BCE24 | Virtual Brand Ambassadors: Making Brands Personal - John Meulemans
Five tools for managing projects
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Copyright 2017 John Goodpasture All Rights Reserved
Essentials of Project Management
Five tools for Managing
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Square Peg Consulting, LLC
www.sqpegconsulting.com
2. Five Tools for managing
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WIP Kanban
Milestones
Theory of
constraints
Remaining
cost
3. Backlog-to-WIP and DONE
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Backlog
• Master TO DO list: All stuff you need
to do for business and client, by
affinity
Increment • A subset of Master “TO DO”
WIP
• Stuff you are working
on (doing), typically
less than the whole
increment
DONECompleted stuff
4. An example
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Backlog
Increment
WIP
• Some database
tasks
DONECompleted database tasks
1. Business databases
2. Client deliverables
3. Project closeout
Database increment
Related database debris
6. My favorite
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Backlog (increment)
Narrative, outline, design
Construction
Validation, verification
Done
7. It’s a Kanban
Kanban:
• Successor stage pulls from predecessor stage
• Capacity limited at each stage
• As stage capacity becomes free (by doing), capacity is filled from
predecessor stage
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Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3 …
8. Kanban board
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• Each card color is represents a common affinity grouping of stories
• Each card with the same color is an individual story (requirement,
to-do, or task) within that affinity group
• Note: Cards may not progress in “number” order; progress and
promotion between stages is governed by project demands
9. Stages operate on stories
For example
• Narrative: Design, develop an outline
• Construction: Gather data
• Construction: Apply data to a narrative or to the outline
• ….
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Narrative
Construction
Validation …
10. Debt in the backlog
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Debt: unfinished WIP
Incomplete reports; drafts or appendices not finalized
Tests not complete
Incomplete validations or verifications
Left over when the increment is DONE
Punch list for later
Adds to the Backlog
11. Theory of constraints*
What is a constraint?
• Limitation on throughput
What’s throughput?
• Stuff, outcomes, that are valuable to business or client
• That which is value-add to the business value proposition
• Debris is not throughput; it’s overhead
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* “The Goal”
Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt
12. Subordinate to the constraint
• Once a stage is full, there’s no advantage to keep piling up WIP
inventory at earlier stages
– “Efficiency” of widgets/hour at earlier stages is meaningless
• To clear the constraint, subordinate all resource allocations to the
priority of working on the constraint
– All hands on deck rule
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13. More capable constraints
• Add similar resources (parallelism)*
• Re-organize methodology at the constraint
• Re-tool or re-train
• Avoid constraint by going a different direction
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*Brooks Law: “Adding resources to a late task will make it later”
Dr. Fred Brooks
Author: Mythical Manmonth
14. Managing with milestones
Milestone:
• Measurable, discernible event
• Evident to business and client
• Usually zero-duration point-in-time, but not always
• Valuable to business and client
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15. Backward planning
• Establish the client’s most valuable milestone
– May not be the project ending
• Buffer the client’s most valuable milestone (to protect it’s integrity)
• Set the earliest start milestone
• Narrative reduction in between
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Copyright 2017 John Goodpasture All Rights Reserved
16. Backward planning sequence
• Establish the client’s most valuable milestone
– May not be the project ending
• Buffer the client’s most valuable milestone (to protect it’s integrity)
• Set the earliest start milestone
• Narrative reduction in between
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Backlog
Buffer
Backlog
Most valuable
End
Start
“White space”
17. No-o-o!
• Latest start is procrastination
• Uses buffer without value-add
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BacklogBuffer
Backlog
Most valuable
End
Latest Start
“White space”
Start
18. Milestone merge
• Independent streams of stuff comes together for integration
• A&B depends on the success of A and the success of B
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“DONE” A
“DONE” B
Merge of results, A & B
19. Merge confidence
Do the math
• IF: confidence* in A is 70%, and B 90%
• THEN: merged confidence in A&B is 63%
– 70% of 90%
– It’s a lot worse if there are three or more merges
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*Confidence: An event will happen at a predicted time, or
sooner, with a % confidence.
The event could be later by 100 - % confidence. How much
later? Unpredictable, as a practical matter
20. Merge bias
• A&B depends on the success of A and the success of B
• IF: confidence* in A is 80%, and B 90%
• THEN: merged confidence in A&B is 72%
• THUS: to restore confidence to 70%, or 90%, SHIFT RIGHT
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“DONE” A
“DONE” B
Bias of A & B at the
merge point to shift right
Higher confidence with more
time provided by shift right
21. Merge bias fix
• IF: confidence* in A is 100% due to buffer, and B 90%
• THEN: merged confidence in A&B is 90%
– 100% of 90%
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“DONE” A
“DONE” B
100% confidence
Buffer
THUS: to maintain confidence, buffer at least one milestone
Confidence at merge is
confidence of B
22. Cost Management
Cost Management
Concepts
Commentary
Earned Value:
How much does it cost
to earn* $1 of value?
Remaining Cost
How much to finish?
Throughput value
Only the value-add
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* aka: deliver
23. Cost Management
Cost Management
Concepts
Commentary
Earned Value:
How much does it cost
to earn $1 of value?
• The objective Value of an object, in $, is
established as a budget
• When that object is DONE, it’s value has been
“Earned”
• Actual cost may be different
• “Efficiency” of cost management:
• $Value Earned per $Actual Cost
Remaining Cost
How much to finish?
Throughput value
Only the value-add
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Copyright 2017 John Goodpasture All Rights Reserved
24. Cost Management
Cost Management
Concepts
Commentary
Earned Value:
How much does it cost
to earn $1 of value?
Remaining Cost
How much to finish?
• Forecast cost of what’s left to be done
• Budgeted value of stuff not done, adjusted for
cost efficiency (to date)
Throughput value
Only the value-add
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Copyright 2017 John Goodpasture All Rights Reserved
25. Cost Management
Cost Management
Concepts
Commentary
Earned Value:
How much does it cost
to earn $1 of value?
Remaining Cost
How much to finish?
Throughput value
Only the value-add
• Value of the client’s deliverables less
value of project inputs (parts, data, etc),
ignoring in-direct or overhead costs
• Essentially: cost efficiency of “cost of goods
sold”
• Value-add of the project “transformation”
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26. Five Tools Learning points
Learning Point take away Commentary
All projects have WIP
Stuff you’re going to do; are doing; and have
done
Kanban pulls stuff in
A capacity management tool so that WIP
does not overwhelm
Theory of Constraints
Keep the constraint “full”; but not “fuller” than
its capacity
Milestones
Aim for the most valuable milestone; beware
merging milestones—shift right!
Cost management
Did you deliver a dollar of value for a dollar
of cost?
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27. Five Tools: For discussion
In this presentation, “quality” has been the silent partner. It’s
presumed that quality is a constant, no matter the WIP, constraints,
milestones, and value to be earned.
For discussion: Is this presumption true, or practical? Can quality
be constant, regardless of the other variables? Are there no
compromises? Is it zero-defects everywhere?
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Copyright 2017 John Goodpasture All Rights Reserved