Customers and Clients

Posted on April 28, 2015 by peteralderliesten

The Eskimo’s have many different words for ice, since these differences are significant for them. Similarly, in customer service we make a distinction among end-users who (might) pay the customers who pay the client who pays the outsourcer, who responds in the name of the client.

Analogously, in Sales we make a distinction among (‘real’) Sales Managers who hunt for new Clients, Account Managers who hunt for new projects with existing Clients, Implementation Managers who project manage the implementation of a new product or service, and Operational Managers who then realize the promises made by the former three.

Or: An Account is something different from a Project!

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Scope, Date and Budget are Creepy things

Posted on April 21, 2015 by peteralderliesten

Everybody who has ever had anything to do with project management knows ´scope creep´. Unfortunately, scope is not the only thing that can creep up.

Scope creep

Usually, scope creep occurs if specifications are unclear. In normal life one often does not get the time and/or budget for proper Work Package Descriptions, let alone extensive requirement engineering, and halfway down the project you find out that the user sees certain concepts much more extensive as the supplier. We “all” have grown to see that and deal with it.

In addition, within larger corporations we often see that out of the blue certain corporate requirements are imposed: that new system or methodology that has been developed in some remote corner of the world but is supposed to become the new corporate standard needs to be used by all new projects as well, of course. That this explodes your project budget and heaps all kinds of teething problems on top of existing changes is something that you can easily tackle with your extensive project staff, of course.

Date creep

A typical case in high pressure international projects is that some project members suddenly are not available: illness is one, but either children need to go to the hospital urgently, technical difficulties prevent dialing into a conference call or make a hearing – let alone understanding – one another virtually impossible, e-mails are not answered for unclear reasons, or have unexplained IT delays, and suddenly the month of preparation has shrunk to 2 weeks.

Another typical example in this category is the ‘harmonica’: the first three intermediate steps suddenly are extended by 50% in duration, while the last three intermediate steps are decreased by the same amount. “No problem” is the first reaction, “the final deadline remains the same.” However, there was a reason that those last steps were expected to take that long, it is a telltale sign that you are only postponing the confrontation: the delay is just waiting for you, and after these first three steps have been completed, you suddenly are confronted with the statement that the remaining planning really is not realistic any more. It needs to be re-done, but now realistically. The good thing is that you do learn quite a number of great excuses in the process.

Budget creep

Since we have so many “Controllers” in Finance, budgets of course are much better under control. Unclear accounting practices never lead to sudden and unannounced budgetary charges, like expenses that have first been charged to another budget – so also without your proper authorization – and are then passed on, in the worst case with an additional cost handling surcharge

Another variant is all kinds of staff departments making expenditures for what they deem fit – with the same proper authorizations, of course – which are then passed on via an overhead charge. Most of these charges never get properly checked anyway and are considered as avoidable as ‘rain from above’. Fortunately, these charges are then generally not traceable to your project which saves your reputation.

All of these are nothing compared to organizations “giving responsibility without authority” whereby costs are charged to a cost account without the proper approval of the person responsible for the cost account.

Obfuscation

Finally, there are creeps of the combined sort, like project members who want to halfway change to a different kind of naming of work packages, which makes an audit trail virtually impossible. The same applies to project members that suddenly do not remember the meaning of certain work packages, or in the worst case suddenly distance themselves of the sensibleness of these work packages that they themselves have approved earlier on. The only question remains what creeps here: the scope, time or budget milestones, or maybe something else…

 (Originally posted February 11, 2015)

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Fear, Hope and Satisfaction

Posted on April 21, 2015 by peteralderliesten

Why project managers ride an emotional rollercoaster.

Introduction

A typical project manager does not only need to manage the rational parts of a project, but also be half a psychologist. Per phase she will need to address a different emotion to be successful. This phenomenon brings her into an emotional roller coaster where fear, hope and satisfaction follow one after the other in rapid succession – and hopefully also in this order.

Fear

When starting a project (‘Project Initiation’ in Prince2-terms) as a main objective the ‘Business Case’ is determined. Generally, what the sponsor would like to achieve is pretty clear (at least to herself) but to translate that into an unambiguous and unaltering description of scope generally proves to be quite a deliverance. Immediately afterwards, the discussion will turn to which resources will be necessary to achieve these goals, and this is exactly the point where the project manager needs to deal with ‘Fear’.

Inexperienced project managers often use a ‘sunny scenario’ in which insufficient room is left for setbacks, risks and delays; in other words, they do not have enough ‘Fear’, even to the extent that some ‘pragmatists’ consider risk management a purely academic exercise. Longer-tenured colleagues usually have seen some more startling surprises – euphemistically called ‘experiences’ – and therefore assess more risks and allow for more buffers. The degree to which the project manager can convey this ‘Fear’ to the sponsor and use it to obtain budget for risk management and time for delays sets the basis for realism in the objectives and expectations for the project.

It is easy to go overboard on ‘Fear’ and to claim unrealistic budgets or time requirements. However, in such cases the project manager looses not only sight of realism, but also the support of the Business Case, the sponsor and ultimately of the project.

Hope

As soon as the project plan, or ‘Project Initiation Document’ (PID) has been approved, the release of the resources initiates a flurry of activities and a wave of ‘Hope’ permeates the organization: now they will realize the illusive goal. If you are not careful, some project team members might even start off too enthusiastic: meeting structures are set up, hours of project team members are claimed, money is being spent before you know it. Other Departments are being swept along, since the management apparently found this so important that they decided to give it a ‘Go’, and colleagues are spending their time supporting where they can.

the budget seems huge and only when distributed over time periods more realism sinks in. If the release of time and budget is not done in a controlled manner, time requirements need to be scaled back because there generally are also some other tasks that still need to be taken care off as well. The enthusiasm here needs to be controlled, so that you are not pulling a sprint instead of running a marathon.

Keep in mind, though, that hope is a dangerous phenomenon: if it is bridled too much, the energy can easily turn into disappointment (“apparently they do not need me here, so I will let them feel later on, of which crucial importance I am”) to haunt the project (leader) in a later stage.

Satisfaction

After reaching the goal, the perhaps most neglected phase of the project arrives: the completion phase. The project team members are ready with their tasks and are already being pulled into new projects, where new and daunting challenges await them. They are biting at the bit, ready to conquer new horizons. Stil there are several items that still need to be done to properly complete the ‘old’ project. There are such minute details like ‘handover to the operation’ which only in the ideal case includes a proper handover instead of a ‘throwing over the fence’-experience. An acceptance test is something that is easily overlooked, let alone a ‘Lessons Learned’.

Still, the project manager should not underestimate this phase, since it determines the reputation of both the project and herself. Crucial in the assessment is the realism that has been displayed at the upstart of the project: how many projects did not ‘objectively seen’ obtain the maximum that they could get out of a situation, but because at the start expectations – not infrequently set by a Sales Department eager to win a deal – were not managed properly the sponsor still feels cheated?

Conclusion

The same psychology mentioned before can “bring home the bacon” all by itself. One time I saw a project which was seen as extremely successful by virtually everybody in it’s environment, it only lacked one thing for anybody taking the time to read through the plan: logic. Phantastic flow charts and Powerpoints were shown, but they had nothing to do with one another, let alone with reality. On this basis, multiple millions were expended with an unclear effect on the operation. However, this project was used to substantiate a significant reduction in FTE’s. After this workforce reduction, the employees were still doing the same workload in the same manner, and I observed that there was still significant overstaffing. This psychological strategy can only be applied in a limited number of situations, but I have deep respect for the project leader that pulled this one off.

 (Originally posted on December 14, 2014)

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Follow the money!

Posted on April 21, 2015 by peteralderliesten

When reviewing an operational department or company, one generally needs only nine numbers to assess where potential for improvement might exist.

Number of hours paid

The main cost component of a labor-intensive industry is – what a surprise – the hours of it’s workers. Since the price per hour is generally fairly fixed, the number of hours paid is the basis for most profitability assessments. Any flexibility in the number of hours paid greatly depends upon the local labor market in 2 ways: the flexibility to in- or decrease the labor force itself and the flexibility to move workers’ hours among various months. The pro’s and con’s of flexible labor both in absolute and in distributional senses are obvious but outside the scope of this blog.

Number of log hours

In most production departments, the system to measure the hours worked is basic and limited to measuring attendance. In contrast, most call centers measure exactly how long their agents talk, spend on after work time, go to the bathroom or spend waiting for calls.

The difference with ‘number of hours paid’ is mainly vacation time, illness and time not registered; the latter could be seen as a direct measurement of the incompetence of the operational management, the former two can easily be compared to industry or national standards. The relationship between log hours and paid hours is measured by the ‘utilization’-ratio.

Actual Total Handling Time

Whereas the workers might be present for generally more than 8 hours per day, a significant portion of their time will be devoted to non-productive time, ranging from breaks to training, coaching and management (like team meetings etc.) One time often forgotten is ‘available time’, the time that agents are waiting for work to come their way and without it the waiting queues for customers would be excessive. For a sample overview of some actual numbers, see the blog, “apples, pears and oranges”.

The relationship between Total Handling Time (THT) and log hours is measured by the ‘occupancy’-ratio. In practice, often ‘occupancy’ and ‘utilization’ are mixed up, so make sure you understand what the definition is your business partner is using.

Commercial Total Handling Time

All these efforts of personnel are transformed into actions that provide value to the customer, and thus to the client. Commercial models might be payment per FTE, per log hour or per transaction, whereby the latter generally will be calculated as a unit of (Average) Handling Time. The ratio of Commercial Handling Time and Total Handling Time is a result of the combined operational and commercial efforts and a good quick check of the profitability of the department.

Revenue

Of course, the translation of Commercial Total Handling Time into Revenue is a pure commercial result, which is fixed for the duration of the contract with the client. For in-house departments, the budget might be used as a comparable measure.

Operational Margin 1

In outsourcing the most used internal measurement is the OM1, where the direct labor costs are subtracted from the revenue and expressed as a percentage thereof. Quick and dirty, it is the short term indicator of economic well-being. Generally, the first level managers, sometimes called Supervisors, sometimes called TeamLeaders, are considered part of these direct labor costs.

Operational Margin 3

The ‘ugly duckling’ under the operational ratio’s carries many secrets with it and shows the medium term profitability of an account. It is so easy for outsourcers to skimp on overhead staff like Key Account Managers, Operational Managers, Trainers, Quality Managers, Planning & Forecasting, Reporting but in general these positions are the key to the smooth operation and profitability of an account. On the other hand, it is amazing how bloated those functions can be for in-house departments.

EBIT

Although some Financial Managers love to use this indicator, it is very strategic, which means that any interventions at this level will take some time to have an effect: the lease of an inappropriate building usually is 5-7 years, and certain financial obligations may take even longer. Therefore, any interventions at this level will require major pushes and require the longest stamina.

Price per paid hour

At the final end of the spectrum, the price for labor hour connects the financial with the operational perspectives again. For operational units, this poses the essential question of economic viability of the plant and connects to labor negotiations with unions, alignment with Workers Councils and also whether the site will be expanded, or closed.

Conclusion

When closely looking at the indicators above, the reader will notice that they first show the way from ‘money spent’ up to ‘money received’ via operational indicators. The absolute numbers above can easily be transformed into operational ratio’s can allow for comparison between branches and even industries. After ‘Revenues’ the road is again gone ‘down’ again via financial ratio’s, usually better known. Whereas all these ratio’s give insight compared to other industries or accounts, the development of these ratio’s in time already gives a significant insight in the effects of short term aberrations like system implementations or change of management (style).

(Originally posted on September 26, 2014)

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Tenure and capacity to change

Posted on April 21, 2015 by peteralderliesten

Company size and tenure

In smaller companies managers generally have longer tenure than in larger ones: an operational manager in a small production facility typically has little opportunity for horizontal diversification but joining another employer. Her colleague in a multinational corporation often will be pushed by HR or by career ambitions to ‘move around’. The added safety cushion of same employer, so no probation period, more fallback possibilities and not loosing pension benefits, certainly help in that.

City size and tenure

A similar distinction is evident between employees in smaller towns versus those in larger ones. It is well-known that it is easier to attract young, eager employees in bigger – preferably university – cities, just as it is equally well-known that for these employees higher attrition rates are expected. It is obvious what the effects on tenure will be on small companies in a small town compared to larger companies in the big city. So far, nothing that will surprise the average reader.

In/out-house

Another aspect of the same phenomenon is the in-house versus the out-sourcing experience gained: whereas an in-house department generally is ‘long tenured’ on the analog industry characteristics (which could also entail numeric performance indicators), the outsourcer would bring less deep industry knowledge to the table but more generic ‘market’ expertise gained in performing the same service but in a different industry.

Sorts of challenges

Even though there are only a few people in the world who come even close to the level of professionalism of the average reader of course, we have to admit that we are better in solving some category challenges better than other sorts of problems. And some are even outside our considerable skills! If the average manager is capable of dealing with 80% of the challenges on hand, this means that after five years there is a whole annual workload package not properly resolved yet. Let’s take a very good manager with 90%, that would still leave a halfyearly workload.

Since every manager also needs a certain time to get up to speed in a new position, be aware of taking over a position from a long-tenured predecessor if you are completely new in the field. Even though from a corporate perspective that might be exactly the right move to get some fresh initiatives into a department with ‘tenure-inertia’.

Effects on expertise

The effects of the longer tenure as I have observed is a deeper knowledge of procedures: many local managers are personally also capable of working as one of the regular production workers. This deep knowledge facilates them to pragmatically react to short term interruptions of processes and find immediate solutions to a crisis. Managers with a shorter tenure, on the other hand, of course often lack this deep analog knowledge and need to rely more on process level interventions, a more digital and abstract experience. Just as numbers are nothing but an abstraction of reality. On the other hand, this lack of analog experiences facilitates delegation of procedural tasks, assuming those skills are at hand in the organization.

Effects on change

When a relatively smaller change needs to be implemented, deep analog knowledge of a field of expertise and procedures is necessary: a manager needs to be capable and estimate the effect of the change on every day procedures. However, when large changes are to be undertaken, this knowledge is not sufficient and a more digital process knowledge is needed to analyse and predict the effects of this change.

Symptom: forecast and planning

A forecast is an overview of the expected workload, or the ‘demand’-side. By nature, it needs to be complete, and partial forecasts of e.g. only e-mail traffic are the safest way to disaster because other factors that may/will have a significant impact, like telephone calls or chats, are left out of consideration. The planning is the equivalent of the ‘supply’ side, which could be worker hours, but also machine hours or system capacity.

In a ‘long tenure’-environment, the forecast usually does not change from one day to the other. Sometimes forecasts are not even made, sometimes they are made only because it is mandatory by some ‘ivory tower’ regulation and they are not used in practice, and only in professional management environments they are a regular part of business. Often long tenure-environments run their operation by experience and the ‘seat of their pants’. Professional management tools are only time consumers, totally superfluous. There are two risks to this approach: first, when a major change – like a system upgrade – comes up, a calculation needs to be made on the (expected) effect of this change on productivity, and the lack of a solid forecasting process is felt because nobody is capable of making the educated guesses that are necessary. Second, this way management is unaware of any structural changes that gradually take place. In the numbers you see an ever decreasing contact ratio, but when workers leave they are still replaced 1-on-1 until it is too late and you are stuck with too many workers that have been straining the organization with their education and onboarding superfluously. Another example of that same risk: gradually the Average Handling Time for a certain process changes due to the market. This increase might cause you to need more staff to do the work, and somebody needs to initiate that (and possibly another one needs to pay for it).

Conclusion

Forecasting and planning is only one area where the long-tenured are enticed to cut corners for convenience sake. The same often happens in the documentation of decisions, the challenging of (and by) employees, updates on technology and the market, and so on. This mechanism applies to all levels of employees, both management and the operational workforce. So there are only two more questions to pose: How long tenured are you? And how many corners are you currently cutting yourself or allowing to be cut by your staff?

(Originally posted on September 14, 2014)

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The Self-Service dilemma

Posted on April 21, 2015 by peteralderliesten

In a typical boardroom, self-service is promoted as a great way to increase customer loyalty and to reduce costs. Strangely enough, in many cases customers are not picking it up as expected. How come?

Introduction

“Why outsource customer service to a professional provider? The customer will do it himself for free and provide inputs for ‘Big Data’ in the process” is fine as a strategy, looks great at first sight, but often fails in execution as customers remain calling the customer service department.

Often, although not always, we make self-service so difficult that indeed the customer does not want to learn another such convoluted way of getting things done and thus sticks to the current channel fearful of having to learn finding her way through the next jungle. Or she calls the old-fashioned customer service representative, who fulfills the order for her, also (still) for free. How come?

Complex legacy

In many cases, customer service employees are forced to work with legacy systems no self-respecting salesforce would work with, on data maintained by either itself or the sales force with no obvious purpose, so data quality generally ‘leaves something to be desired’ as well. Often, this legacy structure is leading when designing the ordering process to be executed by the customer himself. As I identified the mission of Customer Service a little while ago in http://peteralderliesten.nl/blog.php?post=74 as “helping customers in the abundance of features of the abundance of products”, the additional goal in these instances becomes to help guide the customer through the jungle of abundant legacy system requirements. All Tarzan’s working in a Customer Contact Center somehow generally does not seem to work.

Let me use an example: as avid readers of this blog are aware, I am a customer of a large telecom provider. For a simple fixed net (‘Festnetz’ or ‘DSL’) connection for at home, one is provided with, has to be aware of and know the following numbers: Modem-Installation code, Telephone number, Transaction number, Order number (3 different ones), Delivery number, Action number, IMEI-number, Customer number (2 different ones), Vodafone-VO-ID , Unidentified number(!), Modem article number, Customer password. No wonder customer service employees make mistakes. One can only imagine the despair of customers, who have received significantly less training on using the company systems. The ultimate complexity of the ‘automatic installation’ is mind-boggling, as I described earlier in (http://peteralderliesten.nl/blog.php?post=61).

Superfluous steps

Then there is a drive to automate administrative processes like invoices. Rather than the provider sending out paper invoice, or even electronic ones, the customer is now seduced to download the invoice himself. For this, she has to log-in, for which a User name and an Internet password are required. In the case above, after log-in, the customer needs to have an additional On-line registration code to get to the Financial data.

One of my current banks sends me a monthly reminder to download my bank statements, threatening that these statements will not be available anymore after an unspecified period of time. Another of my banks makes these statements only available for 15 months, very convenient if you do your taxes in April of the following year. Why can’t these statements be mailed just as well? Yes, it would require mail server capacity etc. but the downloading of these statements requires system capacity just the same. An additional advantage is that a bank may mail the statements in between DDOS-attacks, so the customer is less bothered – and exposed – to these interruptions in service.

Superfluous data

Then you have identified which product you want, and you have to identify yourself inclusive of all kinds of superfluous personal (‘intimate’) details. Why my birthdate is necessary for mail-ordering is beyond me, just as why I would indicate ‘my personal security question’ which only decreases the security for those instances where I really need that feature.

It may sound like a good idea for a Business Intelligence-officer to collect such data through the force of order entry to fulfill her personal goals of filling x% of certain fields in the database, but for the whole customer service perspective it is killing of course. Not to mention that in e.g. my personal case, most of the information is invalid anyway. (Multiple systems in the world consider January 1st, 2000 as my birth date. I can assure you there is no real life person who would ‘compliment’ me in that manner.)

Failing Help-feature

To add “injury to insult(!)”, the deformations above not only apply to ordering systems but also to ‘Help’-features, where endless lists of Frequently Asked Questions are thought up by some junior staff members instead of filled by the questions really asked by previous users.

Problem

Where in the board room self-service is sold as a great feature to the customer, we are in effect putting more and more of the onus of work for the customer on her own shoulders: where in the past she could passively await the envelop with the statement, now she has to become pro-active.

Therefore, I can not accept that these bungling changes are such great customer service improvements: they are really a cost-cutting measure, by which we replace our administrative staff by activities the customer undertakes herself. When I stated such an opinion to business acquaintances, several times the first reaction of my conversation partner was a defensive one that “I am not to think like that”. This elephant apparently should not endanger the gospel of self-service in the porcelain cupboard of customer service.

However, as long as we refuse to see the situation as it is, we keep continuing on this path of customer alienation. It is not true that as long as the customer just does it, that this feature is a great innovation or improvement, no, we are risking customer loyalty. When I look around, more and more people are starting to find all this blind self-service cumbersome. From customers we now also hear that they prefer to call a customer service because that is easier. If I want to order a train ticket it takes me all kinds of log-ins, at the train station it is done in no time with an agent. No wonder, if you compare an experienced person who does it 50 times a day versus somebody who does it once a month…

Solution

That does not mean that we should skip self-service altogether, no, but we should spend more attention to the efficiency design of self-service portals. Where we now mainly seem to focus on extending the customer’s stay on the portal to upsell her yet another feature, we tend to forget that most customers want to get on with it as soon as possible. Yes, we should focus on those abandoned shopping carts, but let’s not forget about the average time it takes to put in an order (Average Order Time). Are the interfaces intuitive? How much errors are made by an average customer? Only then we can proceed on the road of ever-increasing self-help which really can contribute to an ever-improving customer service.

(Originally posted May 27, 2014)

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A project plan for dummies

Posted on April 21, 2015 by peteralderliesten

For those who are not in a position to follow complete Prince2, PMI or IPMA-certifications, here a quick and dirty introduction into the art of project management.

Introduction

In the basis, project management is just plain common sense. Whereas a journalist is only interested in the 5 W’s (What, When, Where, Why and hoW), every project needs the same. We just give each of them a separate name:

*Why (Project Brief)

*How (‘Waterfall’or ‘Scrum’)

*What (Work Breakdown Structure, sometimes with a Work Package Description)

*Who (Responsibilities, Stakeholders and Communication Lines)

*When (Planning)

And often a

*Stakeholder Analysis and Risk Log

Below I will describe all of these components.

Project brief (‘Why’)

Every project starts with an assignment. Some call it a Charter, some call it a Project Brief or a Mandate. Essentially they are all the same. In either case, it is a document from the sponsor(s) of the project indicating that she wants to spend x amount of money (and other resources like the time of project members) to obtain goal y (‘quality) in a set period of time (z). These 3 elements constitute the “devil’s triangle” and during the course of the project the project manager will continually have to choose between these competing restraints.

Usually, this document is written up by the project manager because she is more familiar with the format. In addition, it gives the sponsor a convenient way to verify that the message has come across. That in practice most ‘projects’ often are set up without such a document only indicates to which extent these endeavours deserve this prestigious title. Furthermore, the lack of this document is similar to the lack of an order: generally an indication of a lack of commitment of the sponsor, which means any strong project manager would severely consider whether there is any basis for cooperation at all.

Method-description (‘How’)

Every project has a certain structure in describing it’s goals. Roughly we can distinguish between 2 sorts of common structures: the traditional ‘waterfall’-method is often used in situations where a well-defined situation needs to be implemented, to ensure that the (often contractual) specifications are met. In such a case a Work Breakdown Structure is made based on the goals described in the Project Brief.

A more recently developed method is called ‘scrum’, where the sponsor in effect says: “Here is some money, some people and some time, and I want you to create something in that direction, see how far you get.” Even though this might be phrased somewhat provocative, in a dynamic IT-environment where surroundings might change overnight, this approach often works well and is very popular. Here, the goals are defined in user stories, which are realized in sprints of usually 2-4 weeks. These kinds of projects generally need to be managed by somebody who knows what she is doing, a ‘scrum master’. This blog is focusing on to those who do a traditional project.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS, ‘What’)

If the goal of a project is to build a car, then this ultimate goal is divided up in intermediate goals to build it. Engine, Chassis, Wheels, Dashboard, Seats and Wheels could be the parts to be manufactured, followed by an Assembly. Each of these components then can be further divided up into substeps. Usually, 2 levels are sufficient, otherwise the project becomes too large to handle. The usual form to depict the WBS is the form that resembles an organization chart.

In addition to the components of content, there is at least one ‘Department’ called ‘Governance’ or ‘Project Management’ There all ‘process-related’ steps are maintained, like the setting up of a Project Team, the Kick-off Workshop and the production of the Status Reports.

In the ‘Scrum’-methodology, one works with ‘user stories’, which describe the functionalities a user would need or like. These user stories in effect are just another way of defining the ‘what’ of a Scrum-project.

Work Package Description (‘What’)

The term ‘quality’ in project management is used to describe the ‘acceptance criteria’ for the goal. Here it has nothing to do with good vs. bad quality, but more the philosophical ‘quality’ as opposed to quantity. For larger and/or more formal projects, the WBS usually is further detailed in a Work Package Description. This documents the exact delineation between various steps and the criteria to agree that a deadline has been met or not. In general it describes per part of the WBS

  • What is in scope
  • What is out of scope
  • A general outline of the expected solution/outcome
  • A way of measuring progress. That could be in hours spent on the topic, but also as e.g. 25% when the first draft has been produced, 50% when the client has approved the draft, 75% when the final copy has been delivered and 100% when the client has accepted the final copy. Such a set-up would prevent having to add another layer in the Work Breakdown Structure.

Responsibilities (‘Who’)

After all the necessary steps have been identified to reach the goal, we can assess all the parties involved in the change, a Stakeholder Inventory. These are not just the parties that contribute to the success of a project, but also those that need to be involved, and those that might pose a risk to the success of (the timely completion of’) the project.

To bring a project forward, the required skills for completing these steps. Generally, various roles are defined, like a mechanic for the engine and a foreman of a production line for the final assembly. Often, several people will need to cooperate on a task, and unclear responsibilities have stopped many a project in it’s tracks. Therefore, responsibilities need to be determined for each and every step.

Often, a so-called RACI-table is used for this purpose. There are many variations on this theme, but we will use here the most common one: for each task there is 1 person Responsible for doing it, 1 person Accountable if it does not get done, and multiple people can be Consulted, or spend their hours on it. Finally, the product needs to be provided to those that need to be Informed.

For most projects a Steering Committee is usually set up, in which both the sponsor, client/user and supplier are represented. The various project management-schools (Prince2, PMI and PMA are the best-known) differ notably on this topic. The Steering Committee is only one of the platforms in which parties are communicating, an overview of these parties constitutes the Communication Lines. Keep in mind that often these Communication Lines are just as important in the channels that they set up as in the establishment of Single Points Of Contact so that all not immediately required are sent to the appropriate party for information. When forgotten or not properly enforced a ´spaghetti knoodle-moodle´ will ensue.

Budget

When it is clear who will be doing which tasks, either as Responsible party or a Consulting one, these parties can estimate the hours and money required for each subpart. With the costs of hours the project budget can be established.

Every company will have it’s own standards of project controlling and reporting on the financial status, it is difficult to make generic statements on that.

Planning (‘When’)

And only then is it time to make a planning.

First of all, certain deliverables are dependent upon another: there is generally little use in hanging the doors in the coach body of a car if that coach body still has to be created. In addition, when it is clear that the Controller needs to establish a budget for a quote for which she needs 40 hours (=the budget), we need to check when she will be able to deliver those hours, since a long-overdue vacation of 3 weeks next to regular duties might make that impossible in the next month.

Crucial for a planning is that the roles identified earlier are now translated into individuals, and these individuals need to provide the planning. Usually, the project manager will do a first draft of the planning, after which the appropriate individuals then commit to it (or not). The project manager is responsible for ensuring there are sufficient buffers built-in to ensure the possibility, after which deadlines can be committed to the sponsor.

For a ‘Scrum-project, the planning is done in ‘sprints’ in which a certain number of resources (usually hours) are spent on the realization on certain user stories. Most sprints last anywhere from 2-4 weeks and at the end of the sprint certain functionality is delivered.

Stakeholder Analysis

Whenever the goal  and the way how to achieve it have been properly defined, one should assess the risks threatening the obtainment of that goal. The main risk (and opportunity) to assess is the immediate environment: who are all involved or affected by the project, and how (do they think that) they are affected?

Generally, every endeavour starts with an analysis of the customer: what does she really want? A Stakeholder analysis goes a little further than that: generally it starts with the assessment of a basic attitude towards the project of the relevant parties identified in the Stakeholder Inventory. One essential party to be included still is the ultimate client: what does she really want/need? Is time of the essence or is the control of cost more important? Furthermore, which departments within the (B2B) client play a role? Are some of them even hostile to the success of this project because it goes against their own strategic interests? Or does the Workers’ Council pose a risk if they are kept out of the loop? Based on such considerations, special actions, newsletters, information sessions etc. might be undertaken to keep these parties on board or reduce their resistance.

The only way to make this document of value is to keep the assessments absolutely confidential: nobody would like to read back somewhere that he expected his own Controlling Department to try and torpedo a project!

Risk log

In addition to risks coming from stakeholders, there might be additional risks to consider, e.g. the outburst of a strike at a supplier might delay the delivery of components, which in turn could hold up construction significantly.. After description of the risk, it needs to be assessed, whereby both the probability of occurrence (‘P’) and the impact (Í’) often are assesed on a numerical scale, after which their (multiplication)product allows for a ranking of the severity of the risk.

Based on this ranking, certain precautions can then be taken to either prevent the situation from happening (e.g. by getting a second supplier), mitigate the effect (by creating an intermediate storage of these parts), or the acceptance of a risk as being unfeasible to prepare for (e.g. to prepare for the risk of nuclear war).

In the course of a project, additional risks will be entered into to the original risk log, e.g. that a supplier will not be able to deliver in time. One risk that always seems to pop up is the workload of project team members: somehow always the same people are asked to do them, next to their normal activities, of course.

Reporting & Control

In the Work Breakdown Structure, several actions have been identified which need to be done. Still, along the way, several items may come up that one would not necessarily put in a project plan. These items are usually tracked in the action item list or ‘Open Point List’.

Finally, all involved and especially the Steering Committee will want to be updated on progress, for which a Status Report is produced periodically. That such a Status Report is based on the developments of the items above as is obvious.

The complete library of all these documents often is called the Project HandBook. When that is written, the project manager is not done, the project only has started. On that note, remember that I believe it was Dwight Eisenhower who already said: “There is no plan that survives contact with reality”

(Originally posted on April 29, 2015) Edit July 19: added Stakeholder Inventory + Communication Lines

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Feedback: ghost hunting vs. brutal honesty

Posted on April 20, 2015 by peteralderliesten

Ghostbusters go mining for facts.

Ghost hunting

Many years ago, I was responsible for an international call center providing customer service in the name of high tech companies. One day, I came into the office a little late and found my general manager standing in the middle of ‘my’ operations floor, addressing ‘my’ people on an urgent matter. Via one of our Board members, he had received a call from a VP Europe of a well-known printer company, one of our clients. Apparently, one of the agents had responded to a customer call from Germany in French, and this call happened to have been from some Board of Directors member’s wife, whose indignancy about such an insult had instigated quite a fuss high up in the hierarchy of our ‘invoice-payers’. It was to be understood that anybody who had so daringly endangered the existence of our contract with this well-respected name would face immediate dismissal. In addition, the manager responsible for the department (me), was ordered to find out who was to blame for this flagrant lack of quality and deliver appropriate punishment.

After I had spent most of the day trying to get the people back to work and put down the excitement, I went about my business, which was not any more the improvement of customer service, but to attend to the pet project of some higher up, which was to save the integrity of the overall customer service of the company. All employees were individually interviewed, and all denied any wrongdoing. Only after some serious pushing with the client did I obtain the exact telephone number that was called, and the time of the call. Without this information I was not going to be able to identify the culprit, and to crucify him/her was the only reasoning that seemed to get through to the source of the upheaval.

When I finally received the telephone number called, it immediately became apparent what had happened: instead of ‘0031’ for The Netherlands, the customer had called ‘0033’ and had ended up with an unsuspecting elderly farmer’s wife in the Elsace who was still perturbed by the earlashing in a foreign language (those kind of emotions do not require any translation) she had received not too long ago. We never received any further complaints from this client, or any excuse about the unwarranted accusations either. The contract was extended, though.

Brutal honesty

At the original moment of writing this blog there was some discontent between 2 departments about the reaching of a communal goal: HeadQuarters had made available a certain tool, and the local office needed to use it. After several months, HeadQuarters found out that the local office had not used the tool as agreed, and the goal would not be reached. The local office explained the tool did not work properly and that they had communicated this umpteen times. Of course, at HeadQuarters nobody was aware of any of the issues. So far, there is ‘damage’, but overseeable.

The next step came when higher management started to get involved: goals were not going to be met, so the issue was escalated up to their level. One of the main challenges here was to avoid ‘shadowfighting’: management one level higher is by definition operating at a higher abstraction level and has less knowledge of the actual facts. Still, it often is their job to discuss what has happened, what went wrong, and therefore how to solve it. For which they rely upon usually one-sided reports by those who actually were involved. As soon as that occurs, there is a danger of ‘pure politics’ starting to guide the process, where the outcome is decided by whoever is the more politically astute at that moment rather than the value of the arguments.

In this case, it was decided that a more fruitful discussion was going to be facilitated by establishing a shared view of the facts. Often, when discussing the facts already different perceptions of those facts become clear, and the whole process of misunderstanding becomes transparent. This was especially true since intercultural differences between Europeans and Asians were part of the equation, and perceptions of reality and emotions are just as much factual as whether the computer screen is blue.

Two representatives, one from HQ and one from the local office, were given the task to create an overview of the facts. The only way to make this process work, was to apply ‘brutal honesty’, which means:

  • Both parties need to have been intimately involved in the communication. They need to be able to formulate what they thought at that moment, how they interpreted inputs, and how that made them react. Only then can resultant actions be properly interpreted. This also means that all relevant parties need to be represented, so in case of a tripartite agreement, three representatives should join the process (although a third party greatly increases the complexity.).
  • In addition to speaking the same language, parties also need to speak that shared language proficiently enough to be able and deal with emotions and perceptions. Furthermore, a shared high standard of professionalism is required to allow for sufficient progress and quality of work.
  • Each party needs to be totally forthcoming with respect to all ‘complaints’ there are about the other party. In that, it is often irrelevant where the complaint comes from or who brought it up, it is a consideration, and it should be examined on its merits.
  • All parties involved need to accept intercultural differences and thus that the interpretation of the exact same data by the other may be different from the interpretation by themselves.
  • Both sides need to be willing to ‘accept pain’. In such a soul-searching it is virtually impossible to come out unscathed. Every relevant action of particpants will undergo scrutiny and therefore may be open to suggestions for improvements.
  • No topic may be out of bounds. No tabu may be accepted.
  • Both parties should have the ‘backbone’ to also address the consequences of specific actions of their superiors, without it becoming an easy: “The boss should have taken care of it”.
  • They should be left alone to do their work, any interference of superiors/external parties or ‘spinning’ of this process will compromise it.
  • The result of their work should be ‘published’ only with mutual consent.

In the above way, a description of the case was established, after which a shared session followed with upper management. Most of the effort here needed to be spent on rectifying the misconceptions that had evolved previously based on lacking information and/or misinterpretations. Many conclusions became self-evident. In the following discussion not everybody agreed on all analyses, but most of the emotions usually associated with ‘escalations’ were surprisingly low and at least this barrier for progress had been removed.

(Originally posted March 29, 2014)

Update June 18, 2015: Below a great blog on how ‘brutal honesty’ can go overboard: problems with brutal honesty

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Strike lessons Fraport

Posted on April 20, 2015 by peteralderliesten

On February 21st 2014, security personnel on Frankfurt Airport striked. By chance, yours truly was right in the middle of this situation, and some obvious lessons became apparent. (Most important one: see previous blog)

Background

The trade Union Ver.di called on 5,000 security staff to stop handling 150,000 passengers on a typical (busy) Friday. According to news reports, 50 flights were cancelled, many delayed, and shortly after lunch the airport stopped admitting any new passengers altogether.

There are differing accounts on how many of the security personnel participated in the strike, Reuters quoted Ver.di’s 90%. participation rate although it remained unclear whether that meant 90% of union membership or 90% of all security personnel. The latter is unlikely, since 700 (=14%) of security personnel are directly employed by Fraport and apparently not covered by the strikes. dw.de reported 800 people on strike (only about 16%). Adding other temporary workers was not a feasible option for management due to training requirements, on the other hand, administrative personnel jumped in to help out as well. Either way, there was security capacity left. The question remains how to deploy the remaining capacity and manage the situation albeit sub-optimally.

Not all information on how the strike has been managed is public, but in general one can say that ‘keeping order’ is crucial in keeping the system running. Too much anxiety creates stress, raises body temperature and diminishes the tendency to abide by civil rules with the waiting passengers and the whole carefully designed system of waiting queues disintegrates while the passengers turn into an unruly mob. When that happens, even additional relief measures like 110 Ver-di members interrupting their strike do not alleviate the situation any more and the only sensible alternative remaining is to close down parts of the system, as happened at Fraport.

The following lessons can be learned from this strike. (‘Streik’in German)

  1. Manage expectations at check-in

When checking in luggage one and a half hours before departure, the attendant already indicated it was doubtful one would make one’s flight. Uncertainty creates anxiety. Much better would have been: “I am sorry Sir, but there is a strike by security personnel. The estimated delay for getting to the Gates is now about 2 hours. Therefore, you will miss your flight. [not ‘probably’, since that raises hope again] If you proceed to the Service Center behind security, they will help you in finding an alternative flight.”

In case the passenger protests: “Yes, I understand your disappointment. Please be aware that we always ask passengers to be present 2 hours before departure of an international flight to allow for delays like these.”

  1. Basic lay-out

At the second line to get into the airport (the scan of a boarding pass), no line dividers were present, and multiple desperate travellers – somehow most of apparent foreign origin and with claims they did not speak English or German very well – therefore tried to ‘jump line’ by walking around the queues. The simple addition of those omnipresent line dividers would have helped. Any security staff or information officer is best placed at the beginning of the lines, not at the end.

What did not help is that signs to Gates C are sometimes absent and sometimes contradictory. When information offices are not occupied and most ‘normal’ employees do not have a clue how to get there either, it is an indication that the general lay-out deserves attention. Color codes might do wonders, another alternative is to make 1 ‘orientation point’ per gate-section, from which it is easy to find the last stretch.

The unclarity about how to reach connecting gates was exacerbated by some passengers’ need to pass high security sluices that looked like employee-only ones, with code pads on the right and no apparent ‘passenger-signature’.

  1. Manage expectations in line

In most amusement parks, managing queues is core business. At Fraport it apparently was not. An electronic sign indicating waiting time was not in use, but simple signs stating ‘from here the expected waiting time is 1 hour’ invite passengers to make calculations whether they will make their flight or not. Resignation to the inevitable reduces tension etc.

To set this up is not too difficult: one know’s how many passengers are processed by a security check point on average, and how many people are there per meter of waiting line. One could even do this very sophisticated with geo-tagging of telephone sets progressing through the lines, although that might be overdoing it. Keep in mind that nobody really cares about pinpoint accuracy in such a situation, a rough estimate is all that is required.

  1. Reduce the pain of waiting in line

Stranded passenger s need ‘only’a couple of things, in order of importance: toilets, food and drink, place to sit/sleep, wi-fi and power.

Toilets are difficult to come by in a waiting line of 2 hours, although in general there are plenty of clean ones at Fraport. (Graffiti feedback from one passenger: “…a great way to piss”.)

One of the great gestures on February 21 was the distribution of water, ‘Apfelschorle’ (Apple juice with mineral water, a German favorite) and various sweets to people in the waiting line for the Service Center (behind the security checks). Where one could be vicariously ashamed for the egocentricity displayed by many travellers plundering these carts, it was awesome to see that even after the first ravageous attacks, there was still plenty for all. These carts, however, at around 10:00 am came too late, when passengers were already in the second queue at the Service Center behind security. Ice cream (the cheap water ice cream would do) handed out while waiting approx. 1,5 hours for the security checkpoint would have been even more effective.

The third item a stranded passenger needs is a place to sit or sleep. The chairs at FRA lack arm rests, so could function as needed, and there were sufficient of them. Although not in the line for the security check. The free one hour Telekom internet since January 2014 is great in normal cases, but has the minor disadvantage that it does not reach all of these seating arrangements.
However, what was severely lacking in general were power outlets for the various electronic gadgets that rule our lives these day: one traveller at the C-pier had to continuously choose whether to stay with his luggage and a comfortable seat, or squeeze by a smoking cabin towards a power outlet a little further where his iPhone was hooked up to it’s life support. In several waiting areas very comfortable chairs are available, but only enough power outlets to allow for ‘the cleaning lady and her vacuumer’, it seems. Even the frames of these chairs have nice, straight tubes which would be perfectly fit for power cords extension.

  1. Manage the waiting queues properly

First of all, these numbers of people together means the generation of warmth. At Fraport passengers were waiting in an unairconditioned area, which meant most people were perspiring uncomfortably, many were taking off (superfluous) layers of clothing, and several were even fainting. Others had to leave the queue to go to the toilet. The anxiety about whether or not they would make their flights only exacerbated the situation. Either ensure a proper temperature, or take care of it differently.

Second, there is a natural tendency for authorities to create separate waiting queues for different security checkpoints. However, in case of massive queues, if you split them up late, there will be more physical distance covering passengers experience, making the feeling of delay less.

One thing that went well was the waiting line for the Service Center, where passengers were given numbers for waiting in line. Even though the effective waiting time ultimately turned out to be about the same as for the security check (about 1,5 hours), almost no incidents took place there. There is no obvious reason why this could not have been modified for the security checkpoint as well: dole out ticket numbers at the point of checking in (passengers with online boarding pass and without luggage could be re-directed to the check-in). That Business and First Class travellers might have a separate security checkpoint is a shoe-in. By indicating that numbers up to 1500 would be allowed to enter the waiting halls at 9:00 am, and numbers up to 2.000 at 9:30 am, the people in line would obtain clarity. That some are immediately experiencing anger for missing their flight is true, but all would be freed up from the waiting queues and, even more importantly, they would be naturally directed to the various restaurants, bars and shops where they could much more effectively – and profitably – spend their time.

  1. Provide to-the-point information

That messages like ‘Passenger flight 230 to Toronto is now boarding at Gate B20’ are tedious but useful in a generic airport environment is clear. To broadcast this message to these passengers trying to get inside the airport but stuck before security this message adds insult to injury. We have all these modern systems where we can decide to send messages to this distribution list or the other, why can’t we do the same with an airport public address system?

Similarly, an at first inaudibly soft message informing all in line that due to strikes there will be delays did not really make sense to those who had just spent 2 hours in the resultant waiting lines, while it would be highly relevant for those left outside the security area.

  1. Emergency Concepts

At 2:00 pm, the announcement came that no more security checks were going to take place. By itself this was a very sensible measure to take . In addition, it urged passengers to re-book via their airline or online, there was no mention of the already overburdened airport staff, which also made sense. However, it was unnecessarily disconcerting to those already in the transit area since there the available capacity security personnel security was used for checks for transit passengers. A properly distributed and properly worded message would have been more appropriate.

Many national flights were cancelled and changed to train alternatives, which was a sensible move. Although it would have been quite difficult to assess in the undoubtedly unclear situation on the day itself, this also could have been applied to some international lfights like to Amsterdam (4 hours by ICE), Brussels, Paris and Vienna; the earlier certain flights would be cancelled and re-routed, the more pressure would be taken off the security checkpoints by re-booking their passengers to other days or means via the original check-in counters

A simple alternative of delaying all flights by the extra time required for security checks does not always work in aviation because of corresponding landing slots at other airports. However, delays of certain length are fairly common, is it not because of strikes then because of weather conditions etc. To what extent this has been used or could be further improved can only assessed with internal Fraport information.

An additional measure that could have been made – although with the limited public information it is impossible to assess it’s practicality – is to just ‘forget’ about luggage checks and only register and store these in a separate area, while using the capacity thus saved for passenger screening. (Since Ver.di is claiming a generic pay for all of the security handlers, regardless of their actual work, they all should be able to perform the same work, right?)

  1. Ask the customers for help in maintaining order

In a separate blog I proposed how to use customer help in maintaining order, a topic by itself.

9. Sabotage?

One transit passenger reported that he had been forced to leave the transit area and enter via the security check again because of a closed door. Unconfirmed rumours said that the problems in Fraport were thus exacerbated by striking workers to additionally force transit passengers via the already overloaded security checkpoints.

If that were the case, it is difficult to imagine regular civilians would have done so. So, then either security personnel in their private time (=legally just normal civilians) did so, and at least security personnel on duty allowed it to happen. If personnel on duty was responsible, they acted against the interests of Fraport. Possibly a quirk of German (employment) law might intervene, but there are nations where this would be ground for immediate dismissal. If civilians interfered, that might be grounds for (additional) criminal prosecution.

In summary, there were several emergency measures that worked very well, but there are significant areas for improvement in the Emergency Concept for Fraport, to ensure that next time the effects of a ‘calamity’ are diminished. Let’s hope they are applied.

(Originally posted February 27, 2014)

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Customer co-created queues

Posted on April 20, 2015 by peteralderliesten

How customers can help prevent the closure of their airport.

Background

On February 21st 2014, security personnel on Frankfurt Airport striked. The trade Union Ver.di called on 5,000 security staff to stop handling 150,000 passengers on a typical (busy) Friday. According to news reports, 50 flights were cancelled, many delayed, and shortly after lunch the airport stopped admitting any new passengers altogether.

Not all information on how the strike has been managed by Fraport is public, but in general one can say that ‘keeping order’ is crucial in keeping the system running. Too much anxiety creates stress, raises body temperature and frustration, and triggers a self-supporting spiral that diminishes the tendency to abide by civil rules with the waiting passengers and the whole carefully designed system of waiting queues disintegrates by turning passengers into an unruly mob. When that happens, even additional relief measures like 110 Ver-di members interrupting their strike could not alleviate the situation any more and the only sensible alternative remaining was to close down parts of the system, as happened at Fraport.

In general, West European passengers are quite amenable to stand in line if required. Whenever the situation deteriorates due to anxiety and physical discomfort, the system will break down, however. And that is exactly what happened at Fraport. The first lady to jump line (approx 7:45 am) ostantatiously shrugged her shoulders when fellow “queuee’s” reproached her on the impropriety of her action. Soon, (7:55 am) her example was followed by a couple who jumped line only about 15 people ahead of them. A fairly ineffective if not to say ‘stupid’ move since it only saved them 10 minutes and made them the ridicule of their immediate surroundings, but apparently necessary to vent the couple’s frustration. A little later a whole group decided to skip some of the queue, which nearly led to a physical rather than a verbal interchange. The tone had been set.

Management

Fraport policy on the strike has been to maintain as much radio silence as possible and limit publicity. The Airport-FRA Twitter-team, 13 individuals strong – has announced the strike in 2 tweets (both in German and in English) on feb 20, but has tweeted on Feb 21 effectively only 4 times, mainly asking for attention of press releases (+3 times in English separately). When looking at the Twitter account nowadays – or the website – little evidence of the strike remains. That could be seen as a success, but it also shows that Fraport has not taken advantage of the crisis.

One obvious strategy could have been to further promote the Fraport app by providing the latest updates there. A bolder, innovative strategy would have been to use the crowd in maintaining order. Passengers are very willing to express their moral judgment to people jumping line and supporting civic behavior, but they are incapable of really ‘doing’ anything against it. This incapacity to perform an action turns into frustration and fuels the negative spiral. The airport authority could turn that around by requesting passengers to make a picture with their mobile phones when people jump line and post them on their Twitter account with a specified hashtag. Regular security personnel can then react, and escort the line-jumpers to their original places, or to the exit.

Yours truly has taken pictures of the first line jumpers on Feb 21 and posted them on Twitter the day of this post, as a kind of ‘Proof of Concept’. Though not a fan of ‘naming and shaming’ it may be clear that in the unlikely case anybody would like to use these pictures, I will refrain from copyrights on the material…

Some further thoughts

  • In case of privacy concerns, and definitely when first using such a system, the pictures could be sent to an e-mail-account.
  • That the naming of the account would funnel emotions towards the party responsible for the strike (e.g. #verdiFRA) is a detail that would help channel the emotional anger for passengers a little, although that would not work in case of bad weather of course.
  • In an improved variation, images from a closed-circuit surveillance camera system could be used to verify assertions of line-jumping, and management could consider playing them back on closed-circuit displays in the waiting line halls to inform other passengers and deter future line-jumpers.

Obviously, this same strategy could be used in other public areas like for instance sport arena’s, pop concerts and amusement parks. By using public vigilance in such an emergency, the negative customer energy can be turned around into a positive co-creation one, serving not only the individual customer’s needs, but also decreasing the negative impact of queues in general.

 (Originally posted on February 27, 2014)

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