ProjExc - Project Management Consultants

Consultancy: small is beautiful

Procurement in big business usually seeks big consultants, yet small consultancies can offer the best service and price. Harvey T. Dearden explores this topic in a popular article in IET Management.

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The cost of failing to plan

Sadly no surprises to those of us at ProjExc, from an article discussing the cost of failing to plan a project. For the full article, refer to onrec.com.

The article explains that UK companies are wasting millions of pounds every day on development projects because their planning process is flawed from the outset. They refer to a new survey of 500 professional project managers showing a third of technology assignments in the digital, media and telecoms industries are doomed from the start because they have been so poorly conceived.

The survey from PM3 Consulting, says companies often fall at the first hurdle because they have failed to establish a coherent or realistic business case for a project. "Most worrying is the inability of these companies to identify the real benefits of a project or what it will really cost," say the consultants "As a result projects run over time, over budget, deliver poor quality products and often fail to realise any tangible business benefits at all."

Like the consultants who delivered the survey ProjExc believe the answer is to get experienced project managers in place. We also believe that as well as competent project managers, they usually need a toolbox with appropriate processes, systems and of course that elusive leadership ability at hand.

The research found that "many companies can't articulate what they want from a project, yet 89% recognise that they need a project manager to take overall control,", and that over half of companies (51%) have unrealistic expectations of their projects and 56% do not define their project success criteria.

Liquid Planner

We're currently trialling a new on-line tool which has captured our interest.

Currently available as a free beta (they haven't yet announced a release date for the final version), LiquidPlanner provides a means of organizing, assigning, and tracking tasks. It also includes tools that are designed to help project managers keep everyone on deadline.

Because LiquidPlanner is web-based (a major trend that we observed in PM Tools at the recent Project Challenge), there's no software to download, which makes it quick and easy to set up. It is also easy to use, whether you're trying out collaboration software for the first time or making a transition to it from a product such as Microsoft Project. It offers many of the same features as that latter application, but goes the extra mile in offering a "probabilistic scheduling" feature that allows for more-realistic task scheduling.

We'll keep this blog posted with how we get on, but we'd also really appreciate your thoughts on the tool if you've used it.

Lean Methodology

Following on from the popular Six Sigma post our manufacturing and supply chain specialist Clifford Hobbs, delves into the world of Lean Methodologies.  The whole article can be found on the ProjExc PM Portal.

Most of the tools and techniques that underpin Lean thinking originated in Japan in the 60's and 70's in companies such as Toyota. In the 80's and 90's they combined into what is now called Lean, and this broader concept of manufacturing has progressively been introduced to western manufacturers, and more recently to the service sector.

Lean is often described as an approach where waste is systematically eliminated from an organisation's processes. At its most basic level, it involves a systematic focus on rework, inventory, poor reliability, poor quality, and poor throughput throughout the organisation, and its supply chain.

A '... philosophy that shortens the time line between the customer order and the shipment by eliminating waste'.

Lean is the term that was introduced to describe the philosophy and practices under-pinning the Toyota Production System (TPS). TPS (developed in the 1970's) was a vastly superior system of manufacturing than that found in most western automotive manufacturers. Fundamentally TPS was challenging the foundations of mass production, by creating systems and an operating culture that enabled the company to manufacture a considerable variety of products, with high levels of efficiency and quality.

'To be a lean manufacturer requires a way of thinking that focuses on making the product flow through production without interruption, a pull system that cascades back from customer demand by replenishing what the next operation takes away at short intervals, and a culture in which everyone is striving continuously to improve.'

A key ingredient of the Lean approach is its emphasis on the creation of customer focused 'value chains' to help focus its improvement efforts.

Lean Manufacturing has helped companies to overcome some of the difficulties they experienced with introducing Just In Time. In some instances, JIT was seen as a blunt instrument for reducing working capital requirements. This objective was often very dangerous in practice as forced reductions of stock levels often caused major problems in businesses that lacked basic process dependability. This meant that companies de-stocked faster than they could improve, as a result serious customer service problems ensued.  JIT placed great pressure on supply chains. It is one thing to determine the capability of your own company but not so easy to ensure integrity of supply from a large and diverse supplier base. It soon became apparent that JIT required a partnership between supplier and customer.  Both of the examples above resulted in “pseudo” improvement programmes, as no attempt was made to approach the introduction of JIT in an organisation wide sense.

To be effective JIT needed waste reduction in all areas of an organisation, and in the supply chain. Lean Manufacturing approaches the issue of waste from a total process/total organisation perspective, and therefore addresses the need for capable processes, effective supply chains etc.

10 Useful Lists for Project Managers

I am getting close to publishing my favourite 10 lists to help project managers. It changes regularly, and there are lots to choose from. While we have a number of our own that we've built up at ProjExc, there are also some great lists out there as well. I recently spotted 2 on the techrepublic.com blogs by Tom Mochal which are worthy of mention:

10 Processes to Sharpen your PM Skills:

1. Define the project
2. Plan the work
3. Manage the workplan
4. Manage issues
5. Manage scope
6. Manage risks
7. Manage communication
8. Manage documentation
9. Manage quality
10. Manage metrics

Lists in themselves are not going to change the world, but as a quick checklist (backed up by some real skills and experience) they can be extremely useful to an individual juggling a number of balls. This 1^st list could well fall into this category.

The 2^nd list takes a different tack – I can see it has its uses when someone is being asked to perform the role of project manager as a bolt-on responsibility. I'm just not sure how many people would judge themselves honestly, particularly when a bonus may be dependent on taking on the task. Perhaps the best use of a list like this would be for an assigning line manager to consider the exhibited attributes of an individual before asking them to take on the PM role?

10 signs that you are not cut-out to be a project manager:

1. You are a poor communicator
2. You don't work well with people
3. You prefer the details
4. You don't like to manage people
5. You don't like to follow processes
6. You don't like to document things
7. You like to execute and not plan
8. You prefer to be an order taker
9. You are not organised
10. You think project management is overhead

Comments welcome as always!

Project Management – Must Have Skill for the Future?

Faster, better, cheaper. We have all experienced these being the drivers for businesses as they seek to improve operational efficiency. Our world is changing and shrinking, and so incremental improvement no longer guarantees competitive advantage.

In our experience, business leaders are looking for a new model for success by deploying step changes, creating a capability to implement the strategic imperatives of their organisation. Big business is now embodying a business model where a programme/project director is on the board, responsible for delivering change as it is needed. They oversee the choice and deployment of business changes that deliver competitive advantage consistently, quickly and accurately. As such Project and Programme Managers can be seen as the "Creator of Competitive Advantage" and bring their skills to the boardroom not just the backroom.

At ProjExc we do provide that resource on an interim basis (full or part-time) for businesses, but more importantly, we help organisations to build the capability up for themselves. That in our view is critical, because the competitive advantage of today is the basic competitive requirement of tomorrow.

Want some help for your organisation? Call or email us – you will find the details at www.projexc.com

Project Leadership Competence

Project Management is widely recognised as a critical factor in project success. ProjExc firmly believe that competence in project leadership is an essential part of a successful project manager's toolkit. We find that a successful Project Leader needs to be able to:

•    Develop the project vision
•    Build the project management team and lead the team through the key steps of the project management process
•    Lead the project team through the four stages of team development (Storming, Forming, Norming and Performing)
•    Demonstrate excellent communication skills: verbal, both one-on-one and with a group, and written skills.
•    Understand and use interpersonal relationship skills such as constructive feedback, conflict resolution, managing individual styles and personalities
•    Demonstrate high level facilitation skills
•    Be skilful at influencing, persuading and negotiating across the organization and removing obstacles for the team
•    Have the ability to accept criticism, feedback and input from others
•    Use skills in using tools and approaches such as brainstorming, organizing, decision making, project management, conflict resolution, and so on.
•    Sell and promote the project both within and often outside the organization.

Recognising this, Steve Harland our project leadership specialist has helped us to develop a number of project leadership development modules which can be structured around the specific needs of a business to provide a tailored project leadership programme. Typically these fall into 2 broad categories, i.e. Team Communication and Relationship Building, and Creating a High Performing Project Team.

IT Project Failures – Reduce them using PPM?

Michael Krigsman has written an interesting article on the ZDNET blog suggesting that while Project Portfolio Management (PPM) tools can be useful, they are not the answer on their own. He suggests that from the perspective of IT failures, PPM brings discipline to four key areas:

• Standardizing the investment criteria used to evaluate project funding.
• Making project-related investments explicit.
• Prioritizing projects across the enterprise.
• Providing a way to measure project success, relative to organizational investment policies.