Archive for category: Project Management

Imagine how much more you and your team could accomplish if everyone was accountable for the work they do. You can make this dream come true by creating an environment in which team members hold themselves accountable.  Here’s how:

• Make sure the project scope is worded to clearly convey why the mission matters and ensure team members understand their role in it. Make sure the project scope is clear and that business objectives are understood by all. Team members should understand precisely how their work aligns with the scope. If there is any doubt, review the project documentation with the team member to resolve any misunderstandings about the project scope and their role within it.
• Provide clear task definitions. Each team member should know exactly what’s required of them and how their work products will be evaluated.  If there is doubt or confusion, consider compiling a WBS Dictionary to clarify any ambiguous tasks. Get team members involved in creating that dictionary, and you will achieve both clarity and ownership.
• Schedule reasonable delivery timeframes. No matter how meaningful the mission and how clear the task definitions, team members might not be self-accountable if you don’t allocate enough time for their work. 
• Acknowledge success. Always acknowledge when team members produce a quality product. Don’t wait until they reach a significant milestone or overcome a complex problem. Recognition breeds self-accountability, because team members want to be part of that atmosphere of success.
• Model the desired behavior. Demonstrate your own accountability to build accountability in your team. The accountability that you demonstrate as a project manager will influence the level of accountability your team demonstrates. If you meet deadlines, fulfill promises, and handle bad news constructively, accountability will prevail throughout your team. By providing psychological safety within your project, your team members can do their best work.

Do you have other ways to create an atmosphere of accountability? Share your thoughts in the comments.

 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 96,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Dear Bonnie,

Some people constantly multitask in meetings, which disrupts other people’s attention and prevents important information from getting to the audience. Do you have any recommendations to get people to pay attention? 

Thanks,

Can We Focus on our Meetings?!

 

Dear Can We Focus,

A well-run meeting, focused on a relevant agenda, is the best approach to curb people’s multitasking.

1. Know what you’re trying to accomplish. Identify why you need a meeting and the desired results (approval, issue resolution, status).
2. Create an agenda with a list of topics and time estimate to discuss each one. That way you can be sure to cover every item. You can keep discussions on topic. Plus, if the discussion starts to go off track, you can stop the discussion and create an action item to handle the new item offline (or in another meeting).
3. Limit meeting attendees to who you need to accomplish the meeting goal. The more people in a meeting, the harder it is to get things done on time. 
4. Schedule the meeting for when it works for attendees and send the meeting invitation and materials ahead of time. That way, attendees have a chance to prepare. (They might not read beforehand, so be prepared for a quick review.) 
5. Start meetings on time, even if some attendees are missing. Don’t backtrack when people show up late. That just reinforces their rude behavior. (They can read the meeting notes to catch up on what they missed.) If a key decision-maker is missing, reschedule the meeting rather than sit and wait.
6. If possible, have someone facilitate the meeting to keep everyone focused.  The facilitator explains the purpose of the meeting, topics, attendees, and ground rules for interaction. The facilitator can coax quiet people to participate or wrangle the discussion back on topic.
7. Take good meeting notes (or use an AI tool to create them). Be sure to document decisions, action items, and who’s responsible for them. Distribute the notes to attendees and (up) anyone else who needs to know.

Establishing a standard of behavior in meetings promotes better outcomes. You get what you tolerate. Unless different standards are set, meetings won’t get any better.

Here are a couple of strategies for meeting behavior. Have everyone put their phones in a basket, so they won’t be distracted. To make sure everyone is paying attention, assign a task to each person during the meeting. If they can’t recite that to-do at the end of the meeting, assess a fine like buying coffee next time or make them wear a silly hat.

Effective meetings will help keep people from multitasking. You’ll get more done, and you might win some fans. Give yourself a head start. Create a checklist of things to do before you hold a meeting.

For more about effective meetings, check out Dave Crenshaw’s Leading Productive Meetings course.

 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 95,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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In April (2025) I learned that pathology from surgery showed stray carcinoma cancer cells in my body. After the shock wore off, the project manager in me took charge. Now that this ordeal is over, I can’t imagine handling it without project management. Here are some things I did to make it through.

• What is the goal? I’ve said many times that the project goal is crucial. My goal isn’t to overcome cancer cells. I delegated that to my doctors. The goal has been to get through the treatment as comfortably as possible while also managing the rest of my life.
• Understand the project. Cancer treatment has a lot of moving pieces. In my first appointment with the chemo oncologist, he handed me a packet with at least 80 pages of information about the treatment, side effects (and how to handle them), things to do, things to not do, what to eat and not eat, and so on. I read the entire packet – twice – and then created my own document to organize and highlight what I needed to know to succeed along with all the questions I had.
• Confirming the requirements. Part of the pre-treatment was reviewing the information with a nurse. I was able to ask my questions, jot down more notes, and then update my home-made treatment document.
• What are the risks? This project has been annoying in so many ways, but mainly because I am a planner and cancer treatment has a gazillion unknowns. What side effects will I get? How bad will they be? When will they happen? Will I be able to drive to treatment or will I need help? What should I have on hand? 
• Risk response strategies: A, B, C. With so many unknowns, you might think there is no way to plan. In fact, my plan was a set of risk response strategies depending on what I might face. First, I bought supplies and food (resources!) recommended for dealing with side effects. Then, I scheduled friends (more resources!) to drive me to treatment the first week. And if I felt so bad that I couldn’t handle the 35-minute drive to treatment, I would get a room near the hospital. This was an iterative project. I stopped there to see how I was at the end of that week.
• Communication.
  • Confirm details: If someone on the medical team told me something that differed from what the doctor or other provider had told me previously, I spoke up to say that was not what I had been told. If necessary, I would push back and ask them to confirm what was correct before proceeding. (In every case, I was correct to question the discrepancy.)
  • Ask questions: I called the doctor’s office when I had issues and major questions. I wrote up points to make, details about status, and questions, so I wouldn’t forget anything.
  • Don’t back down on important issues: Unfortunately, my two big issues happened on the first and then second weekend. That meant I had to get through the difficulties of getting support outside of normal work hours. I did not take no for an answer until I was able to speak to a doctor.
  • Streamline communication: I knew from experience that I did not have the bandwidth to communicate with my friends individually. I created an email group and a smaller text group to update people on my progress and to ask for help when I needed it. If anyone got impatient and emailed or texted to ask how I was, I would not respond to them directly but would send an update to the group when I was able.
• Get advice on big decisions. My second big issue was life-threatening. I was in the hospital for almost 4 days. (That could be a whole separate article.) This issue required revisiting my treatment plan – digesting information and making a significant decision to change the second round of chemo. I asked a good friend to attend the meeting. The oncologist ran through all the possibilities with pros and cons of each. He said I couldn’t take another full round of chemo, but there were 5 other options. A lot of information and my head was spinning. My friend asked several questions, which prompted a good discussion and got my brain back in gear. After the meeting, she and I compared notes to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
• Ask for help. I’m rather independent and take care of myself. Ask anyone who knows me. But I learned a long time ago to ask for help when I need it. Asking doesn’t make you weak: it shows you’re strong. Asking doesn’t mean you’re incapable: it means you’re smart. Asking means you are proactively choosing the best path to success.
• Celebrate small wins. The course of treatment was grueling, although I know that it was minor compared to what other people go through. At the 4-week mark, I was ready to be done. So, I looked for small wins to celebrate, to motivate me to hang in there: when I disconnected the pump when chemo was done, when the PICC line was removed. I counted down the number of radiation treatments to go. I reminded myself how quickly time passes, especially when it seems to move slowly when things suck. I booked a couple trips and planned fun things to do when I was done.
• Stay positive. I had plans. I had a good team. I had support. I focused on what was good. Even after my bad bouts, I acknowledged that I bounced back quickly. I had some moments of negativity. When those occurred, I thought about everything that went well. If I was really negative, I would reach out to a good friend to talk it through.
  • Staying positive doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It’s more like lessons learned: focus on what went well and do more of that, what could be done better and adjust the plan, what went wrong and figure out how to correct that in the future. For example, I was concerned about a second life-threatening episode on a holiday weekend, so I spoke to the oncologist’s nurse. I learned that one of their locations had regular hours on the weekend and could provide the injections I needed if necessary. Fortunately, I didn’t need to go there because our adjusted treatment plan worked well.

I hope you find this real-world example helpful. If you’ve used project management to get through things in your life, I’d love to hear about it.

 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 94,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Estimating is the bane of a project manager’s existence, because people’s (especially management’s) expectations for estimation accuracy are out of touch with reality. Project managers are expected to produce estimates with little project information and then are challenged when they change their estimates. Bob McGannon and I discussed an approach that makes estimating less controversial with an added benefit of educating management and team members on the realities of estimating.

First, consider a Stage Gate Plan, which triggers a review of a project’s viability when project milestones are reached (for example, completing requirements collection, preliminary planning, and detailed planning). This is a start, but not ideal. Detailed costs that weren’t initially discussed in a waterfall project environment are usually added, drawing scrutiny and challenges. In addition, a Stage Gate Plan isn’t relevant in an Agile project environment. So, what to do?

Voilà: the Estimation Accuracy Plan.

When starting a project, a lack of hard data makes project estimation nothing more than a somewhat refined, educated guess. An Estimation Accuracy Plan is a concise plan that spells out how the estimation process really works. It highlights milestone events when estimation accuracy will increase. For example, in a waterfall project, milestones might include finalized staffing, completed detailed planning, completed competitive bid process, or completed soil analysis before a building foundation is constructed.

The Estimation Accuracy Plan can be applied in an agile environment by building it around features and the priority list. When additional equipment, staffing, or other costs are needed to complete a feature, those costs will be determined, and the overall project estimate can be updated. That way, management can consider the costs and reprioritize features if project expenses become a problem.

This type of plan provides many benefits:

• Shows how much guesswork is part of an initial project estimate and how much project personnel don’t know when submitting an initial estimate.
• Clearly identifies incomplete events that allow for refining estimates.
• Indicates how estimation accuracy progresses over the life of a project. It reminds (or educates) management that estimation isn’t scientific. This plan identifies what will be learned or discovered as the project progresses, and how and when estimation accuracy will increase.
• Demonstrates the financial risk of launching and continuing the project. The estimated cost needed to reach the next estimation milestone is usually well known, so the business can assess the risk of continuing the project beyond the next cost milestone. For example, if three people will work one month to create a detailed plan, the cost to reach that milestone is known. Once the plan is completed, you will have information that helps refine the overall estimate. If a competitive bid process is required for that detailed plan, the cost of conducting the bid is known. The bids submitted from the competitive bid process are still guesswork. The overall project estimate can be refined once the bid process is complete and the costs from the final contract are determined.
• Shows the impact of resourcing and procurement. This plan shows management the variability of major elements in the project’s lifecycle before any significant project spending occurs. It demonstrates the impact of decisions on resourcing, contracting, procurement, and other elements that significantly impact project costs.

Note: When an agile team’s size and sprint times are fixed, the spend rate and costs are easy to calculate. (The cost of team personnel per day multiplied by days worked.) However, when other costs such as vendors, equipment, certifications, or other items affect an agile project, an Estimation Accuracy Plan helps address the same problems that arise in waterfall estimating.

Sample Estimation Accuracy Plan for a Waterfall Project:

• Initial estimate – 4 October 2026
• Vendor personnel rates finalized – 15 October 2026
• Preliminary plan completed – 29 October 2026
• Detailed plan completed – 19 November 2026
• Competitive bid process completed – 9 December 2026

Sample Estimation Accuracy Plan for an Agile Project:

• Initial envision and speculate stages complete – Staffing determined – 21 January 2026
• Prioritized feature list completed – 28 January 2026
• Hardware integration feature sprint (4th sprint) – 25 March 2026
• Server configuration feature sprint (6th sprint) – 22 April 2026

Note: A re-prioritization of features occurs at the end of each sprint, so the sprint numbers, dates, and therefore the overall project estimate refinement schedule will change if those feature dates change.

We would love to hear your thoughts about using an estimation accuracy plan. Add your thoughts in the comments section.

For more about estimating, check out my Project Management Foundations: Schedules course.

 

Coming Up

My course Project Management Foundations has been updated with several text-based entries in the Table of Contents. You can read up on the hybrid project management lifecycle, get tips on creating a project information system, review a checklist for effective meetings, and more.

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 92,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Requirements are supposed to represent business needs, but sometimes, they reflect a solution stakeholders believe will help them. For a project to create value, you need to make sure requirements convey business needs not solutions. To scrub proposed solutions from your project requirements, make sure that:

• Requirements are written as “what statements,” not “how statements?” A requirement statement shouldn’t have any process constraints. The requirement should describe the desired outcome or condition, leaving the playing field open for different solution approaches. For example, “Shortening the manufacturing time by 15%” or “Reduce costs by reducing the parts inventory required to maintain the manufacturing line”. How to reduce the required parts inventory (for example, with computer modelling or by changing to longer-lasting parts) isn’t mentioned.
• Any constraints included in the requirement statement are in business terms. For example, increase profit by 15% without increasing expenses by more than 10%. 
• There is a clear link between the requirement and a business need, problem, opportunity, or constraint. Also, all the stakeholders understand the reason for the requirement. Typical business needs are stated as profit, cost reduction, time, regulatory compliance, market share, and so on.
• The requirement describes a measurable outcome. Keep in mind, done/not done doesn’t count as measurable. For example, a target for reducing parts inventory could be 20%, 30%, or to where costs are reduced by $300,000. Actual results can be described as below, at, or above those targets. In comparison, installing and configuring a computer system (a solution, using technology) to optimize inventory levels is either done or not done. It does not directly reflect a business outcome. 
• The requirement allows for creativity or agile learning. Requirements that don’t constrain approaches to solving a problem are the best examples of leaning into the “what” approach. For example, “Reduce the cost of maintaining an aircraft at the boarding gate” constrains creativity. The improvement must apply only when the aircraft is at the gate, rather than maintenance performed in a hangar. Note: There could be business instances when a specific condition like that is a true requirement. But try to avoid them unless necessary. The flexibility to be creative is important, especially in an agile world, where solutions can evolve during a project.

Homework! Go through the requirements for one of your projects, present or past, and see whether any “how to” requirements snuck in. If so, practice turning those into “what” requirements.

For more about defining requirements, check out Daniel Stanton’s Project Management Foundations: Requirements course.

 

Coming Up

My course Project Management Foundations has been updated with several text-based entries in the Table of Contents. You can read up on the hybrid project management lifecycle, get tips on creating a project information system, review a checklist for effective meetings, and more.

 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 91,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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