Engineers - project manaegment

[jhelgesen]

I'm taking a poll of my fellow Engineers.

"How do you track your projects / show status to upper management"

Background:

As engineers, we're all used to time-lines and gantt charts for tracking projects, I think most of us were taught to use them in school. The upper management I work with has all sorts of business tools to track "issues", but none of them work well for design related items.

So I need to find a Rossetta stone of engineering project management.

What methods do you use for project tracking and how do send that information up the ladder? How do you show your status, without having to explain in great detail to non-engineers or going into the n-th degree explanations?

Thanks!

[Paul_Heery]

BTDT.

All of our PMs used to use Microsoft Project. We were actually looking at a Project Server, but decided against it. One of the biggest problems was the need to "dumb down" the reports for upper management. That was taking up considerable effort each week. We looked around and found an Open Source project called ]project-open[. That gave us the ability to create specialized dashboards for upper management that presented just the information they wanted in a manner that they could understand. It is a very flexible and powerful tool.

[p911dad]

We used dedicated project managers, which were not necessarily prof eng. These staff tracked masses of projects from start to completion and interacted with the functional managers(folks actually doing the projects) to gather certain data. The FMs were always actual engineers. The PMs reported on the progress up the chain to the Planners(money guys) for a monthly discussion on project status in person with the group directors and general manager. The PMs could be called into the meeting as a resource if needed for more detail. Our GM really only wanted the executive summary(on time, not on time, money good?, problems, need more resources, etc) rather than the mind numbing details. The Planner hosted the meeting.
The PMs often had friction with the FMs because the PMs did not have any authority over the FMs, who perceived the PMs as time wasters on their tight schedules. The PMs reported to Planning, while the FMs reported to their group directors.

[island911]

John, your Q seems to presuppose that the perfect management tool would be some sort of moving status bar, such as when downloading a media file. IMO any manager worth a damn is involved enough to ask the right questions (efficiently). --one reason engineers make good managers of engineers.

[911nut]

I use Microsoft Project Manager for my own use but generally I'll just bullet point a page of milestones for managers only because Project Manager is hard to read. Most managers don't have a long enough attention span to read PM

[juan ruiz]

Microsoft Project Manager here too

[legion]

(Not an engineer, but am in a project-driven environment.)

We have a lot of home-grown tools for tracking defects, status, etc... We use some off-the-shelf software for schedule tracking.

We have someone who literally coalesces all of the data from the various tools and rates projects as Green (good), Yellow (borderline), or Red (in trouble) for management. Sure, there's a lot of data in the spreadsheet we send to management, but we all know they only look at the colors...

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by 911nut

I use Microsoft Project Manager for my own use but generally I'll just bullet point a page of milestones for managers...

I use this approach, too.

[Scott R]

We use what could be the worst product ever for engineering efforts.. "Clarity." It's a "CA product" (Computer Associates) and it's driving us crazy. The damn thing has 100's of fields to fill in, including time lines and time tracking. It can take more time to fill out a Clarity form than it can to engineer a new project.

[guru944]

I suggest PM and Outlook for managing your projects and Teams.
You can run bi-monthly reports and track deliverables , milestones, budgets, evaluatios, clients specs, Etc. with this combo.

Great topic.

Best regards,

[serge944]

One thing I've learned - upper management likes pictures, numbers, charts, etc. They don't want details - big picture. "Can I get a metric on that?"

[jcommin]

I use Microsoft Project for my projects. I use it for identify tasks, schedule and the person responsible. The number of tasks are quite detailed. I use multiple calenders because allot of my projects are international; so holidays / time can play a big factor in achieving tasks. I also crate a shipping calender because it is 24/7 based. I do account for for some slips in shipping schedules; especially true for overseas shipping.

Microsoft Project is a great tool - I use this all of the time but I do not use it to track cost.

For that I use Excel. I essentially use the task list I create on Project. Each task can have expense and capital cost each of which I track. I createe estimates for each task (which is used to establish a budget) and track the actual cost along side the estimated cost. I identify the actual cost as either capital or expense.
I do this monthly as I need to report expenditures to Finance monthly. I need to know when/where the project when asked.

On Project reporting to the Plant and Senior Management level: no one wants the 'labor pains or delivery', they want the baby. I must put my progress on the approved Power Point templates. It's more or a high view of the project. I don't cut/copy/paste my Project or Excel files. It comes down to: Is the project on time, on budget and can you accelerate the completion so the savings (ROI) can start sooner.

I have learned to play to my audience.

[IROC]

Two different companies I have worked for use a system called EVMS (Earned Value Management System). It is basically Microsoft Project on steroids. It is a system that - using Project - assigns value (labor hours, generally) to tasks and then schedule and cost variances can be calculated based on percent completions for each task.

[red-beard]

I used Project for GANTT charts. A lot of our task based low level stuff was simply done on spreadsheets, since our management was el cheapo. I also have used Task Assignment in Outlook, with little success since the people didn't pay attention.

SAP has project modules with cost, scheduling, etc, but see el cheapo comment above.

Right now, I plan our tasks with individual folders named for the due dates. I would like a scheduling system where I name the task, set the date, attach weblinks and files. One of my neighbors creates workspaces using some Microsoft tool and tool database. At somepoint, I'll work towards that kind of a system.

[kycarguy 935]

This is what I am in school for right now and will be finished in 2 months. We used Microsoft Project Manager also.

[jhelgesen]

Here is current state....

This is "the big board" that our operations side uses to track every order, quality blip, and production issue. There are daily stand up meetings that last at least an hour every day so that upper management can get an update of today's milestones....




This is the "engineering board" that tracks engineers project by hours remaining.



Where I'm at is the big board is too much detail. The area managers should be driving their people and these tasks should never make it to upper management.

The engineering board is too hands off. Each Eng is expected to keep the board up to date, but no one uses it.

I'm on board with MS project is the way to go, but we have to use a "company tool". We like boards driven by markers and crayons...

[island911]

Originally Posted by jhelgesen

... Each Eng is expected to keep the board up to date, but no one uses it.
......

Seriously, WTH do the managers do? ...pester engineers about tracking management minutia?

Managers who push their responsibilities onto the engineers are asking for, at best, mediocre engineering/project outcomes. I know that engineers are responsible smart people, and from a managers perspective, it's easy to think "hey, Mr. Engineer, do this/ track that. .. " But, really, good management will keep as much of that burden off the engineers as possible.

[djmcmath]

Originally Posted by island911

John, your Q seems to presuppose that the perfect management tool would be some sort of moving status bar, such as when downloading a media file. IMO any manager worth a damn is involved enough to ask the right questions (efficiently). --one reason engineers make good managers of engineers.

You're right, of course, but most of us don't have the luxury of managing projects for people who are "worth a damn." The guy who gives technical direction on one of my projects is still proud of the fact that he takes his laundry home on weekends for his mother to do. This guy is a poster child for the "project completion as a media file download" status chart. I once presented a schedule to him as an MS Project file, complete with resource allocations, critical chain labeling, buffers for risk, the whole works. He said it was terrible. So I removed most of the detail, put it on a single PowerPoint slide, and put an applicable graphic in the background. Same data, different presentation. He loved it, and used it to "manage" the project schedule from then on out.

I use a variety of means to update my chain of command, though mostly they prefer in-person delivery. If I send an e-mail with a slide or spreadsheet, they ask me to come explain it, so I end up just making the hike across the street and talking through status anyway.

Dan

[jhelgesen]

Hi guys, thought I would bring this up again for an update.

I've been sharing the research from my peers and getting positive feedback, so now I'm looking at how to implement MS Project as a tool to drive our activities, more than just one engineer tracking his tasks. I know software isn't the fix-all for poor management practices, I'm looking at it as a tool to help change our core methods.

So for those using MS Project, how far do you use it? Any project managers driving tasks through Project server?

[Danimal16]

Microsoft project works ok as a level 1 or 2 tool and is very useful in communicating with upper management. The only thing that it is cumbersome with is resource leveling and therefore the critical path calcs are more seat of the pants.

I concur with the other posters that non-project managers really do not understand the use of proper resource leveled critical path schedules. As a matter of fact many times these types of schedules will put non-technical managers on report for missing critical deadlines. Also the management and the legal department who generally have very little understanding about linked tasks come to hate a proper schedule as it shows a commitment by both the owner and the contractor. Early start, late start and float are alien to these managers. Ask me how I know.

The last tool that I used did require a dedicated staff but is a magnificent program that does it all was the stuff by Primavera. Great stuff but oft times can be over complex. MS project, powerpoint and Excell, more than likely can be used to get the job done.