Monthly Archive for June, 2008

Delivering your strategic agenda; project management - 3 of 3

Published
by
Ron
on June 26, 2008
in governance, project governance, project management and project office
. 0 Comments

Previous articles have highlighted 6 key areas for you to think about in delivering your overall strategy. They are:

 have your own in house project management system
 train the right people at the right time
 develop a project office
 ensure you have a significant proportion of senior managers on board
 develop project leadership skills
 ensure your project boards or steering groups really add value to projects and the overall strategy

In this, the final article of 3 in delivering your strategic agenda we look at two very important areas; collating data and ensuring there is clear corporate governance.

Collating data - how well are projects managed in your organisation? How many strategic projects are there? How are projects progressing? Are project budgets adhered to?

These are only some of the questions that you need to have answered. You need data to manage the big picture and you need mechanisms for capturing this data:

 ensuring you are working on the right projects - are all your projects linked to your strategy?
 checking that you are delivering what you said you would deliver
 spotting links between projects, potentially saving valuable time, money and resources
 checking you have the capacity to deliver all you have committed to
 ensuring that, having delivered a project, your management team crystallise the planned benefits

Continue reading ‘Delivering your strategic agenda; project management - 3 of 3′

Delivering your strategic agenda; project management - Part 2 of 3

Published
by
Ron
on June 24, 2008
in Uncategorized, project leadership and project management training
. 1 Comment

In the previous article we looked at 3 elements which will help in delivering the overall business agenda: having your own project management system, training and creating your own project office. In this article we look at 3 further elements that will help you and the company deliver your overall agenda.

Senior managers, are they on board?John Kotter suggested that: “When is the urgency rate high enough? From what I have seen, it is when 75% of the company’s management is honestly convinced that business as usual is totally unacceptable” Harvard Business Review 1995.

In this case, “business as usual” is an ad hoc approach to project management where delivery to time, to budget and to specification is as a much a matter of good fortune as good practice.

Senior managers need to ensure that projects are properly commissioned, are delivered effectively, and that the benefits set out in the business case are really delivered. They also need training to ensure they fulfil their roles in projects effectively.

In other words, continuing to do projects as we have done them before is not acceptable.

Develop project leadership skills: senior managers need to play their leadership role in project management effectively. Senior managers will set the tone of the project management culture and will need (as many people on our courses request) to lead by example.

This group need to be trained and developed to:

  • sit on project boards
  • act as a project sponsor
  • ensure project governance and accountability is effective - monitoring and controlling the project

With trained senior managers leading your project culture, the organisation has a solid example to follow.

Project boards: are they really adding value to the overall project management process? When groups are asked this I often get a resounding no!

Many effective project organisations have Project Boards - sometimes called Steering Groups. These are small groups (5 people ideally - we suggest 7 as a maximum) who:

  • provide direction and oversight
  • make critical project decisions
  • can obtain access to project resources for the project manager

Project boards play a significant role in larger projects and it is important to ensure that:

  • you have the right level of people on Project Boards
  • the Project Board are very clear about their role and in turn the project manager is clear about their role and accountabilities
  • they add real value to the project
  • Board members have the right skills to play thier role effectively

Tthink about the training needs of those who sit on project boards or steering groups. A well run and effective project board can really make a difference to delivering your agenda.

This is the second of three articles. Article one can be found here. Look out for article 3 in this series. It will appear here very soon.

It’s like pushing a heavy stone up a steep hill - having a project office

Published
by
Ron
on June 19, 2008
in governance, programme management, project management and project office
. 0 Comments

I have heard mild protests from clients when I suggest setting up a project office. They seem to feel that I am suggesting having huge staff numbers adding to overheads and adding little to the business.

Far from the truth!

I have seen people in organisations who valiantly help in developing the overall project culture within the company without actually realising it. Some of the work done by these unsung heroes and heroines has been really useful:

  • helping to develop an overall project management system - a house style, written for everyone in the organisation
  • encouraging people to attend project training events (including senior managers) where new ways of working are explained
  • securing funding for training
  • advising individual project managers or teams how to start a project and walking them through the approach needed
  • collating statistics, how many projects are current, how many are in danger of delivering late ot over-budget etc
  • influencing others to adopt project management approaches
  • advising how to compete forms e.g. risk logs, project initiation forms etc

I stress, the above have been seen by me when working directly with clients. This is not all one client and more to the point, the client has done this themselves.

It is some list AND it has all been done by one or two people who have their day jobs to perform as well. The key is that they are making a difference; a positive difference with very little management support. One person described what they are doing as pushing a really heavy stone up a really steep hill.

These people have made a HUGE difference to their organisations and should be complemented. They can help make a huge leap forward if they had senior management backing, a formal title - such as Project Office or Programme Office, a little money to support the drive for developing a strong project management culture. But, better than that some authority to push project (or programme) management within the organisation.

One final point; many organisations fail to have any real project governance (account abilities and responsibilities for decision-making at a strategic level or project level). Having a project office helps enormously however it will not replace a well developed governance process.

Good luck to you if you are one of those unsung heroes or heroines pushing project management. Keep up the really great work!

Delivering your strategic agenda; project management - 1 of 3

Published
by
Ron
on June 18, 2008
in project management, project management training and project office
. 0 Comments

What leads a company to move towards using project management within its business? Is it by some mystical way; maybe a glaring error within a project (over budget or late), maybe the sheer size of the agenda?

Why the question? Does it really matter?

Yes it does! If there is a desire within the business to deliver its strategic agenda then the company needs processes to ensure the strategy is delivered. Now you may think this is self explanatory but I have come across organisations that seem to think that by identifying the strategic agenda “it happens”. Let me give you an example: 8 strategic objectives were identified - only 3 were actually delivered within the required period. The next year they identified a further 8 strategic objectives PLUS the 5 which were not delivered. When I examined what process they had in place to deliver the agenda very few were found. But they still expected thier staff to deliver all 13 agenda items.

Now I am not suggesting project management is the only approach that should be used. What I am saying is that project management needs to be pretty high on the agenda for any organisation that has a desire to deliver its agenda.

This is a 3 part article with parts 2 and 3 appearing shortly. In this article I will focus on 3 key aspects:

Developing your own project management system(PMS): this is a written document that shows staff the way you want projects to be delivered in the company, a house style.It is developed with you and by the staff. This approach leads to buy in from stakeholders who are used to champion the whole process. Does having your own PMS work? Yes! KPMG suggested that:

“Organisations that keep to the rules of their project management system with stringent compliance reported a project failure rate of 20% while those with a moderate compliance reported a failure rate of 80%”

I have developed a unique approach to creating your own PMS. Click here to find out more.

Training: ensure you train the right people for the right project management role. I see too many people on project management training courses who have little or no connection with a project while those who are engaged in delivering key projects are often overlooked. As other blogs have and will point out, please don’t forget to train senior managers; a key group. I have developed a simple tool for looking at who needs to be trained and attend which course. Contact me to find out more

Project office: create a project office. This is usually a central point in the company which owns and reviews and updates the project management system, supports project managers and sponsors in its use and acts as an internal adviser. You do not need a large staff to run this project office and my experience shows that there is probably someone doing this in embryonic fashion anyway.

Watch out for articles 2 and 3 which will appear shortly…

Redressing the balance - time to focus on people in projects

Published
by
Ron
on June 16, 2008
in conference and project management
. 2 Comments

I received an email from a good friend Donnie MacNicol. Donnie is Chair of the Association for Project Management Special Interest Group. They are holding a workshop in Central London. it is probably best if I let Donnie introduce the day.

Hello
As chair of the APM People Specific Interest Group, I am delighted to inform you that we will be holding our first conference on 3 July in London. Apologies for the impersonal email it is the only effective way to contact the many people who I believe would be interested in attending. Details are provided below including how to book a space. Full details can be found at www.apm.org.uk/peopleSIGconference.asp. We have 3 excellent speakers, multiple facilitated workshops and multiple networking opportunities. Please feel free to forward this email to colleagues and groups who you believe would be interested.
Kind regards
Donnie
Redressing the balance - time to focus on people in projects

Venue: King´s Fund, 11-13 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0AN

A greater focus on the people aspects of projects of project delivery can have a significant impact on performance.

In London on 3rd July, the People SIG will be hosting a one-day conference dedicated to people aspects of project management. This highly interactive day will allow you to explore and work with the assets and lenses we have developed. The day will be topped and tailed with thought-provoking key note speakers on the secrets of building a respected project management consultancy, the inside track on the leadership, client and integrated team working that delivered the T5 construction phase and what we can learn on leadership from the Kenyan Maasai tribesmen Continue reading ‘Redressing the balance - time to focus on people in projects’