Tag: Strategic & Business Management

The Greatest Challenges When Managing a Project

Written by Brad Egeland on April 5, 2016. Posted in Articles. 15 Comments on The Greatest Challenges When Managing a Project

What do you find to be the hardest part of managing a project? I bet if you asked ten different project managers that question you would get at least six or seven different answers.

I believe that many on the outside of project management looking in probably think it is easy. Be organized and you’ve got it made, right? I wish it was that easy but then again if that was all there was to it I guess the pay would be considerably less than it is and we’d all miss the challenge.

No, project management about much more than just being organized but you already know that. What do you find to be the most difficult aspects of the daily project management grind? For me, and from what I’ve perceived from many of my colleagues, it comes down to a fairly common list of about five things, depending on the types and sizes of projects and the clients we are dealing with, of course. There are always those variances. Let’s consider these five items.

The project budget.

The project budget has to be on here, likely always #1 or #2 on every project. 95% of the population has problems managing their own money! That doesn’t make them that much better at managing someone else’s!

Related Article: A Project Manager’s Four Greatest Challenges

The project budget is always a challenge. Unlike your own budget where it’s only you or a few people spending, for a project budget, you may have 87 different people, places or things charging to it. The project budget status can go from healthy to dire straits overnight as charges come through accounting and hit your project and now you must go figure out why.

Staying on top of the budget every week by updating the budget forecast with actual charges from the week before and re-forecasting it for the remainder of the project is one way to combat those budget surprises. Perhaps the only way. And, by doing this you can just about guarantee that it doesn’t go more than 10% out of control vs. the 50% overage that an unchecked budget can quickly realize. The 10% overage is a fairly reasonable/easy fix. You may never recover from the 50% overage.

Scope management / change control.

Scope management and change control are two of those two-word phrases that are basically like four-letter words in the world of project management. Scope management is always a challenge for the project manager and project team because some things are close calls on whether they are in or out of scope. Plus, we aren’t always thinking in terms of “scope” when we are plugging through the work or fixing issues. And change control results in those ugly change orders for which customers have to pay extra, and that’s always a fun thing for the PM to bring to the project sponsor’s attention to obtain approval.

Resolving team conflicts.

Some people actually thrive on conflict. Not me. I’d prefer that we all just get along and do our jobs. That’s why I like project management better than, say, managing a team of application developers who report directly to me. I’ve done that; I’ve had staff at several different organizations where I’ve worked. Resolving conflicts, personnel issues, giving performance reviews – these are a few of my least favorite things.

Pleasing everyone with the status report.

You can please some of the people all of the time. You can please all of the people some of the time. But you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Is this true? With status reporting it seems to be the case. But if you want to maintain your sanity and have time to manage your other projects and job requirements, it is in your best interest to find a status report format that works for everyone. By everyone I mean all stakeholders who care to hold your status report in their hands and a few who don’t care but you want them to care.

Create a usable and informative dashboard for everyone – especially for the project sponsor’s and senior management’s viewing pleasure. For your senior management, a few of the key stakeholders, and possibly some high-level players on the customer side, this may be all they ever want to see. It can be some high-level percentages or possibly a green-yellow-red stoplight approach to reporting the timeline, tasks, and budget health. Beyond that you want the weekly detail that goes into any good status report. This status report should drive the weekly team and client meetings. You will want to report on completed tasks, what’s happening now, what’s coming up soon and all outstanding issues and change orders.

The status report can be painful and a huge weekly chore on your to-do list, but if you can figure out how to create a one-size-fits-all approach to status reporting on your project, you’ll save time and effort overall by not creating several different reports trying to please everyone on your project routing list.

Getting all detailed requirements documented.

This one can be a real headache. Why? Because it seems that no matter how hard you try, no matter how many eyes are on it, no matter how many experts are involved and no matter how much your project client participates and insists “that’s it”, you’ll eventually find that something was overlooked.

It’s ok because the fault usually lies with the project customer and they end up paying for the extra work and time in the form of a change order. Still, customers don’t like change orders, and it usually means some painful re-work. It would be nice always to get it right the first time. But that’s almost never the case.

Call for input

Project management is challenging. Period. Some parts are harder than others. Some we master. Some we never really get used to or we seem to at least always make them hard. I wish I had a magic formula or all the time in the world on every project so that we could do everything well and everything right, but that is never the case. We always need to cut corners somewhere, and that doesn’t make most of these challenges easier…only harder.

How about our readers? What are your biggest challenges or least favorite activities associated with managing projects? What have you found to be your most troubling parts of managing a project?

Realizing Value – The Latest Trend or Here to Stay? Part 1

Written by Elizabeth Larson on February 22, 2016. Posted in Articles. 8 Comments on Realizing Value – The Latest Trend or Here to Stay? Part 1

In January we published our annual article about the seven trends in business analysis and project management. If we examine these trends, we see that they have one theme—they are all about value. We see and hear the word “value” in articles, blogs, on videos, and even in the definition of business analysis: “…analyzing business needs and recommending solutions that deliver value…” (BABOK® Guide 3.0).

ith so much emphasis on value, we wonder whether the term “value” is just the latest buzzword, or if there is enduring significance to the word. This article will examine each of the seven trends, discuss its relationship to value, and explore whether the concept of value is simply a trend or here to stay.

But what is “value?” It means so many different things to different people. Does it have to be quantified or can it be subjective? One of the authors (Elizabeth) has worked with an equal number of sponsors who required value to be measured and those who inherently understood the value of strategic projects. The latter group didn’t want to waste time quantifying something like “competitive advantage” or how much it would cost to upgrade technology, or although it could be done, measure the cost of risk avoidance.

So first, let’s attempt to define that very ambiguous word. As we said, it means different things depending on the application of the term to the business at hand. For example, in Marketing, the focus is on the customer perception of the goods and services and their willingness to pay for them. In economics, there are two components—utility and power. In Accounting, it has to do with monetary worth. We suggest that project managers and business analysts consider all these different aspects.

In 2015, the central theme of our Trends article was Innovation, without addressing whether innovation delivered value. It seemed that every organization wanted to be innovative, and every person wanted to be an entrepreneur. However, we have seen that innovation, disruption, and entrepreneurship for their own sake is not productive. Organizations now realize that a focus on “disruptive” innovation can indeed be, well, very disruptive. More and more of them are finding that disruption is expensive and that entrepreneurship might better be handled by internal people (intrapreneurs) who have organizational history and knowledge. Said another way, there has to be a business case for innovation, and it must provide enough value to outweigh the costs and risks of disruption.

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With this in mind, let’s look at first two 2016 trends and the ways in which they bring value to organizations.

Trend #1 Proving our value through Business Relationship Management

As we said in the January article, executives have long been interested in getting the greatest value from initiatives. However, they have struggled with how to determine and measure it, as well as what the term actually means. We suggested that the role of the business relationship manager could work with executives and business managers to help them define value for their initiatives (projects, programs, and portfolios), as well as help them measure the value at agreed-upon intervals. We have seen an uptick in the number of articles, conferences, and webinars on this topic, which indicates an increased awareness of the importance of organizational performance and value.

Trend #2 Agile is gaining wide acceptance but still faces challenges

We suggested that although Agile is gaining traction and has reached a level of maturity, there are still significant challenges. If we look through the prism of value, it seems that these challenges have arisen because many organizations view “being Agile” as an end in itself, rather than focusing on how Agile projects provide value.

In his article published in BA Times on February 9, David Shaffer called this out by saying, “The goal of software development is not to be Agile. …Being Agile is a worthless goal.”

Related Article: It’s Time to put Value in the Driver’s Seat

Let’s look at the challenges we listed and how a focus on value would resolve these issues.

Is everyone on board? We have long talked about how common it is to have a mismatch of goals among the executives, mid-level management, business stakeholders, and team members. The result of the mismatch is unmet expectations and disappointment. However, if every group was committed to providing value rather than becoming Agile, there would be a greater alignment of expectations and reduced conflict.
Can teams be truly cross-functional? There are many online discussions about having generalists vs. specialists on Agile teams. It seems that there is a great deal of emotion surrounding the discussions, in which some parties say that if there are specialists, it is not real Scrum while others talk about Scrum having outlived its usefulness.

Perhaps if we changed the conversation from the makeup of the teams to getting products to business stakeholders sooner, thus delivering value sooner, then the emphasis would be on what is the best makeup of the team to add value, rather than on adhering to Agile/Scrum roles.

How much governance should the team follow? Needless to say, the amount of governance depends on how much is needed to ensure the solution delivers value.

In this article we discussed the importance of value, we defined it, and described value as a central theme for all the project management and business analysis trends. We suggested that innovation for the sake of being innovative and Agile for the sake of being Agile were not only unhelpful but also meaningless as ends in themselves. Finally, we looked at the first two trends through the prism of adding value to the organization. In Part 2 we will discuss value in relation to the other 5 trends.

¹ Business Dictionary http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/value.html

About the Authors

Elizabeth Larson, PMP, CBAP, CSM, PMI-PBA is Co-Principal and CEO of Watermark Learning and has over 30 years of experience in project management and business analysis. Elizabeth’s speaking history includes repeat presentations for national and international conferences on five continents.

Elizabeth has co-authored five books on business analysis and certification preparation. She has also co-authored chapters published in four separate books. Elizabeth was a lead author on several standards including the PMBOK® Guide, BABOK® Guide, and PMI’s Business Analysis for Practitioners – A Practice Guide.

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, President and Founder of Watermark Learning, is a successful entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. He has presented workshops and seminars on business analysis and project management topics to over 10,000 participants on five different continents.

Rich loves to combine industry best practices with a practical approach and has contributed to those practices through numerous speaking sessions around the world. He has also worked on the BA Body of Knowledge versions 1.6-3.0, the PMI BA Practice Guide, and the PM Body of Knowledge, 4th edition. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored five books on business analysis and certification preparation.

What does 2016 hold for Resource Management?

Written by Greg Bailey on February 4, 2016. Posted in Articles. 8 Comments on What does 2016 hold for Resource Management?

The beginning of a new calendar year brings with it an abundance of predictions and forecasts about what the coming 12 months has in store. For project management in 2016, there are many to choose from; but what does 2016 hold for resource management?

Changes and advances in the project management world are sure to have a significant impact, so can resource management expect to follow similar trends throughout 2016?

Before we discuss the year ahead, we’ll first touch on resource management as a practice.

“Resource management is the process of using a company’s resources in the most efficient way possible. These can include tangible resources such as goods and equipment, financial resource, and labor resources such as employees.”
(source)

Resource Management is a much younger methodology than project management (PM), but despite its infancy, it still shares a core focus that many practices can relate to – getting the most out of people. How is this done? Well, successful resource management relies on the power of modelling: the ability to ask ourselves questions about our plans – both short term and long term, and ultimately find better alternatives to our existing intentions.

So, will resource management continue to grow in 2016?

1. A growing market

Gartner’s predictions for IT Organizations & Users for 2016 lists a number of bold expectations: 3 million workers will be supervised by a “robo-boss”, and 45% of the fastest-growing companies will have fewer employees than instances of smart machines by 2018. As futuristic as these may sound, Gartner is usually impressively on-the-mark with their estimations.

Another area the research giant has been paying an increasing level of attention to is the field of resource management. After articulating the key challenges that PMOs face, analysts emphasized the importance of strategically reacting to change in today’s challenging market. Without the ability to visualize where your resources are – their availability and their capacity – it becomes much more difficult to allocate them. As a result, your projects are more susceptible to failure.

2. Keys to success

With trends such as collaboration and productivity sharing the spotlight in 2015, 2016 may see the ‘rise of the versatilists’ (we understand that’s not technically a word, but its message stands true). Versatility will play a larger role as business change comes round at a faster rate than ever. A Project Manager’s success will be about adapting: determined through the possession of strong leadership skills and the forging of strong relationships (with the right people).

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In the same vein, successful Resource Managers will also have to be versatile. They must be able to provide a realistic view of the project schedule and budget, which includes accounting for unpredictable variables that may occur over the course of a project. The ability to understand and evaluate a company’s resources in a holistic manner is vital to Resource Management (RM), and will likely become increasingly apparent – especially when Gartner predicts one-third of today’s white collar jobs will be gone by 2050.

3. The power of hindsight

It is quite possible that 2016 will spell the end for the turnkey, as project complexity increases. Today, 20% of projects are considered very complex, with numerous interdependencies and mixed work types. This added complexity begets an increased pace of change, and as such it’s expected that projects will begin without a defined end point, and instead will continuously evolve. This will provide new challenges for Resource Managers, with resource allocation becoming more difficult to perform considering the increased chance of more unforeseen variables and a lack of finish line in sight.

To combat this, Resource Managers will do well to rely on the modelling features in modern RM tools. By testing theories in a model, you are able to make more informed decisions, leaving less down to chance and minimizing risk. Exploring as many alternatives as possible, we can attempt to discover what would happen if an idea was implemented. Creating more well-founded plans will give a Resource Manager the confidence they need to make these decisions.

4. Managing ‘virtual teams.’

Like seemingly all areas of business, remote working will continue to grow in companies as we can access more Cloud storage for less money. In the U.S., roughly 3.7 million employees (2.5% of the workforce) currently work from home for at least half of their working week. From 2005 to 2014 alone, we saw a total telework growth across all sectors of 102%. So, these ‘virtual teams’ are continuously growing, able to work together regardless of geographical location and remain productive when at home, commuting or on their way to a client. This does, however, present some challenges for Project and Resource Managers.

As you can imagine, it’s much more difficult to effectively manage a team when said team may be in different cities, countries or continents. Add to that any potential language barriers and differences in time zones – as well as a likely change in an employee’s work/life balance – make for a Project Manager’s nightmare. Effective and consistent communication is the remedy, and thankfully technology can play its part in helping you communicate to pretty much anyone in the world.

Should I Become a Contract Project Manager?

Written by Kiron Bondale on February 2, 2016. Posted in Articles. 9 Comments on Should I Become a Contract Project Manager?

Having worked as a contract Project Manager earlier in my career, and having hired contract Project Managers more recently, I wrote an article two years ago comparing the pros and cons of using them.

This perspective represents only one side of the coin, and with the increasing number of Project Managers I’ve met who have expressed interest in pursuing this type of work, I felt it might be beneficial to cover this topic from the other side. It should be noted that my focus is not on those Project Managers who have taken on contract work temporarily as a stopgap until they are able to land a suitable full-time role.

It might seem surprising to you, but financial benefits are not a factor I will focus on – it is well understood that contract rates will usually be higher than full-time salary rates, but it is might be more useful to calculate net annual income and monthly cash flow.

When one factors in outflows such as health or dental insurance, financial impacts of downtime between projects, self-funded personal development such as courses or conferences, operational costs such as accounting or legal fees and the impacts to liquidity of net 30 or net 60 day payment terms, financial merits alone might be insufficient to clinch the decision.

Other non-financial benefits of contract work include:

The freedom to decide what type of projects you will accept
The ability to take longer time off or to spend more time on your personal development
The opportunity to get much greater depth and breadth of experience than might be possible in full-time roles
The chance to build relationships across many companies

But before you quit your full-time role and jump into the contract market, here are a few questions to ask yourself.

Are you a generalist?

In many parts of the world, it has been a buyer’s market for hiring managers.

Recruiters have the luxury to not only demand project management competence but also to expect that candidates possess specific domain expertise relevant to the needs of a given project. When recruiting full-time project managers, employers are usually going to consider the breadth of experiences which a potential candidate can bring to their organization as they are (or should be!) considering the long term. In contract situations which are more transactional and time-bounded, depth is often given greater weight.

Even if you have worked in many different industries and on many different types of projects, don’t despair! You might still have gained sufficient specialized project management experience which could be a differentiator. For example, if you have frequently taken over troubled projects from other Project Managers and have been able to complete them successfully, you could find your contractual calling as a recovery specialist.

How effective are you at networking?

Relationship building is critical for Project Managers regardless of whether they are working full-time or on contract. However, if you are not effective at cultivating your network, especially at times when you DON’T need something from your connections, it can become very challenging to find new gigs, especially when the supply of talent significantly exceeds demand.

It is almost impossible to get into the heads of a recruiter or worse, automated application processing system in order to craft a resume which guarantees being at the top of the candidate pile, so your best bet is to leverage the support of someone in your network to do a warm introduction for you. But if you haven’t taken the time to stay in touch with your contacts, helping them as often as you require their help, it will come across self-serving to solicit their assistance.

This can be challenging for many project managers. Some may simply not have the interest or ability to maintain a broad network. For others, if they have been managing a long-running project, it can become onerous to invest regularly in such business development activities.

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How resilient are you?

NO job is a sure thing.

Even long-tenured employees are just a few days’ notice from having to find alternate employment. Having said that, contract Project Managers need to possess the intestinal fortitude to stomach a greater volume of vicissitudes than their full-time peers. Shifts in business priority cause projects to be delayed or to be put on hold and organizational restructuring can result in shifts from contingent to internal workforces.

Even if none of these occur, projects come to an end, and if you haven’t been fortunate enough to line up a new gig to coincide with the end of the previous one, you could be looking at some prolonged downtime. Yes, this might be a good opportunity to take that much needed vacation or take a few courses, but that’s all on YOUR dime!

As is often the case in our profession, there is no decision tree which will help you quantitatively determine the expected value of working as a contract project manager, but with the questions I’ve provided above, hopefully, you will be better equipped to make a balanced decision.

From the Sponsor’s Desk: Nine Criteria for Project Prioritization

Written by Drew Davison on January 25, 2016. Posted in Articles. 18 Comments on From the Sponsor’s Desk: Nine Criteria for Project Prioritization

In most organizations, the demand for project work far exceeds the funding and resources available. Approaches to resolving this challenge vary from pitched power struggles, rigorous portfolio management practices and demand management arrangements to siloing strategies and executive dictates.

In this post, we’ll look at a company that came to grips with the excess demand challenge using a simple, nine point ranking process. Project proponents used the tool to quantify the potential enterprise value of each proposal. All submissions were then ranked to select the top value proposals. The cut-off was established based on the estimated level of affordability for the upcoming year, nicely matching demand with capacity. Simple, consistent, fast and good for the organization.

Thanks to I.B. for his contributions in this case.

The Situation

This manufacturing organization faced an ongoing challenge to balance demand for project resources with organizational value, affordability and the profit expectations of its shareowners. Past attempts to deal with the issue had resulted in the use of a number of new practices: in-depth business cases, funding allocations by division based on a high-level assessment of divisional contribution to strategic objectives, quarterly funding allocations, and a formal gating process.

The CFO was still not satisfied with the prioritization and funding approaches. He believed that many short and long-term profit opportunities were being left on the table. He discussed his reservations with his CEO and other senior executives but found support to address the issue lukewarm at best. So he set out to see what other organizations were doing to address the challenge as a prelude to revising their own internal practices. He assigned one of his Finance managers to take on the challenge.

The Goal

To investigate best practices being used by market leaders in their industry and in other industries, assess how those practices were contributing to organizational success, and make recommendations to improve their own internal operations. The assigned manager was challenged to have a formal, justified proposal in place within six months to coincide with the start of the corporate budgeting cycle. Any funding required would come from the manager’s operating budget with assistance from the CFO’s budget as needed.

The Project

The Finance Manager enlisted a couple of his senior staff and started a literature search for project prioritization and funding practices to get the ball rolling. He also engaged with the Systems Development Manager about key project success factors and project management best practices. The four of them were soon overwhelmed with information. They decided to constrain the scope of the undertaking by developing an assessment matrix that addressed four components:

No more than ten selection criteria
A rating scale for each criteria that would produce a confirmable and quantitative result
Weighting for each criteria that could be adjusted to reflect current corporate priorities
A total score that could be used to rank projects

The Finance Manager also suggested that they stage their efforts to test concepts rapidly, garner feedback and iterate until they had a solid proposal and test the models on their current project inventory and backlog. His teammates agreed. The CFO agreed.

The team of four developed three iterations over fourteen weeks. Each iteration was tested on the current project inventory and the results reviewed with the CFO. Based on qualitative and quantitative assessments, the model was revised, and a new iteration was processed for subsequent review. In three months, the Finance Manager and CFO were ready to present their findings and recommendations to the company’s executives for approval.

The Results

After some stubborn resistance and localized grumbling, the proposed project prioritization and ranking process was approved unanimously by the company’s executives for use in the upcoming budget cycle. The prioritization mechanism included the following components: a stakeholder model, prioritization matrix and a process guide.

Stakeholder Model

Four roles were defined in the Stakeholder Model:

Process Owner – the CFO was identified as the owner of the process and the final arbiter on any issues related to the operation of the prioritization and ranking practice.
Reviewing Partners – the members of the Executive Committee were identified as Reviewing Partners, responsible for vetting every submission to ensure completeness and consistency across the portfolio
Submission Owners – the Sponsors of the submitted proposals were designated as the Submission Owners. They were responsible for the accuracy and integrity of the submissions. They were also responsible for socializing the proposal and ensuring all stakeholders were on side.
Collaborators – the change Targets were identified as Collaborators. They were responsible for signing off on the accuracy and integrity of the submissions before they were presented for consideration

Prioritization Matrix

Nine assessment criteria were selected as the primary indicators of worth and risk with an assessment scale for each. As well, they defined the Value and Weight ratings for the criteria. The team saw the Value rating as an important indicator of project success that would stay constant from year to year. The Weight rating, on the other hand, could be varied year by year to reflect the needs of the corporation, from shorter term, lower risk projects to high strategic alignment.

The assessment criteria included:

1. Sponsors – Sponsorship was seen as a key success factor. However, the more sponsors there were on a project, the greater the risk. The scale was Number of Sponsors, the Value was set at 20%, the Weight at 20% and the total calculated as Value/# Sponsors*Weight.

2. Targets – Targets are the managers/decision makers of organizations affected by a planned change. As with Sponsors, the more Targets involved, the greater the risk. The scale was Number of Targets, the Value was set at 20%, the Weight at 10% and the total calculated as Value/# Targets*Weight.

3. Associated Projects – Associated Projects was included to identify inter-dependencies that needed to be considered during project selection. Of course, the more Associated Projects, the greater the risk. The scale was Number of Associated Projects, the Value was set at 10%, the Weight at 10% and the total calculated as Value/# Projects*Weight.

4. Supported Strategies – Supported Strategies was included to reflect strategic alignment. As well, it allowed for an analysis of potential inter-dependencies and identification of gaps in strategic support. The scale was Number of Supported Strategies, the Value was set at 15%, the Weight at 10% and the total calculated as Value*# Strategies*Weight

5. Strategic Fit – Strategic Fit focused on the significance of a project’s support for stated corporate and line of business strategic goals.

The scale was defined as:

Critical to the success of the line of business and corporate goals	5
Necessary to deliver the line of business and corporate goals	4
Supports the line of business and corporate goals	3
Tactical with strategic component	2
Tactical solutions only	1
Has no direct or indirect relationship to corporate vision	0

The Value was set at 10%, the Weight at 10% and the total calculated as Value*Strategic Fit*Weight.

6. Economic Impact – Economic Impact considered the value expected to be delivered to the organization in terms of annual benefit and payback. The scale was defined as:

under 1 year	5
1-2 years	4
2-3 years	3
3-4 years	2
4-5 years	1
5+ years	0

The Value was set at 10%, the Weight at 15% and the total calculated as Value*Economic Impact*Weight.

7. Competitive Advantage – Competitive Advantage focused on the value derived from implementation of a project supporting a new business strategy, product or service. The scale was defined as:

Substantially improves competitive position (12 month window)	3
Moderately improves the competitive position (6 month window)	1
Brings the level of service/products in line with competition	0

The Value was set at 5%, the Weight at 10% and the total calculated as Value* Competitive Advantage *Weight.

8. Competitive Risk – Competitive Risk assessed the degree to which failure to do the project will cause competitive damage. The scale was defined as:

Postponement will result in irrevocable damage	5
Postponement will result in further competitive disadvantage	4
Postponement may result in further competitive disadvantage	3
Can be postponed for up to 12 months without affecting competitive position	1
Can be postponed indefinitely without affecting competitive position	0

The Value was set at 5%, the Weight at 10% and the total calculated as Value* Competitive Risk *Weight.

9. Project Risk – Project Risk focused on the degree to which the organization is capable of carrying out the changes required by the project. This is a negative factor. Higher measurements represent greater risk. The scale was defined as:

Magnitude of change

Major change for targets	5
Moderate change for targets	3
Minor change for targets	1

Primary target of change

Customer	10
Field or remote locations	5
Internal	1

Management commitment

No active sponsorship	10
Actively managed at mid-management levels	3
Actively sponsored at highest level	1

Project management/skill sets

Inexperienced	10
Somewhat experienced	3
Experienced and capable	1

Cross-organizational implications

Affects all services or lines of business	10
Affects multiple services or lines of business	3
Confined to limited services or lines of business	1

Magnitude of business & technology changes

Major change to existing environment	5
Completely new business or technology	3
Minor changes to existing environment	1

Clarity of business need

Ill-defined	10
Generally understood	3
Clearly defined	1

Knowledge of target solution

Brand new product or service	5
Somewhat new/limited applications	3
Very well-known/industry wide	1

Total

For total scores of 8-26, the risk rating is Low
For total scores of 27-46, the risk rating is Medium
For total scores of 47-65, the risk rating is High

The Value was set at 5%, the Weight at 5% and the total calculated as -Value* Project Risk *Weight, a negative number that reduced the overall project rating. The higher the risk rating, the larger the reduction.

In addition, two additional pieces of information were required: Annual Benefit and Payback Period. At this early stage, it didn’t make much sense to try and develop cost estimates. Instead, the submission proponents were asked to calculate a projected annual benefit and the payback period required based on the nature of the change. For example, operational changes would be expected to provide a quick return (usually less than a year). Tactical initiatives should have a payback within one to three years, and strategic undertakings could have a payback period of three years or greater. That information was used to arrive at target investment amount (annual benefit x payback period). The target investment was used as a proxy for estimated cost on the proviso that the solution would be managed within that number.

The Prioritization Matrix was presented in a worksheet form that submitters were required to complete, socialize, present and defend in seeking funding for their initiative.

Completing the worksheet was an informative process for the participants. They were often forced to go back and reconsider aspects of their proposal to increase the value and reduce the risk in an effort to improve the total score. Often, what started out as a multiple sponsor initiative ended up with one, more committed sponsor. Proposals that had a significant risk were often reconfigured to reduce the risk and increase the chance of funding. On occasion, proposals were dropped from consideration when the sponsor and collaborators realized what looked like a great idea didn’t pan out with further due diligence.

Process Guide

The Process Guide was developed to provide a roadmap for those involved in the project prioritization exercise.

The Process Guide included eight steps, from conceptualization to the final decision regarding the projects to be funded. The sponsoring executive was required to ensure proposed projects were socialized with managers affected by the change and that affected decision makers were in agreement.

Each initiative was presented by the sponsoring executive in an executive scrum. The presenting executive was challenged by his or her peers to justify each position, especially the specific strategies supported and the ratings for strategic fit, economic impact, competitive advantage, competitive risk, project risk, forecast annual benefit and the target payback period.

There were heated debates about most of the submissions and the values assigned. In many cases, the debate was taken offline where further discussions and investigations resulted in modified and resubmitted proposals. The process had two significant benefits: the proposals, when finally approved for funding, where solid, well research, fully supported ventures and, all senior executives were fully informed about the initiatives going forward. The CFO, in his role as process owner, was responsible for making a final call on a proposal if an agreement couldn’t be achieved in the scrum sessions.

The CFO’s staff accumulated a list of approved proposals in a ranking table and ordered it by the prioritization total, below.

Individual project proposal totals and rankings could be tweaked by the CFO’s staff to reflect project inter-dependencies, mandatory initiatives like government legislation, critical operational fixes, and other planning opportunities. Finally, the CFO’s staff would determine the appropriate level of funding to commit for the upcoming period and draw a line across the ranking chart. Projects lying above that total would get funded. Projects below the line would not.

After the first use of the prioritization practice and completion of the budget cycle, the CFO’s staff surveyed those involved to see how the practice met its goals. The almost unanimous feedback: simple, consistent, fast and great for the organization.

How Great Leaders Delivered

From the millions of hits returned on an internet search for “project prioritization”, this is obviously a challenge for many organizations. There are also undoubtedly a plethora of solutions. The CFO and his Finance Manager and team did a number of things right to solve the prioritization challenge for the organization and deliver a solution that was right for them.

Collaborate – The CFO sounded out his colleagues at the outset and received a lukewarm reception. But through that initial contact, the other executives knew something was probably afoot so they weren’t surprised when the proposal was presented to them. Also, collaboration was at the core of the prioritization practice and contributed significantly to its success.
Reuse – The Finance Manager and his teammates started with a broad search for applicable practices. They certainly weren’t disappointed. Reusing what others had developed and discovered before, they were able to develop a practical, powerful solution quickly and cost-effectively.
Test – The team’s decision to iterate, review and test the output on their existing project inventory allowed for a rapid discovery cycle while minimizing the investment of time and accumulation of vested interests. Was their solution perfect? Certainly not. What they did get though was good enough to meet the challenge.
KISS – Keep It Simple Silly. They did keep it simple. Nine factors. A simple scale for each. A Value rating. A Weight rating. An annual benefit. A target payback period. Add them all up to get a total. Review with others. Decide. Oh, and they used Excel.
Measure – The CFO’s team worked with the sponsors and collaborators to complete the worksheets and go through the review and decision processes. They adjusted the materials based on the feedback received. They communicated widely, about usage, number of proposals under development, received, reviewed and approved. They interviewed the executives midway through the budgeting process and made appropriate revisions. They surveyed the users after the budget cycle and communicated the results. They knew how the process was performing throughout the budgeting cycle.

In my mind, this is a great example of a solution fitting the need. It wasn’t the perfect solution. But it was more than good enough. So, if you find yourself in a similar situation, put these points on your checklist of things to do in future endeavours so you too can be a Great Leader. And remember, use Project Pre-Check’s three building blocks covering the key stakeholder group, the decision management process and Decision Framework best practices right up front, so you don’t overlook these key success factors. Finally, thanks to everyone who has willingly shared your experiences for presentation in this blog. Everyone benefits. First time contributors get a copy of one of my books. Readers get insights they can apply to their own unique circumstances. So, if you have a project experience, good, bad and everything in between, send me the details and we’ll chat. I’ll write it up and, when you’re happy with the results, Project Times will post it so others can learn from your insights. Thanks