50 Project Acceleration Techniques

William M. Brooks
wmbrooks@pacbell.net
1. Start the project schedule development by constructing a WBS, define the project scope and
level of effort. The WBS should be a hierarchical depiction of the flowdown from the high
value outcomes at the top of the hierarchy to the time-consuming tasks at the bottom of the
hierarchy. Delete non-value added tasks.
2. Develop clear, objective, and visible project goals, success criteria, and constraints. Create
clarity into what needs to be accomplished for project success. Avoid misinterpretation that
causes scope growth and re-work delays. Anticipate regulatory or Customer decision cycle
durations.
3. Develop clear, objective, and visible product constraints and acceptance criteria. Create
clarity into what needs to be accomplished for product success. Avoid misinterpretation that
causes scope growth and re-work delays.
4. Accelerate new project planning by building a project plan plex library, i.e. sub-hierarchies
of past project plans that can be re-used to quickly build new project plans to accelerate
assessment of project schedule feasibility. Use parametric scheduling tools if applicable.
5. Increase the accuracy of project plans and schedule precision by updating the project plex
library with actuals schedule data from current projects.
6. Include forward escalation rates in project planning to anticipate schedule growth.
7. Use an outcomes, products-oriented, vertically integrated WBS format to enable quick
Design-To-Schedule project optimization.
8. Use the Fast-Track method, i.e. perform tasks concurrently as much as possible.
9. Exploit changing task lag times, i.e. use negative lag to overlap the Finish-Start
precedence relationships. Time To-Market is more than a mantra; its a business strategy.
10. Eliminate as many schedule precedence constraints as possible, increase the opportunity to
fast track scheduling of tasks. Improve task outcome clarity to remove the need to wait for
how well the outcome of a predecessor task performed before starting its successor task.
11. Avoid paralysis by analysis, you dont need to know everything to start work.
12. Dont over-plan the project schedule, the plan is good enough when the schedule
uncertainty is reduced to an acceptable threshold.
13. Convey what good enough means, when to stop making the product better. Getting
revenue is required too. Better is the enemy of good enough.
14. Move high risks to the beginning of the project lifecycle.
15. Advocate avoiding problems rather than surviving problems. Reward those that seek to
solve problems BEFORE they occur, thus avoiding re-work delays and interruptions.
16. Make timely decisions, then translate decisions into actions. Communicate the decisions
and the action item assignments, track closure of action items, keep the decisions decided,
dont waste time re-deciding. Recall that 70% of a development projects cost and schedule
at completion is irreversibly committed during the first 5% of the project.
17. Dont make decisions by voting. Projects are not democracies, avoid the resulting
egalitarian mediocrity and time-consuming politics from multiple political factions holding
onto their anthropocentric values because it results in partisan mutual adjustments, often
diffusing the project goal and delaying progress. Consensus is not the goal; consensus is a
metric of leadership, understanding of the project goal is the goal.
18. Develop a product design philosophy with published design guidelines, exploit core
competencies and the time efficiency it offers.

19. Verify interfaces and configurations before starting detailed design tasks. Identify an
Interfaces Responsible Manager to keep the Interface Control Documents and N2 Chart up
to date and avoid interfaces that dont interface and the subsequent re-work.
20. Dont fall prey to changed configurations, or unspoken constraints. Perform a site survey or
remote test to verify in order to avoid wasted deployment effort; e.g. it doesnt fit through
the door! or our cable is 1 foot short, or it has the wrong IP address.
21. Minimize task interruptions (preemption), avoid task splitting; reduce repeating the task setup times to avoid delays from the Learn-Forget-Relearn cycle. Create a stable working
environment free from interruptions as much as possible.
22. Do the test planning concurrently with the requirements analysis; dont wait until the product
is designed to start test planning and test design; direct Design it so it passes these tests.
23. Manage changes. Identify out of scope changes, make it clear that such changes are not
free. Defend the project scope from those offering change proposals (creeping elegance)
but not with accompanying budget and schedule relief.
24. Encourage constructive changes, i.e. those changes that add value to the product, AND
are accompanied by budget and schedule extensions..new business that was acquired
non-competitively should be encouraged.
25. Cross-train the team as much as possible. Encourage personnel interchangeability to
improve flexibility in scheduling assignments, avoid specialist resource-constrained
scheduling problems.
26. Exploit multi-disciplinary trade-off knowledge, create a systems knowledge base to
accelerate problem solving.
27. Know the limitations of the project team. Invest in the team to improve capabilities, increase
intellectual capital, encourage a learning culture to accelerate innovation. Encourage
frequent Technical Exchange Meetings to exchange new knowledge. This will also help
reduce personnel turnover and the time spent in hiring replacements. Make it valuable to be
here.
28. Consider deferring some of the product features to future versions of the product, exploit the
concept of Long-Term Evolution (LTE). Many superior products never make it to market.
29. Resist pouncing on the first implementation approach idea. A faster, better idea frequently
appears if given some time for thought. We need better ideas than our competitors have.
30. Publish a project Top Ten Problems list, assign them to problem solvers, and track closure.
31. Simulate as much as you can before you do it, avoid technical performance shortfall
surprises that will require a change in technology and subsequent re-work delays.
32. Separate leading edge technology from bleeding edge technology that introduces
unknowns.
33. Provide real leadership to maintain focus on achieving the project goals, let Microsoft Excel
and Project do the management; keep the team moving forward. Encourage others to lead;
advocate Leadership is a behavior, not a position.
34. Teambuilding is not friends-building. A project team is a group of people (1) with a common
objective, (2) realize they need each other, and (3) can communicate trade-offs with each
other. A project team will by necessity be a multi-disciplinary group with different
backgrounds and priorities, it is often futile and un-necessary to become friends. Projects
teams are not families either, the goals and roles are very different. Dont waste time on
friends-building exercises, especially with high caliber team members; eagles dont flock.
35. Eliminate as many time-consuming meetings as possible, minimize the need for realitytherapy or tales of woe sessions. Publish a meeting agenda before the meeting so that
everyone comes prepared, avoiding the need for follow-up meetings.
36. Invite only relevant people to meetings, offer to publish the meeting minutes to interested
parties. Dont let irrelevant discussions prolong a meeting.

37. Hold a formal, crisp, well organized, and professional project kick-off meeting at the start of
the project. Maximize clarity and confidence, minimize fear, get team enthusiasm and
commitment, start with a sense of urgency, on the right foot, in the right direction.
38. Convey the direction AND the destination expectations to the project team. Reiterate at
every project meeting.
39. Serve as the single Point of Contact representing the project team when communicating
with management and customers; minimize multi-path communications that cause
confusion; beware that confusion breeds contempt.
40. Perform a literature search, overcome the Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome. Exploit the
leverage from existing knowledge. Dont spend time reinventing the wheel.
41. Create and publish a Communications-Responsibility Matrix keep team communications
timely.
42. Create and publish a Tasks-Responsibility Matrix, a.k.a. Linear Responsibility Chart, to
streamline and focus team communications; reduce the number of irrelevant, timeconsuming emails.
43. Set a No-fault policy, encourage problems discovery and resolution as soon as possible.
Dont shoot the messenger, or the victim.
44. Dont let problems languish until they are too expensive to fix.
45. Perform schedule risk leverage calculations, e.g. dont spend 10 days to minimize a 2 day
schedule uncertainty. Prioritize schedule risk abatement actions.
46. Convey a It is not OK to be incompetent policy, demand learning, fill in gaps, increase
intellectual capital. Expect acceleration due to increased proficiency as the learning curve
progresses. We are spending our good ideas on this project, when do we get that
intellectual capital back? But also, advocate a It is OK to make mistakes and take
intelligent risks policy.
47. Reward team performance instead of individual performances. Discourage the need for
lone heroes. Be suspicious of firefighters and the fire-prone cultures, as the firefighters are
often arsonists seeking to be indispensable, creating a crisis that leads to delays.
Ask how is it that you didnt see that coming? or why did you assume ________? Create
upside incentives to avoid delaying causes, problems, errors, instead of just downside
threats of lay-offs, etc. Change them into a group that wants to avoid problems, instead of
using chaos for an excuse. Offer interesting or fun tasks, professional improvement
activities, research, learn new tools or techniques, attend conferences, read relevant
publications, etc.
48. Discourage project drama, instead encourage projects to be boring.everything happened
on time, as it was scheduled to happen. Reward those that have low drama projects, dont
waste time on drama and politics.
49. Separate urgent from important.
50. Retain project schedule integrity; A 3 minute egg takes 3 minutes; attempting short-cuts
often leads to re-work delays.