Delivery Doctor Blog

How To Speak Delivery

Delivery Doctor — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:07:42 +0000

There are many forms of communication used by individuals to express their ideas, actions, thoughts, etc. Since each individual is unique, the way they go about expressing themselves determines how others perceive not only their communication skills but also the individual. For example, one person may be making a general comment that may be interpreted as offensive while another may say the same thing but come across as being articulate. The person who came across as offensive may be able to prepare the same thought in written format and sound completely different. It is important to recognize where your strengths and weaknesses are in communicating and try to constantly improve.In the business world, non-effective communication could result in a loss of business, not getting to the right contact level, or alienation of coworkers. The objective of efficient communication is to understand what you want to say and be able to say it in a way that will be understood. This is the goal that the delivery director and team are faced with. They will be working with people at all levels with varying degrees of experience and education. Knowing what to say and how to say it is essential if the overall project is going to be successful.Communication in all its different forms is possibly the most important tool that the delivery director and team will use. Speaking “delivery” is a combination of technical, business, and sales terms. To be an effective delivery person at the delivery director level, one must learn to understand the terms used in each of these areas. There will be a time when the delivery director may have to interpret terms or phrases from different people. For example, if the delivery director is working with a group of end-users and technical staff, the technical staff will normally use several acronyms in a sentence. Unless the client has been around the technical staff for awhile, they will not have any idea of what is being said so the delivery director will need to translate this into the language normally used by the client. The delivery director may also need to translate certain business acronyms and concepts back to the project team. Now this is true of all industries and not just the Information Technology sector. When you take your car in for service to a dealership and the mechanic comes out to explain the problem, there is typically a Customer Service Representative present as well. This is to explain the problem and how long it will take to fix it to those of us who are not real mechanics.

There are many business sectors that you may work in during your career. Each sector will have its own business and technical language but the one common element is people. It is your responsibility as the delivery director or project team member to learn about the business in which you will be working. If you are already knowledgeable with the business, it is your responsibility to help educate the client on your side of the business. What is the common link? Communication.

Whether you are a full-time employee of a company or a consultant that is brought in to manage a project, it is still your responsibility as the delivery director to manage “communication”. What I mean here is that everyone needs to be speaking the same language whether it is business of technical. For example, at the beginning of a new project there are several unknowns and normally variations of what the project is about. One solution to resolve this situation is to prepare a 30-second summary of what the project is about in terms that the client will understand. You may want to solicit the help of someone in the user community to ensure accuracy. Each person on the project team should be able to give this same presentation so that if they get asked what the project is about, they will be able to express themselves in a language that most people will understand. Visit the project sponsor and each of the key functional managers to give this 30-second summary. If there any discrepancies, you will find out soon enough.

So What’s My Point?
A person’s facial expression also indicates whether the right message is getting across. If you see a blank stare then maybe you need to take another approach to explain what you are trying to say. Avoid using acronym’s unless you know that the person you are talking to understands them. If you know that you will be assigned to a project for a long period of time, try to learn as much about the business and people so that you can more effectively communicate. To be able to effectively communicate at all levels and with resources from different organizations requires a degree of maturity that comes with experience. Respect the people in these roles because just as you have a difficult job to do, they do as well.

Delivery Director Skill Set

Delivery Doctor — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:06:03 +0000

Sound delivery management is essential for project success and consistent client satisfaction. Delivery directors are always under pressure with many roles to be performed including planning, monitoring and reporting, resource management, quality and risk management, problem and change management, etc. The delivery directors ability to understand and be effective in these roles is based on actual experience and best practices used in successful projects. For projects of a technical nature, the delivery director should have some understanding of the technology being used so that they can relate to their technical staff.

I have seen very confident, educated people take on large projects only to find out they did not have the proper skill sets. Taking on a large project can be terrifying the first time especially if you feel unprepared. In most cases you have the confidence to do it because of your past experiences. But if your past experiences were in the same area then you have not fully developed. The successful candidate will have a blend of these skills and the ability to communicate with the business and technology areas. This will allow the candidate to sharpen business skills that they need to advance and stay competitive. The right person should also be a true leader.

The following list gives a brief description of the Delivery Director’s skill sets.

Communications Management - The processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage, and ultimate disposition of project information.

People Management - Making the most effective use of all the people involved with the project. It includes all the project stakeholders such as sponsors, customers, individual contributors, and others. This relates to life balance, retention, and career progression.

Leadership - Involves providing motivation and direction to a team for the successful completion of a project. Delegating responsibility appropriately and empowering team members to deliver results.

Client Satisfaction - The evaluation process used by the client to measure engagement quality and satisfaction.

Scope Management - The processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. It is primarily concerned with defining and controlling what is or is not included in the project.

Expectation Management - Involves making compromises with different groups or organizations in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations. It will be up to the delivery director to determine when to make these judgments

Infrastructure Management - Implements all the necessary components for people, process, technology, and knowledge. This includes areas such as the Desktop Support, Help Desk, Network, Operations and Security.

Risk Management - Includes the processes concerned with identifying, analyzing, and responding to project risk so that it will decrease the chance of a risk’s occurrence and/or its impact on the engagement

Knowledge Management - The process of capturing, storing, and indexing the information gathered. It also involves sharing everyone’s expertise, experience and knowledge.

Business Management - The process for evaluating and designing the economic business relationship and structure with the clients and suppliers. This relates to how the deal is structured, organized, and executed.

Cost Management - The set of activities directly related to engagement costs and profits. Cost Management includes the processes required to ensure that the project is completed within the approved budget

Time Management - The processes required to ensure timely completion of the project.

Metrics Management - The statistics that are estimated and defined during engagement planning to compare measurement of plan vs. actual during the execution phase of the engagement. Metrics include financial and resource-related statistics

Quality Management - The processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was developed.

Procurement Management - The processes required to acquire goods and services from outside the organization requesting the work.

Value Management - The addressing of the client’s critical business issues and providing valuable solutions.

Delivery Director Profile

There are many people that on paper would be an ideal candidate and conform to the profile. However, this does not mean that this candidate would be qualified to handle a large scale project. A Human Resources organization may have a list of qualifications on file that they used in the past to hire someone for this type of project. This may be a good start but I would suggest that this be taken a step further. The interviewing managers may want to look at the candidates from a different perspective. After all, this is one “people” investment that cannot be taken lightly. To start with, a series of questions or topics can be developed to determine what the responses would be in various areas such as conflict management, problem solving, service and support, strategic/analytical thinking, communication, etc. What this does is provide the interviewers with an indication of how the delivery director will function within their environment. The interviewers would then provide feedback to the hiring manager who would make the final decision based on who would be able to perform better and fit in the company’s culture. On a large project, the right person with a commitment to success is needed from the beginning. If the hiring manager is not comfortable doing the interviews internally and if the budget allows for it, the company can look to one of the many behavioral assessment companies that do this type of work.

There are several factors that a company can use to assess the prospective candidates but two areas to consider include:
Character
• Is the candidate self-motivated?
• Is the candidate an effective listener?
• Is the candidate willing to take risks?
• Does the candidate have high standards?
• Is the candidate willing to be accountable for all results?
• Is the candidate goal oriented?
• How does the candidate respond to change?
• Does the candidate have an ego?

Experience
• Does the candidate have problem solving skills? Does the candidate have the ability to define the problem and come up with a solution that fits the problem?
• Does the candidate have the ability to produce the work products (i.e.: deliverables) especially under unusual, out-of-the-ordinary conditions?
• Does the candidate have the ability to communicate effectively? Can the candidate appropriately and thoroughly inform and respond to others to elicit interest and a cooperative response?
• Is the candidate adaptable to taking on more responsibility?
• Does the candidate have leadership potential? Is the candidate assertive or aggressive, decisive or unsure, show initiative or just follow along, and competitive or easy going?
• Is the candidate service oriented? Can the candidate work with the client, satisfy the clients needs while staying within the boundaries of the scope, and handle conflicts in a reasonable manner? If the skills present a more sales focused individual then the candidate may not be a good fit for this role.
• Does the candidate have strong organization values such as working within the defined corporate protocol and recognizing authority relationships (i.e.: chain of command)?

When the interview process is complete, the hiring manager should compile the results to determine the overall strengths and weaknesses based on the indicators used. These should be compared to the documented baseline factors. The decision can then be made to continue looking, bring the candidate back in for additional interviews, or hire the candidate.

There are times when a description of a term is not as clear as an example. Therefore, to help the reader understand the profile of the delivery director, some additional information of what this individual’s background would look like and the type of engagement a delivery director may oversee is provided.

Delivery Director Sample Profile:
• At least 15 years of management experience with proven leadership skills, has had P&L responsibility, and managed projects of $10M or larger
• Managed teams of 30 or more people in various geographic locations with a proven track record of completing projects on time and within budget
• Has worked at multiple client accounts to gain experience in working with and handling different types of clients; strong client facing abilities including the ability to handle scope issues.
• Has the ability to work with senior management and work within the political structure of his/her own organization as well as the clients
• Is able to communicate effectively in writing, verbally, and through presentations
• Possess strong people skills - is able to work with other organizations such as third party vendors, sales, marketing, and legal, and understand their terminology; understand the requirements for the various staff positions
• Strong planning abilities (both strategic & tactical)
• Has an understanding of the technology to be used for the project
• Strong negotiation skills

So What’s My Point?

To provide project success and client satisfaction for these large-scale projects, a special type of individual is needed. This person is referred to as a delivery director but can have many different titles. The bottom line is that this person must be experienced in many different areas to succeed. There are 16 mentioned in this document but more can be identified to describe what is expected of the delivery director for any given project.

The profile for the type of delivery director will depend on the type of project being done, the executive management that the delivery director will report to, and the company’s environment. A thorough research for the right person should be conducted because if the company is investing significant monies in the project, they should spend the appropriate amount of time to select the right person.

D’Angelo’s Rules of Engagement

Delivery Doctor — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:58:02 +0000

The Rules of Engagement provide a consistent, understandable, and repeatable standard on how personnel act. Typically they are carefully thought out in detail well in advance of an engagement, and may cover a number of scenarios, with different rules for each. Rules of Engagement are the regulations or practices to be followed by all project team members for the time they are assigned to a specific project. They are to be considered a customary practice developed in the interest of the project. The rules are to be read, understood, followed, and agreed to by each member of the project team including the project manager. The intent is to provide a common baseline of rules that will be in place for the duration of the project. It is up to each and every team member to enforce the rules by instilling a sense of discipline within themselves. Besides being used as a code to work by, the project management team will use these rules of engagement as a performance indicator to determining how the team member is performing. If it is necessary for the Rules of Engagement to change, each member of the project team will be notified.

1. Assuming that the person given authority by the Project Charter is called the Project Manager, this person will be accountable for all aspects of the project. This will include project management of activities, personnel development, communication to all stakeholders (which includes the project team), budget control, risk control, scope management, and vendor management when appropriate. There may be other duties addressed but the primary point is that the project manager is accountable for all areas.

2. The project management team leaders (i.e.: project leader, team leader, etc.) who are under the direction of the project manager will be given specific duties by the project manager and will be responsible for ensuring that all duties are carried out in a professional manner, are completed within the designated timeframes, and within the defined budget.

3. The project team members who are under the direction of the project management team leaders will be given specific duties by the management team representative that they have been assigned to and will be responsible for ensuring that all of their duties are carried out in a professional manner, are completed within the designated timeframes, and within the defined budget.

4. Scope – only tasks that have been defined by the project charter and approved by the project sponsor will be worked on. All additional requests will go through a change management process that requires signoff by the project sponsor and project manager. In EVERY case that a change is requested, a project impact document will be created.

5. Status Reports: The project manager will communicate when the status report is due (i.e.: what day and time) and what the format will be.

a. Each team member will be responsible for preparing a written status report on a weekly basis and submit it to their respective team leader

b. Each team lead will summarize their teams status report and submit it to the project manager for review

c. The project manager will prepare a weekly overall project status report for their internal management and a high-level report for the project sponsor and his/her management team. This could be in the form of a narrative report or dashboard.

6. Meetings: the project manager will prepare a format for the internal and external meeting notes along with specifics of how to conduct the meetings (e.g.: when to use “parking lots”, meeting recaps, etc.)

a. Internal Team Meetings – will be documented each unless told otherwise; limit to 1 hour, prepare agenda, identify meeting scribe & meeting leader, invite only those people needed, confirm attendance, place a copy of the meeting notes in the knowledge repository folder

b. External Team Meetings – these meetings include the client, vendor, etc.; they will be documented; limit to 1 hour, prepare agenda, identify meeting scribe & meeting leader, invite only those people needed, confirm attendance, place a copy of the meeting notes in the knowledge repository folder. If a copy of the meeting notes are to go to the client attendees then the team lead and/or project manager will notify the person preparing the meeting notes.

7. Issues – all issues affecting the schedule, budget, or quality will be documented in an Issue Log and reviewed by the respective team lead. The team lead will use their professional judgment to escalate certain issues to the project manager. The project manager and the client will review the Issue Log on a weekly basis. In the event that a serious issue is identified, the project manager (not the team lead) will bring it to the attention of the client immediately.

8. Client interaction – all client interaction must be done in a professional manner. If any team member is requested to have a meeting with the project sponsor or any other senior member of the client’s staff, the project manager and respective team lead must be notified. It will be up to the discretion of the project manger to determine if he/she or the team lead will also attend the meeting.

9. Vendor management: - all interaction with the vendor from a project standpoint (vs. legal as it relates to contracts) will initially be controlled by the project manager. The PM will assign personnel as needed to work with various vendor personnel.

10. Knowledge Management Repository – A Knowledge Management Repository serves as an electronic file cabinet for collecting all supporting documentation that will be created for the project. The project management team will define the e-folder format that information will be stored in (i.e.: status reports, time sheets, etc.). The project manager will approve the format.

11. Time sheets – all project team members including team leads and the project manager will be required to submit their time sheets on a weekly basis to their team’s leads for review and approval. Failure to do so the first time will result in a written reminder; the second time will be a written warning, and the third time will result in removal from the project. Failure to comply with this request will also impact the employee’s annual performance appraisal.

12. Expense sheets – if an expense is incurred during the project, the person responsible for the expense will submit their expenses to their respective team lead for review and approval within two weeks of incurring the expense. The team lead will then give the expense form to the project manager for final review and approval.

13. Out of office schedule – if a team member will be out of the office for any reason, they must notify their respective team lead in a reasonable timeframe that will not impact the project schedule. Failure to do so the first time will result in a written reminder; the second time will be a written warning, and the third time will result in removal from the project. Failure to comply with this request will also impact the employee’s annual performance appraisal.

14. Signoffs – every deliverable that has been identified by the project charter will have an acceptance sign-off form prepared for it. The deliverable will be reviewed by the team lead for accuracy and quality before turning it over to the client for review and approval. The team lead will be responsible for tracking all deliverables in their domain with an Acceptance Certificate Log. If a deliverable is not signed off by the client in the time period agreed to by the client in the project charter then the team lead will notify the project manager. The project manager will work with the client to get an immediate signoff. If the project manager and client cannot reach an amicable resolution, the project manager will escalate the situation to upper management.

15. Conflict Management – there may be times during the project that team members may not agree resulting in a conflict. The parties involved will agree to meet with the team lead and/or project manager to resolve the problem(s) in a professional manner and accept the decision of the project management team.

16. Project Assessments – these reviews are done to benefit the project team and the client. There are different views of what “success” is so an objective third party may be called in to assist the team in reviewing what was done, how it was done, and the quality of the finished products. If a review is performed, all team members will cooperate to the fullest with the assessment team.

17. Project Closure – This is a critical part of the project and must be recognized as such. It includes both Administrative and Contract closure. Before leaving the project, at any time during or at the end, the team member and/or project manager must complete the following:

a. Final time sheet

b. Outstanding expense reports

c. Update the Knowledge Management Repository with information that the team member was responsible for

d. Deliver work products that have been produced as part of the statement of work or project charter to the client

e. Obtain the final signoff from the project sponsor or designee

f. Prepare a list of lessons learned that can be used to make future projects more successful and as a means to help other team members learn from your experiences

g. Ensure that the financial records are in order (i.e.: expense reports, budgets)

h. Ensure that the legal documents are in order (i.e.: approved contract changes, close contracts with outside vendors)

i. Finalize the Knowledge Management Repository

j. Create a backup of all project information from the Knowledge Management Repository

As a member of the ___________________________________ project team, I have read and agree to follow the Rules of Engagement as described above.

____________________________ ____________

Name Date

Note: Please contact the author if you would like to use the contents of this post: tony@delivery-management.com

What is Delivery Management?

Delivery Doctor — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:40:48 +0000

Delivery Management is a much broader area of project management. My definition is the organization, administration and supervision of the people, processes, and technologies, which when combined into a comprehensive plan, provides the business and technical functions needed to successfully achieve what a client expects to receive. The person responsible for this type of work is referred to as the delivery manager, delivery director, delivery vice president, or account manager depending on the organization. For purposes of this post, the term delivery director will be used.

There are many likenesses between a project manager and delivery director. Whereas the project manager will get into more of the details, the delivery director oversees what is going on at a higher level and across more areas of responsibility. The delivery director is typically a more experienced individual that gets assigned to the larger, more visible projects. This individual also has more direct involvement with management at a higher level such as with the client, third party vendors, executive steering committees, board of directors, etc. The delivery director anticipates the actions, thoughts, and directions of the client, and manages the client without them really knowing it.

If there is an interest in knowing more about delivery management, I will prepare a post on the skill sets of the delivery director.