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).