'Resurrection' is life....Well, hold on!....I am not being philosophical...atleast not at a level that i will start giving you dictums of wisdoms. But i can definitely share with you something that i am absolutely sure all of you must have faced and experienced ( or something similar) somewhere in your personal/professional life.
Somethings things go great and sometimes they don't...that's just life...
And when they dont, that is when it becomes a cause of concern. Be it a Project worth 1000s or millions of dollars or be it your pefectly planned weekend getaway gone awry.
So professionally, to manage these situations, we have this breed of specimen called 'Project Managers' - whose job is to ensure things stay on track. Project Managers ensure that the project are run and executed smoothly, Projects meet their set goals and objectives and we all achieve and even overachieve our targets.
Examples of Awry
Personal
In our personal lives, say, we buy a house, we start to pay our mortgages diligently and then somewhere down the line, we miss a payment due to something unforeseen - a medical emergency, a job/family situation, mortgage plan changes etc, we start spiraling down the Rabbit hole.
Professional
Imagine a situation when you are on a project that is just not going the way as planned, the reports are all pointing that things have started to go wrong and it is time to raise the red flag....Hopefully you find this, before the Captain asks to abandon ship.
So what do we do when things start spiraling the path it was not meant to be...a Project down on its knees...
A Policy Admin implementation which kicked off with a much held fanfare and furore but suddenly somewhere down the way failed to keep up.
I have been a part of such a project which i will say, is a classic case study for this article. This project was a 3 year - multi Million dollar Enterprise level P&C Admin apps Setup project. It was a new organization entering P&C business that had engaged us for a policy, billing and claims solution setup....Successfully execution would have made the careers of many a people on the project, not to mention the benefits to the client, if it had met the roadmap timelines.
Initially things went well as planned for a few months then we started missing deadlines, good resources were leaving the project, client was having 2nd thoughts on using us as successful partners. It came to such a point that our consulting Org was threatened with a liability lawsuit, as we had risked the client's plan of going live with its new programs and products in a new market that would have really given them a competitive edge.
How did we come out of this mess.
First Things First
First we calmly took stock of where were on the project
- We had all our key stakeholders, responsible parties together. Tried to understand and outline how and where things went wrong.
Once we know the 'what' and 'why's, we decide to focus our energies positively, be constructive and stay away from the blame game as it was not going to help anyone....we remained focused and started to work on 'how' to fix the problem.
Come up with a plan to go from point A to point B
We had regular meetings with the Stakeholders and finally arrived at a consensus on what needed to be done
In your case, it may include things like,
Timeline changes
- Extending the project timeline
Scope changes
- changing the work scope to fit the timeline
Resourcing changes
- Lining up your A resources to get the job done, shuffling resources per competencies
Cost and budget changes
- Increase project budget
Unthinkable option
- Dumping the project altogether. Sadly, this happens in many cases when you are on a time bound project and you completely miss it.
Once you have the plan ready, make sure to dot your Is and cross your Ts. Have an executive summary of your plan ready. This will serve you 2 purposes, you will need it to convince your project sponsors that you are taking the necessary steps to get on track and the funding should continue.
Also this presentation will also help curb the project level noise, if any. You can use the same presentation with maybe a little tweaks for removing your team fears on where the project is going. Proper communication within Team is absolutely essential.
Later on, when things get back on track and project completes successfully(i am sure!...), remember to have a lessons learned session with the whole Team so we learn from our mistakes and future run is a lot smoother.
One of the major takeaway for our project case was, have regular status reports, meetings set that will highlight slippages right at the onset.
Summary
So all in all, as they say...'stuff happens'...It is all about how do we separate the men from the boys and get our act together and make sure all of us march towards the common goal of a successful project implementation.
Let me know if you all agree or have a different perspective, input on things based on your experiences.
Showing posts with label Communications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communications. Show all posts
Monday, December 2, 2013
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Project Manager as a Business Analyst
Project Manager and Business Analyst roles both require unique skillsets and are definitely unique specializations. The well balanced combination of the two is a key contributor towards any project success.
Sometimes there is a need for the same person to assume both the roles. When Project Managers assume the role of a Business Analyst (One of the reasons for this may be a small budget project), there are a lot of factors that come into play due to this.
In all these years working in the Insurance IT Industry, i have seen numerous Projects suffer when the role to person matching is not perfect.
Reasons:
As mentioned above some projects may or may not have the luxury of a separate role for a Business Analyst. This may be due to varying reasons based on,
1> Overall Project scope
2> Project Budget allocated
3> Available resource knowledge base
4> Most importantly, no clear understanding of the difference between these 2 roles by the stakeholders and sponsors
When the Project Manager assumes the role of a Business Analyst, there are some things he has to keep in mind to ensure success in the role. This BA role essentially fits quite snugly in the Project Manager's domain due to the fact that both the roles require managing client expectations and having clear and concise client interactions. One role is focused towards successfully gathering project business requirements (Business Analyst) and the other geared towards entire project success (Project Manager).
Common factors:
The skillsets that are common for both Project Management and Business analysis are,
1> First and foremost is Communication skills
2> Understanding the entire the project lifecycle
3> Strong Stakeholder Management skills
Specific skills:
Skillsets that are specific to the Business Analyst role are,
1> Strong business process background
2> Understanding of Business analysis as a work function wrt gathering, analyzing and documenting requirements
3> Understanding people management wrt Business Analysis
Certain things to be kept in mind by the project manager when assuming the role of a Business analyst.
Success Factors:
1> Being completely aware of the business processes
For the Project Manager to be successful as a Business Analyst, he has to understand the business overall, the business process flow, the business value chain. Without the knowledge of these process areas, the Project Manager will not be able to meet the expectations for the BA role.
You usually acquire this knowledge by working for a number of years in the Industry.
For example: In my case, being in the Insurance IT domain, interacting with Business people for over 12 years now, gives exposure to all areas of Insurance business processes like Policy, Billing and Claims etc.
Along with this, having a Project Management exposure is a definite plus, as it gives you the overall 360 degree view of the entire project gamut and thus helps streamline your thinking process.
2> Complete awareness of the Stakeholders expectations from the project.
Since both project Manager and BA role both deal with stakeholders, there is a big difference between the 2 roles. One role is more concerned with the overall Project success by meeting stakeholder expectations (PM role), whereas the other role (BA) is more concerned with the business process expectations that must be fulfilled on completion of the project.
You have to be constantly interacting with the Stakeholders so that you understand their expectations, pain points etc
3> Ensure the Business SMEs and End Users are aligned and aware of the project goals and objectives, the high level executive direction outlined for the project.
As mentioned above, since business stakeholders, Subject Matter Experts, End Users may be aware of a specific area of project objective (i.e. Project will help in enhancing and executing XYZ business process in a shorter time frame and efficient manner), but it helps them to be aware of overall project objectives (e.g. Project will help achieve XYZ functionality more efficiently based on the requirements gathered in next 2 weeks and developed over the next 6 weeks duration for a certain cost and resource outlined)
4> Project Business documentation expectations
Project Manager may be aware of the overall Business Analyst Role expectations from the delivery perspective, he has to be able to create Functional requirements documents, Gap documents, Use cases, UI specifications etc documentation as the case may be.
5> Help Quality and Testing Team in their analysis and Q&A
Business Analyst along with the business stakeholders also has to be cognizant of the other members playing specific roles attributing to project success e.g. Quality Analysis Team, Process Management Team, Testing and infrastructure Teams.
Also last but not the least, Business analysts have to be somewhat of a Techo functional experts meaning along with understanding the Business aspects of the project, they also have to understand the technical dependencies, implications, risks posed by certain requirements and thereby come up with possible solutions alternatives. Business analysts are essentially bridges between the End business users and development Teams. They understand and gather the business requirements and translate and transform them to Specifications, use cases and functional requirement documentations which will make it easy for the technical developers to follow and design and code accordingly. These documentation will then also be used by the Testing and Quality Team so they can base their Test Cases and Test scenarios off them.
So in essence, Project Manager is more concerned or related to the big picture and the totality to complete the project, while a Business Analyst is more closer to the requirement understanding, gathering and documenting tasks. Both the roles have certain commonalities and some differences, but it certainly helps in the project success, if the 2 roles have a good background of the other role and its expectations.
If the same person fill in for both the roles, the necessary and required skillset to guarantee the project success would be balanced combination of Project Management, Business knowledge, Technical background of the development platform used etc.
Sometimes there is a need for the same person to assume both the roles. When Project Managers assume the role of a Business Analyst (One of the reasons for this may be a small budget project), there are a lot of factors that come into play due to this.
In all these years working in the Insurance IT Industry, i have seen numerous Projects suffer when the role to person matching is not perfect.
Reasons:
As mentioned above some projects may or may not have the luxury of a separate role for a Business Analyst. This may be due to varying reasons based on,
1> Overall Project scope
2> Project Budget allocated
3> Available resource knowledge base
4> Most importantly, no clear understanding of the difference between these 2 roles by the stakeholders and sponsors
When the Project Manager assumes the role of a Business Analyst, there are some things he has to keep in mind to ensure success in the role. This BA role essentially fits quite snugly in the Project Manager's domain due to the fact that both the roles require managing client expectations and having clear and concise client interactions. One role is focused towards successfully gathering project business requirements (Business Analyst) and the other geared towards entire project success (Project Manager).
Common factors:
The skillsets that are common for both Project Management and Business analysis are,
1> First and foremost is Communication skills
2> Understanding the entire the project lifecycle
3> Strong Stakeholder Management skills
Specific skills:
Skillsets that are specific to the Business Analyst role are,
1> Strong business process background
2> Understanding of Business analysis as a work function wrt gathering, analyzing and documenting requirements
3> Understanding people management wrt Business Analysis
Certain things to be kept in mind by the project manager when assuming the role of a Business analyst.
Success Factors:
1> Being completely aware of the business processes
For the Project Manager to be successful as a Business Analyst, he has to understand the business overall, the business process flow, the business value chain. Without the knowledge of these process areas, the Project Manager will not be able to meet the expectations for the BA role.
You usually acquire this knowledge by working for a number of years in the Industry.
For example: In my case, being in the Insurance IT domain, interacting with Business people for over 12 years now, gives exposure to all areas of Insurance business processes like Policy, Billing and Claims etc.
Along with this, having a Project Management exposure is a definite plus, as it gives you the overall 360 degree view of the entire project gamut and thus helps streamline your thinking process.
2> Complete awareness of the Stakeholders expectations from the project.
Since both project Manager and BA role both deal with stakeholders, there is a big difference between the 2 roles. One role is more concerned with the overall Project success by meeting stakeholder expectations (PM role), whereas the other role (BA) is more concerned with the business process expectations that must be fulfilled on completion of the project.
You have to be constantly interacting with the Stakeholders so that you understand their expectations, pain points etc
3> Ensure the Business SMEs and End Users are aligned and aware of the project goals and objectives, the high level executive direction outlined for the project.
As mentioned above, since business stakeholders, Subject Matter Experts, End Users may be aware of a specific area of project objective (i.e. Project will help in enhancing and executing XYZ business process in a shorter time frame and efficient manner), but it helps them to be aware of overall project objectives (e.g. Project will help achieve XYZ functionality more efficiently based on the requirements gathered in next 2 weeks and developed over the next 6 weeks duration for a certain cost and resource outlined)
4> Project Business documentation expectations
Project Manager may be aware of the overall Business Analyst Role expectations from the delivery perspective, he has to be able to create Functional requirements documents, Gap documents, Use cases, UI specifications etc documentation as the case may be.
5> Help Quality and Testing Team in their analysis and Q&A
Business Analyst along with the business stakeholders also has to be cognizant of the other members playing specific roles attributing to project success e.g. Quality Analysis Team, Process Management Team, Testing and infrastructure Teams.
Also last but not the least, Business analysts have to be somewhat of a Techo functional experts meaning along with understanding the Business aspects of the project, they also have to understand the technical dependencies, implications, risks posed by certain requirements and thereby come up with possible solutions alternatives. Business analysts are essentially bridges between the End business users and development Teams. They understand and gather the business requirements and translate and transform them to Specifications, use cases and functional requirement documentations which will make it easy for the technical developers to follow and design and code accordingly. These documentation will then also be used by the Testing and Quality Team so they can base their Test Cases and Test scenarios off them.
So in essence, Project Manager is more concerned or related to the big picture and the totality to complete the project, while a Business Analyst is more closer to the requirement understanding, gathering and documenting tasks. Both the roles have certain commonalities and some differences, but it certainly helps in the project success, if the 2 roles have a good background of the other role and its expectations.
If the same person fill in for both the roles, the necessary and required skillset to guarantee the project success would be balanced combination of Project Management, Business knowledge, Technical background of the development platform used etc.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Soft Skills
You might ask - how and why is article related to Project Management.
Back in the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth and not so far off till late 90s, it was thought that the Technical knowhow or the 'hard skills' was the only factor attributed a project's success. People who were pure Techo managers, sitting in one corner desk could solve the problems troubling planet earth.
But not any longer, the outlook has changed, C-level executives, mid managers etc have begun to realize that soft skills are also as important, infact soft skills are identified in today's world as also one the most important success criteria to execute a project.
What do you mean by soft skills -
Soft skills is an art - an art to communicate effectively. Effective meaning so that people will understand, listen and relate to what you are saying. For some people this trait is inborn. But for most, this has to be acquired by constant practice and learning.
This article is for those who, when surrounded by people, never fail to secretly salute a black spider that manages to find dark nooks and corners even in broad daylight.
For those - not so brave hearts, fear not - the art of soft skills can definitely be learned, cultivated and honed to the extent of becoming an expert.
One of the major issues wrt soft skills is, you do not know the importance of this trait till it hits you - like a deer hit by blazing lights of a running car,
The educational courses that teach management as a part of any curriculum talk about the technical aspects of Management, and prepare you with a Project Management framework but nothing prepares you for the soft skillset required.
Some may ask why do we need Soft skills to run a project? The reasons are many,
First and foremost is 'Objectives and expectations alignment'
- Projects deal with multiple stakeholders with varying skills, diverse personality types.
- Each stakeholder may have different understanding of the project.
- For influencing the work outcome either with stakeholders or even Team members, you will need strong leadership, communication and convincing skillset.
Everyone has to be aligned to a common goal, just like a army of ants carrying grains of food in a straight line to its storage area.
- At an individual level, i have personally seen many a talented people fail. Not because they did not have the Technical prowess, but because they only had Technical mastery.
No one wants to work with people, who may be so called masters of their Technology domain, but do not have the basic people skills. This is an attribute of a person's Emotional Quotient (EQ).
There is no magic formula to gain soft skills. The steps needed to achieve Soft skills could range from showing empathy and optimism towards your colleagues to extreme self-awareness in knowing what's going on around you and this is a constant learning process. You need to keep on practicing this day in and Day out.
As a person grows in his career, in order to reach higher echelons of success, it is much more important to be have soft skills competence than low level Technical knowhow.
In short, gaining Soft skills is like a fear factor game challenge where the contestant has to be on a running speedboat and has to climb the copter above using a low hanging rung of ladders in a limited timespan.
Standing on the speedboat and watching the copter above (The Project) is not enough, having excellent upper, lower body strength will not get the job done (Hard skills). But what will get you to the winners circle, is to reach out for the ladder and climbing it one rung at a time (Soft skills).
Baby steps:
You cannot climb Mt. Everest in one day (or maybe you can, but not in this case). There are certain steps that one can follow to achieve excellence in this personality skills
Join Public speaking groups:
1> e.g. Toastmasters Group: Toastmasters club is an excellent forum for personal development in terms of fear of public speaking, teaches you various traits required to be better listener and speaker. How to formulate your thoughts clearly and precisely.
One day at a time:
2> Start with meeting 1 person at a time. When you are meeting a person - even for project reasons, try to get to know the person, understand his background, his likes/dislikes, perspective on the project, what may be the pain points for him and how you can help resolve them? What does it mean by project success to him? Learn to be a good listener.
The person could be anyone from project sponsor to an end user-stakeholder to one of your internal development and testing Team members.
Professional Courses and Training:
3> Seek professional help. There are numerous training institutes and courses which delve on this particular subject. These courses will help you change the perspective and suggest ways and mean that will help you achieve your goals.
In Summary, be people centric and more extroverted than you are, start to get out of your comfort zone. We have to remember that a project is teamwork and a project is deemed successful or a failure only by the efforts of the individuals that make the Team. So encourage your Team members, have regular get together sessions, appreciate and acknowledge achievements, provide guidance and seek help, when and wherever required.
It is definitely time to come out of that dark cave and bask in the glorious sunlight.
Back in the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth and not so far off till late 90s, it was thought that the Technical knowhow or the 'hard skills' was the only factor attributed a project's success. People who were pure Techo managers, sitting in one corner desk could solve the problems troubling planet earth.
But not any longer, the outlook has changed, C-level executives, mid managers etc have begun to realize that soft skills are also as important, infact soft skills are identified in today's world as also one the most important success criteria to execute a project.
What do you mean by soft skills -
Soft skills is an art - an art to communicate effectively. Effective meaning so that people will understand, listen and relate to what you are saying. For some people this trait is inborn. But for most, this has to be acquired by constant practice and learning.
This article is for those who, when surrounded by people, never fail to secretly salute a black spider that manages to find dark nooks and corners even in broad daylight.
For those - not so brave hearts, fear not - the art of soft skills can definitely be learned, cultivated and honed to the extent of becoming an expert.
One of the major issues wrt soft skills is, you do not know the importance of this trait till it hits you - like a deer hit by blazing lights of a running car,
The educational courses that teach management as a part of any curriculum talk about the technical aspects of Management, and prepare you with a Project Management framework but nothing prepares you for the soft skillset required.
Some may ask why do we need Soft skills to run a project? The reasons are many,
First and foremost is 'Objectives and expectations alignment'
- Projects deal with multiple stakeholders with varying skills, diverse personality types.
- Each stakeholder may have different understanding of the project.
- For influencing the work outcome either with stakeholders or even Team members, you will need strong leadership, communication and convincing skillset.
Everyone has to be aligned to a common goal, just like a army of ants carrying grains of food in a straight line to its storage area.
- At an individual level, i have personally seen many a talented people fail. Not because they did not have the Technical prowess, but because they only had Technical mastery.
No one wants to work with people, who may be so called masters of their Technology domain, but do not have the basic people skills. This is an attribute of a person's Emotional Quotient (EQ).
There is no magic formula to gain soft skills. The steps needed to achieve Soft skills could range from showing empathy and optimism towards your colleagues to extreme self-awareness in knowing what's going on around you and this is a constant learning process. You need to keep on practicing this day in and Day out.
As a person grows in his career, in order to reach higher echelons of success, it is much more important to be have soft skills competence than low level Technical knowhow.
In short, gaining Soft skills is like a fear factor game challenge where the contestant has to be on a running speedboat and has to climb the copter above using a low hanging rung of ladders in a limited timespan.
Standing on the speedboat and watching the copter above (The Project) is not enough, having excellent upper, lower body strength will not get the job done (Hard skills). But what will get you to the winners circle, is to reach out for the ladder and climbing it one rung at a time (Soft skills).
Baby steps:
You cannot climb Mt. Everest in one day (or maybe you can, but not in this case). There are certain steps that one can follow to achieve excellence in this personality skills
Join Public speaking groups:
1> e.g. Toastmasters Group: Toastmasters club is an excellent forum for personal development in terms of fear of public speaking, teaches you various traits required to be better listener and speaker. How to formulate your thoughts clearly and precisely.
One day at a time:
2> Start with meeting 1 person at a time. When you are meeting a person - even for project reasons, try to get to know the person, understand his background, his likes/dislikes, perspective on the project, what may be the pain points for him and how you can help resolve them? What does it mean by project success to him? Learn to be a good listener.
The person could be anyone from project sponsor to an end user-stakeholder to one of your internal development and testing Team members.
Professional Courses and Training:
3> Seek professional help. There are numerous training institutes and courses which delve on this particular subject. These courses will help you change the perspective and suggest ways and mean that will help you achieve your goals.
In Summary, be people centric and more extroverted than you are, start to get out of your comfort zone. We have to remember that a project is teamwork and a project is deemed successful or a failure only by the efforts of the individuals that make the Team. So encourage your Team members, have regular get together sessions, appreciate and acknowledge achievements, provide guidance and seek help, when and wherever required.
It is definitely time to come out of that dark cave and bask in the glorious sunlight.
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