Insights archive

SMART objectives for projects

17 May 2012
Posted by Steve Grudgings

It’s easy to see why new Project Managers sometimes have that “rabbit in the headlights” stare. Grasping their new Prince 2 certificate in their hands, eagerly immersing themselves in their new project, generating reams of stakeholder maps, risk registers, benefits plans, gannt charts and suchlike, but risking losing sight of what they are there to do!

One of the factors that sets Chaucer consultants apart is the confidence and experience to ask two simple questions:

1. What is our objective?
2. What greater purpose does it serve?

I have reviewed many big budget project and programs where key project staff struggle to answer these clearly. 

Is this a big deal? Projects can often be complex multi-facetted amalgams of activities and can therefore be hard to understand.

This goes to the heart of the issue: if you can’t answer these questions for your project, don’t be surprised if your team and stakeholders struggle to engage with and support you. Time spent honing a good objective is rarely wasted.

It’s too complex to fully explore in this blog, but if I had to choose a single fix for this it would be ‘SMART Objectives’.

It’s easy to get confused by the differences between Mission and Vision Statements, Business Needs, Project Objectives, Outcomes or Outputs – step aside from these and take inspiration from an example from the 1960s. The Mission statement for NASA’s Apollo Programme was famously recounted by JFK as:

“To land a man on the moon by the end of the decade and return him safely”

Neat! One sentence, easily recalled, seventeen words that work in many ways– which is where SMART comes in. NASA’s statement was:

S pecific
M easurable
A chievable
R ealistic
T ime bound

You don’t need me to explain – just remember to use SMART rather than appearing to be smart.

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Effective presentations

30 Mar 2012
Posted by Rebecca Sangster-Kelly

Practicing effective communication throughout a presentation is vital in achieving your objectives. Whether your goal is to persuade, inform or spark discussion amongst your colleagues, if you are not using the right tools and techniques you’re not only wasting your audience’s time, but yours as well. 

Learning how to communicate to an audience is similar to learning how to drive. At first you are very aware of every move you make: you feel self-conscious, awkward, and, fearful of those around you. However with the same time and dedication it takes to master steering a car or mirror checking without a second thought, you can assess your current communication habits and put the appropriate communication techniques into practice. Many often struggle through this learning process. Some of us do not fear public speaking, but lack orderly succinct thoughts. At the other side of the spectrum, there are those who are very organised in their thoughts, but feel much more at ease reading off their PowerPoint slides, leaving their audience unstimulated and bored. In short, it is a learning process that the individual must tailor to their needs, but each person must invoke enough self-discipline to overcome any bad habits. However, the more you practice and master the skills required to deliver an effective presentation, the more natural it will become and you will attain your objectives. No longer reading each PowerPoint slide word for word, but looking into the eyes of your colleagues with confidence.

At Chaucer we understand that effective communications are integral to the success of any project or programme, and make it a priority to ensure that every opportunity to engage face-to-face with teams and stakeholders is delivered effectively.

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Working the Critical Path back from the Golf Hole

22 Mar 2012
Posted by Steve Grudgings

I may be breaching golfing etiquette with the term ‘golf hole’ but non-golfers like me will understand!

So, what’s golf got to do with Project Management?

A colleague reflected one day that the difference between professional and amateur golfers was that the former “worked back from the green (yes, that’s what the hole is called) to the tee”, not the reverse. When he explained that his observation was in the context of watching good project managers plan their projects, the penny dropped.

My colleague’s view was that golfers’ objectives are clear and professionals visualise the game in reverse as a basis for achieving the objective. Instead of seeing how far they can smash the ball toward the green, they start at the green and plan where they want to be for their final stroke – and continue this process back to the tee.

In project management, much attention is rightly given to defining the critical path and work breakdown structure (WBS) and Chaucer consultants will invariably work these through to build good plans. The point of the golf metaphor is to concentrate on clarifying our end state and the events preceding it – always more difficult to visualise the future than the present!

Standing by the tee, your perspective on the green is obscured by distance and the complications associated with starting – you won’t lose sight of these by going to the green and planning your campaign from there and the result will be a better balanced plan.

We can overdo the golf metaphor, but you should also think about external factors like weather and wind, and check you have the right equipment for all conditions – just as the Chaucer Way reminds you to do.

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Components of Project Risk

10 Jan 2012
Posted by John Murphy

Most people learn about project risk 'on the job' by taking part in risk identification sessions, then assessing, monitoring and controlling them. If the process is handled correctly, the project will succeed and participants will move on to the next challenge. But before we jump into the mechanics, take a moment to think about what constitutes a risk.

In essence, for a risk to exist two bedfellows need to be present. If either isn't, then there is no risk. So, what are these two key components? Quite simply, they are Uncertainty and Constraint. That's it. If both exist for specific events or to the project as a whole, then you need to instigate an appropriate level of risk management.

That's okay, I hear you say, perhaps we are in an ideal situation and our project isn't exposed to any risk. But again we need to think a little deeper. What exactly do we mean here?

Take the case of no uncertainty. If that was truly the case, we could set precise completion dates, exact expenditure and rigid quality requirements because we'd know exactly how to achieve them. All our unknowns would have disappeared and we'd have total control over all aspects of execution, both internal and external. Does that fit the project you're on? If so, you can relax and know success is assured.

What about no constraints? In this case it doesn't matter what we know or don't know. There is nothing dictating what the ultimate deliverable is so we can take as long as we want, spend whatever it takes and end up with something that will probably perform (of course it doesn't really matter if it doesn't, we can just keep trying). Does that sound more like your situation? If so you can watch the world go by without a care in the world, knowing you can never be brought to book.

Looking at risk in this way demonstrates that being involved in a project that doesn't have risks is virtually impossible. That means that however simple a project seems, look closely at the uncertainty and constraints to identify where you need to focus your management of risk.

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A false sense of security in project risk management

02 Dec 2011
Posted by John Murphy

One of the accepted practices in project risk management is identifying mitigation actions for specific project risks. Clearly, this is a sensible and practical way to approach dealing with a potential risk.
But then, in my opinion, many teams go a step too far. They re-assess a risk based on the planned mitigation actions having been implemented. This creates a second set of risk scores. These reflect the teams’ assessment of how well the mitigation actions would reduce the impact of the risk. To me this makes little sense and in some ways can be dangerous.
Often a team will generate a false sense of security about a risk if they view it only in the terms of the mitigated version. When challenged, an argument is put forward that management need to understand what the potential residual risk will be. How does a purely paper exercise provide any more assurance that the mitigation will be effective?
No-one can really re-assess a risk until a risk mitigation action has been implemented and the effect re-evaluated. Let's not dampen the importance of project risk control by mitigating it on paper until the action has been proven to work.

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