Category: Project Management

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Some Frameworks and Models of Project Management

The following list was graciously contributed by Marc Bonnemains, and is from a LinkedIn discussion about project management.

The following items are referred to as frameworks and models. Many people distinguish between the two, and might explain that a framework is a structure within which an activity occurs, but a model also describes the functioning relationship between the activities within that structure. The following items are not individually classified as a framework or model.

  1. Of course the PMBOK and others – www.pmi.org
  2. IPMA Compétence base line – http://www.ipma.ch
  3. APM Body of knowledge – http://www.apm.org.uk
  4. La conduite de projets à l’IN2P3 – http://www.in2p3.fr
  5. HERMES – La méthode suisse de conduite de projets –
    http://www.hermes.admin.c
  6. Japanese Project Management – Project and Program Management for Enterprise Innovation (P2M) – http://www.pmaj.or.jp/ENG/index.htm
  7. IEEE Software Engineering Standards – http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/subscriptions/prod/standards_overview.html
  8. ADePT Methodology is new approach to managing a project to a successful completion – http://www.adeptmanagement.com/ourservices/adept.html
  9. COTA – http://www.cota.be/
  10. Peace Corps – Peace Corps Programming and Training Manual –
    http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=library.comdev
  11. Some others links : Papers, Links and Project Management Resources –
    http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/index.html

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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more stuff on the “common sense” debate

there was a debate for years around whether Project Management is an art or a science.

The truth is that neither are correct on their own – it is both.

Successful project managers (with a track record of more than one project) typically employ the science stuff (core PM concepts), sometimes religiously.

They also harbor a good deal of the “art” side as well. One example of the art would be the harder to define competencies or even what some people call personal qualities that good PMs have, for example judgement. You cannot be a successful project manager (of anything non-trivial) without very good judgement.

Something that is (sadly) not found in all of us.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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On the importance of field knowledge in project management

I wrote recently about the difference between senior and junior project managers in terms of decision making. More specifically, I argued that while senior managers focused on potential project difficulties, junior managers were more easily swayed by their project’s plan and its deficiencies.

Spotting problem with your plan and being able to foresee difficulties are both essential skills for a project manager, but I would argue that while the first one can be acquired by anyone willing to put in the needed effort, the second skill is much harder to develop. This is why I believe in the importance of managing a project in a field you master.

Everyone does not share this view. Some people indeed hold the opinion that project management is a “standalone” skill: once you master the mechanics, you can apply it to any context. In the same vein, it could be argued that even a project manager with a lot of experience in a given field cannot possibly hope to master every single aspect of the project he will be working on. Why bother at all with choosing someone with field experience, then? This perception of project management does have its appeal, but it forgoes some of the most compelling advantages offered by choosing a project manager well versed in a given field.

The first one is obvious: when you know what you’re working with, you also know who to turn to when in need. Good data is essential when the time to take a decision comes, and that data can only be obtained by asking the right questions to the right members. Field knowledge is definitely a big plus in this case.

There’s also the fact that without mastering every skill, a project manager with knowledge of a given field still usually has a good idea of what every member of his team does. This is invaluable when evaluating the impact of a decision. Unforeseen consequences can be very damageable to a project’s progress; the more you know about your field, the more you can plan ahead.

Finally, a lack of project management skills is simply easier to remedy than a lack of field knowledge. Between coursework, mentoring and following commonly accepted best practices, the options are numerous and accessible to anyone willing to learn.

Combining field knowledge with project management skills invariably leads to making better decisions. Which is ultimately what being a good project manager is all about.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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PROJECT AUDITS – A necessary evil or a tool for achieving success?

I hate project audits.

My days are already full with planning, controlling, communicating, managing stakeholder expectations and making the right decisions. In my mind, a good project manager pretty much audits his project every day! That’s how I know what is going on:

Is my project delivering the expected result at this point in time? I must always be knowledgeable about the state of my project. My audits target the evaluation of the project’s health (cost, time, scope, risks) and I do them minimally at every milestone occurrences with the different project stakeholders.

Am I satisfied that everything is done to mitigate risks on future project expectations? Risks are part of a project. There may be risk associated with any expected results. Do I have a strategy to mitigate them? I need to be able to answer this question.

So, why should I care about project audits?

Project risk management is a vast topic. Many strategies and techniques exist to make sure you identify, measure and mitigate project risks. But what about project process risks? A best practice is a technique believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome when applied to a particular condition or circumstance. The Project Management Institute (PMI) proposes to use “best practices” as a mean to correct any deficiencies to reduce cost of quality and an increase in sponsor and customer acceptance of the project’s product. Project audits are used to answer two questions:

Are project management best practices being followed to mitigate risks? We can surmise that a project manager who uses best practices should have a higher degree of success than someone who doesn’t.

Are there any lessons learned from my project experience? Project management is an evolving science. My organization may benefit from my good or bad decisions.

I love project audits.

It’s easy to write a bunch of guidelines on a piece of paper. But how do I use them so I feel it is improving my chance of success? Since best practices are implemented to reduce process induced risks, I should audit my practices to ensure the process will impact positively on my project results.

Best practice auditing targets issues related to the project organization and management. I put forward that best practice auditing should occur as often as possible.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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following previous post: is “PM” just common sense

Well here’s my view. If project management (or delivering projects successfully, on a more often than not basis) were purely common sense, then the evidence to do with project delivery performance would tell a completely different story. For example, a UK report by the Royal Society of Engineering a few years ago quoted some frightening numbers on the cost overruns (in £) that is wasted each year in the UK on IT projects alone. There are many other examples from other industries to back this up this assertion.

It is an interesting thought as well that in many fields of business (engaged in projects) there are often professionals in abundance (i.e. degree or better qualified staff) working on those projects, and often they still produce disappointing results, i.e. unsuccessful, sometimes spectacularly so. You would suppose that this group could master what some say is just “common sense”, if this is true?

The reasons for poor project delivery can sometimes be complex, including:

– lack of real pressure (in some industries) for improved delivery performance
– lack of corporate capability relating to business level Governance of key projects
– lack of accountability of key individuals across the project for delivery performance
– issues of communication, poorly applied practices etc

The list could go on and on, and does depending partly on Geography and industry sector.

The best examples of project management practice are: a) relevant to the industry, technology (or domain) being managed, b) focused on the issues that are key to the sponsor or business; and c) are routinely employed by project teams as key disciplines which they get obvious value from; they do not consign them to the “we haven’t had time to do that yet” pile. In other words key professionals understand the relationship and difference between core project work and project management. In the history of the industrial era to date, evidence does not seem to support that this “common sense” prevails yet in buckets in most people in most organisations?

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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Making junior project managers more senior

I have previously disserted on the actual need for a project manager to be able to make the right decision at the right time. I strongly believe that success is based on this simple principle.

Our first reaction would be to imply the existence of a strong relationship between experience and good decision making. The question is: What kind of experience? Domain experience or project management experience? While activities, resources, milestones, levelling, etc. are tools for the senior project manager, they are often targets for his/her less experienced counterpart.

In the past several years, I have worked with all sorts of IT project managers (junior, casual, senior, expert, guru). As I watched their everyday struggle to survive project situations by making the right decision, I tried to compare their thought processes. From these observations I would propose the following tenet: Senior project manager decisions are affected by potential project difficulties while more junior project manager decisions are based on the project plan structure and its deficiencies. I will follow with a corollary: project management maturity is not based on longevity, but rather on breadth of experience.

The project manager’s ability to abstract information from the project planned and actual data is a crucial determinant in his decision making effectiveness. This ability is linked to the project manager’s breadth of knowledge and experience in the domain the project is run. There are differences in how junior and senior project managers are affected by different aspects of their projects. The difficulty in finding and recognizing potential problems in the available data is what I observed the most in junior project managers. They tend to focus on project management rather than managing their projects. Seniors are better at getting at the core of the situation and less influenced by side aspects of the project like project management principles. Thus, I believe the information gathering and analysis process is a critical element in the performance of a project manager.

In order to increase the performance of junior project managers, you need to provide tools or processes that ensure project data is reliable. For example, a careful attention to using simple and relevant scheduling best practices should be a nice way to achieve this. This would increase the junior (or senior) project manager confidence and help making more accurate and timely project decisions using his/her domain knowledge.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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Project Management, Leadership and Making the Right Decision

A guest post from Patrick d’Astous , chief scientist at Smartbox Software.

A project manager puts, by trade, or by choice, his credibility on the line every day. Another way to say this is “a project manager is as good as his/her last project’s perceived success”. Compared to traditional management and its long term objectives, success as a project manager is easily measured.

I like to compare this situation to my years spent in the army where the achievement of a junior officer was related to his leadership and decision making skills. Although a project manager’s authority is given through the project charter, he will not succeed with formal authority alone. Expert authority or the respect achieved through decision making abilities is paramount to a project manager’s success.

How do you achieve a good level of expert authority?

By making better decisions of course!! A good officer (oops, I meant project manager) elaborates a sound plan based on recognized project management best practices knowing the project plan itself will need to be adapted as soon as the real action starts. Why? You will say risks of course. Yes, your project plan must take into account risks and bravo if you have a contingency plan for every perceived risk. I say this is not enough; a good project manager must be able to recognize a situation (foreseen or totally out of nowhere) and react accordingly to achieve a successful outcome. If he can do so repeatedly, he will then achieve expert authority.

Project process, best practices and audits

The army has best practices or Standard Operating Procedures that date a few thousand years (Sun Tzu anyone?) which are still applied today when planning. The first thing you learn during officer basic training is the process of planning. Audits are ingrained in the authoritative hierarchy of the army to ensure all the details have been looked at. Although project management is a younger field, individual experts and organizations alike have worked hard to propose processes, best practices and audit mechanisms. The goal here is to ensure the details have been taken care of so you can:

  • Plan better and reduce the risks associated with a faulty plan.
  • Recognize a potentially difficult situation and react accordingly.

So you, the junior or casual project manager, I have one piece of advice for you : ensure you are applying PM best practices when planning. You will then be in a position to make better decisions and achieve success.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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Patrick d’Astous is chief scientist at Smartbox Software in Montreal. Smartbox commercializes Project Scheduling Smart Assistant, a Microsoft Project add-on that provides contextual advice to the project manager based on his actual project plan’s strength based on common PM best practices and standards.

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is it all just “common sense” ?

From time to time in my business life, someone will ask, or sometimes say that project management is ‘common sense’, meaning it is just common sense.

Often they are making a statement along the lines of ‘what’s all the fuss about this PM stuff, it’s all just common sense isn’t it’?

Well, my question is, of course, is it just common sense or as some would say, a whole lot more more?

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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Scrum versus Waterfall?

Many methods have emerged over the years that are hailed as the greatest and latest way to deliver a project. A good example would be the “scrum” method for delivering IT projects. The scrum concept is implemented in a number of ways, one of which could be to pick groups of requirements which are delivered in ‘packets’ as the project progresses through sequential ‘scrums’.

Scrum is therefore one of many approaches that might be adopted as a strategy for delivering a project, and in some respects it could be quite different to a waterfall type of a approach.

However, there is one thing that remains as a constant regardless of approach – all projects require the fundamentals of project management to be in place and to be practiced. In addition, any method that divorces the project team from the overall goals of a project is going to be a project that runs a severe risk of not delivering the full need.

It could easily be argued, that the fundamentals of project management (relative to distinct project types) should not change regardless of implementation or delivery strategy. That would be a useful dicusssion?

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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Using Project Teams On Organizational Change Projects

Benefits of Consulting and/or Project Teams

Occasionally, a client will specify that they want a team of consultants on the project because the project requires substantial expertise and resources. While there can be many frustrations for consultants working in teams, there are also major benefits.

  • The team can provide a wide variety of expertise and perspectives during the project, often resulting in a more accurate understanding and resolution of problems in the client’s organization.
  • If the team is designed well, members often provide useful ongoing support and feedback amongst each other, as well.
  • If a consultant suddenly is not able to work on the project, other consultants can step in to cover for the missing consultant.

As a result, consultants enjoy a more successful project and develop a network of trusted peers.

A Team on a Project Might Include:

  • An organizational change consultant to guide development of the collaborative relationship and overall project plan.
  • If a Board of Directors is involved (and they should be on major projects), Board trainers who ensure the Board of Directors is sufficiently developed to oversee the organizational change project.
  • A strategic planning facilitator to guide development of an overall strategic planning framework in which the organizational change plan can be integrated.
  • Specialists in products or services to guide development of certain plans, including groups of customers to serve, and how to develop and sell the product on an ongoing basis.
  • Marketing consultants to provide expertise, for example, in market research, public relations, branding, and advertising and promotions planning.
  • Trainers to convey “expert” content at various times to various members of the client’s organization.

Here Are Some Useful, Free Online Resources

What do you think?

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.