Converse to Manage and Manage to Converse

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

JobWarden believes that project management must be conversational to be effective.

I recently read a weblog posting that sums this up perfectly, exceptfor two small details, which I will address in a minute. But first, let me quote Paul Burdick, a developer at Expression Engine (emphasis and edits below added by me.) Paul says:

[ a user] sent me an email this weekend asking if I might write an entry about how a small team like ours manages ideas, tasks, and projects when developing software. The question is actually slightly loaded because while there are two developers at pMachine (Rick and I), there is actually far more that each of us does through the course of our work that is not development¹ related. I hesitate to put forth that only about half of my time is focused on active development for our software. Does that sound suspiciously improbable to you considering the amount going on with the company and our level of development? I suspect it might. And yet, develop software is what we must do to keep the pMachine ship going. With the fluidity of our days (and nights) though, an organized project management routine would simply fall apart at pMachine² I know this regularly freaks [another team member] out because he is not used to such a lack of structure, but it works for us and works well.

Unfortunately Paul's original article has disappeared fromthe the ExpressionEngine blog (formerly pMachine) so the link does notwork anymore ... you will have to take my word for it that the above quote is accurate. Now, regarding how JobWarden deals with this, starting with my two highlights in the above quotation:

1. Very few of us have the luxury of being able to maintain a total focus on the job or project at hand. This why we think it is important to treat a project or job as an ongoing conversation which might have to be interrupted from time to time, without losing the thread. It is quite difficult to do so if all the participants are not privy to the entire conversation, including the asides and occasional mutterings - requirements that applications such as E-mail and most middleware systems simply do not facilitate.
2. Formal project management systems tend to fall apart when smaller teams try to use them, for the simple reason that they impose overheads that do not contribute materially to the successful pursuit of the jobs at hand; either that or they become a frustrating distraction.

Wethink that most small to medium sized operations have perforce tooperate in the fluid environment which Paul describes, and that is whywe designed JobWarden to be conversational in nature - conversations can be started, stopped, interrupted and the subject can be changed at will. Most importantly, all participants have a voice.

Try that with a Gantt chart!

Now for the Two Small Details

What Paul fails to mention (because it is totally obvious to the enthusiasts who use the ExpressionEngine product) is the critical need to keep customers andother stakeholders informed. In this regard:

• He and Rick handle their customer information interface perfectly, serving customers all over the world. Through the simple devices of their forums, a wiki and their website, they provide up-to-date information on every conceivable subject relating to their products. Technically therefore, these things are ALL part and parcel of their "project management system."
• On the other hand, he does not mention his incoming logistics problems (if indeed he has any) such as those which roofing contractors, legal offices, dental labs or municipal projects (for example) have to contend with. These require that suppliers also need to be fully in the loop without their conversations necessarily being visible to the business's clients or to each other. Nor should the clients' conversations neccessarily be visible to the suppliers. In other words, some conversations may have to be more private, but they must be conversations nevertheless. Which in turn necessitates an ability to easily excerpt or edit private conversations for use "across the divide" so to speak.

We have designed JobWarden to these needs with special attention to the environment in which smaller operations have to survive, by ensuring that the overheads are as low as we can make them, while covering the main bases. You can find more detail here if you would like to see how we provide a simple but effective tool for keeping project participants of all kinds informed and involved in the conversation.

A Word on Project/Job Terminology

When I contract with a plumber to install or upgrade a bathroom, both of us treat the ensuing effort as a JOB and we both refer to it as such. But for some reason if I tackle the same JOB myself, it magically becomes a PROJECT. There is not much logic to this, other perhaps than the fact that I expect the job to take up more time if I do it myself, and because it may stretch my skills, whereas my contractor will do the job more as a routine and to a familiar rhythm. It seems that project management systems are not referred to as "job management systems" because of some inherent quality of projects. We think this is a bad assumption.

For this less than weighty reason, JobWarden uses the terms "job" and "project" interchangeably.

We though you might want to know.