rockstar.esq Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 I'm in a fortunate position to have won enough bids for profitable work that my daily duties have shifted to project management. After a good month of this, I've had things I'd previously checked off my to-do list finding their way back on. Tasks that just "won't die" are consuming a whole lot of time. Last night my wife was talking about her work when it struck me that she was having the same kind of problem. In an effort to figure out what's causing it, I came up with the following: Lack of planning Poor communication Lack of follow-through Debate based on speculation Bypassing Chain of Command and lastly, Difficult people. Does that cover it? Are there any items I missed? Moving past those causes, any tips on "killing" those tasks that keep coming back? Thanks, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Coke Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 Greetings Rockstar, My advice is to pick a point and stay focused on it. You can’t give it your best or solve all the problems if your mind is on the big picture. When this works pass on your successful method to our government. Forge on and make beautiful things Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc1 Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 I wouldn't try to label the problem. In fact I wouldn't even call it a problem. Rather a result of how we think and act. An overwhelming number of to do task will invariably look daunting and we will therefore avoid the lot. I tend to accumulate task in the to do list and in my case, the only way I can overcome all of them is by doing one at the time and don't worry about the others. Another thing I keep at the forefront of my consciousness is that I am neither infallible nor omnipotent and so, I delegate the unpleasant tasks as much as possible, sell what I don't need or haven't used for 2 years, and leave enough time aside for leisure. Works for me ... now about my wife ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Whoa!... You got into a grey area with me. 21 minutes ago, Marc1 said: sell what I don't need or haven't used for 2 years, As soon as I do that I need it the next day! Lol. All kidding aside, I feel like some of this is affecting my day job. SOPs are not followed, lack of motivation from people in the chain process, and the chain process relying on the guys needing to Do the job to be writing the job and then after, the writers plug in the items needing to be done without much hands on. Then being asked what we wrote, then being asked by parts what we needed. Then getting wrong/ damaged parts and correcting that. Waiting on an ok to start repairs, not getting info then getting second hand info and going through the chain ( hunting down the writer) to see if it is legitimate so we can start repairs. On and on and none of it it touch time on repairing the vehicle. I work in a body shop so I might be way in left field about what this is about. Just throwing in some of what I deal with as far as immortal tasks. We are actually having an SOP meeting Friday to discuss it but in my futilist view of it, nothing will change. Other times it has seemed to ramp up for a day or two then back to fallout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustAnotherViking Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Implementing agile project management. Every piece of work relating to a single project is broken down into simpler tasks. Work is then estimated by all involved parties, and any prerequisites identified during the planning stage. At regular intervals, 'stand up' meetings allow all involved parties to discuss any issues, successes, and the whole plan can be reviewed on the fly. (you literally stand up to prevent people getting comfortable and wasting time on pointless meetings. short and to the point.) At the completion of the project, a longer sit down retrospective meeting should be carried out with everyone involved to identify successes, failures, improvements, etc. The next project takes these on board. This methodology addresses the communication issues, and prevents people from running away and hiding from their allocated tasks as they are accountable during the regular stand up meetings. This approach was first implemented for managing software development projects, but has since been successfully applied to all other manners of industry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmbobnick Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 You might check out "Six Sigma" as a way to get on top of such recurring problems and the inefficiencies they cause. Essentially, one tackles the process problem(s) by defining it, measuring it, analyzing, improving and finally controlling it. It relies heavily on statistics. Not hard to find info about it on the web, and there is even a book called "Six Sigma for Dummies" out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Defined Process! and then explaining to others why they can't bypass the process... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstar.esq Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 Viking, I've only read about Agile management, I've never participated or even seen it in practice. I suspect it will be slow to penetrate fields with "routine" tasks. Sure, every building is different, but the bureaucratic processes in management are largely routine. Das, I don't think you're in left field at all. This kind of thing has been common whenever I've done a job that didn't have punitive deadlines. A lot of Project Managers wouldn't want to estimate because the deadlines are very stressful. I see these tasks that just never die as a more consistently annoying stress. It's like a pebble in your shoe. Marc1, I appreciate where you're coming from, but I'm not talking about the overall difficulty. There's an old riddle that pertains to this. In a bacon and egg breakfast, what's the difference between the Chicken and the Pig? The Chicken is involved, but the Pig is committed! I'm contractually committed to the project, but these tasks require the input of people who don't have much stake in it's success. Even if they're professional and motivated, the context affecting the issues gets lost in the bureaucracy. If I tell them I need immediate direction to avoid impacting the schedule, I'll either get a fast reply without direction, or I'll get direction two weeks after we've fallen behind. Jim, I can see the wisdom in your approach. I'm stuck in the middle of say six people, with the outermost two being the source and the resolution of a problem respectively. Neither one is paid nor punished for their performance on the job. A few minutes of direct communication between the two would resolve a month worth of mindless back and forth for me. That's against the rules, because anything off the record isn't contractually enforceable. It's also against the rules of professional conduct to hold anyone responsible for being unprofessional. I have long suspected that the people who write the rules know that human nature will create "unintended consequences" that just so happen to promote more bureaucracy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustAnotherViking Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 9 minutes ago, rockstar.esq said: I've only read about Agile management, I've never participated or even seen it in practice It took us several years to successfully implement along with quite a few failures, and giving up completely more than once. Now that it's a big part of company culture, I'm in a position I can deliver complex products and bespoke work in a fraction of the time our closest competitors can. It also allows us to be more reactive to changing markets and situations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstar.esq Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 Viking, I wouldn't doubt it. The accountability and transparency you described would probably drive off the people causing most of my problems. Unfortunately, we don't get to control the process. The best we can do is to pursue clients who do a better job but that's still a poor solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc1 Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Quote Marc1, I appreciate where you're coming from, but I'm not talking about the overall difficulty. There's an old riddle that pertains to this. In a bacon and egg breakfast, what's the difference between the Chicken and the Pig? The Chicken is involved, but the Pig is committed! I'm contractually committed to the project, but these tasks require the input of people who don't have much stake in it's success. Even if they're professional and motivated, the context affecting the issues gets lost in the bureaucracy. If I tell them I need immediate direction to avoid impacting the schedule, I'll either get a fast reply without direction, or I'll get direction two weeks after we've fallen behind. Mm ... reminds me my time in a government office that investigated fraud. To learn and become proficient and have some results it would take a person a minimum of 2 years. Our small team of 10 had over 200 years of combined experience and had the best results in the country. Management and politicians dreamed at night to share our success and pretend it was their doing. So they deviced "innovation". Contracted a team of programmers to build a software platform to "help us". ... The problem was that the software team got paid to build something that only we could evaluate, yet our feedback went to the politicians who had a different agenda. The software as expected was a complete failure and any off the shelf product would have been better, and the perfect outcome would have been scrapping the lot and let us work. For 5 years we had the software producers that wanted to keep their job and so were not interested in outcome only in perpetuation, the politicians who wanted to have photo opportunities and pats on the back, and us who wanted the job done without interference. 3 different groups with different motivation pretending to work together for a common goal that wasn't. one team trying to recover taxpayers money and two teams trying desperately to find ways to toss the money up in the air ... I do miss that job Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstar.esq Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 Marc1, I'm grateful not to be dealing with that stuff! Somewhat tangentially I had a situation a few months back where I was checking in on a job I'd bid. The person I'd been working with had left the company so the department head was answering their emails. They told me the contract had gone to a competitor, we were close, etc. etc. better luck next time. I responded that the guy who'd left had invited me to bid on the job as a negotiated (no competition) agreement. The job was poorly defined and he needed a contractor to help them figure things out. Which I did over the course of several months. We had been told the job was approved and that we should expect a contract any time now. The department head called me immediately. Very polished person who swiftly laid the blame at the departed workers feet while assuring me that wasn't how they did business. I politely responded that I'd had similar experience with several of their employees in the past. The department head wasn't curious about any of that. They repeated their assurances before shifting into a run-down of all these projects they wanted me to bid on. To recap, I find out that I got used for free consultation from the head of the department who offered no apology, nor correction for wrong-doing. When I told them this was a pattern of behavior, they tried to convince me to trust them on several more bids. I have to hand it to the department head, they stand in front of a dumpster fire and claim it's a tanning salon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc1 Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Run away from such "customers" as far as you possibly can ... and then a mile further Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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