Displaying topic: "Productivity and Creativity"

March 7, 2011

Project Zombies – 1

We’ve all seen them and maybe even been them.  The walking dead on a project.  We’re not talking about being tired because you’re on the last few weeks of a project and everyone is working hard to push it over the goal line.  We are talking about those projects where you can’t see the goal line but you continue to dazedly slog down field through the mud hoping that your efforts lead to something productive.  Or worse, just hoping the end is near irrespective of the outcome.

Symptoms

So how do you know if you have project zombies on your team?  Here are a few symptoms:

  • A measurable drop in individual or team performance;
  • A general drop in morale;
  • Long hours being put in on the project well before that final push;
  • Grumbling, complaining, or dead silence about assignments; and
  • Missed milestones and deadlines.

Causes

If those are the symptoms what are the real causes?  We’ve seen many but the top six in our experience are:

  • A high level of politics in a project (we’ve noticed a lot of this lately around anything to do with the Affordable Care Act!);
  • Unrealistic goals and desired outcomes for the project;
  • Unrealistic timelines and scope (asking people to do more than is possible in time allotted);
  • Working staff above or below their skill level (asking them to routinely perform tasks they feel overqualified to do or that they are not skilled enough to do);
  • Constantly changing deadlines or scope (moving the goal posts); and
  • Outside forces (vendors, management etc) pushing the use of “silver bullet” tools or techniques to justify unrealistic deadlines or outcomes.

We know there are more but there are always at least one of these on any project suffering zombies.

Impacts

So why care if your project is full of zombies?  Projects with even a single zombie can:

  • Miss milestones and deadlines;
  • Make good staff leave the project;
  • Result in poor quality work; and
  • Fail outright.

As a sponsor or manager of a project it is your job to cure project zombies.  We’ll discuss some cures to “project zombie-izm” in the second (and final) part of this series.   In the mean time you might want to read  Ed Yourdon’s book “Death March“.   Though targeted at software projects much of the insight it provides generalizes to any project.

November 17, 2010

Should Government Be In The IT Business?

We asked the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of a large state health and human services agency an interesting question recently: does he need a large information technology (IT) organization? We had been discussing the “core competencies” of a health and human services agency and wondered if IT was one of them. He granted it was a fair question. Here’s the context and summary of our discussion:

The CIO was engaged in the procurement of a Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS). The project was stretching his resources thin and he was relying on us (PK) to supplement his staff with MMIS procurement expertise. We were leading a discussion of procurement strategies and the question came up “Why can’t we just outsource the whole thing, why do we need to buy an MMIS – can’t we just rent one like other people rent applications like Salesforce?” The CIO had been reading a lot about Software as a Service (SaaS) and this seemed to make some sense to him. The potential benefits are large:

  • He’s already being asked to cut his capital (one time expenditure) budget and this could provide a significant reduction. It may even offer operating budget cuts as well;
  • He has been worried about getting and keeping the staff required to implement and maintain a large system. He has had a lot of staff attrition due to retirement and difficulty in recruiting and training new staff;
  • He has wanted to devote his staff efforts to more strategic projects (as opposed to the operational nature of an MMIS) that would better support the agency.

There were some obvious roadblocks:

  • A waiver from CMS would be required – the law technically says states have to construct and maintain an automated system to handle Medicaid claims;
  • Most MMIS vendors, despite what their marketing literature tells you, are not prepared to run Medicaid as a software service;
  • He believed vendors would try and create lock-in with their product through proprietary data formats and unique features. After some discussion the realization dawned this is the case with the way things work now.
  • There was a long discussion about privacy and security. How would that be ensured? The technical staff in the discussion assured us through the use of Virtual Private Network technology such a set up would be no less secure than their existing systems.

Overall it was a thought provoking discussion. Though we didn’t reach any definitive conclusions we all realized this approach has significant potential. The recent elections emphasized government agencies will have to live with less. This CIO is on the forefront of identifying ways to deal with these budget shortfalls and on effectively using technology to further the mission of his agency.  We’re continuing to work with the agency to flesh out the implications of this strategy.

July 3, 2010

Vermont: Creative Thinking in Handling Budget Crisis

Vermont is using some creative thinking to handle its budget issues. Pensions (as you all know) are becoming one of the biggest burdens on State budgets. Legislatures are either cutting existing pensions (which is likely not legal) or creating multi-tiered pension systems where newcomer’s pension benefits are significantly reduced (This will have the effect of driving new people away from government). State employees we’ve talked to (and the unions that represent them) feel both undervalued and infuriated by these moves.

We recently ran across this article from stateline.org which describes how Vermont sat down with their unions to jointly resolve part of their budget crisis. A little outside the box thinking went a long way. Kudos to Vermont for thinking creatively and turning a potentially adversarial situation into a win for both parties.

Are you applying creative solutions to your problems?


January 25, 2010

Now that you don’t have money you can get something done

Should budget shortfalls mean you cancel that project you’ve been planning? Counter intuitively (and with a few conditions) we say no. In our experience lack of funds actually leads to more successful projects. Without money you:

Focus on simplicity – you’re not likely to look for the “Cadillac” solution, you can’t afford it. Simple solutions tend to be easier to implement.

Encourage staff participation – you won’t be able to afford, nor will you need, an army of consultants to implement your simple solution. Your staff will have to take on added project responsibility to get things done. There’s nothing like having skin in the game to make your staff fight for success.

Use the wisdom of your own people – you can’t buy your way out of the problem so your approach likely has to be home grown. You’ll be relying on the creativity that exists within your organization to complete this project. When solutions are home grown they are easier to sell internally and generally a better fit for your needs.

Better utilize the funds that do exist – when resources are scarce you pay greater attention to them. You are forced to track every dollar spent on the project which in turn means you are likely to spend your money where it will do the most good.

Of course lack of funds will limit the kinds/size of projects you take on. You’re not likely to re-engineer your entire Medicaid system. But…what about rewriting those out-of-date procedures manuals? How about revisiting your policies? What if you could re-engineer a few of those inefficient processes? Lack of funding, while not ideal, is the reality we all now face. It shouldn’t stop your projects and can even help them to be successful.

December 4, 2009

Book Review: Six Thinking Hats

Edward de Bono believes thinking is a skill that can be improved.  He provides strategies for doing so in his book “Six Thinking Hats”.  According to de Bono the problem we face with our with thinking is “We try to do too much at once, Emotions, information, logic, hope and creativity all crowd in on us.  It’s like juggling with too many balls.”

To avoid this jumbled thinking de Bono proposes that when you approach a problem you play only one of five roles at any given time. Namely pretend to be a person that thinks only:

  • Factually
  • Emotionally,
  • Pessimistically,
  • Optimistically, or
  • Creatively.

One of the key assumptions of the book is that thinking is a team sport.  De Bono proposes that each member of a team wear one of the five “hats” mentioned above and the thinking occurs as a group discussion.  The facilitator of the thinking team wears the “sixth hat” and guides the team.  It is the facilitator’s job to set the stage for a productive session and make sure the team stays focused.

We have used de Bono’s techniques in our facilitated brainstorming sessions with clients and find they help raise ideas that might not emerge using other brainstorming approaches.  We’ve also found the techniques useful without a team.  Just permitting yourself some dedicated time wearing each of the five hats can help your thought process.

If the book has a down side it is in its description of the “sixth” hat – the facilitator role.  Though it describes what the role is it doesn’t do a great job of describing how to perform this role.  Facilitation is something that’s hard to learn from a book.

The book has been out over 20 years now but its techniques are timeless and it’s an easy read.  Time to read it (again?) and bring the techniques to your next brainstorming session.