Great skills can get lost in a large organization. A good project manager can help find them.

I was at a usability conference recently looking over books on human-computer interaction. Standing next to me was a usability expert who worked for a government agency. Each of the many departments in that agency had their own website. I’d been to one of those website and found it very hard to use. (It wasn’t her department’s site.) We started chatting about it and she totally agreed.

I asked her why she, as a usability expert, couldn’t do anything to improve that website. She told me that she was siloed into her own department. I asked why the user interface (UI) expert in that other department didn’t do anything to improve the website. She said that the other department doesn’t have a usability expert on their team. She is the only UI specialist in the whole agency.

She has a unique skill amongst hundreds of employees -but her skills are trapped in one department.

This struck me as being an unproductive, though not uncommon, situation. And this is the type of situation where a good, get more done, project manager can come in.

A good project manager has access to information that other team members don’t. Specifically, the project manager knows where specialized knowledge and skills are within an organization. The PM can be the eyes and ears across project teams for talent.

This is a unique position that a project manager can use to expand their role as a value-added member of an organization. In this role, resource allocation becomes more than simply finding who has time to do what. It goes beyond traditional project management methodology. Resource allocation becomes about placing the right resource on a project. The one that can help get the job done better, faster or more cost effectively.

Project managers can take two approaches to distributing project related information or project knowledge.

The first is to silo the information. This is generally the approach of a project management specialist. The idea is that project management is a brain-trust of information and that distribution of the information is most effective when its carefully managed. Specifically:

• The project manager consolidates project information
• The project manager publishes the information at specific times
• Others must ask the manager for the information
• Often requires calling meetings to share the information
• Or the information gets distributed in ways that make sense to the project manager.

Some of the consequences are that it:

• Is opaque in how information is gathered and why
• Builds a clique around the project manager
• Carefully controls the flow of information
• Can be politically and strategically useful in an organization
• Can be hard for others to use the information in the way the project manager presents it.

The biggest benefit to siloing information is that if the project manager can successfully become the funnel for all information they can effectively manage expectations and improve processes. The biggest downside is that the project manager often becomes a bottleneck for information and then, in frustration, people just ignore project management and see project managers as a hindrance to getting things done.

The second is to spread project information. This is generally the approach of a team leader or non-specialist who is given responsibility for managing a process. The idea here is that the project manager wears many hats and the faster information can be received or distributed the less time the manager has to spend collecting or publishing that information. Specifically:

• Information is quickly distributed
• It is centralized in one place that everyone knows about
• It is available to anyone with the proper access level
• It is dynamically updated with any new information
• Can be received and viewed whenever its convenient to each person.

Some of the consequences of spreading information are that it:

• Can break hierarchies of control
• Makes skills rather than knowledge more valuable in a team
• Brings transparency to a process
• Raises accountability
• Can make projects and teams harder to manage
• Makes it easier to improve a team’s performance.

The biggest benefit is that it allows non-specialists to manage projects and makes it easy to push a consistent way of tracking projects across a team. The biggest downside is that team members sometimes don’t care about the nitty gritty of a project (they just want to know what they have to work on) and can’t be bothered to contribute to information on the project.

I recommend a blended approach. Start from a place of spreading information but make sure that you cater the specific information to each person based on what they will need -and don’t go overboard with sharing information.

• A designer might just want to know the amount of time they have to deliver the project whereas
• a developer wants to know the specific deadline and functionality required.
• An executive needs customized metrics on projects they’re tracking whereas
• a client wants to know if things are on track or not.

On the other hand, if you let too much information flow out you will lose control and visibility on a project or task. A free flow of information can be constructive for collaboration on a deliverable. However, not everything is a collaborative process. Many projects and processes benefit from being monitored, measured and controlled.

Two top economists (one a Nobel prize winner) provide an excellent analysis of the current financial crisis. While they don’t say it, it also points to a counter-intuitive solution to the problem. Its all in the hands of the American consumer.

Their main hypothesis is that this current meltdown is very similar to the meltdown that led to the Great Depression. Both were caused by massive consumer debt.

“It appears that we’re witnessing the second great consumer debt crash, the end of a massive consumption binge.” Steven Gjerstad and Vernon L. Smith, in The Wall Street Journal.

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Railo has released the latest version of their open source ColdFusion Mark-up Language (CFML) engine. Along with the new release, Gert and his recently expanded team have launched an excellent set of websites. The websites clarify the company’s identity.

The first site, http://www.getrailo.com focuses on Railo as as a commercial enterprise that publishes a high-end open source product and CFML platform. (This is where the old www.railo.ch redirects to.)

The second site, http://www.getrailo.org focuses on the community that uses and builds on the Railo platform.

A third site is in the works that It will contain documentation, guides and user generated content.

The sites and the release itself are still technically in beta. But Railo, and were Gert has taken it, remain a very exciting technology and expanded platform for both the ColdFusion community and for the world of Java developers (see the Why Railo page).

This month we moved our Michigan offices into a great new space in Southfield. Its got tons of room and a nice training center. Its perfect for our company.

Aside from the fit with our corporate goals, the space reflects our vision for the changing face of Metro Detroit and its future.

The space is located at the crux between Detroit proper and the suburbs. Its right off of 8 mile road.

The building itself is a mix of dedicated front office and light industrial. Like the location, it is a meeting point of urban and suburban, physical and virtual, industrial space and internet space -and it captures a moment in time.

These days are a fulcrum. These are the times when the citizens of this area can decide what they want to be in the future or let the forces of the past drag them down. No-one is helping. Its up to the people alone. If people don’t step up and move themselves forward, this area will be dragged down further and it won’t be pretty.

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We were having an internal meeting to pick a project management methodology for a web project we are working on for a new client. As developers of commercial software, our instinct was to lean towards an agile based approach where our process would be:

• Make an initial feature list
• Get time estimates on each feature
• Prioritize the list
• Time box the development effort
• Build and test as much as possible in that time
• Launch
• Get user feedback

This works great for a tightly defined set of deliverables and a client who has done software before. However, that’s not what this project is nor the profile of this client.

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Here’s a fast tip for making task management easy. Its called the Launch Countdown method of naming files. I use it primarily for tasks related to producing copy or creative assets.

Number all of your files or to do’s with 3, 2 or 1. Put these numbers at the start of your file name.

3 or unmarked is an open to-do or an asset before you started working on it.

2 means a first pass has been done and it is in revisions.

1 means it is complete and ready for production.

Once it is launched or in production, delete it from your to-do list or list of active files that you are working on. Move it to a warehouse or a different folder in your filing system where you keep assets that are live. In a corporate environment, this could be the general network drive where other people can access it from.

While you are working on an item, rename the files as it changes status in its lifecycle e.g. “3 write blog post” becomes “2 write blog post” then “1 write blog post.” If its in 1, the next step is to launch then the blog post itself can go into your warehouse. If you want to recycle the task, re-set it to “3 write blog post.”

QUESTION (from LinkedIn): Forecasting the same as prediction? Which one is more realistic and easier to do?

ANSWER: Forecasting is different from predicting. Predicting is much easier but far less accurate.

Predicting is when you start making guesses about things. For example, you predict that laying sheet-rock will take 45 hours to do and you guess that it will be done in 2 weeks.

Forecasting, on the other hand, is when you take information from past jobs and apply it to a new job. For example, if you have seen that laying the sheet-rock for a 3,000 sq ft space takes 65 hours and it usually done in 4 weeks then the next time you have to quote out the same job you’ll be able to forecast how much its going to cost and how long it will really take i.e. when it will really be done after work starts on it.

The big difference is predicting is based on your best guess from experience. Forecasting is based on data you’ve actually recorded and tracked from previous jobs.

There are a lot of new project managers out there - being created every day by someone else in the organization losing their job. You may not know that you are a project manager but if you are now charged with getting things done, you are a project manager.

You will have the same amount of responsibility as the last person but with likely fewer resources and a ton more stress.

It can be tremendously overwhelming.

Job Definition List
My first, and best word of advice, is to make a list of everything you are now responsible for, a Job Definition List.

This will allow you to visualize what is on your plate and breathe easier. Going through this exercise will help give shape to the amorphous feeling of doom you may be feeling.

The JDL should be bullet points with a maximum of two sentences clarifying a point, when needed. If it takes more than two sentences to explain, than the bullet point itself isn’t defined clearly enough to be actionable.

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One helpful piece of information to get on a project is estimated hours per task. This is a measure of how much work or effort a particular task will take.  Not to be confused with due date (when a task will be done), estimated hours is a reflection of how much of a person’s time the task will take. Knowing this will help you better allocate that person’s time. It will make it easier to juggle tasks across projects and plan out people’s workload.

Getting estimated hours from internal staff can sometimes be hard. First off, people may worry that if they tell you it will take 8 hours, you’ll be mad when its not done by the end of the day.  They might also be afraid that if it takes them longer then the estimate, they’ll be penalized.  These fears can keep people from giving estimates. 

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