Author: Simon Buehring

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Project management certification just got easier

Person holding a certificate with a red ribbon

If you’re a North American reader of this blog them you’re probably familiar with the Project Management Institute (PMI®) and its professional qualifications:

Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM®) and Project Management Professional (PMP®).

If you’re a European reader, then you are more likely to be familiar with PRINCE2® and its 2 qualifications: Foundation and Practitioner.

Until June 2014, if you were a qualified PMP, then you would still need to pass the PRINCE2 Foundation exam before sitting the Practitioner exam. That requirement has now been relaxed according to the PRINCE2 certification body – AXELOS. Providing you are a current PMP (i.e. your status has not lapsed) then you will be able to sit the PRINCE2 Practitioner exam without having passed the PRINCE2 Foundation exam.

This is good news for PMPs who wish to expand their professional qualifications. Many people often see PRINCE2 and PMP (or more specifically the PMBOK® Guide, on which the PMP exam is based) as 2 alternative approaches to managing projects. I think this is a simplistic view as I will now explain.

The PMBOK Guide is a detailed description of a number of knowledge areas, processes and techniques which a project manager should really be familiar with when managing projects. It’s based upon project management best practices. The PMBOK explains what the project manager is responsible for on a project, and only to a minor degree talks about the responsibilities of the project sponsor.

If I were to sum up the PMBOK I would say it’s good at describing core project management knowledge and how to do things – e.g. how to perform critical path analysis or how to manage stakeholders – but is not so good at explaining simply what needs to be done, when and by whom.

PRINCE2 on the other hand is very good at clearly explaining the steps required at each point in a project, what needs to be done and who is responsible. PRINCE2 also goes much further than the PMBOK in detailing the responsibilities of all roles within the project management team (of which PRINCE2 defines 9 distinct roles). PRINCE2 however is weak when describing how to do things – for example it only describes 2 techniques.

Whilst often, aspiring and practising project managers often ask “which qualification should I take – PMP or PRINCE2?” I personally think this is a false dichotomy.

As I have tried to explain here, the PMBOK describes “the knowledge and the how”, whilst PRINCE2 describes “the what, the when and the who”. Any tradesperson cannot do their job properly without a full range of tools in his/her toolbox. The same is true of project management. Use both the PMBOK and PRINCE2. They complement each perfectly and they will help to make you a better project manager in the end.

For those PMPs reading this, perhaps now is a good time for you to consider expanding your project management knowledge by gaining your PRINCE2 Practitioner certification as well. Oh and don’t forget, to keep your PMP status up to date you need to show you have obtained the relevant PDU’s. What better way of achieving this than to attend a PRINCE2 course which can help you to fill in those missing gaps which the PMBOK left out?

PRINCE2® is a registered mark of AXELOS Limited. PMI®, CAPM® and PMBOK® Guide are registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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Green project management

Sustainable green and healthy earth concept

One of the things which I have noticed since living in Japan over the last 3 months is how much plastic there is. Everything seems to come wrapped in the stuff, even if it already comes with a more than adequate natural packaging – bananas for example. At the supermarket, a piece of fish wrapped in plastic is given its own plastic bag at the checkout and then another plastic bag for all of the groceries. Three layers of plastic then for good measure.

All this plastic got me thinking about green project management and whether environmental concerns can be better integrated into mainstream project management. Although to give them credit, the local government here does take recycling waste very seriously. There are bins everywhere – one for plastic, one for paper, one for tin cans, another for glass, and one for the stuff which cannot be recycled. But aren’t we doing things the wrong way round? Rather than producing a whole lot of plastic and then collecting and recycling it, wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t produce as much in the first place?

After thinking this through, I think it’s time to add another aspect to a project’s performance – sustainability and the project’s contribution to it. If we can set targets for sustainability on our projects, we can work towards a more secure future on this planet for our children. For example, when you procure resources on your project, do know if they come from a sustainable source? The paper which you use in your office – does it come from a managed plantation, or from trees felled in a tropical rainforest?

Hang on a minute I hear you say. The shareholders and executives in my company only care about the bottom line and therefore it’s my duty to buy resources in an efficient way. If buying resources from sustainable sources costs more, then it’s not going to happen. This is certainly true. In a commercial organization, the project needs to show a return on investment, but in non-commercial projects this isn’t necessarily the case.

It’s also true that we have probably always sourced things based upon cost, so doing things which are more costly just isn’t going to happen. I think this is where education plays a part.

Project Managers who are concerned about sustainability can now gain knowledge and accreditation in green project management. A quick Google of sustainable project management also revealed this book which looks like a really interesting read. It’s on my list of books to read in the coming months.

By Project Managers gaining more knowledge of sustainability in relation to project management, they can begin to educate corporate executives why setting sustainability targets on projects can only be a good thing.

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My own moving country project

Business project concepts spread throughout desk

I’m a lucky guy. I’ve had the fortune to be able to move half way around the world, start up in a completely alien country, and manage to keep the stress levels under control – for much of the time anyway.

I’m writing this post from Tokyo, a city I have visited many times previously – both for work and for leisure. It’s been rather cold since arriving, but nothing which a boy from the north of England cannot endure.

So, what’s this got to do with project management? Well, quite a bit actually, if we consider the move (which I made with my wife who is Japanese) as a project.

Planning

Like all projects it required a plan. We (I should say my wife) made a very detailed plan, which started months in advance, and got more detailed the nearer to got to the moving date. There were several milestones along the way – putting our house on the rental market for example.

Changes

Things changed unexpectedly which meant that we had to take some decisions and re-plan accordingly – for example when the nice tenants we had found for our house wanted to move in 3 weeks earlier than we wanted.

Risks

There were risks to be considered – for example, what if our 2 lovely Chihuahuas weren’t allowed on the plane, or worse, were refused entry when we faced quarantine at Tokyo’s airport? Governments tend to like paperwork at the best of times, but I was totally unprepared for the amount of paperwork demanded by these two rabies-free island nations.

Execution

So, the plan evolved – injections, visas, tickets, moving, packing, selling the car – each one ticked off as they got completed, each one getting us closer to the final day.

My wife did an astonishingly good job of planning everything – even down to having futons and duvets, cutlery and crockery delivered within 2 hours of our moving into the Tokyo house the day after we arrived. Two hours later, the fibre-optic cable was installed for our internet connection. My wife has never been on a project management training course, but for her, the planning of all the different steps involved follows a certain inherent logic, just like it would on any other project.

48 hours prior to departure we had to have various paperwork completed by our vets in the UK. The day before flying this had been faxed off to the Japanese quarantine people who had promised to check it before we arrived.

Murphy’s Law (if something can go wrong it will)

On the morning of our departure their reply landed in our inbox. “Don’t forget to bring the original rabies antibody test certificates with you – otherwise your pets may be refused entry and may be sent back to their country of origin”. We looked at each other in horror. Of all the things which we had thought about and had planned for, we realized this was the one thing which we had overlooked. In fact we didn’t have the originals – they were at the vets in London.

We immediately phoned the vets. Luckily they still had them and we could pick them up on our way to the airport. So, we made a 2 hour detour to get the certificates, but this was well within the slack which we had allowed in the plan to get to the airport.

So, we arrived at the airport, after driving through yet another of the UK’s winter storms and went to check-in. The attendant took one look at the dogs in their crates and said we couldn’t take them. We couldn’t believe it. We had double-checked when we booked the flight that the pets could be carried in the cabin. We argued and when he realized that they were bound for the cabin we were OK to check-in with both dogs.

One huge sigh of relief and a walk through security later, we were able to board. Eleven hours on a flight with no toilet or food or water is not much fun for a small dog. Yet despite a few passengers being startled by the occasional bark, their first flight was thankfully pretty good.

Lessons

So, what lessons can we take away from this? Well, for one, plan your project. Had we not planned in detail, there would have been a lot more surprises along the way.

Make sure you analyse all risks beforehand and ensure you have a plan to deal with them. We had tried to reduce most risks, for example by researching in detail the requirements of the Japanese quarantine and the UK pet export regulations. But there was always the chance that we might be refused entry.

Lastly, be prepared to change your plan, when things come up unexpectedly.

I’m sure that you have had similar experiences when managing projects not just at work, but in your personal life too. Did an awareness of project management methods help you as much as it helped me?

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Good, cheap and fast! You’ve got to be joking!

Man in black suit jacket making a thumbs up

You’ve heard of the old proverb: “if it’s too good to be true then it probably is”. In other words be suspicious of people offering you high returns for little investment.

Whilst that might apply to everyday situations such as when that door to door salesman comes knocking and offers you a free holiday in return for one of his garden sheds, what’s this got to do with project management?

Well, quite a lot actually. If you’ve ever been involved in those pre-project discussions with your sales team who have just offered a product to a client which hasn’t yet been designed, then you will know what I’m talking about.

The problem is essentially that you cannot deliver something well (i.e. high quality), both cheaply and quickly. Anyone who promises all three things is either deluding themself (and possibly trying to delude you too), or simply doesn’t understand project management.

Let’s think of a simple project – having a new house built for example. Could this be built cheaply? Sure it could, if you could source the materials second-hand perhaps or maybe retrieve them from a demolition site. You could even try designing and building it yourself to save on labour costs.

Could it be built to a high standard? Of course! You could build it with all the latest bells and whistles, providing you can source the components and there are people competent enough to install them. But delivering to a high standard however doesn’t come cheap. If you really need to keep costs down, you are going to have to cut out all the nice things about the house – the en-suite bathroom, the fitted kitchen etc. And whilst you’re at it, why not just have a single room? That would be much cheaper than that 4 bed house you were dreaming about.

Could it be built quickly? Generally speaking, the smaller the house, the quicker it could be built. But if you really don’t want to compromise on the size, you might be able to build it quickly using pre-fabricated panels built in a factory, but these things don’t come cheap either. You could also have a team of hundreds but it’s always going to take a certain time to complete and just having more people might actually slow things down if they’re getting in each others’ way. Just instructing the trades people to work twice as quick is no good either because they’ll just make lots of mistakes, and the result will be shoddy. A leaky roof or dodgy electrics is not my idea of a high quality build.

So, you can see the problem here. Trying to deliver a high quality product both quickly and cheaply is simply not feasible. Project managers have grappled with this conundrum for years and have created an abstraction to help them understand it. It’s what’s become known as the project triangle.

The three 3 sides of the triangle are scope, cost and time. Every project will have one side (or sometimes 2) which is fixed. For example, the London 2012 Olympic projects had the time side fixed. The side(s) which is fixed cannot be changed no matter what happens. The other sides however have flexibility. For example if you are in danger of delivering late, then a common remedy to get the project back on schedule is to add more staff to the project which of course, will increase the cost side.

So what lessons do we take away here? Well, firstly, ensure there is agreement with your stakeholders about which side of the triangle is fixed. That will help you to understand the areas where there is room to manoeuvre. Secondly, manage their expectations throughout, so that you never over-promise what you are going to deliver. It’s always best to under-promise and then over-deliver at the end. Thirdly, educate your sales staff so that they understand that you can only ever deliver two of the following – good, cheap, fast – from your project.

If you are able to achieve this, then your project has a much better chance of meeting your clients’ needs and should ensure a much less stressful project for all.

What do you think? Do you think it’s possible to deliver all three things on a project?

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Are issues risks?

We all know the difference between an issue and a risk, right? Well, if we’re not clear, let me explain.

Think of an issue is an event which wasn’t planned to occur on your project but it has occurred and now requires management action. One of your project team quitting mid project; your sales director requesting a change to the requirements; a bug in the software which preventing a database being updated correctly are all examples of issues. Each one will need to be resolved one way or another by someone with authority.

When deciding what do to about an issue, it’s important to weigh up the pros and cons of taking a particular action i.e. what will be the benefits versus the costs of taking the action?

A risk on the other hand is an event which hasn’t yet happened. It might happen at some point in the future, or it may not. Risks therefore are about uncertainty. Perhaps there is a risk of your supplier going bankrupt, a risk of your business critical system software not working properly, a risk of you crashing your car on your way home from work.

If the risk event does eventually happen however it will have an impact on the project, usually in terms of cost, time and benefits, but maybe also on scope, quality and other risks. It’s therefore important to try to qualify these impacts before they occur. If your supplier does indeed go bankrupt during your project, you will need to find an alternative supplier which will likely incur additional costs and might well delay the project.

Precisely because risks are uncertain, it’s important to estimate the likelihood of the event to occur i.e. that your supplier will go bankrupt? You will need to make an assessment based upon your understanding of the situation.

Depending upon the likelihood of the event occurring and the impact if it does occur, you can then plan one or more mitigating actions in response. Whichever actions you plan however, must be in proportion to the level of risk. In other words, for risks which have a low impact and medium or low likelihood, you might decide to accept them i.e. do nothing about them.

For risks which have a high impact (let’s say on costs), and medium or high likelihood, you might decide it’s worth spending a reasonable sum to reduce the chances of the risk occurring. If by selecting the cheapest supplier, you run the risk of them going bankrupt, you might decide to choose another (and potentially more expensive) supplier if you consider there is less chance of them going bankrupt.

So can a risk become an issue? Absolutely. Let’s say your supplier did indeed go bankrupt during your project. At that point there is no uncertainty any more. The fact now is that the uncertain event (the risk) has occurred. We didn’t plan for the supplier to go bankrupt but we now need to do something about it. It has now become an issue and a suitable decision will need to be taken by someone with authority.

As you can see, risks can become issues, but they can stay as risks forever if they never actually occur.

Brainstorming risks early on your project, putting in place mitigating actions and tracking these consistently throughout the project are all part and parcel of being a project manager. Keeping track of issues and taking sensible decisions accordingly are also part of the day to day work of the project manager.

What were some of the biggest risks which you had to deal with on your projects? Looking back, could you have dealt with them any better? I’d be happy to hear your stories.

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The trouble with sponsors…

Is that often they aren’t too familiar with their responsibilities on projects.

That’s a rather sweeping statement you’re thinking and you’d be right. In my experience, senior executives who have committed to funding the project often don’t have the inclination or the time to learn more about project management. And that’s leaving aside the fact that they are often too busy managing the business anyway to devote much time to your project.

These factors combined often means that the project manager is left without the direction expected from the sponsor.

I remember a conversation with a senior project manager at a UK government department. He was complaining that as soon as parliament closed down for the summer the sponsor jetted off to his villa in Tuscany for 4 months. Not only that, but he refused to leave any contact phone number or contact details with the project manager. So, when issues came up during this period, the project manager was either left waiting for several months, or was forced into taking a decision beyond his authority.

Lack of sponsorship was identified by the Standish Group in their Chaos Report as one of the most important reasons why projects fail. Of course, there are always some projects with active, committed executive sponsors who know that their role is to direct the project and to take the big decisions whilst delegating day to day to the project manager. These projects stand a much higher chance of being successful compared to those with non-committal or absent sponsors.

So what can you do as a project manager to try to avoid this scenario? Well, the truth is, there is no silver bullet.

You could identify the sponsor’s potential lack of involvement as a risk early on and use this as an opportunity to discuss with the sponsor the expected level of involvement. Crucially, it will be about agreeing when key decisions need to be taken by the sponsor and trying to ensure their availability at these times.

You could try to educate them about their responsibilities on the project, but don’t expect that they will want to sit through a training course however.

More fundamentally, if you find your sponsor going AWOL shortly after committing the project budget, then this is a sure sign that your project is on the road to failure.

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Is your project really worth it?

Have you ever worked on a project where you asked “what’s the point”, or felt that you shouldn’t be wasting any more effort on it? I have, and it makes you wonder who is really in control and whether they really understand why a Business Case is essential. I’ll give you an example.

is-your-project-really-worth-it

Some time ago, I was asked to take over the management of a project 4 months in because the previous project manager was moving on. The project would deliver an I.T. system which would interface with a data feed containing financial trade data, do some calculations and then dump out the results into some reports and files.

Pretty simple really, although for reasons I won’t go into the developers had chosen a solution which was way over-engineered. The end result was that the system was beset by quality problems. This was coupled with the fact that the data feed which was being developed by another project wouldn’t be ready for another 6 months.

I raised this with my boss who was in overall charge of the development and he said it didn’t matter if it didn’t work – in fact it had failed all tests until that point – but what was important was that it was delivered into the data centre on time. So, I dutifully obliged, and ensured the server was delivered on time, even though it was just a useless box sitting there doing nothing because there was no data to process, and no ability to process it anyway.

So why had my boss insisted on wasting time and effort installing a useless box with unusable software? Simply because his bonus depended upon him showing he had met his targets. The project was for a very large and very successful international business which just goes to show even in huge successful organizations there can be an alarming lack of understanding about project governance and business justification.

On this particular project there wasn’t a Business Case which described why we were doing it, or quantifying the benefits which would result from it. In other words, there was no justification for the investment of time and money which would be required. As it turned out, after a year the project was eventually cancelled, primarily because of the ongoing quality problems associated with an overly complex technological solution.

In retrospect the organization could have saved itself a whole load of money by not proceeding in the first place. This decision would have been made easier had a Business Case containing a thorough cost benefit analysis been developed by the organization at the start.

Can any lessons be learned? Yes, firstly never start a project without a Business Case and secondly, educate more senior decision-makers in the necessity of project governance. Whilst the first is much easier than the second, both are essential to ensure your organization doesn’t waste even more time and money.

Have you worked on projects which were a waste of time and/or money? Do your projects always have a Business Case?

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Centralising Your Project Portfolio

Guest post by Ian Needs, Marketing Manager for KeyedIn Solutions

If your project management has no formalised frameworks, your business may well be losing money.

Standardisation and consistent application of project management methods, processes and technologies is a key factor in business success.

Project portfolio management (PPM) software provides a centralised dashboard for the meta-management and analysis of multiple projects, so that your project management team works within clear guidelines that design projects to succeed.

Issues Faced by Businesses
If your business manages multiple projects and resources, you may find PPM software helps you to align and streamline your projects.

When project staff work independently without any formal PPM structure, their unstandardized approaches will directly influence the progress and success of individual projects. In some organisations that might be a benefit, but in others it leads to unpredictable performance and non-comparable measurements of key performance indicators.

If you’ve found yourself:

  • struggling to analyse performance across projects due to a lack of comparable data
  • being forced to make project management decisions without complete information
  • suffering the ignorance of stakeholders due to a lack of consistent, engaging communication
  • worrying about the practicality of your pipeline management decisions
  • wishing for more integrated information on overall portfolio viability

…then it may be time to explore PPM software.

What PPM Software Can do for Your Business
Most professional PPM solutions support the management of project scope, time, cost, procurement, integration, resources, communications, quality and risk.

A good PPM application lets you track and manage projects seamlessly, applying time-saving templates, scenario models and workflows. You’ll be able to take a long-term overview of all projects –past, current and future—to ensure that everyone’s efforts and resources are aligned toward your organisation’s strategic goals.

Some PPM software provides a real-time view, while other options are dependent on scheduled data refreshment. Real-time data is invaluable to its end users: your project managers, resource managers and executives will all benefit from timely insights into resource demand, capability and project delivery.

Who Doesn’t Need This?
If you’re running a very limited number of projects, PPM software is perhaps not an essential for your business. However, it’s a nice-to-have that may become increasingly useful as your project portfolio evolves.

Similarly, if your budget is limited then you may debate the value of PPM software. In a down economy, many businesses do without an automated PPM solution, but this often leads to inefficiency and a reduced ROI. Different organisations have different project portfolio management requirements, but most can benefit from clearer oversight of programmes and projects.

Rather than buying a licence for software that will only be partially rolled-out, it makes more sense for businesses with lower budgets to use easily scalable Software-as-a-Service project portfolio management solutions. PPM in the cloud offers a great deal of flexibility as well as location-independent access to information.

If you think it might be time you got project portfolio management software for your business, consider the numbers, types, and hierarchies of the projects you currently manage. What you’re looking for is a solution that suits your current portfolio and management requirements, so that you can improve your business efficiency without a long and complex implementation phase.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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Ian Needs is Marketing Manager for KeyedIn Solutions, provider of the KeyedIn projects project portfolio management software package.

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PRojects IN Controlled Environments (a.k.a. PRINCE2®)

If you’re an American reader of this blog and you’re involved in, or interested in, project management, then you’re probably familiar, or at least heard of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). In this article I want to introduce you to a complimentary approach to project management which was developed in the UK and is known as PRINCE2.

PRINCE2 originated from a project management method called PROMPT in the 1970’s and was adapted by the UK government as a standard which could be used on all government I.T. projects. It’s has now been adopted by thousands of organizations worldwide including both the UK and Australian governments, the United Nations, NATO, DHL, Barclays Bank and Visa to name just a few. It was also used successfully by the London Olympic Authority on all of the 2012 London Olympics projects.

So, what’s PRINCE2 all about? Well, firstly it’s a generic principles-based approach to project management, so it can be applied to any type of project. When the latest version of the PRINCE2 manual was developed, hundreds of project managers were consulted in order to develop a method embodying modern best practices in project management.

The 7 principles form the bedrock upon which everything else in the method is based and form one of 4 integrated elements. The 2nd of these elements is the 7 themes, which are aspects of project management which need to be continuously addressed within a project. The 3rd element is the 7 processes which describe who is responsible, what they are responsible for, and when they perform the various activities within the project lifecycle. The last element describes how it is important to adapt the processes and themes to suit the needs of the project. On large, complex or risky projects, the processes and themes will need to be applied more rigorously than on a simpler, less risky project.

I think this flexibility is one of the main strengths of PRINCE2. It can be used on small projects without incurring a lot of overhead, but can equally be used to good effect on massive, international projects which require a high level of project governance. Another benefit is that because it’s generic, the method can be used on any type of project and if adopted by an organization can offer a common project management language across all projects. This helps to promote better communications both within and between projects.

I think another major benefit is that responsibilities for all the project management team roles are clearly defined. Whereas the PMBOK Guide really only focuses on the responsibilities of the project manager, PRINCE2 describes responsibilities in total for 9 different project management ream roles. Included in these are the Project Board (Steering Committee) and the Executive (Project Sponsor) roles. These are the most important on any project because they are responsible for taking all the major decisions about the project i.e. committing the money and taking decisions about starting/continuing with the project. By clearly defining each project management team role, each role understands what is expected of them and what authority they have for taking decisions.

One other thing about PRINCE2 which I think is really great is how it describes the different levels of plan. The Project Board requires a high level plan covering the whole project (project plan), the Project Manager requires a more detailed plan covering each stage of the project (stage plan) and Team Managers require their own team plan covering a work package which is a short-term and detailed plan. By having these different levels of plan focusing on the needs of each level of the project management team, both communication and control can be improved.

When I first came across PRINCE2 about a decade ago, one thing which surprised me was its insistence that there is no need for regular progress meetings on a project. This went counter to everything I had experienced myself on software projects over the previous 15 years. Managers needed meetings, or so I thought.

Well, in PRINCE2 meetings are only really necessary at the end of each stage and when important decisions need to be taken e.g. to continue or close the project. A more efficient use of management time however is for the Project Board to “manage by exception” which means that they require a meeting at the end of a stage but at the same time they delegate the day to day management of the project to the project manager via the setting of “tolerances”. These tolerances can be set for time, cost, scope, quality, risks and benefits and are a way of delegating authority. For example, cost tolerance could be +/-£10k, or for time +/-8 weeks. If these tolerances are forecast to be exceeded, then the project manager does not have authority to continue and must escalate the “exception” upwards to the Project Board who can then take a decision. In between the end of stage decisions, the project manager keeps the Project Board informed of progress via regular progress reports. I think this can lead to a huge saving of senior management time.

PRINCE2 also focuses on products which helps the stakeholders better understand what the project will deliver, why, when, by whom and for whom.

In addition to the above benefits, I think that perhaps the most important benefit of PRINCE2 is that it is business-focused. Having a viable business case informs all the decisions taken by the Project Board and also forms one of the principles of PRINCE2 – that a project must have “continued business justification”. This helps to ensure that a project delivers a return on investment and does not get side-tracked into managing the project as an end in itself.

So, I hope I have whetted your appetite to find out more about PRINCE2. PRINCE2 has really helped me become a better project manager and I think it can complement any of the existing tools within the project managers’ toolkit. If you would like to find out more about PRINCE2, but do not fancy reading the 300+ pages of the PRINCE2 manual, then I have put together a free resource (What is PRINCE2?) which covers all the basics of PRINCE2 which I hope you will find useful.

What do you think about PRINCE2?

PRINCE2® is a registered trade mark of the Cabinet Office

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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