Changes is what projects and project management is all about. I like the process below for creating major change. It was taken from the book "Leading Change" by John P. Kotter (see source information at the end of the posting).
1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
a. Examining the market and competitive realities
b. Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities
2. Creating the Guiding Coalition
a. Putting together a group with enough power to lead the change
b. Getting the group to work together as a team
3. Developing a Vision and Strategy
a. Creating a vision to help direct the change effort
b. Developing strategies for achieving that vision
4. Communicating the Change Vision
a. Using every vehicle possible to constantly communicate the new vision and strategies
b. Having the guiding coalition role model the behavior expected of employees
5. Empowering Broad-Based Action
a. Getting rid of obstacles
b. Changing systems or structures that undermine the change vision
c. Encouraging risk taking and non-traditional ideas, activities, and actions
6. Generating Short-Term Wins
a. Planning for visible improvements in performance, or “wins”
b. Creating those wins
c. Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible
7. Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
a. Using increased credibility to change all systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit together and don’t fit the transformation vision
b. Hiring, promoting, and developing people who can implement the change vision
c. Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents
8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
a. Creating better performance through customer and productivity-oriented behavior, more an better leadership, and more effective management
b. Articulating the connections between new behaviors and organizational success
c. Developing means to ensure leadership development and succession
SOURCE: Adapted from John P. Kotter, “Leading Change,” Harvard Business School Press 1996
Monday, October 12, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
Monday, October 05, 2009
A Collection of Project Management Sayings - Rewind
Good estimators aren't modest: if it's huge they say so.
The sooner you begin coding the later you finish.
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
What is not on paper has not been said.
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.
If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.
If you don't attack the risks, the risks will attack you.
A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.
The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.
A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected - a well-planned project only twice as long as expected.
If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you haven't understood the plan.
When all's said and done a lot more is said than done.
If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.
Feather and down are padding - changes and contingencies will be real events.
There are no good project managers - only lucky ones.
The more you plan the luckier you get.
A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager.
Good project management is not so much knowing what to do and when, as knowing what excuses to give and when.
If everything is going exactly to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong.
Everyone asks for a strong project manager - when they get him they don't want him.
Overtime is a figment of the naïve project manager's imagination.
Quantitative project management is for predicting cost and schedule overruns well in advance.
Good project managers know when not to manage a project.
Metrics are learned men's excuses.
For a project manager overruns are as certain as death and taxes.
If there were no problem people there'd be no need for people who solve problems.
Some projects finish on time in spite of project management best practices.
Good project managers admit mistakes: that's why you so rarely meet a good project manager.
Fast - cheap - good: you can have any two.
There is such a thing as an unrealistic timescale.
The more ridiculous the deadline the more money will be wasted trying to meet it.
The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time the last 10% takes the other 90%.
The project would not have been started if the truth had been told about the cost and timescale.
To estimate a project, work out how long it would take one person to do it then multiply that by the number of people on the project.
Never underestimate the ability of senior management to buy a bad idea and fail to buy a good idea.
The most successful project managers have perfected the skill of being comfortable being uncomfortable.
When the weight of the project paperwork equals the weight of the project itself, the project can be considered complete.
If it wasn't for the 'last minute', nothing would get done.
Nothing gets done till nothing gets done.
Warning: dates in the calendar are closer than you think.
There is no such thing as scope creep, only scope gallop.
Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything.
If project content is allowed to change freely the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress.
If you can interpret project status data in several different ways, only the most painful interpretation will be correct.
A project gets a year late one day at a time.
A project isn’t over until the fat check is cashed.
Powerful project managers don't solve problems, they get rid of them.
The sooner you begin coding the later you finish.
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
What is not on paper has not been said.
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.
If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.
If you don't attack the risks, the risks will attack you.
A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.
The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.
A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected - a well-planned project only twice as long as expected.
If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you haven't understood the plan.
When all's said and done a lot more is said than done.
If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.
Feather and down are padding - changes and contingencies will be real events.
There are no good project managers - only lucky ones.
The more you plan the luckier you get.
A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager.
Good project management is not so much knowing what to do and when, as knowing what excuses to give and when.
If everything is going exactly to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong.
Everyone asks for a strong project manager - when they get him they don't want him.
Overtime is a figment of the naïve project manager's imagination.
Quantitative project management is for predicting cost and schedule overruns well in advance.
Good project managers know when not to manage a project.
Metrics are learned men's excuses.
For a project manager overruns are as certain as death and taxes.
If there were no problem people there'd be no need for people who solve problems.
Some projects finish on time in spite of project management best practices.
Good project managers admit mistakes: that's why you so rarely meet a good project manager.
Fast - cheap - good: you can have any two.
There is such a thing as an unrealistic timescale.
The more ridiculous the deadline the more money will be wasted trying to meet it.
The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time the last 10% takes the other 90%.
The project would not have been started if the truth had been told about the cost and timescale.
To estimate a project, work out how long it would take one person to do it then multiply that by the number of people on the project.
Never underestimate the ability of senior management to buy a bad idea and fail to buy a good idea.
The most successful project managers have perfected the skill of being comfortable being uncomfortable.
When the weight of the project paperwork equals the weight of the project itself, the project can be considered complete.
If it wasn't for the 'last minute', nothing would get done.
Nothing gets done till nothing gets done.
Warning: dates in the calendar are closer than you think.
There is no such thing as scope creep, only scope gallop.
Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything.
If project content is allowed to change freely the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress.
If you can interpret project status data in several different ways, only the most painful interpretation will be correct.
A project gets a year late one day at a time.
A project isn’t over until the fat check is cashed.
Powerful project managers don't solve problems, they get rid of them.