Rethinking project management for a dynamic and digital world

Rethinking project management for a dynamic and digital world

Congratulations to Professor Darren Dalcher on the publication of his latest book for which I am delighted to say I have contributed an article, in Chapter 5, on life cycles. It his own article in the same chapter, Darren says the following:
“Robert offers a practical and pragmatic perspective for regaining control of life cycles. His framework enables practitioners and organisations to rise beyond the predictability and perfection traps to consider new and applicable improvements that have been shown to work and contribute to project success. His framework also offers a way of making sense of the confusing claims and counterclaims by various communities related to projects and the best methods for delivering value.”
Thank you Darren!

ISO 21502:2020 launched – update to The Project Workout

The latest international standard on project management, ISO 21502:2020, was launched at the end of December, four months ahead of schedule. Who would expect anything less for a project management standard! I was pleased to be a member of TC 258, Working Group 9, which created this new standard. ISO 21502 is a significant progression from ISO 21500:20102 which it supersedes. The new standard covers, not just the ‘project manager’ role but all those other roles needed to ensure a project succeeds, including the sponsoring organization, project sponsor, work package leader and others. It written in a narrative style enabling you to design your own compliant processes and includes new practices including the management of business and societal change and issues management as well as making a distinction between ‘reporting’ and ‘communications’. If you’ve read The Project Workout, you’ll know what I mean!

However, the launching of this new standard means that Appendix C1 of The Project Workout needs an update, which is inevitable when referring to ‘live’ external documents. I have therefore released this update as an article, ‘An overview of the current standards‘.  Even if you haven’t got The Project Workout, you should find this article of interest as it compares the new ISO 21502 with its predecessor, ISO 21500:2012, BS6079:2019 and the UK government’s project delivery standard, GovS002 . . . . all of which I was involved in!

The Workout Companion Site

Nowadays, processes and methods are becoming a way of life in many organizations, particularly those moving up the maturity level and adopting models such as SEI’s CMMI for Development. This companion site is based on the Workout books and uses BusinessOptix as its platform. If you have copies of the Workout books this interactive site points you at the chapters and workouts relevant to the part of the method you are looking at. If you don’t have the books yet, this site still provides you with a simplified example portfolio, programme and project management method website, with lots of usable information.

BusinessOptix is designed for ‘corporates’, and needs to know who you are in order to display the right content. Click on the cartoon to get to the BusinessOptix screen; then at bottom choose ‘Register’, enter your email address and you should receive your username and password in separate emails. You’ll be asked to change your password. Notifications are turned off by default. There is a video, below, to give you a preview of what to expect.

To access Companion site’s login and registration page:

• go to ‘Companion site’ on the menu at projectworkout.com and click on the image, or
• go directly to BusinessOptix

On the right track yet?

I wrote an article in 2015 in which I talked about the eternal causes of project failure (do I hear your groan!) and related them to how we could improve project delivery for infrastructure. I read it again this week and thought that some things in the world of project management don’t seem to change and the integration of ‘project management’ and each of the engineering disciplines is a case in point. Or have I got that wrong? I have updated the article very slightly as some words are in vogue, like ‘digital’ instead of ‘IT’, but essentially it is the same as 5 years ago.

Have a read of the article and share your experience is: On the right track

Getting the team to work as one can be a challenge . . .

Is a functional hierarchy fit for modern day businesses?

 

The functional hierarchy is not the only way to run a business.

If what people do counts more than the function or department they belong to and if, for reasons of efficiency, you want to use people to best effect anywhere in your organisation, what is the role of the functions? You know that no change, which is significant to a whole business, can be made within a single function in an organisation. You generally require people from a number of areas contributing to the processes, activities and projects you are undertaking.

In the traditional hierarchy, each head of function decides not only the strategic direction of their function, but also what each and every one of his/her  employees will do and how it will be done. The danger, if functions are too dominant, is that they will drive the business as they see fit from their own perspective. This may not be in line with the drivers that the organisation’s leadership wants to effect. The outcome is that the organisation becomes out of balance.

For example, efficiency is often seen as a good goal. So is responsiveness to customer needs. However, the latter may require you to carry excess capacity in order to meet customer needs at short notice. If one function is driving ‘efficiency’ up by reducing capacity while another is creating a proposition around responsiveness there is likely to be a mismatch and dissatisfied customers.

The projects approach, like the trend towards cross-business processes, aligns all the required skills and capabilities around the attainment of a business objective. In the case of a process, the objective is better operations. In the case of a project, the objective is change for the better. Thus, the functions are not leaders in driving the business, but rather suppliers of people and expertise to projects and processes. The accountability of a head of function is to ensure that the right people are available in the right numbers to service the business needs. They will be accountable for pay, employee satisfaction and personal development. Other key roles will start to become apparent. There will need to be those, expert at particular disciplines, who will create strategy, develop and maintain technical architecture, manage projects, or manage people. However, they will not do this just in the context of a single function, but rather in the context of the complete organisation, working wherever needed across functional boundaries to achieve the business objectives . . . . and that is where project portfolio management (or what Project Workout calls “business programmes”) comes in.

 For more on resource management see The Programme and Portfolio Workout chapter 14.

Getting (and holding onto) your resources

The University of Southern California analysed 165 teams in a number of successful organisations to assess the effectiveness of team-work. Two reasons for teams failing to deliver were found:

●  Project objectives were unclear.

●  The right people were not working on the project at the right time.

In looking for solutions to these two issues, they found that using a ‘projects approach’ gave significant benefits in clarifying objectives (which is just as well or it would conflict with the message in the Project Workout!). On the question  of resources, they found  that having  visibility  of available resources and obtaining commitment for the required resources was key. In other words, if you haven’t got the right people at the right time (numbers and skills) you can’t expect to complete your project. It’s all rather obvious, isn’t it?

You need ALL your resources to succeed.

As I suspect many of you know, obtaining resources and holding on to them can be very problematic, especially in functionally oriented organisations, where the balance of power  is  firmly held  by line  management. In  these circumstances, resources are often committed to projects on the basis of good intention, rather than on good information. Consequently, they can be withdrawn by the owning department, at whim,  if it believes that its own need is greater than that of the project. The result is that resource and skill shortages do not become apparent until they are a problem.

An effective method of resource allocation and commitment is needed, therefore, which meets three conditions:

• Condition 1 – you have a clear view of how resources are being consumed on a project by project basis.
• Condition 2 – you have visibility of the resources available, or soon to be available, within the forecasting horizon of your organisation.
• Condition 3 – commitment of resources should be based on clear information and forms the basis of an ‘agreement’ between the departments providing the resources and the projects consuming the resource.

Meeting these conditions will enable you to anticipate potential resource conflicts before they become a problem. How do you do that? Well, it all relies on how the governance for your organsation is designed, the project manager cannot normally solve this one.  I’ll cover this in later blogs, but in the meantime, you can find out more about resourcing in Chapter 14 of the Programme and Portfolio Workout.

Project management excellence is not enough

Beware of doing too many projects, even if they do fit your strategy and have a good business case.

The opening plenary sessions of the 2013 Gartner PPM and IT Summit in London, set the tone for a mind-set shift in how Gartner looks at “IT management”.  To date they have focussed in on “IT” and the “CIO”, and, in my view, perpetuating the gap between what they term “IT” and the “Business” . This year, to my delight, they were starting to talk about “the business” and IT’s part in it. It’s a brave thing to do, but the right thing to do. Most organisations still have their IT split off as separate organisational units ,with a separate strategy and loads of money, which tries to work out what “the business” wants and then all too often fails to meet those expectations. What is guaranteed though, is if you give an IT department money, they will spend it all, even if the business need is unclear. . . . that’s the “business’” fault!

Mike Langley from PMI was a key note speaker and gave his view on the all important question of “how do we ensure our (IT) projects fit our strategy?”  Notice I put “IT” in brackets – the department is irrelevant as we want all our projects to align with strategy . . . don’t we?

Mike based his talk on PMI’s recent “Pulse of the profession” survey.

We are all familiar with “strategy” and “execution” (sorry for using the “e” word, but when at an American conference, you can’t get away from it!).  The story is that the business leaders set the strategy and then the “business” implements it. If it goes wrong, it’s usually the fault of the business and their dreadful requirements and poor implementation!  What new research for Harvard Business Review is now talking about is that implementation is part of strategy and we should not separate them. (Look out McKinsey and Bain!) After all, if your strategy doesn’t include how to implement itself, then it’s a poor strategy.  The new buzz words for making this happen is “portfolio management”. This is a discipline of making sure that the programmes, projects and other activities that a business decides to do are the rights ones in terms of strategic direction, fit and balance in terms of risk and skills use. It’s all about selecting the right projects.

Mike says his research shows that organisations which are good at portfolio management are more agile, and have better project outcomes. Portfolio management is integral to how the top level leaders want to manage their business; it’s an integral part of business planning. Traditional business planning adds up costs of departmental budgets, checks against revenue and makes sure there is “interlock” if different departments need to work together.  Usually this is done a year or so in advance and is therefore totally pointless for organisations in fast moving environments. It is however a neat and simplistic way to blame people when things go wrong or costs to much. Hence, getting portfolio management working right is as much to do with mind-set as having the processes, systems and operating model.

Getting this right, means organisations can continuously tune their plans, not be tied to outdated annual budgets and use their people and money where the benefit is most attractive.  The money will follow the business need, not the department doing the work. Now that is what I call true organisational agility and if you have read the Project Workout, it will be very familiar to you.

This isn’t new as a concept, but it is something many organisations struggle with.  Have a look at this article: Excellence is not enough from the Project Workout “articles” web page.

Whose success is it?

In my “enemies within” blog, we looked at how senior management often gets the project performance they deserve. In that blog I  explored the important role of the programme and project sponsor in making sure that an organisation’s programmes and projects succeed. But what does “success” mean? Success is often interpreted through the differing eyes and motivation of stakeholders.

Successful project management ensures the delivery of a specified scope, on time and to budget (what PMI refers to as the triple constraint). It is related to how efficiently a project is managed. This should be assessed during the project closure review, documented in a project closure report and measured by timeliness of delivery milestones, adherence to budgets and quality. This is commonly associated with the role of the project manager.

A successful project delivers the outcomes and realises the business benefits it was set up to achieve as stated in a business case. It is related to the effectiveness of the project in meeting the objectives set. The post implementation review (post-project review) assesses this. Measures of success here must be indicative of the business objectives being achieved. This review therefore has to happen some time after the output of the project has been put into use and outcomes are assessable. It is more associated with the role of the sponsoring body and the project sponsor.

A successful organisation drives towards its strategic objectives while fulfilling expectations of shareholders, managers, employees and other stakeholders. Measures for this are at a corporate level and should be financial and non-financial, such as a balanced score card. This is associated with the role of the chief executive and board.

A project which has been successfully ‘project managed’, however, might actually deliver little of value to the organisation. Further, a ‘successful project’ might not further the strategic objectives of the organisation, as its objectives could be out of alignment to that of the organisation. A failing company can be full of ‘successful project management’ and ‘successful projects’ all driving in different directions.

Further reading: you will find my book, The Project Workout (5ed), advocates this approach, which I call business-driven or benefits-led project management. It is also the approach taken in ISO 21502:2020, BS6079:2019, PRINCE2:2017 and the UK government’s GovS 002 Project delivery.

 

Whatever you do must help you move towards your strategic objective. Otherwise there’s no point.

Enemies within – why this ‘project stuff’ doesn’t work

Far too many projects fail.

Project management, in the modern sense, has been with us a long time now. Some people have spent most, if not all their careers engaged in it in one form or another. Research and anecdotal evidence, however, seems to indicate that we still don’t “get it”. Reports continue to be written on “causes of project failure”. Eminent committees are set up to “get to the root of the problem”, international and national standards are created and yet:

• we still see failure.
• we still see organisations which ignore the benefits.

Why is this? If I could answer that, then I would be able to charge massive consulting fees! The question is rather like that posed in “Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy” asking, “What is the meaning of life?”  As we all know, the answer is “42” – which doesn’t help us one jot. If I ever came across anyone who knew the solution to stopping “project failure”, I would be very skeptical.

So why can’t people grasp the significance and advantages of business-led project management? We have:

• lots of good books – like the Project Workout!
• National and international standards such as BS6079 and ISO21500
• Leaned societies, like the APM and PMI
• Conferences galore

Actually, when the Project Workout came out in 1997 it was probably the first to put project management in a business context; earlier books were focused on project management techniques.

Back to the topic! Having good methods and process supported by good tools and systems with clear accountabilities is necessary but not enough. The critical difference comes from an organisation’s culture; how they behave and their values. Give me the right culture and mediocre process over poor culture and brilliant process, any day. Organisations where project management “doesn’t work”, are likely to have a culture which actively prevents it from working. For example, for project management to be effective, we need more than just good project managers; for example:

• project sponsorship is vital if the projects are to be linked to strategy
• portfolio management (called business programme management in the Project Workout) is necessary to balance risk and choose those projects which will get you towards your strategic intent faster
• finance systems, which enable project sponsors, managers and teams to see, their operational figures “live”
• resource management so you can take account of constraints in choosing and implementing your projects.

Hunter Thompson, in 1970, said “In a democracy, people usually get the kind of government they deserve and they deserve what they get.” In this he blames the people in a democracy. Organisations, however are not democracies and so I would turn that quotation on its head:

“Senior teams get the project management performance they deserve“.

The CEO sets the culture and “the way they want to run their business” and the following list indicates where the culture and values promote failure, rather than success. Running a project is difficult enough, but we often make it more arduous than it need be by creating problems for ourselves. Here are a few examples:

1. Reorganising – either the company or a part of it. Tinkering with your structure is usually NOT the solution to your problems, it just confuses people. If you are a senior executive, however, reorganising is a great way to hide non-delivery!
2. Functional thinking – not taking the helicopter, the organisation-wide view. This often happens when executives’ or individuals’ bonuses are based on targets which are at odds with the organisation’s needs, e.g. sales bonus rewarded on revenue, regardless of profit or contribution.
3. Having too many rules – the more rules you have, the more sinners you create and the less happy your people become. Have you ever met a happy bureaucrat?
4. Disappearing and changing sponsors – without a sponsor there should be no project. Continual changing of the ‘driver’ will cause you to lose focus and forget WHY you are undertaking the project. Consider terminating such a project to see who really wants it!
5. Ignoring the risks – risks don’t go away, so acknowledge them and manage them. If I said that a certain aeroplane is likely to crash, would you fly on it? And yet, every day executives approve projects when a simple risk analysis shows they are highly likely to fail.
6. Dash in and get on with it! – if a project is that important, you haven’t the time NOT to plan your way ahead. High activity levels do not necessarily mean action or progress.
7. Analysis paralysis – you need to investigate, but only enough to gain the confidence to move on. This is the opposite to dash in and ignore the risks. It is also a ploy used to delay projects: ‘. . . I haven’t quite enough information to make a decision, just do some more study work.’
8. Untested assumptions – all assumptions are risks; treat them as such.
9. Forgetting what the project is for – if this happens, terminate the project. If it is that useful, someone will scream and remember why it is being done.
10. Executive’s ‘pet projects’ – have no exceptions. If an executive’s idea is really so good, it should stand up to the scrutiny that all the others go through. He or she may have a helicopter view, but might also have their head in the clouds.

I’m sure you can add to that list, so please do, by adding a comment. Over the next few months, I’ll investigate a number of the above symptoms.

In the meantime, you can find out more about these topics from The Project Workout (5th edition):

• lessons on what works: Chapter 2
• sponsorship: Chapter 5
• portfolio management: Chapter 3
• resource management: Chapter 21
• finances: Chapter 22

More on meetings

Are your meetings a bit like this?

I did a blog on meetings last year, called I hate (some) meetings and one of the comments asked for some advice on conducting meetings. I suppose meetings are so common place that few people give any thought to making them run effectively. As a consequence, we find far too many meetings are an inedible waste of time. So, here we is some advice to take us back to the basics.

Firstly, do not hold a meeting at all if there is a better way of achieving the objective. The time taken during the meeting should typically represent only 10% to 20% of the total time needed to prepare for and follow up the meeting; use your time appropriately.

Before the meeting, the person calling the meeting should:

• fix the objective, venue, date, time and attendance well in advance; keep numbers to a minimum

• ensure all required parties are invited and have authority/knowledge to take decisions and/or make a valid contribution
• set accountability and time limits for each agenda item, taking into account the participants’ different interest levels for each item
• send out agenda and written submissions in time to allow participants to prepare.
  Those invited should accept the invitation, decline or provide a substitute attendee, as appropriate.

At the meeting:
The Chair should:

• confirm who the note taker is
• confirm the objective of the meeting
• start and finish the meeting on time: censure late arrivals.
• stick to the agenda and timetable.
• ensure there is an agreed approach for undertaking each agenda item.
• keep the meeting focused.
• ensure full, participative discussion takes place.
• guillotine “knotty” issues for resolution outside the meeting.
• summarise each agenda item at the end and ensure agreements and actions are recorded .
• agree and fix date for next meeting, if needed.
• seek meeting participants’ feedback on the effectiveness of the meeting.

The Note taker should:

•   act as the Chair’s right hand person.
•   ensure all decisions and agreements are noted.
•   take brief, relevant, action oriented notes.

Meeting participants should:

• keep to the point and be brief.
• listen to others and should not hold private meetings.
• be constructive, adopting a “can do” approach
• agree realistic plans/actions.
• make a note of their own actions (including recipient and date).

After the meeting:
The Chair should:

• review the effectiveness of the meeting and note improvement points for the next meeting.

The Note taker should:

• publish the notes or minutes to the participants and those who need them within 1 day. What is the point of “old minutes”, they are no good to anyone. It takes the same time to do them straight away as to do them a month later – it’s just a matter of you organizing yourself.

Participants should:

• assess their own effectiveness at the meeting and note areas for improvement; make suggestions to the Chair if appropriate.
• read the minutes and address all actions and note those actions where they are the “recipient”.

HINTS
If you use a collaboration tool such as SharePoint or Livelink, use a task list to record the meeting’s actions. In this way, no actions are lost and those accountable for each action can readily find them.

Place “Review of Previous Minutes” towards the end of the meeting agenda, rather than at the beginning. This will encourage the meeting to go forward rather than starting by dwelling on what happened last time. If important, many of these items will be dealt with in the main agenda items.

If the notes are not for a formal meeting then consider the use of hand-written notes or as a photocopied page in your work book:

•  record actions, in hand-writing at the meeting,
• photocopy the sheet(s) just before the end of the meeting,
• distribute to participants before they leave.
• scan and file the handwritten note if you need a record.

. . . and make sure you all behave well at the meeting:

• Start on time
• Switch off or silence mobile devices
• Keep to the agenda – Stick to the point
• No private meetings
• No interruptions or walk-outs
• Be constructive
• Speak out during the meeting – not afterwards
• Be polite
• LISTEN!
• Agree conclusions and actions
• FINISH ON TIME