Project Methodologies and Project Failure

Why is it that tasks always seem to be late? No matter how much time we allot, there never seems to be enough to complete a task on time. There is one overreaching reason pervasive throughout the enterprise—poor time management. To accommodate the continual barrage of supposedly urgent tasks, we heavily pad estimates. Excessive padding triggers numerous negative work patterns. The extra time and over confidence in estimates allows people to accept other unrelated tasks, introduce low priority features, and strive for perfection. It is unfair, however, to saddle the individual with the entire problem; the work-place culture reinforces and rewards the behavior.

This book is an excellent work on Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM). It is the best book I have read on the topic. Extremely thorough and complete. It is not as exciting as other "business novel" formats, but can be used as a reference when mid stream on a project. This is well worth the price.

The term 'Inception Phase' is often used to signify a project's beginning. Isn’t it really the birth? There are many similarities between a project's lifecycle and this familial analogy.

Inception happens much earlier with a glass of wine, maybe two. That first thought, “Hey, wouldn’t it be neat if we had a…” Complete the sentence to fit the situation. It is at this point that the ball gets rolling, so to speak, and someone decides to invest some time to explore the possibility of making something happen. The originator courts the business manager, selling the concept of the idea, until there is approval to move forward. Voilà! It is conceived. Someone commits to carry and nurture the project, allowing it to incubate and mature into a viable form that can properly benefit the organization as a final product. After the proper gestation, the project is born and has a team assigned. This is the transition that many methodologies errantly label inception.

Many companies have some form of a portfolio management group to manage their projects and their backlog. The projects they govern range from network pulls to new software development. However, most use only one methodology to run these projects. It may be waterfall, Agile, Critical Chain or some other process. This is analogous to having only one knife in the kitchen. Anyone that has cooked more than a few meals realizes that a table knife is insufficient for all your kitchen needs. It purees tomatoes, cuts meat poorly, fails at filleting fish and suffers as a steak knife. There are hundreds of knives, each designed to do some specific job. As with many jobs, some tools are better than others are for certain tasks.

The policy reads, "Before you can proceed, the PMO needs to approve the design gate." So, you begrudgingly wind down the project so the slowest members of the design team can catch up. A week, maybe two, sometimes even more flash by. The rest of the project team starts finding work on other projects. Once the PMO finally gives the project the green light, you will need to wait for people to complete those other tasks before they can focus on your project. Precious time is lost.

This book is currently under review, more details will be added when available

If you are stepping up to manage complex projects this is a great text. It is wonderful as a standalone read, as a college text, or a desk reference.

Developed, refined, and validated by over 20 years of client experiences, Effective Complex Project Management offers a proven solution to managing any project that must succeed in the face of organizational complexity and market uncertainty. When applied and managed correctly, this intuitive framework and robust methodology will deliver the desired business value of programs and projects without fail!

KEY FEATURES

Another great book by Mr. Wysocki, a personal friend. This books continues to meet Bob's standard of well written project management reference and text books.

The popular guide to the project management body of knowledge, now fully updated.

Now in its seventh edition, this comprehensive guide to project management has long been considered the standard for both professionals and academics. With more than 32,000 copies sold in the last three editions, it has now been fully updated to cover the new PMBOK 5. Well-known expert Robert Wysocki has added more than 100 pages of new content based on instructor feedback, enhancing the coverage of best-of-breed methods and tools for ensuring project management success.

With enriched case studies, accompanying exercises and solutions on the companion website, and PowerPoint slides for all figures and tables, the book is ideal for instructors and students as well as active project managers.

Or... I Think I Can

I have a book that sits in the bookshelf behind my desk and has been there for as long as I have had a desk—The Little Engine That Could, by Watty Piper. I have read it numerous times to each of my children and soon to my granddaughter, Kennedy. Each time I open it, the smell takes me back to my Dad's lap and a time when life was much easier. A time when my vocabulary was devoid of the word project. I am not sure if there is a direct connection between that word and life's simplicity, it is probably just an coincidence.

Process is at the core of any business. It makes work predictable, repeatable, and transferable. Without it we cannot scale our businesses. However, process can be a bane to making progress. Processes that work for a $10 million company have difficulties supporting a $30 million company. Trying to scale them to a $300 million company will not only fail but not address the issues that larger companies have that were never dreamt of in a smaller organization. Processes need to be discarded, revamped, and built—all of that without creating an overburdening bureaucracy.

Anytime you need to go someplace, you first have to know where you are. Processes are never static and your company's current state is probably far from where you think it is. Hence, the first step is mapping out you company's current state followed by defining the future state. This is more than a logical map of the process; it must also include physical maps. Whether your process is solely to provide a service (say, website development) or physical (say, manufacturing) there are logistical issues that complicate the process flow. Without fully understanding those nuances, future state processes will not reach the desired efficiencies.

For more information about process mapping fill out the form to the left and we will get in touch with you.

It happens hundreds of times a day around the world, the CIO calls an urgent IT Management Committee meeting. She has heard that one of the projects in the portfolio, a seemingly simple project doing a routine upgrade, is projecting a 20 percent cost overrun and will be three months late. How can a project go that far off track since the last week's executive team meeting? Managers scramble to get their stories straight, determine who to blame, form opinions and alibis, and pummel the project manager for failing to manage the project correctly, even though he has been saying the project is in trouble for months. The project has drifted from its initial intent and now the ultimate goal is to find someone to blame.