64.67 percent done.” The answer should be “Yes, it’s done” or “No, it’s not done.”3 Ask the team to create ten tasks for each deliverable.You might ask the team members, “If you were to summarize what it takes to complete this deliverable in 10 steps, what would those steps be?” Each step is a task. A structured list of tasks, like the one in Figure 4-3, is called a work breakdown structure (WBS). I prefer that deliverables and tasks start with verbs, which makes it easy to tell what needs to be done. “Design receiving process” is more descriptive than simply “Receiving process,” for example.FIGURE 4-3: Sample work breakdown structure.
4 Ask the team to decide which tasks have to be completed before another task can begin.Relationships among tasks are called dependencies. The task that needs to happen first is called a predecessor. The task that has to wait is called a successor. For small, simple projects, you may be able to track dependencies manually, but in most supply chain projects, the dependencies make the projects complicated. Figure 4-4 shows a network diagram that illustrates the predecessor and successor relationships between tasks. Using project management software to track tasks and dependencies can help you avoid mistakes and save a lot of time.FIGURE 4-4: Sample network diagram.
5 Evaluate the timeline, and crash the plan.Dependencies often mean that it takes longer to complete a project than anyone expected or considered to be reasonable. At that point, you need to look for logical ways to shorten the timeline. This process is called crashing or compressing the project plan.Start by looking at the tasks that are driving your schedule — the ones that are taking the longest time to complete. The longest series of tasks is called the critical path. The only way to shorten a project is to change the tasks on the critical path. Perhaps some tasks don’t need to occur in sequence or in series. Instead, those tasks could run at the same time or in parallel, or they could be independent of one another. Continue analyzing the tasks on the critical path until you have a timeline that seems reasonable to the team and to your sponsor. Creating a list of project deliverables and tasks is relatively easy and can be done with a word processing or spreadsheet program, but calculating project timelines and the critical path is cumbersome work. Project management software does this work automatically, which saves a lot of time when you’re crashing or revising a project plan.
Creating a RACI matrix
When lots of people are working on a project, they often have different opinions about their roles and responsibilities. You need to establish a clear understanding of what everyone is doing to make sure that all the tasks are completed. It’s much easier to set expectations up front than to confront misunderstandings later on.
For any task in a project, a team member can have four roles:
Responsible: The team member is responsible for helping to complete a task. If the task requires someone to do work or make a decision, that person is responsible for working on that task until it’s complete.
Accountable: The team member is the only person who is ultimately accountable for getting the task done. The accountable owner may need to make the decisions and do the work. Or she may need to prod and poke her team members to do the work. When it comes time to ask “Is this task complete?” the accountable owner is the person whose career and credibility are on the line.
Consult: The team member should be asked to provide input for a task, but he isn’t the one doing the task, and he isn’t making decisions.
Inform: The team member needs to be notified that a task is occurring or that it has been completed.
Assigning people to these four roles makes it easier to communicate what each team member has to do for your project to be successful. You can document the roles with a RACI matrix (Responsible – Accountable – Consult – Inform, pronounced race see).
Using a RACI matrix like the one in Figure 4-5, you list all the tasks in your project and define the role for each of your team members in supporting each task. If there is disagreement about someone’s role on a task, you have a chance to resolve it on paper before it creates a problem for your project. Read horizontally, a RACI matrix makes it very easy for the project manager to know who needs to be involved for each task to get done. Read vertically, a RACI matrix shows each person’s role and tasks.
FIGURE 4-5: Sample RACI matrix.
Designing project scorecards
Tracking the progress of a project is the key to figuring out what’s working, what’s not working, and where you need to focus resources to keep a project on track. One of the most effective ways to track a project is to use a scorecard and update it on a regular basis. For most projects, I recommend doing weekly updates at the same time every week; for slower-moving projects, monthly or quarterly updates are fine. In some cases, things change so fast that you need daily or even hourly updates.
The project scorecard should make it easy for anyone to tell at a glance how a project is doing — whether it’s ahead of schedule and under budget or behind schedule and over budget; whether things are going as planned, or whether unplanned risks are putting the project in jeopardy. Following are the items I like to include in a scorecard and update every week:
Status of major deliverables: Which deliverables have been completed and whether they were on time, early, or late
Recent accomplishments: New things that have been completed since the last time the scorecard was updated
Upcoming tasks: Things that the team will be working on between now and when the scorecard is updated in the future
Risks and concerns: Unexpected challenges and issues that are causing problems or that could interfere with the project
Having this information at your fingertips in a scorecard makes it much easier to manage well, reward people for their accomplishments, and help them deal with challenges. If you understand what is happening, what should be happening, and what might happen, you can make better decisions faster. Other pieces of information can add value to a scorecard, such as information about budget performance, quality ratings, and employee engagement. To build a good scorecard, understand what information you need to track to keep everyone on the same page and ensure the success of your cross-functional supply chain projects.
Figure 4-6 shows an example scorecard that makes it easy to communicate four essential pieces of information about the status of a project.
