Skip to main content

Tag: Plan

Global Project Portfolio Management

Written by Thomas Silvestri on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on Global Project Portfolio Management

In 2007, Purcell and Hutchinson proved there was a direct correlation between an individual’s personality and a successfully delivered project.

A report in the Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management found that to be successful, project managers need to demonstrate extrovert and perceiving personality traits (more about that below). While noted project management researcher Lynn Crawford stated in 2001 that once a project manager had achieved an entry level of project management knowledge (yep, entry level), then more knowledge doesn’t make them more competent. Prof Crawford concluded: ‘It’s their personality and leadership style that does.’

Barely a week goes by without reading quotes from luminaries such as Drucker, Godin and Peters about just how vital it is. Today’s modern IT PMO governance are superior delivery experts in project driven delivery, technology powered, business centric, and BI enabled. IT leaders must embrace constant pressures, changes, and innovation. The capital investment portfolio and primary decisions criteria for which programs and projects are funded remains a mystery for most IT departments lack of visibility to the decision-making processes of their corporate boards and CEO’s.

On average, over 50% of projects will fail as businesses are unable to sense and respond to the project risks and challenges for superior implementation causing a massive capital leakage across all industries. The tracking of performance and accountability provides a means for
IT governance process and policy control, with no financial functions capturing the activity-based costing expenditures that account for the millions of dollars wasted on failed projects annually.

The Standish Group – Project Success Factors

The 2018 Chaos Report identified three key success factors for projects as:

  • Executive Sponsorship
  • Emotional Maturity
  • User Involvement

All true and all within project sponsor and project manager control. In the past, organizations have argued that the leadership ability of project sponsors and managers is hard to measure and provide feedback on a continuous basis.

Project Management Institute – The Report

Pulse of the Profession report: “We saw declines in many of the success factors we track. Even more concerning, the percentage of projects meeting their goals—which had been flat for the past four years—took a significant dip.” The report, however, then went on to say that to resolve this dip, “organizations need to shift their thinking and embrace project management as a strategic competency for success.”

Overview

IT Governance and project management industry reports provide information on the status of the project itself, however if I wanted to know how a project was really going in financial terms, I had to get out and speak to the stakeholders, budget analysts, and related administrators within the organization.

Early warning signs that a project was failing and the project is in jeopardy of losing capital:

  • Unhappy project team
  • Lack of executive sponsorship
  • Dissatisfied or disengaged stakeholders
  • Lack of collaboration
  • Lack of communication
  • Disorganized meetings
Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

These are all elements of the emotional maturity of a project sponsor and manager and are usually the things uncovered when teams are asked to provide their ‘gut feel’ as to how things are going. These are also the things talked about in the kitchen or staff room long before a project fails and yet are rarely picked up or resolved.

CEO and CIO –A Global Disconnect

The world’s largest companies say they plan to do everything it takes this year to gain a competitive edge in their markets. In the meantime, their CIOs are still stuck trying to be the best darn technology providers they can be. A major disconnect between CEOs and CIOs? Haven’t we heard this one before? Well, yes. But Gartner Inc. analyst Mark McDonald points to fresh statistics from the Stamford, Conn.-based research firm that suggest the perennial disconnect has more urgency, especially at companies trying to grow faster than the market. The report surveyed 1,400 CIOs at organizations with an average IT budget of $90 million.

PPM Business Performance Outlook

  • 2010-2015 Resulted in 5 years of the worst PPM performance on record
  • TCO increases dramatically while PPM performance levels dramatically decreasing
  • CXO Cultural: CEO/COO/Business managers do not value IT as peer to peer
  • CIO have become “order taker” managers of business
  • PPM managers are humiliated
  • 30% of global PPM delivery success rate (70% failure rate)
  • 25% of global investment leakage for sunken costs of ca. $125M per $1B invested
  • 50% of CXO’S Don’t Value Project Management

Key Project Management Challenges

  • Lack of Risk Structures: No risk calculation for enterprise management plan and assessment for the outcome of the project deliverables.
  • Lack of Proactive Issues and Resolutions: No coordinated effort on the feedback to close loop of all critical issues and resolutions path.
  • Poor Requirements Building: Business workflow process and business operational models are not documented with WBS details.
  • Change Implementation Standards: SOP’s playbook for performance, education, training, development, investment for the enterprise
  • Develop Governance: Establish an optimal process for making decisions and assigning decision rights. Identify and engage stakeholders. Agree on authority and flow for decision making. Implement and set up feedback mechanisms. 
  • Drive Change Management: Set up a system to communicate ideas via multiple channels. Get buy-in from stakeholders at all levels. Assess progress, and drive stakeholder commitment to the change. Be sensitive to the amount of change PPM efforts will entail. 
  • Execute Business Goals: Optimally operate the initiative in accordance with business goals. Update and drive new elements of the initiative in response to changing business requirements. 
  • Continuous Improvement Processes Post Production: Measure how the initiative has affected business outcomes. Seek feedback from stakeholders. Drive improvements through process changes and upgrades.

Modern PPM Approach: New Methodologies

Project Driven, Technology Powered, Business Centricity, BI and Analytics

  • Insight Driven
    Proactive data-driven based on competitive advantages
  • Collaborative
    Creating cultural of social project success and teamwork for better outcomes
  • People-Centric
    Alignment of diverse skills sets, with project delivery requirements
  • Ultra-Efficiency
    Project efficiency of personal execution and solutions
  • Control
    Single source of accountability and track performance profitability for monitoring the control mechanics.

Project Objectives: The Need to Validate and Adjust

Written by Luli Hoxha on . Posted in Articles. 7 Comments on Project Objectives: The Need to Validate and Adjust

One of the most important measurements of project success is if the project has reached its objectives.

However, project objectives are part of the overall dynamic of the environment in which the project is undertaken. Therefore, the project manager should continually assess if the project objectives are still valid. If they are not, the project manager needs to consult relevant stakeholders about the need for adjustment of the project objectives or there may be a need to terminate the project altogether. Following the initial project objectives blindly, might lead to unexpected results, with which no one would be happy in the end.

The following example from the Second World War (WWII) is illustrative of how, when changes happen, project objectives can become obsolete. It shows that whoever is in charge needs to act to reconcile the project objective with the latest information so either the project objectives are adjusted, or maybe the project needs to be canceled.

By 1944, the European theatre of WWII had reached its end. The Pacific war, however, was still in full swing. Late in December 1944, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese Imperial Army was stationed at the Island of Lubang, around 90 miles southwest of Manila, the Philippines. The last order given to him, delivered in early 1945, was to stay and fight and prepare the terrain for a Japanese imperial army comeback.

So far, these orders appear in line with circumstances; they are nothing outstanding for that period of the time. However, the comeback never happened.

The situation was very dynamic. On February 28, 1945, US forces landed on Lubang Island, and within 2-3 days they liberated most of it. On August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered to the United States. However, the United States and Philippines forces had information about some soldiers who were still carrying out war activities. After the act of surrender, the Japanese military informed their personnel to cease all activities and surrender to the nearest US or Philippines military outpost.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

The group of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda continued to fight against the local islanders, Philippines army, and police forces. Hiroo Onoda was the last soldier/officer to yield: 29 years after Japan’s surrender. Hiroo Onoda and his group of soldiers refused to believe that the war was over. Even Japanese soldiers from the same contingent who had been captured tried to inform the rogue soldiers with no result. From April 1946, onwards, there were only four soldiers left with Onoda.

Onada was active until March 9, 1974, when he surrendered to an Imperial Japanese officer, Major Taniguchi. It was only after he received direct orders from Major Taniguchi that Onoda realized that the war was over. He finally accepted that he had spent 29 years in the jungle fighting for Imperial Japan, when in fact they had surrendered in 1945.

The highest respect and admiration must be accorded to Hiroo Onoda’s courage, patience and determination to continue to fight. However, he was fighting for a lost cause. Imperial Japan had already surrendered.

This is an unforgettable example. My goal in telling it is to encourage project managers to continually assess their project objectives. Project managers should ask: Has the environment changed since we started the project? Has any new technological development occurred that will render our project objective obsolete? Are there changes in the socio-economic environment that will impact the project objectives? Has the company merged or has there been a spin-off that has impacted the project objectives? These and other questions are necessary to ensure the project team is still working for valid project objectives.

The need to validate project objectives is relevant in both internal and external projects. In fact, it is very much relevant even for personal projects. Sometimes projects take weeks, months and years to complete. We need to constantly scan the environment for changes, and act accordingly. What was a right move two years ago, might not be today, what was a useful project two years ago, might not be today.

Top 5 tips to excel your projects productivity

Written by Jane Thomson on . Posted in Articles. 6 Comments on Top 5 tips to excel your projects productivity

As a Project Manager, do you struggle to share crucial information between your team members and worry too often about its confidentiality?

Does any of the common phrases quoted below strike your mind often?

  • Had I known before, I would have done it differently.
  • I wasn’t aware that we had a template for that!

On a general note, different people in a team come with different ideologies and philosophies. Being a Project Manager, you need to ensure that all the requisite information should get into the heads of the respective project team members who need to know it at the right time. Once they are well aware of what is expected out of them, it becomes easier to convey the project goals and it becomes their sole responsibility to take care of their respective job roles and contribute effectively towards the overall productivity of the project.

Here are 5 tips that a Project Manager and his team should follow to enhance the project’s productivity thereby expediting its final delivery. Let’s explore some of the possibilities to accelerate your project development and overall growth and productivity:

Maintain Documents Warehouse

Every project team member should try to maintain repositories of all your written documents in one searchable place. You can use the available data for passing on the knowledge among your team members. This knowledge base can be saved in any form – a wiki page or a shared network drive or a collaboration tool which can be used internally for knowledge transfer. You can store it on a CD or a pen drive in the form of images and videos which should be strictly used for official purposes only.

Peers Training

As a Project Manager, you should be in a better position to judge team members who have in-depth knowledge about the project-related activities. Try to pair up the knowledgeable bunch with team-mates who need some process training. Literally, a training may be on anything, be it from building a software feature or add-on to using macro-based spreadsheets or detailed understanding of the internal processes, etc. The core idea is to drive and spread knowledge among the team members and create a multi-disciplinary team which can work in coordination with each other in the long run and delivers the project on or before the assigned deadlines.

Cross-training among the team members is an effective measure to keep the project on track. Just in case, you feel the need that any of your team members need to specialize on a certain set of work which can be achieved only through some special training, you can nominate them for the Project Management Certification program so that they can get some key inputs of how to go about in accomplishing the project goals and perform their respective duties efficiently and more effectively.

Conduct Team Meetings

Regular team meetings provide a wonderful opportunity for the team members to share knowledge. As a Project Manager, you can make a team huddle as a part of the regular agenda and request the team members to share any latest update during the huddle. It becomes an easy platform to share their respective expertise and knowledge. In due course, this habit turns into a regular practice and benefits one and all. Generally speaking, a project team can discuss topics related to the project in the team meeting and talk about what they know and highlight those areas which they wish to explore.

By doing this, the team members can pass on interesting facts about the project and the challenges they face while performing their work and recommend solutions to fight back various project issues effectively.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Grasp Lessons from Meetings

Being a Project Manager, you need to ensure that you and your team grasps the lessons learned during the team meetings. This drives like a vehicle for a good start and stacking valuable information wherever necessary. A team huddle on a regular basis offers an immense scope to the team members to exchange ideas and each of them can benefit from going over what worked and what didn’t.

Making a meeting as a useful exercise can go a long way in refreshing the project requirements and understanding what needs to be improved. As a matter of fact, you can utilize your mind mapping tools and document the output in a simple visual way. For instance, you can jot down key points and the lessons learned and distribute as a pamphlet among your team members who can paste it on their respective workstations so that they can use it as a reminder to keep the project on track and this also acts as a key lesson for future or upcoming projects.

Mentoring your Team Members

Mentoring is a key element to keep the project on track. Time-to-time discussions with your team members can help in keeping the project scope in place. Although mentoring is quite different from training. It is a more informal approach to conveying some valuable information and knowledge about the various project requirements. As a Project Manager, you should allocate an experienced person to mentor the newbies or lesser experienced team members with the intent to pass on relevant project know-how. The information may include of process knowledge, how the company functions or some specific industry area etc.

Literally speaking, mentoring is considered a personal experience which works best when there is a two-way working relationship between the mentor and mentee, i.e., both need to interact with each other and discuss complex issues and try to connect and understand each other’s viewpoints.

Conclusion

On a final note, once you employ all of these strategies you can be guaranteed of your project’s productivity is on the right track. Genuinely speaking, there is no one-size-fits-all approach in terms of productivity. A project can work effectively only when there is proper task management by the Project Manager and that your team members are well aware of their respective contribution towards the final output and remove any distractions in their minds. This would ensure that each team member is working in collaboration with each other for the accomplishment of the project goals and boosting the project’s overall productivity.

As a Project Manager, what has been your most effective technique to expedite the productivity of your project? Feel free to share your ideas or thoughts in the comments section below.

OUTSIDE THE BOX Forum: What is Collaborative Project Management?

Written by Robert Wysocki on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on OUTSIDE THE BOX Forum: What is Collaborative Project Management?

A project is a finite effort to move the organization from its current state to a desired end state.

The presumption is that there is some deficiency or shortcoming that results in unacceptable outcomes. So, the project’s purpose is to generate incremental business value. That business value is usually measured in increased revenue (IR) or avoided costs (AC) but might also be measured in improved service (IS). IRACIS is the acronym that describes this business value.

So, how should this project be configured and managed in order to achieve the changed state? There are many ways to do this but everyone of them should have characteristics that model collaboration among those who can contribute to the project and its successful outcome. In this article we are going to discuss that reality under the name of Collaborative Project Management (CPM). The Hybrid Project Landscape is adaptive and flexible and is therefore the ideal framework for supporting CPM.

THE COLLABORATIVE PROJECT TEAM

Our discussion of collaboration must begin with a definition and explanation of the collaborative project team. First of all, it is not like any project team you will have encountered before. Figure 1 is a generic structure of the collaborative project team. This team structure departs from the traditional project team in that it has two project managers: a Process Co-Manager and a Product Co-manager. This is certainly viewed as a disruptive structure by the traditionalists.
It has two project managers. One is the process co-manager whose major responsibility is the management processes that drive the project. The other is the product co-manager whose responsibility is the deliverables that the management processes produce. But further to that, they share equally in the authority and responsibility for the project.

For collaboration to be successful it must be holistic. We already know that the process team must collaborate but so also must the product team. And finally, collaboration must include cross-team collaboration. The cross-team collaboration is the most challenging because it takes both teams out of their comfort zones.

The Process and Product Co-Managers

These two managers equally share the responsibility and authority of the project but from different perspectives. Both roles will take the typical project manager and product manager outside of their comfort zones. But it is that equal sharing of authority and responsibility that puts a collaborative project environment over the top.

The Process Co-Manager is the analog of the traditional project manager but from a broader perspective. In addition to satisfying the project management requirements they must also satisfy the product requirements at the same time. The product co-manager will assure that that happens. Their constant attention to the needs of the product is different than most typical project situations.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

The Product Co-Manager represents the entire user group. If that happens to be a single, homogeneous user group that should be very straightforward. But that will be the exception rather than the rule. That could be deployed through several client team leaders – one for each user group. This will often put the Product Co-Manager in a negotiating position as they try to meet the needs of different user groups. The Business Analysts become a critical resource for these negotiations.

wysocki 11202018a
Figure 1: The Collaborative Project Team

The Process Team

The ProcessTeam is on the left side of Figure 1. The Business Systems Engineer is a small team of specialists whose services will be needed throughout the project. They might work independently of one another or even as a small cooperative team. Their expertise spans the relevant business processes and they will offer changes and improvements to support the Engineers. These developers could be organized into several independent groups who work on the advice os a single business systems engineer.

The Product Team

The Product Team is on the right side of Figure 1. The Business Systems Analyst can be the most complex team as it focuses across the entire user group of a product or service. For a simple product that user group might be one person or a homogeneous group of users. For a complex service it might be a cross-section of a supply chain with different teams for different process steps. For a simple product that user group might be one person or a homogeneous group of users. For a complex service it might be a cross-section of a supply chain with different types of users with different or even conflicting needs.

How to Establish a Collaborative Environment

Just as a Hybrid Project Environment could be established either top down or bottom up so also could a Collaborative Project Team be established in the same way. My preference is for a bottom up approach. The major business reason for a bottom up approach is to generate business value ASAP. A separate business unit could be put in place for the new business opportunity. It should be independent of the entire enterprise.

Benefits of a Collaborative Environment

A true Collaborative Environment is rare but emerging in many organizations. It is rare because it requires a project team structure across the enterprise rather than the normal functional structure. That team structure is emerging in many organizations.

With an enterprise-wide project team structure in place the following can take place:

  • Every project will have been reviewed to recruit team members with specific contributions to be considered,
  • No project will be denied the benefits of the organizations’ expertise,
  • Every project will deliver the maximum benefits to the organization.

The project structure obviously is one model for delivering maximum business value to the organization but its full implementation is a futures benefit. The hybrid project management approach is a way to get there.

Strategic Planning and the Intrinsic Elephant

Written by Paul Taplin on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Strategic Planning and the Intrinsic Elephant

Is the “elephant in the room” your strategic planning process itself?

Picture yourself and your colleagues invited to participate in the organisation’s strategic planning process, and settling down to several hours of facilitated discussions about planning the corporate future.

Chances are, firstly there will be an introductory talk from the Managing Director or CEO, followed by some further prepping from the corporate planning manager and others. Then you will probably participate in some sort of SWOT analysis, and generate all manner of things that will then need prioritising, consolidating and rationalising.

You are probably fairly pleased to be involved because it means that you have been recognised as a worthwhile contributor, and you’ve got the opportunity to illustrate your insightful thoughts in front of your peers and bosses.

But have you ever had that niggling feeling that somehow the group is sidestepping a weakness with the planning process itself – the biggest elephant in the room! Are you going to go out on a limb and call it out? What if you’re wrong, or worse, what if you’re right but nobody cares?

The potential weakness that I am alluding to is a diligent and frank assessment of the outcomes arising from previous years’ planning processes.

The whole point of the strategic planning process is to carefully and honestly evaluate the organisation’s corporate environment, and adopt a series of principles, policies, programs and projects that will be undertaken to improve the organisation’s performance against its adopted mission and objectives.

So, after the corporate prepping, one of the first steps in the planning process should be to look closely at the performance and outcomes of the programs and projects generated from previous years’ planning.

How effective were the projects and actions that were generated last year or the year before? Have they produced the results that the organisation was looking for? If not, where does the problem lie?

The problem could arise principally from one of two sources. Either the planning process generated the wrong outcomes, or the delivery process was flawed.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

The wrong planning process

The most likely causes of a problematic planning process are unreliable data, a lack of authenticity and/or a major optimism bias.

Planning data is often laced with assumptions and predictions extrapolated from current performance. In a predictable world these assumptions may be relevant, but in volatile times any assumptions need to be robust enough to hold good for a variety of scenarios.

A lack of authenticity may arise if the provider has portrayed the information in a manner as the author wishes it to be seen rather than how it actually is, perhaps to support some preconceived actions that they would like the planning group to adopt.

Optimism bias is always present both in planning and the execution of initiatives. You can expect that estimated times and costs will ultimately be exceeded by 20-30% in many cases.

A flawed delivery process

A flawed delivery process arises when the organisation fails to provide the right machinery and environment to plan, develop and implement important initiatives and projects. Careful attention is required to adopt adequate resourcing, competencies, processes and culture to successfully deliver the project.

Organisational maturity in project management is essential.

The proposed delivery mechanism needs to be discussed, tested and adopted at the same time as adopting that particular corporate initiative to ensure its robustness and practicability.

Personal preparation for strategic planning

So, here are a series of questions to ask yourself in preparation for an upcoming planning session:

  • How are planning decisions actually made in your organisation?
  • Can you access and review any evidence about past and current strategic planning outcome performance?
  • Can you access and review past summaries of the close-out of strategic planning sessions?
  • Are you being invited as a valid contributor, or as part of a passive audience?
  • Are you confident enough to add your contribution, and perhaps call out any inauthenticity?