Will Working on Projects Help You Be Less Stressed?

I was talking with a business manager the other day about organizing a presentation for her group. She said, "It's always so hectic around here, people aren't so organized. Let's see if they have time to attend the session."

I replied, "Well, there you go. Project management can help with that!"

How can working with a project mindset help with organization?

First, there's the defining of the project itself and its scope. What are we doing and not doing? Clarifying that will help keep focus and eliminate unnecessary efforts.

Then there's the schedule. What has to be done next? Can someone else do part of the work concurrently to save time? Knowing what is to be done when can help reduce the running-around-with-the-head-cut-off routine.

And there's risk analysis. What should we take care of now and what money can we put aside for in case uncertain events occur? Then we can rest assured we have taken care of the what-if's and what-may-happen and get on with the job.

These are just a few examples of how organizing work into projects can reduce stress. But let's not forget communications – lack of proper communications can cause many headaches in a project. That's why identifying who is interested in the project, who can affect it positively and negatively, and how the stakeholders want to be communicated with, is so important.

If we can define these things at the beginning of the project and keep an eye on them as we go along, we will have a stronger project.

Have You Got Plans?

Last week my daughter and I were sitting down to breakfast. I asked Shannon what her plans were for the day and she told me. Then she asked me the same thing.

I said, "I plan to have x results."

Shannon retorted, "That's not a plan!"

"What?" I asked.

She reminded me that a plan has to do with what you are going to do, not the results you want. Touche, Shannon! (I should know better. 😉)

The Desiderata for Projects

You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
(from “The Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann, 1927)

My brother Jim gave me a poster with the Desiderata poem on it for Christmas when I was a kid. The poem was quoted by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau when his government lost its majority in the 1972 federal election; he said, “The universe is unfolding as it should.”

Morgan Freeman told Oprah Winfrey that the Desiderata shaped his life.

If you are in the middle of a project or two, the Desiderata has some good advice for projects, as well, such as:

• Project Risk: Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. (Remember the Utility Theory of Risk.)
• Project Communications: Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others.
• Project Integration: And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. (Useful to remember when we’re keeping the project together.)
• Project Human Resources: Enjoy your achievements, as well as your plans. (Remember to build in those recognitions and awards and never forget project planning!)

On "The Way"

I just got back from walking part of "The Camino" in Spain with three of my grown-up children. On our route, we stopped in a few towns. There, we would check in at an information office or store to see how to get out of town and back on the trail. When we asked where the Camino was, the answer was always, "You are on it!" We thought it was pretty amazing that we were still "on the way" without realizing it.

Were we guided? Probably - it felt like it.

It got me thinking that, with a route to follow in our projects (a project plan), we are also on the way to a destination. If we check in every now and then (often enough), we can know what we need to do to "stay the path" and achieve our goal.

Happy trails!

Mindfulness and Project Management

I was reading a book on mindfulness the other day. The author, who was also a manager, found she was always thinking of planning her next project when she wanted to be focusing on what she was doing. So she came up with a workable solution: she set aside time for planning. When she wasn't in this planning time, she would focus on what she was doing. When she was in the planning time, she focused on planning. Seems to me a good way to be efficient.

In thinking about mindfulness and project management, I did some internet searching and found this article, which I hope you like: Be a Mindful Project Manager by Kiron Bondale.

Get Control of Your Projects

Project management is about getting things done, and it’s not just for large organizations. We all want to find ways to reach our goals more quickly and efficiently.

When thinking of our work, we can think of it as a list of items we want to achieve - this can be the basis for our projects. For example, running a marketing campaign or organizing the accounts better. List each item and note when you want it done.

It might be a long list. That's okay. The next step is to prioritize your list. Rather than diving into what can be done quickly (although that has value), take a step back and determine which item will give you the most return.

Although some items might seem urgent, are they important? Here are some questions you can use for prioritizing your work:

    * Which projects will help the me or the organization grow? If we are a small business owner, they might be the same thing. (For example, what can we do to expand our skills or move into new markets - think longer term.)
    * Which projects must I do to meet regulatory or legal requirements? (Can't ignore these but you can figure out when they really need to be done. Also, do you need to do them or can you delegate much of the work?)
    * Which projects can be done quickly? (Don't rush into these - there can be satisfaction from clearing them off your plate but sometimes doing the small items can mean we never make room for things that take more thought.)
    * Which projects can I delegate? (For example, by using services from a colleague in bookkeeping or marketing.) This one is sometimes hardest to do, especially for small business owners, in terms of control and knowing it is worth paying others for doing what they are skilled in so we can focus on our own strengths and services.

You are using "project selection criteria" and "project ranking" here.

For me, breaking down the work and prioritizing means peace of mind - and isn't that the reason for a control system?

“Done” for Wealth and Project Success

Twice this week I have read how the word “done” can bring wealth and project success.

According to Brian de Haaff (The One Word That Will Make You Rich on LinkedIn), being rich is about achieving what you have dreamed of accomplishing, and using the word “done” can confirm you’ve achieved it.

Similarly, Glen B. Alleman in Performance-Based Project Management states that being able to define what “done” looks like is the basis for project success.

So, if getting things done brings happiness and success, and completing projects successfully is getting things done, who could be happier than the project managers of successful projects?!

Alleman gives advice on increasing the probability of project success through answering “Five Immutable Principles”:

• What does “done” look like?
• How are you going to reach “done”?
• Do you have all the resources you need to reach “done”?
• What impediments will you encounter along the way to “done”?
• How are you going to measure progress towards “done” in units meaningful to the decision makers?

PMPs will recognize that these questions cover a lot of ground from the PMBOK. But even if you are not an official project manager, these questions can be helpful to achieving any goal.

And this article is... “done”!

One Step at a Time

I had the best business advice ever last week. Karen Mombourquette, my tarot card reader, said, "Take everything a step at a time."

I laughed; assuredly this was the best advice for me, as I was starting a trend of over-committing to multiple projects. I was ignoring a simple truism of Project Management: break down the work into manageable steps and follow the plan.

I am now getting back on goal and following Karen’s advice. For the work I have already committed to, I am taking a step back and saying, "Okay, how can I get what I said I would do done?" The answer falls in line with Karen's advice: break it down! (Where was that WBS when I needed it?!)

One small step at a time can get us to big results. And no small steps, of course, leads to foggy thinking and nothing getting done.

(Thanks Karen!)

Managing Summer Interns

During the summer, organizations often take on students for intern positions. I have hired a few students over the years and find that it's important to have a plan for what they are going to do. No plan means it takes a lot more of my time.

Here's an article with helpful tips for employing summer interns:

3 Tips for Successfully Managing Summer Interns

I hope your summer is off to a great start!

Big Data and Project Estimates

March Madness is due to hit in full force soon. I try to ignore this fact but my husband warns me every year when the season is approaching (so I can know why he is hibernating).

For those who aren’t basketball fans, March Madness is the American (United States) National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments.

This year it is especially big news because Warren Buffett, together with his company, Berkshire Hathaway, are offering $1 billion to any person who can correctly pick the winners of all 63 games in this year’s NCAA men’s college basketball tournament. The odds, without tools, are 1 in 9.2 quintillion.

To add to your chances of winning, Paul Bessire has created an application called The Predictalator. He says this software has been incredibly accurate in predicting outcomes of sports games. If you want to spend time on going for the billion, there’s a tool.

The Predictalator analyzes multitudes of factors and converts them into probable outcomes.

Let’s apply these estimates to projects. If we had a project with 64 team members (just like there are 64 teams in the Men’s NCAA tournament), and asked each team member for an estimate on an activity, we would have 1 in 9.2 quintillion odds that all of the estimates would be correct; correct meaning exactly equal to the actual outcome. If we had only 64 activities in a project – which would be a pretty small project – and had one estimate for duration for each activity, again the odds would be 1 in 9.2 quintillion that the total estimate would be on target.

Which leads me to think – why do project managers, sponsors, team members and clients (okay, project stakeholders in general) often expect projects to be “on” their estimates? Certainly the odds are wildly against that.

Of course, as we get closer to the end, our estimates for the project budget and duration are much more accurate – just like when we get down to the final game in a basketball tournament.

While The Predictalator teaches us there is no safe bet on games or projects, perhaps a good webinar for basketball bettors would be on Rolling Wave Planning, to continuously update their estimates.

Project Management Truisms Ring True

I went to a fascinating presentation on lessons learned from projects yesterday. The two presenters analyzed ten projects they had worked with and came up with twelve lessons learned. I listened intently.

Of great interest to me was that these were not project management professionals and did not even use the term 'project management' in their talk. What lessons did they come up with? Among them were:

1. Senior leadership needs to be committed to the process and open to the outcome.
2. Make sure the purpose and intention of your project are clear. If you are confused, everyone else will be too.
3. Go slow to go fast. Planning and implementing an effective and meaningful project takes time. Are you ready for this?

Do these findings sound familiar to you? The findings underlined for me that the theories of project management ring true. The personnel involved in these projects discovered these truths from their own experience.

So, I conclude that whether you think in project terms or not, having a sponsor you can rely on, having a clear vision and purpose for what you are doing, and planning are fundamental principles of success for any work.

Risk and Dr. Seuss

I was talking with a friend over Christmas who told me of a crisis she had been through. She was in a foreign country and received word that a large contract of hers back home was having major unexpected difficulties.

Here she was, far from home and her customer. What was her first thought? Panic. The second was “Hold on a minute, what can I solve by panicking?” So she called a colleague who helped her out, she put the situation in a positive frame in her mind, and let it go.

The result? The contract wasn’t cancelled, things settled, and my friend got to enjoy her holiday at peace. Whether the contract was cancelled or not, my friend had decided that it would all work out, so that was a success in itself.

As Project Managers, we have decisions to make all of the time. Some of these decisions may cause us stress if we feel out of control. So - what to do? Besides having a risk strategy in place, with risk responses planned for those potential threats or opportunities, having the mindset to deal with stress can go a long way. If we know that things can happen and frequently do (thanks Dr. Seuss!), then we can handle them. Of course, when we work out how to proceed if a crisis does occur, we don’t need to focus on the potential problems and can dig up the prepared solution when/if they happen. Like having the masks ready-to-go on the airplanes.

May you be off to Great Places!

Reaching Project Goals and the Law of Attraction

Do you manage projects, large or small? If so, have you thought about how completing a project successfully and using the Law of Attraction are alike? Being interested in both topics, I have thought about this interaction quite a bit. And here is my view.

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), a project is “a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.” So, our goal in a project is to create a particular product, service or result.

How do we perform this creation? One of the main things we will do is to build a picture/description of the outcome, and get agreement on it. For example, if our project is to create a website for our company,  we define the overall look of the website, how many pages the site is to include, and the site’s purpose before we get down to work. Thus, we are defining the scope of the project. When we do this, we almost always visualize the end-result and work from there.

So, how is this similar to getting what you want through the Law of Attraction? The Law of Attraction is based on the premise that if we can see and believe what we want, we will attain it. So, like in a project, we are seeing and focusing on what we want.

In a project, this focus and belief in the end-goal provides not only a focal point for project team members, but also gives motivation – the team working towards a goal. If you have worked on a project where all team members had the goal in mind, you will know the feeling of synergy and excitement that can result from this “beginning with the end in mind” as Steven Covey says.

Why not try it, if you have not already, in your work and personal life? Imagine the desired results (outcome) to get results! As you do so, ideas on how these results may come about might spring to your mind, or maybe you will find yourself doing things that help bring about the outcome. Whichever way it happens for you, please email me with your results, I would love to hear your stories.

Starting Something New?

In this day and age many businesses are working on incorporating online tools into their product portfolio. If you are, you might want to consider planning before you begin your exciting new project.

Here are four guidelines:

1. Begin with the end in mind. Stephen Covey’s maxim holds true for any project. Before you can start any venture or project, you must know what you want!
2. Gather a support team. It is hard to work by yourself. In fact, we cannot achieve many goals without the involvement of other people. Build in support for yourself and your project. Think about whose help you will need in achieving your aims, and get in touch with them. It might take a few conversations to get the ball rolling, but you will eventually find it much easier to achieve your project goals with the right team in place.
3. Identify everything you need to do to achieve your goal. You will want the help of your team to do this. Maybe you will have a brainstorming meeting where everyone feels welcome to shout out their ideas about the tasks required. Once you have identified what needs to be done, you can put the tasks in order and figure out how long each will take and who will do them.
4. Document! Don’t forget to put your plan in writing. This will make tracking and keeping control much easier. As well, any decisions about your project, such as what tools you will use or who does what, should be documented.

Work Breakdown: Structure!

Last week was a busy one for me. Programs to design, questions to answer, and preparing for a project that I just couldn't get my mind around. It was too big. There were too many risks. I didn't want to face it.

So, there I was, ignoring what I have to do and feeling the subconscious strain from that. I pride myself on not being a worrier but I think this ignoring strategy got the better of me. I got a head cold - a great excuse not to use my brain.

And then it dawned on me. I was not using the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)... and my structure was breaking down. The overload on the brain of looking at the work in one big chunk was terrifying me. It was overwhelming.

I broke down the areas of the project and it was amazingly simple. As soon as I saw the work and what had to be done - and figured out the time - I breathed a sigh of relief. This was going to be easy.

Even though I teach and preach about WBS’s all the time, I sometimes lose sight of the basics. They work!