E-M8 Entrepreneurial Management for Eternal Mission

UNDERSTAND THE METHOD

WHAT IS THE METHOD OF OPERATIONS
The heart of every business is the operations. The Method focuses on motion of the materials and information through the process. An organization that uses marginal tools well, is more likely to be successful than an organization that uses the best tools poorly. So, since unlike tools, the Method cannot be easily purchased, or copied, it is here that lasting business capabilities are developed.
Historically, there have been three key methods of operation: Craftsmanship, Mass Production and Mass Customization. Craftsmanship, which is also know as project management is the most flexible, allowing the production of exactly what is needed, but it is also the least efficient, and therefore most expensive way to deliver results. Craftsmanship, also lacks consistency and predictability, since each project is done completely from scratch. Mass or process production is the most efficient method of production, but what it gains in efficiency it looses in flexibility. It is a good method for commodity[1] manufacturing. Mass customization seeks to retain the best of both and so applies the tools of both project and process management.

A well run organization is very deliberate about applying all three approaches to various aspects of the business. Most organizations employ, or should employ, combinations of all three methods.

WHY START WITH A PROJECT?
We start with the Project Management, both because it is the most flexible system and because the other systems are really subsets of this system.  Project Management is a discipline of delivering results to the expectations, on time and on budget. It is different from the process management in that it deals with a one time event, rather than continuous stream. Project can be used as a starting point for a process, as a process improvement mechanism, or a way to phase a process out.

Project management is very scalable, with the same mental disciplines applicable to simple tasks and highly complex projects. It is also common sense, since we spend most of our life in activities that could be viewed as projects.

Successfully completing projects is an excellent team building activity. Everyone wants to be a part of a team that has proven itself. Doing what is agreed upon, on time and within budget is an excellent way to increase mutual respect, develop trust, build commitment and clarify goals. Projects can be the gateway to everything else we do.

Just how important is the discipline of project management?

An example of U-2 spy plane comes to mind. This airplane performed its first flight in August of 1955 and kept on flying for over 50 years. The technological challenge of designing this airplane makes it a marvel of technology to this day. Before reading on think of the number of people and length of time it would take to invent, design, build and test such a complex piece of machinery. Think of thousands of components that had to go in to design of such an airplane. Think of the level of complexity that such a project would have had to have.

Now consider that less than two dozen people worked on the project. They went from concept to first flight in less than eighteen months and were able to do that for less than a million dollars per airplane.

This is the kind of abilities that can be gained through thorough understanding of project management.

FOUR PHASES
Project management reduces every project to four phases. These phases are Start (Initiate), Think (Plan), Do (Execute) and Stop (Wrap-Up).[2]

 The same four phases have been recognized in many other fields. Just to illustrate their pervasiveness here are some key examples of these same phases under different names:

In writing and marketing the four phases are:

·       Tell them what you are going to tell them – Start

·       Tell them how you are going to tell them – Think

·       Tell them – Do

·       Tell them what you just told them – Stop

In process engineering the four steps start with Think and end with Start. That is because in many circumstances we don’t get to start our first project, somebody has already done it for us. In processes this is a cycle, so starting in a different place is actually more practical. So the same four steps are:

·       Plan – Think

·       Do – Do

·       Check / Study – Stop

·       Act – Start

The five steps in quality engineering split the Think phase in two separate steps but otherwise are the same:

·       Define – Start

·       Measure – Think

·       Analyze – Think

·       Improve – Do

·       Control – Stop

In legal profession the four steps are:

·        Issue – Start

·        Rule – Think

·        Analysis – Do

·        Conclusion – Stop

In team building methodology once again we start with Think and grow to being able to Start. The four steps are:

·       Develop respect for each other – Think

·       Create trust – Do

·       Build commitment – Stop

·       Have a common goal – Start

The beauty of being aware of this correlation is that we can map the knowledge in all of these disciplines to all other even seemingly unrelated disciplines. Everything that we will discuss in this book will be mapped against these four phases. Some of the disciplines that until now have been kept separate will finally come together in project life-cycle. Function of each phase is different, but in sequence they work together to get the project done.

RUNNING A FIVE MILE RACE
On your mark (Start): We need to know what distance are we running. Who is our competition? What are we competing for? Have we been practicing, what are our performance goals? Should we be even running? What are the consequences of running and not running?

Get set (Think): So, we decided to run and have some idea of what we are looking for and expect. But it is not yet time to run; otherwise we will have a false start and waste time. It is time to assess the situation. What is the plan? Are we going to try to set pace, or follow? Should we run evenly throughout the run, or speed up in spurts. Where are the half way point and mile markers? Are there special parts of the track that require additional time or attention? Will there be water waiting for us and if so should we take it? What are the warning signs that should alert us to problems that are significant enough to warrant quitting the race? After all winning the race at a risk of death or serious injury is probably not worth it. Or do we need to finish this race, even if it means walking? If so, maybe we should not take chances that can overextend our body’s ability to function.

Go (Do): Now it is just a matter of pacing ourselves to our plan, making minor adjustments, if we are going too fast or too slow, watching for surprises and warning signs. But mostly it is just putting one foot in front of the other and forgetting everything that does not help accomplish that task. We vary our speed as planned. Check our timing at mile markers to see if we are close to our plan and what we would have to do to get back on track. We watch for every opportunity to conserve energy while still being on target. Seeking out shade and running in somebody else’s footsteps.

Cross the finish line (Stop): Finally, the finish line is close and maybe in sight, now is the time to reassess situation based on the strength that is left, the performance of the other athletes, etc. A new goal (Start) needs to be made. New action plan developed (Think). And the efforts to carry it out should be put in place (Do). It is no longer a five mile run that we are trying to compete in. Now we are competing in a 200 meter dash. The last few yards make all the difference. Quitting here is costly, since most of the work has been done, but so is overextending ourselves and falling down from exhaustion right before the finish line. We have to run it out without looking back. This is the stretch where it seems that 90% of effort is expanded to get 10% of the result. But these are the most valuable 10%. Rarely can one consistently win five mile races by losing the last 200 meter dash, or failing to do the key things upon the race completion. Upon crossing the finish line our body needs to adjust back, we need to walk it off. It is a time to celebrate our victory. We may have not won the race, or may be we have, but no matter what we can celebrate competing well. Being able to run and finish a five mile race is an accomplishment in itself. This is also a time to look at what we did well and where we need adjustment, so that we are ready for the next race. Nothing sets us up for future failure like inability to take time out of our celebration to review lessons learned. It is time to start looking to the next start.  “On your mark.”

START
As it may have already become apparent, Start is not always first thing that is done by the project team. That is because chances are the project has already been started by someone. Ideally, it is God who started this project; it is substantially more likely to be successful in this way. But sometimes, in search for clarity, it helps to start something even if we are in a fog as to what we should be doing.

Which brings us to an exercise that should help manage the workload: GROW, FOLD, and HOLD. This applies to every kind of activity. To be effective every so often activities that are beneficial and could benefit from growing need to be identified and GROWN. But perhaps more importantly, activities that are not beneficial or that are not necessary need to be identified and FOLDED. Thirdly, activities that are necessary but do not have growth potential, or cannot be leveraged at this time need to be identified as activities to automate or put them on HOLD.

In the environment where too many projects are already started, this is a great way to weed them out. If there are not enough projects going on than we can proceed to START phase of project management.

START is the time to identify goals and check some of the underlying assumptions. Answer the questions “What do we seek to accomplish? At what cost? How quickly? For whom? By whom?”, and this step is complete.

During the START phase we outline our assumptions, constraints and requirements. Assumptions are all that we not willing to give up. An example of a worthwhile assumption is that project will operate within bounds of the moral and legal responsibility. Constraints are boundaries imposed on by our environment. Requirements are what we actually want to accomplish, no more and no less.  

The main goal of this step is to find any reason to stop this project or redefine the project’s scope to insure that all assumptions, constraints and requirements are met. If the project dies or is completely redefined in this phase, the project manager and the team has done well. This saves resources and means that preliminary due diligence has been performed well.

The project has to be useful – meaning that benefits are greater then the costs. The project has to teach the team something. The team has to gain wisdom.  This is always one of the requirements in a well thought out project. The exit plan, even if preliminary, has to be developed at this point. There is not much worse than throwing good money after the bad.

THINK
Now we have to figure out how to get it done on time, on budget and within scope. This is where any superficiality at the Start will make the rest of the exercise futile. We come to the heart of good project management. Nothing apparent happens when we Think. We may end up with some charts and documents, but no visible work is done. So, the tendency is to rush past it. That is most unfortunate, because much of the foundation for a healthy fellowship that is necessary for a team to thrive is developed here. It is rarely faith that causes people to say that they will just trust God to do it when they have failed to plan. If God already did all the thinking, like many Christians like to claim, would it not be logical to talk to Him and get specific directions before committing to everything.  

It is time to start with the customer and figure out what is it that they really want. The hard part in the project is rarely technical execution or research and development to make it possible. Usually the hard part is to solve the right problem. Some of the later chapters deal with doing precisely that, but for now we will limit ourselves to some essentials.

First of all, we need to figure out who are our customers and other key influencers. A customer is the person who pays the bill. Influencers are the people who could change the customer’s mind or interfere with execution. Users can fall in to either of those categories or be a category of its own. The users are the primary (intended) beneficiaries of the project. Unfortunately for them, if they are neither customer nor influencer often times their opinion makes little difference. 

These distinctions are fundamental to defining the boundaries of a project, because often times we fail to separate the customer from the influencers and the users. Imagine a jail that is in need of a redesign: the state government may be the customer who will pay for the bill, the warden, the guards and various agencies may well be the key influencers, while the prisoners may well be the users.

If we confused these roles, we might well end up with a design where prisoners have access to a local mall and the only way the doors are locked is from inside of the cell. Does that sound too extreme? What about the facility that is designed with a recreational lounge and Olympic size swimming pool accessible to guards? That may well be the result if key influencers, the guards, have their way about spending the money. While a far fetched illustration, it is a very common trap that has derailed many good beginnings.

Clear understanding of the customer’s expectations and their successful management is paramount to being successful. These expectations are dynamic and that is why two week, three year rule is so helpful.  

TWO WEEK, THREE YEAR RULE
If the scope of the project is under two weeks, there is an overwhelming likelihood that it will be on time, on budget and within scope.

However, a project that is due in three years has practically no chance of being on time, on budget and within scope. Unplanned stuff will come up that will impact the time line. Valuation of the cost drivers will change, even if somebody with a crystal ball was able to predict it precisely. But most importantly, the customer’s needs and expectations will change.

Hence, the moral of this rule is keep projects short, sweet and get them done. Save everything else for revision B. Also, every time a project length doubles in length, its management quadruples in complexity. So, start with small projects to build a team and never take on a project that is more than twice as long as the ones you have already successfully managed.

Feel free to ignore this at your own peril. Just know that there are companies out there that have been trying to implement one piece of software for 20 years and others that have been trying to complete construction of apartment complexes for just as long. Not only did they lose a fortune in the process, but more importantly they have wasted people’s lives, missed any chance to have a healthy fun fellowship and to gain wisdom in the process.

TEAM
In light of this, we need to go out and build a team that will be capable of successfully completing phase one on time and on budget. This team can ill afford turnover, so people that are willing to stick it out are needed. But more importantly, these people have to be professionals who know their roles and can take up the slack as necessary. Credible referrals are a good way to find these people, though sometimes it will be a matter of going out and doing extensive shopping. This is so fundamental to the success or failure that those who are already on board need to be in constant fellowship with each other and God about this. Fortunately, previous successes help build just such a team.

The mark of a truly great project management team is that it can function in all four project management styles seemingly simultaneously. All members can both command and follow under the circumstances, all are both experts and excellent assistants, all are balancing common resources to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously and all bring some unique resources to the table.

THREE SECRETS
A dozen of people who can truly work together can achieve extraordinary results, where hundreds of hired hands struggle to deliver the ordinary. The first secret to project management, taking the impossible task and breaking it down in to very simple subtasks. Break it down and commit each task to a committed member of the team. Turnover and coordination costs can be higher than the actual project costs. If a project is behind, the last thing to do is add people, since the time it will take to bring them up to speed and coordinate their efforts is the time taken away from getting the project back on track.

Second key is setting pace. Very clear, well defined pace is necessary for every task. Targets have to be established to shoot for that will allow us to speed up or slow down as necessary to maintain our pace. The trick is slowing down, as much as speeding up, otherwise burnout may result. We should already have established the high detail level goals when we broke the project down enough. But now we need to establish a few key milestones to give us an opportunity to celebrate these wins. More importantly, the last milestone will tell us when to switch from doing to stopping. Since everything changes at that point it is very important to be aware of it.

And finally the last key is that of component testing. The Japanese call it “Autonomation”. This is ensuring that all of the components will come together as expected, so that no further tweaking is needed in the completed assembly. The same rule applies to the successful projects. A task is not complete until it has passed the test. This is why oftentimes it is appropriate to spend as much time in the Think phase as we will use to Do. We use that time to figure out what the functional test is for every component. Another way to call it is exit criteria, but a test plan is much more precise, it forces us to look at how to ensure success and be aware of all the ways in which it can fail.

Failure to put together a component test plan means getting to 80% of our lead time to realize that most of our tasks (components) don’t really fit well together and we need to start over. Starting over under such an impossible lead time will mean suspending Start and Think phases, otherwise known as shooting from the hip. As a result 150% of the lead time and 200% of the budget will have been expanded to get to a position where there is no choice but to Stop, Start and Think. With the lessons learned and some useful tasks having been completed we arrive at Murphy’s prediction that everything takes three times the time and four times the budget to get it done. 

On the other hand, if we diligently and functionally verify every component task, the overall test plan can than be simplified, since all we are checking is how the components are interacting. Besides it brings the testing time to a forefront and puts a check on overly optimistic estimates. Which is second in its significance only to finding out about problems early enough to do something about them. 

DO
At last we are ready to do. From Start we know what is needed, how quickly and at what price. From Think we have formed a team, have broken down the task, have determined the pace and have developed a test plan.  Now comes the easy part. We do. All the foundations have been laid properly and now it is just a matter of following the plan and dealing with the exceptions.

There really is not much to say about this step other than it requires focus and determination. It is easy to pickup the pace and derail. It is easy to allow the customer to change their requirements. It is easy to lose some valuable resources, even people due to outside circumstances. It is even more tempting to try to bring in more people when things fall behind. But the single thing that makes it all work is the commitment of the project manager and the team to the goal and the respect that they have toward one another.

The hardest part of Doing is constant communication. By extensive preparation we have created the common language that allows the team to talk to each other. But now the trick is to give the team reasons to talk. Largely, if the previous phases have been completed well, the focus of the team in this step is dealing with exceptions and handling surprises that arise. Status check and issues list are some of the best ways to do this and encourage such a conversation. The whole group, not just the leader(s) need to face the issues that come up. Both status check and issues list is a great way to keep it in the forefront of everyone’s attention.

The team needs to talk about and celebrate the successes that a team experiences. Every time a task is completed on time, on budget and to the specifications it is a success and should be treated as such. The worst thing that can happen to a team is when some of the tasks are viewed as unimportant. If the tasks are truly not important, why were they not killed during planning that was done in the Think stage?

The team has an opportunity to go beyond mutual respect at this point. A real trust can develop when everyone on the team sees everyone doing what they said they were going to do. This is the most precious result of a successful execution of the Do phase. Knowing that the completion is in sight is also a morale booster.

STOP
The most costly mistakes though, do happen with the end in sight. And that is why the last stretch is recognized as its own phase. Most of the effort has been extended, but the last little bit is what really counts. Think of a tour guide that leads a group through wilderness, and when the group has come back to base, most people think that the challenge has been completed. Yet, the tour guide still has to setup tents, make a fire and brew some coffee to make it the experience of a lifetime that everyone would like to have. In the Biblical times the expectations for the servants were just that. Jesus speaks of a servant who has toiled in the field all day, and yet when everyone comes in for supper, the servant does not sit down and enjoy but rather serves the meal to the master.

These are perfect illustrations of this phase. It is extremely tempting to consider it done. To celebrate victory and let everyone who has worked so hard to relax a bit. But that is not an approach of a mature adult, but rather of a child. It highlights a failure in all of the previous phases. It is a failure to plan for closure and a failure to pace the team in a way that allows energy for this step.

Sometimes it is practical to bring in fresh people with a small separate project to get this wrapped up. In all actuality, Stop phase is just a little mini-project with its own Start, Think and Do phases. What is challenging about it is that Start and Think of this project has to be accomplished while Do phase of the main project is in effect. A much greater granularity of control is necessary for this project, since its success or failure will largely determine the success or failure of a much larger project. 

It is particularly challenging to complete a failing project. One where there has been slippage in the time line, budget and requirements. It is however, even more important. In the successful project we are primarily putting the wrapping on the present and making it look pretty, thus making success complete. In a failing project, on the other hand, we yet need a victory. Sometimes the victory is lessons learned. Sometimes it is some unexpected side effect of this project, such as strong personal and professional growth of the team, or greater employee camaraderie. Sometimes the victory is that there is a Stop phase to the project. It is simply the fact that after having taken a serious beating the team has the chutzpa to look at itself in a mirror, recognize the failings and resolve to fight another day. In the sporting events, there are often special honors reserved for people who have finished the race in spite of being out of the running for victory.

People need closure. They need victory and that is precisely the main function of the Stop phase. Besides without Stop, there is no opportunity for another Start, and the opportunities for success that Start brings with itself.

SUMMARY: SUCCESSFUL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
What you have just learned are the basic but essential concepts. As we go throughout the book and learn other disciplines, remember to map them against project management tools. There are many tools that are currently used in one sphere that are not known in another and now that you have a picture of a correlation between various business disciplines, you can apply these tools across the board.

The Stages are:

·       Start: project scope, lead time, budget; management style

·       Think: customer and specific requirements; two week, three year rule;  breaking it down, pace, “autonomation”

·       Do: status check, issues list

·       Stop: the last mile, lessons learned 

 

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[1] Commodity is a completely standardized product that can be substituted for each other at will.

[2]While the names that are officially used by Project Management Institute are in parentheses, a conscious effort has been made to use terms that are easier and more understandable throughout the guide. While this makes it harder for those pursuing the certification, hopefully, it makes the book more worthwhile for people who actually use this stuff.