I believe that project management discipline really creates an environment for successful project execution. But I have seen projects where very little discipline is applied, and they are successfully executed with a liberal sprinkling of functional expertise and solid requirements analysis. Yes, that functional expertise was often applied in firedrill fashion, but still, it worked.
I think it is possible for organizations (and people) to fall in love with one or the other. Project management by itself is of limited benefit. In many ways, project management is not that impressive. PM provides some good tools, a framework, and an experienced PM knows how to operation the machine. Good business analysis accrues business expertise, and makes it better, refines it. Project management pushes back, navigates, and often holds firm. Business analysis never has to hold firm. Its infinitely curious.
Anyway, something to think about.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The music solution
I want you, my loyal readers to know that I love Rhapsody. It is a subscription service, and it is the future. Yes, the Apple products are better, but Rhapsody's software is not significantly worse than iTunes. I have fully converted to my phone as my music player, bluetooth headphones and all, and I'm not looking back. iPhone is just about the coolest piece of hardware I have seen, but I won't be buying one. Apple, you are going to have to create a subscription service.
Back in the good old days, I bought all my music on allofmp3.com. It was great. I could download all the latest, and the site was pretty good at pointing you to new music. You could use iTunes to search and sample, then buy in Russia. Now that the Russian loophole has been closed, but Rhapsody is even better. I have been on this thing about a month, and have found so many great bands - Gym Class Heroes, The Roots, Sia, Tricky. Radiohead is the gateway drug to Electronica, and I am addicted.
Here is a question for you - name the best American rock and roll band in history. This question serves many purposes. First, it tells me something about you. If you said The Eagles, that's fine. Solid. Wilco? Interesting, but they need more time. REM? lots of good albums, some I connected with, some I did not. I can respect that choice. James Brown, Little Richard, Stevie Wonder, all advanced the cause, but rarely exhibited the genius of The Beatles or The Stones. So the other thing the question points out is that American Bands, by and large, stink. British bands are amazing. Why do so many good bands come from Britain? Its shocking if you think about it. In my lifelong attempt to answer this question to my own satisfaction, I even claimed Neil Young as the best American rocker. Yes, I know he is Canadian.
Back in the good old days, I bought all my music on allofmp3.com. It was great. I could download all the latest, and the site was pretty good at pointing you to new music. You could use iTunes to search and sample, then buy in Russia. Now that the Russian loophole has been closed, but Rhapsody is even better. I have been on this thing about a month, and have found so many great bands - Gym Class Heroes, The Roots, Sia, Tricky. Radiohead is the gateway drug to Electronica, and I am addicted.
Here is a question for you - name the best American rock and roll band in history. This question serves many purposes. First, it tells me something about you. If you said The Eagles, that's fine. Solid. Wilco? Interesting, but they need more time. REM? lots of good albums, some I connected with, some I did not. I can respect that choice. James Brown, Little Richard, Stevie Wonder, all advanced the cause, but rarely exhibited the genius of The Beatles or The Stones. So the other thing the question points out is that American Bands, by and large, stink. British bands are amazing. Why do so many good bands come from Britain? Its shocking if you think about it. In my lifelong attempt to answer this question to my own satisfaction, I even claimed Neil Young as the best American rocker. Yes, I know he is Canadian.
What isn't working
In a previous post, I talked about our project prioritization process. Its good, in general. Since there are no silver bullets, I wanted to share what isn't working.
Every project is prioritized, yes. But resources are not allocated when your project is prioritized. Therefore, you may have the number 2 project in the company, but that doesn't mean you will have money and people thrown at you. In fact, one executive commented to me that where projects get ranked has become sort of a joke. How about #27? Sounds good to me. What is the basis for the number - who the hell knows?
Another problem is that, you as a dept manager may get your little project ranked #62, but that doesn't mean you are forbidden from doing it. If you can talk your colleagues into executing the project through your charm, that's not really a problem. Within the PMO there is a debate about whether to call these projects underground or discretionary. Well, there is no debate, the head of the PMO calls them underground and wants them squashed. I don't want to be a process cop, so I call them discretionary. You could also think of these projects as continuous improvement.
Finally, there is a movement afoot to redefine some projects as, its just someone's job. One of the guys in finance was hired to solve a data integrity and management problem we have, and its a problem common in our industry. It is very difficult to manage data coming from a ton of different sources, often painting a slightly different story. He is clearly working on a project, and then he will manage the solution once it is in sustain mode. His boss doesn't want it to be prioritized, or to have any engagement by the PMO. Its his job to solve the problem. OK, but its still a project, and he could benefit from controlling it using PM tools. No, I'm not fighting that battle, I'm taking the guy out to lunch.
The last big gap I'll discuss is aligning project selection with firm strategy. We don't really have a strategy. We do some stuff that aligns with our core beliefs in market effeciency, we operationalize it, we communicate it to our clients, and we sell it through our sales people, and we make a bunch of money. There is no big corporate push to grow x product by 20 percent, or enter a new market and dominate it. We do some stuff, and so far it has always worked out. So how do you select projects that align with a higher level goal? There are no higher level goals. This problem will not be solved soon, but it can make it tough when you realize the emperor has no clothes in that regard. In reality, the emperor is wearing a $2000 suit, but not because of a well selected set of goals and objectives.
Every project is prioritized, yes. But resources are not allocated when your project is prioritized. Therefore, you may have the number 2 project in the company, but that doesn't mean you will have money and people thrown at you. In fact, one executive commented to me that where projects get ranked has become sort of a joke. How about #27? Sounds good to me. What is the basis for the number - who the hell knows?
Another problem is that, you as a dept manager may get your little project ranked #62, but that doesn't mean you are forbidden from doing it. If you can talk your colleagues into executing the project through your charm, that's not really a problem. Within the PMO there is a debate about whether to call these projects underground or discretionary. Well, there is no debate, the head of the PMO calls them underground and wants them squashed. I don't want to be a process cop, so I call them discretionary. You could also think of these projects as continuous improvement.
Finally, there is a movement afoot to redefine some projects as, its just someone's job. One of the guys in finance was hired to solve a data integrity and management problem we have, and its a problem common in our industry. It is very difficult to manage data coming from a ton of different sources, often painting a slightly different story. He is clearly working on a project, and then he will manage the solution once it is in sustain mode. His boss doesn't want it to be prioritized, or to have any engagement by the PMO. Its his job to solve the problem. OK, but its still a project, and he could benefit from controlling it using PM tools. No, I'm not fighting that battle, I'm taking the guy out to lunch.
The last big gap I'll discuss is aligning project selection with firm strategy. We don't really have a strategy. We do some stuff that aligns with our core beliefs in market effeciency, we operationalize it, we communicate it to our clients, and we sell it through our sales people, and we make a bunch of money. There is no big corporate push to grow x product by 20 percent, or enter a new market and dominate it. We do some stuff, and so far it has always worked out. So how do you select projects that align with a higher level goal? There are no higher level goals. This problem will not be solved soon, but it can make it tough when you realize the emperor has no clothes in that regard. In reality, the emperor is wearing a $2000 suit, but not because of a well selected set of goals and objectives.
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
PMO setup
The reality is, a successful PMO has to be a product of the company it serves. If the PMO leadership chooses to fight a noble fight, it should choose those battles very wisely. But I get ahead of myself. I am a project manager working for a fabulously successful mutual fund management firm. The firm has achieved its success by strictly adhering to its belief that markets work - risk and return are inextricably linked.
The PMO was created to build processes to support the firm's rapid growth. A few things have been key to PMO 1.0 - seasoned PMO leadership, executive participation in project prioritization, and successful project delivery.
The best process the PMO has put in place is a project review committee. It is a subset of firm executives who approve and stack rank every project initiated at the firm (over 80 hours). The best thing about this process, is that the firm's leadership thinks of nearly all initiatives as projects. The firm does not have a strong sense of hierarchy, or departmental functional management, so the management structure being put in place is project management.
Our PMO provides services to all comers. If you need help on your project, we will do it if we have the resources. We do everything from full service project management and business analysis, to template sharing and training. We have not established firm-wide standards for projects, we don't audit. For projects we are managing, we use a good waterfall methodology, task tracking template, MS project plan, and QuickBase. We don't have any enforcement responsibility, and we have a limited executive mandate. The PMO provides a bit of an insurance policy for wasted project money.
In my next post, I'll talk the business case for project management.
The PMO was created to build processes to support the firm's rapid growth. A few things have been key to PMO 1.0 - seasoned PMO leadership, executive participation in project prioritization, and successful project delivery.
The best process the PMO has put in place is a project review committee. It is a subset of firm executives who approve and stack rank every project initiated at the firm (over 80 hours). The best thing about this process, is that the firm's leadership thinks of nearly all initiatives as projects. The firm does not have a strong sense of hierarchy, or departmental functional management, so the management structure being put in place is project management.
Our PMO provides services to all comers. If you need help on your project, we will do it if we have the resources. We do everything from full service project management and business analysis, to template sharing and training. We have not established firm-wide standards for projects, we don't audit. For projects we are managing, we use a good waterfall methodology, task tracking template, MS project plan, and QuickBase. We don't have any enforcement responsibility, and we have a limited executive mandate. The PMO provides a bit of an insurance policy for wasted project money.
In my next post, I'll talk the business case for project management.