David Whelbourn January 2007 Page 1 of 7

New Year’s Resolution for Project Managers for 2007 As project managers, we bear the responsibility to deliver our projects within the agreed constraints. No one is expecting a 100% success rate -- well perhaps some unforgiving organizations do.

But we should be seeking continuous improvement. This means that as PM’s we must continue to learn and develop our professional knowledge in order to improve our project delivery performance.

So make yourself a new year’s resolution to improve your personal project delivery performance. I have a tip for a quick win area that will also improve your general management style.

My new year’s resolution tip for you is: Develop a Project Early Warning System

What on earth is a Project Early Warning System, I can hear you asking?

I served in the military for twelve years and we always used early warning systems to keep us safe. These ranged from the technologically advanced ground radar to spot intruders, down to the basic trip wire of twine and a tin of pebbles. Around us wildlife use early warning systems all the time; animals pick up on each other’s alarm calls and use them as warnings well before they detect any danger.

But my idea of a Project Early Warning System is not based only on my tin can with pebbles and some bits of twine or a few bird alarm calls experiences.

In the mid seventies (the same time as I listened for rattling tins) Igor Ansoff, a professor in mathematics and a management guru working in strategic management approaches, developed a management theory on Weak Signals. He used this theory to develop the idea of a Strategic Early Warning System.

The aim of a Strategic Early Warning System (SEWS) is to assist organizations in dealing with discontinuities or strategic “surprises.” By detecting “weak signals” (Igor Ansoff, 1975), SEWS allows organizations to react strategically ahead of time. The same applies to your project.

Project Early Warning System

In project management, it should be the same; in fact, as a PM you need a project early warning system more urgently than any CEO does. Your project probably has a fixed end date, and it would be useful to detect issues long before they become time consuming crises?

Management by after the fact is not a good option for project managers. It is fine when the rate of change is slow and there is enough time to react.

Some project managers use Management by Extrapolation in the form of Earned Value Tracking to give them an early warning of things going wrong in the project delivery.

Others use Management by Anticipation, using risk management techniques to identify potential problems and their impact, and then formulating mitigation strategies. PM's also use their experience and knowledge to pre-empt any issues by planning tasks and activities that reduce the risk of a crisis.

David Whelbourn January 2007 Page 2 of 7

Another form is Management through Flexible Rapid Response. They have the foresight and some say luxury to add in the contingency to put a Tiger or SWAT team in place to tackle an unexpected crisis. Their experience tells them that one will probably arise from somewhere before the project is completed.

Now that we understand what the purpose of a Project Early Warning System (PEWS) is, the question is how do we actually set up our PEWS?

Will we be using bits of twine and tin cans with pebbles to tell us of an imminent attack? Or do we have some amazing ground tracking radar capable of detecting really weak signals so we have plenty of time to prepare?

To answer this question, let’s first take a leaf out of the animal kingdom’s book of early warning. To create an effective early warning system you need to engage as many pairs of eyes, ears and brains as possible. But unlike the wildlife, we can purposely set up processes to help scan the horizons (lookouts). Once we have found the issues we can use some tools and techniques to filter the signals and react sensibly to them.

The Early Warning Team

Employ the whole project team as your eyes and ears, and ensure that all have access to the issue logging procedure/tool and feel it is okay to log issues that may be dispatched easily or go nowhere.

Remember, an early warning is what you are after. Do not let the filters go on the weak signals before the issues are logged. Treat issue logging similar to brain storming; put all thoughts on the board and filter after.

Gatekeepers

To stop you from being overwhelmed with issues, take your technical team leads and employ them as gatekeepers to watch over their specific area of issues in the log and use their judgment to filter and synthesize the information.

They should be able to manage the issues with quick responses to questions and requests for information. Plus they can amplify the weak signals so the project management team can review them.

Develop Signal Detection Methods

Utilise some of those already identified

o Earned Value o Anticipation using risk management and other methods such as SWOT analysis,

Stakeholder analysis and Assumption Surfacing (see appendix) o Build in some contingency for your Tiger Team o External Scanning by the gatekeeper. This could include the environment

external to the organization the project will deliver into o Internal Scanning with the project team

External scanning would include items such as:

o Technology reviews / articles. Why not actively initiate a literature search for other projects in other organizations similar to yours and use your gatekeepers to review their respective area in the related projects to look for issues/weak signals.

David Whelbourn January 2007 Page 3 of 7

o Analysis of stakeholders either external to your project or on the outer edges of the project. These outer edges are the places where someone often lurks to throws hand grenades into your peaceful project, or ambush you just when you think the requirements have been defined or business change has been accepted.

o Another external scanning target could the operations section where your project will transition its end product in. Ensure that there are no issues lurking in the transition stages. Just when you think the project close is about to be triggered, someone always seems to shout WHOAAAA!

Issue Logging & Tracking

The biggest tool to help you is the Issue Log. Recording issues enables you to start knocking off those easy to deal with issues. Your gatekeepers can review their relevant sections, answering any queries or escalating them to the appropriate person to be answered. Track them through to the end. Do not allow them to sit and fester because without treatment they will grow into a big ugly resentful catastrophic crisis.

Issue reviews

Weekly review of outstanding issues can be combined with a review of the risks that may be approaching. Check to be sure that the Gatekeepers are managing their issue groups.

David Whelbourn January 2007 Page 4 of 7

Work with your team to review and react to the issues; ensure that they are evaluated for the impact and timing. If you need to trigger immediate action, consider using the same approach that Toyota has adopted on the Lexus line. When a worker spots a problem, they hit a button which stops production line for the whole factory. This drastic measure ensures the problem gets the attention it deserves, rather than the worker applying a band-aid solution on the fly. How many computer systems have gone live with band aids in place only to fail once pressure is applied? Here ends my tip for a New Year’s Resolution for improving your project management capabilities. Best Wishes and Good luck for 2007 David Whelbourn PMP, MBA

Appendix A – Anticipation Analysis Techniques

S.W.O.T Analysis

Technically this is a management technique for analysing an organization. The aim is to brainstorm the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that apply to the organization. There is no reason why you cannot carry this out for your project.

First identify the objective of the project and with this objective in mind, use SWOT analysis to to help in the pursuit of the objective

o Strengths: attributes of the organization/project that are helpful to achieving the objective.

o Weaknesses: attributes of the organization/project that are harmful to achieving the objective.

o Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective. o Threats: external conditions that are harmful to achieving the objective

Correct identification of SWOTs is essential because subsequent steps in the process of planning for achievement of the selected objective are to be derived from the SWOTs.

David Whelbourn January 2007 Page 5 of 7

Assuming that the objective is attainable the SWOTS are used as inputs into a creative option generating process by asking four questions:

1. How can we Use each Strength? 2. How can we Stop each Weakness? 3. How can we Exploit each Opportunity? 4. How can we Defend against each Threat?

Stakeholder Analysis

Identifying the stakeholders, their groups and assessing their interests in your project will help you identify potential issues. Compare the groups with their related groups for influence and problem awareness. Then assess their importance. Below are a set of worksheets that you can you use.

Stakeholder Group

Nature of Interest Internal or External

Importance to the change

Posture Level of Affect

Top Management

Group

TMG

Cost reduction by reduced marketing expenditure

I High Support High

Sales Management

Group

SMG

Reduced close time

Improve productivity

I High Support Medium

Sales Staff

SS

Improved commission by closing more deals

I Low Oppose Low

CHARACTERISTICS OF STAKEHOLDER GROUPS IN THE PROJECT

Stakeholder Group

Special Expertise

Stakeholder power

Previous Problem

Experience

Typical Problem

awareness

Contribution To Solution

Top Management Group

Medium, delegated decision to SMG

Sales Management

Group

Full understanding of the sales process.

High Responsible for Decision

Already had failed attempt to implement standard solution

Process Definition

Sales Staff Group High Influence

Workflow Definition

Prospects &

Customers

Low, unaware

David Whelbourn January 2007 Page 6 of 7

Importance to the success of the Solution

Posture of the Group

Low Importance High Importance

Oppose

Sales Staff

Neutral

Top Management Group

Support

Sales Management Group

Assumption Surfacing

The aim of this technique is to make underlying assumptions more visible.

1. Identify Assumptions you have made and what assumptions you made to make this choice.

2. List the assumptions and write the counter assumptions not necessary the negative but the opposite to the issue it represents.

3. Work down the list and delete the ineffective pairs i.e. the ones that it wouldn’t make much difference which assumption you chose.

4. Assess each remaining assumptions in terms of high or low potential impact and high or low likelihood

5. Plot them in a 2x2 matrix high/low impact on one axis and high/low plausibility on the other axis.

likelihood

Low High

Potential Impact High

Medium Most Serious

Low Least

Serious

Medium

6. High impact and high likelihood are obviously the most crucial, but high impact low

likelihood assumptions need to be taken seriously, in case they turn out to be true

References

Ansoff, Igor H., Strategic Response in Turbulent Environments, Working Paper No. 82-35, European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, August, 1982, pp.41. Coffman, Brian S., Weak Signal Research, Part I: Introduction, Journal of Transition Management, January 15, 1997 Coffman, Brian S., Weak Signal Research, Part III: Sampling, Uncertainty and Phase Shifts in Weak Signal Evolution, Journal of Transition Management, January 15, 1997,

David Whelbourn January 2007 Page 7 of 7

Mannermaa, Mika, Tulevaisuuden hallinta- skenaariot strategiatyöskentelyssä, Ekonomia-sarja, WSOY, Porvoo 1999, p.87-92.

Åberg, Leif, Viestintä- tuloksen tekijä, Infoviestintä oy, Helsinki 1996, p.245-254.

Coffman, Brian S., Weak Signal Research, Part IV: Evolution and growth of the Weak Signal to Maturity, Journal of Transition Management, January 15, 1997, Lücken M., Blaisch F.& Klopp M., Understanding the Company’s Future and Installing a Premise Controlling”, in Performance Measurement- Theory and practice, p. 71-81 Cambridge, 1998.

Ansoff, Igor H., Implanting Strategic Management, Prentice/Hall International, 1984, pp.510. Elina Hiltunen, Conference paper for Seminar on Scenario Building - Turku - June 2001 Ilmari O. Nikander Early Warnings - A Phenomenon in Project Management 2002