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

—————————

For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

—————————

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.

—————————

For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

—————————

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.

—————————

For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

————————————————————————————————————————

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.

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?

—————————

For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

—————————

What is “Success” in Project Management?

Your client’s perception of project “success” is the basis from which your client concludes, for example, whether the project of high quality, that money paid to you was well spent, that you did a good job as a consultant, and whether you might be hired again (if you are an external consultant). Early in the project, it is important for you and your client to discuss how to determine the success of the project.

Unfortunately, determining whether a project was successful or not is not nearly as easy as it might seem because there are numerous perspectives on what is project “success.” Therefore, it is important to consider all of these perspectives, especially about a complex – and usually changing – project. Consider the following possible definitions of what might be considered as “success” in your consulting project, and work with your client to select one or more.

1. Desired outcomes and results listed in the project agreement are achieved?

Both you and your client should somehow specify the overall results that the project is to achieve. Ideally, the results are described in terms such that you both could readily discern if the results were achieved or not. This outcome is often a measure as to whether the project was successful or not.

2. The client’s problem is solved?

More times than people realize, the originally specified project results have little to do with actually solving the most important problem in your client’s organization. That occurs because, as you and your client work together to examine and address their overall problem, you both realize that there is a more important problem to address. At that time, it is wise to change your project plans if both of you agree. Discuss the new results that you prefer and how you will know whether or not they are achieved.

Still, later on, your client might believe that any agreed-to results that were achieved from the project were not as important as addressing any current, unsolved problems, so your client might still conclude that the project was not as successful as it should have been. Or, your client might believe that any achieved results were actually more useful than addressing the original problem that you discussed, so your client might still conclude that the project was highly successful.

3. The project is finished on time and within budget?

Often, your client has limited resources in terms of money and time. Therefore, any project that did not require more time and money than expected might be considered successful. That might be true, especially if your client has the philosophy that there are always problems to be solved in any organization and that the project was done as best as could be done.

4. You and your client sustain a high-quality, working relationship?

The quality of your relationship with your client is often directly associated with what the client perceives to be the quality of the project. In a highly collaborative approach to consulting, you want your relationship with your client to be as open, honest and trusting as possible. The nature of the relationship supports your client’s strong, ongoing commitment and participation in the project itself, which, in turn, helps to ensure that the project effectively addresses problems in their organization.

5. Your client learns to address similar problems by themselves in the future?

This outcome should be one of the major goals for any consultant. However, the exact nature of the problem may never arise in the client’s organization again, so it is often difficult to assess if the client has learned to solve that problem. Also, few consultants are willing to scope a project to the time required to assess whether a client really can solve the same type of problem in the future.

6. Your client says that they would hire you again (if you are an external consultant)?

One of the most powerful outcomes is that you both are willing to work with each other again. One of the ethical considerations for any consultant is to avoid creating a dependency of the client on the consultant – where the client cannot capably participate in the organization without the ongoing services of the consultant. However, it is not uncommon that the client strongly believes that the quality of the relationship with the consultant is as important as the consultant’s expertise. The client might choose to use that consultant wherever and whenever they can in the future.

7. You get paid in full?

This perspective might sound rather trite. However, you might feel good about the quality and progress of a project only to conclude, later on, if you have not been paid as promised, that the project was not successful.

What do you think?

—————————

For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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

Being a project manager means

there will be times when you will not be the most popular person in the room ……

Much of the lot of the project manager is concerned with dealing with issues; that may mean bringing attention to issues, their source, impact and resolution to the table for the project team, sponsors and executives to resolve. In these circumstances, project mangers need to be: open; ruthlessly objective; focused; and visionary. Not every individual would relish this responsibility, for example, in a recent conversation with wanna-be project managers, many practical examples of issues that PMs may face were discussed – not everyone in the room was happy about being responsible for managing their resolution and what this would entail in real life.

Testing issues such as this should be an important element of selecting project managers as well as defining their responsibilities.

—————————

For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

—————————

PM Certification – does it make a difference?

Certification programmes in vocational qualifications have exploded in the past 10 years or so, and the project management world is no different.

In the US, the Project Management Institute’s “PMP” qualification probably leads to way. In the UK we have a similar qualifications from our own “Association of Project Management”, for example “APMP” – we also have Prince2 qualifications, which is primarily the UK Government’s project management methodology.

But here’s my question: do you think that having a certificated project manager makes a real difference to the project or otherwise?

Let us know your thoughts?

—————————

For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

—————————

What makes a great project manager?

Throughout the whole of my career, I have come across a few great project managers. These are people who actually deliver a project, which is very much a success, and broadly gets delivered within the key mainstream delivery targets.

But, the key question in my mind is why are they great project managers? What makes the difference? (if indeed there is one?).

Many people (and even business psychologists) have looked at this question and have come up with some very interesting results, but with a tool like a blog we can ask all those out there for their views?

Please let us know your thoughts.

—————————

For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

—————————

Is There “Best Practice” Project Management?

Is there any such thing as a ‘best practice’ project management?

I have a personal view but my aim in this blog is partly to pose and discuss questions of relevance and value.

It is certainly true that projects by their very nature can be very different and that drives some people to argue that trying to encourage or even “require” project teams to adopt any given practices may at best produce no benefit and at worst do the opposite – therefore they argue against the concept of best practices being appropriate in projects.

Others though, would argue that there are central principles that are fundamental to delivering projects well – often a very challenging task in itself. They might also argue that those principles are common to most if not all projects? Therefore the key question might be how can, or can these principles be translated into practices that support effective project definition and delivery?

One point of note you may wish to keep in mind before commenting – project management is a very broad topic itself and the aims and needs (and challenges) of project management can vary quite substantially from one business environment to another – therefore whenever we discuss questions such as this we need to be very mindful of this fact – in other words what may be fundamentally important in one environment may be completely irrelevant in another. Therefore it might be useful at times to qualify our comments.

Finally, please do contribute to the debate in this blog and by all means feel free to post questions. However, we must ask all to read and abide by the guidance on posting and participating – most importantly, no spam or similar.

—————————

For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

—————————