Jaeger Consultants Ltd

When you are given a project to manage more often than not there is neither time nor budget available for formal team building exercises. So the big question is how can we build our team?

I have successfully worked with the following tricks:

1. Have an introduction round during the first team meeting, where everyone shares a fun fact about themselves
2. Have a Value Session – where all say what their 3 top values are. Then you help them align these to the company’s values. You’ll be surprised
3. Start each meeting with a short catch up, where everyone has 1 minute to talk about the biggest achievement of last week. This can be either work related or from their private life
4. Bring coffee / tea and some cake or cookies for tense meetings and spend a few minutes socializing. Start the meeting celebrating a project success with the team.

Go out for a drink after work – at each person’s own cost just to bond. During longer projects, make it a fixture, for example once a month. Take pictures and share them with all

If there is someone who never shows up, spend time with that person and find out what is going on. Involve your team in decisions that need to be made and ask them for input – yes it sounds common place and simple. However in the heat of things often

• Celebrate achievements – for example if a team members got a certification or finished a degree or such, then celebrate it during the next meeting. Have a cake. If no budget is available, you can ask all the others to contribute a little.

The same applies for family events. If someone got married or had a baby etc, then celebrate it

• Spend time with each team member – during this time, do not just talk about the project. Find out what is going on in their life.
• Let the team know – with permission of course – if any team member has someone sick in the family or has lost a relative. Shared sorrow and problems are easier to bear
• Brief your bosses about exemplary performance and ask if it can be rewarded.

Other things that I have seen used successfully:

1. Create a Team Charter, in which the team decides how the team will work together. Questions like, how do we conduct meetings, do we have our computers with us? Do we have our phones with us etc. are agreed in advance. During virtual meetings, how do we prepare ourselves, so that we can avoid disturbance. How do we “punish” those who do not comply with the rules? This could be something like a small contribution into a kitty and the next social drink will be financed together. Agree on the escalation process and on which communication channel is used for what. You can even decide on a secret team name. Have all this put in a poster and hang it up in your office / near your desk.
2. Have a Team event calendar in which you note the fun dates like birthdays, weddings, social drinks etc.
3. Have a social channel, for sharing achievements and family events – I have seen whatsapp groups, Telegram groups, Yammer and similar tools used
4. Do something together over the weekend. This should not be a drink, but maybe go out for lunch, visit a park, go for a hike, go swimming, watch a movie. If you create enough hype about it, most will want to attend. Let the team decide the date.

I think these points already give you ideas. The main aspect is to be creative! Ensure the team has fun together in some way. Ensure that meetings are interactive and that fun also has it’s place.

You do not need formal team building or fancy events to pull your team together. It can be done without a budget and without special time allocation.

This is a very important question, especially when the budget is tight. I am currently working on an article for the next edition of BuildingToday Magazine on this topic. While reading up on the topic I went into 4 research papers from 3 different Kenyan Universities. The specific projects looked at varied from road projects, to housing estates and Ministry of Works Projects. The Papers were done between 2012 – 2016. But the findings were very similar and confirm what I found in my own PM practice:

1. Professional Project Management improves outcome of projects. Projects are delivered with significantly less overrun on schedule and cost, while ensuring that scope and quality are met
2. Projects run by project managers had less interference by stakeholders
3. Projects run by project managers had happier stakeholders due to better communication and reporting
4. Risk mitigation was clearly improved and risks were less costly.

These are just the top shared findings, we could extract much more should we go into more detail. However I think these are already enough strong points for the case. Even in Kenya Construction Projects will fail less often and will usually save money if you involve a professional project manager. If budget is very important to you, then you should hire a professional Construction Project Manager, who is experienced and has a proven track record.

Should you decide against it, you will have to face the consequences, which include significant cost and schedule overruns and possibly poor quality work.

I believe the project managers and construction managers in Kenya should use this as a basis to keep spreading the gospel of project management and it’s benefits. An Architect or Quantity Surveyor might have the skills, but they do have extensive other responsibilities and hence are not effective in project management, since they simply do not have the time.

Look for the BuildingToday Magazine published by the Association of Construction Managers of Kenya (ACMK) coming out in September, for the full article.

As much as we know that about 70% of our work as Project Managers is communication, we often do not spend the time to perfect the art. Today I want to look at the different communication channels and how we can utilize them.

The Basics:

1. Communication is of utmost importance. It needs to be done effectively both internally & externally
2. We need to meet the communication needs of all stakeholders, internal & external. None should be forgotten or insufficiently communicated to
3. Communication Channels in a Project:

• Calculate Number of Communication Channels:

• No.3 shows clearly that we need to lay internal ground rules:

A Team Charter and a Communication Plan will help avoiding miscommunication.

1. We need to ensure the team is clear who communicates to the external stakeholders
   1. What means of communication needs to be used for whom
   1. What is communicated to the outside and when
   1. What is not communicated to the outside
2. If not carefully done communication can cause major issues, a careless word in the wrong place can cause havoc
3. Make sure you use the right communication channel –
   1. think about your communication, is it formal or informal?
   1. Does it need to be formal?
   1. Have you documented it – especially phone decisions and discussions need to be documented

So what channels do we use?

1. External communication

This will more often be formal, or need to be made formal

1. Emails – often the preferred methods
   1. Reports – document in your Stakeholder Analysis who needs what kind of reports, how often and what level
   1. Presentations – these are usually used during project initiation and planning, to demonstrate to the client what your are proposing to do and how. These need to be done professionally, on branded slides and contain structured information. The presentation should be included in the project file either physical or in the PMIS
   1. PMIS – at times it can be required and or necessary to include some of your external stakeholders in this. Be careful what content you give them access to. Discuss it clearly with your IT Admin.
   1. Phone calls – any discussion with the client on phone that has a decision or informs the client of an issue, an achieved milestone etc needs to be documented. Follow them up with an email, that lists the discussed in a few bullet points
   1. Social Media – this should not be the mode of choice for Stakeholder communication. Be careful what you post on social media channels. Unless they are approved updates for a launch and you are collaborating with the clients marketing team
   1. Whatsapp / Telegram / other SM services

This is very informal. Again like for phone calls, follow discussed things up with an email. If necessary print the SM thread out and file

• Internal Communication:

Internal Communication can often be a lot more informal. The trick again is to document the important things. Anything that involves a decision or instruction should be documented formally. Anything you need to refer to later should be documented formally:

1. Emails – Instructions & decisions should be documented in an email. If you have a PMIS, then use the email function in it.
   1. Reports – All reports should be formalized in writing
   1. PMIS – For ease of access & finding communication again, all communication should be done through the PMIS or be documented here later. That can often be done as an attachment.
   1. Phone calls – any discussion with the internal team on phone that has a decision, instruction or important information needs to be documented. Follow them up with an email, that lists the discussed in a few bullet points
   1. Social Media – this should not be the mode of choice for internal communication. Be careful what you post on social media channels. Unless they are approved updates for a launch and you are collaborating with the clients marketing team.
   1. Whatsapp / Telegram / other SM services

This is very informal. Again like for phone calls, follow discussed things up with an email. If necessary print the SM thread out and file.

The main point here is that communication is VERY important and you need to plan it well. Spend time to develop a Communication Management Plan, or update the existing one, to meet the project’s unique needs.

Aim at improving your communication skills.

1. Work on your language
2. Work on report writing skills
3. Work on email writing skills
4. Train yourself to follow phone calls up with short emails
5. Ask more experienced Project Managers or your Senior Managers for input, corrections and comments on your documents
6. Let someone in your team read your sensitive communication, before you send it out. It needs to be a confidential and trusted person.
7. Never send out an email / report / SM, you wrote in an emotional state. Cool down first, then do a draft, relax some more and then re-read before you send it. Let someone review it, before it goes out.
8. Do not call a client in an emotional state, relax first, then count to 10 (or 100 if needed), then rehearse what you want to say, make some notes, take a deep breath and only then call. Have a team member or colleague sit next to you, who will tap your hand if you get
9. Watch how others communicate and analyze what works and what doesn’t
10. Keep learning and never think you are perfect

Choosing a project management tool of software does not need to be a major headache. Many people think that you will spend a fortune on software and licenses.

1. Needs Assessment

Like with all major procurements start with a needs assessment: What do you need?

• Gantt chart only?
• Ability to access projects on phone / remotely?
• Ability to track against a baseline?
• Ability to send emails from the projects?
• Reminders?
• Integration with procurement, stores, accounts etc?
• Resource tracking via HR system?
• Number of users? – how many will log in at the same time?
• Available budget?
• Do you need to be able to attach documents?
• What kind of dash boards do you need for who?
• Etc.

When you have all the requirements, you divide them into 2-3 groups:

1. Immediate need
2. Future need
3. Nice to have

For example if you have many technicians on remote sites in your project teams, then access via phone = app might be essential, when all your team is in the office, it is not so important.

• What do we have?

Then you look at the tools you already have in all departments, that are stakeholders in projects. List them down, then check, if they integrate with each other and if the systems have a project management module. For example, if you already have an ERP, then chances are that it has a module for project management.

If you already have MS Project, then check what you need. Maybe for now it is all you need. But when you need to scale up, then you need to ask, if you will have the money for the full MS Project server set-up to be able to connect all users and if your accounts team, procurement team etc will be able to log in. What are the skills of the different users in the different departments. If you implement a new software, you will need extensive training programs, even for future new staff orientation. Check if all employees have an office email. If not, then you need to confirm with the IT Admin, if the office mail server can accommodate email addresses for all.
In one company, our mail server could not accommodate all, but most of the technicians only needed to update tasks, not create new ones. We sorted this by giving them gmail addresses, that included the company name and gave them access to the app as external users – this way we didn’t have to pay for additional licenses, yet they were able to do what they had to do.

Most project tracking software will allow you to create projects in MS project and upload, so you will not need to do away with it.

• Ask Dr. Google

There are constantly new products coming out. Compare the features that you need in a table. Include the cost per user, the number of users, if it can be integrated with the different softwares / systems you have etc. in the table. Also note any other information that is important in your scenario. You’ll be surprised how many good and affordable products are out there.

Try them out for a few days to compare. Write to them and see how responsive they are. In my experience, both Wrike & TasQue wrote back immediately and were always available on chat. Zoho took a bit longer.

Check if they have training videos on their page, that will make your life easier.

Of course it would be nice to have Oracle or Provera, but it is expensive and might be an overkill. A good starting point for a project tracking system would be simple tracking software, that allows you to upload or create a project, track it, put comments on tasks, attach documents & pictures and create email notifications even in the free version. Wrike, TasQue, Zoho etc are examples for this. You can then upscale later, as skills improve and people take up the system. Once Senior Management sees the benefits, they will be more willing to budget for software related costs.

Important to note:

Do not work on this alone! Do this in collaboration with:

• All Project Managers
• A Senior Management Representative
• The IT Department / IT Admin
• Senior Members of all relevant departments, e.g. operations, technical team, procurement, sales, accounts, stores etc. It is important to get their input and if they buy in early, their teams will take it up more willingly, since they have a change agent in their team

Budget constraints are there and no Finance Director will easily approve something as expensive as a new software with many user licenses. Hence it is good to plan, have a full report, and see how you can scale things up. You do not need the full functionality immediately, since people need to buy in first and get used to the system.

Plan the implementation in detail. Each department will need a introductory demonstration, but then also intensive user training for each team members. You should train some people in each department first, so that they can help answering questions.

The IT Team needs to be trained first, since they will also need to deal with a lot of question. They need to be in contact with the software’s helpdesk, as much as you need to.

Do not pass the responsibility of implementation to others. Stay involved and have regular meetings with Heads of Departments, staff representatives and in cases of multiple difficulties in a department, meet with them.

Document the work flows on flowcharts and share with the teams, clearly indicating who does what.

Check on how much the teams are using the new tool and the quality of their updates.