R
Rob Schneider
Folks,
I'm fishing for ideas to use for learning and examples. Anyone know of
some articles, books, web sites, or tools which discuss and give
examples of great and world-class project communication methods and
graphics?
A senior executive dropped by my office this week, seeking my help for
her project team.
"Rob, do you have any ideas on how we can better communicate project
plans?" I said, "Well, my first guess would be that they use Project to
create a view of the plan in a way which communicates the intended
message.". I explained how I prefer to always communicate in context
and avoid complexity. "No!", she asserted. "Project is c..p! Look at
this!". With great disdain she thrust into my hands a B&W paper copy of
the latest PowerPoint-based presentation "papers" about her project
used at the recent "stakeholders" meeting. "We want pretty project
plans. Our executives and stakeholders won't understand it otherwise."
On the single page where schedule/plan was addressed, the PM for the
project had included a screen shot (using the camera icon of the current
Microsoft Project plan).
: It looked to be a 125-150 task schedule in which they showed a subset
of 29. These tasks were a mixture of summary tasks with some
non-summary tasks. Not clear why they chose that set of tasks (no
explanatory words on page)
: The columns ID, Task Name, % Complete, Start, Finish, and a Gantt
Chart covering 3 calendar years by Quarter (even though it is a 1.5 year
schedule ... so the right 1/3rd of diagram was empty).
: The % Complete field only filled in 7 of the rows ... not sure how or
why they blanked out other rows (guess to hide the cells which showed 0%
complete). The executive said "We don't understand how % compute is
determined. These numbers can't be right. They shouldn't show them."
: The author used deadline field arrows/field (good) on some teaks, but
did not include a legend (bad) which then the executive complained about
as "what is this??? This is confusing!"
: There were a few predecessor links shown between the summary tasks (I
have discomfort with that).
: The summary bars had the beginning/ending triangle blocks. The Gantt
bars had no indication of progress inside the bars (which was expected
by my executive friend).
: The executive took offense that the author of the PPT page chose to
include the Project ID field on the screen shot. "That shows nothing".
It was a "step out" for this PM to try showing the Project Plan in a MS
Project Gantt Chart, but they fumbled the job and the risk is that they
won't try again and will be forced to abandon their use of Project as a
project tool and instead move to managing the project with PowerPoint.
In general, this organization uses Project only as a means to send
"data" (not all of it meaningful, IMHO) about projects to the Project
Office, who in turn then assembles reports (automated tools) for senior
executives who then report-on project status on behalf of and instead of
the PMs. The hoops they jump through to "fix" the schedule (with must
start or must end constraints on every single task to stop the schedule
from "jumping around" when reported to PMO makes the Project .mpp files
unusable for anything else. Typically, they don't use Project as tool
for project modeling, tracking, resource planning, cost estimating,
progress tracking, communication, etc. I'm working on this 'problem' in
my part time.
It seems to be normal for executives in this organization to only be
given (and I guess expect to see) 'pretty' PowerPoint pictures of a
"thing" which looks sort like a Gantt Chart which shows open squares for
scores of "milestones" plotted on graph ... they fill them in to show
completed milestones. Lots of colorful bars on each row which look like
Project Tasks, but really aren't ... they are more like phases or areas
of works. These milestones are grouped inside these bars. I find these
things way to complex, but to an art director I guess they have some
elements of "prettiness" due to all the colors in use.
The organization wants "pretty". They focus only on communication of
milestone tracking. The senior managers and executives profess to not
understand project plans otherwise.
I guess I have an opportunity here to set the standard for how to use
Project "properly" to communicate project status and plans "properly".
I'd like to do it in a way which works and is seen to be "world-class",
conveys quality information content and is "accepted". I have some ideas
and ways I've done it (I think successfully) in the past, but am seeking
some external influence here.
I've done some reading in Kerzner's book, and searched PMI's library for
some references. Also enjoy Edward Tufte's dabbling in this area (but
too theoretical). While they need is for "pretty", having terrific
content will be the swaying factor. I contend we can be "attractive"
with content and still hit the mark. The risk here is that need to do
it right as there won't be many shots at having an influence on this.
Thoughts?
I'm fishing for ideas to use for learning and examples. Anyone know of
some articles, books, web sites, or tools which discuss and give
examples of great and world-class project communication methods and
graphics?
A senior executive dropped by my office this week, seeking my help for
her project team.
"Rob, do you have any ideas on how we can better communicate project
plans?" I said, "Well, my first guess would be that they use Project to
create a view of the plan in a way which communicates the intended
message.". I explained how I prefer to always communicate in context
and avoid complexity. "No!", she asserted. "Project is c..p! Look at
this!". With great disdain she thrust into my hands a B&W paper copy of
the latest PowerPoint-based presentation "papers" about her project
used at the recent "stakeholders" meeting. "We want pretty project
plans. Our executives and stakeholders won't understand it otherwise."
On the single page where schedule/plan was addressed, the PM for the
project had included a screen shot (using the camera icon of the current
Microsoft Project plan).
: It looked to be a 125-150 task schedule in which they showed a subset
of 29. These tasks were a mixture of summary tasks with some
non-summary tasks. Not clear why they chose that set of tasks (no
explanatory words on page)
: The columns ID, Task Name, % Complete, Start, Finish, and a Gantt
Chart covering 3 calendar years by Quarter (even though it is a 1.5 year
schedule ... so the right 1/3rd of diagram was empty).
: The % Complete field only filled in 7 of the rows ... not sure how or
why they blanked out other rows (guess to hide the cells which showed 0%
complete). The executive said "We don't understand how % compute is
determined. These numbers can't be right. They shouldn't show them."
: The author used deadline field arrows/field (good) on some teaks, but
did not include a legend (bad) which then the executive complained about
as "what is this??? This is confusing!"
: There were a few predecessor links shown between the summary tasks (I
have discomfort with that).
: The summary bars had the beginning/ending triangle blocks. The Gantt
bars had no indication of progress inside the bars (which was expected
by my executive friend).
: The executive took offense that the author of the PPT page chose to
include the Project ID field on the screen shot. "That shows nothing".
It was a "step out" for this PM to try showing the Project Plan in a MS
Project Gantt Chart, but they fumbled the job and the risk is that they
won't try again and will be forced to abandon their use of Project as a
project tool and instead move to managing the project with PowerPoint.
In general, this organization uses Project only as a means to send
"data" (not all of it meaningful, IMHO) about projects to the Project
Office, who in turn then assembles reports (automated tools) for senior
executives who then report-on project status on behalf of and instead of
the PMs. The hoops they jump through to "fix" the schedule (with must
start or must end constraints on every single task to stop the schedule
from "jumping around" when reported to PMO makes the Project .mpp files
unusable for anything else. Typically, they don't use Project as tool
for project modeling, tracking, resource planning, cost estimating,
progress tracking, communication, etc. I'm working on this 'problem' in
my part time.
It seems to be normal for executives in this organization to only be
given (and I guess expect to see) 'pretty' PowerPoint pictures of a
"thing" which looks sort like a Gantt Chart which shows open squares for
scores of "milestones" plotted on graph ... they fill them in to show
completed milestones. Lots of colorful bars on each row which look like
Project Tasks, but really aren't ... they are more like phases or areas
of works. These milestones are grouped inside these bars. I find these
things way to complex, but to an art director I guess they have some
elements of "prettiness" due to all the colors in use.
The organization wants "pretty". They focus only on communication of
milestone tracking. The senior managers and executives profess to not
understand project plans otherwise.
I guess I have an opportunity here to set the standard for how to use
Project "properly" to communicate project status and plans "properly".
I'd like to do it in a way which works and is seen to be "world-class",
conveys quality information content and is "accepted". I have some ideas
and ways I've done it (I think successfully) in the past, but am seeking
some external influence here.
I've done some reading in Kerzner's book, and searched PMI's library for
some references. Also enjoy Edward Tufte's dabbling in this area (but
too theoretical). While they need is for "pretty", having terrific
content will be the swaying factor. I contend we can be "attractive"
with content and still hit the mark. The risk here is that need to do
it right as there won't be many shots at having an influence on this.
Thoughts?