Week 6 Blog Assignment - Trouble With Creeps

Get Away From Me You Creep!

     Our text defines scope creep as “the natural tendency of the client, as well as project team members, to try to improve the project’s output as the project progresses” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton and Kramer, 2008, p. 346).  I have had personal encounters with a few creeps that have changed the scope of my project at the time.  Allow me to explain what happened in one particular instance.

Over ten years ago, I use to work for an inner city youth ministry in town.  We were getting ready to launch a new mentor program where we paired a business professional with a high school youth from our program.  The goal was that we wanted our youth to finish school strong and be better equipped for college and life as a working professional. We wanted our program to focus on quality more than quantity.  We felt as if we could make a more substantial impact in these young individuals if we kept our numbers small.  What we did not want to happen was to try and add mentors to too many of our high school youth that we loose touch with the program.  We did not want to just be going through the motions, we wanted these business professionals to not only spend time with these youth outside of school, but to also urge them to do better in school and help prepare them for life after school as a professional.  We wanted quality above all else.

     “Project managers must expect change and be prepared to deal with it” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton and Kramer, 2008, p. 346).  I must say that we were not prepared at all for the change that was about to happen.  About a month before the mentor program was launched, we had a last minute donor who wanted to donate a substantial amount of money to this program.  Once he heard that we were starting the program with only 10 high school youth, he said that we would not be doing enough.  He went onto say that if he donated the large sum of money that he wanted us to use that money to increase our initial number from 10 to 30 high school youth.  This was a major concern because we needed the money, but we also knew that we needed to keep our numbers low.  We really had a dilemma on our hands.

     We proceeded with caution.  We first met with the donor and compiled a detail report and presentation of our current mentor program structure.  We went over all of the pros and cons of increasing our number from 10 to 30 high school students.  We really tried our best to make a case that we appreciated and needed his support, but at the same time we wanted him to realize that we could not increase our numbers so high at the beginning.  Together, my team and the donor were able to make a mutual agreement that we would take his donation and increase our initial number to 15 students with the hopes of growing it by 5 students every year for the next several years until we begin to see that the system we have is working as intended and we are able to handle the increased load of high school students.  The donor was very satisfied with the agreement and looked forward to being a part of this ministry opportunity.

     Even looking back on this particular example, I do not really see anything we could have done differently.  We made a good case and came to a mutual agreement that we could grow upon.  We truly felt that the solution we garnered was the most effective solution to date.  There is nothing I would change about how we handled it.  In the end, this particular donor helped us by donating more funding and resources to this mentor program.  So the changes we made to suit his wants ended up helping us more in the long run than initially expected.  Today, the same program that started with only 15 high school students has branched out to other locations to include more than 150 high school students.  This would have not been possible without the help of the donor in question and the agreement and compromise we made years ago.

References

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Week 3 Blog Assignment - Face-To-Face Is Best

     I have actually facilitated this sort of communication activity at my current employer.  I have facilitated several classes that cover communication styles.  This activity displays different channels of communication with various levels of richness.  “Richness refers to the number of verbal and nonverbal cues of modes of communication that the channel carries” (Dobkin and Pace, 2006, p. 16).  The three different examples of communication demonstrated that each channel of communication could be received differently even though the message was the same.  Since I have had a lot of personal training on this topic, I can look past missing cues that exist in the various channels of communication.  As a result, my interpretation of the message did not change as I already knew what the activity was trying to reveal to us.  By the way, channels of communication are “the mediums that carry messages between communicators” (Dobkin and Pace, 2006, p. 15).

     When compared to almost any other communication form known to man, a face-to-face encounter is always the highest in richness.  We can see, hear and experience all of the verbal and non-verbal cues.  In essence, nothing is hidden from the message.  As a receiver of the this channel of communication, I can immediately give a response.  This really helps to facilitate information most efficiently.

     The voicemail version is a little bit lower on the richness scale.  We are missing the non-verbal cues that the face-to-face encounter enabled us to have.  Sometimes tone of voice takes over in this scenario.  Even if you are not in a bad mood, you runt he risk of sounding mad or agitated if you do not use the right tone.  If done in person, the receiver of communication can also rely on the non-verbal cue to determine whether or not this communicator is angry or condescending.

     Finally, the email communication is the worst of the three examples.  One thing I like about emails is that I can see a lot of definite data.  There is no hiding from a word or a number given in email form.  What you see is what you get.  I do like this about email data.  If you have a lot to keep up with, email communication can be your friend if you do not mind reading through tons of emails.  The drawback of this type of message is that we loose both our verbal and non-verbal cues.  To be effective, communicators must spend extra time crafting a good email.  Using just the right words or phrases may determine whether or not you are received well or at all.

     In conclusion, “the key to successful project management is effective communication” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton and Kramer, 2008, p. 357).  Since we might have several different communication preferences within our own project team, it is vital that we take time to find out everyone’s communication preferences.  I would even go as far as to take a moment to touch base with each member and ask them what there communication preferences may be.  I would also make time for regular project team meetings.  “Project teams should have the opportunity to meet periodically to reaffirm the project’s focus” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton and Kramer, 2008, p. 365).  Planning time to communicate regularly will only help your team.  The success of your project may just depend on whether or not communication was a success or a failure within your project and team.  Make time to give communication the attention it needs.

References

Dobkin, B.A., and Pace, R.C. (2006) Communications in a Changing World (2^nd Ed).  Boston:  McGraw-Hill

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Week 2 Blog Assignment - Building A Garage

     About 9 years ago, my wife and I decided that we needed to tear down our older garage in favor of building a new garage.  The old one was falling down and we did not have any water or sewer running out to the old garage.  We wanted our new garage to be bigger, better and also have running water and a sewer service as well.  Neither one of us was a project manager or had any experience with any major construction up to that point.  Just to make sure that we could follow-through with the project, we ran some numbers and did some homework.  We really wanted to do this entire project right and we wanted it to go very smooth.  At the end of our many discussions and evaluations, we decided to go for it.

     Part of our plan was to hire a contractor to do the work for us.  We did some interviewing and finally decided on a contractor that would be in charge of our entire project.  All we had to do was give him all the details, which includes our wants and needs.  We sat down with the contractor on several occasions to go the plans he drew up for us.  We could not have been more pleased.  At this point, we really felt good about what we had gotten into.  We had not had any additional stress or any miscommunications and things were really going smooth.  What could possibly go wrong?

     Once the contractor began construction, we began to get so excited.  My wife and I both could not wait for things to be complete.  During the first two or three days of construction, I would come home daily to see the progress and to touch base with the contractor.  Here is where things get a little out of hand.  On the 7^th day of work, I came home and noticed that the plumbing was set and the concrete slab around it was hard and set.  The problem is that the plumbing was in the wrong place.  In my initial design, I had the plumbing coming up through the concrete slab at a specific location as I had based the entire layout of the garage around the plumbing and sewer.  This garage even had a second level and the upstairs water and sewer was also based on the footprint down below.  When I saw this error, I immediately approached the contractor and asked for an explanation.  My contractor stated that my wife had asked for the plumbing to be moved to the new location.  The contractor did not question her, so when they were laying the pipes and concrete, they adjusted to her specifications.  The contractor stated he assumed that I was part of that decision making process and my wife thought that moving plumbing was as easy as making the decision on where to hang a picture.  What a huge mess I was in.  Can anyone feel the frustration I was experiencing?

     After I had a day or two to calm down from this error, I began to think of how this could have been avoided.  I began to think of all the things we did right and they were numerous.  Then it hit me, we did not set clear boundaries and responsibilities for the project.  Even though we hired a contractor to do the work, I was essentially the project manager from our family.  I could have been clearer and set forth a better and more definitive communication system that would have given us a system of checks and balances.  So the error was all mine to own and that frustrated me even more.

     In retrospect, I should have not been so vague regarding roles.  As our text states, I should have established “a clear distinction between how different people on the same project team will work together to perform their tasks” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton and Kramer, 2008, p. 107).  I should have established a chain of command that all ideas or changes went through.  I needed to communicate that all decisions on changes should have been ran through me for a final approval.  Our text also states, “share important information with all team members in a timely fashion” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton and Kramer, 2008, p. 107).  I should have asked my wife to run any additional changes or thoughts by me so we could make the decision together.  I assumed that she knew to do this already but I was dead wrong.  Since I did not keep these important things in mind, I had to totally re-work my floor plan.  Today, the garage is nice and works for what we need it to.  My initial design would have been much more efficient and usable but I had to learn my lesson the hard way!  I do have a tip for everyone else that may keep you from going through the same mistakes as I did.  If you ever find yourself within a project and things seem to be going extremely well, stop and take a quick look at all the details.  You may find something surprising!

References

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.