PM Toolkit - Risk Registers

Tool: Risk Registers
Type: Spreadsheet

Everybody knows about it. No one really knows how to use it.

Common mistakes I've seen when people use a Risk Register.

• People often put down a list of risks in the Statement of Work, Proposal, Initial Project Plan and.. and... and... that's it. They forget all about it.
• People define risks in the vaguest most obscure manner possible. Some folks (no, not you) state risks such as "Fire"... "Earthquake"... "Programmer Problem"..."No support"... etc
• Mitigation is the ONLY way of managing a risk. Unfortunately, mitigation is all the way up there in the top ten lists of useless business jargon such as Best Practice, Right-sizing, and Can-do.

Risk registers are an important tool that a Project Manager can use to ensure that projects are delivered as close to target as possible. This is done by ensuring that project risks are managed properly and effectively. But how does one actually manage project risks using a Risk Register?

 A Risk Register is simply a spreadsheet that lists down all the project risks as well as tracks the progress of the responses to the said risk. The important things to see in a Risk Register are:

• Risk ID
• Risk Description
• Probability
• Impact
• Rating
• Response
• Response Status

A Risk ID is simply an identification number of the risk for reference purposes. As with anything that gets listed, it needs to be numbered.

A Risk Description describes the Risk. The proper way of describing risks is to state it in a form of a probability such as "Building might collapse" or "testing might not complete on time". Do not just simply state an object or predicament - state the activity involved that might occur. Describing the risk in the said manner is not only for conventions' sake, but rather it helps in formulating the proper response since the risk is viewed from a very precise probability.

Probability is simply a number. Depending on the organizations' preference, it can be 1-100, 1-10, or 1-3, where the highest number signifies the most probability. I normally don't advise using 1-100 unless you can actually determine a risks probability. Otherwise, you are arbitrarily creating complexity.

Impact is also a number (similar to probability) depicting the level of severity of a risk in the event that it occurs. The highest number signifies the highest, or most severe impact.

Rating is the product of Impact and Probability. The objective of this column is for us to have an idea on what specific risks we'd like to prioritize on. The PM needs to define the threshold by which risks are to be managed and what risks should be accepted.

A Risk Response basically defines how the risk is to be managed. There are many ways to respond to a risk. These include:

• Mitigating Probability - which is looking for ways to lessen the probability that a risk will occur
• Mitigating Impact - which is looking for ways to lessen the impact of the risk when it occurs
• Avoidance - which is performing activities wherein the source of the risk is avoided altogether. To illustrate bluntly, if you would like to avoid the risk of not getting wet if it rains going out of the office - you should not go out at all. This avoids the said risk altogether.
• Transference - which is transferring the risk to another person or entity. If I want to transfer the risk of getting wet while going out if it rains, then I will ask someone else to go out for me. The risk is still there... but I do not carry the said risk anymore.
• Acceptance - which is basically accepting the impact of the risk. You typically accept risks that are either too low probability or low impact.

Response Status - which describes the status of the risk response activities and what is happening to it.

Moreover, reviewing the Risk Register should happen at a regular basis. A good practice would be to include reviewing the Risk Register as part of the agenda during project team meetings. Everyone in the project team should be encouraged to read and review the Risk Register as they may be able to contribute to the said document. Also, the more that people are actively aware of what the risks are, the lesser that chances of people actually contributing to the possibility of the risk from occurring.

PM Toolkit - MBWA

Tool: Management by Walking Around
Type: Technique
One time, a PM asked me what is a typical day in the life of me as a PM.It made me come to think of how I actually manage projects on a daily basis. The short answer is I walk around at the start of the day, while my laptop is just booting up. Just like a doctor doing the rounds, I walk around to each member of the team, asking them a few simple questions:

• How's your tasks?
• Will it be completed as scheduled?
• Any issues/concerns preventing you from completing your job?
• What activities do you need to do next?

These are but sample questions that I ask when I do my rounds. These are not project meetings nor will this be a substitute for project meetings but rather a way for me, as a PM for multiple projects, to get my head around all the things that are happening to the projects. Based on the rounds that I do, I connect people that need to connect together - faster than doing it by themselves (since people tend to forget these kinds of stuff). Doing MBWA will also give me an idea on who is lagging behind and who is ahead of schedule.

I don't ask to many questions, nor do I want to do so, because I can only remember so much information. What MBWA does is basically let everybody tune-in to what needs to be done for the day. It's like your daily cup of coffee to start everything right. By tuning in to what everybody should be doing, everybody also becomes aware of what they should be doing and keeps themselves on their toes with their deliverables.

Lastly, there is a simple set of questions that I use specifically when I am updating ms project in order to correctly determine earned value metrics. I don't do this often, only when i am updating the plan. These are as follows:

• How many hours (days) have you consumed on your tasks?
• How many more hours (days) do you need to finish your current tasks?
• When will you finish your current task?

Note that I never ask for the percent completion, primarily because percent completion tends to be misleading and tends to get stuck at 95% for some strange reason. Answering the 3 questions above help me in understanding Actual Cost/Work, Remaining Cost/Work, and End Date. With these figures, I can actually determine the EV of the project by comparing them with the baseline plan (assuming of course that the plan was actually baselined).

PM Toolkit - Status Reports

Tool: Status Reports
Type: Document

When a Project Manager says that he'd like to keep everybody on the same page, that page has a heading saying "Status Report". A status report is an indispensable tool by any PM that must ALWAYS be used. Since projects typically involve various stakeholders with varying interests in the project, there needs to be a central view on what is happening with the project at a specific point in time. Otherwise, we'd all be a bunch of blind people describing an elephant - each by touching a specific part of the animal. The status reports are meant to inform everybody on various aspects of the project so that the appropriate responses/reactions can be elicited from the stakeholders.

When we do status reports however, some things need to be remembered:

• The status report is meant to answer the question "What is happening to the project NOW?" It is important to remember that the status report is meant to report the status of the project. You seldom need to write historical information on the project (such as what happened before or why the project was initially conceptualized, etc.) but rather the newest and latest information on the project NOW. Information should be hot-off-the-press.
• The status report should be delivered on a timely manner. You cannot deliver a status report on what happened two months ago with the project. Its stale information that was probably already communicated in some other form to the stakeholders a long time ago.
• The status report should be regularly published/submitted. There needs to be a regularly defined cycle by when a status report is to be expected. You do not create a status report only when it is asked from you, a status report is EXPECTED from any PM. Note that the frequency of a status report is relative to the amount of work that expected within a project. IF for example a project normally has deliverables on a weekly basis, then a weekly status report might be good. If work takes longer, such as weeks, then a monthly status report might be okay.
• A status report needs to contain an assessment of the Project Manager. The simplest way to do this is to use traffic lights (Green, Yellow, Red) on certain areas of the project such as schedule, cost, quality, etc. A Project Manager needs to know if we are currently doing good with the project or if we need to do something else to get the status back to Green. There are other ways by which a project can be quantified or assessed (such as CPI, SPI, TCPI, etc) but traffic lights typically do the job fairly well since most everybody knows what the color means. Moreover, be consistent in assessing the status of the project. Define what makes a project green, or yellow, or red. This way the stakeholders have a fairly good grasp on the status of the project.

• A status report needs to be complete yet concise. If stakeholders don't seem to be the type that would read long status reports - then by all means change it. A status report is useless if no one is reading it. Always consider the areas that you think the stakeholders would want to ask about the project and work on that.

PM Toolkit - Meeting Minutes

I am starting off a series of posts on the essential tools needed by a PM in his line of work. It is quite often that we expect PM's to already "get it" as far as what we expect a good PM to be doing. However, this is not always the case. PM's have an idea on what should be done and how its supposed to be done, but quite commonly, PM's have no idea on how to do it correctly and why in the first place. Hence these succeeding posts aims to help the PM in understanding the common tools of the trade. These are common items, such as documentation, templates, or activities/steps that a PM is expected to do, and do quite well at.

Tool : Meeting Minutes
Type: Document

The Meeting Minutes (or MoM) in some circles is probably the most underutilized tool of all. The objective of the MoM is to document two distinct things that occur in a meeting.

1. What has been decided on during the meeting - which should contain who decided on what and why (if needed)
2. What are the next steps / action items - which should include target completion dates and specific people assigned to it. It is important to write down an actual name rather than just "customer" or "project team" since it transfers the accountability to a specific person. If an activity is dependent on certain conditions, include the fulfillment of the conditions as another action item on the list.

Of course, it is also important to include other information in the MoM such as when the meeting was held, who attended, what items were discussed, and so on... but not having the two items above will call into question the whole point on why a meeting took place. If it can't satisfy at least one of the two points, then there is probably no point to having a meeting in the first place.

Note that although some people may argue that some meetings are mainly to convey information (like status reporting meetings, etc.) , it is considered an "agreement" if the receiving party accepts the information conveyed to them. In some cases as well, people have "agreed" to disagree on certain topics during the meeting hence this constitute a relevant meeting that needs to be properly documented.

Meeting Minutes do not end in just being able to write it down. It is important to publish the MoM to the rest of the participants for their feedback and review. It is also important to keep the MoM in a location that can be easily retrievable by all, such as a shared drive, or a similar facility.

A seasoned PM knows that MoM can make or break a project. A lot of decisions happen that change the course of a project during these short and seemingly insignificant "meetings". I believe some of you out there have experienced times wherein somebody said something that we all agreed to do - but later on was "denied" by the person who said it - and we got in trouble because of that. I believe you would all agree that the situation could've come out differently had we documented the situation properly.

Managing Projects is all about managing change. Change can only be managed if you know what are the things that are changing. We can only know what things are changing if we document them. The best avenue to document the changes in a project is via the MoM - hence its significance.

Lastly, as my old boss told me... "Doing the Meetings Minutes gives you the privilege of documenting YOUR version of the truth."

...now isn't that something worth documenting?

Of High Performance and Taking a Bath

How does one motivate an employee? This is an all to common question asked by managers at all levels. For the most part people get it right. However sometimes, managers ask themselves "Why is it that I've been doing so much to motivate my employee... but they still keep resigning?" Managers give bonuses, higher salaries, etc. etc. to make people stay yet it still doesn't seem to work. What could possibly be wrong?

Well... before anyone says its the manager himself that's the problem (at times that's true), you need to know that not everything that motivates can inversely demotivate, and vise-versa.

This is otherwise known as the Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory. Surprisingly, this has been around since the 50's but apparently, it is not as widespread as it should be. To put it simply, the theory basically states that factors leading to job satisfaction (Motivation) do not necessarily contribute to job dissatisfaction once removed. On the other hand, factors leading to job dissatisfaction (Hygiene) do not necessarily contribute to job satisfaction once removed. In short, hygiene factors make you stay, while motivation factors make you a top performer.

Salary for example is a hygiene factor. Take away salary (or provide less than agreed salary) would definitely make your resource walk out the door. Give him more salary... and you can be assured that he stays. However, don't expect your resource to perform better. No one performs better just because he gets paid more (yes! stop lying to yourself!).

Performance Bonuses, on the other hand, are motivation factors. If your company pays out a decent performance bonus, you can be assured that there are some people (not all) that will strive to reach that. Yet, this will not always stop them from leaving.

Below are some motivation and hygiene factors.

Motivation Factors

• Achievement - people are motivated by having a sense of achievement and being able to accomplish something in the office. Most good PM's are like this.
  
• Recognition - if you did something great, and get recognized by it, the tendency is for you to continue doing that thing and maintaining that level of performance.
• Work Itself - there's a saying that people perform best at the things they like. If you do not like your work, then obviously won't perform as good as the one who does
• Responsibility - people are motivated (or forced to motivate themselves) when they are aware of their level of responsibility and accountability in their work.
• Promotion - what most people in the corporate world want. To a certain degree, promotion is actually a form of Recognition. It is undoubtedly the most tangible and long-lasting implementation of motivation given to a person.
• Growth - growth may be a bit vague, but generally, it states that people look to grow in knowledge and exposure to certain things. Knowing that these exists encourage people to actually perform at their best.

Hygiene Factors

• Pay and Benefits - The reason why we work in the first place (unless its a charity)
• Company Policy and Administration - You'd be surprised to hear how much people like to leave their company just because of bad office management. Having training bonds and requiring people to dress in an appropriate manner are samples of company policies that just don't work.
• Relationship with co-workers - Having a co-worker that you just can't stand is a surefire way of leaving early.
• Supervision - YES - people leave because of bad management. This is one of the top reasons why people leave. Why? Because this is one of the factors that have a huge impact on resource himself as well as all other factors.
• Status - very very few people like to be at the bottom rung of the ladder. Hence once a person feels that he should be at a higher status, he looks elsewhere for that.
• Job Security - No one likes to work knowing that you might not have work on the next day. It makes people hesitant to perform at their best because at the back of their mind, it can all go to waste anytime.
• Working Conditions - working in a pathetic looking office or working in a hell-hole makes people dissatisfied. Trust me, there is a reason why offices and workplaces need to look nice. Just like your own house which you spend a good amount of time on cleaning and making sure it looks nice... your workplace is to be viewed as just the same since you spend one-third of your 24 hours at the office.
• Personal Life - the way your work impacts your personal life is a hygiene factor. For a person that frequently travels as part of his work may not find it appealing if he needs to be home early everyday to take care of his kids. A highly sociable person may not find a night shift job appealing since it takes time away from parties and other events.
  

There's definitely a lot more motivation and hygiene factors out there. Moreover, the level of motivation or hygiene a factor gives out varies from person to person. Nonetheless, the general statement holds true. Hopefully, this gives everyone an idea on what to do to address a resources needs and to ensure that he stays and performs at his best.