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Milestone Plan Remedy
Pitfall Remedy
Pitfall: Improper level of project planning. Too little or (less often) too much.
Remedy: Use milestone planning to create lightweight, agile plans that provide adequate structure. Execute through prioritization.
Track: Planning
Stages: Initial Operations, Initial Sales and beyond
Symptoms/use this if you see one or more of:
- Projects are poorly organized
- Expected project outcomes & deliverables are unclear
- You are bogged down in process & methodology
Resources, Actors & Participants: Project manager, Project team members, Executive Management
Tools (links): Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems
Parable:
A couple of years ago, I was the executive responsible for an account
with a large financial institution. We had just signed a new agreement
to create an investment oriented web-site for their institutional sales
people. I was excited to have a new project manager (we’ll call him
Frank) to lead the effort. Frank had the certification for project
management (PMI PMP) and showed up at my office to discuss his plan.
He plopped down a thick binder of material on my desk. “Here is my
project plan.”, he said. “I already don’t like it.”, I responded.
“How can you say that. You haven’t even looked at it!”, Frank exclaimed.
Of course, Frank’s plan was very well thought out. He had the details of
every step laid out. I was pleased to see he had thought through so much
detail. One or my previous project managers “didn’t believe in project
plans”. I’ll take Frank’s plan over the other guys any day. At least I
know that someone did the homework!
The problem was that Frank’s plan was so detailed that I knew the other
team member’s eyes would glaze over when they saw it. That means it
would be ignored. This, in turn, would frustrate Frank, aggravate me and
anger our client.
Our solution was to use Frank’s excellent thinking to create a milestone
plan that would be accessible by everyone.
DDescription:
Milestone plans are simply an agreement of the major events and major
deliverables that will be created, along with estimated timing, during
the project. Collectively, I refer to these as milestones. The events
and deliverables are the key elements that define the project. These are
the things that your team needs to agree to – and that your team
collectively needs to monitor.
The deliverables outlined in a milestone plan need to be described in
advance. This is where detailed expectations are set for the team
members. The deliverables definition is used to benchmark the quality of
the deliverable.
If the milestone plan is organized into a Gantt chart format, you can
simply draw a line down the plan and look at the unfinished deliverables
to the left of the line (these milestones are overdue) and the items
just to the right of the line (milestones coming up). You can, of
course, include dependencies between milestones to illustrate impacts of
slips.
The important thing, though, is the transparency to all of the team
members of what needs to be accomplished and when. If some team members
need help in establishing which steps need to be followed to accomplish
a given milestone, the project manager can establish a private work plan
for them. Incorporating steps into the team’s plan just causes clutter.
Critical Success Factors:
The milestone plan requires a new mind-set in approaching projects.
Typical technology projects (as in software development) are grounded in
process. Team’s ask the question “What is the process, or methodology,
that we must follow to deliver a project?” The deliverables fall out of
the process.
Milestone plans put the deliverables first and relegate the process to
the back seat. This shift in focus causes you to ask the question, “What
do we REALLY need?” When you have successfully made that shift, it will
be reflected in your deliverables definition. Only the necessary
materials will be delivered, not a bunch of stuff that the process
mandates.
Rules of prioritization when creating and managing a Milestone Plan:
Priority 1 – unblock others first, the organization is depending on your
efficiency
Priority 2 – organize milestones by front-loading risk
Priority 3 – organize milestones by time factors (i.e. make sure you
give plenty of lead time for items that require elapsed time. An example
would be ordering equipment for a production environment.)
Resource Books Mentioned:
For more information on this approach, especially in software
projects, check out Jim Highsmith’s excellent text, “Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems
Copyright 2009 by Lester(Skip) Shuda, Post Destiny, Inc. d/b/a Team and a Dream