What Best Practices Are Best?

by: stacey - March 21st, 2012   Filed under: Management Add Comment

Does your company use Best Practices? Do you use them in your personal life? How about ways to “get things done?” If so, just where did they come from? Whose Best Practices are they? Who is to say that they are the “Best Practices” for your company or situation?

“Best Practices” are one of the most overused words in business. The theory behind them is sound: identify the best way of doing a given task, then spread that knowledge so that all instances of this task can be optimized. It is a good idea, and I highly recommend it. I recommend, however, that you think carefully about these pitfalls before adopting any given Best Practice:

1) Never assume the “industry” is smarter than you are. It is just possible that the “Best Practice” of the rest of the industry is one of the differences between your company and everyone else that gives you a competitive advantage!

2) Never assume that the Best Practices of others apply to your unique business model. Many people write “Best Practices” and distribute them online or through print, but these folks often do not know your business model. They are speaking based on the business models that they are familiar with.

3) Never assume that the Best Practice you have adopted is the best there will ever be. Implementing a policy of using Best Practices is a perpetual cycle of improvement and change. Whenever a new idea appears, always hear it out and weigh it against what you do today.

Amazingly enough, project management, IT and in particular IT Security are the most succeptible groups to adopting the Best Practices of others. Consider security as an example: if your data is protected the same way that everyone else’s is, then all a criminal has to do is find a security exploit for one company, and they have the keys to everyone’s doors. Never be satisfied with just “what everyone else says is best”.

Best Practices are indeed a very good idea in any business. Never forget this rule, though: If you do things the same way that everyone else does, the only difference is the people performing the task. You are betting that your people are better than the next guy, and that they always will be. Your people are fluid, though; they get promoted, hired away, burn out, sometimes they even retire. Don’t be satisfied. Innovate. Improve your processes every day. Never stop looking for a better way.

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Meeting Notes Matter

by: stacey - March 20th, 2012   Filed under: Communication, Management, Project Management Add Comment

Meeting notes are one of the great chores of Project Management and Corporate life in general.  No one wants to take them, few people bother to read them, and everyone wonders why people bother.

The reason to bother is obvious:  to note things worth remembering.  Most projects span a considerable amount of time.  Building a new piece of software can span months or years.  People also usually are involved in multiple projects.  Remembering the details of each project is a real challenge.  When confusion eventually sets in on what was decided, who said what, who committed to do what, and so on, meeting notes become invaluable.

Considering that, when is the last time you reviewed your meeting notes?  Who is writing them?  Are they capturing all of the valid points?  Are they capturing all of the decisions made?  The commitments?  Are they capturing any details that you don’t remember happening?  If so, are you following up on those details to ensure that they’re valid?

He who writes history defines history.  So too with meeting notes.  Once enough time has past that people do not remember every detail of a given meeting, it’s meeting notes become reality, not the meeting itself.  Set up a regular time each week to review meeting notes from that week and ensure accuracy.  Commit to spend 30 minutes once a week to read everything.  Add addendums as needed and check all points that you have questions on for validity.  If you don’t, it can bite you later.

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Projects versus Operations- who wins?

by: stacey - March 16th, 2012   Filed under: Management, Planning, Project Management Add Comment

The best project management organizations and companies out there understand that projects compete for resources, and they plan accordingly.  They have governance bodies that weigh the importance of one project versus another, and they have an elaborate ranking system for establishing the priorities of projects so that everyone can see clearly what project comes first when there are resource bottlenecks.  The PMO usually works very closely with these organizations to keep their projects running well.

What about operations?  How does this fit in?

The reality of most companies is that they do not have seperate project-based resources versus operations-based resources.  Major operational initiatives and problems can derail your project quickly.  An over-abundance of projects can rob Operations so thoroughly that needed maintenance is ignored, and your operations deteriorate (just ask the american government about this).  Major operational problems clash with major project initiatives.  Huge political battles can ensue, creating inaction as people who need to do do the work in question instead go sit in meetings waiting for a decision on which work to do.  People end up making decisions on an island at times, just picking a direction based on their own personal knowledge rather than wait on the corporate machine to find a direction.

Rather than get lost in these situations, get a grip on your Operations.  Include them in the resource planning process.  Most importantly, include them in your prioritization process.  Is the most important project in the company more important than maintenance of the most important existing product?  What about the fifth most important product?  The fifteenth?  Which customers’ business is more important than your projects?  Customer problems can just as easily steal resources.  Not all of your customers will be more important than the development of your company’s future either.  You have to count them as part of your prioritization process, and you have to make hard decisions like this.

Doing this type of process is hard.  It is also vital to your company’s ability to react quickly and decisively to the unexpected.  You, and more importantly, your team, need to understand and agree on what comes first.

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