Making It Happen:
A Non-Technical Guide to Project Management
March 14, 2000
University of Idaho, Engineering Outreach
Business 530, Managing Technical Teams
Prepared by Kennith Green
Introduction, an Executive Summary
Making It Happen, is a fictional account of the Hyler Corporation's plan for expansion. The books main character is Will Campbell, the companies' director of information systems and soon to be "ace" project manager. Will had been a team member on a number of other projects, but had never been a project manager. Acting upon the advice of his wife, Will looks to an unlikely source for help in directing the team, his wife's rather eccentric grandmother, Martha. With her assistance, Will takes project management a new direction within the Hyler Corporation.
Grandmother Martha is referred to as Will's consultant throughout the book. To Will, it sounded much more credible to be making changes to traditional thinking at the direction of a consultant than to admit he was getting advice from a pipe smoking old lady that spends her days sitting on the front porch of his in-laws home.
Martha gives Will, or Willie as she preferred to call him, a five part framework to completing an assignment. All projects consist of this same framework; it's the manager's job to lead the team through them in a systematic way that is designed for that specific assignment. The framework parts are genesis, design, execution plan (project), execution, and reviews. The novel follows the team as they struggle through each of the steps.
All is progressing well with the project until the company learns of the competitions effort to beat them to market with a similar product. Suddenly, it's time for Will's lesson in crashing the execution schedule and dealing with stubborn contractors. With insight from Martha, Will learns that the pie of an assignment is divided into four pieces, the cost, scope, schedule and quality. If you want to change one, you will have to alter at least one of the other slices. For example, when Will was directed to accelerate the schedule some 3 months, he realized that cost would have to increase, the quality lowered or the scope changed. In the end, the accelerated schedule cost less in initial investment as the scope of the project was modified to remove certain tasks and postpone them until later.
Success breeds success. By implementing the new project management techniques, Will becomes recognized as a skillful leader. As a result, another assignment is given to him, in yet another area where he has no expertise. This time he has to head a team of staff that will coordinate a regatta on Hyler Lake to commemorate the launch of the new WindSailor product for the retailers. Will applies the same five-part framework to the assignment as he had with the product line expansion and with the help of an excellent team, makes the assignment look easy. By the conclusion of the regatta, the sales department has more orders for the WindSailor than they can produce during the season.
As the story nears its end, Will gets a lesson from Martha on project assessment and corporate learning. She preaches that until an internal evaluation is completed, the assignment is not complete. The assessment consists of three major components or questions to be asked. First, was the deliverable of the assignment the same as what was specified in the design? Second, how was the project management? Finally, was the original concept worth the investment and effort? By answering these questions, managers and team leaders can gain valuable insights for future products and projects.
The book concludes with Will being directed to write a procedural manual for this new way of managing projects that he had developed. In the end, he produced a manual that was two pages long. It simply stated the five component parts to any assignment and emphasized the need for a three-part assessment of the project at its conclusion. Beyond that, the team and mangers should adapt the process to the situation at hand.
About the Author
Mackenzie Kyle graduated college with a Bachelor of Science in Statistics. While working for the information systems department of one of Canada's major banks, he returned to school and earned an MBA. Following completion of his graduate studies, Mr. Kyle relocated to Victoria, BC and started working for Manageering Associates.
His work with Manageering involved a consulting with firms on implementing or improving a project management process, much of which was in the construction industry. This lead to the development of a three day project management training course that the company used as a starting point for a number of consulting interventions. After having taught the three- day course a few hundred times, he decided to look for another way to get the point across. That's when he wrote the book, Making It Happen.
Following the publication of Making It Happen, Mr. Kyle went to work for Booz Allen and Hamilton in Australia and New Zealand. Following his time down under he did free-lance consulting work in Hong Kong for a short period of time. In 1997 he returned to Canada and went to work for the Business Consulting Group at Arthur Andersen.
The following are a few of his more noteworthy accomplishments as a project management consultant.
- Lead the re-engineering of dragline maintenance for BHP coal in Australia, which resulted in a 20% reduction of downtime.
- Provided start-up management assistance to a Hong Kong based firm that was managing the transition from a paper based import/export documentation process to a computer based automated system.
- Currently the leader for a team of 13 that is working with a client to restructure Hydroelectric Power Operations at a large aluminum smelter in Kitimat, BC.
The Book in Detail
This is the story of an expansion to a new product line within the Hyler Corporation. Hyler is in the business of manufacturing outdoors recreational equipment. It was founded in World War II as a supplier of life rafts to the government and after the war continued as a recreational boat builder. When the founder, Andrew Hyler, reached the age of retirement, he sold the company to Mantec, a diversified conglomerate that planned to use Hylers small manufacturing facility as a corporate proving ground for its' young rising stars.
Will Campbell is the Director of Hyler Corporation's Information Systems Department. In the past he has been a part of several team efforts for the company, but never a project manager. The book begins with he and Stu Barnes, Hyler's Vice President of Operations, discussing an expansion of the companies product line that Will is being assigned to manage. Will is advised that this $1,000,000.00 effort is the largest expansion that Hyler has ever committed to and both his and Stu's jobs are on the line if it fails. He tries, unsuccessfully, to dodge the assignment. His lack of experience in project management did not alter Stu's decision to place him in charge. Will had 10 months to complete the largest expansion of facilities that the Hyler Corporation had ever committed to.
While explaining the situation to his wife, Jenny, and desperately trying to figure out what his next step should be, Jenny suggests that he pay a visit to her grandmother, Martha, and ask for some advice. Jenny explains that in her younger years, Martha had been some sort of consultant for companies that needed to "get their thinking straight." With nowhere else to turn, Will agrees to pay her a visit later that evening.
Martha is portrayed as an eccentric old lady. She spends her days sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of her daughter's home, smoking a pipe. She becomes a mentor for Will throughout the project, giving him just enough of the answer to allow him to reason through a situation in order to get to the answer. Through that he learned the power of thoughtful reasoning. Because she is such an unlikely source of good information, Will elects to keep her name and relationship anonymous throughout the project. When discussing her ideas with the team he simply refers to her as "his consultant."
The team that is selected for the project is very diverse in skills. All the key organizational components are represented. They have representatives from Information Systems, Industrial and Production Engineering, Accounting, Human Resources, Marketing and the plant's general foreman so that there was an excellent mixture of skills.
The first time the team meets, they get off to a floundering start. They attempt to set goals and sub-goals in traditional project management form. By the end of the first meeting, nobody has a clear sense of direction.
The only person that seemed satisfied with the outcome of the first meeting was Al Burton, a certified project manager from Industrial and Production Engineering. Al was seen as the team spy. The company president had assigned him to the team to make sure that the project progressed in typical fashion. Al saw the floundering start as a chance to report a dismal start to the president. It was the general consensus of the team that Al was not a good project manager. His most recent project was late, over budget and was still nowhere near complete.
With a little help from Martha, Will is able to figure out that a "project" is a plan. What most of us in industry define as a project should really be considered an "assignment" for lack of a better term. Martha shows Will that there are five basic components to every assignment and emphasizes that the team cannot start the next one without a consensus from everyone, especially the sponsor, that the current component is complete. They are genesis, design, execution plan (the one Martha calls the project), execution and reviews. The story traces the "assignment" through each of these components as Will and his team strive toward completion of their task.
Of course, this process is a new way of managing a project and deviates drastically from what Al Burton, the "Certified Project Manager," recognizes as standard project management practices. But later, when Will has the opportunity to present his plans and progress to the company president, Ralph Borsellino, and Ralph likes what he sees, Al's concerns and credibility are dismissed. Eventually, the conflict causes Al to leave the team and the Hyler Corporation. He goes to work for a competitor and jeopardizes the entire project later in the story.
The team meets and discusses the first component. Genesis of the project is where the boundaries are established. It answers questions about why the assignment will be done, where it came from, what it will do, the constraints placed on the project, authority given to the team, and explicitly identifies the manager and the sponsor. From their discussion and with some insight from Martha, the team establishes that the project doesn't really deal with production of the WindSailor, it stops at the completion of the facilities expansion. Production is not their concern, even though the traditional project management practice of goal setting would have included it. They also established that the person in control of the money was the sponsor. Although Stu Barnes had initially been selected as project sponsor, Ralph wanted to control all expenditures. That made Ralph the sponsor. After some persuasion and pushing from the Board of Directors, Ralph agreed with the principles and signed off on the genesis document.
After obtaining the signed genesis document, Will thought he was ready to move on to design. Martha felt differently. She said before you begin the design you have to have roles assigned to the team members. Her guidance proved to be sound advice, as usual. She suggested that eight role players make up the team. The first of course is the sponsor, Ralph Borsellino; he would control the money and be the ultimate decision-maker. The feasibility analyst was a role for Stu Barnes. Now the Ralph was the sponsor, he was not technically a part of the team, but he had a strong interest in seeing it succeed. Stu would be doing the financial projections for the sponsor to use in decision making. The team members were divided into these roles, the project manager to run the show, the designer to handle technical components and engineering design, the implementer to put the design into action, the project administrator to keep track of schedules and reporting and finally the users representative who maintained communication with all parties that would eventually become involved in the project.
The team was finally ready for the design phase. What does the design consist of? With a little prodding from Martha, Will determines that a design is "an unmistakable description of the deliverables." Of course, to get to that stage, there are several steps to be taken along the way. First is the idea generation and feasibility analysis. Once the best alternative is determined, the sponsor has to buy in to the resultant and approve it with his signature. Now that the team has identified what they want, it's relatively easy to determine a detailed design schedule and cost estimate. Again, this step needs the stamp of approval from the sponsor. Finally, the detailed design is completed and the sponsor is again asked to sign with a seal of approval.
Throughout the design process, the team members go about their duties in the assigned roles. The team member assigned to the role of user's representative takes her duties seriously and in the end demonstrates to the team that early coordination with the outside entities proves to be a timesaver. The user's representative involved the city planning board in the proposed expansion and ran into roadblocks that would have caused lengthy delays in a typical project. Early involvement allowed negotiation of problems and an agreeable solution for everyone. The same results came from early involvement of the labor union. By bringing them on board early, everyone's concerns were addressed before the project even began construction. The outsiders were not looked to as roadblocks, but rather as ex-officio team members with a voice in the design.
Martha's statement to Will "don't ignore the logic" was the most quotable quote of the book. If anyone is to learn a lesson from this novel, it should be to look at the sequence of events in a project and determine how they inter-relate. The team experienced scheduling nightmares in the design phase as a result of ignoring these relationships. They had not linked activities in the necessary sequence of events. They spelled out the activities needed to complete the design and put them on a timeline, but didn't consider all the ways that they may be connected. Fortunately, the delays were not extensive or too costly and the team was able to keep moving. A valuable lesson was learned and Martha's wisdom proved itself again as the team prepared to start the execution plan.
The execution plan is the part of the project that uses the finished design to create a final schedule and plan of operation for the completion of the project. Martha helped Will to understand that some things can be done simultaneously, but others must be sequential. To visualize this she showed Will how to develop a dependency chart. A dependency chart lists all the activities associated with a project and specifies a length of time for each and who has responsibility for getting it done. Once the tasks were identified, the team started placing them on a timeline. The key to the logic though, and what Martha wanted Will to grasp, was that with each task the team had to determine what impact it may have on every other activity. When the dependency chart was complete, the team had a visual representation of every project activity and how they related to all other activities in the project. The logical progression from the dependency chart is a critical path timeline and a realistic schedule for completion of the assignment.
The execution plan, like the other components of the assignment needs the sponsor's approval. When Ralph Borsellino saw what the team had done he was pleased with their efforts. The team administrator and designer had worked the dependency chart into a computer based management software that the company had acquired. Using the data from the dependency chart the computer system was able to manipulate the information and produce the timelines and costs that Ralph had been requesting from the onset of the project. With information in hand to present to the board of directors in a familiar format, he felt confident in signing the execution plan for the team.
The team was ready to implement the execution phase when the name Al Burton resurfaced. Al had gone to work for a competitor and coincidentally it seems as though the company wanted to invest heavily in this new product that they had discovered in Europe. Of course, the new employer placed Al in charge of a fast track project development of their facilities for the new product. The competition had announced that they would have their version of the WindSailor to market by July 1, approximately 1 month ahead of Hyler's planned release.
Being the first company to offer a new product is critical in establishing the initial market share, at least according to the Hyler marketing staff. In a meeting with Ralph Borsellino, Stu Barnes and the marketing director, Will makes the proposal to compress the execution plan and beat the competition to the market. The proposal meant compressing the already tight schedule by about 60 days so that the WindSailor could be available to dealers at the beginning of the buying season.
Will heads back to his consultant for another front porch meeting. Martha and he discuss the issues of crashing an execution plan. She points out that there are four elements to every task on the dependency chart and if one element is modified, at least one other will change to compensate for the modification. The elements are cost, quality, schedule, and scope. In Will's case he needed to shorten the schedule. By doing so, he would likely effect the quality of workmanship or the cost.
The team went through each activity, especially those on the critical path and cut any excess time wherever possible. They also reduced the scope in a number of instances so that the time to completion could be shortened. In the end, the revised deadline was acceptable and the actual project expense went down as a result of reductions in the scope of work. Some items would have to be done later as a part of the agreements made with the city, but since they had been removed from the scope of work in the execution plan they were no longer considered a part of the project.
Execution of the plan was a work of art. To quote Will, it was almost boring. That pleased Martha, she felt that a well-defined execution plan meant no surprises during construction. The only issues that arose during construction were concerning education of the general contractor on the importance of reading and abiding by the dependency chart and critical path. When the contractor began to deviate from the critical path items, the team implementer and Will graphically demonstrated how his activities would slow down completion of the project if he didn't pay attention to the schedule and plan.
Successful project management earned Will the right to manage another team. This time he had to plan a sailing regatta on Hyler Lake for the dealers to see the WindSailor in action. Again, he had no experience in this type of project management, but was able to select an excellent team. He applied the five components of completing an assignment that Martha had taught him, only this time not on a construction project, but rather on a marketing scheme. He had learned from Martha that every assignment is different, but the component parts are the same. It's just how you adapt them to the situation that makes you a good manager.
The execution of the company expansion was done and production began on schedule. The sailing regatta was much more productive than the marketers could have imagined. Will felt good about the successes of the past eight months as did Ralph and Stu.
Everyone was happy except Martha. She wanted Will to finish the job. Step five of the process is the reviews. She pointed out that there is a need for corporate learning. Unless there is a review and the results are shared, the same mistakes, except for maybe the really big ones, will be made next time too. Corporate learning also needs to share what went right in the project as well so that others can pattern their activities after them in the future.
Martha directed Will to have reviewers ask three questions of the project. Were the deliverables exactly what was wanted in the beginning or genesis of the project? How was the project management? And finally, was the investment worth the effort in the end?
The book concludes with Will's final assignment. He is directed to produce a procedural manual for the project management concepts that he and his consultant had developed. The company didn't want to lose this valuable tool. After three weeks of effort the manual was complete, it was two pages. It listed the five component steps to completing and assignment then spelled them out in something less than a detailed manner. He finally realized that the components of an assignment are the same, but each one is different. Different assignments deserve different treatment and the team must be creative and logical in their approach to completing the task at hand.
What about the teamwork?
Beyond being a great story on project management, the book has many powerful tools and insightful thoughts about team content and dealing with organizational issues. All too often the one controlling the money or the sponsor of a project builds layers between him and the team. The book demonstrates that the authority to act must be delegated or assigned to the ones in charge of the project and that without authority the team is destined for failure or the pains of bureaucracy at the very least.
The mix of skills on the team is quite interesting. Although the book doesn't elaborate on how Will selects his team members, he certainly did an excellent job. He pulled together a group that was diverse in its skills but unified in its commitment to doing the assignment a better way. They were cohesive in that they really desired to work together and do a great job. At least everyone except for Al Burton, who played the role of a blocker until his timely resignation. The team had an encourager to keep them going even when they had to work over the Christmas holiday. They had a visionary that could see the bigger picture and put it into words when Will would struggle with a concept. They seemed to lack nothing in terms of character for the task at hand. Whether or not this is an accurate description of a team in industry today is yet to be seen.
The assignment of roles to each team member was quite interesting. Of particular interest to me were the user's representative and the split of duties between the designer and the implementer. The user's representative is a new concept for me, but I see its relevance in virtually every project scenario. The user's rep transitioned virtually every relationship that is combative in a typical project into one that was cooperative and enriched the end product. Because of a functional mindset, I have always believed the designer and the implementer were one in the same person. Who knows better how to get a project built than its' designer. This is not necessarily the case in every situation. The designer doesn't always see the entire picture. As was the case in the novel, when the plant foreman so appropriately pointed out to Al Burton, the designer, that the company doesn't make money if they stop production while he builds something. Sometimes it takes a different set of eyes to see the other side of the house's framework and using an implementer to take a project from design through execution seems to have some valuable attributes.
So what? Applying the novel to everyday life.
First, it might be wise to tell a little of our workplace structure. I work for the Indian Health Service, which is an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services. I am the Acting Branch Chief for our program and under my direction are two district engineers and seven field engineers. We provide environmental engineering and technical assistance to 23 tribes in 14 states. Our service area ranges from northern Maine to the everglades in Florida then west to Texas along the Gulf coast. The engineers are strategically located in 5 field offices so that they can provide on-site or face to face assistance to our tribal counterparts as often and quickly as possible. The largest office has a staff of five and the smallest two, including secretaries and technicians.
Having read this book, I see several areas that could use improvement in our team building efforts. The least of which is a clear identification of the team sponsor. In many ways my position is that of the sponsor, but then again, if the person controlling the money should be the sponsor and making decisions then I am more like Stu Barnes than Ralph Borsellino. Our current management has recently taken steps to give me greater spending authority, but these only relate to travel and training. We still need to close the gap on related issues such as NEPA approval for projects, equipment procurement and staffing levels.
The five steps to completing an assignment need to become everyday terminology for our team. Being engineers, I think we feel somewhat compelled to jump into designing and construction (execution). We tend to neglect the genesis phase, because we are engineers and we know that our way is the best way. Formal consultation with the team members and with our counterparts in tribal government will become a major component of planning projects in the future. The same principle applies to the execution plan. I believe that we tend to jump from design to execution without adequate planning. As recently as two weeks ago a team worked on a project in North Carolina. I had anticipated that with the workforce available, the task could be completed within one week. Had we spent a little more time on an execution plan, the team would likely have been restructured to include an additional CAD operator. CAD operations are slow and tedious. This project needed more than one operator to finish in the week.
Dependency charts may prove to be a valuable management tool for our staff as well. Each engineer balances the needs of up to ten projects at any given time. Although they are small by comparison to many government construction projects, they each still demand a certain amount of time and usually just as much paperwork as the larger projects. By implementing a series of dependency charts, each engineer should be able to predict where they are in relation to the project needs at any given time. I see these charts being used as a tool to allocate other staff time to critical needs.
The assignment of roles has definite possibilities to aid us in team building. Because of the large geographic area that we work in, assigning designers from another region may help relieve a backlog of critical path work in another location. The local engineer would be assigned the implementers role and be on-site during the construction to see that the designer's plans and specifications become a reality.
Finally, I see the need for user's representatives within our team structure. The problems avoided in the novel are images of those that we have experienced in various locations. We built a water tank in an area that was presumably tribal land, but the local township and state had other thoughts. As a result the tank has been sitting empty for over two years while permitting and jurisdictional issues are being resolved. If there were a user's representative in place during that project, that individual would have been talking to the township leaders, to the state environmental offices, and to the tribal leaders in an attempt to expose any concerns before construction started. We may very well have avoided all the problems with simple communication.
This book has been a pleasure to read and was filled with ideas that can be implemented in our setting. I would recommend that anyone with an interest in project management read this and apply the principals that it teaches. |
