I had the pleasure of speaking to a group at the Shifting Gears program this morning in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

These are motivated individuals in mid-career who saw the world change around them as the auto industry in Detroit underwent its massive transition.

They are taking courses on re-learning how to compete and shine in a world of entrepreneurs, small businesses and risk takers. To use a phrase from Seth Godin’s Linchpin, they are being taught how to fight the lizard-brain.

One of the key messages I conveyed was the need to constantly be innovating. The group  has the basic skills to do this, but need to learn how to reapply those skills to generate innovation.

Most of the people in the group are engineers or worked in environments geared to engineers.  They are very accustomed to thinking about and structuring formal processes.

This is wonderful. You can create processes that generate innovation.

The problem is that most of them have been taught to build processes that eliminate costs by standardizing output.  What needs to be taught is how to develop processes that maximize innovation.

The way to generate innovation is to build processes and standards that measure output for its value to the customer.  And by value, I don’t mean providing widget x for the least money. This is what they have been doing for 20 years.  By value, I mean providing a good or service that the customer truly appreciates.

Its great programs like Shifting Gears that can help drive this re-learning in Michigan and help harness the talent that’s here.

Its also this kind of mindset shift, particularly in project management, that can foster a flurry of innovation and lead the economy forward.

Fusion Authority published an article of mine describing a road-map of process improvement.

It puts project management in the context of the overall way an organization delivers its product.  Basically, project management changes depending on how “mature” an organization is and how much of their processes they’ve standardized.

By understanding where your organization is on the map, you can know how to improve your products.

The road-map is one developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University. Despite the name, though, it can be applied to almost any work and not just software projects.

I came across a great question asking about using email to manage issues or tasks.

The short answer is that email is terrible for managing issues and tasks.

Sending or forwarding emails may make the sender feel like the issue is being handled (particularly if its a long email, with many threads and lots of names on the cc line). But in truth, sending or forwarding emails is just a fast and easy way for the sender to get the issue off their plate without investing themselves in the resolution of the issue or accomplishment of the task.

Not Enough Information

1. A forwarded email often does not have enough information or context to convey how the issue should be handled. Even though there may be a ton of discussion in the email itself the sender is assuming

• a) that the recipient will understand the discussion in the way that they do and
• b) that the recipient will understand the senders intent and come to the same conclusion as to how the issue should be resolved.

It is also extremely time consuming for the recipient to troll through the entire email, rather than get clear direction from the sender.

Who is Responsible?

2. Forwarding email has no clear way for the sender to see who is supposed to be handling the issue or task. They just know who they forwarded it to.  The next person in line (or all the people cc’d on it) may turn around and forward it to other people.

No Feedback. Just More Email.

3. There is no clear feedback loop on the status of the issue or task with email. While the email might contain a deadline or language conveying urgency,  the sender has no clear way of seeing how close to being done the issue is nor does the recipient have any way of updating the timeline on the issue -other than sending more email that then needs to be sifted through to get to the status information.

No Reports

4. It is cumbersome and difficult for the sender to see the status of all issues or tasks at any point in time. They need to search their inbox/outbox issue by issue or person by person.

Incidentally, the same things that are wrong with using email can apply to open-ended project collaboration software or task management systems that work like message boards with multiple posts.  Like email, these are easy for people to use. But, they provide limited information for project managers. A manager often needs to spend a lot of time sifting through posts to find information they need to make strategic decisions or to update clients.

Who should create the task lists that people use at work? Should a manager, or should each person be allowed to create their own list?

These are questions asked in a blog post today by Seth Godin:

“If you made the list instead of just obeying it, would you be a more valuable member of the team.”

A task list is generally not an isolated set of to-do’s. A task list is a specific slice of an overall project or process. Its the slice that’s relevant to the person responsible for getting those things done.

If each person made up their own task list, it would impossible for a team to function together or for a group to get a larger project done.

But, individuals can be a powerful force of creativity. Individuals can provide new ideas on how to get things done.

A good manager can unlock these ideas. A brave individual can propose these ideas. And a healthy organization has a culture of communication that promotes speaking up.

I read an interesting analysis comparing the permission settings of Facebook and MySpace and how the permissioning impacts

• the type of information people share and
• the adoption of the websites.

The article makes the point that people feel comfortable sharing meaningful information on Facebook because it has more controlled and tighter permissioning than MySpace. It also states that this is one of the secrets behind the increased adoption of Facebook.

Facebook, the article continues, has an “exclusive” feel, like a club or fraternity. You can decide your circle of friends and therefore who gets to see the information you post.  Because you can control the connections, you are comfortable sharing meaningful information. Because the information remains meaningful, you keep coming back to the website.

MySpace has the feel of almost any place on the web. It is less exclusive. Information posted on MySpace can be seen by a wider audience. This openness, the article points out, leads to people posting less meaningful information, fewer discussions and, ultimately, less participation by each person.

ROLES IN A PROJECT

People’s roles in a project are defined. They may be defined by the project plan, by a person’s skillset, an organizational chart or the formal relationship among the project team.  The connections are not made in public, as it were.  There is a relationship in place.

Good project management software (like Vertabase) can map these roles into specific access levels and leverage those roles to improve projects.

Like with Facebook, you can increase the value of the information shared on projects by

• defining the type of information people can share
• controlling who gets to see that information and
• defining how that information is shared.

This will drive adoption of the project management software as a whole, and keep ongoing participation in projects high.

Seth Godin’s post from today trash talks compliance, in favor of teaching initiative and intelligent problem solving. Surprising to many, I’d like to speak up in defence of compliance.

There is incredible value in compliance.

It is valuable for a person to be able to follow a plan and consistently perform. 

It is valuable for an organization to have people who can follow plans and perform consistently. 

To grow, an organization needs to be able do what it does, consistently.  It needs to be able to teach and train people to be part of doing it. That’s the value of process and project management.  

1. A process or plan is developed, then executed.
2. The work product is evaluated and;
3. The plan is evaluated and improved. 

The goal of management, as a field of study, is to get people with different skill sets to work together to produce remarkable results.  Compliance helps managers accomplish this goal, measure results and rework.

Be consistent, evaluate results and rework.

Seth often talks about consistency and plugging away at building a brand or product. Rare are the overnight successes and instant home runs. A much more sure path to success is to focus on base hits. Be consistent, evaluate results and rework. You can’t do that if people don’t follow the plan.

There are few things more frustrating to a project manager than team members who do not communicate. Non-communicators can single-handedly eliminate a manager’s visibility on a project and be a source of unforeseen, and therefore, uncontrollable risks.

Within this group, the most frustrating are those that ignore direct requests for information or who only talk when they feel like it.

• To the extent that a project manager can pick their own team, non-communicators are generally the last people picked.
• To the extent that a project manager can influence HR decisions, “better communication skills” is the area of improvement most often recommended for non-communicators.
• To the extent that a project manager can limit a non-communicator’s participation in a project, they will.

But when it can’t be avoided here are a few tips to managing a non-communicator on a project.

Find the communication medium that works best. Some people respond to phone calls, others to emails. Some respond to instant message and some prefer talking one on one. Find the medium that works best for that person and stick to it.

Experiment with Non-Traditional Ways of Communicating. All of the above mentioned media are conversations or openings for a dialog. They are in a question/answer or solicitation/response format. Some people simply don’t work that way. Get creative in finding other ways of getting information that don’t involve a “conversation.”

For example, I’ve worked with non-communicators who are best at giving information as it directly relates to the completion status of a task. Instead of asking how things are going, I’ve found it more valuable to assign a task in a project management tool and let them indicate its status. The options I set in the project management software are simple: done or not-done. To maximize the value of information from this technique start with the most detailed level of a task you can find. Think of it like 20 questions where the person can only answer yes or no. Make each question (or in this case, task) count.

Be Patient. People have their own time lines when it comes to answering questions. Don’t mistakenly categorize someone as a non-communicator just because they take a long time to respond to you. I know some people that take 10 minutes or more to respond to a question on instant message. It can be very frustrating when you are expecting an “instant” answer on “instant message” and instead, get a response 10 minutes later.

Sometimes, people are thinking about the answer. Other times, the answer might be more complicated than the asker thinks. Learn how long it takes people to respond and budget in the appropriate amount of time.

Know How to Get Information When You Absolutely Need It. The corollary to being patient is to have a clear way to get information in an emergency. For example, call the person on their cell phone or go directly to their desk. This requires that the project manager prioritize their information need or, at a minimum, have a clear understanding of when to really bother someone. To be effective, use emergency procedures sparingly or, like the boy who cried wolf, it becomes just one more thing the non-communicator doesn’t respond to.

Be Persistent and Consistent. Make sure you get answers to the critical questions you ask. Make it easy for a non-communicator to distinguish between hearing your communication and needing to participate in the communication by providing information.

In the best case, by finding ways to get the information you need from a non-communicator you can potentially find a new, more productive way to make use of their skills on your projects. And if that doesn’t happen, you can at least reduce unforeseen risks to your projects and increase visibility.

Peter H. Feiler and Jorgen Hansson from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) have compiled and published some interesting statistics that point to the benefit of finding and fixing bugs early in a software development project.

There is a huge benefit to finding and fixing problems early.

Here are some of the most remarkable findings:

• 70% of faults are introduced in the early stages of a project lifecycle.
• But, only 3.5% of faults are found at that stage.

• 80% of faults are actually only found in the later stages of a project’s lifecycle.

• The cost of fixing faults in the early stages is 2.5x.
• The cost of fixing faults in later stages is 16x or higher.

According to the research you can save yourself over 600% on repair and rework costs on a project by finding and fixing problems early.

While this data is specifically for software development, the conclusion rings true for projects of all sorts, including marketing projects, creative work, manufacturing or research projects.

Wanted to pass on some great feedback from a new Vertabase customer and their first-hand experience using the timesheets on the iPhone.

Feedback has been positive so far with regards to how simple and easy the system is to use. I even tested timesheet entry using Safari and our iPhones and it works great. I looked at many web-only timesheet/project management products and Vertabase has exceeded my expectations so far.

The company is a strategic marketing and research firm.

I want to highlight a few of the things Vertabase has been doing for Haiti. This is not to toot our own horn but to point out a few extremely meaningful programs and ways to help.

1. We participated in sponsoring medical supplies that went with doctors from Holy Cross Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The surgeon that helped raise the money has an incredible, first-hand account of his time there. You can also contribute on the site.

2. The One Laptop Per Child program has started planning for the educational needs of the children of Haiti by launching this great collection of XO laptops for Haiti that were given out as part of the Give a Laptop Get a Laptop program over the last few years. As eary participants in this program we are sending them our XO’s.

One other neat program that is the geeks for Haiti t-shirt. You can promote your support and help your choice of charities like UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders at the same time.