Posted on

Why Use a Timesheet?

If you’re a consulting or contracting company, the answer to that question is a no-brainer.  Or so says the video below.  In this video, the author asserts that consulting companies absolutely must use a timesheet for the job.  I tend to agree.  Consulting has become so complex, and the margins so slim that you can’t afford to lose a single hour of billable time.

Consultants regularly check their utilization rates to make sure they are making money.  Utilization is the ration of billable to scheduled hours for the employee.  For example, if the employee is scheduled for 40 hours and only works 35, then he is only 88% utilized.  And because he hasn’t worked the full 40, he is not billing as many hours as possible.  Therefore, his effective billing rate is lower than what the company actually charges for his work.

Here’s an example of a poor effective billing rate.  Suppose a consultant bills at $100 per hour.  But he only gets 10 hours per week of billable work.  His effective billing rate is now only $25 per scheduled hour.  And if you miss any of those hours, the rate goes down.  So using a timesheet to collect and account for all the billable time is probably a no-brainer.

 

Manufacturing companies like to track project hours using a timesheet.  It allows them to connect with their employees and see where their time is going.  But it has more value than that.  Manufacturers who track projects want to improve their deliverable schedules, milestone predictions, and task duration estimates.  This obviously lends credibility to their project management efforts.  The only way to get good project task estimates is to use a timesheet.  They must collect actual employee hours so those hours can be compared with the original estimates.

And finally, even if you are not a services-based company that tracks time for client billing, and you are not a manufacturing company that tracks project management metrics, you may still just want to see employee status and weekly hours.  That’s a good enough reason to use a timesheet.  Simply keeping an eye on employee activities is a worthwhile management practice, even if you don’t have a hard reason to use a timesheet.

All these reasons are illustrated in a nice little YouTube video.  Check out the ScoutwestInc channel for additional timesheet videos.  Some of them make a lot of sense.

Posted on

Disconnect between Execs and Employees

In a recent CIO Insight survey (see link below), it was observed that executives and employees do not necessarily believe the same things.  They differ on values, communication, and culture.  Read the article below and let me know what you think.

http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/IT-Management/Execs-and-Employees-Differ-on-Company-Values-855767/

In my opinion, this isn’t anything new.  Company executives have always had a difficult time relating to the common employee.  That’s one reason for the rise of labor unions in blue collar workplaces.  Employees simply do not believe management shares their values or even cares about them.

Actually, as a student of the American Civil War, I’ve read plenty of examples of the wide gap between officers and men in the ranks.  So we know this phenomenon has been going on for a long time.  One story was told of a Confederate private playing cards with his Federal friends until a colonel came along and threatened to take him prisoner.  Clearly, the rank and file held different beliefs about the war in progress.

I believe this belief gap stems from your role in the company.  Executives experience the company in completely different ways than employees.  Their beliefs are shaped by completely different experiences and input.  Of course, the common employees thinks he knows it all, and is usually pretty vocal about his beliefs, but they don’t always have all the information.  Sometimes company issues are just too hard to analyze from an employee perspective.  Executives may also hold similar ivory tower beliefs about their company.  After all, they sit at the top looking down on it all.  Surely they can see clearly from a strategic vantage point.

The fact is, employees and executives should swap places every so often, just to experience a different perspective.  A company I worked for tried this on a limited basis.  Software engineers were required to spend one day per quarter with tech support.  Support engineers were required to spend a day with the programmers.  This forced those employees to see things from a different perspective. 

Rifts are created when employees feel management is not listening to them, or is making bad strategic decisions.  The same is true when executives think employees are just in it for the benefits and money.  Without some mixing of the classes, this is what you get.

But in all my time, I’ve never seen employees running the company for a day, or executives on the assembly line.  Maybe this is not such a bad idea!

Posted on

Improve Task Estimates, Multiply by Pi

Trouble with poor task estimation?  Introducing the three-point estimating technique.  This might help.

Te = (To + 4Tm + Tp) / 6

Here’s the problem: engineers are never good at estimating task durations.  Not even close.  When asked how long their tasks will take, they usually just say, “They’ll be done when they’re done!”  As a project manager, you have to coerce an estimate out of them.  And then multiple by Pi for the real number.  But there may be a better way.  Read on for a possible solution.

Example:

                It’ll take about two and a half months.

                Multiple by Pi

                Result: eight months

First off, Engineers just don’t like estimating time.  They have technical issues to deal with, and are not practiced in the arts of time estimation.  They feel uncomfortable in fuzzy areas like this because they don’t spend any time thinking about such things.  The traffic in mathematical and logical conundrums, not project scheduling.  You might just as well ask them how much their tasks will cost, or how much the company will make from the product, once marketed.  It’s just not something they spend any time considering.  That means you have to take their task estimates with a grain of salt, or perhaps with a more scientific calculation.

What could be more scientific than multiplying them by Pi?  🙂

The three-point estimate technique below first appeared with PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique).  It has some merit when dealing with task durations, and might be more accurate than multiplying engineer estimates by some arbitrary number.

Start by taking this three-point estimate below from the engineer for each task.  You must get them to tell you the most likely duration for each task, which they will understate by a longshot… then you must try for an optimistic estimate, which they will assert is the same as the first estimate… then finally you have to get them to spit out a pessimistic duration, at which point they will argue is also the same as the first two, and that you are stupid for asking… now go away!  But if you can get these three numbers, you can plug them into the three-point estimate calculation below.

  • 1. Tm – Most Likely estimate (example: 6 months)
  • 2. To – Optimistic estimate (example: 4 months)
  • 3. Tp – Pessimistic estimate (example: 12 months)

With these three estimates, you can run a calculation to find the mean estimate.  (Find this calculation on page 150 of the PMBOK.)

                Te = (To + 4Tm + Tp) / 6

                Example: (4 + 4(6) + 12) / 6 = 8 months

The results are a good prediction of human estimations, assuming that most people under-judge the duration of most tasks.  They simply forget or don’t consider all the possible details in executing their assigned tasks.  This calculation makes up for that lack of detail.

Hope it works for you!

Posted on

Define: Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS)

Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS): A hierarchical listing of resources necessary to complete a project.

Project resources are commonly thought of human resources only.  In other words, only the people that will actually work on the project tasks.  But that is not necessarily the only type of resource list that can be compiled.  In fact, the RBS can include both human resources and physical resources, like computers, software programs, timesheets, tools, instruments, automobiles, or even special clothing.

As seen below, the hierarchy is entirely project defined.  Any leveling applicable to the project can be used.  Examples might be organizational chart, or tool type, or physical location, or even sequencing by use.  Any useful project breakdown is appropriate.

Traditionally, only non-expendable resources are included.  Expendable items such as water and gasoline would not be listed.  These would fall into the category of supplies rather than resources.

Example of hierarchies of resources:

1. Engineering
  1.1 Rob
                2.2 Ted
                1.3 Software
                                1.3.1 Bill
                                1.3.2 Joe
                                1.3.3 Standard Time® Timesheet (timesheet and project tracking software)
                                1.3.4 Microsoft Project (project scheduling)
                                1.3.5 SQL Server (database)
                1.4 Hardware
                                1.4.1 Alice
                                1.4.2 Jill
                                1.4.3 Test Stand A
                                                1.4.3.1 Computer
                                                1.4.3.2 Wiring harness
                                1.4.4 Test Stand B
                                                1.4.4.1 Computer
                                                1.4.4.2 Wiring harness
 

The example above includes both human and inanimate physical resources, like software and test instruments.

Notice the numbering nomenclature.  The hierarchical list is numbered, with each indented layer adding another level to the numerical label.  Examples: 1.3, 1.3.1.  This makes each resource uniquely identifiable by numerical label.

Posted on

How Buggy is your Product?

Want a really slick way to find out how buggy and nasty your product is? Buggy? Who wants to know that? We want good products, not buggy ones. Well, this method will help you get there. It’s a way to find out how many bugs there are still in your software when you release it.
Let’s face it, all products have bugs. Even fully released and supported ones. But managing the number of bugs at launch time is a good thing. Release too many, and you’re dead. Tech Support will hate you; your CFO will hate you, and worst of all, your customers will hate you. So clean things up, buster!

Here’s how you do it:

Let’s first start by supposing that you have a QA department testing your product prior to release. They test the documented and “undocumented” features of the product, record and report the bugs, then retest when engineers fix them. Hopefully, the product becomes more robust as the release date approaches. Less and less bugs are found. But we all know the product will ship with some known and unknown bugs. You just can find them all, and you can’t always fix the ones you find. But the process is good, and it’s working fine.

So, what if you intentionally slipped some known bugs into the product, hoping the QA department would find them? If you did, you’d know they were doing their jobs. After all, that’s what they are paid to do. So for instance, if you were receiving 1,000 bugs per week from the QA department, and you slipped 100 new bugs into it, you would hope to get 1,100 bugs the next week. You would know the Quality Assurance department was catching 100% of the bugs in the product.

But what if the QA department only found 70 of your artificially injected bugs? I.e. the ones you inserted just to test the percentage of bug found. If only 70 of the inserted bugs came out, that would tell you that their efficiency rate is about 70%. Given that they find 1,000 bugs per month, you might suspect there are actually 1,428 in the system. Why? Because they only found 70% of your artificial bugs, so what makes you think they are finding 100% of the others? Probably not, but that’s okay; nobody’s perfect. If they are 70% efficient, then 1,428 x 70% = 1,000.

Using this method, as your bug rate approaches zero, you’ll know about how many uncaught bugs remain.
Posted on

Closer to the Source

The sooner employees record actual hours worked, the more accurate they will be.  Some companies require team members to record their project hours.  Sometimes this is for client billing, other times for engineering or manufacturing projects.  Whatever the reason, I’ve seen firsthand that recoding hours soon after the actual event ensures accuracy.

Most people cannot remember what they did last week.  So if asked to fill in their timesheet for last week, they will not be able to pick out individual tasks.  Sure, they remember which projects they worked on, unless there are more than two.  But they cannot reliably remember which tasks.  It gets impossible when asked to assign actual hours to those tasks.  That is the primary reason DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency) requires timekeeping every day.  Even filling out timesheets at the end of the week is against the rules.  I don’t normally like government agencies, but in this case there is truth to their overbearing policies.

Standard Time® is an example of a professional timesheet with a built-in timer.  The image below illustrates the Quick Task window.  A link to a video is also included.

Prototype

Standard Time® Quick Tasks

In the Standard Time Quick Task window, you simple click project tasks to start and stop the timer.  Time log records are automatically entered into the timesheet.  That solves the problem of entering hours after the work is finished.  Actual work is sent directly to the timesheet; there is no delay.  And since you are clicking the checkbox to start and stop a timer, the actual work is as accurate as it could possibly be.

Most companies do not require minute-by-minute accuracy, unless you are charging them for time worked.  Only consulting companies really need this level of granularity.  For them, it’s much easier to justify invoices when the time accounting accuracy is beyond impeachment.  Simply print out the actual time log report (with records down to the second) and there is no disputing the accuracy.  Of course you can still milk the clock, but consultants are rarely accused of that.  But still most manufacturing companies that track projects for earned value purposes don’t need timer accuracy.

Whether your company needs timer accuracy, daily accuracy, weekly, or monthly, tracking time is almost always a good thing.  There is so much value in knowing how much time projects take.  Consider a few good reasons: comparing estimates to actuals, estimating future projects, assigning cost and estimates to new activities, or even know what employees are up to – all good things!

�

Posted on

When to Re-baseline Your Project

Baselining is the act of recording your original project estimates so you can compare them to actual results at a later time.  It is also the platform from which the project is conducted.  In other words, the baseline contains schedule and cost numbers used by the project team throughout the entire process.  By baselining the project, you are laying the foundation on which the project will rise.  That’s a nice thing to have.  Employees want a good solid plan that doesn’t wander from whim to social whim.  They want a visible goal that isn’t ducking and weaving out of sight every week.  Such a goal offers reassurance and confidence for success.  A moving target is the worst motivation killer known to man.

But sometimes you just need to start over.

Yes, a moving target is a sure killer.  But there are times when the baseline is just crap.  The schedule has become irrelevant, costs are laughable, and the project team is floundering in a sea of mud.  Nothing is going as planned.  Designers are throwing in new requirements that were heretofore unheard of.  Executives are MIA.  And managers have you working 80 hour weeks to hit a target they have no clue of the purpose of.  Nobody’s admitting they’re stupid, but it’s obvious everybody is.  It’s only years later that everyone can look back and shake their heads at the calamity.  But while you’re in the midst of it, you just keep buggering on.

It is those times that executives, or maybe a strong-willed project manager needs to step in and call a hiatus.  But who’s got the guts for that.  Again, you’ve got to be a strong person to blow the whistle and wave your arms.  But if you can recognize the signals, a re-baselining during a mess like this may be your only option.

I was on a two-year software death-march like this.  It was a disaster.  Nobody knew the warning signs.  Nobody blew the whistle.  Nobody re-baselined.  The product failed six months after release, which was at that time a year overdue and marketplace irrelevant.  It was the worst project I was ever on.

Here is a good rule of thumb for knowing when to rebaseline:

Baseline the project if you have missed over half your scheduled targets in the last six months.

Have you missed a few end-to-end tests?  Missed a customer drop or two?  How about a major milestone?  Missed a target feature?  These are the warning signs.  Again, if you have missed over half your targets in the last six months, rebaseline.  Don’t try to figure it out, just baseline the project again.

In fact, in cases like that above I would suggest cutting the scope in half.  Cut the project into smaller phases.  Get the schedule down to visible goals.  And if anybody disputes them, cut them again.  And then again.  You must have realistic goals or you will fail every time.

�

Posted on

Earned Value: 50% Fiction and 50% Fact

In project management, there is a term named “Earned Value.”  It prevents the value your project has actually earned based on its current state of completion.  The graphics below help describe this.

A close relative to Earned Value is Planned Value.  It is the monetary value the project should have generated at any point in its state of completion.  Ideally, Earned Value and Planned Value should be identical.

And another close relative is Actual Cost.  It is the cost the project has incurred at its current state of completion.  When Earned Value and Planned Value and Actual Cost are all equal, the planets have aligned!  But when they are not, we have discrepancies which we’ll explore below.  That may help explain the post title: “Earned Value: 50% Fiction and 50% Fact”.

The 50% fiction is Planned Value.  The 50% fact is Actual Cost.  Earned Value is somewhere in the middle.

Prototype

 

Here is an example of a discrepancy between Earned Value, Planned Value, and Actual Cost.  The Earned Value is much less than we expected, and the Actual Cost is much more.

Prototype

 

In this example, we see Earned Value at $30,000, but it should be $40,000.  We also see the actual costs on the project to be $45,000.  It turns out there are calculations to help normalize and judge the value of these numbers.  This let you compare the numbers with other projects to see how close you have come to historical numbers.  If you miss the Planned Value mark, the difference is called a variance.  Variance simply means you varied from your target by some amount.  There is a schedule variance and cost variance.  Of course ideally, we want these to be zero.

Schedule Variance (SV) is Earned Value minus Planed Value.  Cost Variance is Earned Value minus Actual Cost.  The equation is below.

SV = EV – PV  ($30,000 – $40,000 = -$10,000)

CV = EV – AC  ($30,000 – $45,000 = -$15,000)

In addition to variance, you can view the discrepancies in terms of ratios.  They are actually more helpful to compare with other projects because they normalize all the numbers to a single comparable performance value.

The Cost Performance Index is the ratio of Earned Value to Actual Cost.  The Schedule Performance Index is the ratio of Earned Value to Planned Value.

CPI = EV / AC  ($30,000 / $45,000 = .67)

SPI = EV / PV  ($30,000 / $40,000 = .75)

Any Cost Performance Index number over 1 is over budget.  Any Schedule Performance Index over 1 is “over schedule.”  See how these performance numbers could be helpful?

In this case, the Cost Performance Index is 67% efficient.  In other words, the project made 67 cents for every dollar expected.  That’s not good.  But maybe the next project will be better!

 

 

�

Posted on

I Quit!

I’ve decided to quit the software development and project management biz to get into the more lucrative, albeit illegal spam biz.  I could spend a billion spams a day!  If you’ve been following my blog, don’t dispair.  You’ll still hear from me, just in the form of men’s health emails.  (That’s a joke, folks!)

CIO Insight did a short piece on eleven reasons to quit your job.  See the full story here.  It’s so funny!

http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Careers/11-Outrageous-Reasons-to-Quit-Your-Job-758179/

Do you have a trust fund?  That’s a good reason to quit.  What about if you are making too much money and don’t feel you deserve it.  Well then just quit!  Those are just a few good ones from the survey CIO Insight did.

Prototype

CIO Insight

Actually, those are great reasons.  In fact, all the items on the list are great – for the employer, that is.  That’s because you don’t want a person like that on your team.  If they’ll quit because they can’t get up in the morning or there’s a must-see sporting event one day, then you can live without that person.  Reasons for quitting tell you a lot about a person.  It’s a window into their true character.

But wait a minute…  You want to know their character before you hire them.  Oh, yeah…

The time to test a person’s character is before you add them to your project team – during the interview and selection process.  That means you must either be a really good judge of character, or use a test to weed out the deadbeats.

During my career, employers have used multiple interviewers.  On “interview day” you go from office to office talking to a half dozen team members.  Those team members report back to the HR department with a score, and anecdotal feelings about your “team player” aptitude.  Of course, prospective employees are on their best behavior during such sessions, so you can’t get any dirt on them.  But if your team members are each good judges of character, you’ll have a good idea what you’re dealing with.

One employer put me in from of an impossible-to-finish test.  They said I had two hours to compete it, and that I should answer as many questions as I could.  Problem is, the test would take any normal person four hours to complete.  So what’s a guy to do?  Rush through it, scribbling down answers as fast ask you can?  Or take it slow and easy, answering only the ones you know you’ll get right?  Clearly this was a trick test to see how a person reacts when given too much work to complete in a given time period.  Will they make a big mess of the job by rushing?  Or are the smooth and level-headed.  A test like this will reveal their true character.

Another idea is to take them out to lunch and gang up on them.  See how they react in different settings.  What comes out of their mouth when they aren’t guarding it so closely?  Ask them to gossip about the worst boss they ever had.  Do they take the bait and spill their guts?  Or do they say all their bosses were saints?  You could ask them to rat out their worse coworker.  Same trick…  Do they partake in vicious gossip about their previous workplace?  If so, it tells you that they’ll do the same at your company.  They may even say similar things about you.  Or they may walk off the job to join a rock band!

Posted on

ASPE PMP Boot Camp Day 4 (Last Day)

It’s Thursday afternoon, and I’ve finished the Project Management Professional (PMP)® Certification Exam Boot Camp hosted by Dave Caccamo at ASPE and I’ve decided that it’s not a real Boot Camp because we didn’t fire any guns.  I blame ASPE for the misleading title.  🙂 

So aside from that little misunderstanding, I’d definitely go with the Boot Camp title – this is hardcore!  If you like hardcore, get in on this course.  If you don’t, maybe you can pass the PMI PMP Certification Exam on your own.  Good luck with that!

Actually, I thought of doing that very thing about two years ago.  I researched the PMI PMP exam, and strongly considered signing up for it.  I figured I knew enough about project management to pass.  Heck, it was probably just a bunch of terminology and best practices, right?  I knew that stuff and figured I could pass.  Now after taking this course, that idea seems so laughable.  I probably would have had about a 1% chance of having my application accepted, let alone passing the exam.  There is so much I didn’t realize about PMI and their PMP exam and their expectations of project managers.

This course enlightened me considerably.

We spent the last day finishing up the 42 PMI project management processes.  That included those from the Executing, Monitor and Control, and Closing process groups.  This is where the Initiating and Planning processes are performed.  After finishing those, we took a final test quiz and finished out the course.  Anyone with a low 70’s grade on the final quiz should feel comfortable moving forward with the PMP exam after a reasonable study period.  So I guess I’m good.

I have to say, even though we stuck closely to the PMI processes, this classroom offered a perfect setting for a wide range of project management topics.  It wasn’t all PMI Process Heaven.  All the methodologies  came out eventually, with comparisons to PMI – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and how real-world PM’s get things done.  So felt I grew a little outside the sanctioned course material.

One thing to stress is that you cannot come riding into this course on your high horse.  Don’t think you are going teach everyone how wise you are in the world of project management.  Get ready to submit yourself to the PMI method, even if you disagree with it.  There just isn’t time to argue platitudes.  You’ll miss the whole point, and likely ruin your chances of passing the exam.  Stick to the subject matter and you’ll be farther ahead.

I hope you have enjoyed the series.  I offer my sincere apologies to those in the PMI world for oversimplifying, misunderstanding, and perhaps misrepresenting the material.  Again, this was my personal experience of going through the PMP Certification Exam Boot Camp.  You’re seeing it through my limited experience level – a complete novice to PMI and the PMP exam.  Your mileage may vary.

 

 

My Notes on Day 4 of PMP Boot Camp:

Focus on being able to write out PMBOK matrix in its entirety.

Practice PMP cert exam write-ups.  Make sure you have some experience for every process group, even if it’s light or it may not be accepted.  Must use some PMI buzzwords, but not an obvious list from page 43 of PMBOK.  Go into some detail in one or more areas, a success.  No technical details, no technical lead.  All details should be PM related.  Connect PMI processes to show project success.  If you were a team member without a formal PM title, you’ll have to come up with something related – descriptive rather than formal titles.  How you integrated processes, management deliverables.  You can still get away with a “Project Task Manager” title.

Send your PMI write-up to Dave Caccamo at ASPE before submitting.  He can tell whether it will be accepted.

Use the patterns for learning process inputs and outputs.  At this point, I know I should be doing this, but haven’t memorized the patterns, so I forget them.  I suppose I didn’t know the significance of the patterns early enough.  Pretty important, or else you have to memorize all inputs and outputs without a framework of logic.  PMI doesn’t like simplified pattern style of learning.

A spaghetti factory is what you get if you try to show flowcharted rubber band connections between all the inputs and outputs.  It’s just too complex to draw out.

Turn brain cells over to PMI.

Read PMBOK for Monitoring and Controlling (and Closing) Process Group.  Closing Process Group questions may be tricky and picky.

PMP cert pass rate is about 70%, and the average score is 72%, but PMI doesn’t publish this info.

Get the “Random Thoughts on the PMI Exam” document from Dave Caccamo.  Answers a lot of questions.

After drawing the matrix every day (before exam), name one major output to help key you during the test.

 

Links to previous ASPE PMP Boot Camp posts

 

Disclaimer: The thoughts and feedback for the ASPE PMP Certification Exam Boot Camp associated with this series of posts are my own. In exchange for providing my feedback on this community forum, ASPE has provided benefits related to my course attendance.