MBA Lessons Learned #4: Time Management and Project Scheduling
I recently completed my MBA at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business and have been looking back at my notes from the effort. While the courses have decidedly improved my knowledge base, perhaps the most important lessons occurred supplementary to the classroom. The next few posts will be a chronicle of the lessons outside of the textbooks that I took from my MBA program. The previous three installments include Team Building, Performance, and Leadership, Project Selection and Definition, and Team Collaboration Tools.
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Create a schedule and stick to it. Really, that is all you need to do.
As for why, after your first semester you will discover that many of your projects come due at the same time and/or your teammates are unavailable at a critical point in the project. This is miserable, at least for me. I desperately hate spending every last moment working on a project when, with a little planning, all of the resulting stress could have been prevented from entering my life.
Task Manager in Google Docs
By defining the project(s) schedules upfront you will be able appropriately divide up the project, assign parts to each team member, track progress, and prevent last minute conflicts (disasters). While there is a wide array of project management software, you can get by with any spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel or Google Docs Spreadsheets). What worked for my teams would be to break down the projects into tasks and assign them to the team members with due dates (eventually I started using conditionals to change the cell color depending on the task status relative to the due date - an easy way for everyone to make sure they are on track with their tasks). Be sure to include time for group reviews and that your due dates tie directly into the deliverables you agreed to in your project definition. The only tricky part, and relative advantage for formal project management software, was tracking prerequisite activities; even then it is not too difficult.
By developing your schedule at the beginning of the semester work overload and last minute scrambling can be avoided by you and your teammates. Again, a few minutes of planning upfront can prevent hours of headaches further in the semester.
MBA Lessons Learned #3: Team Collaboration Tools
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Continuing on the MBA projects theme, today I am going to discuss team collaboration. As a part-time student, how to work with your team given schedule constraints was always a challenge. Very few of the full-time students liked to physically meet every time they were going to work on a project either. Further, emailing files back and forth is confusing (what version are we using?) and troublesome (which sections did you just edit?). During the MBA program my system has evolved to the point where, in the last two semesters, collaboration was near perfect; below are some of the key tools.
Documents - There are very few projects that do not require a written document as a deliverable. It is incredibly frustrating and near impossible to merge multiple MS Word files into one when multiple people are working at the same time. My solution - Google Docs. Google Docs allows the entire group to view and edit the same document at once; for example I can be working on the addressable market size while my teammate is editing the competitive positioning tables. Additionally, when someone accidentally deletes a paragraph you can find it again with the see revision history feature (this can take some searching as the final deliverable for my business plan class had 778 changes). Of course some people have a hard time breaking away from MS Word and others do not want to be constantly connected to the Internet. Thankfully there is a solution to this in OffiSync. A Microsoft Office plugin, OffiSync allows you to use MS Word (along with the rest of the MS Office/Google Apps overlapping applications) to view and edit files stored on Google Docs. Further, using OffiSync you can edit a file while offline (you do have to store a copy locally for this) and it will automatically merge the changes when you next connect.
Spreadsheets - As with documents I tried to use Google Docs as much as possible for spreadsheets. Unfortunately there are a few MS Excel functions that do not exist (or at least I could not find) in Google Doc; some functions I could use OffiSync to pick up whereas others did not seem to translate. I did have much better luck using MS Office Live. While it does have the same functionality as Google Docs for documents (including being able to edit on your local copy of MS Office; I am less certain of the offline editing ability), I only preferred it for MS Excel. You may be different.
Conferencing - If you are in a part-time program, someone on your team will undoubtedly have work travel to Japan, Norway, Brazil, New Jersey, or some other equally exciting destination during the project. Assuming you can get your schedules to match, Skype provides an excellent way to video conference in your lost teammate. While there are other services available (such as dimdim) that lets you share documents during the meeting, using Skype with Google Docs (or Office Live) eliminates the need.
Additional Random Information - Often you have tracking, notes, and other random information that you need to store and share. Just for simplicity I try to use something in Google Docs (or Office Live) as much as possible. Otherwise I use Dabbleboard or Google Sites. Dabbleboard is great if you love whiteboards as you can use shapes, freehand, or text to communicate. Alternatively Google Sites is simple way to organize and store lots of notes and text. Both are useful if you cannot come up with a simple solution in a document.
While this list is far from exhaustive (for example many of my classmates preferred Zoho for documents and spreadsheets) and technology continues to rapidly evolve, it should offer you some excellent tools to assist in team collaboration.
MBA Lessons Learned #2: Project Selection and Definition
I recently completed my MBA at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business and have been looking back at my notes from the effort. While the courses have decidedly improved my knowledge base, perhaps the most important lessons occurred supplementary to the classroom. The next few posts will be a chronicle of the lessons outside of the textbooks that I took from my MBA program.
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One of the great things about a MBA program is that you get to try out a wide array of fields; not just by reading case studies or listening to guest lecturers, but actually completing a project in the field. Projects are a fantastic opportunity to reach out to area companies and find opportunities to learn and employ new skills while giving you exposure to and networking opportunities with potential future employers and partners. Often you can find projects with your previous employer (or current if you are going to school part-time) in a different field where you would like to gain experience.
Generally on the first day of class (or sometimes before) your professor will go over any class projects and hand out a syllabus with relatively detailed requirements. Even though the project work is likely not expected to start for some weeks, I recommend you start you search for a project sponsor company immediately. This will allow the companies you contacted to see if they have a potential project and the resources to support your group (and don’t be surprised when often they do not) as well as the opportunity to ensure your team and professor agree that the project is worthwhile. Of course, some projects are dictated completely by the professor and you get no choice in the matter. Alas.
Along with learning new skills you have additional measures of success for your project. Most obviously is your grade. Less apparent is success for your sponsor company; the results from your project will reflect on you, your teammates, your school, and the perceived value of a MBA. A well executed project can result in internship and job offers; a failed project can result in a poor reputation in that career field. It is critical that your selected project gives you the opportunity to learn, achieve academic success, and provide value to your sponsor company.
Though Project Management is far from my favorite subject, I appreciate many of its tools and techniques. I am not advocating that you take a formal project management system with you on everything but there are some tools that you should (almost) always make use of when starting your project. At a minimum I recommend including project planning to define objective(s), scope, and deliverables; having agreed to these three areas prior to the beginning of a project will drastically increase the likelihood of success and reduce the amount of future angst during the semester.
Objectives
A project should have a clear set of objectives, that is what your group wants to achieve. Typically the objectives are largely defined by your professor and the company’s business needs. Your objectives should be as well defined as possible; this detail will ensure that you, your group, your professor, and the sponsor company all know and agree on what the project is supposed to accomplish. All of the objectives should be measurable, either quantitatively or qualitatively. For example, in your business process design class your project may be to create the baseline for an existing process and then develop an process that is at least 20% more efficient. For a qualitative example, your organizational management class may have you working on a regional expansion plan and you have to determine employee attitudes and fit between opening a new office and purchasing an existing business. Finally, a well defined objective will ensure that the project is reasonable given your very specific timeframe, particularly important as your grade has a deadline associated with it.
Scope
As frequently after a project is underway new features or requests are added the limits and exclusions of a project should be clearly defined. If you need to operate under any assumptions, they should be made clear while defining the project scope. Tied closely with the project objectives, the project scope should be limited to only what is required to complete the objectives. For example, you may limit the project to dealing with only one product or to the sales in a specific region. Of course your sponsor company may request that you do something additional midway through the project, in which case you need to remind them to what was agreed to upfront as the project is critical to your grade. That said, you should try not to just ignore these requests as you want to develop a good relationship with the sponsor company. If it is apparent that you can easily incorporate the change without affecting the schedule, you should do so. Otherwise acknowledge the request and state that, if the team has time at the conclusion of the project, you will work on it. Of course many times you will not have the extra time but this will help the company understand that you need to get something (your grade) out of the project as well.
Deliverables
The purpose of the objective is to deliver something (a tangible and verifiable result, outcome, or similar) and it is important to have all parties agree to what the final deliverables will be at the beginning, lest someone comes out disappointed. The project deliverables will be driven from two sources, your professor and your project sponsor. Each will have their own needs from the project results, likely with some differences. Further, while some deliverables may appear to be identical, the sponsor company may want a detailed summary and well formatted copy of your source data whereas your professor is fine with the information in it's raw form. Another example might be where, in your New Product Development course, the sponsor company is fine with just the final design while your professor needs a documented trail of how you reached the design. Detailing the deliverables up front will ensure that everyone receives what they need. With this knowledge you will know what to produce and where/how to document your journey along the way.
MBA class projects are a fantastic way to learn new skills and discover which fields may be an excellent fit for your future career. In general, working with your group, professor, and project sponsor to define the requirements for success upfront will ensure that you accomplish the project to the satisfaction of all involved parties.