Planning a Virtual Project

Chapter 1 described the primary differences between virtual and traditional projects that have to be considered specifically when managing a virtual project. These differences do not take long to emerge and for their effects to be felt. Most, if not all, emerge when a project is in the earliest stages of the project life cycle, as described in the next box.

Regardless of whether the life cycle used is predictive, iterative, incremental, or adaptive, the phases generally are sequential and are broken down by objectives, deliverables, milestones, scope of work, or investment allocation. Importantly, each phase is time bound, which emphasizes a control point for each phase (or investment). The detail of any life cycle (number of phases and description of each phase) is often determined by organizational culture, risk tolerance, and project discipline maturity. The project life cycle serves as the framework for managing the project. Thus, an appropriate level of structure must be applied. Too much structure can bog the project team's effort down in bureaucracy. Too little structure, and the team can drift outside of scope and miss business goals.

Most individuals who have been part of a virtual project know the challenges very well. Some, however, may be wondering what all the fuss is about and why virtual projects are so much more difficult than traditional projects. To understand the challenge, let's use an example in which effective communication is of paramount value, as is the case with any project, large or small, traditional or virtual. Think of the game commonly referred to as the Telephone Game. You may recognize this game by one of its other names, such as Chinese Whispers, Russian Scandal, and Secret Message. The game goes like this: One person whispers a message or story to another person, who in turn passes the message (or at least what was heard as the message) to another person, who in turn passes the message to another person, and so on until the point when everyone in the game has heard the message—or, perhaps more specifically, heard a message. To conclude the game, the last person says to first, or to the entire group, what he or she heard as the message.

As can be expected, errors in the message accumulate as the interpreting and retelling of the story occurs from one person to another. The statement announced by the last player in the Telephone Game usually differs greatly from the initial message. This is because of listening and transferring errors, translation and comprehension issues, and poor communication from which inferences and assumptions are added and details are misrepresented or omitted. All of this misinterpretation and misunderstanding stems from the challenge of communicating effectively.

Interestingly, these are all problems that occur when players in this game are in the same room or physical space. Now imagine this game getting played out over a virtual space, one phone conversation or one email after another. The same challenges and issues not only occur, but they are magnified because of time lapse as messages cross time zones, cultural and language barriers due to first-language preference and culture-specific values, and other filters often used to interpret, translate, and respond.

This is only one example of the many challenges associated with managing virtual projects. However, it demonstrates a subtle but very important factor that all virtual project managers need to know. The fundamentals of managing a virtual project are the same as the fundamentals of managing a traditional project. But there are important nuances concerning how the project management fundamentals are practiced on a virtual project due to the differences that were detailed in Chapter 1. These nuances have a number of important implications when it comes to managing a virtual project and leading a virtual project team. First, they elevate some of the core project management fundamentals in importance over others. Second, how the fundamentals are practiced and the processes are used need to be modified for use in the virtual project environment. Third, simplicity is better. Finding ways to practice the project management fundamentals in the simplest manner helps to reduce virtual project complexity instead of adding to it.

Virtual Project Planning Process

One of the key differences between traditional and virtual projects discussed in Chapter 1 is the importance of purposeful integration of distributed work outcomes. Integration takes center stage during project planning as it is the responsibility of the project manager to ensure that an integrated, coherent project plan is developed despite the fact that most of the plan details and elements are first created by project team members who may be widely distributed both organizationally and geographically. Even though a virtual project team may be highly distributed, integration of work must be centralized around the project manager.

In Chapter 6, we discuss at length how a centralized/decentralized model is used to perform much of the work on a virtual project, but we introduce it here because the model is central to the planning process for a virtual project. Figure 2.2 provides an illustration of the centralized/decentralized planning process.

Like traditional projects, the critical information needed to plan a virtual project is first centralized and created by the project manager and his or her project planning team. This information consists of the project vision, project goals and success criteria, project scope, and the detailed project requirements. While this is the minimum information needed, experienced virtual project managers know that the following must be established to offer the greatest probability of virtual project success:

• Focus on deliverables before tasks
• Establish distributed task plans
• Integrate the project plan
• Gain project plan approval

Deliverables before Tasks

With the project scope defined and documented, the natural tendency is to move into detailed task planning. However, prior to this, many seasoned virtual project managers first go through the step of mapping project deliverables over a timeline. Co-located teams tend to manage their work by completion of tasks, whereas distributed teams more effectively (and visibly) manage their work by completion of deliverables.

A process called project mapping is often used to identify the critical deliverables throughout the life cycle for each team on a project. More important, the outcome of the project mapping process, the project map, shows the cross-team interdependencies that exist between the members of the team.⁴ Virtual project team members are expected to act as more than just individual experts pursuing their own specific tasks; they are team members focused on tasks and the cross-team interdependencies needed to effectively deliver an integrated solution. An explicit recognition of the various mutual dependencies between the distributed members of the team is needed, especially in the virtual project environment.

Figure 2.3 illustrates a partial project map that shows the deliverables and cross-team interdependencies during a two-month period of the project. Each deliverable identified in the project work breakdown structure is displayed on the project map in the correct sequence and relative point in time. Arrows between deliverables depict the interdependencies among project members (what deliverables are needed by whom and when). The mapping of deliverables among project team members helps the team determine and fully appreciate the dependencies that exist on a project.

By following one of the deliverable chains, we can demonstrate how cross-team interdependency and collaboration is organized in this example. Pwr Cntl SW (power control software) is a deliverable generated by the software development team and delivered to the enclosure development team. The enclosure development team in turn uses the power control SW deliverable to generate its enclosure design files deliverable, which is handed to the manufacturing team. The manufacturing team uses the enclosure design files deliverable to generate its next deliverable, the manufactured enclosures, which are then delivered to the software development team, which uses the deliverable to generate its SW verify report. This mapping of deliverables shows the critical interdependencies among the software, enclosure, and manufacturing teams on the project.⁵

Virtual project managers should lead their teams through the creation of the project map early in the planning phase and then utilize it as a tool throughout the remainder of the project life cycle to drive collaboration, synchronization, and integration of work output across the distributed team. More on this in Chapter 4.

Distributed Task Plans

With the project-level planning information and a map of project deliverables and interdependencies in hand, detailed planning activities can be delegated and distributed to the members of the virtual team. Detailed planning is distributed to the locations where the work will be performed. Each person responsible for detailed planning will provide task plans for developing deliverables, a timeline to do so, a resource plan, budget required, base assumptions, and any identified risk in completing work and the quality of the work outputs.

To keep the work of the various detailed planners synchronized, project managers need to set clear milestone dates for detailed plan creation and establish periodic reviews to ensure work is progressing. Should any changes to project scope, requirements, or goals occur, project managers must quickly communicate the changes to the entire team so the changes can be incorporated in the detailed plan. Once the detailed plans are completed, project managers again centralize the project planning process by leading the project team through the creation of the integrated project plan.

Integrated Project Plan

The integrated plan incorporates the detailed plans of the distributed team members and presents that work as a coherent set of activities to be performed. Although the process for developing an integrated project plan differs from that used for a traditional project, the plan itself will be traditional in content. (See Table 2.1.)

✓	Project purpose
✓	Work breakdown structure / scope
✓	Project objectives
✓	Key deliverables and project output
✓	Success criteria and measurement metrics
✓	Detailed schedule
✓	Detailed budget
✓	Resource profile
✓	Risk analysis
✓	Tracking and reporting methods
✓	Communication plan
✓	Change management plan

Project Plan Approval

As explained in Chapter 1, decision making on a virtual project can be considerably slower than on traditional projects. Decisions necessary to formally approve the integrated project plan are particularly slow to make. This is due in large part to the organizational and geographic distribution of key stakeholders who serve as project decision makers.

Virtual project managers do not have the luxury that their traditional project counterparts have of getting the decision makers together and driving to a final approval decision. Rather, multiple meetings and multiple electronic communication exchanges with multiple stakeholders will likely be required to converge on a final decision.

To help alleviate project plan approval decision delays, virtual project managers can do a number of things. First, they can ensure that there is a single approver for the project plan and that all project stakeholders are keenly aware of who that person is. Often decision delays on virtual projects are caused by lengthy debates among the various stakeholders about the identity of the decision maker. Of course, often many stakeholders believe they should own the decision rights. It is important to get clarity before a decision is needed and to document it. Once the decision maker is identified, documented, and communicated, virtual project managers can take the decision stakeholder identification process one step further and identify who will provide input to the decision maker concerning approval of the project plan. Again, many stakeholders may slow the decision process by behaving as if they have the responsibility and authority to guide the decision maker on what his or her decision should be. Some project stakeholders probably are in this position; others will not be. Virtual project managers must document who has decision input authority and make sure it is clearly communicated among the team and stakeholders.

Another cause of decision delay is the lack of necessary data for decision makers to actually make the decision to approve the project plan, or not. To speed this decision, virtual project managers should be aware of the data needed for the decision; that data collection must become a primary focus of the planning process.

Finally, virtual project managers must make sure that they, as project managers, provide a recommendation for project plan approval (or not, as the case may be) and justify their recommendation. Project managers should know as much about the viability of the project and the likelihood of project execution success as anyone else in the organization at the time of project plan approval. Virtual project managers should respectfully state their opinion, and provide justification as needed, to their senior management.

Scope, schedule, cost, and quality serve as the foundational underpinnings of success on any project, traditional or virtual. The fundamental practices and processes for establishing the project scope, developing a realistic project schedule, creating the project budget, and documenting the quality requirements during the planning stage of a virtual project are identical to those used for traditional projects. However, three challenges emerge during project execution that requires special attention outside of creating the integrated plan during project planning. These challenges are:

1. It is more difficult to maintain alignment between project outcomes and business strategy on a virtual project and to maintain alignment among project stakeholders who are commonly geographically distributed.
2. The virtual project structure cannot form organically as is the case for many traditional project teams. Rather, it has to be purposefully architected.
3. Virtual projects are more complex. Complexities must be made visible and associated risks identified to simplify the complexity of virtual projects.

These challenges are due primarily to the physical distribution of stakeholders and the project team. How virtual project managers can mitigate each of these challenges during the planning stage of the project is discussed in the sections that follow.

Establishing Project Alignment

Even with an integrated project plan in place that has been approved and communicated, the distributed nature of the virtual project environment applies a constant force that can fragment the plan during project execution and cause major misalignment. This misalignment occurs among project team members, between the project team and stakeholders, and between what the project ultimately delivers and the anticipated business goals. To battle these forces, paying special attention to the establishment of project alignment is a critical virtual project planning practice.

Alignment is often defined as a straight-line arrangement of things or as an alliance among people. When thinking about alignment relative to individual work, it means each person (on the team) can understand their work and its meaning relative to the whole of what is being created by the team as well as the importance of their collective work in achieving the business goals of the specific project and enterprise strategy.

Alignment does not happen by chance. Rather, alignment is created (and sustained) by intentional influence. That means it is planned. Purposeful alignment is necessary on virtual projects, especially on projects that have little or no co-location among team members. The primary reason for this is that team members have limited opportunities to engage in informal discussions about why they are doing a particular project and to see how the work of each individual is integrated to the larger, whole solution. For these reasons, alignment has to be specifically and intentionally planned, documented, and communicated in ways that are clear and will be remembered.

To ensure alignment between a firm's strategy and its execution outcome, the senior leaders of an organization, the project managers, and various project team members must share a common understanding of what the project has been commissioned to achieve, what will be delivered as the project outcome, and how the outcome will be developed. Unlike traditional projects, where the critical players have direct access to one another, developing this common alignment of thinking is more difficult on a virtual project. To overcome the barrier created by distributed organizational stakeholders, project managers must work diligently in the early stages of a project to align team members to the solution to be created, with an understanding of how their efforts will contribute to the whole solution. Doing so creates a common project vision. Alignment also involves ensuring that the project supports the accomplishment of the underlying business goals and strategies. Finally, project alignment involves defining team success and the ground rules of how the team will collaborate and self-govern.

Architecting the Virtual Project

Because work on a virtual project can be highly distributed, the project itself cannot form organically in the same manner as traditional projects. Instead, it has to be purposefully architected and structured to ensure all work is defined and distributed systematically and intelligently.

The term architecture refers to the conceptual structure and logical organization of a system. It includes the elements of the system and the relationships between them.¹⁴ A project architecture is therefore the conceptual structure and logical organization of the project. It is comprised of core project components as well as the noncore functional components required to create and deliver the whole solution.

To create an effective project architecture, it is helpful to again take a systems approach. In any case where a new capability will be created, the project serves as the delivery mechanism for that capability and should be designed and structured in a systematic fashion. The whole solution will dictate the primary project components and enabling components needed for the project architecture.¹⁵ Take, for example, the simplified whole solution diagram for the creation of a new capability such as a smartphone as illustrated in Figure 2.4. The architecture is easily derived directly from the whole solution.

Figure 2.5 demonstrates how the architecture might be designed for the smartphone described previously.

When project teams are complex, as is the case most of the time and as illustrated in Figure 2.5, seeing the team in an architectural diagram can create better, more intentionally designed, and methodically distributed work geographically. It enables the team to see their workgroup relative to others on the team. Additionally, and importantly, seeing the architecture illustrated reinforces the fact that a virtual project cannot form organically. The software and circuitry teams may be able to come together naturally in Palo Alto, but they would not come together naturally with the power supply team in Dallas or the radio team in Sal Paulo. Further, there is no way that the manufacturing team in Shanghai will organically communicate key product attributes to the customer support team in Sydney. Again, the figure illustrates the intentionality needed to form the project team and carry out project work. If the project team cannot see their work and the work of others, the virtual project manager must illustrate the work so that it can be understood.

Understanding the Complexity of Virtual Projects

All projects have complexity. Designs have become more complex as features and integrated capabilities increase; the process to develop and manufacture the solutions requires more partners, suppliers, and others throughout the value chain; the ability to integrate multiple technologies with end user wants requires not only accuracy regarding requirements delivery but also speed and agility to change; and the current global, highly distributed business environment requires work to occur in multiple sites across multiple time zones. (See the box titled “Managing across Time Zones.”) Therefore, the ability to characterize and profile the degree of complexity associated with a virtual project has become essential for both executive leaders and their project managers.

Historically, the most effective approach for developing distributed solutions amid complexity has been to employ systems engineering techniques. A system is defined as a combination of parts that function as an integrated whole.¹⁷

Wayne Cascio is a distinguished professor and the Robert H. Reynolds Chair in Global Leadership at the University of Colorado, Denver. His research has identified a number of disadvantages virtual teams face, including the lack of physical interaction, loss of face-to-face synergies, lack of trust, greater concern with predictability and reliability, and lack of social interaction.¹⁶ Each of these disadvantages creates a nuanced challenge for virtual project managers. When aggregated, they create significant complexity.

The information project managers gain from utilizing a project complexity assessment aids in the determination of the skill set and experience level required of the project team. Further, the use of a complexity assessment also helps to guide the implementation of key project processes, such as change management, risk management, and contingency reserve determination; and helps them adapt their management style to the level of complexity of the project.

The project complexity assessment features several parts. The tool includes various dimensions (first part) as defined by a business. Each dimension of complexity is assessed on an anchor scale (second part), and when the complexity scores of each dimension are connected, a line called the complexity profile (third part) is obtained. The complexity profile is a graphical representation of a project's multifaceted complexity.¹⁸ An example of a project complexity assessment is illustrated in Figure 2.6.

Every industry has unique characteristics, every business within an industry is unique, and every project within a business is unique. This means that a firm has to customize the complexity assessment tool for its use. Project managers often start this work by determining the complexity dimensions that are specific to the organization. For example, technical complexity may be related directly to the technical aspect of the product, service, or other capability under development. Structural complexity also has a number of subfactors that involve the organizational elements of a firm. Business complexity involves the business environment in which the firm operates. (See the box titled “Defining Complexity.”)

With the dimensions of complexity identified and deemed appropriate for a particular organization and project, the next step in developing a complexity assessment is to define how each dimension of complexity will be measured. This is done by choosing a scale for each dimension.

Alternatives for the scales abound. In the example shown in Figure 2.6, complexity for each dimension is measured on a simple four-level scale (1 is the lowest complexity, 4 is the highest complexity).

Once the complexity dimensions are identified, each dimension is then assessed based on the scale established. For example, in Figure 2.6, cultural make-up of the team is assessed as a Level 2 complexity (medium variation). Once all complexity dimensions are assessed, the obtained scores for each dimension are connected to produce the complexity profile, which helps to visually depict the overall project complexity. The profile in the figure, for instance, indicates that the project is of medium complexity, with all dimensions at Levels 2 and 3, except team members who are experienced (the least complex) and a globally distributed team (the most complex).

With Complexity Comes Risk

There is a relationship between complexity and risk. Virtual projects are inherently more risky than traditional projects. Any of the factors that show up as high complexity in the complexity assessment add risk to a project. The only way to truly understand the risk of any project is to conduct a risk assessment of each project item or variable and determine if mitigation or avoidance actions need to be initiated when a project is initiated and planned.

Project risk is the potential failure to deliver the benefits promised. By understanding and containing project risk, project managers are able to manage in a proactive manner. Without good risk management practices and tools, managers will be forced into crisis management as problem after problem will present itself, forcing teams to react to the problem of the day (or hour). As one well-known author stated, “If you don't actively attack the risks, the risks will actively attack you.”²⁰ Risk management is a preventative practice that allows project managers to identify potential problems before they occur and put corrective action in place to avoid or lessen the impact of the risk. Ultimately, this behavior allows the project team to accelerate through the project cycle at a much faster pace. Identifying risk on a virtual project can be especially challenging as explained in the box titled “Virtual Project Risk: Identifying Silent Killers.”

Understanding the level of risk associated with a project is crucial to project managers for several reasons. First, by knowing the level of risk associated with a project, project managers will have an understanding of the amount of schedule and budget reserve (risk reserve) needed to protect the project from uncertainty. Second, risk management is a focusing mechanism that provides guidance as to where critical project resources are needed—the highest-risk events require adequate resources to avoid or mitigate them. Finally, good risk management practices enable informed risk-based decision making. Having knowledge of the potential downside or risk of a particular decision, as well as the facts driving the decision, improves the decision process by allowing project managers and teams to weigh potential alternatives, or trade-offs, to optimize the reward-risk ratio.²¹

The risk assessment and management plan is more than a simple risk register. Importantly, it is a probability tool and response plan. In order for it to work as such, all known and potential risks must be documented, explained by way of project and business implication if realized, ranked in terms of probability, and associated with leading indicators of occurrence to allow as much time as possible to enact a detailed (step-by-step) response plan. Collectively, that is the risk management plan, and it usually is associated with the planning phase of projects. However, for virtual projects, risk management needs to start in the initiating phase. This is necessary because a good (thorough and accurate) risk management plan can do more than simply illustrate the mitigation of a risk; it can save money and time for project managers and teams. It will certainly be updated and refined in the planning phase and throughout the executing phase, but it needs to start when the project is first initiated.

As can likely be imagined, planning for risk can be much more time consuming for virtual project teams than for co-located teams. When it comes to risk planning, the entire team should be involved. That can occur as a brainstorming session for co-located teams. For virtual teams, project managers often start by emailing each team member, requesting an email returned that contains perceived risks, triggers, impact, and probability of each occurring throughout the project's life cycle. Once the responses are received, virtual project managers aggregate the risks, categorize the risks, and schedules a virtual meeting (or more meetings, as the case may be). In this meeting, it is best if the whole team is involved, but due to geographic distribution, this may not be possible. If it is not possible, project managers will need to conduct multiple meetings.

During the risk management planning meeting, project managers need to be very deliberate with time management as well as the technology used for the meeting. Likely, the technology will be teleconference or video conference. It is best if all participants could have a shared screen so that they can keep pace with the team leader as the team works through each risk. If the project team is distributed as much as illustrated in Figure 2.5, this approach to risk management is the only option project managers have to capture and plan for project risk. In this case, virtual project managers conduct all the same work as co-located project managers, but managing virtual risk is much more difficult and much more time consuming, and require much more planning.

Planning Virtual Communication

The 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke made this statement famous: “What we've got here is a failure to communicate!” This statement can very well apply to many virtual projects. A documented communication plan is valuable for any project but is essential for virtual projects because of the distributed nature of the team and heavy reliance on technologies to communicate.

Successful projects involve a significant amount of communication among team members. For example, project managers need their management stakeholders to understand project issues. Management needs to understand how a project is progressing and how the team is performing according to its goals and mission. Virtual team members need inputs and information from other team members and reciprocally must provide their inputs on project tasks and issues. Project documentation must be reviewed, discussed, and approved to ensure the project will succeed. To ensure that this level of communication is happening on a virtual project, the virtual team should create a communication plan early in the planning process to solidify their agreement on how information will be communicated among team members and to stakeholders throughout a project.

Assessing Virtual Project Planning

As they navigate virtual projects through the planning phase, project managers must be cognizant of key success factors. Such factors can be discerned from the business case and scope document, among others. The Virtual Project Planning Assessment measures project readiness to move from planning work to executing work. This is, obviously, a very important part of any project since many people perceive the project as actually starting when project execution begins. This assessment can be used as a barometer or benchmark to validate all project plans for adequacy and readiness for project execution.

To perform the assessment, virtual project managers and others on the project team should complete the assessment tool. Once it is complete, they come together to discuss responses to each item and to mitigate any “no” response that may prevent the team from achieving project outcomes.

As can be seen, when each of the items in this assessment is answered “yes,” the organization (specifically the project manager managing the project and the stakeholders impacted by it) are more apt to be “ready” than not. Whenever there is a “no” response, it warrants further discussion to determine why and is a prompt to further detail project plans or steps to put into place to move the “no” to a “yes” response.