As a continuation of the previous blog, here is part two of things that can be reviewed to help increase the probability of success for your project:

1. Are there formal governance and change approval guidelines?
2. Is there a process to discover issues (ASAP) to lessen their impact?
3. Is there fast, easy access to key tools and equipment?
4. Is there knowledge of the overall vision and mission of the target audience?
5. Is there a clear understanding of how the customer wants to do business?
6. Are people being proactive verses reactive?
7. Is there focus on training, growth and the future?
8. Are there regular communications using standards and known expectancies?
9. Is the data accurate, clean and available?
10. Are the processes that support clear tracking against project metrics?
11. Is it known what happened during the client’s last project (successes & failures)?
12. Is there timely project team and stakeholder communication, where communication occurs amongst the team members and to / from the client representatives.
13. Is the PM facilitating communication, cooperation and collaboration and are project processes and practices implemented to support this?
14. Is the PM identifying critical metrics and milestones, communicating those metrics / milestones, and managing the project with the objective of meeting those targets? (e.g. EVM)
15. Are handoffs between groups being managed effectively and is there a process to support effective hand-offs?
16. Is documentation of the project evolution* maintained in a shared, accessible, and secure area?
17. Does the PM have a process and mechanism for managing project financials (for both  and client)?
18. Are processes in place to allow the PM to assess overall client satisfaction?
19. Is the PM probing for, and qualifying potential new business leads with the client?  Are these leads passed onto Sales for further action?
20. What are all the things that you are measuring - so you can justify that you are objectively "increasing the probability of success"

Project risks related to planning can be avoided with questions such as:

3 - Are the timeframes realistic and achievable?

4 - Is the scope statement manageable?

5 - Is this an appropriate solution for the target audience?

6 - Are there complete and accurate requirements and specifications?

7 - Is there appropriate technology to support the desired solution?

8 - Are there appropriate resources available to the project (internal and external)?

9 - Are the major issues with the project identified and documented?

10 - Do any actions need to be taken to address the major issues?

11 - Is there risk of the client satisfaction level changing in the near future?

12 - Is there regular performance reporting with established feedback loops?

13 - Are the roles and responsibilities clear for all those involved?

14 - Is there commitment by all stakeholders to the project deliverables?

15 - Is it clearly understood what is the value statement (value that will be delivered and for whom)

  
NOTE: this is part one of a checklist, part two is to follow....

One of the top reasons people don't get their priorites done, is that they simply have toooooo many.  This is part of life (both work and personal).  We love to over-allocate and rely on optimism and luck to get things done.

Humans are drawn to the number 3 and feel comfort with it.  It also aligns with a manageable number of priorities.

A system that we try to follow internally is that each employee no matter what their role is (CEO vs Field Labourer) must know their top 3 priorities for the day, week and month.  They must be able to achieve those priorities, the company depends on it (in today's world, everyone and everything is inter-connected).  Must remember, each role has a different level of complexity around their priorities, a different level of change control must also be followed and a different level of overlap with others exists based on the role - so it can be a communication challenge.  Internally, my company even has a "priority collaboration software" that helps to enable this (however is still a work in progress!!!).

Key challenges are to ensure that you are absolutely clear (you must know) what your own priorities are each day, week and month and that you are on the same page with your manager AND ensure you have a system to manage through the changes that occur.  Further description of this concept includes:

• Daily top 3 - these must be simple, fast and have a lower level of complexity/risk.  Scope of work is generally described in the format of tasks.  Try to put a measurement on them so they can be planned and you can track your progress, example:  you have approximately 7 hours available each day, 1 hour of the day is allocated to secondary priorities and admin, so ensure the 7 hours is realistic to get the priorities you take ownership over (you MUST try at all odds to get them done since they should build into the weekly priorities and also link to other people's priorities) 
• Weekly top 3 - these are more complex/risky but still must be clear enough in scope that the majority of the work is described in tangible, concrete work packages, think in terms that you now have 35 hours to accomplish the work so try to set realistic goals, then ensure to allocate the 5 other hours to secondary priorities and admin, and try VERY hard to not go over those 5 hours, cut off the work and defer it to the following week.  If your priorities change, then go through a mini-change control process.  One of your top 3 priorities must be demoted to a Secondary Priority, then new expectations must be established and you and your Sponsor/Managers/impacted stakeholders must all be on the same page.  Again, you must take ownership of the managing of these top 3, since is more tricky then the daily top 3, so ensure that you have more communication with your manager about them (are they on track, are they changing, what are the risks as we progress, etc)
• Monthly top 3 - these have the highest level of complexity and risk, and often can change over the course of the month.  However, they still must be planned and managed.  Ideally, they are documented, to help formalize them.  Ensure they are not too overly detailed, they can have aspects of intangible work, and thus can be further elaborated as the weeks are completed.  They can be thought of as guiding objectives that are detailed enough that you can "check them off" at the end of the month, but not too detailed that you have to spend days planning as to what they are.

A good mentor I worked with always said, confirm and then understand your top priorities, then at a minimum you must get them done, AND, fight off everything else and consider it as "white noise". 

Recently, I was able to relate this approach to an article I read (full article link), an excerpt of that article is below:

Set three specific goals weekly and monthly -- and ignore everything else.

There are a million things you can do to improve your business. The problem is, if you try to fix or improve them all at once, you end up not making much progress in any of them.
You need to be relentless in following your goals. At least once a day, I find myself asking, "Is what I’m working on directly helping one of the three goals?" It's easy to distract yourself with tasks that aren't critical. You just need to stay on top of it. This helps us accomplish big things quickly.
To hold ourselves accountable and stay on the same page, we have weekly meeting on Fridays. During these meetings, our company sets the goals for the upcoming week and see where we are on the previous week’s goals. It's a lot easier to say "what went wrong this week" then "what went wrong this quarter"
--Co-founder Patrick Ambron of BrandYourself

Related: The Best Business Advice You'll Ever Get

If it ain't broke don't fix it - this approach is not valid in today's world of business.

Imagine if we followed this advice, how many advancements would we not have today.

We often get caught up in every day work and if things are going well, we tend to slow our innovative advancements.  Or this is also where we demote new ideas or move advancements to the corner of our desk.  Funny, since when things are going well, that is exactly when the brain is most effective, positive and open to changing things VS when things are going poorly or in crisis mode, that is when too often we yell out "all hands on deck, we need to change and innovate and do this ASAP and no one goes home until we get something"

What happens if we follow that mantra and just keep doing the work?

• If you are a business and your process/operation/projects are going well, then somewhere someone is copying it and you will soon be over taken.  
• If you are government/non-profit, then you are missing out on opportunity cost of faster, cheaper, better quality and society is not going to advance (will stay status quo)

• Population sampling – two common types include attribute data and variable data.  Attribute data is counted and is a pass/fail or yes/no result (e.g. number of errors, number of dump trucks).  Variable data can be broken down, it is based on a type of continuous scale, ranges exist and compliance can be rated (e.g. time, weight, etc). 

 

• Tolerances and control limits – tolerance is the variation that is acceptable in relation to the project quality standards.  When a variation exceeds the control limits this is considered unacceptable and some type of corrective action must be taken. 

Another important concept is the ability to know where to prioritize your efforts, manage your expectations and the probability of success in terms of what type of work you are doing when trying to fix something that is not going according to plan (also known as something that has variance to what you expected to happen).  A simple example how to group two types of work variances include:

Overview

Quality control focuses on measuring the results of the project work throughout the entire project life cycle to ensure that work is done in accordance to the quality plans and characteristics.  The end product or service must align with what the customer expected and what was documented in the project documentation. It is important to note that quality assurance focuses on developing and implementing quality related processes and activities while quality control focuses on ensuring that results from quality tasks achieve their desired objectives (examples of control focus on validation, verification, defect management, preventive maintenance, etc).

Quality   Systems

Quality control systems are a collection of formalized processes to help measure specific project results and confirm how they align to the project quality standards established.  The project team must ensure the level of quality required is understood by all stakeholders and is also realistic when aligned with project constraints (e.g. resources, time and budget).  The quality system should evolve as the project complexity changes and work is completed and thus requires reviews on the effectiveness, efficiencies and value (in alignment with the project objectives and stakeholder needs).  Example aspects of a quality control system include: lists and describes the quality characteristics and measurements that are required as part of the project; coordinates tasks and help resources execute, monitor, control and close them; supports resources with the tools and functionality to facilitate information collection, analysis and calculations; empowers people to take an active role in quality; provides detailed comparisons with actuals verses planned in terms of quality characteristics and specific measurements; supports the organization to help shift the culture, attitude and understanding of quality.

Quality Methods

There is much quality research and expertise available (e.g. National Quality Institute, Malcolm Baldrige, ISO 9000 series, European foundation for quality management, etc.).  Two of my favourite quality graphing tools include (LOVE graphs, humans love to see visual displays in combination with hard data, tell them what the results are and what they mean, then show them visually and let it sink in): control chart – line graph that illustrates the results and control limits (mean, upper control and lower control limits); pareto chart – bar chart displayed by order of severity (80/20 rule); Other examples include: histogram – graphical display utilizing bar charts; run chart – run charts showing trends; scatter diagram – correlation between 2 variables; statistical methods and formulas; flowchart; cause and effect diagram; checklist; inspection; test; defect repair review.