August 2008 - Posts

• Corsica, here I come!

  This is a quick post to let you know that Go Ahead, Manage will be slowing down in September. I am going for a well-deserved month-long vacation to Corsica. This gorgeous island in the Mediterranean sea is home to one the mythic trekking trails, the GR-20. So while I will be away from AceProject, Websystems and the Internet, I will still be managing a project: walking across the "isle of beauty," as it is called by the French. Preparing for a 20-day trek was no small project either. There's the equipment (carrying everything you need on your back forces you to make difficult choices), then there's the logistics of it all, the budget (hiking in Europe is not cheap!) and finally there is training to make sure we enjoy the trip. Thanks to AceProject, we were able to list everything we needed to do and get it all done in time. It's been a great year preparing for Corsica. We can't wait to set foot on the shores, and live this adventure. Since I will be away, posting will be down to once a week. I'm sure this month away from Websystems will be a great source of inspiration when I get back. Enjoy September! Posted Aug 29 2008, 08:27 AM by Karine with no comments

• The cool tools your never used again

  We see them all the time on the web: cool tools. Websites that offer a service that is original, technically advanced, or just fun. If you read a lot of blogs, you probably check out at least one of those cool tools every week. How many of those make the move from cool new tool to tools you use regularly? There are three reasons why you won't keep using a cool tool:    1. It's not usable enough    2. It's not fitted for what you do  Not usable enough: I want Sandy I wanted to use this service. It's really cool. It's an automated assistant that you can email back and forth with, to build lists, keep track of appointments and receive reminders. Somehow I never could master the Sandy's syntax. I tried a few times, couldn't get Sandy to do what I wanted, and I gave up. Not fitted to what I do: Cymbolism This is another very cool service. You search for a word, like powerful, and cymbolism returns a chart with the colors people said they associated with that word. I really enjoyed adding my vote or color associations with words, I and also really liked researching words and looking at the colors that were associated with those words. Unfortunately, I'm not a designer. Although this cool tool is a great reference for graphic design, it's just not for me. Usable and useful: GMarks   If a tool works well and is useful enough, you will keep using it. For example, I loooooove GMarks. Gmarks creates a menu in FireFox, where I can store my bookmarks. However, those bookmarks are also available on Google Bookmarks. It's very easy to use: you save the bookmark to GMarks the same way as you would a regular bookmark. It's very useful: not only can I synchronize my bookmarks across several computers, but I can get my bookmarks even if I'm in an Internet café halfway across the world from home. What about you? How about your cool tool? Are people coming back to it, again and again? Which one do you use? Posted Aug 27 2008, 09:45 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: product development, usability

• Need/Product mismatch?

  ESI International published a report, stating "project management and business analysis software tools met or exceeded expectations for only 10.5 percent of respondents." This means that, according to their survey, nearly 9 out of 10 people are not satisfied with their project management system. That's a lot! Is there no satisfaction to be had from project management software? Is there not a project management tool that can do what the market needs? Wait. What DOES the market need, anyway? This is where things get tricky.  No one needs the same thing in a project management system. When I do a demonstration for AceProject, before I even start, I ask two questions: What do you guys do? Tell me about your organization What are you looking for in a project management tool? I have yet to receive two identical answers. Of course, there are basic things that come up: time sheets, email reminders, estimates versus actuals, client access, etc. However, every organization is using a slightly different method for project management, every manager is looking for different metrics to assess his team's performance. That's why no one is completely satisfied with their project management system. If there was a tool that could do everything, it would have so many features it wouldn't be usable. Tools don't make projects successful. People do. At the end of the day (or the project), if your team is not working well or if your client won't ever be happy with what you deliver, having the best project management tool cannot fix that. Likewise, if you have a great team, your project can be successful even if you're using the crappiest project management system. Posted Aug 25 2008, 09:44 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: project management

• I hate the word resources

  In project management and in management in general, the word resource is seen often. According to Wikipedia, a resource is any physical or virtual entity of limited availability, or anything used to help one earn a living.  This includes: Space: meeting rooms, offices Furniture: desk, chair Equipment: computer, tools Humans: people, coworkers How can one put people in a list of resources? A person is not a resource, she is a person. She cannot be reserved, allocated and definitely should not be sold or bought. She cannot be stored until you need her again. Treating your teams just like your material resources dehumanizes. A human is not something you need to accomplish a goal. A human is the reason why your organization exists: to provide goods and/or services to other humans. Humans should be more than numbers and work-hours that can be contributed.  Humans are the foundation of any company. They should be recognized as such. Posted Aug 22 2008, 09:44 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: teamwork, humans

• Making status meetings fun is possible - yes, I promise!

  Regular status meetings are boring: everyone goes around the table and rehashes what they did in the last week or month. No one really cares. If the project dates are slipping, the team wants the meeting to be over with so they can get back to doing something useful. But status meetings can be fun! Yes, I know, it's a strange concept. But I've seen it happen. I was doing documentation on a software development team. The team was implementing agile development practices, and they were planning to do a release every month. This meant a big meeting with marketing, sales, the whole development team. It was important for the project lead to include the whole company in that project. She felt that it would bring the two worlds of development and marketing/sales together, that it would help people understand the other side. Since everyone had things to do in the project, I suggested that we make something visual, like a board, to monitor out progress. The rest of the team thought I was crazy, they humored me. So I built this huge board and pasted a giant photograph on it. It was about the size of 6 letter-sized pages. Then I cut out squares of colorful cardboard and pinned them over the picture, so I was the only one who knew what was behind the cardboard. Each one of those pieced of cardboard corresponded to a task in the project. It could be a feature, or finishing documentation, and even the first sale was there. So developers, marketers and sales reps all had at least a square or do to "unpin" from the board. The first month, when we did the first "unpinning," people thought it was really lame and corny. But something happened. People kept their pieces of cardboard and pinned them on the walls of their cubicles. Those pieces of yellow and purple cardboard became trophies. On the second monthly meeting, people were clapping those who got to "unpin" and there was a feeling of pride in the room. The board was displayed at the entrance of the R&D department. It gave a very visual impression of how far along the project was. And so people came to like those status meetings. Making status meetings fun means changing how it's done Status meetings should not be just about reporting what happened. They should be about accomplishment. They should be there to reward the people who did good, and motivate those who are having difficulties. If no one wants to go to the meeting, what's the point of having the meeting? Posted Aug 20 2008, 09:44 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: project management, teamwork

• How to lose a sale, now and forever

  At Websystems, we have IP phones that forward our voicemail messages to our email addresses. This is very convenient, since we can forward the message to the appropriate person easily. The voicemail notification also contains any special information entered by the caller, such as confidential or urgent. Naturally, when I saw a voicemail marked urgent in my inbox, I listened to it right away. It could be a client with a problem that is keeping his team from working. It wasn’t. About 20 seconds into the message, I realized the call was not an emergency; it was a sales pitch, for an outsourced sales call service. I immediately stopped listening to the message and deleted it. My only regret is that I didn’t catch the product’s name. If I had, I would have made sure I never buy that product or any product from that company. Leaving a fake urgent message to make sure I listen to it is disrespectful. It’s bad salesmanship. While it did get me to listen to the message, it had the opposite effect. It convinced me never to buy the very product he was trying to sell. You get only one chance to make a good first impression. He blew it. This salesperson blew it for his product and his whole company. If he had left me a regular voicemail message, I would have called back, if only to let him know whether we are interested in the product. It’s the decent thing to do. The first contact with a potential client is so crucial. The impression they will get of your company and your product will be shaped by the way they feel they are treated on that first contact. Guess who’s the first contact? Sales. Sales is one of the most important parts of the customer service team. They should be held up to the same standards of respect, courtesy and integrity as the rest of the company. Posted Aug 18 2008, 09:00 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: customer service, sales

• Dates, Dates, Dates

  Spore is the computer gaming world's most anticipated release. Well, it was in 2005, and in 2006, and 2007. It should be released this month. Wired has a nice recap of the release dates' evolution. Two whole years late. Spore has been set to release "in a few months" for the last two years. How does that happen? While it's perfectly understandable to have problems and delays in the development of such a groundbreaking game, I am curious to know what made the game so late. When the creators demoed the game at the E3 conference in late 2005, they expected the game to be finished and ready to ship. And yet, we are almost 3 years later and it has not been released. Is this a good example of bad project management, or a yet better example that, no matter how well the project is managed, sometimes Murphy weighs heavily in the balance?             Posted Aug 15 2008, 08:39 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: time management

• Can time be managed?

  I am presently working on a glossary of terms related to project management. As I was looking for definitions of time management, I found this interesting comment on Wikipedia: "In a 2001 interview[2], David Allen observed: You can't manage time, it just is. So "time management" is a mislabeled problem, which has little chance of being an effective approach. What you really manage is your activity during time, and defining outcomes and physical actions required is the core process required to manage what you do."   Yet another thing to ponder. Time goes by at a constant speed, regardless of how we feel about or what we are doing.  But what can we do? Everyone can make the best of their time. In a project, it's important to wonder if those 4-hour meetings are really an efficient use of the team's time (they're not). We shouldn't think about managing our time, but about using our time efficiently. Is it more efficient to research a problem for several hours on Google or to ask your colleagues about the solution?  Is it more efficient to update your AceProject tasks with the latest info, or to tell each person individually about it? Is it more efficient to email everyone a document and manage comments in the email replies, or to send them the link to the document, and have them type their comments directly in the project management system? Old habits are hard to break, but they're often worth the effort and will free up some time in your busy schedule.   Posted Aug 13 2008, 09:42 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: time management

• Failures get more visibility than sucessses

  I saw this comic this morning. The text reads: "Do a million things right and no one notices, do one thing wrong and it gets cc'ed all over the office." Why does failure get more attention than success? As much as we should learn from our failures, it's also important to learn from our successes. What went right? Why? How can we replicate it in the next projects? It feels strange to think about successes that way, but knowing the recipe to your success ensures you can succeed consistently.   Posted Aug 12 2008, 07:25 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: project management, humor

• About herding cats

  It's hard enough getting clear deliverables in a project, keeping them that way is just like herding cats.  If the project lasts long enough, you can bet the deliverables for the project will be modified. Here are 3 common things that will affect the deliverables: Adding a feature to the product Changing requirements Adding another stakeholder New features There are always great ideas to be had, once everything is decided and the developers are scheduled to the minute. One can't stifle creativity, and great ideas deserve to be taken into consideration. However, one must carefully weigh the impact the new feature will have on three factors: How much more sales this feature will bring How much time will the feature take to develop How the new feature will affect everything else in the product If the cost of adding the feature (the time and complexity added to the project) is higher than is impact on revenue, it would be a good idea to understand better why the feature must be added. Even more so if the project schedule is already tight and the delivery date cannot be moved. Unless your team has a time machine or a crystal ball, this could spell disaster for your product and project. New requirements Just like features, requirements tend to be modified along the way by changing needs. Instead of great ideas, the situation is more of the we-didn't-think-of-this type. First of all, if your organization makes a habit of we-didn't-think-of-this, project managers should make a point of being extra careful with requirements documents. Adding an operating system to a software requirements documents, for example, can seriously impact the project. Just like new features, before accepting the new requirement, it's imperative that one evaluates the cost VS benefit brought by this requirement. New stakeholders New stakeholders carry the highest risk on your project deliverable and the project itself. Every person has their own way of doing things, and they will want their opinions and methods to be included in the process. The only problem being, the process is already under way. Instead of trying to shove the new guy aside, it's worth the time to explore what they bring to the table. They would not be added to the project for now reason (or so  one would hope).  By being open to the stakeholder, you may be able to reconcile the methods already in place with his methods, or at least negotiate an compromise that gives your project a chance of success. Being open is hard When things are started, it's hard to change course. No one likes to reevaluate decisions that have already been made. But the reality is, life changes all the time. If there is one thing you can be sure about your project, it's that something new will pop: new requirements, new features, new people, new deliverables altogether. If you are open to this possibility, you may find inspiration and motivation in tackling these changes in your projects. Posted Aug 08 2008, 10:49 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: project management, product development

• Good service pays

  Sometimes it's hard to be nice to everyone, all the time. Some people just don't get along, and it takes a lot of self-control to keep treating them as well as any other customer.  In fact, it may even feel downright impossible. However, these difficult customers can also turn into your best advocates. When demanding people are satisfied with what you offer, they will stick with your product or service for a long time because they know how hard it is to find a company that can perform to their standard of quality. Over time, we see the benefits of this policy. People change jobs, and they will bring AceProject into their new company. And now all the energy we spent on making the original client happy pays off: the new client is already sold, and we have someone on the inside who can be an advocate for AceProject. Posted Aug 07 2008, 10:22 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: customer satisfaction

• Confusion: interface design's enemy

  Interface design is an intriguing and widely diverse world. There are as many ways to make a text box as there are designers on the planet. I like getting to a site and seeing a new, original way to design a web site's navigation. However, I cannot stand interfaces that confuse me. Here are the two most confusing types: There are so many buttons, links, and other gizmos trying to grab my attention that I cannot choose where I should go next. The design metaphor is so obscure I can't even find where to click next.  Those pages feel like no one outside the design team saw them before they were published. It's as if the design team spent so much time tweaking and refining their work, they lost sight of the reason for the page's existence.  That doesn't mean a web page or system interface can't have a lot going on. It must be clear what's the next step. When on gets to AceProject's web page, they see this: There are a lot of links in there, and a lot of text. However, the most prominent buttons in the page say STEP 1, STEP 2, STEP 3. It's obvious we want you to try the demo first, then create a free account, then purchase a subscription.  The best design is not the most beautiful The best design is the most effective. It gets people to do what you want them to do.         Posted Aug 04 2008, 10:44 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: product development

• Fix it right the first time

  My washing machine has died on me. It's only when these things failed that we realize how much use we get out of them. I know, I know, it's cliché. Try to tell that to my growing mountain of laundry... Luckily, I had purchased an extended warranty plan, so fixing the thing won't cost me money. So after calling the repair company, waiting two days for a callback, then waiting another day for the technician to show up, I am hoping he will be able to fix my ailing washing machine in one visit. How naive of me. It's now been 2 weeks, 2 visits from technicians, and a couple visits to the laundromat. I still don't have a working washing machine. There's always a new part that needs to be replaced. Nobody will be surprised that I am getting impatient here. I keep wondering why the technician didn't thoroughly inspect my washing machine and made sure he found all the broken parts. The reason is simple: the shorter the service call is, the more service calls the technician can make in a day.  The more service call he makes, the more productive he looks. At least on paper. That's the short-sighted way of looking at productivity. In my case, if the tech had spend 45 minutes looking at my washing machine instead of ten, in the end it would have saved a lot of time and at least a couple visits from the technician. Taking the short way is rarely better Because we want to feel that we accomplished something and we want to fix things, we'll stop looking at the first sign or a solvable problem, and fix that.  The good feeling of having fixed the problem blinds us to the fact we may have fixed the symptom of the problem, and not the actual cause. In project management, like washing machine repair, it pays to understand the problem before going in a fixing frenzy.  Fixing it right the first time pays. Posted Aug 01 2008, 08:56 AM by Karine with no comments Filed under: project management