Those hidden agendas ...

Everyone always has a hidden agenda, even if it's subconscious, or if they aren't intentionally trying to hide it. In thise case, Human Resources has a hidden agenda for reception. Currently, this company has no dedicated full-time reception; the phone coverage is just parceled out amongst the employees.
The HR manager confided to me their problem; she said that only the women managers are picked on to cover phones, and that the men - the primary decision makers in the instance of hiring full-time reception - never cover the phones. She said, "At the new plant, they can either hire a full-time receptionist, or they can start taking their turn covering the phones."
Since a full-scale move like this is the appropriate time to implement changes, every time the issue of reception comes up in discussion, she says something to try to guide the team towards her hidden agenda. When the office move is discussed, she says, "We don't have a full time receptionist, and we will need that in order to staff to reception areas at both plants for a while ... we don't have a receptionist ... we need a receptionist ..."
From an employee standpoint, I fully understand her. The company I worked at previously did a poor job of assigning phone coverage duties to the admin department, and the phone backup duties most often fell on me and my sister; we both worked in marketing. It takes time away from an employee's regular job, cuts into another departmental budget, and fosters ill-will and grudges and bad attitudes.
It is worthwhile, I believe, for this company to consider hiring a receptionist - and if they do not, a comprehensive assessment of current policy needs to be performed, and an open table discussion opened up for affected employees to voice their feelings. Hopefully, by utilizing a quality team process, and including all the participants, management can at least get the attitudes to change, even if no further budgeting is allotted for a new receptionist.
Oftentimes, the employees just want to know that their voice is heard, and their opinion is not valued. If they do not perceive this equity, then they feel misused and misunderstood by those that they see as the pencil-pushers in the back office.

E-mail issues

Today we are having a full-team meeting regarding the dates and durations that everyone inputted into their MS Project schedules. Oddly enough, two people said they did not receive the schedules I sent to them – one was the Quality director, so I resent it to him, and the other was the Facilities manager. I double-checked in my sent items, and those schedules had in fact been sent to them; so I am not sure what happened between my computer and theirs.

To prevent this problem in the future, I think I am going to see if, Network Solutions, the host that we use for our company e-mail, has a “read receipt” for e-mails, because that would mitigate the risk of problems occurring from team members not receiving their information.

Sending schedules out ASAP.

I sent out the schedules that we typed into MS Project to all of the team members. Unfortunately, this happened a few days later than it should have (or could have) happened, giving them only two days to put together durations and due dates for their activities, before a full-team meeting to review schedules was to take place. In the future, I would stay up all night if necessary to get the schedules out IMMEDIATELY after they were typed into MS Project, so that team members would have as much time as possible, to as soon as possible, input durations and dates.
The team members were very accommodating, however, working on their schedules as soon as they could. The HR manager, with the most activities (approximately 400), definitely had her work cut out! When she saw the schedule, she wrote back to me, "Did I really say all that?!"

Company Newsletter

The Human Resources manager sent me a copy of the company newsletter, with an article about my boss and I coming in to facilitate the move. Here is a copy of that article, along with the photos they included.

Project Repositioning Planning Training



Our staff, with the help of Baker and Associates, spent two days immersed in project
planning. The overall objective was to brainstorm and identify all the activities, tasks,and milestones needed to build a successful Project Repositioning Plan for moving out of the Seattle Plant and into the Puyallup Plant. We focused on the following:
∗ All inputs and outputs
∗ Interdependencies
∗ Timeframes
∗ Resource Responsibilities
∗ Time Constraints
∗ Critical Path



Breaking down activities, tasks and setting milestones was not an easy task. Each department mapped out its activities which were then reviewed by the rest of the staff for additional activities, tasks and milestone timeframes

The team was focused on a myriad of issues. Examples of some of them: Facility planning, to include utilities, permits, equipment, contractor safety and tracking, security badges and building access. Inventory levels, scheduling and build ahead requirements. Drawings, procedures, product planning, EHS requirements, files, archives, telephone, fax and computer capabilities. Equipment and manpower movement. Quality requirements and customer process approvals. Customer and supplier notification. Carpool and vanpools, flex passes. Plant layout, lunch room, training rooms, meeting rooms, office layout.



The Mezzanine Training Room is being designated as our “War Room”. It will be soon filled with project planning boards and plant layout maps. The project planning boards are detailed activity work plans which will be reviewed and updated on a
routine basis until the move (repositioning) is complete. In addition to work plans and status reports, we will be using a database to help us manage our progress. The information recorded will be used throughout the course of the repositioning to ensure a smooth transition to our new facility.



Our goal is to set up the Puyallup plant to enable us to produce our products in the most efficient manner and to provide a comfortable workplace for our employees.

Type like a madman!

On the 14th, Rick and I came in and spent all of Friday typing the project schedules into MS Project. This took hours, hours, hours ... It was somewhat relaxing, though. I turned on my Christmas music, nice and low, and just started typing. The HR lady brought in carafes of coffee and I had a little bag of Quakers rice puffs to snack on, so I was happy.

Function Activities

Terminology - Function: a certain general function of the overall firm, such as Finance, Production, or Tooling.
Function Owner: the department head in charge of overseeing and directing that function, such as the Finance Manager, Production Manager, or Facility Director.
Activity: activity, task, etc.



When we sit down to put together a WBS for a company that is repositioning, a function owner inevitably always announces, after 3 to 5 minutes of brainstorming activities, "Well, it looks like my department won't have very much to do." This is a red flag to me - nay, this is a storm of Communists charging down the street waving their banners. This usually means one, or all, of several things.
a) They underestimate the scope.
b) They do not want to commit themselves to too much, in case they cannot perform. These are usually the cocky types who dislike supervision or authority. They are often the older employees who have been in the industry for a long time.
c) They do not understand the activity.
d) They just didn't think long enough.
e) In underestimating the scope and not understanding the activity, and not thinking long enough, they summarily under-assume the amount of work it will actually involve for their department to successfully reposition.

One of the first things I would ask this function owner is, "If the rest of the departments were moved to the new location today, could you just hop in your car and drive down there and start working?"

Chances are, the answer is NO. On the first level, we have just pure logistics to consider. How will your office furniture or personal belongings get to the new location? Do you even know where your office will be located? Who will set up your items? Will you have the data lines you need - does IT even know what systems you will need? Or is there going to be a new arrangement for your machines? Will you know where to go? Will there be any new machines implemented, will you need any training? The list goes on!

A second area of consideration is other functions. After putting together an initial Tier II schedule, a function owner should also consider the other departments' schedules; these will invariably affect them. Do not finish your own, personal brainstorming session and feel that the schedule is closed!
For instance, Purchasing may put together a short list of activities and then declare that they have nothing to do. But then Production will come to them and tell them that, since Facilities has an extended down time projected for the equipment in transit, they need to order a substantial amount of parts for the Materials build-ahead strategy. Suddenly Purchasing needs to get together with vendors to input massive purchase orders with sufficient lead time - but this involves going to the Finance team and investigating the budget and cashflow available for these POs. Thus, we can see that, based on a Facilities projection, a number of other functions are substantially impacted.

A third facet of the brainstorming process is involving frontline managers and lower-level individuals, from the bottom of the hierarchy on up, in the activities generation. This not only provides ownership and buy-in from the employees that will be essentially doing the groundwork for the project, but it also enables the function owners to get firsthand information on what needs to be done. Many new aspects of the project will come up when a whole-team approach is taken; new eyes, new perspectives, and new information. All of this is pertinent to a thorough project Work Breakdown Structure.

Facilitating a meeting - looking for cooperation!

We are back in the conference room at Company XYZ with the whole project team for the day, again working on the WBS process. Unfortunately, a few hidden agendas are already rising to the surface.

A facility manager seems to be far too optimistic, assuming he can take on the role of GC (General Contractor) and wear a number of other hats without any problem. I am not sure why he is assuming he can take on all this work and not drop the ball anywhere, as past Lessons Learned have proven often happens when such an attempt is made. I've learned from another manager here he can be a real "stick in the mud", sometimes far too cocky about his knowledge and abilities. In a recent project where some team members tried to reorganize floor layout, the facility manager got so belligerent about it that he refused to help at all; machines that were marked for move had to be physically moved by the production manager, since help from facilities was not made available. He is unwilling to implement changes and prefers to stay in the past mode of work; he seems to think that he "knows everything", and we all know how impossible it is to work with team members who know everything and listen to no one.

The production manager who attempted to implement the changes in the past is a forward thinking man with an agenda of lean, modern processes, and smooth flow. He is working hard for the betterment of the company, and hopefully, in the end, he will take the hill and win the battle.

Work Breakdown Structure

Left this morning to head up to Company XYZ in South Seattle with Rick at about 6:30AM. We arrived at the plant we will be repositioning and set up in the conference room.

Rick led the first several hours with a presentation and some training materials, preparing the team for the process ahead with techniques, verbiage, and risks. We have a team of approximately 11, so it is on the large size of average. We broke for lunch at about 11:40; it was boxed lunches from www.gretchensshoebox.com, they were absolutely delicious. I kept the minutes during the training and idea generation period of the meeting; during the second half, we had a little bit more training, prepping for the actual WBS process.

I had printed large sheets of butcher paper, one for each facility function, and each function divided into areas such as "Prep for Occupancy", and other different stages of the individual function's move. We hung these on the wall, and function owners wrote their activities onto sticky notes and stuck them to the butcher paper in approximate chronological order.

We ended the meeting at 3:00 PM, and will resume tomorrow morning at 8:00AM. I will send the minutes to the team members once I obtain their e-mail addresses.

Still preparing materials

I spent about 7 hours today running to Staples, Kinkos, a local printer, and meeting with Rick in Redmond. We worked on the presentation, I worked on assembling the training books, and so far, things are almost wrapped up.
Now I just need to go to Kinkos tonight to pick up some business cards for Hammons, who is going to come in and supervise the facilitation for a few days, while Rick is otherwise booked up.
Tracey and I had to fake up the business card for Hammons today because the native file is in an old version of Corel, and she does not have the hi-res logo, or the fonts. She opened my PDF business card through Illustrator and worked her magic, finding a similar font and overlaying it on my business card. The final version looks so similar to the original cards that you can't even tell at first glance that there is any difference at all!

Physical materials

I'm up late working on some training, or guidance, materials for our brainstorming event next week; basically, just printing and assembling the files Rick e-mailed to me.
With the last company we repositioned, I became proficient and confident in designing formats for schedules and other forms. This is a skill I hope to develop as time goes on; I think I will do quite well at it, especially with more technical training.
Since I have minimal experience with Microsoft Project, and the college course is not offered until Spring 09, I spoke with the teacher at the college. She advised me to purchase the book now and do all of the exercises. She is going to let me into her online class and send me the syllabus so that I can learn as much as possible (and do all the work ahead of time) as soon as I can.

Repositioning Project With Company XYZ

Today my boss and I drove down to the south Seattle area for a set-up meeting and a tour of XYZ's facilities. We will begin facilitating their repositioning project in the middle of next week; a three-day brainstorming process with sticky notes and flip charts, it is an exciting stage and can take hours. Hopefully, we will have it wrapped up by the middle of the third day.
XYZ has to be completely moved by July 31, 2009, because developers want their lot to build condos. This will be a quick move; some processes may need to be expedited. And since they are moving to Puyallup, I wonder what their employee retention rate will be?

Life and Times: What Is Project Management?

Project Management is the unique and finite business process of developing an organized effort to accomplish a specific effort that is usually a one-time event, often bringing together individuals from various areas of expertise. A project can range in complexity and detail and length of time, from making dinner one evening to building an interstate highway infrastructure over the course of many years. Project management is the physical task of developing the project plan, often facilitating experts to define goals and objective, specifying activities and processes by which goals will be achieved, determining what resources will be necessary, and impementing budgets and timelines into the overal plan for completion. The Project Manager facilitates the successful implementation of the project plan, maintaining specific controls to ensure that the plan is managed according to plan.

The standard Project Management major phases are: Feasibility Study, Project Planning, Implementation, Evaluation and Support/Maintenance.

In this blog, I will document my Project Management certificate program, and the projects that I participate in along the way.