Four Things You Can Do to Hire Better and Head Off Resource Issues Early

by: stacey - February 6th, 2012   Filed under: Planning, Project Management Add Comment

Here’s something that gets me every time.  A department within the company gets really busy.  Projects start to mount up.  The product they’re selling gets hot.  Customers are demanding more.  It quickly becomes obvious that they need more staff.  Everyone talks about it.  Everyone quickly agrees.

So obviously, since everyone agrees, and they can see the problem, they immediately go out and hire someone, right?  Wrong.  Someone has to have actually cost-justify the new hire to HR, Finance, and depending on the company, who knows who else.  Then they have to define the job and write a job description.  Fill out paperwork.  Review resumes.  Interview.  Choose a candidate.  The whole time, they have to keep going at their regular job, where they are by now very short-staffed.

So what happens in the meantime?  Management often does not notice it, but in the meantime, they get a huge black eye.  Employees in the department become disgruntled at all the extra work and the apparent lack of action on management’s part, either because they don’t know about the bureaucracy involved, or even worse, because they know about all the bureaucracy involved.  Customers are getting short-changed because a) you’re shorthanded and b) the staff you do have aren’t doing as good a job because they’re overloaded.  By the time the new employee starts, he or she is brought into a culture of team members who will likely bad-mouth management for their lack of action to help, and to irate customers who have low opinions of your company.  In no time, they’re wondering if they did the right thing coming to work for you.

Does this always happen?  No, not always, but way too often for my taste.  I have seen this many times.  As management, none of us want to see it happen.

So what is your organization doing to prevent it from happening?  Here are a few things you can and should do to prevent this:

  • Put a manpower forecasting plan in place for all your departments and project teams.  Require that each manager and PM give you a defined plan, ahead of time, that tells you how they plan to predict when they need employees.  Examine the plans and make sure the reasons are cost-justifiable.
  • Examine your process for justifying new employees.  Find a way to bring your forecasting plans into this.  Streamline it as much as possible so that once you know you have a need and a cost justification, you can get things approved quickly.
  • Meet with HR, Finance, IT and other organizations involved in getting a new employee approved, on board, and working.  Streamline your processes where possible and make certain that getting new employee requests processed, the employee on board and working is one of your top priorities.
  • Have your managers and PMs provide you with a hiring plan.  The hiring plan should provide how they plan to get job descriptions, resume reviews, and other tasks involved in hiring people accomplished.  Have them set time tables for it.  In reality, business may not allow them to meet these time tables; however, thinking out the plan and having it onhand will help them see what they need to do and help them get it done more easily when the heat is on.

Lack of resources when you need it are something that can cripple your company.  Having resources when you need them is a basic principle of maintaining business agility.  Don’t leave the hiring process out of your plans for maintaining a business edge.

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How Much Did That Discussion Cost?

by: stacey - January 10th, 2012   Filed under: Management, Planning, Project Management Add Comment

There’s a cool little tool called Meeting Miser that has been making the blogging rounds.  I first saw it on Download Squad, then Lifehacker, then Raven’s Brain, and they all raised good points about it as a fun little tool.

I love this tool and have used this concept for years.  Not just as a fun tool, but as a very serious tool.  Meetings seem like a way of life in some companies, and you can easily spend tons of time in them, but you always have to ask yourself the cost, especially if you are holding those meetings to solicit information to help you make decisions.

I was once involved with a series of meetings that centered around studying and deciding whether or not to make a business decision that was going to cost our company around $10,000.  That’s not a small investment and worth talking about.  Still, after a few weeks it was out of hand.  We were including too many people and agonizing over the decision too much.  I brought the problem to the attention of my boss (the ultimate decision-maker).  The conversation was something like this:

“Hey, we’re spending a lot of time on this.”

“I know, I need to make a decision, we need to think a bit more about it I think.”

“Well, think fast, you’ve spent $5,000 on this decision already.”

That got his instant attention.  It was a rude jolt, to be sure, but it was a needed one, and well-received.  He asked what I was talking about.  I pointed out the number of hours in meetings, pointed to the average cost per person’s time that we use for pricing project resources for the people in those meetings, did a simple math calculation, and poof.  $5,000, give or take a few hundred.  That ended the meetings right there.  He made the call the next day based on the information he had.

Being cautious and risk-averse is a reasonable approach to doing business, but never be so cautious you overrun your costs just trying to make a decision.  Keep your meeting costs in mind.  Calculate the estimated cost of a meeting BEFORE you call the meeting, then decide if what you’ll be accomplishing in that meeting is worth the cost.

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Who Comes First?

by: stacey - January 3rd, 2012   Filed under: Leadership, Planning, Project Management Add Comment

A Project Manager’s job is to get their project done.  On time and within budget.  Period.

Right?

This is a trend I’ve seen in many places.  The project manager fights for their project to a fault.  They get the money and resources they need.  They win the battle of conflicting priorities for shared resources.  They take no prisoners and get things done.  While in the process of doing it, though, sometimes they rob other projects and processes of resources, and that ultimately hurts the company significantly.

As a project manager, you can never lose sight of the fact that you work for the company, not the project.  When there is a scheduling conflict, you have to ask questions and find out what the conflict is and what the importance of the other item is to the company.  There are ultimately times when you should stand down and let the other people through.

Your stakeholders can sometimes make this a delicate balancing act.  They will not always agree that the other project should be let through.  Not everyone thinks in terms of the Company as a whole.  You should take the time to explain yourself, though, and if you find yourself and what you believe is the correct thing to do in conflict with your stakeholders or, worse, project sponsor, take the time to escalate.  Don’t do it in a contrary manner; simply consult the right authority in the company and ask which choice takes priority.  Once you do that, report your findings and acquiesce to it.  Refer to the higher decision and seek help from leadership in explaining things if necessary.

Doing the right thing for the company is not always good for your project, but ultimately it is the right thing to do for your career. Demonstrating to leadership that you can think globally about the company will ultimately help your career.

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