PM business case, methodology

In my years as a project manager, I have never seen a business case for the profession. Our pitch, for now our assertion in the PMO is that projects will be executed 30-50 percent faster with formal project management processes and tools applied. I believe this number, but I'd like to get a citation. In other words, if you are managing a 2000 hour project, as long as you spend less than 600 - 1000 hours on PM tasks, you will achieve ROI.

Without PM, projects stop and start, redefinition is continuous, and rework is endemic. As you apply PM, you spend much more time in up front planning. This feels like the project is slowing down. You spend more time on ready, and more time on aim. Our assertion, once again, is that project execution (development in a software project) will go 2-4x faster.

As you iterative methodologists I'm sure will point out, that feeling of going too slow can be remedied by creating prototypes. I am a big fan of Agile, and I have not totally reconciled agile with our waterfall methodology and this going too slow feeling. No matter your approach, creating an overall plan, defining objectives, and creating org alignment around projects creates the infrastructure needed for project success. In my next couple of posts, I will tackle the top reasons for project failure, and something I have been thinking about - functional expertise and project management.