How to Improve Your Team’s Task Estimates

Published on May 1, 2013 by

I get asked a lot by Web Project Managers about how to accurately produce task time estimates. Let's face it, having a team member, let alone the entire team, estimate task time is not easy. This is, especially true if your team does not have a lot of experience with the type of project you are tackling.

Task estimations are important to a Web team's success. If your team is struggling with accurate task estimations here is the method I've used with success to improve our predictions. (Note: you may never nail this every time, but improving a little on each successive project - that is entirely doable.)

1. First, explain to the team members everyone is going to use time tracking software. (If you are already doing this - great! Many teams don't use this software.) Often team members worry the information will be used to evaluate performance, but that is not the point at all. They don't have to share the information collected with anyone. (Okay - they do have to report when the task is complete, but the point isn't to collect info for performance ratings, it is to allow the team member to keep a log of task duration times for their future estimate work.)

2. After the project launch during lesson learned discusions the team reviews any insights they gained during the project regarding the accuracy of their task estimates. Most are amazed to find initially how far off they were in their estimates. Usually, they underestimate the time required - resulting in tight deadlines and undercharging for the project.

3. As team members begin to compare previous estimates with actual times, they realize why they over or underestimated their times. Task estimates usually become more accurate for succeeding projects, for most of the team. Some team members are eternal optimists or pessimists - they can't help it. Their estimates are always either too short or too long.

4. As Web Project Manager, figure out which team members are always predicting their task times are too short or too long, then adjust their estimates for them, adding more or less time based on their history.

5. If after several projects a team member's estimates are still all over the place, have a discussion to see what might be the cause and if there is any way as Web Project Manager, you can help them improve their accuracy, or if the problem is that their work on each project is so unique there is no way to estimate the work time. If so, build in a bigger buffer for their work, but don't be too surprised if after the discussion their time estimates improve. You may just have someone who wasn't using the time tracking software.

This method has worked well for me. What has worked for you?

 

 

Skills Aspiring Web Project Managers Need

Published on March 18, 2013 by

There are a lot of jobs for Web Project Managers and recent reports indicate that the market for Web Project Managers will continue to grow.  The US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track Project Management as a profession and certainly doesn't follow the sub-category of Web Project Management jobs. However, every organization has a team to manage their Website or they outsource their Web projects to a firm that specializes in Web design. Every one of those firms has a Web team and a Web Project Manager.

Or they should have a Web Project Manager - as they are quickly learning.

I teach Web Project Management and my students come from all backgrounds:

  • Some are students looking to gain key skills that will help them land their first job
  • Some are programmers that have been told, "Congratulations, you are now in charge of the Web team."
  • Some are graphic designers who get that tap on the shoulder and told they are the new team leader.
  • Some are from small, web design firms of five people
  • Some are starting their own firms
  • Some work for large government organizations

It is not unusual to have students from five different continents in my class at the same time. Trust me, Web Project Management is a growing, if not exploding, profession.

In one class I teach students the skills they will need to manage a Web project. In this course I teach a five-phase, traditional Web Project Management approach that is appropriate for a project in which the stakeholder either doesn't want to be involved on a daily basis with the project and/or needs to have a set deadline within a fixed budget.

In another course I teach about the essentials of Web project management approaches - what are the different approaches (Waterfall, Agile, Agency, Custom, etc.), when is it appropriate to use a particular approach and what is the role of the Web, how to do you introduce a Web Project Management approach to an organization that has been muddling through Web projects, with team members arguing the whole time and continually missing deadlines and feuding with clients/stakeholders who are facing overrun budgets.

In these classes we learn techniques for keeping projects on track and study tools that help the Web Project Manager communicate better, solve issues related to team conflicts, how to convince upper management to make a change, how documentation and templates can keep you and your team organized.

You can learn the phases of a Web Project and techniques for keeping everyone informed of the project status and how to smoothly manage a Web project, but here are some basic "soft" skills every Web Project Manager needs:

  1. Great Communication Skill - Web Project Managers need the ability to listen to people, take the time to hear what they are saying, understanding the Web technology enough to be able to translate what technical people are saying to non-technical people and vice-versa
  2. Great People Interaction Skills - Web Project Managers need the ability to work with people in a professional manner even when the people you are working with may not be acting professional
  3. Great Organizational Skills - Web Project Managers need the ability to keep track of numerous details often when they are receiving them all at the same time! They must be able to find information quickly - even months or years later. They must also be able to organize people on the web team who may not be very organized.
  4. Great Leadership Skills - We think of leadership as leading the team, but leadership is also gaining the respect of your peers. Web Project Managers must be able to earn the respect and be able to influence those at their level and above within the organization in order to get the Web team the resources - budget, technical, outsourced resources, needed to successfully achieve a project's goals.
  5. Great Passion and Knowledge of Web Project Management - Web Project Managers work within an environment of constant change. Every day there are new solutions being launched, new vocabulary to learn. There isn't any aspect of Web development or graphic design or strategy or on-line marketing or analytics that a Web Project Manager can afford to ignore. If you don't love everything about the Web, this is not the career for you. However, if you work all week on Web Projects and then on the weekend spend time reading blogs like this one to learn the latest in Web Project Management, then you should consider this fascinating career.

If you have the passion, but not the time to stay current with the field of Web Project Management, check out my Web Project Management Scoop-It Topic or Agile for Web Project Managers Scoop-It topic. I scour the Web every day looking for the latest Web Project Management News so I can be a better Web Project Management teacher - you might as well save some time and rather than duplicate my efforts, just read my Scoop-Its!

 

Don’t Show Me a Risk Grid – Just Manage Your Project!

Published on March 11, 2013 by

When the pressure is on to launch a critical project within an unrealistic time frame,(you know the kind - where your Director of Web Operations tells you that Marketing insists the project lauch when the new service is launched and sales has promised features no one has ever seen before and may be impossible to build,) you won't get far talking about allocating time for a risk assessment. You are on your own Web PM girl, so buckle down, draw up your risk grid anyway.

Creating a risk grid is not a sexy topic for a blog. Salary trends for PMs - that is a sexy topic, but you won't make those big bucks if you don't plan for risks and have some idea of how likely they are to occur.

So here are is 4 step approach to increase the odds you keep your job:

1. Make a list of the risks you might encounter during the project. Can't think of any? How about these:

  • The testing server's hard drive suddenly quits working
  • A winter storm knocks out electricty and your generator proves defective closing your office for a week
  • Your budget estimates are off
  • The senior programmer comes down with the flu and she is the only one in the office who can work on that ancient Pascal program

By now your paranoid PM mind is generating lots of project doomsday scenarios, right?

Good. Now relax. Take your list, write it down and rank each risk according to how likely it is to occur, the effect on the project if it occurs and what will be the cost in terms of time or money if it occurs. (Agile team leaders don't get too complacent. You can encounter disasters too.)

2. Create a backup plan for the most likely risks (or most devestating.) For example, a risk could well be that it takes longer to program a new feature than estimated. Backup plan, bring that outside contractor you've used a couple of times in to handle some simple coding freeing up your Web team to complete the new feature at a faster pace.

3. Review the risk list at every progress meeting to get an idea as soon as possible if any risks are materializing.

4. Changes to the project plan require a new evaluation of your risk list.

Scrum masters need to evaluate risks too. Changes are easier to accommodate but it is always a good idea to know what your plan is in the event of a real disaster that can affect the team for months.

Risk management isn't sexy, but you can be a hero when disaster strikes and you have the plan to save the project.

And being a hero - that is pretty sexy. Ask any Hollywood star.

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