10 mistakes to avoid for data warehouse project managers

Posted on March 29, 2007
Filed Under Business Intelligence, Project Management, Technology | Leave a Comment

This is an excerpt of the complete article on TDWI. The article, with the same title, is for members only. Hope you enjoy.

Mistake 1. Failing to Use a Methodology
Mistake 2. Ineffective Project Team Structure
Mistake 3. Failing to Involve the Business People
Mistake 4. Failing to Have Application Releases
Mistake 5. Failing to Have an Active Project Charter
Mistake 6. Lack of a Readiness Assessment
Mistake 7. Inadequate Testing
Mistake 8. Underestimating Data Cleansing Efforts
Mistake 9. Ignoring Metadata
Mistake 10. Being a Slave to Project Management Tools

Technorati Tags: Data Warehouse, Project Managers, Data Marts, Business Intelligence, Mistakes

Workplace Issues #7: Difficult Clients

Posted on June 11, 2006
Filed Under Project Management, Workplace Issues | Leave a Comment

Dealing with difficult clients, whether internal or external, can be a trying experience at best. In the worst-case scenario, difficult clients can put a project at risk. The contention could be due to the client’s history of dissatisfaction with your company, a clash of personalities between you and the client, or other less obvious reasons. Handling clients is not only crucial for the current projects, but for repeatable business.At a birds eye view, suggested ways to deal with clients are:

• Listen carefully to the client, even if it is all criticism. Question the customer so as to uncover the reason behind the difficult situation.
• Do not interrupt the client immediately, and often. If the situation turns abusive, politely ask to tone the language. Do not be counter abusive.
• Keep a record of all types of communication - written and voice mails. If any ad hoc conversation took place, and some decisions were made, email a confirmation on what was decided and file it for record keeping.
• See the point of contention from a different perspective, better from the client’s view. A second pair of eyes or ears can always throw more light, when none existed before.
• When interactions get difficult or uncomfortable, remember that the goal is not to win the confrontation but to understand the root cause behind it. Avoid arguments and acknowledge different viewpoints.
• Be encouraging and genuinely helpful. Often people become hostile when they feel frustrated or confused.
• Stay calm. If you can’t stay calm, terminate the call or meeting until you can respond less heatedly.

However, not all human beings are the same. So different types of clients may need different type of handling. Some types of clients, and ways to deal with them are provided below.

• The Negotiator: A common pattern amongst clients is to want lots of extras as part of the project, at no cost to them. Such clients usually are not interested in a long term relationships with vendors, and will use almost any technique to get more delivered. Some may even be rude and blunt. How to respond: Stay cool and ensure the client sticks to the rules. If the client doesn’t, arrange a high-level company representative to occasionally facilitate the liaison process. Negotiators will stop being difficult when they reach the best possible deal.
• The Worrier: Some clients are paranoids, but fundamentally a nice person. These are prone to calling people at weird hours, often every day, asking for detailed analysis of the project. The paranoia may be justified because they usually have more to prove (to their management) and the success of the project may mean a whole lot more to them than you. How to respond: Reassure the client that you’ll apprise him or her of all updates. It is not possible to maintain this level of communication, without being drained out. So gradually delay responding to the calls and e-mails until you can establish the appropriate frequency of communication. That is when worriers typically learn to trust you.
• The Remote Controller: Some clients believe it’s their job to run the project. While some of them may be savvy enough, most are just managers in the client organization who are good at managing people. They turn up on day one with an amateur project plan, assuming that it’s your job to follow it verbatim. How to respond: Ask them five polite questions to which they won’t know the answer in order to help them develop confidence in you.
• The Royal Visitor: This is a seriously difficult individual who is frequently friendly but status-aware. These characters know that they hold enormous corporate-level influence both over the project and possibly over your career. How to respond: Focus on professional delivery, despite the temptation to over deliver or knuckle under.
• The Bee Clones: These are, often, people who are either extremely busy or cant find the time attend the most useful meetings. They often never check project related emails, or read the progress reports. Yet they complain indignantly when they can no longer avoid emergent issues. How to respond: Try to set up some 1-1 time with such stake holders. Its important that they are aware of what is happening in the project. It also gets their attention and proves you’re keen to help.
• The Buck Pushers: There will always be some clients that won’t make a decision, when its theirs to make. If the decision is related to the project, and particularly one that indicates a major change in the direction of the project—don’t make it for them. How to respond: Flag the problem in your reports and work around it as best you can. Always provide a date of resolution, failing which either the project will be stopped or a decision will be made on the clients behalf. Under no circumstance, should you make the decision for the client unless the client has understood the rationale and the consequences.
• The Police: This is the type of client who will pay undue attention to book learning and formal rules. They will hold you to the details of the contract or the project specification, even after you have uncovered a better solution. How to respond: Even if they won’t listen to you, they’re paying for it, so deliver what they want with grace—these are quick to litigate.

Technorati Tags: Workplace Issues, Client Interaction, Client Types, Dealing with Clients

Project Initiation

Posted on April 10, 2006
Filed Under Project Management | Leave a Comment

Project initiation is the process of defining what the business objective are, and the planning of action steps needed to accomplish the stated business objectives. A project is usually initiated between the project sponsors - one representing the client and one for the vendor. The project sponsors should identify the project managers, in charge of the execution and define the project office staff. Once the core is assembled, a formal meeting is arranged to notify all stakeholders that the project has begun, and make sure everyone has an understanding of their roles and responsibilities.

The kickoff meeting is a time to get all the team members, clients and stakeholders together and formally set the stage for the start of the project. Like all formal meetings, there should be an agenda. The main agenda is to sell the business plan, however there are a number of specific things that need to be covered.

• Introduce the people at the meeting, along with their responsibilities.
• Recap the information in the Project Definition, including:
• Project Objectives
• Financial & Other benefits
• Scope
• Major deliverables
• Risks
• Assumptions
• Estimated effort and budget
• Timeline
• Discuss the methodology that will be used, any frameworks to assist rapid deployments. This will give all an overall idea of how the project will unfold.
• Discuss the feasibility of the project, and assess the success rate for on-time on-budget delivery.
• Maintain a parking lot of any outstanding questions. Allow people to voice specific questions or concerns they have as the project begins.
• Confirm that the project is now underway. If it was not before, it should be starting immediately.

As a starting reference, use the following checklist to assess the depth of coverage for the initiation meeting.

• Make sure the statement of work (SOW) is signed and cleared.
• Ensure that a project manager is appointed.
• Be prepared to discuss and delegate responsibilities for Project plan, Quality plan, Configuration management, risk management, documentation and project logs.
• Decide on project control procedures and reporting mechanism (and frequency). Commit to milestone and delivery reporting.
• Record all all internal and external communications.
• Methodology, frameworks and tool sets to be used needs to be defined.
• Criteria should be defined for both acceptance and “success”. Quantify the project benefits at the end of the project.
• Most important of all, obtain buy-in on all of the above from each of the stakeholders and team members.

Upon completion of the kickoff meeting, a project charter needs to be created that records all of the agreed upon terms. The charter needs to be circulated for review and all sign offs should be obtained on time. Take precautions to ensure that the project charter does not contradict the SOW. The SOW is the binding contract, where the project charter is a reference/guidelines document.

Technorati Tags: Project Management, Project Initiation, Kickoff, Project Charter, PID, Plan, Business Case