Lessons Learned: Laguna Hills Leadership Seminar Oct 2009

In last year’s leadership seminar, the overall objective was to come up with projects based on the 2008 World Youth Day message of the Pope. This year, the objective was simply to teach the participants some project management concepts and tools.

The tools I shared with them are the following:

• Stakeholder Analysis
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS)
• Risk Register

We were given one 2-hour session each day for three days.

First session

• 10 minutes explaining what a project is
• 10 minutes spent dividing them into three groups, and asking each group to list down the top 3 projects among the people in their group. Among the 9 project, I selected a project for each based on its value as an example for the learning objective, as well as diversity (3 different kinds of projects)
• They spent around 1 hour doing a workshop doing the following (a table with three columns)


• Identifying their stakeholders
• Identifying what each stakeholder contributes to the project
• Identifying their leverage on each stakeholder (why would the stakeholder want to contribute to the project?)


• I explained the concept of a sound business model (where each stakeholder is satisfied with the give-and-take). The example I gave was Gmail:

• I then explained some additional things in a non-profit environment (eg, more non-tangibles, like the desire to serve and to make an impact).
• Each group explained their table. Based on the sound business model concept, I gave some comments on their table (eg, would the sponsors really give you money based on the exposure you are giving them?)

Second session

• I spent 15 minutes explaining the concept of Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), including some examples
• They then spent ~45 minutes creating a WBS for their project
• I spent 10 minutes explaining what to do with the WBS they created (eg, Activity List, Schedule and Budget Estimates, Staffing, Project Control and Reporting and Risk Management)
• We then talked about the Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) for around 10 minutes
• They then spent ~15 minutes to brainstorm on the risks of their project using an RBS
• I then asked them to score the risks in terms of probability and impact. They got the product between the two scores, and I asked them to pick the top 5
• We talked about mitigation and contingency plans for each of their top risks and how they impact the scope of the project

Third session
I was planning to show them the following videos on motivation and success:

• Dan Pink on motivation (TED talks)
• Itay Talgam on leading like the great conductors (TED talks)
  
• Richard St. John on the 8 secrets of success (TED talks)
  

However, electricity was cut due to typhoon Santi, so we decided to cancel the third session.

Observations
2 hours is too long for a session. Put a video at the middle.

What I'll do next time
Session 1
0:00 – 0:15 Project and Project Management
0:15 – 0:30 Identifying stakeholders
0:30 – 0:45 What is their contribution to the project
0:45 – 1:00 They would contribute because...
1:00 – 1:20 Leadership video 1 (Dan Pink)
1:20 – 1:30 The sound business model
Assignment: explain why your project has a sound give-and-take model

Session 2
0:00 – 0:30 Assignment
0:30 – 0:40 The WBS
0:40 – 1:20 WBS workshop
1:20 – 1:40 Leadership video 2 (Itay Taglam)
1:40 – 1:50 The uses of the WBS

Session 3
0:00 – 0:10 The Risk Breakdown Structure
0:10 – 0:45 Risk Identification Workshop
0:45 – 1:00 Quantitative Risk Analysis (give me the top 5 most severe risks)
1:00 – 1:10 Leadership video 3 (Richard St. John)
1:10 – 1:40 Risk mitigation and contingency planning (I'll lead the discussion and show the impact of risk planning on the WBS)
1:40 – 1:50 Feedback

Documents
Project Management Tools Cheat Sheet (Stakeholder Analysis, WBS, RBS, Risk Register) (I was not able to hand this out due to typhoon Santi...)

Scope Management Lessons Learned and Documents

What worked
1) Using mindmaps and mindmapping software for the work breakdown structure (WBS).

• Very useful for project control. I colored the completed tasks green. This gives a very visual way of seeing how far you are in the completion of the project tasks.
• Gives you an idea of what type of work to expect. For this project, half of the WBS was taken up by logistics. This was a pretty accurate prediction of the actual project work.
• The software I used was Mindman, which has a 1998 freeware copyright. Mindmapping software seems to be a commodity; there does not seem to be significant differences between mindmapping software. Mindman is one of the first mindmapping software I got hold of, given by my manager back in P&G. It never occurred to me to look for another one, not because it is a brilliantly written software, but simply because I did not feel the need for anything more.

The WBS of the Albay Workcamp
See how the logistics branch takes up half of the WBS
Download the PDF of this here

2) Have some rigidity with the scope...

• We pinned down certain aspects of the scope like venue and dates as soon as possible. These are needed for marketing, fundraising and some of the logistics. Changing them entails a lot of replanning and rework, so it is very important to agree on these as soon as possible with the major stakeholders. I worked with some very opinionated people, so I had to defend the scope a few times from brilliant ideas :-P

3) ...but some flexibility as well

• One has to remember that the purpose of the project is not really to fulfill the documented project scope to the letter, but to make the vision of the project a reality. In this case, the purpose was not really to “install ceilings to damaged classrooms;” it was to help a community and at the same time form young men through that act of helping. My natural tendency was zealous adherence to the documented scope, schedule and budget. Fortunately, I had some iron-willed people with me who counteracted my rigidity. The original scope was just painting of one classroom. We ended up painting three. We went over-budget, but it was worth it.
• I was more open—quite enthusiastically open—to innovations in solutions. For instance, I thought we could use insulators rather than plywood to act as ceilings. These would be cheaper and better at insulating from heat. I had some resistance from a risk-averse stakeholder. But when one of our informal consultants (a construction expert) suggested the same thing, I shamelessly made use of his authority, and we ended up with the insulator solution.
• One has to be even more flexible using solutions one is not familiar with, like using the insulator. Since we were not planning to put a plywood ceiling to cover the insulated roof, the flimsy insulator attached to the wooden frames with tiny staples had to be reinforced. Many decisions had to be done on the fly. The original option was to cover it with chicken wire. It would have cost us around 25% of the total budget if we did that. I decided to have us make our own lattices using aluminum wires held in the intersections by mushroom nails. The regular mushroom nail turned out to be too difficult to drive in the wood (for our untrained arms hammering up side down). Fortunately, we discovered a thin type of nail with a plastic “mushroom head.” No one else seems to have been using it, so the hardware store was only too eager to get rid of that old inventory (I think we got it at a discount). It worked perfectly. Most of these decisions were made in the hardware store as we took a look at the different materials available. It was fun. I almost felt like McGyver.

Documents and software
1) Workcamp 08 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) in PDF

• Includes post-Workcamp additions (unanticipated tasks)
• Historical WBS's are useful for planning similar projects

2) Workcamp 08 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) in mindman
3) Mindman software (shareware)

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