Notes - Record Date & Source

Who & When: All your notes should specify who said what and when they said it

Who, what and when?

Some PjMs (Project Managers) do a good job recording what was said but not who or when that comment was made. This creates the problem of figuring out how long a task has been open or if notes are too cryptic, who we can contact to understand the task.

As you can see from the above screenshot, I always include three pieces of info in the notes tab of MS Project:

• What was the comment made about the task?
• Who was the source of the info?
• When did he make the info?

Keeping the notes tab well-documented is actually not time-consuming at all. It takes me less than 30 minutes a day per project to ensure all active tasks are updated (see Update Daily).

Another benefit of this tab is that it proves extremely valuable whenever projects are transitioned to different PjMs. There's been times when I've handed my project over to a new PjM. And while I dial into the status call to support the new PjM, because of the notes tab, the new PjM is able to conduct the weekly call without any help from me. The notes tab provides a rich source of high-level info for PjMs to get up to speed on a task very quickly.

On the other hand, when I take over projects, I have to hold multiple knowledge-transfer sessions with the team to get context on the hundreds of line items in a schedule.

Notes - Update Daily

Update notes daily: Updating the notes tab in your project schedule is a MUST to stay on top of your project

An update a day ...

I normally spend at least 30 minutes a day updating the notes tab for active tasks. I don't wait for the weekly status call to make updates. Rather, as emails or conversations occur around active tasks (tasks with light-bulbs), I copy and paste snippets of notes into the notes tab.

I've found this very useful in getting a much deeper understanding of a task. Think about it: info will obviously be easier to remember if you're actively connecting emails and conversations back to specific tasks in a schedule AND you're pasting that info into the task notes section.

I've had directors challenge me on why a task has slipped or why the task is important and within less than 30 seconds, I'm able to skim through the notes tab for the task and give him a good answer. I've even been able to use the notes section to remind task owners what they had committed to weeks or even months earlier.

In fact, I make it a point to ensure that I only move emails out of my Outlook inbox into a a project folder only after I've copied a snippet of that email and pasted it into the notes tab for that task in MS Project. Obviously there are some emails that delve too deeply, technically, into an issue. So I don't copy info from those emails into the notes tab.


Bottom line: This 30 minute daily task for each project schedule helps ensure your schedule is always up to date. And your schedule will thus be a very convenient source of info for creating meeting minutes, weekly reports, etc.

Notes - Record Notes for Tasks

Memory like an elephant: Project Managers don't need the memory of an elephant to remember the details of each task in a schedule

PjMs are Information Managers

Most PjMs (Project Managers), of which I am one, have to juggle four to six projects a week. And each project may have several hundred line items in the schedule. And on weekly calls with stakeholders, we're expected to remember the details of each line item for literally hundreds of line items per project.

Many PjMs manage this info by recording notes in weekly meeting minutes (docs or emails) that they then send out. I personally dislike this approach since now you're increased the places where info is stored. For a 30-week project for example, you now have project info scattered between the project schedule and 30 emails. And then, on status calls, PjMs bring up the previous week's meeting minutes to identify what happened to a particular task. Or they leverage the knowledge of a task owner who is on the call to remind everyone what happened with that task and identify next steps.

And once they're done creating the meeting minutes, they may switch to the project schedule and cover the necessary line items pertinent to the call. And this does a dis-service to the schedule since new tasks were identified in the meeting minutes that were not added to the schedule. Or dates and deadlines have changed which have to be updated by the PjM after the call (wasting his limited time). And what's worse, stakeholders don't always see the connection between topics discussed on the call and the relevance to the schedule. Remember, people on the call are multi-tasking (or surfing the web) and so won't be actively trying to connect the dots.

One of the tasks of a PjM is information management. And a good PjM should be able to manage all this info to make it more palatable.

Put all info in your schedule

The way I manage all this information is to use the Notes tab for the task in MS Project. During my status call, the primary document that everyone sees is my MS Project schedule. We review all active & late tasks (see Show Active Tasks & Keep Tasks Green) by checking the notes tab for those tasks.

1. Access the notes tab by double-clicking on a task > Notes
2. Record notes from a status call live as team-members provide status
3. Click OK to save notes
4. The notes icon appears in the information column to indicate there's more detailed info about that task

I record notes for a task during my status calls live so my team sees what I understood as well who made those comments. This way, my team will correct me if I've misunderstood the conversation around the task. But I don't just wait for weekly status calls to make updates to the schedule. I also paste email snippets into the notes tab on a daily basis.

I've found pasting email snippets to be extremely helpful in connecting the ton of emails I get to the project schedule. In fact, when I find emails discussing a task that's not recorded in my schedule, I create a new task as a result of that email.

Bottom line: You should be able to connect all conversations, status calls, emails, etc the project schedule by pasting a snippet of that discussion in the schedule. If not, you're missing a task in your schedule.

How do I display open tasks?

Shortcuts are faster: Only display active tasks in your project schedule by filtering for incomplete tasks

Philosophy
One of my pet peeves is, during weekly Webex status calls, a Program/Project Manager (PM) displays his project schedule and he continues to display all the closed or completed tasks i.e., tasks that are 100% complete. While this may not sound significant, remember that one of the tasks of a PM is information management. And information management is the art of delivering (or displaying) only the key information that stakeholders need to see. I certainly don't like having to visually wade through tasks that are no longer relevant to the project. PMs should only display open or incomplete tasks (i.e., tasks that are less than 100% complete).

Or if you need the research of why less info is more to be convinced of the benefits of keeping things simple (kinda like Apple products), check out this book "Made to Stick." This books explains beautifully why some ideas stick to people's minds and others do not. One of the six core elements of making ideas (or in our case, schedule info) sticky, is to keep it simple. Yes, KISS!

Steps

The screenshot above shows how MS Project makes it really easy to display only open (incomplete) tasks. There are two ways:

1. Point & click: Project > Filtered for: Incomplete Tasks > Incomplete Tasks
2. Shortcuts: [ALT] + P + F + N

How I display open tasks 
My favorite way, because it's the quickest, is to use the shortcuts. When I'm walking through the schedule with my project team, I typically have the tasks already filtered to display only open tasks. But every now and then, I've had to display all tasks (open & closed). Because I've practiced it so much, my fingers automatically hit [ALT] + P + F + A (to display all tasks). And once I'm done showing my team the closed task they had asked about, I automatically hit [ALT] + P + F + N (to filter on only open tasks).

Or when I've closed out a task by marking it at 100% complete, my fingers automatically hit the shortcut to hide the closed task. A closed task should be hidden the moment it's been marked as closed. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Try practicing both these shortcuts for a few days to make it come automatically to your fingers.

How do I automatically show active tasks?

Active tasks: Use light-bulb icons to indicate which tasks have started

In my weekly project calls with stakeholders, I use light bulb icons to identify which tasks to discuss, update with status info, etc. 

Because my project schedules typically have a few hundred line items, I really don't want to be reading each line in the schedule to see which task is active. Believe it or not, other project managers actually read start dates for each task (out of hundreds of tasks) to see which tasks to ask for status or discuss!

My philosophy is simple: look but don't read. So I stuck in a simple formula for MS Project to use to automatically display light bulb icons for active tasks (start date >= today's date).

Time needed: <3 min

1. Insert a column (preferably to the left of the "Task Name" colum)
   • e.g., right-click on Task Name column > Insert Column > Field name: Text 1
   • Title: Start
   • Align data: Center
   • Ok
2.  Add a formula to determine whether a task will finish on time, finish semi-late or finish really late
   • e.g., Right-click on "Start" column > Customize fields > Highlight Text1
   • Select formula > Ok > Formula
   • Paste this formula in box: IIf([% Complete]<>100,IIf([Current Date]>[Start]-1,1,0))
   • Ok
3. Add graphical indicators to the formula
   • Click on Graphical Indicators button
   • Indicator criteria for: Nonsummary rows
   • Test for "Finish on Time?"
     • equals    1.00   [Select image of lighted light bulb]
   • Ok > Ok

Keep Tasks Green

A green schedule: Make sure that all tasks in your schedule are green

Philosophy of green schedules

As part of my weekly status calls with project stakeholders, I review two types of tasks:

• Open tasks: light-bulbs indicate whether someone should be working on the task (see light-bulb blog-post)
• Late tasks: red & yellow tasks are tasks that have missed or will miss their finish dates (see traffic light blog post)

Every status call invariably has a few tasks with yellow or red traffic lights. Some tasks show up late even though they completed on time.

Remove red & yellow lights: Change the finish dates to get green tasks and thus see if major milestones will still finish on time

This normally happens if I, as the PM, was not on the email chain mentioning the task had been completed. In which case, I close the task once notified. And the late indicator disappears.

But there are frequently tasks where the task owner says that the task requires more time or he hasn't started working on it. In which case, I ask for the new ETA and update the finish date. At which point the late indicator should  turn green.

Benefit of green schedules

Setting new finish dates, as opposed to leaving finish dates unchanged, helps show how finish dates for downstream tasks are changed. And as a result, whether major milestones are impacted. If red diamonds (late indicators for milestones) appear as a result of a task owner's new finish date, the whole team on the call sees the impact. And then it's trivial to negotiate for an earlier ETA.

Of course, you see this benefit only if you've correctly defined your predecessors & successors. But that's a topic for another blog post.

How do I Automatically Show Late Tasks?

Late indicators: Balls change color automatically depending on whether task will finish on time

Follow the three steps below to get  late task indicators such as shown in the screenshot. Colored balls indicate whether a task will finish really late, semi-late or is on track for finishing on time. 

Time needed: <3 min

1. Insert a column (preferably to the left of the "Task Name" colum)
   • e.g., right-click on Task Name column > Insert Column > Field name: Text 1
   • Title: Finish on Time?
   • Align data: Center
   • Ok
2.  Add a formula to determine whether a task will finish on time, finish semi-late or finish really late
   • e.g., Right-click on "Finish on Time?" column > Customize fields > Highlight Text1
   • Select formula > Ok > Formula
   • Paste this formula in box: IIf([% Complete]<>100,DateDiff("d",[Finish],[Current Date]))
   • Ok
3. Add graphical indicators to the formula
   • Click on Graphical Indicators button
   • Indicator criteria for: Nonsummary rows
   • Test for "Finish on Time?"
     • is less than    1.00  [Select image of green ball]
     • is less than    3.00  [Select image of yellow ball]
     • is greater than or equal to   3.00  [Select image of red ball]
   • Ok > Ok

That's it! You're done. Now MS Project will automatically display which tasks will finish on time, will be semi-late, or really late. Key rules to keep in mind:

• NO BALL: Task has completed. Only incomplete tasks (< 100%) will have colored icons indicating whether it's late or not. Summary tasks (complete or incomplete) also will NOT have any colored icons
  
• GREEN BALL: Task has a chance of finishing within 1 day of the planned finish date
• YELLOW BALL: This semi-late task is missing planned finished date by 1-3 days  
• RED BALL: This really late task has missed planned finished date by more than 3 days
• To change the criteria for the tasks that will finish late or really late, just change the # of days (currently set to 3 days) to the # of days you prefer