Why Consensus Doesn’t Always Equal Project Success (And What You Can Do About It)

July 7, 2010 Leave a Comment

Project professionals know that consensus among stakeholders is a critical component in moving a project forward and meeting final objectives. But consensus is just one component of many that must be addressed, and sometimes even the most foundational agreements are too flawed to withstand the future challenges that typically arise.

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How can you ensure that your project achieves the level of consensus it needs? Getting all involved parties to agree on something doesn’t procure the funding, timeframe, or other resources that are often needed to shepherd a project through to a successful completion. What happens when you’ve achieved consensus nirvana, and things still aren’t going the way they should? Original agreements sometimes don’t fully support the fundamental objectives your project is supposed to meet. Below is an overview of how the consensus phase sometimes goes wrong, and tips for steering it back on course.

What type of consensus have you reached? Beware the final agreements that required foundation-level compromise. If too much has been negotiated away, your team may soon be looking at a project that is so far diminished from its original scope or intent that it no longer meets everyone’s needs (and may, in fact, meet no one’s needs). Have you lost necessary support or resources? Have you agreed to conditions or objectives that leave no wiggle room for managing the occasional glitch? If you’ve finally reached consensus only after stripping the project to its lowest common denominator, chances are good that your project is lacking some critical pieces. Agreeing that you need additional manufacturing capabilities isn’t sufficient to clearly define your project’s objectives, let alone plan and execute a project that meets that goal. Scope, cost, impact, timeframe, and other factors must still be worked out. Reminding stakeholders that “this is what we agreed on” will not resolve the fundamental errors in planning or execution that may result from a poorly-supported consensus.

What’s still left to do? Especially when negotiations have been protracted or tense, it’s important to constantly evaluate the objectives of the project against the agreements you’ve been able to reach so far. Is the price your organization will pay—in terms of financial cost, impact to operations and personnel, market standing, and any other area which may be affected—still worth it when viewed against the project’s compromised objectives? Have your project’s objectives been chipped away to such a degree that your access to funding or other resources has been hindered? Have your stakeholders lost their passion for the project? Has the timeframe been compromised as a result of an extended negotiation or planning phase? Has your PMO lost key talent or expertise since the project’s inception? Ensure that your team is still capable of fulfilling its role, that needed resources are available, and that the scope continues to meet the necessary metrics to be considered a success.

How do you tackle a too-soft consensus? Your approach will depend heavily on the type of organization and complexity of the project you’re supporting, but some good first steps include returning to your project’s original scope and re-opening negotiations, conducting a new cost-benefit analysis to demonstrate any diminished ROI, gathering updated market data to reaffirm your need for additional resources or other support, and working with end users to highlight any potential negative effects of moving forward with your project’s current plan. You may also want to evaluate your decision-making team—if negotiations have in any way been based on a lack of proper authority to commit funds, staff, or other resources, then you may consider elevating the discussion to include individuals with increased authorization levels.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

Filed Under: PMO Development, Project Management, Project Management Tips, Project Office Tagged With:

Project Firefighting – Lessons Learned from Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow

May 18, 2010 Leave a Comment

Many a great catastrophe has started from humble roots. Consider the Great Chicago Fire of 1871: The initial cause of the fire is still unknown (popular legend holds that Catherine O’Leary’s barn on the south side of Chicago was set ablaze when her errant cow, Daisy, upended a lantern), but that it left the city devastated is incontrovertible. [Read more...]

Though the loss of a barn is no small tragedy, further calamity could have been avoided if the response had been swift, measured and well-implemented. Instead, firefighters were initially dispatched to the wrong location. Corrected information was later relayed to them, but only after a significant delay. By the time firefighters arrived at Mrs. O’Leary’s barn, the conflagration was well and truly underway, and had in fact ignited a number of nearby structures. Firefighters and residents alike then assumed the spreading inferno would be quelled by the natural fire break of the Chicago River – it wasn’t. The string of delays, insufficient responses and incorrect assumptions resulted in the decimation of 34 city blocks, which ultimately left nearly a third of Chicago’s population homeless.

As every firefighter knows, it’s only prudent to expect the occasional fire. Savvy project management professionals are no different, and they understand that no amount of planning can eliminate every potential problem. Your ability to control, mitigate and stamp out the inevitable fire will depend heavily on avoidance – planning that reduces risk and exposure – and rallying a quick and appropriate response when something does go wrong.

Good project planning requires the ability to identify all the what-ifs that might come to pass: What if we don’t have consensus on the objectives? What if a potential risk bites us? What if a key stakeholder leaves? Your team and its stakeholders must agree on a number of factors before you move ahead. Get your assumptions into the open – are they correct? Determine the risks you’re likely to encounter – does everyone understand their potential impact? Put your scope front and center – do others have different expectations? Ensuring that everyone involved in your project has the same information, assumptions, and understandings is critical for steering your project safely through any problems you may encounter.

Once your team has ferreted out every potential problem and risk, it’s time to prepare strategies to avoid issues where possible, and mitigate the damage done by problems that do crop up. The energy you put into this phase of the project could save you headaches – as well as real disasters – later.

Remember the following 5 steps when responding to a project fire.

Identification: Most problems don’t announce themselves until they’re wreaking widespread havoc on your project. Identifying issues quickly takes diligence and attention, so be sure each member of your team knows their responsibilities inside and out.

Communication: When a problem or potential problem is discovered, it must be quickly communicated to the rest of team. Other areas might avoid being impacted if given early warning.

Strategy: Devising and implementing a successful solution takes teamwork and focus. Your response must be feasible and appropriate to the problem, and you need to identify all aspects of the issue as well potential negative effects your solution may have.

Implementation: Assign actions to appropriate team members, and put your solution into practice.

Review: Examine the original issue, and ensure the problems have been solved without inadvertently creating tangential issues that could themselves become fires. If there are still unresolved issues, then you haven’t yet put out the fire – continue addressing the problems until the team is confident there isn’t anything else burning.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

Filed Under: Project Management, Project Management Tips, Project Management Training, Project Office, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Project Management Tips: Read for Success

March 25, 2010 Leave a Comment

Business publications come in every flavor, from glossies aimed at C-level executives to no-frills journals written for those on the front lines of everyday operations. With the seeming overabundance of available trade magazines, it’s easy to narrow your focus to 2 or 3 that most closely speak to your needs, and leave it at that.

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Busy project managers have little extra time as it is, but by expanding your industry reading – even if only occasionally – you have greater opportunity to cultivate resources, establish contacts, discover tools and identify emerging trends.

Reading about industries other than your own can introduce you to tools and ways of tackling obstacles that might be more effective than the techniques you’re using now. Each niche brings its own set of challenges, and by learning how others overcome obstacles you may become more innovative in how you approach problems, too. You’re also likely to come across resources and contacts that will help strengthen your position when it’s time to seek outside assistance on a project, or look for new career opportunities.

If you generally read industry- or occupation-specific journals, try perusing through a more general business publication (local business journals are good, as are national magazines such as Inc.). You’ll gain a broader understanding of successful business tools, emerging trends and today’s challenges, and your expanded insight will help you communicate more effectively with clients, corporate executives and key stakeholders.

Similarly, if the bulk of your reading is higher-level or managerial in nature, it’s good to throw in some material that’s focused on a particular industry, occupation or niche. The change in perspective can offer you entirely new insights into front-line management practices, the day-to-day impact of financial and organizational decisions, and the extraordinary amount of innovation that is at the heart of every healthy enterprise.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

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A Phased Approach to Project Management Implementation

February 26, 2010 Leave a Comment

Implementing a formalized project management process in an organization that does not have a history of using a structured approach to project planning and control can present significant challenges. A phased approach to implementation is a crucial element of a successful implementation strategy because…
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it helps overcome resistance to change, allows lessons learned in early phases to be incorporated in the systems installed in later phases, and ensures that a solid foundation of project-level data is available prior to rolling-up enterprise-level information.

Resistance to change is a well-documented phenomenon. And, we know from experience that the implementation of structured project planning and control techniques is a substantial departure from the norm for many companies. Therefore, resistance to change with respect to project management is something that should be expected (and even planned on). A phased approach to implementation can help overcome this resistance by allowing an organization to create success stories, provide the necessary communication (downward and upward), and build momentum prior to rolling-out the process to the general population. By taking a phased approach, we can dramatically increase our chances of acceptance by the organization and reduce the probability of a “program-of-the-month” fiasco.A project management system must be tailored to the organization. A “one size fits all” approach has a low probability of success because it does not recognize differences in project types, management and staff capabilities, and organizational culture. A phased approach to implementation allows time in the initial phases to gather first-hand information about project characteristics, personnel, and cultural nuances. Then, based on this information, a project management system can be designed and a roll-out plan crafted that maximizes the prospects for success.The later stages of implementation are focused on providing the enterprise-level tools that allow an organization to gain visibility to project schedule, resource, and cost information across the entire portfolio of projects. This information can be used to optimize business decision making given that there are constraints related to limited resources, limited budgets, and project priority. Unfortunately, enterprise-level decision making must be based on solid project-level information, otherwise, the decisions that are made may not be correct. A phased implementation approach allows time to ensure that sound plans for all individual projects are created prior to rolling-up enterprise-level information. Also, enterprise-level tools can represent a substantial financial commitment. A phased approach can coordinate the timing of the investment in these tools with the point of maximum usefulness.

The Four Phases of Project Management Implementation

PMAlliance utilizes four phases for the project management implementation process: Initiation, Project-Level Installation, Enterprise-Level Installation, and Maintenance. A description of each phase follows.

1. Initiation Phase

The purpose of the Initiation phase is to mobilize the organization, remediate any current at-risk projects, and set the stage for the Installation phases. Time is of the essence in the Initiation phase. Management “cracks the door open” with the organization by endorsing the process at kick-off and requesting the support and participation
of all employees. However, from the moment of kick-off, employee patience and willingness to participate is in jeopardy until success stories have been created and communicated. This is perhaps the riskiest of all of the phases of implementation because even small failures at this stage can fuel the arguments of naysayers, substantiate the fears of those employees “sitting on the fence” with respect to project management, and dissipate any momentum created by management during the kick-off process. For these reasons, the Initiation phase includes the selection of pilot projects that have the potential for near-term of successes and great emphasis is placed on creating and communicating those success stories to the organization.

2. Project-Level Installation Phase

During the Project-Level Installation phase structured project planning and control processes are implemented on all targeted projects, the project management infrastructure necessary to support the consistent, successful application of project management techniques by the Project Office on future projects is created, and Project Office staff are trained and mentored.

3. Enterprise-Level Installation Phase

The Enterprise-Level Installation phase creates the infrastructure necessary to support business decision-making based on schedule, resource, and cost information “rolled-up” from the entire portfolio of projects and transitions the day-to-day responsibility for developing and maintaining individual project plans to the Project Office staff.

4. Maintenance Phase

The purpose of the Maintenance phase is to transition the responsibility for supporting all of the project management requirements of the organization to the Project Office staff and to ensure long-term continuity by establishing project management as a core competency and an essential function within the organization.

Conclusion

In today’s economic environment it is absolutely
essential to ”get it right the first time” when it comes to making organizational changes. A phased approach to implementing project management can dramatically increase the probability of success because it helps to overcome resistance to change, creates an opportunity to incorporate lessons learned into the design of the project management infrastructure, and ensures that high-quality enterprise-level information is available to major stakeholders.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

Filed Under: PMO Development, Project Management, Project Management Training, Project Office Tagged With: , , , ,

The Project Office

February 25, 2010 Leave a Comment

Companies today increasingly recognize that, with respect to project management, they must advance beyond the ability to create occasional success stories through the exertion of heroic effort. They know that a core element of their overall success is driven by the ability to consistently bring their entire portfolio of projects to successful completion: on-time, within budget, and per-specification. In addition, they know that if they can cost-effectively accelerate the delivery of their new products and services (without sacrificing quality in the process) they can create a strategic advantage over their competitors.
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The role of the Project Office is to enable companies
to be consistently successful with respect to project management and to create a foundation for achieving a competitive advantage. This is accomplished by filling two essential roles within the organization as: 1) A provider of enterprise-level project management services, and 2) A project management center of excellence. Both of these roles are discussed below.

Enterprise-Level Project Management Services

There are certain project management functions that can only occur at the enterprise level. Organizations
require answers to key management questions such as: Are we adequately staffed to meet our current project workload? Are we on-track for meeting our current customer commitments?
What will be the impact to our existing
projects if we take on a new endeavor? The answer to these questions cannot be provided by any individual project plan. Instead, resource, cost, and schedule information must be “rolled-up” across an organization’s entire portfolio of projects in order to produce the type of data necessary
to address these issues. Unfortunately, because of the amount of effort and the specialized
skills required, many companies have come to realize that they will not receive this type of information (on a regular basis, anyway) simply by asking for it. Rather, the work to collect and analyze this information must be made a formal function within the organization and assigned to individuals that are appropriately qualified to perform
the work. Ideally, this function is performed by the Project Office.

Project Management Center of Excellence

With constantly changing personnel, organizations
have an ongoing need to provide mentoring in the proper application of their project management
methodologies to project team members. In addition, the tools that we utilize to assist us with project planning and control (such as Microsoft Project) are continuously being upgraded and enhanced and, as a result, team members must be regularly coached on their proper use. It is the role of the Project Office to provide this ongoing coaching and mentoring. However, in order for the Project Office staff to function successfully in this capacity they must themselves be experts in the methodologies and the use of the tools and they must have the training (and demeanor) to be successful coaches and mentors.

Long-Term Continuity

In many organizations the use of formalized project planning and control techniques is a result of internal sponsorship. That is, someone at a managerial-level within the organization recognized the benefits of project management and was willing to commit company resources to implement it. Unfortunately, when sponsors transfer (or get promoted to another organization) there is a tremendous tendency to backslide; especially with new sponsors that might not have the same level of commitment. A Project Office can help establish project management as a core competency and an essential function within an organization and impart enough momentum to survive the loss of a major sponsor.

Conclusion

Most companies have some form of Project Office organization already in place. However, a significant
percentage of these still have not achieved the consistent level of project success that they envisioned when their Project Office investment was originally justified. According to the Standish Group Chaos Report, 90% of projects ultimately do not achieve their quality, cost, and/or time objectives.Perhaps the reason for this continued lack of success lies in how these existing Project Offices
are utilized. We have observed a number of companies where, unfortunately, the function of the Project Office has devolved into performing
relatively low-level administrative activities like project cost tracking, project documentation, and schedule score-keeping. In some cases, Project Offices become repositories for marginally-skilled resources that are not able to be used anywhere else in the organization.By focusing the role of the Project

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

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