Page 55 - Untitled-1

34 IMPLEMENTING COMPUTER-BASED CAPABILITY

that project management is a way of life in the firm, and that support for the pro-
gram is a condition of employment.

Tip Get your corporate training function involved. First, they
will have skills and resources available to support your training
needs. Second, they will resent you if you do not ask them to
participate, and perhaps get in the way.

Detailed PM training, including use of the tools, should vary according to the
role of the individual. For instance, I first like to divide the user community into
two types: In-ses and Out-ses. The In-ses are people who feed information into
the system. The Out-ses are people who use and respond to information from the
system. This first group of people must understand the basics of planning and
control. If you are using critical path scheduling, they must understand what re-
ally happens when you say that task A is a predecessor to task B. My experience
has been that untrained people will describe their project to the system and be
completely astonished by the result because they did not understand what the
tool did with their inputs.

The Out-ses also need to understand how the resulting information was deter-
mined. However, my biggest concern is that they often don’t know how to inter-
pret and respond to the information. It is important to remember that reports are
not issued just to provide status. They are issued so that problems can be identi-
fied and that corrective action can be taken. Therefore, we need to train these
people to read the reports, how to identify an out of tolerance condition, and how
to respond to such situations.

When implementing the system, you will want to identify all recipients of the
outputs and determine what they need to know. Then, design custom outputs for
each one that presents the story that will help them to carry out their specific
project responsibility. Once these reports are designed, tutor these individuals to
get the response that you need. You cannot take it for granted that the reader
will know what to look for and how best to respond so as to remedy any prob-
lems. In each case, we need to look at what each participant needs to know to be
effective in his or her project management role. You need to ask: “Who needs to
know what?”

Finally, to bring a professional demeanor to the PM process, think about im-
plementing a PM certification program, either internally or by sponsoring atten-
dance at an educational institution. Also, consider promoting PM certification via
the Project Management Institute’s PMP program.