This is a great article on strategies on how to keep your composure in difficult situations. I’ve tried taking a walk before and that helped, but I really like the suggestion for writing, as well as asking your “Invisible Counselors”.
“To lead effectively, you must keep your composure in front of your team. The tactics we cover will help you navigate the most challenging of situations.”
Did you know you can sort horizontally (left to right or right to left) in excel? I didn’t until a few days ago and I wish I knew this a long time ago.
How to sort columns by the contents of a particular row:
This allowed me to sort a set of columns by their name in the first row, and then sort by the total of that column again later to show the highest totals together.
I finally figured out how to create a schedule that you can build in reverse so you know when you need to start!
Step 1: Change new tasks to Auto Scheduled
Step 2: Show the constraint column in the table view part (this is so you have quick access to the type of constraint on each task)
Step 3: Create a milestone task with a “Must finish on” constraint set to the date you want the project to end.
Step 4: Build the project in reverse, adding tasks above the final milestone and adding dependencies as you normally would. (make sure you have a proper chain from the last task to the first task) Make sure that all the tasks you are adding have the “As late as possible” constraint.
Now, if all your tasks are set to “as late as possible” and you have a milestone that “must finish on” a set date, you can adjust the duration of any task and it will move all of the earlier tasks backwards!
Note: this post was originally published back on 2014-07-23 but it has been one of my most popular posts based upon my google analytics so on 2018-09-17 I updated this post with images to help make it more clear.
Say thanks in the comments if this helped you!
Below is the SlideShare based upon my previous post on Construction Cash Allowances.
Below are 9 awesome books that I think every Construction Project Manager must read. These books will make you much more effective and help you stand out.
And please note, if you buy anything using these affiliate links, you may be enabling my addiction to tech gadgets.
In this book, Daniel Pink describes how we are all involved in what he refers to as “non-sales selling” in that we are constantly trying to convince people to depart with their time, effort, and resources in exchange for something we have. This is extremely relevant in construction as many of the relationships we have with Contractors and Consultants (sometimes even our Sponsors) are very adversarial. The author’s strategies are extremely relevant to negotiating with contractors, building officials, and other consultants.
One of the most recognized certifications for Project Managers is the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) designation, and I highly recommend getting it. To get your PMP you need to pass their exam and there are several different exam prep books that will help you prepare. I recommend the head first PMP book because I love their approach. They tell stories, they make it visual, and they have lots of activities to keep all the different parts of your brain engaged. It may seem a little hokey at first, but if you do every exercise in the book I think the effectiveness of their technique will surprise you.
One of the primary things you will be doing as a Project Manager is communicating in writing. One key aspect of communicating effectively is to not distract or confuse the reader through poor spelling and grammar. This book is a fun and good read about some of the top principles about grammar. Reading this will make your communication more effective and will improve your results.
This book goes hand in hand with Eats, Shoots and Leaves and is a quick read and a great reference book for your written communication. This is a classic and will greatly improve your written communication. If you follow the high standard set by this book you will get more respect and improve the outcomes of your projects.
There is an immense amount of change on any construction project, and this book provides some amazing insight into how to make changes better. The authors (Chip & Dan Heath) present the material in a very unique and sticky way which makes this a great read. This book will help you streamline changes in your projects (and life) and make them last.
One of the biggest reasons that Project Manager’s exist is to make decisions. And these decisions are often highly complicated and have significant impact. This book provides a framework that will improve the quality of your decisions.
Another prime activity for Project Manager’s is to get people to agree. We are almost always trying to get the sponsor on the same page as the contractor, and the contractor on the same page as the architect, and the entire project team on the same page as the building official. This book presents a framework that focuses on Win-Win outcomes, where both parties come out of the discussion satisfied with the result. This book has greatly affected how I approach any disagreements.
I think that everybody just assumes that Project Manager’s are naturally good with their time, and although this might true for some, many of us have systems put in place to keep ourselves organized. This is a great system for organizing your entire life and has been instrumental in allowing me to manage multiple concurrent projects.
This book is an excellent reference on all things Project Management. It is an extremely dry read, but I like to have a copy close at hand so I can pull up the relevant section when I’m working in that area. What I find most useful is looking through the example inputs and outputs to see if any of these would make sense for my current projects. Having this at arms reach for reference will make you a better project manager.
Update: I created a SlideShare on this same topic.
A Construction Cash Allowance is a financial tool that is included in most of the standard Canadian Construction Document Committee contracts. They are a way of allocating costs to future scope items so that you can worry about the details later.
For a previous retail client we used a cash allowance for the cost to install the refrigeration. As this was part of a larger program this client had chosen to self tender the refrigeration installation in regional bundles. But the final cost wasn’t know yet. What we did was include an estimated amount for the refrigeration installation in the tender documents so that the contractor would include enough overhead and profit in their tender price.
Another possibility is where you have a fixed budget but the scope of various items is not known. You could establish a Cash Allowance for Landscaping, furniture, and security and see what was available at a later date. This allows you to balance the current needs of the client vs market conditions.
We often run into problems when there are multiple very specific Cash Allowances. This can limit your flexibility in the future as if you try to transfer funds between them the contractor may push back or you may require additional approvals from your client.
Let’s say that you decide that you need 3 different cash allowances: $10,000 for security, $50,000 for landscaping, and $140,000 for refrigeration installation giving you a total amount of $200,000. Months go by and it turns out that to integrate the security system at this building to your client’s other facilities is a much more involved task than anticipated and the current estimate is $25,000. Thankfully concurrent to this refrigeration installation tender closed significantly under budget and the client reduced the number of cases required reducing the refrigeration installation costs to $125,000, which is the same total. When you present this reallocation to your contractor he submits a claim for an extra $2,250 as his estimate included different overhead & profit markups for security (20%) vs refrigeration installation (5%). Also your client indicated that as the security costs have increased by 150% we will need to brief his CEO on the increase. A better way is to amalgamate all the cash allowances into one giant cash allowance. You do want to give the contractors some idea of the breakdown so they know what is coming, but I would express this in a range and always treat the cash allowance like one giant pool of money.
The key to using cash allowances correctly is to make sure they are clearly indicated and known by all parties involved so that all the work gets done. These can lead to claims, poor value for the client, and double dipping.
Your mechanical sub-consultant ran out of time and included a note on one of his drawings that the contractor should carry a $5,000 cash allowance for a reverse osmosis system. Most of the bidders catch this note and include an extra $5,000 in their bid.
Unfortunately the evaluation team did not notice that the lowest “compliant” bidder didn’t include this cash allowance. A few weeks go by and the mechanical sub-consultant issues a Supplemental Instruction for the reverse osmosis system and the contractor submits a claim for $5,231 for this work.
The lowest compliant bidder did include this cash allowance but unfortunately you had to disqualify another proponent who was $25,000 less because he omitted the $5,000 cash allowance.
The mechanical sub-trade did include the cash allowance in their price, but as the contractor’s project manager has taken over and their estimator is on vacation, he submits a claim. No one knows about the note on the drawing so they agree to the claim and the contractor bills for both the full amount of the mechanical sub-trades price and the claimed amount.
My recommendation is to use cash allowances carefully. Cash allowances can be a great tool to allow flexibility but if implemented carelessly they can cause you a lot of grief.
The truth of most truths is that they are perception and not, in fact, true. – Simon Sinek
So I’m always on the look out for news tools to help me in my life and work. Well, “on the look out” is a bit of an understatement, as I’m actually almost obsessive about it. I feel some sort of satisfaction in knowing every single way to do something and all the associated pros and cons for each way. In the past I felt this was a strength but I’m starting to realize my productivity is being negatively affected because I keep changing how I do things mid stride. Also, I’ve started to realize that a lot of the different ways of doing things are alarmingly similar and the differences in approaches mean much less than I was lead to believe.
Unsurprisingly the tool sellers are trying to sell us something that cannot be bought.
But that is way too abstract, and you likely don’t have any idea what I’m talking about so I better use an example like to-do list apps.
I don’t know if you have done any research on this but there are thousands of different to-do list apps. Apps like Evernote link into a database of everything, Apple’s reminders are seamlessly integrated into their phones, some apps are designed around seamless collaboration, and the variations go on and on. The customers are trying to buy an organized life, but the developers are just selling tools you can use to become organized. I know I have been sold and re-sold on the lie that if I only change to this new to-do list app, then my life will be organized. But again and again I have failed.
What I’ve finally realized is there is more value in how you use a tool then finding the right tool, and that if I would only stop looking for new tools I could actually spend some time using the ones I already have.
This has all been said before, and I’m sure it will all be said again.
For my job (Project Manager at MHPM Project Managers Inc.) I review a lot of high value invoices from various vendors (general contractors, architects, other consultants, and suppliers).
There is significant risk to any individual or organization that is involved in reviewing invoices as this directly affects the cash flow of other businesses and individuals. Below are the 3 key steps I have taken on my projects to keep myself organized and protect myself, and my company.
Key step # 1: Have a single authoritative invoice log
The first key step is to have a single authoritative log for all the invoices indicating their status. Single means that these is a single location where the official log is stored and any copies are clearly marked as such. Authoritative means that it is 1) constantly updated to reflect the current situation and 2) trusted by all parties involved. To keep it up to date there likely needs to be an invoice log champion who will relentlessly seek to keep it up to date, and in many cases this will be you. To be trusted by everyone the log needs to show the honest truth (no fudging dates to make you look better!) and be available and understandable to others.
Example: I typically use an excel file uploaded to one of our MHPM’s SharePoint sites. Our SharePoint configuration enforces unique document numbers and version control which is a great help when there are copies floating around. As our clients do not have direct access to our SharePoint sites, I email them a PDF copy whenever there are significant updates to the invoice log.
What means what invoice are you tracking. The goal here is to have the bare minimum details required in your log so that if you are handed a random invoice you can look it up in your log to see if you have already logged it. I would err on tracking as little as possible and only adding in additional data if you run into problems. Every additional data point you track takes a few seconds to record and we don’t want to be wasting any time.
The bare minimum you will need to track in your WHAT section is the name of the vendor and their invoice number. If all of your vendors are relatively organized this is all you need.
If you are dealing with a less organized vendor, especially one that does clearly indicate if an invoice is the original or one of the potentially multiple revisions, you will need to include some additional details to be able to distinguish between the invoices provided, and make sure you are not re-reviewing the same invoice twice.
After the vendor name and invoice number, the next best thing to add to your WHAT section is the total amount due. Most invoice revisions affect the amount due so if you have this in your log you can quickly see if you have a new invoice or just a copy of a previously submitted invoice. In addition, if you track the amount due you can use this information to help prioritize your efforts moving outstanding invoices forward. I do caution you to consider the size of the vendor in addition to the amount of the invoice, an individual billing you $5,000 is often much more important to pay quickly than a multinational supplier billing you $10,000.
If you are still not able to uniquely identify the invoices I would suggest slowly adding one of the following items at a time until you have reached your goal of seeing if a random invoice has already been logged.
IN means tracking when the invoice entered your queue. I usually just use a date, but you could specify a time of day if activity is frequent enough.
Example 1: If I came into the office an an invoice was on my desk or chair, I would input the date of the previous business day.
Example 2: If it was emailed to me I would input the date they sent the email.
Example 3: If I was handed the invoice I would enter today’s date.
The reason you want to be clear on this is so that you can accurately defend your progress and productivity. This doesn’t help the invoices get paid any faster but it helps protects you and your company from claims that you are delaying payment. If someone else forgets to give you an invoice, this data will clearly indicate that it is not you who delayed payment.
A key part of the success of this system is to treat all of the un-approved invoices as a to-do list. You should be able to open the log, review this action section and know exactly what needs to be done to move the invoices forward. As with any good to-to list, these items should have a single responsible person, a deadline, and be the single next action required to move this forward.
Example 1: If I received an invoice that claimed that the work was 40% complete, and I needed my co-worker Leighton to verify this on site I would record in the action section: Leighton to confirm if work is 40% complete by Jan 22, 2014.
Example 2: If I received an invoice but the backup provided by the vendor was insufficient to verify that the product was delivered to our warehouse, I would record in the action section: [name of vendor contact] to provide documentation on quantity shipped by Jan 20, 2014.
The final key aspect to this log is to clearly document when the invoice is “done”, but done doesn’t always mean paid, it could be rejected, and a new invoice will have to be submitted to re-start the entire process.
The final key step to success of this system is to treat every single variation of an invoice as a unique invoice. If the vendor sends to two different invoices with the same number, input two rows, one per version. In all cases where you have multiple similar invoices, make a decision as to which one is more correct, and mark the other as rejected.
In all this may seem like a lot of work, but if my past experience is any indication, doing this will save you time in the end as you will be able to confidently respond to any invoicing issue.
If you are diligent in following up on the next actions frequently you could even accelerate payment to your vendors which will vastly improve your relationship with them.