Every day provides you with the opportunity to review the state of different projects and deliverables within your Programıs boundaries. Each individual piece requires coordination.

What needs to be coordinated?
Coordination needs to be discussed at three levels. First is the coordination of running the project on a day-to-day basis; second is the product development coordination; third is coordination at the business level. In this tip we will focus on the day-to-day coordination.

Every project requires the scheduling, running and reporting of meetings and status. A Program Manager needs at least one assistant to help coordinate meetings, schedules, status, and issue resolution. A formal Project Management Office may serve this function. However, this group usually does not resolve issues pertaining to the product or deliverable, however they do follow-up to see that the issue has been resolved.

Agenda Control
It is very easy for meetings to run amuck. Every meeting should have a purpose, objective, and an agenda, which the attendees agree upon. Sidebar discussions should be discourages and postponed to another meeting. Meeting minutes, complete with issues and follow-ups should be issued within 24 hours after the meeting. SBDi has a meeting minutes template available for you to use. See the March 2002 tip discussing The Power of Meeting Minutes.

Reporting Status
The Executive Committee needs continual updates on the status of the program and the product under development/enhancement. They also need to know the status in terms of the following:

Time

• Where are you in terms of deliverables?
• Are you on schedule?
• If off, why and what is being done to make up the time?
• What is the impact of the timing? Ahead of schedule may have issues on other aspects of the program.

Budget

• In terms of dollars.
• In terms of resources.
• In terms of impact on potential product revenues.

Risk

• What program and product issues have been raised?
• What program and product issues have been resolved and how?
• What tolerance indicators are in jeopardy of being triggered and why?

To develop the executive status, you need to have input from others in order to prepare the status in the format desired by the Executive Committee. In many cases, The Executive Committee wants quarterly presentations with monthly or maybe weekly bullets in emails. The timing will vary by organization and the point in the program. Generally, status reports are required more frequently when a program is not going well, or when the program is nearing completion.

Remember when keeping the Executive Committee informed keep it brief. If needed, they will request additional details. Also remember to keep your counterparts in business partnership organizations informed. This sharing of information fosters sharing from others.

Capturing Status
Set a time frame in which you and your coordination staff will need status from other internal and external organizations. Allow yourself time to prepare the formal presentation, but not so much time that the information you are presenting is out of date! Publish a schedule and format for status reporting to your direct reports. You will have less trouble capturing status when they know when and what they are to prepare.

SBDi has experienced Program Managers on staff to help you with your large-scale mission-critical products. We can assist your organization in defining the role and responsibilities of the Project Office to facilitate the day-to-day coordination issues.

Pat Ferdinandi