Hi, everyone. In this video, we're going to be discussing project execution. Now this methodology can be applied to your hardware project, software, your service companies, or some sort of a hybrid. But we're going to go ahead and look at how we can apply it to each one of those, okay? So three questions arise. [COUGH] What mechanisms can be used to coordinate tasks? Depending on what you're offering, you may need a tool that will help work with logistics. So if you are providing a service that integrates a medical tool or medical device, then you may need something that will be able to track the maintenance of the different of the tool, being able to look at how the service provider will maintain it. And then, work out the logistics involved, gas, products like Maximo or a good one. And there are another wide range as well. How can project status be assessed? So again, this always comes down to quantitative measures. Let's just say you've got only about 20% of the work done on the production of a product or service that you're providing or an application, but you have only a limited amount of time. What's your burn rate with the amount of labor and what resources you've got available to when you're going to be able to meet the needs? And I typically like to use burn rates for tracking hours. How much I have left on a contract, what work has to be done? How much until we run out of funding? I always use these so that I don't go over scope, go under scope or over budget. Always got to be within scope and budget. Okay, so how can projects status be assessed? What actions can the team take to correct for undesirable deviations to the project plan? Now this is where I recommend a good book called coping with difficult people. So coordination mechanisms. Here are some different examples and the chart to the right shows separation distance, meters, probability of communicating at least once per week, and then looks at these sorts of different probabilities. What I will say, when looking at your coordination mechanisms, make sure that they're not just causing further delays and preventing actual productivity getting done. There are a few times that I've worked with larger companies in certain ways and like, well, we need to have a meeting to have a meeting. And now we need a follow up meeting about that meeting, and then we need a brainstorming meeting about specifications and requirements. Are we going to get anything done like, let's go, let's get stuff done. So this is where it all comes back to specifications, everything is quantified. So okay, if we're going to set up a meeting, we're going to use the town method time, agenda, and outcome. We're going to allocate half an hour. If you want to split that into two meetings where it's 15 minutes each, that's good. But we're only going to allocate half an hour, because our time is valuable and we've got work to do. Schedule displays, weekly updates, again, when you're doing weekly updates, see what you can do about generating reports so that you don't end up having to go on some big manifesto writing like it was Tuesday when we developed the sprint plant. Okay, here's the log. Everything is mapped out. You've got the dates for when print planning happened. Who was accountable for what, go through these reports generated out, send it. Okay, you don't have to get down in the weeds, okay? It's not going to be read at your funeral. Assessing project status. So in small projects, project leaders are easily able to assess the status by constantly interacting with the team. When you're a project leader, make sure that you're not micromanaging as well, and that you're giving people some autonomy. If you feel like you can't give people autonomy, then don't hire them, simple. As an entrepreneur, when you start a company, you can initially outsource certain duties to see how somebody may integrate or how a different company may integrate into your processes. And if they don't, you replace it, okay? This is of critical importance when you're working with a team that you require them to be right on point 99.999% of the time. Because otherwise, when one person drops the ball, you can really feel the pain. And as an entrepreneur, when it's your personal money and you know that you're kind of counting on that to buy a Lamborghini, I still don't have my Lamborghini. But, [LAUGH] one day. So hire an outside expert to review. And again, this is where accountability is key. When you hire an expert, if they start going on with all these buzzwords and fluffy stuff, you can say, okay, what are the metrics? How did you meet this? What's the productivity? How did we decrease overhead? What is the delivery time? And if they just throw buzzwords around, [SOUND] hire someone else. Project reviews typically correspond to the end of each phase. Make sure that you break everything down into modules, so that it can be integrated and deployed as an MVP if necessary. If you hold up too late on generating that cashflow, you're going to have some issues. The critical chain method. How fast is the project using its buffer? For labor, this is going to be you're looking at your burn rates, generate a buffer report. I always add buffer, buffer, buffers into everything because you can't plan for everything. You don't know if somebody's going to get sick or if you feel are going to Mexico for a weekend, or those sorts of fun things. You need to be able to give yourself some time. And as an entrepreneur, when you're studying a company, I can tell you from experience. You have to be able to take time for yourself and your own peace of mind, because otherwise it will be very easy to drop the ball on things. And you won't be able to stay on top of all the various components that you need to keep your company going strong. So factor in some time for yourself. Painful learning experiences friends. So corrective actions, change the timing or frequency of meetings. Sometimes, if you find that meetings are just a bunch of different egos mashing away at each other, you may find using a collaborative tool or software like to reconcile different things, maybe useful than meeting in person. People only behave in ways that have rewarded them for their whole previous parts of their lives. So if they were yelling and screaming at three months and it worked at three years, they're probably going to be doing it when they're 30. So accountability metrics, take the emotion and ego out of it. So listening more time and effort from the team. Team building is important, and if you're micromanaging and on top of people and trying to like overworked people, it's going to have the opposite intended effect. Make sure you're approachable to your team and that they know that they can come to you with some issues. And anyone who's working for you also make sure that you align yourself and can empathize with their situations, because sometimes people just want you to listen. Engaging outside resources, again, watch out for people who just throw buzzwords around. Business development folks, sales people who represent other companies and just like to rack up a bar tab, and do all that sort of stuff ask for metrics. See where they deliver, see like the performance ratios are the statistical stuff, and if they can't answer those quantitative measures, then they can move on. Postmortem project evaluation. Did the team achieve the mission in the mission statement? Remember, bring it back to hypothesis testing. Which aspects of project performance were most positive and which were negative? Again, take a look at the different variables and go back to your design of experiment, which tools, methods and practices contributed to the positive aspects. And what were the lessons learned? When you're looking at different software tools and the deployment of different systems, go through these lessons learned libraries and where other companies went wrong. Empowerment of a team leader. When you give a team leader power, absolute power corrupts absolutely, I'm just playing. But make sure that egos are put aside and that it's a collaborative effort. So coordinating your different mechanisms is going to be important. Make sure to not over meet about meetings and meetings, and meetings, okay, keep it on point. Keep it on time. Assessing project statuses. This is where data is going to be your best friend. Corrective actions, make sure that you know how to communicate effectively with people and align yourself with them. And conduct a postmortem, it can be a little painful. So one before you do and set a certain amount of time for being worried about it. Don't let it ruin your sleep, because you're going to stay eye of the tiger. Thanks
