PDF Summary:Making Things Happen, by Scott Berkun

What makes a good project leader? How can you better communicate with the people you work with? Why are schedules so unreliable? What can you do to avoid major problems on a project? In Making Things Happen, public speaker and management expert Scott Berkun answers these and many other questions you may have on leadership and project management. As a former manager for major companies like Microsoft and WordPress, Berkun has years of experience both working on and managing successful projects.

In our guide, we’ll not only go over what it takes to be a strong leader and project manager, but we’ll also explore the different phases of a typical project—planning, design, and building—and what a manager can do during each phase to ensure a project’s success. Throughout the guide, we’ll further explore insights on leadership and project management from other experts in these fields.

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Customer’s viewpoint: The most important viewpoint of a project, according to Berkun, is the customer’s. A project, after all, is usually made to serve a customer, but many organizations spend the least amount of time and energy focusing on the customer’s perspective. A product manager should pay special attention to the needs and desires of customers to make sure what’s being built is satisfying these needs and desires. To get a better understanding of the customer’s viewpoint, you can heed the specific requests of customers or perform your own research to see what they want from a product or what issues they need solved.

(Shortform note: In The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen argues, much like Berkun, that customers (and investors) dictate an organization’s direction more than any manager or leader. One downside to this, according to Christensen, is that it can stifle innovation because disruptive technologies are usually unappealing to customers at first. When a new product or invention fails to appeal to customers and thus fails to make substantial profits early on, investors and employees won’t want to spend any more time and resources on it. Because of this, it can be better to focus less on the customer’s viewpoint when trying to make an innovative product.)

Schedules

Once you’ve determined the size, authority, and viewpoints of a project, you move on to schedules, which are the basic building blocks of planning. Berkun claims that schedules are notoriously unreliable: Many projects fall behind schedule, which can result in over-budget projects, angry customers, and overworked employees and managers. As a project manager, you should understand why schedules are unreliable and what you can do to get the most out of them.

Berkun states that a project manager must be aware that schedules, especially early on in the project, are rough estimates based on limited information. Estimating is hard, as it’s impossible to know how the work will develop and what might change over the course of the project, so a schedule shouldn’t be seen as a realistic prediction. The manager, as well as the rest of the team, should recognize that the schedule is merely a jumping-off point that will hopefully get more accurate as time goes on.

Why Managers Are Bad at Estimating

Fredrick P. Brooks’s The Mythical Man-Month is a project management book that focuses on large, complex projects and how to ensure they stay on schedule. He identifies two reasons managers often inaccurately estimate how long a project will take, as well as solutions to these common problems:

Managers want to please the customer: If a customer or client asks for a specific deadline on a project, the manager may base timing estimates on the deadline instead of a more realistic timeframe. If there is a competitor involved, these estimates can become even tighter as organizations compete to offer the fastest timeline. Brooks insists a manager must fight this temptation to please a client and be honest about a project’s timeline. Another solution is for companies to release data from previous projects so that customers don’t have unrealistic expectations.

Managers underestimate the time it takes to fix errors: Human error is a natural and unavoidable aspect of any project, but managers often overlook this when making schedules. Brooks suggests devoting more of a schedule to identifying and correcting errors.

Recognizing and communicating to others that schedules are apt to change, as Berkun suggests, could lessen the pressure to please customers and leave time for correcting errors.

To get the most out of schedules, Berkun recommends the following tips:

Include periodic review sessions: The schedule should include short periods for managers to review progress, take in new information, and make any changes necessary to the schedule or any other part of the project. The more change you expect, the more often review sessions should occur.

Find the right balance of realism and optimism: Because schedules can be inaccurate, it’s important to set attainable timelines that make room for human error but still motivate the team to work hard.

Be transparent about your scheduling approach: However you decide to use schedules, make sure the rest of the team knows the thought process behind it. If you expect the schedule to change drastically, for instance, the team should be aware of this.

Judge the team’s experience: Knowing how much experience the team has working on a particular type of project, as well as how much experience they have together, will have a big impact on the accuracy of your estimates. If a team has worked on dozens of similar projects together, you can feel much safer in your estimates.

How to Avoid Small Delays

In The Mythical Man-Month, Brooks points out that projects usually fall behind due to a gradual accumulation of small delays rather than major problems or issues. This is because big problems are dealt with accordingly, but smaller delays are often overlooked and underreported.

To avoid small delays in a project, Brooks recommends setting specific benchmarks that are easy to track and easy to determine if they’re complete. This way, it’ll be much easier to track the project’s progress as a whole and there won’t be confusion on whether a task is finished. This also helps prevent small delays from being overlooked, as you’ll always know whether a task is finished or not.

Similarly, Berkun’s tips on getting the most out of schedules also help employees avoid small delays by, for example, being realistic about what schedules can and can’t do. Frequent reviews ensure changes are taken into account and schedules adjusted accordingly. Finally, transparency toward team members and a recognition of what they can and cannot accomplish keeps everyone up-to-date and working only to the best of their individual abilities. This way, unexpected delays are mostly avoided.

Requirements

Once you have a schedule, you can then move on to gathering requirements. According to Berkun, a requirement is any condition that needs to be met for the project to be considered finished. Project requirements help determine what the team is trying to accomplish or what problem the project is going to solve. . They should be simple, so designers have room for interpretation and can brainstorm different ways to solve the problem.

(Shortform note: The author of The Clean Coder points out that leaving room for interpretation of a requirement, as Berkun recommends, can present its own problems. Sometimes a client’s request can be too vague, resulting in the wrong product or program being built. The ambiguity of requirements should be addressed not by being more precise, but by regularly testing to see if what is being built is what the customer or client desires.)

To provide an example, a client requesting a new-build house gives the requirement that it have three bedrooms. The person designing the house knows they need a structure with at least three bedrooms, but there are plenty of options to choose from there. They may ask the customer how many square feet they want, how many bathrooms, what type of architectural style, or any other clarifying questions.

Berkun provides one simple method to develop good requirements: problem statements. These are brief descriptions of problems that come from research or customer feedback. For example, a consumer may complain that there are no cheap, reliable electric vehicles on the market. Providing such a vehicle could be the main requirement of an entire project.

Problem statements can also provide requirements for smaller problems or features. A customer may complain that an app doesn’t have a proper search tool, which could then be a requirement for the next software update.

(Shortform note: The author of SPIN Selling recommends using a similar strategy to help sell a product or service. Instead of generating problem statements, however, the focus is on asking problem questions. Problem questions are meant to reveal a customer’s desires or needs, and they could be an effective way to generate problem statements. For instance, you could ask a competitor’s customer what they don’t like about the product and use it to build a product that addresses their problem.)

Vision Documents

Vision documents wrap up the planning phase of a project. A vision document is a written description of a project’s main goals and objectives (vision), and any other information found during initial planning, such as customer research.

According to Berkun, there are a few key qualities a vision document should have. Most importantly, the main vision set forth in the document should be easy to understand. When a vision is clear on the project’s goals, people can easily refer to it at any time to help them answer questions or make decisions. A vision should also be motivational, so that the team understands how their work contributes to the overall goals of the project. Finally, a vision document should integrate many ideas into a coherent whole. A manager should include all helpful information in the vision document but do so in a way that remains focused and digestible.

Berkun claims that vision documents are the most important part of the planning process, as they provide value throughout the project when done correctly. Because of this, a project manager should devote more effort to the vision document than any other part of planning.

A vision document provides the team with the overarching goal of the project, and it allows anyone on the team to review the initial decisions the team made. It’s invaluable to have a written document to refer to instead of relying on the collective memory of the team. For instance, vision documents may remind you why you made certain scheduling decisions or why you chose not to include a particular feature as a requirement.

Additionally, the bigger and more complex a project is, the more a vision document will help: If a project has hundreds of people working on it, a vision document provides a common reference point for everyone if disagreements, confusions, or other problems occur.

Why a Strong Vision Is Important

In The Making of a Manager, Julie Zhuo argues that sharing a powerful vision is one of the most important tasks of a manager, but she calls the articulation of this vision a vision statement, not a vision document. . And while the definitions of vision statements and documents overlap significantly, Zhuo adds that a strong vision statement should be specific, in addition to motivational, easy to understand, and integrated.

Beyond writing it, Zhuo recommends two things a manager can do to ensure the project stays true to its vision statement and keeps employees inspired and on-task:

Connect every project action to the vision statement: Every single task and short-term assignment should have a clear link to the project’s overall goals. This further helps keep the vision statement fresh in employees’ minds, as Berkun recommends.

Reinforce the vision statement as often as possible: A manager should insert the vision into one-on-one conversations, in emails, and in larger meetings. This constant reminder will ensure the project keeps in line with its overall mission, especially when your project and team are large.

Design Phase

Once you know what the project must accomplish, you can then move on to the design phase, which answers how the team is going to accomplish it. In the design phase, a team takes its requirements, vision document, and any other planning materials and starts coming up with ideas on how to make the product.

Because design is usually the part of the project that involves the most creativity, the design phase can be tricky for a project manager. Let’s go over some of Berkun’s methods, such as asking good questions and using prototypes, in order to handle the creative work of the design phase.

(Shortform note: The author of The Design of Everyday Things points out that an important but sometimes overlooked part of the design process is making sure you’re solving the right problem. Bad designers may look at requirements and focus on potential solutions, while good designers will first identify the underlying problem. A project manager should keep this in mind during the design and planning phase, as proper planning can provide designers with the information they need to identify the right problem.)

Ask Targeted Questions

Berkun argues that a project manager asking the right questions can help foster creativity in the design phase. In general, questions can lead a design team in one of two directions: to think more narrowly, or to think more broadly about the project.

A narrowing question can help a team home in on what’s important and reinvigorate creative energy. Creative work can be bogged down by trying to solve too many problems at once, so asking a question that narrows focus can get a project moving in the right direction. For example, a design team hoping to make a cheaper vehicle may try to do so by making every part slightly cheaper to produce, which dilutes focus and stalls the project. A project manager may ask, “What’s one part we could make drastically cheaper?” The team then decides to work on a more affordable engine, focusing their efforts in a single direction.

Alternatively, when a team is in a creative rut, a project manager may ask a question that helps designers explore new ideas or think about things from a broader perspective. When trying to make a reliable electric vehicle, a project manager may ask, “In what areas can we improve reliability compared to our competitors?” This may help the team to come up with many viable ideas for producing a reliable car.

Contradictory Approaches to Creative Work

Berkun’s creative advice involves asking questions on opposite ends of the specificity spectrum (narrow and broad). In Creativity, Inc., Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull provides tips on how to maintain a creative workplace that mimics this creative duality. Catmull argues that people often have an inflexible perspective that can stifle creativity. To help go beyond these inflexible perspectives, Catmull advises creating an experimental space where you can explore ideas and take risks without fear of failure.

Another tip Catmull recommends is to create clear boundaries for a team to work within. Though on the surface this may seem to limit a team’s perspective even further, it can actually help with creative work because limiting options can help people come up with unique ideas.

Use Prototypes

According to Berkun, using prototypes in the design phase can help answer questions or help a design team test a product’s technical viability. When a team has an idea worth exploring further but isn’t ready to fully commit to it, prototypes can be especially useful. There are several different ways to go about prototyping, and which one is best will depend on the project. In general, the more complex the prototype, the more questions it’ll be able to answer. Let’s explore a few different prototyping methods a project manager may use:

Several small prototypes: When you have many potential designs, making several smaller, less sophisticated prototypes in the beginning can help you decide which one might work best.

Combine the best ideas: Alternatively, if you have multiple designs, take the best ideas from each design, combine them into one prototype, and see what works and what doesn’t.

Determine what needs to be tested the most: Figure out what aspects of the design need to be tested the most and make one prototype that tests them all.

Four Types of Prototypes

The author of Inspired provides further insights into the usefulness of prototypes, particularly in the field of technology. Prototypes are useful because you can test out ideas or products without spending too much time, money, or energy. He describes four types of prototypes, which you can use in combination with the prototyping methods Berkun describes:

Feasibility prototypes: These are meant to be as simple as possible while testing if building the product is possible.

User prototypes: These are nonfunctional simulations of the final product, meant to help visualize the product.

Live-Data prototypes: These are functional but limited versions of the final product. They are meant to provide data on how well a product might sell.

Hybrid prototypes: These are a combination of the other prototypes, meant to get customer feedback early in the product’s development.

Building Phase

Once you’ve completed the design for a project, it’s time to begin building the product. Berkun points out that a lot of the heavy lifting is done in the planning phase, and a project manager’s main responsibilities in the building phase are anticipating and finding solutions to problems. First, we’ll go over some strategies to help keep a project on track and avoid major problems or setbacks. Then, we’ll review what you can do if these strategies fail and you do encounter a major setback.

How to Preempt Major Problems

According to Berkun, a project manager should always try to anticipate any issues or challenges that might derail the project. He argues that the best way to do this is to ask yourself questions that, when answered, provide insight into how the project is going. These questions should help make sure you are staying true to the project’s goals and that everyone is working toward those goals.

On a daily basis, you should ask yourself, “Are the tasks we’re working on today contributing to the goals of the project?” and: “Are the tasks being completed in a way that meets the requirements of the project?” If the answer to both of these questions is yes, you can be fairly confident the project is moving forward efficiently.

On a weekly or even monthly basis, a project manager should ask questions that ensure the project is moving forward at an appropriate pace and that nothing has fundamentally changed in the major goals or ambitions of the project. Here are four questions that can help with this:

• Is the project on track to be completed by the deadline?
• What can be done to help the team work more efficiently?
• What are the biggest potential obstacles that might derail the project?
• Has anything changed that might affect the goals or plans of the project?

Other Methods to Ensure Your Work Is Valuable and Efficient

The authors of Rework also recommend asking questions regularly throughout a project, but they frame it as analyzing the value of your efforts. If you frame it this way, you’ll not only prevent problems but also ensure you’re working on the most valuable task. Here are a few of these questions:

• Is what you’re working on actually valuable, or just what you enjoy?

• Are you adding measurable value to the project?

• Are you overcomplicating the work? Is there a simpler solution to the problem you’re trying to solve?

Another project management method, outlined in Scrum, also recommends reviewing work on a daily and weekly basis to ensure the project stays on task and major problems are avoided. During one- or two-week “Sprints,” the authors of Scrum recommend meeting with the team daily to discuss what they did yesterday, what they’ll do today, and what is slowing them down. At the end of every Sprint, which typically lasts one or two weeks, the team reviews the work they’ve done with the goal of identifying problems, increasing efficiency, and adapting to changes.

What to Do If a Problem Occurs

Despite a project manager’s best efforts to prevent problems, a project never goes exactly as planned, and problems will inevitably arise. Because of this, Berkun claims that a good project manager must know how to mitigate the damage when a problem occurs. If a project is completely derailed, a project manager needs to find a way to get it back on track. Let’s look at what a project manager should do when a problem occurs.

First and foremost, a project manager needs to take responsibility when there’s an issue within a project. This doesn’t mean taking the blame for the project: It means being accountable for finding a solution. As a leader, taking responsibility in a difficult situation keeps the team from blaming each other and empowers them to work together to find a solution.

Next, remain calm and keep things in perspective. Evaluate the situation and make sure you have a grasp on what the problem is and how it’s affecting the project. Then, get everyone in a room or on a call together to discuss what went wrong and what can be done to fix it. Figure out your options, make a plan of action that’s as simple as possible, and put the plan into action. Once the problem is fixed, meet with the team to review what went wrong and try to figure out how it can be avoided in the future.

Determine the Type of Problem

In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, the authors give another helpful tip for dealing with unexpected problems: Identify the type of problem. The authors identify two types of problems your organization may face: technical challenges and adaptive challenges. Technical challenges are those which have known solutions, such as a machine in a factory breaking down. When this happens, you’ll know that you need to call a particular mechanic who works on that type of machine. Knowing what type of problem you’re looking at thus makes it easier to take responsibility for fixing it, as Berkun recommends.

Adaptive challenges, on the other hand, are those which have no known solution. To solve these challenges, workers and leaders must take a more creative approach. A misstep many organizations make is trying to apply technical solutions to adaptive problems. In other words, they try to use old techniques to solve new problems. A leader must avoid this mistake by recognizing when a problem is technical, adaptive, or a mix of both. A leader must also fight the urge to use technical solutions, which are often much easier to use and take much less effort. Berkun’s advice to remain calm, keep things in perspective, and evaluate your situation can help you deal with these types of circumstances and avoid such impulsive reactions.