Tag Archives: project management

ESA launch fuels global warming debate..

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The successful launch and deployment earlier today of the European Space Agency’s Cryosat-2 satellite represents a tremendous achievement for the organization. The satellite will measure and track ice thickness in the polar regions providing invaluable data for environmental scientists. Hopefully this data will prove , one way or the other, that global warming is indeed a fact and is caused by man’s activities and needs to be addressed politically in a united and effective manner.

The Scientific project has been ably led by Professor Duncan Wingham of the University College London who commented:-

“Today, it’s just a real pleasure; and I speak on behalf of all the scientists who will use the data to just thank all of those many people who contributed to this mission. Personally, it’s been a fabulous ride for me,” he told the assembled guests at the German centre.

Congratulations Professor Wingham & all at ESA for the successful launch of this incredible Scientific venture.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

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Masterchef..lessons for PM’s #pmot

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MASTERCHEFI don’t know about you but I love BBC’s Masterchef, not just for the food and the cooking skills but the lessons it has for Project Managers.

And before I hear you scream “not another popular T.V program – tenuous Blog link story” please bear with me, bear with me.

First of all I love the passion. The contestants exude passion about food and cooking, we experience the love of their craft and their pain when their expectations are not met. One scowl off John is enough to reduce the strongest contestant to tears. As project managers we need to display the same level of passion for our project deliverables.

Secondly I love the drama of execution as the dish is put together to arrive at the nominated time, cooked perfectly, presented beautifully and demanding to be eaten. The time management skills on display would put the best project manager to shame and if we could deliver our projects to the same standard we would be very happy PM’s indeed.

Of course, like any project, things can go wrong and mistaking sugar for salt will end in disaster, a lesson in attention to detail there.

At the end there is only one winner but the runners up all learn from their mistakes, another attribute of good project managers.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

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The Innovation game…

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innovationInnovation is the name of the game; especially in the competitive world of consumer electronics. The only way to remain competitive is to continue to produce new, relevant products which the customer wants.

Apple is a terrific example, before the release of the ipod Apple was a company on decline; despite the fact that it had the worlds best desk top computers for graphic design and desk top publishing they were too expensive for the home computer market which was cornered by IBM clones.

Then along came the ipod, the revolutionary pocket music player which was cool, trendy, affordable and  desirable.

The rest is history and Apple also leads the field in Smartphones with their iconic iphone. Recently they have released their latest product, the touchscreen notebook – the ipad.

These are terrific examples of product Innovation in the highly competitive field of consumer electronics which show that a company which continues to innovate will continue to thrive.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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The Brain Machine….

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brainmachineThere has been lots of recent talk from politicians, particularly The Conservative Party, about rejuvinating British Industry. Indeed James Dyson, the renowned inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner which bears his name, recently issued his  Ingenious Britain  report on the subject.

Such debate is welcome and well overdue. With manufacturing in the U.K shrinking to around 10% of GDP we urgently need a strategy which focuses on what we do best – Innovation.

There is no way we can compete with Far East manufacturers on cost (labor or Capital) but we can and do compete strongly when it comes to Innovative design and technology. This is partly due to our strong engineering history and professional project management skills. It is also down to our open and democratic culture which leads to a rigorous debate of ideas.

We have a wealth of scientific and engineering talent in the U.K which we can exploit to deliver new and innovative products to the worlds markets.

We need to rev up the Brain Machine.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

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Are you a good project manager..?

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Training29According to the PMI definition :- ‘Project Manager – The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objective’

So what makes a good project manager. According to PMI good project managers are:-

1) Task Focused

2) Able to manage deadlines

3) Politically aware

4) Able to compromise pragmatically

5) Good communicators

6) Able to inspire and motivate others.

We wouldn’t argue with any of the above but what do you think ?

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

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Project Managers don’t do the work – SHOCK!

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ProjectMgmntGirlProject Managers don’t do the work of the project; that is the function of the team members. That doesn’t mean that Project Managers don’t work !

The Project Managers role is to Manage and Deliver the Project. So why do we need Project Managers ?

Anyone who has ever tried to manage a project will understand that, whatever its nature, a project never delivers itself.

Without effective leadership, control and monitoring any project will tend to meander and stray off path. As Parkinson stated “the work will expand to fill the time available”

The most effective Project Management is often underappreciated if the Project is delivered on time, on cost and on quality as the assumption is made that this would have happened anyway regardless of the effectiveness of the Project Manager.

Most Project Managers are a modest bunch and take this in their stride; they get their satsfaction from a job well done.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

The act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.

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manuprocessRecent statistics show that manufacturing in the UK is now as low as 11% of GDP and employment in manufacturing has fallen by a massive 9% since Sept 2008.

Staggering figures – so what’s the solution, if in fact one is needed.

As manufacturing jobs are generally well paid compared to the rest of the economy and as each manufacturing role supports a number of others in the supply chain it would seem logical that an increase in the number of manufacturing jobs will lead to a more diversified and robust economy.

So, how do we go about generating more manufacturing jobs. Do we introduce tariffs on Chinese goods ?  Impose extra duties on imports ? – we could do this but in the end we may do more damage to British business than good.

Many companies have survived by outsourcing activities to China, the Far East and elsewhere and whereas some would argue this has cost British jobs the counter argument is, that without outsourcing, these companies would have gone bust and cost even more jobs.

Capitalism is a dynamic competitive environment and, like its biological counterpart, the most able to adapt will survive.

Wherever a company or organization exists, in order to compete, survive and thrive it needs to Innovate.

It needs to develop new products and services and bring them to market.

In the current climate this is even more critical.

Innovation enables the most able to adapt to survive.

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Dissapointing your customers…..

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projectsSometimes, despite best efforts at Risk Management, we drift off plan. In the worst case this means we won’t be able to meet our customer commitments.

So what do we do:-

a) Wait until the last minute, hoping for a miracle, then tell the customer they are going to be dissapointed – this is probably the worst thing you could do; no one likes to be let down at the last moment, particularly customers, it also offers them no options and could be extremely costly if they have prepared an expensive advertising campaign to launch their product.

b) Tell the customer as soon as you are aware of the problem – probably better than a) but this will still cause a lot of consternation to the customer and doesn’t offer them any solutions; in effect it puts the responsibility back on the customer which is what they are paying you for !

c) Explore all the possibilities to get the plan back on track; get the whole team involved and seek advice from Senior Mangement once you have explored all the possibilities.

Develop a contingency plan. Find out what you could deliver on time and what you could deliver at a later date. Come up with 3 or 4 alternatives.

Arrange a face to face meeting with the customer, apologise profusely and present them with the contingency plan.

You should have absolute confidence in your contingency as you want to make sure you do not let the customer down again.

Most customers are realistic and pragmatic and the contingency approach will generally maintain your reputation as an effective project manager.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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would you let your team visit the customer ?

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customersAs Project Manager you will have primary contact with the customer but should you take team members with you on customer visits ?

Here are some good reasons why you should:-

a) The customer will appreciate the opportunity to meet the team, especially if it allows technical experts from both sides to meet and discuss hot issues. It is often the case that engineers can take up polar positions with their customer counterparts and a face to face meeting is the very best way to minimize possibilities of stand offs regarding technical issues.

b) Your team members will really appreciate the opportunity to discuss issues direct with the customer making them feel valued and appreciated.

c) The PM will benefit from effectively delegating responsibility to the appropriate team member. The team member will take more ownership having being directly involved in the decision making process.

d) Involving team members in early customer visits will generate rapid agreement and clarification of project objectives and product specs.

If you can think of some more reasons for involving team members in customer visits, or even reasons against, we would like to hear them.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk






The real cost of time to market delays….

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p4Anyone involved in New Product Introduction (NPI) knows how critical time to market is but do they know how to quantify it?

If a product has a predicted lifecycle of x years the assumption must be made that sales will cease x years after product launch i.e at product “death”.

If the launch date is delayed by 2 months the original product “death” should remain the same. Any product will only be viable until its successor is released by its originator or the competition. The result is a loss of 2 months of sales which will have a real monetary value. This is a perfectly reasonable proposition as there is no logic in assuming that the competitors next product will be late just because yours is !

This enables us to quantify project delays in terms of real dollars. Great news for Senior Management but also good news for the project manager as it allows us to justify additional project resource or equipment in order to meet the original project timescales.

Remember – if your Senior Management has not provided the resource you budgeted for to bring the project in on time quantifying time to market losses in monetary terms is a great leveraging tool.