Mapping project value-add

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To get things in the right sequence, let's define "value-add" before talking about mapping value-add

Simply put, insofar as one-time projects are concerned (setting aside repetitive services, etc):

Value-add is anything you can make out of stuff -- to include intangible stuff -- that is ultimately delivered to the customer, or makes the deliverable a good thing in the customer's eyes.

And so, the mission for the PMO becomes: build and deliver value to the customer. Such implies a process to acquire "stuff". Then to mix, modify, and assemble; test, package, and deliver.

Fair enough
And so, how to lay out this process?
Enter: Value stream mapping

Value stream mapping
Value stream mapping may look like a new label on old wine. But even if that is so, the wine ages well. In the old days, we simply called it process mapping.

• Activities are usually arranged in finish-to-start precedence; 
• Feedback loops are established to promote stability; 
• Points of control, and control limits are established; and
• Value is accumulated, step by step.

Some would call this an earned-value view of value mapping. Fine with me.

Getting lean
Value stream mapping derives from the Lean community, where of course the focus is on leaning out non-value add. So, in value stream mapping, each activity, to include workflow steps, and other governance and ancillary activities, like a trouble report or a status report, are evaluated for value-add. Presumably, such an evaluation leans out the unnecessary detail and complexity of too many rules.

A lot of governance would not fit the value-add definition directly, but most indirect activities don't. Nevertheless, most practical organizations can't live without some non-value overhead that goes along with everything.

The map
One thing I do like about value stream mapping is the clarity of the diagramming. Take a look at this diagram:

If you're interested in more, this diagram came from a nice post at LeadingAnswers

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Three C's of PM

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Usually, I say the 'three C's' of PM are:

• Communicate
• Communicate 
• Communicate

Which, in actionable terms are:

• Tell them what you're going to tell them
• Tell them
• Tell them what you told them

But, as I view the PMO through the lens of a small business, I'm wondering if the daily thought of a PM doesn't go to:

• Capital (meaning project financing)
• Community (largely virtual these days)
• Connections (business, political, and functional)

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Trusting vs interests

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After dinner, [Churchill said] that he had only one single purpose – the destruction of Hitler – and his life was much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell he would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil!

Suffice to say, a colorful way of saying that there are circumstances in which we agree that we have common interests to cooperate and solve a problem, but don't ask me to trust you, at least not without independent verification

And so one wonders: every PM text on teamwork in a project has a chapter on trust and trust worthiness.
Fair enough
But, is is possible to run a project successfully on the basis of aligned interests where there might not be trust in all its dimensions?

I submit that in the domain I worked most -- building systems for the US military and its agencies -- that often was the time I was aligned with a competitor to do a job jointly, while on the next job competing fiercely with that same competitor.

Did we trust them? Sure, to some extent, but warily. Alignment of interests requires some level of trust, but wariness and demand for verification is allowed, if not demanded.

 

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Good process; good outcome

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Good process improves the chance of good outcomes and reduces unforced errors ....

Robert Gates, former US Defense Secretary

This bit of wisdom seems obviously good on the surface, except that some of our PMO and project leaders are just not process-people.

They don't think in terms of finish-to-start order, merging of parallel paths of investigation or action, or even of allocation of resources in non-conflicting manner.

And some of most esteemed political leaders are famously not process oriented, Franklin Roosevelt perhaps the poster-boy for disorganized governance.

Error containment
And so, what to do if your guy is not a process person, no matter their other talents?
Enter: systems of containment, even if subtle. Example: General George Marshall, who ran the military side of WW II, refused to meet with Roosevelt except officially, and always with an agenda.

Ah, if only the world could fit neatly on a process map!

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Changing the culture

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To change culture ...... you have to have continuous training, systems of accountability, and consequences.

J. Scott Thomson

It's hard to argue with the formula; in fact, no argument taken

However, perhaps Mr Thomson assumed the obvious: you have to have a vision of the future state of culture in order to orient and align training to that vision.

And, there are always errors of alignment in any system. So, establishing tolerable error bounds, as in any process, is necessary. One should think of consequences allotted on a sliding scale depending on compliance --  from perfection on one end to completely unacceptable on the other.

Of course accountability is a tricky matter as well: there's personal accountability for one's own actions, thoughts, deeds; to wit: self-control as well as internalized conceptions. But, then there's accountability of others for the actions of others, whether voluntary or managerial. (See: if you see something, say something).

The former doesn't fit into an accountability system so well, but the latter surely does.

Also left unsaid by Mr Thomson is something I'm sure he knows well: it takes a lot of time to internalize what might be known instantly intellectually. And, physical systems that might have to change have their own inertia, to say nothing of the laws of physics and money.

Tricky business this; but time to get started

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Remote working and the tax man

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Working from home? Never done that before? Guess what: If you're working remotely from a State different from your usual workplace, beware the remote-working tax man.

Work in; work from:
Except for a few States, like Florida, Texas, and Washington, others have -- or may have -- income taxes that apply if you work in -- or from -- those States, in some cases: as little as one day.

And, even Florida, Texas, and Washington have business taxes that might apply.

The only constant is change
Thus, with the pandemic and the shift of work location, the tax situation may also be shifting. Some States are waiving income taxes for workers who have been directed to work from home; other states have made no decision about that, as yet.

So, check it out! Your employer may make it right for you by grossing up your compensation for the change in your tax situation, especially if work-from-home is not optional.

What?! Another sheriff?
In any event, among many new sheriffs in town, add the tax man!

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Ruts vs grooves

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Are you "in the groove", making good time and product, or are you in a rut?
How to tell?

• A rut is about 6" deeper than a groove
• It's easy to see over to the next groove -- it may be better -- and you can change grooves if you need to
• In a rut, you often can't see out for other opportunities
• A rut sometimes just gets deeper the more you're doing

Alex Walton, 3PM

In a rut, the first rule of holes often applies: just stop digging!

Beyond platitudes:
Most people would prefer not to be in a rut; it's not stimulating and rewarding

• Like never before, self-help is the first step out. And the internet is the primo source of self-help.
• Summoning the courage to take a risk is probably step two. Even if you're just moving into a groove in familiar space, that sometimes requires some risk-taking
• Asking others for an evaluation of your profile is an important risk step. Park your ego and your pride long enough to take in the data and process it.
• You may have to outright quit and start over, maybe even entry level. Or, if you're entrepreneurial (and everyone isn't), you can start your own 

But the most important thing is to overcome inertia and "do something". If it doesn't work, try again. Ruts are not permanent.

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What flavor is your scope creep?

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Can there be scope creep in Agile? 
Doesn't agile define creep away in a stroke: "Scope is whatever is prioritized in the backlog that fits within the budget (OPM, other people's money) and the time."

"The backlog changes all the time, but that's not creep, it's just backlog management."

What I just wrote is a "best value" definition of scope. But, sometimes it just doesn't sell.

I credit my agile students with these observations about "creep", to wit:

Project scope creep: it may be well and good that a true pure play on agile has no conception of scope creep, because the backlog is simply rebuilt as a zero-base-backlog (ZBB) after every iteration -- if not after each iteration, then certainly after every release.

Consequently, after every release, you should be able to stop and be satisfied that you've delivered the best possible stack of high value objects. Amen!

Resource scope creep
On the other hand, if you can't get commitment for dedicated teams because the resources are needed elsewhere, then you are saddled with the overhead and inefficiency of rolling out and rolling in resources. This is resource scope creep -- spending more on resources' training, recruiting, and assimilation than the budget allows.

Clearly, this is a different flavor than project scope creep.

And, it's been around since forever!
Who's not heard of "resource plug-and-play"?
The plug-and-play process: just define a role, line up the role with appropriate resumes, pick one, plug them in, and you're off to the races!

• For more on plug-and-play, see the work of F.W. Taylor and "management science" wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._Taylor

Agile to the rescue!
The fix is in: a pure play in agile means having fully dedicated teams that use the inevitable white space in the team schedule to improve the product -- more testing, more refined refactoring, working completely through the technical debt -- but not to get off the team and go elsewhere, only to return later.

Ooops!
The idea of giving up on matrix and other plug-'n-play resource schemes is pretty much opposed by managers not willing to give real agile a try.

Shifting from input to output
Again, it's an input/output focus tension... managing the white space by moving resources around is an input focus; leaving resources in place to use the white space for quality is an output focus.

Traditional schemes often put resource managers in charge of finding resources for the project manager. Obviously, those resource guys are going to focus on getting their job done according to their metrics.

Agile schemes are a bit different: once the resource manager has given up the resource to an agile team, it's the team leader who's

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Hiring for skills

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The thesis is simple enough: when you need a job done, hire a skillful person [setting aside, for the moment: robots]
Who's not referred to Angie's List from time to time to find a plumber?

Bachelor's hegemony
But in the project business, there has been for a long time the hegemony of the bachelor's degree ... which is not to be denigrated in any way (I've got one) .... but there are alternatives.

Let's hear it for skills
And so the "skills development" industry has gone into high gear .... shifting now to mostly online ... with much corporate help [Microsoft, among many others] to make it possible for millions who have lost retail and hospitality jobs to move in the direction of filling the pre-pandemic 12M openings for alternatively skilled staff, usually at a higher compensation.

Now, ours is a business that has put emphasis on either/and a bachelor's degree or a PM credential from PMI or others. Our local university has a very robust program in project management that is available to the public.

But there's no reason that for the myriad of project jobs -- not necessarily the PMO -- that the hiring principle should not be 'skills-first'.

What do you get?

• Usually bootstrappers who've shown personal initiative and have got other work and life experience; they appreciate the opportunity to dig into a good opportunity
• Not too much baggage that requires re-training. In many cases it's a green field for both culture and job-specific skills
• Opportunity to be a 'good corporate citizen' for the local community
• A few that can't make it in your context .... HR issues around tenure, etc

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Good writing, and a well-chosen word

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What does one learn when reading great ..... writings? That well-chosen words are the way by which past deeds acquire meaning and future deeds acquire purpose.

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,” are the only false notes in the Gettysburg Address. The Battle of Gettysburg is etched in national memory less for its military significance than because Lincoln reinvented the goals of the Civil War in that speech — and, in doing so, reimagined the possibilities .....

[Great] writing doesn’t just provide meaning and purpose. It also offers determination, hope and instruction.

Bret Stephens

Now, I think it's reasonable to say that most writing coming forth from the PMO doesn't rise to the level of the Gettysburg Address in eloquence or conciseness, or engender the profound effect the Address has had on generations since.

Nonetheless, if the bar is more reasonably set at the level of "good writing" --- clear, concise, unambiguous, and purposeful --- then we should take to heart in all project communications that words do matter, and that choosing the right words should not be a task taken lightly.

I've often said that "good writing is not written, it is re-written", meaning: the first draft is just that: a draft. The published version is -- or should be -- more likely the draft re-written. [See: take a moment before you send that text or email]

But the point here is not so much to lecture about writing well; rather it is to make the point that in executing the first job of the PMO --- to communicate -- the PM should bear in mind the three big steps:

1. Tell them what you are going tell them
2. Tell them (enter: a well-chosen word)
3. Tell them what you told them

Said another way:

1. Establish the background, explain how the past got us here
2. Lay out the task ahead
3. Connect the dots to future goals

 "That well-chosen words are the way by which past deeds acquire meaning and future deeds acquire purpose"  ..... Well said!

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