Tasks and timelines: The keys to successful project management

Dear Bob …

I recently attended one of your speeches — you titled it “Don’t trust ‘Trusting your gut.'” I liked what you had to say about evidence-based decison-making and how superior it is to trusting your gut.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Managerial rookies may want to check out Bob’s tips in the world’s quickest course in project management. | Keep up on career advice with Bob Lewis’ Advice Line newsletter. ]

My question: How do I apply this to my work as a project manager? I’m fairly new at this, and your speech crystalized something I’ve been uncomfortable with in the project I’m managing. What it is, is that when I check in with project team members to ask them whether they’re on track, they tell me they are — and that’s all they tell me.

I’m concerned that if I push them, it will come across as a lack of trust, which will damage our working relationship. But if I don’t push them, I don’t really have any evidence that they’re actually on track.

What do you recommend?

– Newbie

Dear Newbie …

Here’s what’s happening: You’re asking a vague question, and in response you’re getting a vague answer.

Where it starts is the project schedule. The guideline: Project tasks should take no longer than you’re willing to have the project slip without knowing about it. If project tasks are a month long, the project can slip a month before you find out. If they’re a week long, the project can’t slip more than a week before you find out.

The reason it works this way is that many of the people who are responsible for project tasks are optimists. When they’re in the middle of a task and you ask if they’re on track, they’ll tell you they are because they believe they are — whether or not they actually are.

Which leads to a second guideline: There is no such thing as “on track.” There also is no such thing as “percent complete” when the question is progress on a single task.

Keep tasks to one week or shorter. Every week, when you ask about the status of project tasks that are scheduled to be complete, the only answers are that they are complete, or they aren’t complete. Ninety percent done means not done — likewise 25 percent done and 95 percent done. They’re all at the same stage of completeness: not done.

Put these together and your problem goes away. Your question isn’t whether a project team member is on track. The question is, for the tasks to which the project team member’s name is attached, are they done or not done? The possible answers are yes and no. That’s it.

[ If you like this project management advice, there’s lots more where it came from in Bob’s classic on the subject, “Bare Bones Project Management: What you can’t not do.” Order your copy today. ]

Unless a project team member simply lies to you, you have a definitive answer as to whether the project is on track: If every task on the critical path that’s scheduled to be completed actually has been completed, the project is in the green. Otherwise, it’s in the yellow.

If you find that a team member does lie to you, telling you a task is finished that in fact is still in progress, it’s probably time for a personnel action — a documented verbal or written warning. Tasks slip. It happens. Deliberate deception doesn’t just happen and you can’t allow that to be OK, for a very simple reason: It isn’t OK.

– Bob

This story, “Tasks and timelines: The keys to successful project management,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bob Lewis’s Advice Line blog on InfoWorld.com.