Managing Project Stress - Five tips to manage it

Managing Project Stress - Five tips to manage it

1.     Accept the stress; It is a must attitude to manage the stress, be in at project, work or anywhere else is to ACCEPT it. By accepting it, not denying it, the stress becoming sort of reality instead of un-reality. Then start applying following points in mind.

2.     List the stress; to make the stress becomes sort of real; you must be able to list down of the stress. If you are not be able to list the stress, you could also make it a list of things that make you worry, as the source of the stress, obviously, is worry. E.g. in the project to many task and because of it, project manager, in this case you, is having stress. The benefit of list the stress, it, some how, will relief the burden out of the chess. To make your list is not growing, you should start practicing to say ‘No’ smartly.

3.     Work out the stress; upon finishing of stress list then you can start workout the stress by planning on how you are going to over-come it. E.g. after you have the task list, you can start putting the timetable and action item to finish it.

4.     Observe the stress; this activity is important as it will act as a review checker whether the stress list if correct or not. Correct means you stress level is gone or at least lower and not correct means you are not having a genuine stress list then you need to repeat step 1-3 again.

5.     Divert the stress; we need to balance between project (work) and life, during office hours if you feel stress, it is beneficial to divert the stress by doing something else, some companies that have installed games box such as Wii, Xbox or playing table tennis, massage chairs, chill out zone etc. which are pretty effective for project manager to breakaway from work temporary during office hours. After office hours, catching up with friends over a cup of coffee or dinner or devotes his weekends into fun stuff such gardening, cycling, jogging, reading, etc; which is also a good way to shift yourself away from work. In summary anything that requires your immediate focus and full commitment will turn out to be a good activities for you to breakaway from your working routine and unwind.

These tips are actually generic and it can be applied to manage the stress for other areas.

Cheers.

How to gather requirement from user that has no time

One of the common activities in the project management is gathering the requirement. Gathering requirement is crucial milestone in the project that will drive time/schedule, cost, and surely scope. So it is very important to pass this milestone successfully.

During gathering the requirement, sometimes as a project manager, it will face difficult to gather it if the user has no time for discussion.

Few tips that will help to overcome such situation as below:

1.     Ready-made template with relevant content; it is essential to have ready-made template, e.g. in sheet format or table with relevant content between the requirement and the user. By having this template, it will save a lot of time for the discussion.

2.     Request other person that has been authorized by the user to have several round of discussion with him/her so we can convey to the user that we only discuss with him/her the thing that needs his/her decision

3.     Prepare clear agenda and duration so the user that has no time can see clearly the result of the discussion as people sometimes say has no-time because s/he think the meeting has no clear agenda. It is essential to link the agenda to overall project scope and time so the user can see how important to discuss and get the requirement

4.      If the entire above items has been performed and convey to the user and yet the user still says no time, it means escalation is required. During the escalation it is very important to explain that all preparation has been performed hence it is required for an escalation. Sometimes, some users may have different priorities or agendas and by having escalation and normally internal escalation within user organization will help to align the priorities and agendas of the user

Cheers.

Six Thinking Hats - Tools for Project Management

As a practical project manager, we will face the problem as our daily bread. One of the technique to understand and solve the problem is using De Bono's 6 Thinking Hat.

In summary as below :
1. White Hat -  facts, figures, and information
2. Red Hat - the opposite of White Hat -  feeling, emotion intuition, and sentiment
3. Black Hat -  judgement, careful, logical, critical and cautious
4. Yellow Hat - the opposite of Black Hat - optimism, positive thinking and constructive
5. Green Hat - creative thinking, suggestions, alternatives, ideas, proposals
6. Blue Hat - organzation of thingking, control of the other hats, act as a referee

With this technique as a practical project manager, we can use the hat at one time and be able to see the problem in the same perspective. So, as stated in De Bono's 6 Thinking Hat, it would has power to fully utilized the intelligence, experience, and knowledge of the group and everyone is on the same page to find the solution. It also will save the meeting time, remove all Ego and as a result clear thinking.


To get more detail explanation please go to Project Shrink Web Site that explain this technique in more detail Project Shrink - Six Thinking Hats and Project Management and also we can get presentation from De Bono for better understanding.

Good luck with your Hats.

Problem Solving Tools - Good Guide for Practical PM

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_TMC.htmBeing Practical PM, problem solving is 'the daily bread' for project manager; having a good problem solving tools is good start with. Here's the link from Mind Tool website for Problem Solving Skills

Cheers

Positive Thinking - PM must Attitude

Being practical project manager, it is essential to master how to harness positive thinking. Here's below the good article from Mind Tools website Using Affirmations - Harnessing Positive Thingking

Cheers.

Onion Peeling Technique - Tip for Troubleshooting Methodolgy

Onion Peeling Technique

Let’s learn from the peeling of Onion.

“Proceed peeling away onion layers. As you proceed to the center of the onion, they will go from dark, papery sheaves to lighter colored, more flexible pieces. Continue in this manner until you reach a somewhat sticky film on the light colored onion. This is the last layer that you need to remove. You can rub at the edges or get under this layer with the edge of your knife in order to get a hand- hold. Peel this final layer away from the onion and your onion is ready for use”.

This onion peeling technique is very good for troubleshooting. Every projects has challenges, issues, defects, problems, you name it. However, as project manager, we need to see what are the real challenges, issues, defects, and problems in the genuine form, as usually some of them will represent tip of iceberg.

The Onion peeling technique can manifest by asking smart questions several times, discussion with team member several times, looking at the patterns periodically, observing the graph from time to time; bottom line we need to find the final layer, the genuine problem and as we all very well aware, finding the genuine problem is already 50% of the solution.

So let’s peel the onion however for project management, one no needs to cry J.

Good luck

Free PM Forum

Below is the list of Free PM Forum

1. Allpm
Note:  Links to forums below require you to sign up for free membership. Active forum subjects include:

• Project Management – Career and Job Talk
• PM Help!
• Project Management Software and Tools
• Microsoft Project – Discussion and Assistance
• PM Certification
• Project Management Methodologies
• Best Practices
• Project Management Office
• Students of Project Management

allPM.com also offers a PMs for hire section in which you can post your resume by country, continent or region


 2. Gantthead - The Onine Community for IT Project Managers

Being an IT Project Manager can be a lonely job. You are responsible for a project that business people in your organization care a lot about. Someone may have over-committed you, and is now asking you why you're not done yet. You and your staff are working together to find solutions as best you can - but within your organization there is no one you can lean on for the answers you need.

 

No one is doing exactly what you are doing now within your company. This is why we built gantthead. Our mission is simple: To make IT project managers more successful.

 

gantthead is the experience bridge that fills in the gaps - providing help to project managers in a number of ways. It is a community, your community, for IT project managers.

 

Connections - to others who are managing projects like yours
A place to get started - processes that you can customize for your needs
Instant productivity boosts - deliverable templates & examples
Access to experts - real people who understand what you are going through
News that matters - stories that relate to what you are trying to accomplish
Advice you need - tips on the art of managing your effort
'Just-in-time' Consulting - Providing services ranging from answering questions, reviewing deliverables, and participating in meetings remotely. These services can be an hour on the phone with an expert or live consulting on your site, whichever is best for you.

So, please take a look around. Grab whatever you need - that's why we're here. If you don't find what you are looking for, drop us a line. We think you'll be surprised by our response.

 3. Program Management Knowledge Base
A Dedicated PM forum and lots of thread inside

Your Next Step

I encourage you right now to visit and join one of these forums.  See if you can check in at least weekly.  When the time comes for you to get assistance, you’ll know exactly who to ask.

 Cheers

Free Materials/Tools for Practical PM

Free Project Management Book

Free Project Management Tutor

Free Simple Project Management Tool

Grindstone

Dolphinity Organiser

TaskMerlin

Veedid Desktop To Do List Free Edition

Commonly Mistakes in the Project Management

There are many mistakes in the project management however being a practical project management, we need to be able to summarize it so it will be easier to remember and manage it.

Here’s are the commonly mistakes in the project management:

·      Lack of follow up action. The key message of follow up is CLOSE. It is crucial for project manager to follow up issues/action items and close it properly. The tip is every meeting makes Minutes of Meeting (MoM) and include follow up of action items/issues with the resolution date and have a discipline to follow it up, do not leave anything.

·      Late escalation. The key message of escalation is TIMELY MANNER. It is crucial as a project manager that s/he needs to escalate in the timely manner. This escalation is the result of follow up that requires higher intervention. Remember there is nothing wrong with escalation however as a project manager, s/he needs to escalate to right time and the right people.

So now let’s apply this into project management role (on time, on budget and in scope). E.g. one of issues that comes out from project meeting that there is one requirement is still not clear whether it is in scope or not. As a project manager, s/he needs to follow this up until it is clear or not by reviewing the requirement specification or have subsequent meeting, the follow up can take in any form of activity so we can see here follow up is crucial activity.  Let’s take sample that the result of the follow is confirmed that the requirement is out of scope and user confirm it is required for them. So this situation trigger as escalation to the higher management because it may impact time and budget since the project have more requirement than before. With timely manner escalation, a project manager can get approval or not for budget and time and s/he can inform the user or other project stakeholder about the result accordingly.

Remember, on time does not mean the project runs as per original schedule there always be a situation that the project may runs longer than the original. However, with proper follow up and escalation such deviation is acceptable because it is communicate properly amongst project stakeholder and surely need to be approved. This also applies for other such as on budget and in scope point of view.

So be focus on follow up and escalate properly.

Find the Kingpin

In the bowling game, Kingpin is the pin at the centre of the triangle of bowling pins and the player hit that pin precisely, it will make the Kingpin and the rest of the pin falls done and get maximum score!

In the project management, there is also a Kingpin whereby as a project manager it crucial to find him/her and use it as a Kingpin. By having Kingpin, the project manager will have better project management.

The Kingpin exists in all level, be it managerial and non-managerial. Obviously in managerial, the ultimate Kingpin is the Project Director or maybe even CEO or CTO or CIO whoever in the highest ranking in the project structure.

The challenge is to find the kingpin in non-managerial level such as project leader, tester, developer, etc. It takes several iterations to find the real kingpin just like in bowling, it requires several strikes to hit it and once it is hit the rest will fall.

Simple hint to find the Kingpin: observe, test few times with real case, find, and use it.

So let’s find the Kingpin!

Coffee Time

For project management, there is two type of meeting, which is formal meeting and informal meeting. Formal meeting normally such as periodic project meeting, Steering Committee Meeting, etc. The interesting one, during the project, we have also informal meeting, let’s call it “Coffee Time”.

Coffee time is very useful media to interact, communicate, discuss, debate to find solution, conclusion, alternative, comprise that makes project runs smoother. During Coffee time, people tends to relax, loosen up, easy to communicate with, laughable and in that moment as a project manager, we can use it to know more about project team member, their interest, hobbies, make joke out of problem, discuss problems/challenges, solutions, literally anything and that is crucial to make more bonding amongst project team members.

Coffee time does not merely have to be in the coffee shop and drinking a cup a coffee. Coffee time is just symbolic moment that as a project manager can use it, in non-formal mode, to discuss anything to make more bonding amongst project member so the project can runs smoother.

Have a good Coffee Time!

Forrest vs Tree - View Mode

Many times during the project as project manager, we need to have capability when we need to see 'Forest' or 'Trees'. In project management perspective, Forrest means a project manager sees the project in the global or high-level view. Trees means a project manager sees the project in the detail / meticulous view. Both views are required. Now the question when is the best time to see project in the Forest mode and when is the best time to see the project in the Trees mode.

Sample below will provide clear picture how to use both. In one of implementation time there always be testing period. The critical testing period is the period when user test the system/solution based on user experience, normally it called UAT. UAT has specific period and it is pre-requisites for Go-Live without UAT and approval from user, the system can not Go-Live.

In the Forest mode, a project manager needs to see the progress of UAT periodically to see whether it is on schedule or not (remember project management role), however in Tree mode, a project manager need to see detail project for each subject are of the UAT, say UAT has 8 subjects area. In Tree mode, a project manager need to see the progress accordingly, say using graphical format.

If there is one or more slow progress in the subject area of the UAT, a project manager can easily track that one and can act in the timely manner to solve the slowness of the progress and make the overall UAT schedule back on track.

So as a project manager, we have Forrest and Tree view-mode hence use it wisely.

Project Management Role

Dear Project Managers
Let me summarize of what exactly the role of project manager and since this blog is dedicated for practical project management so it should be simple and easy to remember. The role is as simple as 1,2,3, as following:
1. Project runs on schedule
2. Project runs on budget
3. Project runs in scope

So everytime you run a project always remember this : on schedule, on budget, and in scope.

Cheers.