables, then the project manager is often blamed.  That is just one of the unfortunate truths of project management.  So, it is important to sometimes “blow your horn” by showing that you are a practitioner of project management best practices, you share knowledge with others, and you value learning throughout your career.

Women in Project Management

When Elizabeth was looking to start her project management blog to help promote her book, she found that there were not that many women project managers actively  participating in, as she refers to it, “extra-curricular project management events,” such as blogging, writing, or speaking at conferences.  A couple of notable exceptions include Dina Henry Scott of the Controlling Chaos podcast and Raven Young of the Raven’s Brain blog.  Because of this lack of representation, Elizabeth felt that creating “a girl’s guide” might be an interesting angle to take.  Being male, personally I can say that her blog appeals to either sex and I find it very informative.  I certainly haven’t found any articles on beauty tips.

When asked why more women aren’t focused on promoting their project management skills outside of their jobs, Elizabeth was quick to point out that although there are obviously a significant number of successful women that work in the field of project management, women may not always feel the same need to promote themselves in their field as much as men.  Tying the possible differences in gender back to our discussion on self-promotion, Elizabeth feels that perhaps women may realize that an “in your face” approach doesn’t always need to be taken to show one’s presence, abilities or skills.  There are more subtle ways of showing that you are active in your profession by sharing information gained at conferences or through articles and books with colleagues.

Networking Diaries

Elizabeth keeps a “networking diary” where, in addition to taking notes when meeting with a sponsor, customer or stakeholder, she writes down interesting facts about the person.   It can be as simple as writing down in a notebook, or even on the back of a business card, interesting facts about the person’s hobbies, their spouse, kids, vacation plans, etc.  However, you have to draw a careful line between keeping a networking diary and stalking!  Trying to run a project with restraining orders against you is difficult!  Getting to know your stakeholders in one-on-one meetings also helps you understand what is important to them and helps to build relationships to make your project a success.

Tailoring Your Communications

By meeting with your stakeholders and understanding their needs, you will also better understand how they prefer to receive project updates.  In some cases, stakeholders, especially those in higher levels of the organization, do not necessarily want to have a lot of project details dumped on them.  You shouldn’t push detailed reports on these folks for the sole purpose of showing your attention to detail.  Rather, you should tailor your communication to match the needs of the receiver in order to show your value.

Project Management is Ubiquitous

Whether you are planning a wedding, the delivery of a new child, or even what to plant in the garden this Spring, project management skills are used to insure that the outcome follows the plan.  In cases where there is a fixed date, you must work backwards to meet that date.  I shudder to think what would have happened if I had told my wife when she went into labor with our first child that we couldn’t have the baby yet because I wasn’t done painting the nursery.  I suspect my paint roller would have ended up somewhere that it shouldn’t be.  But, sometimes the same fixed date approach occurs when a promise is made on a golf course to a customer.  Without proper planning and risk mitigation on your projects, you better start thinking about hiding the paint rollers!

You can find out more about real-life projects in Elizabeth Harrin’s book Project Management in the Real World available at Amazon as well as Barnes and Noble.  Also be sure to visit her wonderful blog A Girls Guide to Managing Projects.

Our guest blogger Ron Rosenhead helps people deliver projects. He is a professional speaker, trainer, coach and author all in the field of project management. He can be contacted at http://www.projectagency.co.uk/contactus.html  or on +44(0) 208 446 7766. To get your free e-course, go to www.projectagency.co.uk

So, you are organised, have identified the stakeholders as well as project risks (and you are actively managing both), you have planned the project and you are all ready to deliver…..

But, have you developed a monitoring and control process for your project - an essential part of project management and work generally? One person who attended one of our project management training courses suggested that:

“A project goes over its deadline a day at a time, a day at a time a day at a time. We have no excuse for not knowing. We should actively monitor and control our projects from business case through to closure.”

This person had had some really bad experiences and wanted others who were on the course to avoid what he went through!

So, what can you put in place to ensure that you monitor and control your projects?

1. Loose v tight control - you need to decide, in conjunction with your sponsor (senior manager) the type of control that is appropriate for your project. Tight control is appropriate for high risk projects. You may want to mix the type of monitoring and control throughout the project. One you have decided on the appropriate type of control, ensure you develop a system that actually fits it. We have seen control processes that are supposed to be tight but when examined are really loose.

2. Project spend - you MUST have accurate project spend figure - whether it is a small low budget project or high capital expenditure. Ensure you create your own processes for capturing the figures if your internal system does not help! (See point 4 Planned v Actual below)

3. Tolerance - this is an interesting way of controlling projects. It works like this; in conjunction with the senior manager a figure is agreed - say 22.5% or 5% or 7.5%. You only report if you are over or under each activity.

Example 1:  It is planned that activity twenty takes 15 days. A tolerance figure of 10% is agreed. The activity takes only 19 days to complete. You report this to the sponsor as you are over the tolerance figure of 10%.

Example 2: Activity 12 is planned for delivery at a cost of £4,000. The actual cost is £4,700. You report that activity 12 is over tolerance. You only report against those activities that are over or under tolerance.

4. Planned v actual - develop a simple chart which maps out the planned activity durations and costs. Plot against each the actual figures.

5. Reporting - agree with senior managers how often and how you will report. NOTE: we advocate a one page report with agreed headings. In some projects you need to fulfil external reporting requirements. We suggest you familiarize yourself with these early in the life of the project.

6. Milestone reports - report against milestones. Develop a simple milestone reporting chart. Ensure when someone reports they are off schedule against a milestone they have a recovery plan to bring it back on target!

7. Project changes - develop an agreed process to deal with project changes. Few projects go through their life cycle without change. But, you must control the changes rather than allowing them to control you! How? Use a simple change control, sheet. Record the type of change and the impact. Formally agree changes with the project sponsor if the change impacts on the project budget or the project objectives.

8. Meetings - have agreed agendas and agreed durations for each project meeting. Ensure you produce ACTION POINTS which are circulated very soon after the meeting.

When should you put start putting in place the project monitoring and control process? We suggest as early as possible. It should be discussed at the time the business case is agreed. Without a process in place early then you will not have a robust process and the project could well stray!

Project management needs robust monitoring and control processes. As one delegate on a training programme put it….”anything to prevent project creep!”