Project Management

The Fifth “R” of Reporting – Regret

by

So you’re a Program Manager or Project Manager. You’ve been trying to get your reports working. I’ve let you through the first four stages of reporting – Reporting, Researching, Relating, and Revealing. You run the reports, study it, connect it, and then reveal the whole giant shebang.

This leads to stage five, my favorite stage.

Regret.

(Now the fact that this is my favorite stage sounds a bit sadistic, but I’ll cover that next.)

So you now the whole reporting structure is laid bare. T he sources of data apparent. The ways information is interpreted is known. And in most cases, people can now, in an informed and intelligent manner, panic.

Because know what? This is probably not what people expected.

That’s great. But my guess is that there’s going to be some Regret.

First of all, the Regret is honest. It comes from an informed, if now panic-laden, opinion based on all the hard research you’ve done. In short, it’s a good, honest worry.

Secondly, the Regret is shared. All the reporting is out in the open and people know that any concern is honest and why it exists.

Third, the Regret is a motivator. Which is not the yes motivator, but it’s one you’re very likely to encounter, so you might as well get it out of the way.

Fourth, it gets things out publicly and thus sets a good example for honestly. You, the owner (formally or informally) of the reporting are showing the truth of things – and in a way offering to fix it (which you were going to do anyway). People will follow that example.

As one of my managers once put it, to paraphrase, “I’m glad I know what’s going on and feel bad that I know what’s going on.” Then noted I should fix it. Now admittedly he was a great manager, but I think you’ll notice similar results from others you work with.

(And if things are good? Awesome. Enjoy. Because I find even the usual “report decay” sets in pretty quickly.)

So now you’ve got a nice, good proper regret at what’s bad going on.

Now it’s time to fix it.

And why is this my favorite stage?  Because of the sheer honestly.  These moments we find flaws, these moments we truly admit the mistakes and errors, are moments where we grow and where we can admit mistakes.  There’s an honesty to seeing problems and then addressing them.  There’s also the humbling experiences when you see mistakes made, even by others, and you can admit your own flaws.

And then we’re on to our next stage . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Reporting – The First R is . . . Reporting

by

Last week I mentioned why Reporting, in a way is a core part of the P(x)M jobs – Program, Project, and even Product Managers. Basically knowing is core to what we do, reporting is key to knowing, so like it or not it’s a part of your job. Fortunately I like reporting, which is both an advantage an possibly a cry for help.

So what happens when you come onto a new project and need reporting to run? Well that’s my next focus here, and I’m going to explain my seven stages of reporting, each of which conveniently begins with “R”. It’s like the five stages of grief with spreadsheets and my usual display of anal-retentiveness.

When you come onto a project, one of the first things you need to do is get reporting running so you and everyone else are informed about what’s going on. Admittedly when you know what’s going on it could result in panic, but we’ll actually cover that in stage five.

So what’s your first step in getting reporting running.

Step One is . . . Reporting.

Read more

Reporting And Project/Program Management

by

One of the most important tasks of a Project/Program Manager (even if they don’t call you that) is reporting.

That may sound odd. It’s supposed to be management, or projects, to tracking things. Which is of course core to what you do, but just because people are managers doesn’t mean management is the most important task. Management can only happen in the right environment and place.

An environment and place where you, the manager, are properly informed and aware.

It doesn’t matter how organized you are, how well you plan, how well you update your gantt charts, or if you’re SCRUM certified if you lack information and if you don’t know you have the right information. No matter your skills and abilities and inclinations, you have to know in order to manage, and if you don’t know you can’t do your job.

That comes back to what I said – reporting is one of the most important tasks of Project and Program Management.

Good reporting is all about making sure information flows to and from the right people, in the right format, and that includes yourself. Without that information flow you can’t do your job, people can’t know what their jobs are, no one knows what’s going on – and you’re probably going to get blamed for it. In fact things could be a complete mess reporting-wise and you may not even know it since . . . reporting is so bad.

Again, reporting is one of the most important tasks for people in the Project/Program Management profession.

In fact we have to work on it even if it’s not officially our job. Because we stand in the middle of everything and know how things work. Because information can flow to us and often does, even if it’s half-baked. In short, because we’re in the best position to make reporting work unless someone has specifically been given that job (whoever that poor sot is).

I’d like to see more of this covered in Project/Program and even Product Management training.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.