Passion and Commitment

If you work for a man in heavens name
Work for him
Speak well of him
And stand by the institution he represents
Remember that an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness
If you must growl, condemn, and eternally find fault
Why? Resign your position
And when you are on the outside
Damn it to your hearts content
But as long as you are part of this institution
Do not condemn it!
For if you do so
The first high wind that comes along
Will blow you away
And probably, you will never know why

I bet some of you have heard of this literary work. I actually know this by heart and wrote down the words without skipping a beat. This is one of the few stuff I needed to remember while joining my good 'ol college org. Looking back, these words have shaped my professional career in the realm of employer-employee relationships. I have always had the stand that if you commit yourself to something, you should exert all efforts to make it succeed. I believe a lot of my colleagues can attest to that.

One thing I like about my current employer is the value of Passion and Commitment. Amongst all the corporate values, I find this the most important - and I consistently tell my staff about it. This is the key ingredient to a top performer.

Then again, Passion and Commitment, like everything else... fades.

There comes a point in time when one loses the passion and becomes less committed to the work. This is typically caused by a fork in the road, wherein both the employer and the employee start seeing differences in direction. This is NOT a bad thing. Its just the way things are. You will not always have the same plans and directions as that of your company, boss, stakeholders, and even your staff. You will not always see things eye-to-eye. If it were so, everyone would be working for the same company 'til they die.

What is bad however, is to force oneself in a situation that he is not agreeable with. You cannot walk to the left if you really want to go right. It's just not right (pun intended). It's ok to influence, discuss, and dialogue to come to an agreement... BUT when it becomes clear that plans and directions are different, then its time to go. You will only be doing a disservice to your employer if you decide to stay but not agree. It will only cause strife, both to you and your employer (and even other employees) if this setup is maintained. This results to a lose-lose situation.

It is good to remember that while you may have differences with your employer, there are a lot of like-minded employers out there who have the same vision and direction as you. Its just a matter of meeting them down the road.

Right now, I know a lot of folks have this in mind. Hence I decided to write about it. And I do hope no one gets blown away by the first high wind that comes along.

The Halo Effect

To put it simply, the Halo Effect is an action done by a manager wherein he does a sweeping generalization of a person's overall performance based on the merits of a single activity. Another form of the Halo Effect is wherein the a subordinate is evaluated based on the most recent events alone.(Its anti-thesis is the Horns Effect). The Halo Effect is something that MUST (again - MUST) be avoided by managers, both people and project managers, at all times. This is because it skews perception of a person towards the specific activity.

To visualize the topic, lets just say Consultant A just made an amazing presentation that helped seal a deal with a customer. Everybody was happy, most especially Consultant A's manager. Come performance evaluation time, Consultant A was given high ratings amidst the fact that he did not perform as expected in the months preceeding the presentation, and was even frequently absent at the office. Consultant A did not also follow prescribed protocol and set meetings with the customer without the prior approval of his manager.

We all know that managers should be fair and objective when dealing with their subordinates, but the fact of the matter that it is hard to do such a thing if:
1. You don't know your subordinates that much.
2. You have no memory of prior activities and achievements (or failures) for that subordinate.
3. Activities performed by your subordinates are valued (or devalued) inappropriately. (i.e. they are perceived higher or lower than what they are really worth).

Getting caught up in the Halo Effect would also create negative impressions on the manager. He would most likely be viewed as playing favorites, narrow-minded, unfair to the team, or even discriminatory. This is definitely not a situation that managers want to be as it would cause tension and lower the teams morale.

So how do you avoid the Halo Effect? Here are a few tips.

1. Document subordinates performance regularly. - Try writing down both good points and not so good points of the subordinate. Even small but important items need to be noted down. More importantly, do this on a regular basis. By regular, it means more than the frequency of doing performance evaluations. If performance evaluations are done quarterly, write down performance notes monthly (or even weekly if possible). This takes out the impact of the time element wherein we can only recall the most recent event since the events prior to the most recent are properly documented and can be referred to.

2. Establish standards within the team. - One of the things that a subordinate hates to do is to guess what his manager wants and expects from him. It would end up as a hit or miss situation and ultimately frustration on the part of the subordinates. A manager should make the effort to inform his team of what he expects of them. By establishing the standards, it also provides the boundaries of expected behaviours. This also gives the team substantial info on what factors they are being evaluated on.

3. Provide feedback early on. - Do not wait until the actual performance evaluation kicks in to provide feedback. At this point, everything is just after the fact. Both Positive and Negative behaviour should be fed back to the subordinate immediately after an activity has been performed. Not only does this give the best impact, but more importantly because it gives the subordinate the notion that performance is evaluated fairly and directly. Official Performance evaluations are only a summary of what is being done on a regular basis.

Always remember, the purpose of evaluating a subordinate is to ensure that they are performing at their best. This means influencing them towards the right behaviours and against those that are counterproductive to the project and the organization. It is therefore a very important activity that must not be neglected or downplayed by Managers, nor is it an opportunity to get back at people who you personally dislike in your team.

CYA is not the only PM technique

One of the first acronyms I learned as a Project Manager before PERT, CPI, SPI, EV, etc(thanks to my old bald headed boss) was CYA. For the uninitiated in the world of real-life Project Management (as opposed to conceptual PM studies), CYA stands for "Cover Your Ass". Yes, I know it sounds like an awful way of managing projects but it really transcends more than just a self serving activity.

When you "Cover Your Ass", you technically ensure that all project decisions, activities, and concerns end up in the right person. Being in the middle of the project traffic, a PM is very susceptible to having issues land on his lap without the means or authority to resolve such an issue. By the nature of his role, he is always exposed to being the scapegoat when a project goes south.

Truth is, CYA is a good PM technique if used in the right and appropriate manner. However, this should only be done when absolutely necessary and not ALL the time to a point that it becomes habitual.

Project Managers have a level of responsibility. In fact they are responsible for everything that happens in the project, whether they like it or not - and whether they caused it or not. It is imperative that the PM can take the heat when heat is present. Simpy doing a CYA to save one's skin shows a lack of character on the Project Manager. It is also unfair to those whom the buck is passed on to.

Amongst the various types of Managers, it is the Project Manager who has to be the one most exposed to change. A Project Manager is a Change Manager. Because of this, he has to be able to manage the changes that impact people. When people are impacted, sh!t hits the ceiling, and when that happens - the Project Manager is in the middle being hit on all sides.

Projects are done by People

Surprise! Surprise!

And you thought we had monkeys roaming around the office doing projects, don't you?

Seriously, one of the biggest mistakes Project Managers have in running projects is they undermine the single most valuable type of resource which are your Human Resources. Amongst the various types of projects out their from a Space Shuttle launch to Events Management... everything requires people. The level of non-human resources such as equipment, machinery, tools, technology, and so on may vary from project to project BUT the impact of human resources will always be more significant than the rest combined. This is because non-human resources require human resources for them to work.

You may have an excellent plan, rock-solid knowledge in Project Management, all the cool tools and toys that would make James Bond salivate - but without the ability to manage the people properly - you are bound to fail. Project Managers need to remember that Projects are done by People - project plans or project tools. There is no silver bullet to managing people, although there is a pretty clear set of things to remember when doing so.

Understand and Manage Expectations - Everyone, and I do mean everyone in one form or another works under the concept of WIIFM. (What's In It For Me?) This is not really a bad thing but a fact of life that everybody has some reason for being involved in a project. You as a PM, have to understand what that driver is and work on achieving that. It is not only your primary stakeholders like the Project Sponsor who has expectations, even your team, your peers, and other people that are directly or indirectly impacted by the project. It is expected that these expectations will conflict one another - hence the value of you, Mr. PM, of being in your position. Each one must be managed.

Communicate - The uber tool of Project Managers. Project Managers need to communicate and communicate often. People need to be communicated to as they require information, direction, and feedback. It has been estimated that a Project Manager spends 90% of his time communicating.

Negotiate - So what takes up the 90% of the time communicating? Its primarily to negotiate. You negotiate the expectations that conflict with each of the people involved in the project (stakeholders). Always try to go for the win-win situation. Always negotiate in terms of getting the best deal for everyone and not just to satisfy a specific party or group of resources. Don't start the negotiations with a position to bleed dry the other party - even and especially your customers. Doing so will loose your non-tangible assets such as the relations to other people.

Mary Ann Allisson wrote:

Hire the best. Pay them fairly. Communicate frequently. Provide challenges and rewards. Believe in them. Get out of their way and they'll knock your socks off.

Yup. this is true as can be.

Estimating Project Management Time

"How much time should I estimate for project management in a project?"
This is a very common question asked by service providers whenever they need to provide estimates for projects that require a dedicated project manager.

"What? You mean not all projects have project managers?"
Well, what I mean is that not all projects require a project manager, but all projects require some level of project management. Otherwise, how would you account for one-man projects?

Then again, that's not the topic I want to discuss. What I would want to bring to the table are some basic rules whenever project management time is estimated into a project. So, how do you do it?

A general rule of thumb being used in IT software industries is that 20% of the team's work effort is added to allot for project management time. This means that if it takes 100 man-hours to do the work, 20% is added to it for project management. Hence the total effort for the whole project is 120 man-hours.

While this is a very generally accepted manner of estimating PM time. I would caution against taking this estimate as such. There are other factors that need to be taken into consideration when estimating the PM effort. These include the following:

Duration - Effort is different from duration. Effort is the amount of work needed to do the job. Duration is how long the work is going to take. If an activity requires an effort of 80 man-hours (or 10 man-days), then it can be done for a duration of either 10 days for 1 resource or 5 days for 2 resources. See the difference? The effort for project management is higher for projects with longer duration. This is due to the length of time (duration) that the PM is exposed to the project.

Resoures - This seems pretty obvious. The more resources in the project team, the higher the level of effort needed to manage the project. This is particularly due to the channels of communication needed to coordinate work between resources. Its obviously much harder to manage more people all at the same time.

You may wonder that if we go by the previous definition of effort vs duration, then the PM estimates of a project with a shorter duration with more people would just be the same as a project with a long duration and fewer people. It's true that these cancel out with one another. However, based on personal experience, the Resource factor has a bigger impact than the duration factor.

Risk - One of the basic activities of a project manager is to manage risks in a project. Therefore, if there is a lot risks in a project, the the project manager has got a lot of work in his hands.
The amount of risks increases the amount of project management time needed in a project. This trumps the other two factors in terms of how it impacts PM estimates.
Hopefully, this information helps you make better estimates for PM time, and helps you defend any estimates that you are creating.

"Now what the heck will you be doing with all those hours?" that's going to be in my next post.