The Importance of an Effective Scheduling Matrix or Why Hire Movers Before We are Approved to Move?

Imagine one voluntary stay 400 bed residential program. The requirements and standards for this program are quite minimal; a bed, a space for clothing and the ability to provide three meals without minimal nutritional requirements. This Program looses roughly 500,000 dollars a year when operating by itself. Now imagine an additional program; 250 bed non-voluntary residential program with a two 400 page statements of requirements (from two different accrediting sources)covering everything from the candle light measure of the room lighting, to month long menus for food service meeting federal requirements for nutrition, serving size, and caloric intake. This Program grosses over 8,000,000 a year, and who’s profits and existence subsidizes the initial Program. Got that? OK, now lets plan to physically move both of these programs into a new shared building. With only 30 days of notice of when the actual move date is.

When deciding who would be the Project Manager for the move, from which Program would you think the Manger be chosen? The second group, with the more stringent requirements and whose existence maintains the financial standing of both programs? Nope, the Project Manager was chosen from the initial program. Was this due to experience in Projects of this type? No, this decision was made based on that persons familiarity with the powers that oversaw the entire project.

OK, there is the background information. Now for the fun stuff. The Programs cannot move separately. Movers were hired for August 1 to ensure that the Program move would be completed by August 3. The movers contract was signed July 2. On June 10 we were informed that the accrediting auditors would not be able to visit the new Center and sign off on its occupancy until July 15. Without this sign off, the second (profitable) Program will not be able to move. The auditors will not be able to return to do a re-check for occupancy until September 1. So why would the movers be contracted prior to approval for the move in?

Two major Project management blunders took place in this true life scenario. One, there was a bad choice made in regards of who was in charge of the Program. There was, from the beginning, an issue with which Program would be made a priority. This was, however, a fixable problem. With good communication between the Project Manager and the heads of the second program, many issues could have been eliminated.

The second misstep was in not creating a functional scheduling matrix. This led to the decision of hiring the movers to be based upon financial reasons (the earlier the movers were scheduled, the less expensive they were) rather than on scheduling reasons (impossible to move in until the auditors signed off). In actuality, the costs of having to reschedule the move was more expensive that what a delay in signing the contracts for the move. The non-quantitative costs of having all of the residents prepared for a move and then two weeks prior having to tell them that the move would be postponed is somewhat immeasurable at this time. This loss of goodwill and trust also extends to the staff members who had to change their routines and then place them on hold. While I may never be a part of such a massive project again, I will take away from this one the need to have an effective scheduling matrix

“Task Creep”; Knowing When to Identify a Project as a “Project”

Many of us in our day to day working environments have been assigned “tasks” that seem so small that they can be completed almost as an afterthought of the regular work we have. “Sure Boss, I can knock that out today. I brought my lunch and will be at my desk for that hour. No problem to take care of this” Once you begin working on completing the “task”, you realize that you may need more than a lunch hour; what you thought might only need consultation from a co-worker actually needs work to be completed by them. Then there is a greater use of company resources than was initially expected.  Somewhere along the way, the “task” has become a “project” that you have become the de facto project manager of, but without all of the support or resource allowance that is normally allowed with a formally announced project. Yet, your supervisor is still expecting the “task” to be completed after lunch. What to do?

  • Communicate Right Away! As soon as you see that the “task” has morphed into a project, inform your supervisor. He/she may decide that it needs to be tabled until there are the proper resources for undertaking a project. Conversely, they may decide to make it a formal project and extend the resources you need to complete the project. The biggest misstep you can make is to try and impress your supervisor by completing the project haphazardly as if it still is a “task”. It is in situations like these that future tasks become bogged down with project like requirements that make them cumbersome and impossible to complete. By showing your supervisor that you are capable of triaging a “task” and determining if it is indeed more than that, he/she may trust you with more “tasks”; knowing that you will be honest about the true scope of the situation at hand.

 

  • Clarify the Expectations. Sometimes a “task” is just that. You may have started to do more than was initially requested, and turned an otherwise simple “task” into a project. The task you have been put in charge of completing may be part of a larger project that your supervisor has just not formally announced as a project, and your supervisor is acting as an ad hoc project manager.

 

  • Be Prepared With Estimates. Your supervisor may ask you how much time the project that was a “task” will take to complete. There may also be questions regarding cost and scope. Remember, your supervisor may have thought this something simple, and now you are telling him/her that it is much more involved. You will need to be able to convince your supervisor of this, or you risk your supervisor getting the task completed by another staff member. It may even be done sub-standardly, but because you did not express the true nature of the “task”, you risk a failure in the process that may wind up making your supervisor look bad.

 

By following these three easy steps, you can save yourself the hassle and danger that occurs when “task creep” is present.