Our daughter is a 2nd grade student teacher this semester. On her board is a poster. It is the framework for the learning process used in the district. I visited today and read in small groups to the cutest 2nd graders on earth. During lunch I saw this poster and it dawned on me - this is exactly what we need for the weekly program status meeting. If it works for 2nd graders, it'll work for Control Account Managers and project participants accountable for project performance.
Every Tuesday the CAMs meet with PP&C to figure out where we are, where we are going, how we're going to Keep it GREEN.
- Focus Question - from the statused IMS taken last Thursday, you all have your physical percent complete and actual or estimated actuals. So what specific questions should we be asking of each other this week to keep the program GREEN? This usually includes:
- What is coming due?
- What dependencies are there between CAMs for the coming dues?
- Are this going to show up on time?
- Prediction - with the statused IMS what is the forecast for next week, next month, the next quarter, or the next deliverable?
- What is the confidence in the dates and cost as well as the technical performance?
- What activities must be in place to maintain or improve this confidence?
- Plan - we have a Plan (IMP) and a Schedule (IMS). Planning is a verb, the Plan is the outcome.
- Is the Plan still credible?
- If not, what changes need to be made to the Plan to return it to be credible?
- If we make these changes, what are the impacts for the future?
- How will these changes increase the probability of success for the project?
- Data - we have Earned Value data, actual costs, indirects, procurement commitment:
- What does this data tell us?
- What forecast does this tell us?
- What management actions will be needed with this data to keep the project GREEN?
- Claims and Evidence - when we forecast, do we have evidence of the credibility of the forecast?
- Past performance is a good predictor of future performance
- Reference class modeling provides statistical models of future performance
- What are the confidence intervals on each forecast?
- Conclusion - what did we learn from last week, last month?
- Did we make our forecast the last time?
- NO, what did we get wrong?
- How do we not make the same errors?
- How do we improve our chances of getting better?
- YES, what did we learn that can be applied to this week, month, quarter
- Reflection - at the end of the meeting, what did we get that wasn't there before we started?
- Communications clarity
- Forecasting clarity
- Risk retirement clarity
