The 4 Ps of Project Productivity

I want to share my personal observations regarding project productivity from managing various professional and personal projects.

Project Productivity is a multiplier of the following four factors:

1. Planning - Ten percent excellent planning including all project team members is critical to start the project on a sound footing.
2. Promotion - Continually share the value of your project with your team, department, and organization. 
3. Personal Touch - Roll up your sleeves and add value by executing your items flawlessly for the project.
4. Perseverance - Once the project goals are set, persist until the project is successfully completed.

If any one of the factors is trending downward, the overall project productivity will go down, as these factors work in parallel.

In summary, Project Productivity = Planning x Promotion x Personal Touch x Perseverance

I welcome your observations and thoughts for project productivity.

My definition of Quality

From my years of experience as a producer and user of products and services, I have realized that quality is best defined by an user of a product and/or service. When an user experiences a quality transaction, he/she will ask for more of it.

Quality is not just the small "q", or the performance. Quality is a multiplier of Performance (q), Cost (C), and Schedule (S). The big Q is equal to q x C x S. Think of q, C, and S as three legs of a stool. For a stable stool, all three legs must be firmly balanced. I will also add that quality as perceived by a consumer is the quality of Total Experience in the context of big Q.

Let me share some recent experience during my travels in India. My wife and I were on a sightseeing tour of Rajasthan, a western State of India. Our first driver Sanjay was extremely knowledgeable about places we were visiting and gave us the best experience for the first 12 days. Unfortunately, for the last 2 1/2 day of the tour, a new driver was assigned. He was less knowledgeable about the places we were visiting and we did not experience the same level of performance provided by the first driver. Sanjay exceeded our expectations (quality experience) while the second driver did not even meet our expectations (non-quality experience).

I have another example from the hospitality side. After staying at various palaces in Rajasthan (Udaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, and Jaipur) we arrived at the Taj Gateway Hotel in Agra. We were delighted to experience fabulous service from Taj's hospitality. All transactions at Taj were of highest quality and exceeded our expectations. As a result of this positive experience, we are more likely to stay at Taj Hotels in our future tours.

In summary, when we create a product/service, we need to keep in mind user's perspectives and requirements. Then provide best experience while delivering our product/service. If we can do this consistently, then we can delight our customers.

I welcome your definition of quality.