How to Improve Your Personal PM Practices?

Project management processes are defined as "the methods taken to complete a project". Put simply, they are the sets of activities that a Project Manager completes to initiate, plan, execute and close projects. Project Managers use processes to manage a project - whether these are personal processes or a common set of processes defined by your organization. You should periodically take a step back to refine your processes so that they become more and more effective over time. 

The process to improve your processes is not so hard. You can boil it down to three steps.

Step 1: Identify Your Current State Processes

It will be hard to improve your processes if you cannot identify them to begin with. The first step to take is to review your current project management processes and answer questions such as:

• Which processes do I have in place to manage my projects?
• Do these processes result in the desired outcomes?
• Who manages these processes?
• Have any issues or weaknesses been identified?
• Are my processes operating efficiently, without hassle?

Ideally, each process should result in the desired project outcome every time, without hassle. If you're not achieving this, then you will want to implement  improvements to improve them. 

Step 2: Identify Future State Improvements

With a clear understanding of the state of your current project processes, the next step is to identify any areas for improvement. Here is one way to do it:

• Look for problems, weaknesses or risks associated with your current processes.
• Compare those processes against the processes defined in the best practice project management methodology
• Identify enhancements/improvements based on the comparison of your weak processes versus a best practice model

By comparing your current processes against a best practice methodology such as MPMM, you can easily identify the areas for improvement. 

Step 3: Implement Process Improvements

Now that you have identified the process improvements, you will want to carefully think about how to implement them. You'll need to:

• Prioritize your improvements based on the intended benefits
• Add the process improvement work to your project schedule
• Communicate the improvements to your project team
• Implement the improvements according to your schedule
• Observe the improvements to see if they've had the desired effect

...................

Process improvement work takes time, diligence and patience to implement changes that help you to manage projects successfully every time.

Top Project Managers continuously review their processes to make sure that their projects are completed as quickly and efficiently as possible. Regardless of your current level of experience and knowledge, you will gain substantial benefit from performing continuous process improvement. It will certainly help you to achieve project management success.

How to Solve Project Problems?

Having a structured approach to solving problems will help you resolve them more quickly and directly. Guessing the cause of the problem rarely works. You want to not only resolve this particular problem, but you also want to understand the problem well enough so that you can identify the root cause and ensure that this particular problem does not occur again. 

Use the following general process to identify and resolve problems.  

1. Identify the problem or symptom

You should not assume that everyone knows the problem already. Take the time to document the problem in clear terms that everyone can understand. If you cannot clearly document the problem, it will be difficult to solve it. Make sure that you also explain the impact of the problem to the project.

2. Identify the root cause (or causes)

This is the most important step, since you do not want to spend your time resolving a symptom that you think is a root cause. Instead you should be very clear on the root cause and explain how the root cause ultimately results in the problem. If you cannot track the root cause to the perceived problem, you have not taken your investigation far enough. There are a number of issues management techniques that describe how to focus in on the root cause.

That being said, it may be that the root cause is not within your power to resolve and you may be forced to try to solve a symptom. However, you want to still be sure to identify the cause(s) of the problem to make sure you understand if you are solving a cause or a symptom. 

3. Determine alternatives and impacts

The project manager may assign one or more people to determine alternatives. For each alternative, they should also address the impact to the project.

4. Select the best alternative

The project team and appropriate stakeholders can all be involved with determining the best alternative. This may include members of the project team only, or outside stakeholders. 

5. Resolve the problem

A plan is put into place to address the problem and implement the chosen alternative. This could just be one activity or it could be a complex plan of resolution. These activities should be moved into the project schedule to ensure that they are performed

6. Validate the problem is resolved

The situation must be monitored to ensure that the problem is resolved as expected. If the problem appears to be resolved you are done. If the problem or a related symptom still exists, you have more work to do. Return to step 1.

How to build an effective Communication Plan?

There are three types of communication that can be included in a Communication Plan. We find these three categories to be helpful when creating a well rounded Communication Plan. The three types are mandatory, informational and marketing.

Mandatory

This includes any communication that is required by your organization. There is no reason to worry about these or debate their value. If they are required just create them. Examples include:

• Project Status Reports and status meetings
• Meetings with steering committee
• Required reports to shareholders or your Board of Directors
• Government required reports, safety reports, audit reports, etc.

This information is “pushed” (sent directly to) to recipients.

Informational

This is information that you make available to people, but they need to take the initiative to access it. You put this information in a place that people can access and you tell them that it is there. However, it is up to them to seek out and review the information. Examples include:  

• Awareness building sessions that people are invited to attend (these are not meant as training – just to build awareness of the project)
• Project deliverables placed in a common repository, directory, website or library that people can access
• Frequently-asked questions (FAQ)

This is referred to as "pull" communication since it requires the reader to take the initiative to review the information.

Marketing

These communication events are designed to build buy-in and enthusiasm for the project and the solution you are delivering. This communication is especially important if your project is going to change how people do their jobs. These types of projects are culture change initiatives. Examples include:

• Project newsletters with positive marketing spin
• Traveling road shows to various locations to explain the project and benefits
• Testimonials that describe how the project deliverables provided value
• Contests with prizes to build excitement            
• A count down until live date
• Project memorabilia with project name or image portrayed, such as pins, pencils, cups, T-shirts, etc.

This type of communication is “pushed” to the readers.

Summary

The examples above show that project communication can take many shapes and forms. For large projects especially, the project team should be creative in determining how, what, to whom, where and how frequently the communication takes place. If the project is controversial, requires culture change or is political, the positive aspects of marketing communication become more and more critical

What are the main Project Organization Types?

There Are Three Main Project Organization Types.
Which Are You?

The project organization is described in the Project Charter. The way that the project team is organized is directly related to the way the entire organization is structured. There are three major organization structures to manage work and people.

Functionally Based

In a functional organization, a project team is generally staffed with people from the same department. All the resources needed for the project team come from the functional organization. For instance, if the project is related to the finance function, the project resources come from the Finance Division.

Another way a project is staffed in a functional organization is by executing portions of a project in separate functional organizations. For example, let’s say that a large project needed resources from the Finance, Purchasing, IT and Manufacturing departments. In a functional organization, the project would be broken down by organizational unit and each unit would do its own part relatively independently. At the end, all of the independent solutions would be integrated into one final solution.  

The biggest advantage of functionally-based projects is that there is usually clear authority, since the project managers tend to also be the functional managers. You also do not need to negotiate with other organizations for resources, since all of the staff needed for your project will come from the same functional organization. 

A major disadvantage of the functional organization is that your functional area may not have all of the specialists needed to work on a project. A Finance project with an IT component, for instance, may have difficulty acquiring specialty IT resources.

Project Based

When projects are large enough, it's possible to form functional departments around the project team. This is especially practical when a large program has hundreds or thousands of people assigned over a long period of time. Advantages include clear authority, since the project manager is also the functional manager, and a clear focus, since everyone on the team has only the project for their primary responsibility.

One disadvantage is duplication of resources, since scarce resources must be duplicated on different projects. For instance, a large project may have its own Human Resources staff, which could duplicate a central Human Resources Department. There can also be concerns about how to reallocate people and resources when projects are completed. In a functional organization, the people still have jobs within the functional department. In a project-based organization it is not so clear where everyone is reassigned when the project is completed.

Matrix Based

Matrix organizations allow functional departments to focus on their specific business competencies and allow projects to be staffed with specialists from multiple functional organizations. For instance, a Legal resource might report to the Legal Department, but be assigned to a project in another department that needs legal expertise.

The main advantage of the matrix organization is the efficient allocation of all resources, especially scarce specialty skills that cannot be fully utilized by only one project. The matrix-based organization is also the most flexible when dealing with changing business needs and priorities.

The main disadvantage is that the reporting relationships are complex since many people have multiple work managers - both a functional manager and one or more project managers. Staff members need strong time management skills to ensure that they fulfill the work expectations of multiple managers.

Summary

The matrix-based organization is the most common. Can you tell which model your organization uses? 

Effective Communication Basics in Project Management

Be Effective with The Four Communication Basics

There's not one 'best' way to communicate with your project team but rather a number of different things you can do to communicate. That being said, there are some fundamental communication options that are applied on most projects. Before you get too sophisticated with your communication approach, make sure you are very effective with these fundamentals.

1. Status meetings

There's nothing like a status meeting to communicate effectively with your project team. The best time for a group meeting is early in the week, preferably Monday.  The purpose of this meeting is to make sure that everyone is aligned, expectations for the week are set, and any issues or obstacles are addressed and resolved. Ideally, this meeting takes place face-to-face allowing everyone to contribute to the discussion and get the most out of it as possible. This is your opportunity as a Project Manager to address the needs of the group and make sure everyone is on the same page.

2. One-on-one meetings

Another great opportunity to manage your project teams are the one-on-one conversations you have with individual team members. This type of conversation can take various forms. A regular weekly meeting can be set up with team members that may be new or have minimal experience. This can take 30 minutes or less and serve as a time to touch base with them, make sure they are not having any problems in getting their work done, or discuss any other topics that would not be appropriate to bring up in a larger meeting. One word of caution... don't use this time to talk about any disciplinary or corrective actions that need to be addressed. That should be left for a separate meeting.

What if you have more experienced or senior members on your team? This is still a great way to manage your team, but it can take a slightly different form. First, it could be reduced to once or twice a month that you get together. Plus, the focus of the meeting can be to discuss any ideas or suggestions the team member has for improvement or making things better. At this point in their career they won't need too much direction, but they will appreciate the opportunity to provide their input.

3. E-Mail

In 10 years it is nor clear if we will rely so heavily on email for fundamental communication. But we do today. Email is a powerful addition to face-to-face talking. There are lots of uses for emails - one-on-one discussions, group discussions, one-way notifications, fyi's, decision making, problem solving, etc. If you are weak at email communication it can dramatically impact your ability to manage staff and engage stakeholders.

Be mindful to not let email take the place of face-to-face meetings when you have the personal meeting as a viable alternative. It's easy to go down this path feeling that it's faster or less complicated than talking in person. Email should always be in addition to, not instead of, talking to your team in person.

4. Reports

Reports cover a lot off ground - status reports, performance reports, issues reports, safety reports, etc. You may not typically think about reports as a way to manage your project team, but if you create your reports in the right way you will find they can be a useful tool.

What is the right way to create reports that can help manage your team? Make them actionable. Making a report actionable means that someone can read the report and then know what needs to be done next. The report will not be muddled with a lot of unnecessary details or information that could lead to confusion.

.............................................
The four fundamental communication mediums above are practical ways you can communicate with and manage your project team. The spirit of managing your team can be summed up in two words... be available. Your staff will do well if your team knows they can reach you at any time with questions, issues, or suggestions and feel comfortable in doing so. Your group meetings, one-on-one conversations, email, and actionable reports will keep you in that position of availability.

How to Quantify Project Stakeholder Satisfaction?

Use Surveys to Quantify Project Stakeholder Satisfaction

At the end of a project, many project managers want to collect data that points out how successful the project was. Some of this information, like schedule and budget information, should not be so hard to gather. Many project teams also want to gather stakeholder feedback on how the project team performed. You could ask questions regarding how professional the team was, how responsive, how the team communicated, and much more.

You could go around and ask everyone verbally. However, this approach cannot be measured. The best you can end up with is a collection of quotes.

A better way to collect customer satisfaction information is through a simple survey. Surveys are by their nature qualitative; that is, they reflect the opinion of the person being surveyed. Many surveys ask for a combination of ratings feedback and written feedback. The numerical answers are used to drive the metrics, while the written feedback provides additional perspective that can be used in the overall analysis. There are a number of advantages to a well-worded survey.

• When you are trying to determine how people interact with each other, perhaps the best way to gather feedback is to ask the affected people themselves. Surveys allow you to gather people from any and all stakeholders that were impacted by the project.
• Surveys are a relatively inexpensive way to gain feedback from many stakeholders. The more stakeholders you want to query, the more it makes sense to use a simple survey.
• The ratings feedback can be interpreted mathematically for precision and ease-of-use. One great advantage of surveys is that you can gather feedback from a tremendous number of people, and yet synthesize the results using simple math.
• You can get "shades of gray" from the rating feedback. A survey allows you to receive answers based on a continuum or a range of possible results. In other words, the answers are not "yes" or "no" but allow feedback on a continuum such as a 1 - 5 scale. 

Of course, there are also a number of weaknesses with a survey approach. These include generally not receiving feedback from a high percentage of people. It is also my perception that many (most?) surveys are not well written. For example, surveys may ask how satisfied a stakeholder was with the quality and frequency of communication. The stakeholder may have different opinions as to the "quality" and the "frequency" which makes this difficult to answer with one response.

When you are determining the success of a project you want to use data to compare actual values with targets. This is not hard with schedule and budget. Surveys help you convert opinions and perceptions to data values as well.

How to Assess Projects to Validate Use of Common Processes?

Many Project Management Offices (PMOs) spend quite a bit of time deploying common project management practices in their organization and building project management skills in their staff. But is it working? The PMO can validate whether their work is sticking through project assessments.

Project assessments serve two functions.

• Checking compliance. They help ensure that project managers are using the new project management processes.
• Coaching. Assessments can also be an opportunity for coaching. During the audit, you can help the project manager understand how the processes are applicable to their project.

It is one thing for the PMO to provide training and have all the appropriate processes and templates defined. It is another thing for the new processes to actually be adopted and utilized by the project teams. If you want to change the culture and make sure that the new processes are sticking, you must make sure that the project teams are utilizing them correctly. The purpose of the assessment is to determine how well the project manager and project team are utilizing the project management processes. During the assessment, a member of the PMO asks a series of questions to ensure compliance with the required processes and procedures.

To help reinforce the responsibilities of the managers, the results of the project audit should be documented and sent back to the project manager, as well as the manager of the project manager. In addition, the results are summarized and sent to the PMO sponsor, Steering Committee and other management stakeholders. If a project team is not using the standard processes, the senior managers and the PMO sponsor ultimately need to ask why. This is part of a governance process.  

The auditing process can be time-consuming. Just as it is not possible to provide coaching for all projects, it is also not practical to audit all projects. Actually, you don't need to. If you audit a project in a certain department and it comes out pretty well, it is likely that the other projects in that same area will also come out well, since the functional manager is probably helping with the push. On the other hand, if you audit a project and find the standard procedures are not being followed, it is likely a sign that the manager from that area is not being supportive of the methodology, and other projects in that area will probably have problems as well. Raising visibility of the problem projects should bring organizational pressure to make the proper changes. 

Summary

It would be nice if you could develop a common project management processes, train everyone, and then sit back and let the magic happen. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in a culture change initiative. The PMO must look at this project management implementation in a holistic manner; including validating that things are progressing according to plan. On a project level, this verification includes ongoing project assessments to validate that project teams are utilizing the new methodology as expected. These assessments will point out the overall progress (or lack of progress) that has been made up to that time.

NAVAGRAHA STHALANGAL

NAVAGRAHA STHALANGAL

SL NO	GOD AND GODESS	SPECIAL	PLACE
1		Suriyan ( Sun )	Suriyanar Koil
2		Chandran (Moon )	Thingaloor
3	Sri Thaiyal Nayagi Samedha Sri Vaidheeswarar	Angarahan ( Mars)	Vaitheeswaran Koil
4	Sri Brahmavidyanayagi Samedha Sri Suvedharanyeswarar	Budhan ( Mercury)	Thiruvenkadu
5	Sri Yelavar Kuzhali Amman Samedha Sri Kasi aaranyeswarar	Guru ( Jupiter ) – Prahaspathi	Alangudi
6	Sri Karpagambaigai Samedha Sri Agneeswarar	Sukran ( Venus)	Kanjanoor
7	Sri Piranambigai Samedha Sri Dharpaaranyeswarar	Saneeswaran ( Satrun)	Thirunallaru
8	Sri Kujambigai Samedha Sri Nageswarar	Raghu ( North Lunar Node)	Thiruganeswaram
9		Kedhu ( South Lunar Node )	Keelaperumpallam