Apply Project Management Tech to Operations

Operations and Projects are Different Yet with Similarities

Managing Operations?  You may well benefit by using selected project management techniques and technology.  I “grew up” in business as a project manager and then moved to manage software and other companies over time.  As I made that transition to operations management and later executive management, I always kept a project mindset.  Read on to find out which techniques and tools from PM translate effectively to Operations!

Why Use Project Management Tech on Operation Efforts?

As I transitioned from project and program management to Operations, I was amazed that some of the senior leaders who rode projects so hard and asked for all kinds of details managed their own staff efforts with much less rigor.  They sometimes wanted statistics on how late tasks from different groups were.  They asked how many hours each person was working and compared that to plan, and more.

When we talked over an effort involving just their staff and their subordinates, they would take all types of vague verbal status from their direct reports.  When it came time to implement their deliverables or process updates, there were all types of excuses and no one was happy.  Very little detail was asked or answered on the performance of staff working the efforts.

I understand that larger projects that involve cross-functional people are more complex to manage, but that does not mean drop all rigor for internal efforts!  I also understand that priorities shift quickly for internal efforts where the commitments are only visible to your staff.

Regardless of all that, I have seen at many clients, and also in the groups that I have managed, that adding rigor does not create extra work and in fact often saves substantial amounts of time.  Now that we have established the value of a bit of rigor, let’s take a look at the PM techniques and tools that help you implement some decent processes.

Project Management Techniques to Consider Using in Operations

Let’s look at two PM techniques which are easy to adopt in an operations environment.

1.  Prioritizing deliverables, both within and among efforts.  Quite a large percentage of trouble arises when priorities are not clear.  In most teams, there is far more work to do than could possibly be done in a given time period.  Pushing priority decisions to all team members for everyone to use their own judgment will cause multiple and long-standing disagreements.  Executives should step up and make a VERTICAL prioritized list of all Operations efforts, including support.  People then simply work on the top deliverable where they are assigned or on self-managed teams where they can contribute.

2.  Estimating tasks is probably the easiest way to lessen the burden of both political and team pain.  When your team tracks estimates against actuals, they will logically get quite a bit better at estimating in a short time.  Agile especially benefits even when the team thinks they want to go the #NoEstimates route.  We have two posts on #NoEstimates on this blog.  Simple tracking will guide the team to quickly hone in on what takes more time that initial guesses indicated.

Project Management Technology to Consider Using in Operations

In the last five years, collaborative technology use has greatly increased, as have the features available to every team.  Let’s discuss three types of tools that will help your teams be more productive in their Operations duties.

1.  Task Management – Task management tools include Trello, Asana (our favorite, we run Data Analysis on Asana with HubSpot for CRM), and all manner of To-Do type programs.  When we have an effort that does not require a scheduling tool such as Gantter, Microsoft Project, SmartSheet, Planview, Primavera, or other small or large tool, we use Asana.  It has just enough features and capabilities to make it our tool of choice.

We keep all manner of one-time, recurring, and future vague tasks in Asana.  We try to use assignments and dates only where needed and simply count the smaller tasks to ensure the team is on track.  We use sub-tasks and templates to at least show general workflow on recurring tasks such as delivering an in-house course for a client, which we do often.  Rather than trying to remember the 30-some-odd tasks that are needed, we use the template as a checklist and quickly knock them out when needed.

2.  Scheduling – When you have either a big effort or many concurrent or pending efforts, it is best to use a scheduling tool such as Gantter, Microsoft Project, SmartSheet, Planview, Primavera, or other tool.  The extra planning work will reward you with insights about how many, what type, and deliverables for your planned and ongoing efforts.  It will show you where your skilled people will be overloaded so you can adjust their schedule and expectations.

It will also show you how your efforts overlap and where you have gaps if you have to wait for dependencies from your group or other groups.  If you update estimates vs. actuals you will have an accurate record of how long medium and low priority efforts take in your organization.  Not just how much work, but how long in a priority shifting environment.  Your team will start to believe in these estimates as they are much more realistic than just pulling dates out of the air.

3.  Stakeholder Management – In our experience, stakeholder management is almost always well less formal for Operation efforts than for projects.  In many cases, it is more important, not less, to work on building and maintaining your relationships with people whom you need to help drive your more casual efforts forward.  There are sometimes hundreds of competing efforts and projects in an Operations environment.  In order to really help your organization, you must be able to not just start, but finish the most important efforts.

There are also times when you must help kill efforts and projects, and jump in to bring several of them to conclusion in a short amount of time to free up resources for your and other efforts.  You will need to build relationships with people by helping them with their efforts, career, and at times advice.  When you take the time to really get to know people, you will understand how they best accept tasks and how you can best help them.

PM Tech in Ops – Your Thoughts?

Thoughts on how you can best use project management techniques and tools in your Operations work that we did not touch on?  Good luck and keep searching for leverage to reduce everyone’s workload!

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