Congratulations to the Central Michigan University Chippewas! Fire up Chips!

The Chippewas beat the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders in the 2006 Motor City Bowl to claim the first Division I-A bowl victory in school history.

From the Chippewa side, the game was a pleasure to behold. Quarterback Dan LeFevour was in total sync with his receivers and had a great read of the field.

When Bryan Anderson was open, LeFevour sent him the ball.

When it was Justin Gardner with a shot at a run, the ball was there.

When the deep field was clogged, he’d see a path clear ahead and he’d go for it. He wouldn’t hesitate -he’d go for the run. And swiftly weave his was for yardage and a touchdown. He and the team were tight and the scoreboard showed it.

And the fans were tight. If you read the local Detroit papers, that made all the difference.

Sure, having a Michigan team helped break attendance records at the Motor City Bowl. And yeah, it was great to have a Michigan team to root for. But it was the energy of a charged team, the whole CMU team: from players to fans to friends, that made the game great.

In a stadium and city not always used to that kind of teamwork -it was indeed a beautiful thing to behold.

Speaking of teamwork, a special thank you to the players who gave their energy and time working hard on December 25th to feed those in need at the Salvation Army in Detroit.

Here’s Alan Mulally, the new CEO of Ford Motor Company, highlighting the value of visibility and consistent data in managing an enterprise, the quotes are excerpted from The Wall Street Journal of December 22, 2006.

To set the scene: Mr. Mulally recently took over as CEO of Ford and began implementing weekly Thursday meetings for senior management to get everyone focused on the same goals, track progress, reward success and to keep people accountable.

Visibility Brings Consistency

His first Thursday gathering at Ford went badly, underscoring the challenges he would face. After Mr. Mulally asked each business head to present his results and forecasts, he complained that the numbers didn’t make sense. “Why don’t all the pieces add up for the total corporate financials?” he recalls asking.

“We don’t share everything,” he says one manager replied, explaining that Ford executives ran their units without meshing with other divisions, occasionally holding back some information. Mr. Mulally was floored. The next week, executives came back with complete figures.

By putting all the data in one place, Mr. Mulally was quickly able to see the gaps in the processes they were using to try and improve Ford Motor.  What’s more, everyone else in the room could see it as well.  He pinpointed communication and data sharing as a core problem.
 
Data Can Set You Free

“Data can set you free,” Mr. Mulally tells associates. He prodded executives embarrassed of their results to bring them to the table — and post them on the war-room wall. “You can’t manage a secret,” Mr. Mulally says he tells them.

When one manager offered up the poor performance of his unit, some Ford executives were stunned by Mr. Mulally’s reaction. He applauded, saying: “Great visibility.”

Cultural Challenges

Large scale projects often require a cultural change in an organization.  One of the hardest for people to overcome is sharing data, particularly if they are accountable for what the numbers say. 

Other barriers exists as well, like:

• the effort it can take to gather the data;
• the challenge of making the information a true apples-to-apples comparison and;
• distributing the data to everyone who needs to see it. 

With Mr. Mulally, its a lot easier since he’s everyone’s boss. He can break these barriers and try to institute cultural change from the top of the enterprise.

(As an observation, the impetus for improved visibility or better data collaboration often starts with people who can’t compel managers or executives to show up at a meeting. It’s the people doing the actual work who generally see the need for the adoption of these kind of best practices.)

The Value of Project Management Software

Project management software like Vertabase Pro can help organizations rapidly change their culture and seamlessly move to an environment of greater visibility, information sharing and healthy accountability.  (And you don’t even have to make everyone show up in the same room every week –it can be done via email and the web.)

Collaborative, web project management software centralizes and facilitates the gathering and dissemination of data. Whether that data are raw project performance metrics or customized reports on very specific projects, portfolios or performance data points (like scheduled tasks or resource allocation), it is entered and aggregated in one place.  It can be accessed anytime and the project management software can even send an email reminding people that its time to look at it.

Executives, project planners and managers can keep the enterprise better focused on its goals, track progress of different projects and project portfolios, and maintain a healthy, constructive accountability.

Where Does That Leave Ford?

Nobody can say for sure how this latest turnaround effort at Ford Motor Company is going to end up. But it certainly seems like the new CEO, Alan Mulally, is implementing common sense management practices. These practices can make a world of difference in how to best harness the talent within a company to achieve overall corporate goals.

The current space shuttle mission STS-116 is a great window on project management in action.  On NASA TV you can hear the live management of an ongoing process –managing in real-time, on the fly, a complex operation that’s rife with opportunities to deviate from a sophisticated project plan.

While the scale might be different, it parallels, in a lot of ways, the activities that go on in any creative, engineering or scientific project. It provides a view on the types of information, visibility and project communication that make any project a success.

Here are some of the random clips we heard on NASA TV:

“Thanks for the great big picture words.”
“1:51 Central Time power down expected.”
“Good insight into the system.”
“I have the steps here.”
“Trouble shooting task procedures.”
“Blocks of activity.”
“Ready to proceed to step three – it is good to talk to you.”
“OK I’ll stand by, appreciate the help.”

NASA drives this process with enterprise project management software, extensive training and clear channels of communication between team members (astronauts who’s life depends on it), project managers, project planners and the people who approved the project and the budget. 

Back on earth, you can implement the same type of discipline with the right project management software tool and training.

A marketing department or marketing company, for example, can use a program like Vertabase Pro online project management software to get the tools and training  without investing in huge or overly-technical project management solutions (like MS Project). 

This class of  project management software is web-based and can be up and running in no-time.  Project leaders and planning can then precisely define a set of tasks and schedule with input from creative teams and the client stakeholders.

The project management software training engages all team members, project managers, planner and participants, showing them how to get the information and visibility they need quickly through clearly defined communication channels which are available anytime, online and on-demand. The work of the management, creative and account teams and the client can then be choreographed closely.

As the project unfolds ongoing automated project communication is maintained and the project plan is easily adapted. The client sees value for money real-time; the project leaders build their own leadership and strategic thinking skills; and creative workers know what they have to deliver and when.

Finally, capturing a complex project with an adaptive, collaborative, online project management tool allows core business processes to be captured and refined. The next project becomes more efficient and over time the value of the company increases significantly.

It might not be as exciting as building the International Space Station, but to a project manager or creative team, launching a successful project has its own rewards.

The Corporate edition of Copper 2006 (version 3.0) seems to be geared towards improving visibility of to-do lists. It is light on features that can help task management, manage schedules or give deeper visibility of projects.

A good example is the process of adding or editing tasks on a project. This is a fundamental activity not only in task management but also in planning projects, setting up schedules and managing on-going project activity.

Tasks can be added in two ways. One is through a single web page form which means that adding many tasks means going through many individual forms.   The second is via an Adobe Flash based Gantt chart.

Tasks appear in the task list and on the Gantt chart in the order in which they were entered. Tasks may be sorted by the items in the column headings of the task list. But, they cannot be easily resequenced. 

Unlike more feature rich project management software like Vertabase Pro, Copper does not have task numbers nor subtasks. This may seem trivial. However, something as simple as having project numbers and have a hierarchy of tasks and subtask can make a big difference in effective project management and planning projects.

Comparing Project Management Software
In comparison, the benefits of software like Vertabase Pro become apparent when the reality of projects (and managing projects) meets the idealized world of the project plan. Having numbered tasks (a work breakdown structure) means that you can quickly and easily change the sequence of tasks when the reality of the project changes. 

Having sub-tasks means that you can modify or add, on-the-fly, the specific steps it may take to complete the deliverable or meet the desired goal of a single task. Completing a task is often more than doing one single thing. Sub-tasks allows you to map out and track the steps it takes to complete the task. 

Here’s a screen-shot of the edit-schedule screen in Vertabase Pro.

In the Vertabase Pro project management software you can quickly and easily add, modify and edit the order of tasks, sub-tasks and other schedule related tools from a single edit-schedule screen.

Educational institutions, e-learning companies and providers of educational curriculum face specialized challenges in project management.  A coherent project management strategy can increase the efficiency of developing educational product and educational programs. Project management software can be the foundation for this strategy.

Product development groups in these companies can work on upwards of 120 new projects at any given time.  These projects are generally the development of new educational programs that will be offered to hundreds of thousands of students overtime –programs that are crucial in those students’ academic or professional development.   The programs can range from vocational or technical programs to graduate and undergraduate courses.

Project management software enforces a unified project management strategy across the product development groups in education and e-learning companies, and brings several benefits.

1) The ability to make apples-to-apples comparisons of the status of multiple projects and budgets.

2) The ability to make better resource allocation decisions by providing a complete picture of where people are deployed, track time and where their time is already accounted for/allocated for ongoing or future educational projects.

3) Provide a mechanism to generate projects metrics, measure results and optimize product development processes.

4) All of which reinforces greater accountability, operational efficiencies and facilitates better project planning by having business intelligence at management’s fingertips.

While there are many project management software solutions available, web-based or online solutions can serve up this kind of information anytime, giving management complete and transparent access to the status of multiple projects or the entire educational product development portfolio.

Many educational providers have evaluated competing project management solutions, including Microsoft Project Server and chosen Vertabase Pro.  The decision is often based on functionality, ease-of-use, cost-efficiency and the quality of training and post-sales support.