Lessons Learned sessions - effectiveness
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Most of us as Project Managers never forget to conduct "Lessons Learned"sessions during the project close phase and do a detailed report to be presented to the Project Management Office / Project Office and the management with various stakeholders' inputs and feedback points.
It really sounds great and fulfilling when we say that we have closed the project in a much professional way after the Lessons Learned session apart from other administrative closures of the project.
The "Lessons Learned" session is very much a vital information as part of historic projects' database maintained by the Project Office, as we all know. Its an echo of various participants from the business, the performing departments like IT, HR, Legal, Marketing, etc.
If we think deeply from customer's perspective of the time and effort that
are spent during such sessions and the feedback points that are furnished, there is a clear message that voted "Improvement Points / Suggestions" are need to be implemented immediately (OR) at least evaluated by the management (OR) Project Office for future implementation.
The implementation of such "Improvement points / suggestions" from these Lessons Learned sessions would reflect on the maturity of the organization's process adaptability and influences the 'Continuous Improvement Plans' of the department/s and hence the organization/s.
Is there a serious considerations by departments and organizations to implement such "Improvement points / Suggestions"? (OR) they are kept in the historical database of project information systems!
How to improve the scores:
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We value customer, project members, end-user feedback very highly and collected some high rated / voted "Suggestions" etc. Remember that there is high expectation from customer / project members / end users side of the implementation.
To effectively carry out a planned implementation of such "Suggestions", the departments / organizations need to provide adequate empowerment to centralized departments like Project Office and the management need to encourage such bodies to neutrally monitor those suggestions by using a systematically organized database of such "Suggestions". These"Suggestions / Improvement Area points" need to be tagged with a control-number and a Senior Management person of a relevant department has to be assigned a Responsibility.
At the same time, regular updates has to be provided to the initiator of such "Suggestion / Improvement Area points"as a matter of feedback. Such plan needs also to include expected date of implementation, any evaluation if needed, expected % of improvement, productivity improvement % and such metrics to measure the effectiveness of such "Improvement Areas / Suggestions points" that we gather from most of our projects and programs.
If your organization / department is using a different and effective
approach / strategy in implementing such "Improvement Areas" of Lessons Learned sessions, please do share with me / us, and that would help many of us to learn here.
When you share the knowledge with others, it gets refined more and grows itself profoundly, unlike material assets!
I would write about "Customer Expectations" in my next notes.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Planning
Project Planning
First and foremost step in any Project is the planning phase. The planning provides the complete road map of how and when the project is carried out throught its life.
A clean project plan must tie up all the tasks as per the project life cycle according to the methodology you follow (Typically include phases like Planning, Build, Test, Deployment). A rough cut plan is highly recommended when you meet your business stakeholders (customers) during contract discussions and negotiations.
The planning process must take into consideration: The milestones, resoureces - like external and internal developers, testing team, PMO team, business stakeholders and QA persons.
The tasks for each phase has to be clear without any ambiguity with a planned start and end dates.
The rough cut plan has to be reviewed and fine tuned before the Final Project Plan is drafted and approved by the Project committe.
An important aspect of a project plan is that it has to encompass all the Change Management Controls and tasks identified and attached at various stages of the entire project life cycle.
A successful project will always be the resultant of a clean and well thought Project Plan.
First and foremost step in any Project is the planning phase. The planning provides the complete road map of how and when the project is carried out throught its life.
A clean project plan must tie up all the tasks as per the project life cycle according to the methodology you follow (Typically include phases like Planning, Build, Test, Deployment). A rough cut plan is highly recommended when you meet your business stakeholders (customers) during contract discussions and negotiations.
The planning process must take into consideration: The milestones, resoureces - like external and internal developers, testing team, PMO team, business stakeholders and QA persons.
The tasks for each phase has to be clear without any ambiguity with a planned start and end dates.
The rough cut plan has to be reviewed and fine tuned before the Final Project Plan is drafted and approved by the Project committe.
An important aspect of a project plan is that it has to encompass all the Change Management Controls and tasks identified and attached at various stages of the entire project life cycle.
A successful project will always be the resultant of a clean and well thought Project Plan.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Project Management - How to improve your skills
The Project Management is managment of all your inputs to produce an ouput within a defined time frame.
When I say inputs, it could primarily include the project goals, objectives, resources, stakeholders, work breakdown structure and detailed work schedule, risk and mitigation, cost and budget analysis, configuration plan, test plan, training plan, etc.
Principles of Project Management:
The key components of Project Management includes Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling. If you look deeper it can be rephrased as
Keep your customer delighted:
In my project management experience, I feel that you need to always understand your customer very well before understanding the project objectives. A close and friendlier relationship with your stakeholder will provide the customer a better space to deal with you and the subject.
Remember one thing strongly that you need to develop the passion and affection for the Project you are involved in whether you are a Team Leader (or) a Project Manager. And in the same way, you have to like your customers very much. In all possible ways, you always need to prove that you are a unique leader to do the work for him.
Perfect Plan will lead to high degree of success:
A project which is well planned with all necessary tasks and timelines, will end up to meet the necessary goals and objectives at the end. The project plan has to be realistic and well thought. It has to be revisited and amended after rounds of discussions with your stakeholders - including your customers, team leads, developers, contractors, external vendors.
The plan should clearly indicate all the resources allocated to each and every task and should have a clear start and end dates. At every stage of your project, there has to be a task relating to risk analysis and contingency plan as part of your entire project management plan.
Some Important / Easy Tips for a Successful Project:
The PMBOK can provide a framework for handling the project and managing them. However, at the end of the day, it all depends on you and only you as how and where you want the project to go.
I would be sharing more management ideas and thoughts in future....
Please share your valuable inputs on this.
Regards,
Ram
When I say inputs, it could primarily include the project goals, objectives, resources, stakeholders, work breakdown structure and detailed work schedule, risk and mitigation, cost and budget analysis, configuration plan, test plan, training plan, etc.
Principles of Project Management:
The key components of Project Management includes Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling. If you look deeper it can be rephrased as
- Planning
- Organizing
- Leading
- Initiating
- Controling
- Empowering
Keep your customer delighted:
In my project management experience, I feel that you need to always understand your customer very well before understanding the project objectives. A close and friendlier relationship with your stakeholder will provide the customer a better space to deal with you and the subject.
Remember one thing strongly that you need to develop the passion and affection for the Project you are involved in whether you are a Team Leader (or) a Project Manager. And in the same way, you have to like your customers very much. In all possible ways, you always need to prove that you are a unique leader to do the work for him.
Perfect Plan will lead to high degree of success:
A project which is well planned with all necessary tasks and timelines, will end up to meet the necessary goals and objectives at the end. The project plan has to be realistic and well thought. It has to be revisited and amended after rounds of discussions with your stakeholders - including your customers, team leads, developers, contractors, external vendors.
The plan should clearly indicate all the resources allocated to each and every task and should have a clear start and end dates. At every stage of your project, there has to be a task relating to risk analysis and contingency plan as part of your entire project management plan.
Some Important / Easy Tips for a Successful Project:
- Be polite and humble to your customers and project team mates
- Be ready to accept your mistakes
- Appreciate your colleagues when they contribute something in your project - be it small or big.
- Take responsibilities of motivating your team folks and work with them whenever needed.
- Escalate to your boss and stakeholders and discuss in situations where you are stuck.
- Provide necessary reports and metrics to your stakeholders on a regular basis without asking
- Review the project plan for meeting schedules / presentations and announce them well in advance to your stakeholders well in advance and not in the last minute.
- Dont push your customers for deadlines / inputs too much and be flexible with them without impacting your deadlines.
- Counsel your team folks when they are in crunch situations and help them.
- Give your team folks clear tasks and deadlines but dont force them to work extra hours
- Send your project mates back home in time on daily basis - they will end up contributing more and the team will become more productive thereafter.
- Be prepared to teach your customers on aspects that look very simple for you.
- Enjoy training your customers and team mates
- Love your project and digest the goals and objectives
- Always keep your departmental and companies objectives while carrying out the project related tasks and presentations.
- Provide only the accurate and correct information to all. Dont communicate about an idea that you are not sure / false.
There is no definite way of handling a particular project considering the experience and expertise you have as a program / project manager.
To me, output of every project is unique in its functions and nature; very similar to each living being born in this world, which has its own characteristics and behavior.The PMBOK can provide a framework for handling the project and managing them. However, at the end of the day, it all depends on you and only you as how and where you want the project to go.
I would be sharing more management ideas and thoughts in future....
Please share your valuable inputs on this.
Regards,
Ram
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