Woo hoo!

After years of managing traditional back-office projects using the waterfall methodology techniques you have finally been handed one of your company's top web projects to manage!

Your mission?  To re-engineer the corporate web site including a new blog capability, document management, and a discussion forum.

You are a self proclaimed geek with every gadget and have followed web-trends religiously.  Your mind starts to spin with the dizzying array of features and widgets you can stuff into every nook and cranny of the system.  You could write the requirements for the site yourself as few people in your organization "get-it" the way you do. 

Heck, you are so excited you break out Microsoft PowerPoint and start running the "New Product Development" template wizard to build your business case.  You even open Microsoft Project and start hammering out tasks in a WBS.  You know most of the work is going to be done off-shore so you start firing off emails to your virtual office mates with their initial tasks to work on.  This is going to be awesome!

Sadly, you have allready doomed your project to failure before the you even kicked it off.  You will be delegated to the mainframe projects for the foreseeable future, if you even have a foreseeable future.

You just made all 3 of the "mortal sins of web project management".

1) Sin #1:  Do not be a technocrat - be a project manager


Look, we need to have a little talk.  Many of you are very Internet savvy and know more then 90% of the people about emerging technology trends.  However, your company is paying you to understand the needs of the customer, mobilize and organize your team, and then lead that team to project victory. 

What should happen?  Go back to your sponsors and ask them:

• Why do we need a blog?
• What information do we want to share?  With whom?
• How do we want to organize the blog/discussion forum?
• Who will be the users of the forum/document management system?

Maybe they don't even need many of the things they have requested.  Your job is to get to the root goals and objectives and from there you can reassess the technical requirements.  As long as your customers are dictating the technology and not their root business needs you are doomed to thrashing and failure.

Plus, there will be plenty of time at the end to stuff in your favorite widgets! 


2) Sin #2:  Microsoft Project and PowerPoint is not an effective way to manage a virtual team on a fast moving project


OK, this is something 90%+ of project managers do at the beginning of a project lifecycle.  You have been assigned a project and you have some time to kill before it really heats up.  Not wanting to fall asleep at your desk, you break out Microsoft PowerPoint and start working on your presentation and Microsoft Project to start keying in a WBS of tasks. 

Not only is counterproductive, you are setting your self up to be a project administrator and not the project manager.

Why?

When you start publishing a detailed WBS task list people assume you know what the steps are to complete the project.  Truth is, you don't and there is going to be quite a bit of discovery on this project.  Also, do you really want to be in the business of updating everyone's tasks, formatting the plan for printing, or (in the case of Microsoft Project 2007) converting the XML format to HTML every time you want to publish your plan to the Intranet?

Now is the time to look at some of the other web-based collaboration suites for more complete project collaboration that the team can maintain collectively.  Agile methodologies (like Scrum) can help you set the time and cost, instead of the scope for such an uncertain requirements base. 

As for PowerPoint status reporting, your sponsor and client managers are addicted to it and you are setting yourself up for a dysfunctional relationship with them.  When they see your lovingly crafted PowerPoint with the many graphics and transitions they will be hypnotized and require you to fill one out every single week of the project.  Is that really what you want to do every week?

A better toolkit would be a web-based project and portfolio management system specifically designed for IT projects.  Some of these are very capable and start at $5/user/month.

Look for one that includes (at a minimum):

• status reporting,
• timesheets,
• planning (tasks/deliverables),
• issues,
• milestones,
• email notifications, and
• document management

Avoid tools that are too complex to setup/learn quickly or too simple to be effective.


3) Sin #3:  When working with virtual teams, you never get a second chance to make a first impression


It is great that the project manager is excited and eager to start working with his virtual team of off shore developers.  Introducing yourself in an email with their first task assignments is NOT the way to start.

Where virtual teams work best, there is a relationship and a trust already established between the stakeholders, team, and the project manager.  You need to do everything you can to develop these relationships before the project heats up to have any influence and motivation over the team.

The ideal way to kick off a project is still an off site meeting where everyone can meet face to face to discuss the goals, do the cheesy team building exercises, and most importantly build relationships.  Since this is not often practical for widely dispersed teams you have to do your best to reproduce this camaraderie.

Some of the ways to do this with a virtual team:

• Setup some free Skype calls or webinars with your team (I like EBlvd for an inexpensive option to WebEx).  Beware of any language barriers that might exist as this might not be a good option. 
   
• Setup Instant Messaging (IM) with the team and hold an online chat session with an agenda that allows people to introduce themselves and discuss their interests and motivations.  I like the Windows Live Messenger (for all Windows users) or for web-based IM the Google Talk application/widgets. 
   
• Setup individual FaceBook or LinkedIn pages for the team members to fill out and show their individual interests and goals

In my experience these are the top 3 mistakes that doom web-based projects to fail before they ever really start.  If they can be avoided, you have a much better chance at delivering your fast moving web-based projects and being perceived as a true project leader in your organization.

Do you agree with me?

Do you have others you would like to mention?

Please use the comments below to argue, support, or offer other interesting points of view. I would love to hear from you!

Virtually yours,
Nick Matteucci, MBA

Author: Nick Matteucci is a co-founder of VCSonline.com a web 2.0 project management software company headquartered in St. Louis Missouri. Mr. Matteucci is also an active board member and the Chief Technology Officer for the PMI ISSIG. When not obsessing over virtual project management best practices Mr. Matteucci enjoys spending time with his wife and three small children. He also enjoys travel, running, and all things automotive.

Bookmark this post: