CEO interruptions causes delays

jeckenrode42196

My CEO continually interjects his own agenda into the company's workflow.  It's been a challenge for many years, and we all know that he won't change.  So knowing that we, as a company, cannot tell him to stop, I would like to create some visual that will show how his interruptions cause delays in deliverables of other products.



My question (to anyone who can help) is HOW do I identify these interruptions in smartsheet?  If I have 12 products (12 individual sheets) in one workspace for my team, where would I place the CEO so that his agenda can be tracked?  I'd love to create a gantt chart that highlights the baseline date of a deliverable, and then the revised date due to the interruption.



I'm new to SS.  I've been searching here as well as youtube,google for answers.  I'm at a loss.  

Please help!

Mike Wilday

It seems like you could place an additional row for the same task(s), with revised dates due to interruptions so that the original and modified due dates could be easily compared in the Gannt Chart.

Andrée Starå

Hi,

What kind of interruptions is happening? 

Can you share a sheet with me or take a screenshot so that i can better understand?

Best,

Andrée Starå - Workflow Consultant / Get Done

jeckenrode42196

Thanks Mike. That's what I was thinking.  Having a duplicate row for the interruption.   How would I show that on a report?  Can I use an end date and a revised date in the same report?

jeckenrode42196

Hi Andree, unfortunately that is the issue.  The interruptions are not documented currently.  The CEO goes around the exec team and the project mgmt team to ask for graphics or editorial work.  These team members don't know how to handle it so they just do the work their CEO is asking of them.  But it causes major struggles within the teams.  I'm only just beginning to learn of the magnitude, which is why I want to document the interruptions.  

Here is a current project that should be in design for mock layouts.  However, the graphics team is now working on the CEO interruption, which is pushing the current project back.

Mike Wilday

I imagine you could put a duplicate row (with no predecessors) right beneath the task that was delayed and just use actual dates in the normal start and finish column to show that the task was delayed. I would preface the task with Affected Time  - or something like that so that they could see when they were supposed to You just need to indicate somehow that the actual times are being affected by external tasks. 

Andrée Starå

Hi again,

Would it be possible to have an approval workflow that the CEO and others have to submit before any work can start?

To add to Mikes suggestion: You could maybe add columns for actual start date/end date or something similar and then another column to record the delay.

I hope this helps you!

Best,

Andrée Starå - Workflow Consultant / Get Done

Chris McKay

This is why baselining is vital in traditional project management methodologies and another example of why Smartsheet needs to put this on the development roadmap to be considered a proper PPM tool.

Hi,

If you have a "before" picture of your project with your tasks linked together to create a critical path (i.e. the steps that absolutely have to be done in order and at the times specified to deliver the project to the agreed schedule), I'd export that to an Excel spreadsheet and archive it. This then becomes your agreed baseline.

For any ad-hoc tasks the CEO or anyone else asks the team to complete outside the project scope, add these in on the next available row between your last completed task (e.g. Row 48) assigned to the resource in question and the first in progress or scheduled to start task (e.g. Row 50) for the same resource. Then link your new task to row 48 and the task below it to the new task on Row 49. If you are not allocating tasks to resources, then simply pick the last task completed and the next to be started.

This will essentially slot the work the CEO has asked your team to complete in the middle of the active project tasks (which it sounds like is happening). By linking the tasks, you have configure Smartsheet to calculate dates based on a critical path. If the newly created task has a 2 week duration, you are showing that Row 50 will also start 2 weeks later because it has to wait for your new tasks to be completed before it can begin. If you've connected the tasks, key milestones and the project end date will also be delayed.

If you have allocated resources and your CEO is asking people to squeeze the work across the line in parallel with existing project tasks, you can show how the resource will be over allocated if they are doing 2 things at once.