Project Management Secrets for ICT Success

Understanding the roles and responsibilities in project management is crucial for ICT professionals. We discuss key skills and strategies that can help project managers navigate their challenges effectively. 

• Importance of clear communication with all team members and stakeholders 
• Managing scope creep through documentation and approval processes 
• Techniques for effective delegation to maintain project control 
• Strategies for risk management and pre-installation assessments 
• Navigating multiple projects simultaneously with tools and techniques 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Project Management
• 10:30 The Importance of Communication Skills
• 30:20 Managing Scope Creep in Projects
• 51:00 Delegation and Risk Management Strategies
• 1:15:45 Navigating Multiple Projects Effectively
• 1:40:15 Closing Thoughts and Q&A

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. Hosted by Chuck Bowser, RCDD. We're here to empower installers, designers and industry pros with the tips, stories and best practices you need to stay ahead. From copper to fiber standards to innovation, this is the show that keeps you plugged into success. So grab your tools, turn up the volume and let's talk cabling, wednesday night.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Welcome to wednesday night, 6 pm, eastern standard time. Eastern Standard Time, that can only mean one thing Live After Hours with Chuck Bowser, rcdd, your favorite RCDD. Go ahead and admit it, your favorite RCDD. Wear my Estimator Creed t-shirt tonight. Yes, the Estimator's Creed, love this shirt. Love this shirt Because I was an estimator for many, many years.

Speaker 2: 1:04

So again, we're going to take questions on installation, design, certification, credentialing, career path, you name it. We'll cover it. We'll cover it. Tonight, though, I'm really focusing on really focusing on project management, project management. So always got to do the usual stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:25

Get out of the water, out of the way. Tell us in the chat box what are you drinking. What are you drinking? Tell me in the chat box? It guy just joined. I am not drinking Zevia soda tonight, like I normally do. Tonight, I'm drinking water with lime essential oil in it, because I I ran out of Zevian sodas. Right, the creed Document, document and document. Yes, well, that's actually not the estimator's creed. The estimator creed is. It says we, the willing, led by the unknowing, have been doing so much with so little for so long that we are now qualified to design anything from nothing, and you usually get the blame. That's my estimator shirt. You can buy that too, by the way, on Amazon there. So there you go Also, oh, acronym challenge.

Speaker 2: 2:20

Let me grab the acronym challenge. We'll get it from our ICT field pocket guides Flipping over. This is the general installation. We'll get it from our ICT field pocket guides Flipping over. This is the general installation, remember, three-volume set Flipping over to the installation. Let's just randomly pick an acronym. Randomly pick an acronym. You ready. Today's acronym is ready for this RACE Daryl. The R-C-D-D is in the house.

Speaker 2: 2:43

Today's acronym challenge is RACE R-A-C-E. What does that mean? Put it in the chat box. What does R-A-C-E? I'll give you a hint. It has something to do with safety.

Speaker 2: 2:56

Shotzi's in the house. He's drinking Dr Pepper, as usual. There you go. Shotzi's in the house. Nice, very good, shotzi. There you go. Shotty's in the house. Nice, very good, shotty. Um, hey, did you get your package, by the way? Let me know. Uh, race r-a-c-e. Thomas pay.

Speaker 2: 3:11

Tj's in the house. I got two people from the study group watching tonight. R-a-c-e. Come on, peeps. What does that acronym mean? Has something to do with safety r-a-c-e. Tj is drinking gatorade Gatorade.

Speaker 2: 3:26

Okay, fine, Nobody's going to guess it. I guess I'm going to have to tell you what it is Rescue alarm, confine and extinguish. Okay, rescue alarm, confine and extinguish. Again, that's found in the ICT Pocket Field Guides. So there you go.

Speaker 2: 3:40

That was today's challenge. So we are talking about project management in today's class. Before we get too much further along, tell us in the chat box what city and state are you watching today's uh live stream from right? And let me, before we do that, you know, because we're talking about project management, I want to ask you what do you think is the hardest part of being a project manager in ICT? Is it the scheduling? Is it the budgeting? Is it the team management? Is it scope creep? What do you think is the hardest part of being a project manager?

Speaker 2: 4:22

I was a project manager for just roughly about 10 years. Somebody's working in South Bend, indiana, nice, nice, welcome, michael. Glad to have you, my friend, setting expectations. That's a good one. Daryl, that's a great one. I've had projects that a project manager went really well, came on time, on budget, without a hitch customer satisfaction. I've had other projects that, just if I rolled a ball downhill, it still wouldn't go right.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Harrisburg, virginia's in the house. Hello, harrisonburg, all right, so let's get on with the project management questions. Harrisonburg, all right, so let's get on with the project management questions. So this one comes from YouTube and it's from PMNewbie2024.

Speaker 2: 5:11

What are the top three skills that every ICT manager should have? What are the top three skills that every project manager should have? Lyndon, virginia's in the house, tell me in the chat box what you think is one of those top three. What are the top three skills? I'm going to tell you my top three. The first one is going to be communications.

Speaker 2: 5:33

To be a good project manager, you have to be able to communicate clear and effective, with all of the stakeholders, whether that be your team, your technicians, your lead technicians, customers, distribution, your boss. Right, you got to be able to be able to do that, because if you don't, it's going to be a problem. It's pretty important to be able to communicate in our industry. Communicate clearly. That's what I tell people all the time. Words have meanings. Choose the right words, because if you use the wrong words, you don't convey the true meaning of what's going on. So how do we do this in project management? Give regular status updates, right, you know weekly updates, either written or orally. I always like written better, because that way there's a written documentation, even if it's only a project that's only three weeks old, three weeks long, write three project status updates and document everything, especially scope creep, scope creep, yeah. And then also a lot of people forget about it. When I say communications, they always focus in on the words that you say, but communication is also being able to listen, listen. You've got to be able to listen. What you might want to do is maybe do positive listening skill sets. If somebody says something to you, a somebody says something to you, a customer says something to you, say it back to them, but a little bit differently. So that way you are making sure that there's a clear understanding between those two.

Speaker 2: 7:14

Okay, the second one and Michael. And who was it? Was it Daryl? I think no. Daryl said setting expectations, time management skills, and I still suck at this one. I am still. I'm getting better.

Speaker 2: 7:28

I put stuff in my calendar all the time, but then I forget to check my calendar. Oh, tell me if that happens to you, or is it just me? Am I the only one who puts stuff in the calendar and then forgets to check the calendar? Okay, I must be the only one. Then it must be so. And then forget to check the calendar. Okay, I must be the only one, then I must be.

Speaker 2: 7:47

So, yeah, make sure that you be able to prioritize your tasks, because some things aren't as important as others. There's that whole methodology Is it an A task, a B task or C task? Write down all the things you've got to do and then prioritize it. If it has to be done today that's an A, tomorrow's a B, and nice to get done would be a C. Go through, write down all the list of all things you got to get done. Write an A, a B or a C, and then that'll help you tackle that stuff, because if you don't, you put it off.

Speaker 2: 8:20

What happens is you can miss things. In fact, I think somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that's called the Eisenhower Matrix. It's a way that you categorize urgent versus important tasks. I think that's the Eisenhower message. Also, don't be afraid to schedule efficiently and your meeting deadlines. So make sure that you give yourself time. I tell people who are studying their RCD test all the time to pick a date to take their test and then give it about another two weeks or three weeks, because life happens, life just happens.

Speaker 2: 8:57

Same thing with projects. You know again all the projects that I project manage, only one of them went exactly as scheduled, exactly as designed, exactly as planned. Every other project I did, we started off with a great plan but then something would happen Snowstorm, material shortages. The project former who's going to run the job quit and went somewhere else. Well, you've got to get through those, you've got to get through those, you've got to get through those.

Speaker 2: 9:26

And you also have to be good at delegating stuff. As a project manager, delegating stuff you can't take it all on yourself. I remember when I was a project manager for a company in northern Virginia, in Lorton Virginia, actually Lorton Virginia. One of the project managers was running three schools for Fairfax County at the time and all three of the projects went crazy bad and he got overwhelmed and literally he'd do project management stuff during the day and then he'd go put on his clothes and he'd go pull cable and turn the cable in the evenings and just, you know I'm a firm believer in you know, don't be willing. Be willing to do whatever you ask your crews to do, but don't let that get to the point where those tasks don't leave you any time for your tasks as a project manager, right? So don't be afraid to delegate that stuff. If you want to do QA inspections, give it to a trusted person on the site. Walk them through how to do a QA inspection, have them do it for you.

Speaker 2: 10:27

And then, finally, the third important thing I think is risk management. Risk management Every job has risk, so you've got to be able to identify that risk. You have to be able to mitigate that risk and you do that by planning for those potential risks. And this should be done before the project starts. Conduct a pre-installation risk assessment so that way you know anything that you think can happen.

Speaker 2: 10:53

Well, you know, there's a hurricane coming in about three weeks and this project could kick off in three weeks. So there might be some shortages there, there might be some problems working. There you go, there's a risk. Then they'll assign dollars to that right. How much would it take to fix that? Michael says facts, risk and issues. Exactly, exactly. Just make sure that you keep a risk log to ensure that you have proactive management instead of reactive responses, because it's better to have thought about the thing, to fix it than to go.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Oh gee, I didn't even think about that. See, if you thought about that hurricane coming down the pike, what you might do is order the material earlier and have it pre-staged pre-staged on the job site, right? Because you never know, just because there's a hurricane coming doesn't mean the hurricane is actually going to get here. You know how many hurricanes I've lived through that predicted to hit here and then they didn't. Or we catch the edge of it and up north you've got snowstorms. You might have labor shortages, you might be coming up on a contract renewal with the union. There's all kinds of risks and you think about them. Think about how that's going to impact your job. Well, if the union goes on strike, how am I going to get this job done? Obviously, I'm not going to be able to get it done because it's a union. So how is this going to impact the job? How is that going to impact the money that you spent out there to get the materials and stuff? Think about all that kind of stuff for risk and that will kind of help you.

Speaker 2: 12:23

Question number two and this came from LinkedIn. I forgot to write the person's name down and he asked Chuck, how do you keep an ICT project on track when the client keeps changing the scope? Every client changes scope. Every client Happens every single time, every single time Right. So the best thing to do is, before the project kicks off, work out a formal approval process in writing about how to handle changes.

Speaker 2: 12:56

Also, identify who is the person who is authorized to sign off on additional work, especially when it involves cost and materials. Work that process out in advance, put it in the contract, put it in the scope of work. So that way, when it comes because customers always add stuff, they always oh well, you know, we want to move that drop from that wall over to that wall. Okay, well, if the drop's already been pulled and dropped, that's additional labor. If it hasn't been pulled and dropped yet, then there's not additional labor there. But you do have to document that change somehow somewhere. So that way, when they do the final walkthrough, if they have an old set of prints, they'll see oh, the new location was moved over there. If you don't have that process in place, that formal process in place, you're going to have a problem. And if you don't have that identified, the person is allowed to sign for that additional work.

Speaker 2: 13:48

I've had projects before where I've had people come up to me and say, okay, well, we need that drop moved. Okay, I move the drop because, you know, I want to please the customer but I didn't know that that person did not have the authority to sign change orders. So when we went to go cash in on the change order, they wouldn't pay it because that person wasn't the approved person. You know, even if you get a change order, they wouldn't pay it because that person wasn't the approved person. Even if you get a change order signed in advance before you do the work, which you should always do you should never do the work and then send the change order. You should always have them sign the change order first. But even if you have them sign the change order first, you still only have about an 80% chance of getting paid for that change order.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Right, and the old tech guy's in the house. He says final walkthrough. He used to yell dead man walking because they usually found something Absolutely Absolutely. Anthony's in the house as well too. Yeah, final walkthroughs, you can always find something, always find something. The key is do your own final walkthrough beforehand, make sure that you have some kind of formal sign-off before any outside work begins and make sure that you track those change orders, because what happens is quite often is you might have just one change order on a project. That's not a big deal, but then you might have 15 change orders on a project. Well, that's going to impact the schedule. That's going to impact the schedule. So how does that affect the customer? Is that a hard date? Can that schedule be moved back? If not, you need to bring additional people. That's another change order. There you go.

Speaker 2: 15:24

Question number three from TikTok. This is from Cable PM Life. He goes what's the best way to handle a team that resists new project management software? It's funny you ask that because I lived through this nightmare about 20 years ago when we came on board and we wanted to change over from our proprietary spreadsheets over to a new project management tracking software which is supposed to be more accurate and more real-time and be able to be pulled up by anybody instead of just that project manager.

Speaker 2: 16:00

Project managers are creatures of habit. They love, they know what works. They don't like changing stuff, especially in the middle of a project, especially in the middle of a project. So, number one provide hands-on training and demos to help ease that transition. We are horrible in our industry about telling our technicians here, here's a new connector, go figure it out, terminate yourself, sink or swim. New project managers. Here's a new project manager software. Go figure it out. We're horrible about training people, we are and I say we, I mean the industry, the industry.

Speaker 2: 16:36

So once you give them proper training, maybe give them a small little project or a previous project that was done, completed maybe a year ago, and just have them put the numbers in just to kind of get the to build that muscle memory. And where does the labor go? Where does the material go? Where does the change orders go? Help them with that kind of stuff and then, once they go through that, just sit down and say look, how does this make your workload easier? How is this easier than doing this in a spreadsheet? How is this easier when you had to automate your repetitive tasks, when you had to reduce the manual data entry because it was pulling information in from the estimate? How does it improve the communications and reduce those project delays? You also, what you might want to do I just thought of this one. It's not in my notes, but you also what you might want to do is you might want to have them. It's going to be double work have them track the project their way, the old way and the new project management software at the same time, so that way they kind of get to learn from both of them.

Speaker 2: 17:42

Question number four this came to me from Facebook. It says how do you prevent cost overruns on a project? Number one start with a detailed estimate. Right, a detailed estimate. Most estimates typically are going to have somewhat of a contingency fund 5%, 10%. They're usually not more than 10%. They can be, but they're usually not more than 10%. Right, and make sure that you, here, you go, sit down with the estimator, whoever estimated the project, and ask them what hallways did you do your measurements of for these runs? How much time did you give me to pull the cable? How much time did you give me to terminate and test those jacks? You know, I get told all the time by people Chuck, I'm a project manager. Yeah, how many hours in that project? I don't know what's the material cost, I don't know what's the schedule got to get done. I don't know. If you can't answer those questions, you're not a project manager. You might have the title, but you're not a true project manager. You're not a true project manager.

Speaker 2: 18:48

So a good project management tracking cost starts with a very detailed estimate, very detailed, and then make sure you track your actual versus your budgeted costs throughout the project, right, and you want to do this at minimum, weekly, weekly. That way you can catch the problems early. It's better to fix a cost problem early than it is to fix a cost overrun later. So always, always, always do it like weekly and then use whatever cost tracking software that's going to flag overruns. That kind of comes with that project management software. That's one of the things I don't like about spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are easy to use and track and create as far as project management, but 90% of them don't flag and tell you hey look, there's a problem, and they're hard to understand sometimes.

Speaker 2: 19:48

The next question this one comes from Instagram, chuck, what's the best way to schedule a project to avoid delay? Avoid delay? Milestone charts or critical path scheduling, right. What you want to do is you want to prioritize your dependencies, identify which tasks, if they get delayed, are going to push back the whole project. So, for example, installing the J hooks. If you don't install the J hooks, that will impact the job. But if you don't install the J-hooks, that will impact the job.

Speaker 2: 20:19

Most technicians will put in the support system, first run the cable and then build out the telecom room. Some people will build the telecom room first and then do the pathways and then pull the cable. If you're the type of guy who always puts in the cable runways first and you can't put them in because the J oaks got delayed for whatever reason, well then now you have to shift and go to the build out the closets, build, then you build out the racks. How does that impact your job? How, what other? What you can't pull cable, how's that can impact things in the long run? What you need to do is you might have to allocate extra resources to help prevent bottlenecks, and you do that by making sure you say, hey, this is a critical task that has to be done, and then make sure you always factor in contingency buffers. Right Again, I already mentioned weather delays, material shortages, change orders can shift timelines.

Speaker 2: 21:14

You need to build flexibility in that schedule to absorb those disruptions. So if a good product, if a customer's done correctly, it'll come out and say, okay, we need five guys to complete this, it's going to take them three weeks. Well, when you sit down with a customer, maybe give yourself five weeks. That way there's a little bit of play in it. It's better to. What's that, saying it's better to under-promise and over-deliver than over-promise and under-deliver. There you go, so make sure you do that.

Speaker 1: 21:44

Question number six.

Speaker 2: 21:44

This came to me from Revit, from LowVoltPM. He goes what's the biggest mistake that ICT project managers make with subcontractors Communications Communications, communications, communications, communications, communications communications they didn't give it the, the subcontractor, a good, clear scope of work detailing the responsibilities and the deliverables and the schedule. That's the biggest thing. They'll just sit there, have a good old boy hand, you know. Yeah, I need you to go ahead, pull the cable for me, okay. Well, you need to do floor two first, because we're doing swing floor spacing and floor two is going. We're doing swing floor spacing and floor two's got to be done by the 15th of the month. Did you tell them that? Did you tell them that? Also, make sure that they get a detailed scope of work and they sign that, the detailed scope of work, and make sure that you understand that if there are any assumptions that they're already documented and agreed to by both. When dealing with subcontractors, also make sure that you require proof of insurance and certification, because what could potentially happen is if they cause an injury, especially on a new construction site, that could cause you problems. That could cause you problems and you might get kicked off the job side by the gc and then I would treat a subcontractor the same way I would treat my crew. I would have a kickoff meeting with them and say, look, I expect you to start on or about this day. I expect you to finish on or off about this day because my, because of my core, my critical path, I gotta come behind you. I gotta put in the jacks and the face. They don't know that if you don't tell them that, communications, communications. Question number seven this comes from YouTube.

Speaker 2: 23:30

How do you balance multiple ISD projects without getting overwhelmed? A good project manager is going to be managed more than one project at a time and each of their projects will all be at different stages. One project, they might have just gotten awarded the contract, another project, they might be waiting with Ed to do the final walkthrough, and the other projects might be somewhere in the middle. It does become a problem. That's why, for me, it seemed, at least when I used to be a project manager, that it seemed as if it was about five projects. Five projects was a good, sweet number. Yes, I could manage more than that, but chances of something happening getting overlooked were increased Less than that. I wasn't being kept busy. But there are project management tools that can help you to manage those workloads, like MS Project, asana and Procore. There's good software programs out there that will help you do that. They can help you automate those tasks and help reduce those mental burden, that mental load that project managers have. That's one of the biggest things.

Speaker 2: 24:38

When I became a project manager, after about oh I don't know two weeks, I wanted to go back in the field. I just want to pull cable man, I just want to terminate and jack and test because I don't have to think about all this stuff, I don't have to calculate this stuff and in today's environment, especially with Outlook and Discord and all those other chat platforms that we have now that basically streamline communications For example, I got on my company's chat Outlook today to send a question to somebody that I could have called them up but I probably would have gotten their voicemail. Boom, I got an answer back right away. Got it back right away. So then you need to also help make sure that you can manage these multiple projects, make sure you understand three very critical things. Very critical things the deadlines of all the projects, the resource availability right. Do you have the people, do you have the manpower, do you have the tools right and the dependencies. Focus on the high impacts first and keep this project moving forward and then make sure that you have good project form and running jobs so they can always give you regular reassessments on those priorities based on your customer needs. Question number eight I'm not going to make it through all 15 questions tonight, I'm just not. We're already at 626. This one came to me from LinkedIn. I'm just not. We're already at 626. This one came to me from LinkedIn.

Speaker 2: 26:02

How do you handle ICT projects when multiple trades are working in the same space? Welcome to every project, every project. You're probably there with the electricians, with the HVAC, with the modular furniture people and you just got to work through them stuff. You know, a lot of times on your big construction projects they have weekly construction meetings. Go to those construction meetings and sit down and talk to them. Tell the painters hey look, I'm going to be building out the telecom rooms on the week of the 24th. Can you have that room painted beforehand, so that way your cables don't get painted?

Speaker 2: 26:35

Okay, you know what I used to do as well. When I got on a project, as was a project manager. My first day on the project, I went around and introduced myself to every, every lead person for every trade I want. I wanted their name, their phone number. I would talk to them, find out. You know what they like to do. So that way, if I I needed to, you know, scratch your back or whatever, and if I knew that they like to go golfing, I say, man, hey, if you give me, if you can get that stuff in, I can probably get a free golfing game with you.

Speaker 2: 27:06

With some people, michael says relationships, skills matter Absolutely, michael, absolutely, absolutely. So, yeah, don't be afraid to. You're not a boat out in the middle of the ocean, you're in the middle of everything. Man, you need to know who you're working with, and that's everybody, from the electricians, from the HVAC to the sprinklers, to the modular furniture people, and make sure that you tell them everything. Today's environment we got Revit, which is building information modeling, and those things are really good at helping you detect conflicts well before the installation even begins, because it creates a 3D rendering and you can say, oh, wait a minute.

Speaker 2: 27:53

That rack the cable tray that the electricians are putting in. When I put my racks in, that's not going to give me enough room. It's easier to fix it while it's still a 3D drawing, as opposed to when you're out in the field and that cable tray is already installed. Now you've got to tell that electrician oh, you've got to move that cable tray up six inches. Yeah, exactly, daryl, the RCD says I've always found out that the favorite vice of every PM and on and and super on large project was oh, absolutely Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 28:26

You know, and here's one for you too, daryl, especially if you're on a working on a project where you've got multiple floors and they have only one elevator and they've got somebody running that elevator, you got to schedule time on that elevator. Find out what that person likes, if he does he. Does he like the? Does he like to have lunches from Chick-fil-A? Does he, does he like to have a Zevia sodas? Right, and then that way you know hey, grease that wheel. Hey man, I got a case of Zevia sodas out in the truck. Man, can I get some stuff taken up to the third floor? I know I'm not on the schedule. Like Michael said, relationship skills matter. They absolutely matter, they do, and make sure that you do those Revit skills, those Revit drawings, and you talk to them about it, right. So there you go.

Speaker 2: 29:16

Also, george says, to see if your devices might have issues with use packet tracer. Okay, okay, I'm okay with that. Okay, so we are at 629. I'll do one more question. I'll do the other questions on next week. This one came to me from TikTok. It says Chuck, what's the best way to mitigate risks in the IC project? Okay, well, I kind of already talked about that. Identify them ahead of time. Whoops, identify them ahead of time and create contingency plans.

Speaker 2: 29:50

I mentioned about, maybe, material shortages. Is there a substitute that you can use for that cable tray? Can you get it from Anixter instead of Graybar? Is the customer okay with you changing that out because of the job shortage? It might impact their career. And also here's one I didn't mention earlier Cross-train your techs, cross-train your employees. That way, if somebody calls in sick, they can easily take over and take that person's job over and do that while the person's out. Cross-training, cross-training, cross-training, cross-training. That's very, very important stuff. Alright, I'm at 6.30. I'm already at my 30-minute mark. I'm going to go ahead and kill this live stream and then, because I've got to gear up for the RCD study group tonight.

Speaker 1: 30:40

So until next time, everybody remember, knowledge is power thanks for listening to let's talk cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low voltage industry connects. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your crew. Got questions or ideas for the show? Chuck wants to hear from you. Stay connected, stay informed and always aim for excellence. Until next time, keep those cables clean, your standards high and your future bright. Let's talk cabling empowering the industry, one connection at a time.