Lead Project Manager Training

July 20, 2007

Lead PM Training

• Competencies expected of Lead Project Managers• Communications• Being a salesman• Scheduling• Quality• Financial• Engineering• Metrics and goals • Other skills needed

Lead PM Competencies

Customer Focus

Oral Communication

Written Communication

Conclusion

11

22

33

44 Continuous Improvement

Lead PM Competencies

Decision Making

Ethics / Values / Integrity

Flexibility / Adaptability

Conclusion

55

66

77

88 Goal Setting / Accomplishment / Focus

Lead PM Competencies (Cont’d)

Interpersonal skills / Savvy

Organization / Planning / Priority setting

Providing direction to others

Conclusion

99

1010

1111

1212 Teamwork

Conclusion1313 Time Management

Lead PM Competencies (Cont’d)

Customer Focus• Who is your customer?• For a lead PM, it is:

– Nucor, and everyone working for Nucor– Site PM’s– Vendors– Administrators– Office PM’s– Engineering

• The Lead PM is the catalyst for everyone

Admin.Purch.Doc.

Site PM’s

Office PM’s

LEADPM

NUCOR

Vendors

Engineering

Results

Customer Focus• Understanding and responding to the

customers needs• Building long lasting relationships with the

customer, and managing these relationships• Overall goalOverall goal – the customer needs to feel

comfortable with you and trust you so that no matter what, they can come to you and know that their problems will be addressed quickly.

Oral Communication• Communicating verbally with customers• For the lead PM to be viewed as a leader,

his communication skills must be sharp• Listen first – determine what is happening,

and get a clear definition. Avoid jumping to conclusions

• Ask questions• Provide clear, understandable instructions

and information to your customer

Written Communication• Communicating thoughts and ideas through

reports, e-mails and the like.• 95% of our written correspondence is

through e-mail• Proper written communication conveys

professionalism• E-mail etiquette is a must for every lead PM

(as well as all others, but the lead PM sets the bar)

Written Communication• E-mail etiquette for Lead PM’s

– Use proper structure and layout• Every e-mail addresses the recipient (Hi Larry

or Dear Larry), and includes your signature line

• Use short paragraphs• Use blank lines between paragraphs• One subject per e-mail whenever possible

Written Communication• E-mail etiquette for Lead PM’s

– Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation

– Be concise and to the point– Do not write in CAPITALS– Do not overuse “reply to all”– Do not use e-mail to discuss confidential

information. – Avoid long sentences

Written Communication• E-mail etiquette for Lead PM’s

– Use cc: field sparingly– Don’t send or forward e-mails containing

libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene remarks

– Read the e-mail before you send it– Do not engage in “e-mail battles”. If someone

e-mails a problem, call the person, then use e-mail to follow up with action items.

Continuous Improvement• Understand the goals and objectives of the

program that we are promoting within Nucor• Utilize the quality initiatives to improve our

products and services (procedures, ECR’s, NCR’s and CA’s)

• Understand the metrics, and develop action plans for improving the performance for your plant

Decision Making• Gather information, understand it, and

quickly and efficiently make decisions on how to proceed

• Use whatever resources you need, and that are available, to help with the decision making

Ethics / Values / Integrity• For our program to succeed long term, our customer

(remember the definition) must:– Trust us– Respect us– Expect us, at all times, to do the right thing– Expect us, at all times, to be open and honest– Believe that we are always able to see things from their

point of view

• One instance of failing to do so, and the relationship is damaged indefinitely

Flexibility / Adaptability• Understanding that the customers needs

come first• Everything else takes a back seat• Being able to adjust mid stream to meet their

needs

Flexibility / Adaptability• Examples

– A vendor calls you. They have a part on the CNC lathe, and found a discrepancy on the drawing. What do you do?

– Nucor called the 24 hour CHL hotline. You were notified by the person monitoring the line. It’s Easter day. What do you do?

– A vendor calls and says that they haven’t received the drawings that were supposed to be sent, for an item that CHL requested for an outage. What do you do?

Flexibility / Adaptability• Examples

– Nucor calls. They are irate. Twice in a row, a cylinder leaked immediately upon installation. What do you do?

– Nucor calls while you are writing a training plan for lead PM’s. A shear they need by 7/20 was assembled backwards, and the vendor doesn’t think the can make the delivery. Nucor has already expended a lot of $$ on planning for this outage, and this really messes things up. What do you do?

Goal Setting / Accomplishment / Focus• Set goals for projects, and understand

Nucor’s goals for projects• Stay focused on the goals and objectives• Accomplish them!

Interpersonal skills / Savvy• Relating well to everyone• Develop positive, long lasting relationships• Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain• Give appreciation• Be a good listener – use the 80/20 rule• Make the other person feel important

Organization / Planning / Priority setting• Managing paperwork• Have all information in it’s proper locations –

make sure the network job folders have all the information

• Plan jobs up front• Assign priorities for the completion of tasks

Providing direction to others• Give clear, defined scopes on jobs and other

work requested• Document everything – follow up e-mails,

notes in the job folder, work scopes, and the like

Teamwork• Lead PM’s must be:

– A member of the team– The leader of the team– The cheer leader – always positive

• Facilitate teamwork between all of your customers – site, office, Nucor, vendors, administration, engineering.

Time management• The lead PM is expected to accomplish a

great many things.• To do this, he must be able to manage his

time effectively• Tools – Outlook, planning a day, and weeks

ahead. Use calendar, tasks, notes.• Prioritize your work. There is a lot to do, and

if it isn’t planned, you will feel overwhelmed.

Communications

Communications• Customer• Site Project Managers• Vendors• Engineering• Office Project Managers

Customer Communications• Get to know all of the supervisors

– Visit regularly, and more often when we are missing a site PM

• Know everyone in purchasing & accounts payable

• Develop relationship with lead maintenance supervisor and maintenance manager

• Get to know the engineering staff– Visit regularly – they manage capital projects

Customer Communications• Act as the single point contact for Nucor

management and purchasing– Visit purchasing once/month and address all

concerns

• Maintain compliance with all of the commercial requirements of the contract

• Give presentations of quarterly reports

Site PM Communications• Be the site Project Managers advocate within CHL –

make things happen for him internally, so he can spend time on the shop floor, helping to solve problems.

• We don’t want the site PM’s spending valuable time doing administrative duties

• Receive and act upon all issues that arise from site activities

• Act as project manager on equipment orders when necessary

Vendor Communications• Our vendors should be treated in the same manner

as an employee – motivate them, empower them to perform better for us and Nucor

• Work with our vendors – do not accept badgering of them

• Use the metrics that Pat prepares.• Remember – most of the vendors have done work

for Nucor in the past. Nucor expects us to make them better. It is up to us to teach the vendors about our program.

Salesman

Salesman• Be the CHL “Salesman”.• Sell our company, our capabilities, and our program• Make sure that the objectives are being met at your

plant• The program is designed for the maintenance items;

it does not include capital projects.• It is up to us to use our presence within the plants to

sell the capital projects.

Scheduling

Scheduling• Each week, Pat Logue sends out a weekly schedule

of open jobs, and a weekly drawing status report. These usually are sent on Fridays.

• It is the lead PMslead PMs responsibility to make sure these schedules are up to date, with the latest information.

• Suggest you meet with Pat once/week to go over the schedule (it’s best to go over every item). 2 hours is usually sufficient (once you start), to do this.

• Suggest once/month to review jobs on hold (Pat can create the list)

Scheduling• Suggestions:

– Know every job.– Know the status of every job.– Your credibility within the plant will increase

rapidly if you know the status of the jobs– Push (vendors, office PM’s, site PMs) to get

the jobs done. Work with the site PM’s to help them out on this whenever needed.

Scheduling• Make sure Tiara and Axapta are kept up to

date, not only with scheduling dates but also with notes, comments, etc. This information is extremely valuable later.

• Verify that each order is completed, closed and invoiced.

Quality

Quality• It’s hard to place a higher importance of one

item over another that we have discussed, but quality is definitely at the top of the list. It is a major reason we are present at Nucor.

• Make sure NCR’s are written for every problem.

• Make sure all NCR’s are addressed, and as lead stay on top of them and get them resolved.

Quality• Investigate and prepare reports on NCR’s.• Utilize root cause failure analysis to get them

completed.• Push the site PM’s to get the NCR’s signed

off by Nucor.• Write corrective actions where needed. Use

corrective actions as part of the NCR process.

Financial

Financial• Review all quotes prior to submittal to Nucor.

– Make sure cost is in line with previous costs– Make sure cost is what is expected– Make sure the work description is clear– General rule of thumb: If you wouldn’t like it

or understand, neither will your customer

• Get Purchase orders for all jobs – track jobs for which we haven’t received PO’s, and work with Nucor purchasing to resolve.

Financial• Make sure invoicing is taking place on all

jobs– Run “Nucor delivered jobs without final

invoice” report, and resolve

• Make sure we get paid on all jobs. Work with Nucor accounts payable if we aren’t.– Request report from accounting on

outstanding payments

Financial• Nothing ships without a PO.

– Avoid rush shipments – only when necessary– Nucor purchasing will issue a $0 PO when

rush is required

• Review all jobs for cost and expenditures.– Request report from accounting on markup

for all jobs.

• Monitor costs – submit change order requests when appropriate

Engineering

Engineering• Make sure drawings sent for site review are

reviewed and sent back to engineering.• Make sure drawings received from site review are

completed efficiently• Monitor the engineering work on all work orders.

Follow the development, distribution and transmittal of all drawings to Nucor, to make certain they occur in a timely manner.

• Monthly check on ECR status – make sure they are progressing.

Engineering• Request engineering personnel when necessary.

Coordinate with the engineering manager.• Engineering priorities

– Work with site services manager and site PMs to update bi-weekly reports

– Determine the priorities plant-wide– Insure changes to site priority needs are

communicated– Insure timely feedback and direction from site when

needed by engineering

Metrics and Goals

Metrics and Goals• Understand the metrics of our organization• Achieve the goals for your plant• When not achieving the goals, develop

action plans on how to improve.• Work with Project Director and site services

manager on this.

Other skills needed

Other skills needed• Outlook & Excel – become proficient• Tiara & Axapta• Creating reports within Tiara (and Axapta)

– Nucor custom– Engineering– Other

• Review job description

Other items• Lead PM meeting

– I would like to have a once / month (or 1.5 months) meeting with the lead PM’s and the site services manager. Should the product managers be present?

• Other resources to help– Other lead PM’s – Dave & Bill– Jude – Mark– Tony– Product Managers– Ask for help if needed!

The End

Thanks for participating!!