Stan's High Tech Project
Management
Ideas 31-May-2004
(updated
7-July-2006)
1. Vision of the self.
Vision of the self has priority
over vision of the project. A project is the canvas that allows
expression of oneself allowing for personal fullfillment. This applies to
every project participant. A project development has to become also a
realisation of one's own vision, for all participants. If a personal vision
of an individual project member is not aligned with the project vision then the
participant should be asked to quit the project development or his/her
contunued presence may be utilized as an opportunity for other project members,
especially the leader to re-think or question the project or some of its
implementation aspects. It may be generally assumed that nothing happens
accidentally, thus differences or discord in personal visions may be indicative
of something inharmonious about the project itself, which may be used as an
opportunity to take early corrective action.
2. Vision of the project
Vison of the project consists of
the “mental picture” of a final goal or a product as if it were already
accomplished in the present time, together with all individual steps and events
leading to it. Only one person within the group need to hold a conscious
vision of the project, although all members of the project team must share some
aspec ts of the vision, at least unconsciously.
Project vision consists of two
levels: (2a) the so-called “surface” vision - which may be the actual product
or business idea that the project is officially asembled for; and (2b) -
the deeper level vision, a vision beneath the vision which deals vith the
primary objective or purpose behind the existence of (2a).
For example, the surface vision may
consist of the development of a new industrial level sensor , whereas the
deeper level vision may be the seeding and implantation of a new business
culture and ethics in the high tech industry in general, beginning with the
particular area of industrial sensors. A deeper level vision may also be,
for instance - to grow the company at the fastest rate possible and to maximize
the amount of profit in the short term, or long term etc. One has to be
particularly careful about building deeper level visions because such visions
hold precedence over surface visions and may in fact contradict them. In
the above example, it may be conceivable that the development of a new
industrial level sensor may in fact not be the best way of achieving the
fastest possible business growth, which means that the surface vision may not
be compatible with that particular deep level vision. Such a situation
would therefore lead to failure if the team is unaware and insists on
continuation of the original surface vision.
Both levels of project vision must
coexist simultaneously and be shared among most members of the project
team. It is not possible to successfully complete a project except in
some trivial cases, if one of those two levels of vision are missing or are
contradictory as in the previous example. Without the short term vision
(2a) the deeper level vision cannot begin to be realized; without the deeper
vision (2b) the team will not have enough energy, motivation and reason to
persist through difficulties.
3.
Concept of a project goal.
A project goal is the part of the
short term project vision (2a) that is the most clearly defined in time.
A goal cannot become a vision because a project vision is usually open ended in
time, that is a project never completely ends while subsequent goals or
milestones can and in fact are being completed at specific points in
time. For example, if the project vision is an industrial level
sensor, then the goal may be to deliver a specific product design and launch a
product.
The distinction between a vision
and a goal is an important one - failure to understand that usually results in
accepting goals as visions, with all its time and scope limitations. Typically,
a vision with its dual level structure is a much more solid and durable
entity. While a goal being only a part of the project may easily change,
the vision and therefore the project may still remains intact and viable.
For example, an attempt at defining the project vision erronously as the goal
of delivering and launching a particular product at a particular time on the
market, may easily fail if the product’s technical or marketing specification
change or become obsolete in the course of development. A goal is
fixed and narrow while a vision is flexible and broader.
Another disadvantage of
goal-limited projects is their abrupt termination, and the removal of resources
at a fixed completion date once a goal is deemed to be fullfilled. Many
commercially successful and profitable businesses resulted from project
follow-ups after the original goal was completed, like for example in the case
of the original IBM PC or in the enertainment and film industry.
Such developments are virtually impossible to predict and to plan, yet they
come naturally if the project is vision - not goal-driven.
4. Specifications
Project technical and marketing
specifications are lists of technical details and features that the product
ought to have. As such, specifications are closely tied with the project
goal. Being goal related, they are naturally subjected to similar
volatilty. It is important to be aware that the specifications (and
goals) are secondary to project vision and they should not be treated as if
they were unquestionable rules imposed for ever. Their usefulness lies in
short term guidance and aid for synchronizing and facilitating various aspects
of development. Too rigid specifications may become a hindrance rather
than a help and often contribute to project failures.
It is a common mistake to
write specifications too early or too detailed. Such specifications
may limit project design concepts during the early developmental stage
while only serving a dubious benefit of helping in detailed early project
planning. Such early planning may cause the same problems as too rigid
specification, namely it predetermines and enforces a certain project direction
at the time when the true course cannot yet be known.
5. Timeline and scheduling
In high tech research and
development, the correct approach to project planning is to formulate
milestones and partial goals during the foreseen project development.
The time schedule should be less detailed in the beginning but may
incorporate more details, such as specific task timing in the later stages of
the project. In practice, the most useful schedules are those that can be
easily memorized by most participants, especially by the team leader or project
manager. In order to make it possible, it is essential to limit the
overall length of the schedule to a maximum one page of size A4 sheet and keep
it as conscise as possible.
In order to fit a project schedule
within such a limited space, the schedule should only list milestones with
projected completion dates and only exceptionally may list individual
tasks. Milestones completion dates can be best estimated by experienced
project members based on their prior experience. In some rare
situations, such estimates may be arrived at by means of breaking the periods
between milestones into individual tasks and adding up projected duration of
individual sequential tasks. Very often however, such estimates are less
accurate than a global estimate for a milestone provided by experienced
engineers and managers.
In the case of extremely complex
and large projects this method might not work very well. Such situations
arise typically when the project team size exceeds about 10 people. The
best solution in that case is the one employed by military organizations - to
create a two-level hierarchical structure. That is to divide the
project into subprojects, and to divide the team into sub-teams each with its
project leader. In such a case, there must be a well defined hierarchy
established within the management where the individual team leaders are
subordinate to the overall project manager. The overall project manager
must be responsible for the entire project’s success or failure, while the
individual sub-team leaders must be made responsible for the success or failure
of the sub-projects. The project manager must have the power to appoint
or dismiss leaders, while the leaders must have the same power towards their
staff.
6. Budget control
Out of several ways of controlling
expenditure, the one that interferes the least with the development is
the most effective from the overall point of view. That is, the objective
is not to maximize the amount of control but rather to achieve a balanced
compromise between the degree of controling and auditing and crippling the
project by too many constraints. For this method to work, a great
deal of discipline (informal, not necessarily procedural) is required from management,
as well as a high level of ethics (on the other hand no control method may
really work if the last condition is not met). In particular the overall
project cost estimate has to be made before the project starts and ought to be
adhered to, but without too much interference from the upper management on how
exactly the money is spent. The project team should also have a
flexibility of allocating financial resources between services (including staff
hiring) or parts and tools. Within this method, it is useful to have a
mid-project budgetary review involving the corporate project sponsor (a
director or board-appointed auditor), to ensure that the resource allocation is
modified if necessary, if the circumstances change.
A correct mind set for budgetary
control is that of an engineer, centered upon relative rather than absolute
figures. The best illustration of what that means is an example:
From the
accounting point of view a small expense like purchasing a component worth a
dollar is recorded/invoiced and handled in the same way as purchasing some
equipment or a travel expense worth a thousand times as much. The reason
being that accounting has to make expense figures add up and match the invoices
exactly, while the project manager should rather be more concerned with saving
percentages (relative) of the project costs rather than focusing on the
cost-cutting in terms of absolute figures. Important issue is also the
administrative labor costs and overheads involved in book-keeping. In many
cases, it may be more economical not to book-keep small expense records
and refraining from cost optimization for small material, services and parts
purchases. A more efficient way of handling small and medium value
expenses is to decentralize purchasing decisions and to allow for discretionary
spending of up to a certain limit per month, either for all project members or
just for the leader(s), such that small expenses are not itemized individually
but instead bunched up together and invoiced monthly as small-cap expenses. A
useful rule of thumb is to cap the small expense budget to up to 10% of the
wages costs. Higher value expenses should be invoiced individually but
assessed in comparison with the total project budget rather than as absolute
figures.
7. Resource allocation, HR and
other aspects.
Cost saving discussed above is an
important issue but very often applied in the wrong place at the wrong
time. The correct time for cost cutting is at the beginning, during the
resource allocation stage, and the correct part to cut is the overall project
size, especially the number of staff.. Often however, this is the area
where the project managers may have the least to say especially if the project
allocation is done at the higher level. The staff and budget allocation
for the project should be completed and finalized gradually after the project
starts because better information is available at this stage and better
planning is possible. Second opportunity for resource optimization
including cost cutting is a mid-project review in the presence of corporate
project sponsor and audtor. Third best window for budget revision is a
post launch review. The restriction to those 3 windows is important in
order to minimize the impact of too frequent interference on project planning,
and to minimize the authority-erosion impact of such interference upon the
project manager.
One often overlooked aspect of the
resource allocation is the psychological impact on the project team. For
example, team members may receive certain decisions as a corporate vote of
non-confidence in the project members or in the management , or may take it as
a sign of changing priorities, that may erode the morale and motivation to
work. Examples
* Refusal
to order certain tools or services hampering the project success and
jeopardising individual careers, under cost-cutting policy may have such an
impact, especially if it is not applied evenly across the company;
* A
corporate policy that allows underperforming employees or managers to remain
unchallenged in their positions may give an impression that company directors
regard protection of personal well being of some selected people to be above
the success of the project;
* Lack
of reward for successes or good work, and lack of punishment for mistakes or
inaction, has a strong detrimental effect since it gives an implicit message
that the company might not really care about the work quality.
* Putting
unreasonably strong emphasis on auxiliary activities such as corporate social
events, charities or poster campaigns on behalf of “quality” drives such
as ISO9000, “Teamwork” or other business fads has a detrimental effect on
project teams since it gives impression that the company management may care
more about form than substance. Even a product advertising may have an
antagonising effect on some teams that are not involved with a particular
product, if it is applied too vigorously inside a company.
* Disproportional
or insulting “rewards”. Example of disproportional rewards may be
bonuses, stock options, “golden parachutes” or early retirement
priviledges if applied selectively to certain positions only, given
indiscriminately to too many people, or if they are unrelated to
performance. Example of “rewards” that may be considered insulting by
some employees are those that do not carry any significant or comeasurate
monetary value and thus are diverging from the the main purpose of employment,
for instance: “Employee of the Month” poster, 30 dollar watch “gifts” for
30-years of work or 1 dollar plaque for a patent.
8. Management and personal
integrity.
Four styles of management are
usually taught, listed in the order of severity as: commanding, directing,
supervising and coaching. All four can be applicable and useful depending
on the circumstances, qualifications and experiences of the project
participants. Each one of them requires that the person in charge is willing
to take personal responsibility for his/her decisions and actions and is
emotionally balanced. This requirement is more important than some formal
qualifications and mistakes can be very costly. Profiling by a
professional psychoanalyst is sometimes necessary to qualify prospective
management candidates and to eliminate candidates who are psychologically
imbalanced, with disorders or unable to deal with subordinates or superiors in
a harmonous way.
9. Teamwork
This is a very important but often
misused concept, especially if treated supperficially or as a fad. A
fundamental principle behind this is that the team is more than a sum of its
components. Four people working together within a team group can achieve
more, faster and with less effort than the same four people employed
separately and acting individually, for example as consultants. Having
people that share certain common ideas (grouped together) can amplify
those ideas. However, that could also be a downside of teamwork,
namely a presence of people within a group that share destructive, disharmonous
or obstructive ideas or if they cannot work together, can prevent or make
it more difficult to accomplish a goal; therefore a selection of team members
is of the paramount importance.
There are two important
psychological classification methods of personal characters: by energy
personality type and by primary driving desire (personal vocation).
In terms of character temperaments
or energy characteristics, it is important to have a balance of four
fundamantal types: "Fire",
"Water", "Earth" and "Air".
It is beyond the scope of this article to describe those in details; however in
practice a very reliable identification of a person's energy type can be
accomplished by means of intuition and direct contact. Briefly: Fire
type has energy that is very strongly focused in one direction but for a short
time and inflexible, when challenged tends to fight or work with great burst of
energy, it tends to think emotionally (usually not intuitively and not
rationally). Water type tends to be flexible but can focus
deep and for longer periods of time and is intuitive, prefers to avoid open
conflicts when challenged. Air is the most flexible,
capable of focusing over very wide area of activity simultanously, but in
a shallow way, it tends to think verbally and intellectually, tends to ignore
conflicts but is capable of quick action if challenged. Earth
type can concentrate deeply in one area of activity for a very long time,
is the most pragmatic and reliable, tends to think rationally (and if that
fails, emotionally) and does not tolerate changes very well; resists very
hard and persistently when attacked.
It is one of the functions of the
leader to ensure that the opposing character types (Fire versus Water,
or Air versus Earth) are not placed in the position
of direct interaction with each other which is almost always certain to
generate conflicts and sap their energy. Instead, the opposing types
should be interspersed by more compatible elements. For example an Earth
type draftsman should not be forced to work directly with Air
type engineer, instead, the interaction should be mediated by a Fire
or a Water type person, etc.
It is a common mistake that an
inexperienced leader may tend to select people for the team that have only
compatible character types to the one he/she posseses. This results in
the team that may be lacking a vital energy characteristics – the one that is
opposite to the leader's. For example, Water type leader
may be tempted to exclude a Fire person from the team in order to
avoid potential conflicts. It is important that the leader is
aware of this issue, is familiar with the energetic classification of
characters and makes conscious effort to avoid making that misake. It has
to be said here that it is unfortunate that modern corporations tend to
generally exclude or undervalue people of the Fire type[1], who
are often perceived as too aggressive and therefore not suitable as team
members. This is a misconception as every one of the energy types has
equal potential of being constructive or destructive, thus exclusion of one
type does not help but rather it usually has a detrimental effect and makes the
team less efficient.
From a different point of view, in
order to maximize effectiveness of a team it is important to have a balance of
the seven fundamental psychological vocation types of characters[2] which are: Worker,Warrior,
Artist,Scholar,Writer, Priest and Leader. Each
of the types is defined by their primary driving desire or motivation to
act and to live: - Worker (Slave) is driven by a
desire to work at "grass roots" level for the benefit of the
community. Leader (King) is motivated by the desire to
build and grow the community by working from the top down. Warrior
is motivated by the challenge of overcoming obstacles. Artist
is motivated by pattern seeking and perceiving, Scholar is
motivated by curiosity, Writer (Sage) seeks and creates
drama and Priest serves a higher cause or follows an abstract
idea.
Important consequence of such
classification of characters is that the vocation types of the team members
should be matched (but not dogmatically!) with their positions or function in
order to maximize effectivness and to avoid frustration. In terms of
managerial functions, the Workers and Leaders seem most suitable due to their
focus on the group interest, contrary to, for example Warriors and Writers who
are driven by more individualistic or antagonistic motivations.
Some job functions may be best suited by several vocational character types
depending on the specific circumstances, for example a market research or
technical research may be efficiently done by a Scholar but also by a Priest or
Artist type, while a development stage of tightly timed project is best served
by a Warrior type. Sales and procurement on the other hand is often
better served by the Writer types or by Artists since they are capable of
splitting their attention over multiple activities.
It is important to regard all the
above presented psychological vocational types as equally valuable and all
being equally needed. It is not always possible to predict what kind of
characteristics may be most needed by the team, it is thus better to have a
proper balance of all seven types rather then a selected subset. A fully
functional team ought to consist of at least four people in order to fill up
four energy dynamics, while the optimal number is seven such that
all vocation types may be equally represented.
Last but not least, the
psychological vocation characteristics are not as strict as to prevent
one vocational type from performing another type’s task. In the longer
run however, a mismatch may lead to frustration or inefficiency. This
cannot be said about energy dynamics, as these are more fundamental and
swapping (or pretending) does not seem possible.
10. Leadership
This is the most important
function. Leadership is an inborn ability although certain aspects of it
may be taught. It is well recognized by now that a successful leader of a
high tech company need not necessarily have the same level of competence in
their particular area of engineering, however there is still a tendency to
require that a leader possesses a formal training in business and
administration, financial or accounting. This is exactly the same mistake
as demanding an engineering qualification from a leader. The most useful
skill for a leader seems to be the ability to relate to people, understand their
motivation and be able to influence them without undue coercion or formal
discipline. People tend to follow a person with true natural
leadership ability, although a person with some learned leadership skill may
also succeed in the task (for a short time). A formal training in
psychology is often more helpful although by no means constitutes a sufficient
skill. Leading people is not the same as manipulating a group - the
difference lies in the purpose. Of the seven vocational types: Leader
or Worker do more often than not make good company directors and
managers since their drive towards community building and cohesion are
naturally strong. Exceptionally strong ethics and psychological
balance is the most important conditon for a successful leader. Without
these, it is virtually impossible to gain people’s confidence and without a
confidence corporate leadership cannot be effective.
Footnotes
1) the author is “Water”
type.
2) Vocational types were
defined by C. Quinn Yarbro in “Michael for the new Millenium”