What is Reality?

 Before I begin with our topic I would like to explain a little about the business I am in.  I work for a large defense contractor who builds and maintains aircraft simulators for the military.  The simulator projects range from small existing simulator modifications to providing new simulators.  Given the fact that these simulators are rather expensive and every simulation company has a different answer for the same problem, we rarely make the same thing twice.  Therefore, there are challenges that a massed production environment would never face.  More often than not schedules and budgets are usually exceed by a factor no one would like to be published.  This takes me to the project I just completed.

 My last project was an $8 million simulator upgrade project that took 3 years and 50k man-hours to complete.  Understanding than everyone declares success in these types of papers I am going to take a leap here and tell you we were successful as well.  We provided the simulator for our customers use just two weeks late, started our physical configuration audit early and delivered with only 12 test discrepancies unresolved. (Our customer considered the system Ready for Training at that time and expected us to finish during off training hours).  This effort was accomplished with minimal overtime and not one 3-day weekend worked during the entire period including the one-year system integration period.  The project even delivered under budget.

 "Wow! What a bunch of BS!  "They must have had a padded or easy schedule!

Understand that there is no way to prove to you my statements here are accurate and that this would be a very good opportunity to inflate our success for self-serving interests.  All I can tell you is that it is true.  Stick with me here even if you do not believe what I am telling you because there might be something here you can relate to or that could be of some use to you.  Oh. . .to make matters a little more interesting for you - I have no degree.

What is the key to being successful on a project?  What is that one thing no degree or certification program tells you about? 

REALITY

That's it. . . reality.  The simple understanding of reality and having the intestinal fortitude to act on it is all you need to do.  Actually, doing so will probably be the toughest challenge you face.  Most organizations repeat the same mistakes from project to project, follow the Peter Principle and do not like mavericks.  These are the organizations who have to look as far back a Noah's day to see a project that delivered on time.  Hang in there you can do it.

Reality is the understanding and acceptance of the following:

1. Murphy is the King!.  The only way to appease him is to show a little respect.  Follow the rest of my advice, add a 10% buffer and get some religion.

2. Everything you learned in school should be treated as a suggestion. Trying to force a plan or schedule to resemble the way you were taught is futile - you must tailor your process to each and every aspect of the project.

3. Every project, no matter how similar it may look, is different than the last.  Assume nothing.  Unless the exact same environment, with the exact same staff is providing the exact same product the same way it behooves you to hunt down each and every difference and assess its impact.

4. Everyone gets sick.  Everyone has vacation days and no one works very hard during Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Consider these non-working days in your schedule.

5. Many  proposals are under bid, were negotiated by people who are not going to do the work or were overnight events where people did the best they could.  If possible replan the effort and make sure you can sign up to what you were given.

6. There will be a problem with almost everything you purchase.  Whether it is manufactured in house or is off the shelf.  Budget time to test the equipment and repair what is not working properly.

7. Most vendor representatives you speak to do not know as much as they actually need to in order to satisfy your needs.  Expect something not to work as pitched. Verify all sales data with an engineer.

8. Not everyone in support organizations - be it logistics, information systems or any other organization involved will have the same level of concern about your needs that you do.  Give them assignments as soon as possible and expect delays.

9. Even though people have the best intentions, most schedule estimations are off by 100%.  This happens because people tend to think in their box and do not pay enough respect to Mr. Murphy.  My rule: take the best educated guess and double it.  Management hates this. . .  so don't tell them. 

10. If management has a habit of asking you to take a challenge, pad your estimate before they see it.

11. Roller coaster manpower plans where people are scheduled to come and go or where matrix organizations have a complex manpower requirement to staff do not work.  Bring personnel on as soon as you can and keep them busy until they leave.  People are not going to be available when you want them.  If need be give these people miscellaneous tasks to keep them busy in dead periods.

12. Waiting until integration to hire personnel because you figure you can save money and they can work overtime to catch up is a big no-no.  Hire as soon as you can so these people have more than 5 minutes to spin up.

13. It is better to have a team of average performers who work well together than a team of excellent performers that do not get along.

14. Audits are your friends.  Without line by line budget reviews things will get missed.  Human error does exist and will occur on your project.

15. Avoiding organizational or quality department reviews because you want to save time is a mistake.  Assuming that these organizations have qualified reviewers this step will save time.

16. The larger the company the larger the red tape.  Budget the time.  If you are told the normal time to get parts on order is ten days expect 20.

17. Order hardware as soon as you can, even if you have to justify the timing with the customer.  This will help you avoid delays because, as I have already told you, something about this equipment is not going to work right or God forbid a vendor misses a delivery date.

18. In large companies very few people are fired for incompetence.  Unfortunately these people have to work somewhere.  They either work for you, especially if you are in a matrix organization, or they work for a support group.  Schedule accordingly.

19. Seating people on a single project spread throughout the organization is not the best way to create a team.  Try to avoid this wherever possible.  Even though this raises the tendency for superfluous chatter it fosters moral, mitigates those behind the back conversations and provides for the good kind of eaves dropping.  The good eaves dropping is the kind where someone who has experience you may not know about hears a conversation and adds useful information you would have never received otherwise. 

20. The first time you ask someone to work on a weekend, especially a Sunday, through a 3-day weekend or large amounts of overtime you have set precedence.  If the value of such an event is not obvious to the employee he will make you pay for it.  There is no turning back once you have done this.  If your personnel do not think this is justified you may not be able to recover.  They will now consider you one of them (management).

21. Your job as a project manager is to facilitate your people's ability to do their job.  Therefore, you are a gopher.  I repeat you are a gopher and you better like it. Get what they need and when they need it.  Also do not skimp on the funds and provide inferior equipment. 

22. Scheduling tools are more than word processors.  Use the tool as an integrated checklist.  Leave nothing out.

23. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

24. If you think I have been a bit pessimistic or jaded - get over it!  Remember this is REALITY. I tried to account for all this and still got bit by Murphy and made mistakes.  We still delivered 2 weeks late.