Planning is essential regardless of the size or type of project.

In my last guest post for the Tom’s Planner Blog – Why Plan | Project Planning, part 1– I explained how project planning helps us to predict and prepare for difficulties.

Plan With Post-It Notes

To recap, project planning is an essential management activity that provides everyone involved in a project with information – understanding – on:

• What is required
• How it is done
• Who does what
• When things will happen

Read the complete article and let me know what you think: Product Based Planning | Project Planning, part 2.

The product-based planning technique – defined in the PRINCE2 handbook – makes it easier to estimate effort, resources and time needed to deliver the project. Moreover, product based planning puts quality at the heart of planning because each completely and unambiguously defined. Planning is essential regardless of the size or type of project.

Thanks for reading.

If you would like me to write a guest blog you please send a DM to @TristanWember or visit my contact page. Thanks.

Related articles

• Why the PID Is a Waste of Time | Project Initiation (martinwebster.eu)
• Why Plan? | Project Planning, part 1 (martinwebster.eu)
• Project Management topics (martinwebster.eu)

His comments had me thinking. Why do many project management practitioners and organisations place much importance on the PID? Why is the PID a prominent feature of project initiation?

The project initiation document has become an end in itself not a means to an end.

The PID Is a Means to An End

The project initiation document or PID is a term and product of PRINCE2. Yet the current edition of the PRINCE2 handbook does not describe the PID as a single document. What’s more, the second edition only mentions it in passing with 3 entries showing in the index. The first edition includes eleven references.

Nonetheless, each makes it very clear that assembling the PID is about bringing together documentation produced during project initiation.

Has the project initiation document become an end in itself not a means to an end? Should project managers and project sponsors stop thinking about the contents of the PID and focus on initiating the project?

How to Initiate a Project

The beginning of a project is an important time. It is the time to make a preliminary assessment of opportunity, the benefits, costs, and the likely impact on business. It’s a time when questions are asked and possible solutions identified. A time to challenge why the project is needed.

Project initiation is also about scope and planning. What must the project deliver? When must it deliver? And who needs to be involved?

Initiation is about finding answers to these questions. Questions that cannot be answered by one person. Indeed, it is the project manager’s job to find the answers. To ask the right questions… to ask the right people the right questions!

Only when the answers are known is project initiation complete. Only then can the project confidently move to the next stage.

Project documentation must hold the answers to these question. The initial business case and project plan do. They explain why the project is needed and how things will happen. They record risk, define scope, and document the project organisation.

If you want to assemble these document into a project initiation document that’s just fine. However, make certain you’ve asked all the right questions first!

Thanks for reading.

Image: J+B=Us.

Related articles

• Why Plan? | Project Planning, part 1 (martinwebster.eu)
• The Project Control Cycle (martinwebster.eu)
• How the Business Case Defines Your Project (martinwebster.eu)

Dolphins...

However, many organisations have problems with the way they tackle change. These problems are usually related to people, processes, systems, technology or structure. Change is complex. And the pace and scale of change today can overwhelm organisations.

Projects are key to creating beneficial change. They are the vehicles for creating, managing and implementing change. Those organisations that recognise project management is a core capability (or competence) are most likely to find success.

Successful business change projects have the following characteristics:

• A single project team. A team that is business-led. One that comprises of all the required resources from the business, human resources, information technology etc. Ideally, team members should be collocated and allocated to the project full-time. This encourages communication and helps to build strong relationships.
• Business change is about delivering benefits. The project team is responsible for  delivering clearly specified benefits to the business and not for creating systems, structures nor introducing technologies. There should be no other success criteria! Projects should always be driven by benefits that support strategy.
• Executive management describes the business need – why the project is necessary – from the outset. Their mandate will also specify the time-scale within which the project must deliver the benefits. What’s more, successful organisations set a challenging schedule and stick to it – even when expert opinion  suggests this is unachievable. Change should be delivered with urgency and in no more than nine months.
• Detailed analysis has the effect of putting the brakes on change. Therefore, the idea of time-boxing is used to push the project team to make decisions about what is really needed. Successful businesses break tradition and create a sense of urgency when delivering change.
• Large scale change needs momentum plus a sense of achievement and bags of optimism. Time-boxing encourages quick wins ensuring results are achieved quickly. Instead of detailed analyses and the preparation of a hefty business case or full requirements specifications the project team is moved to change and learns what is really required through a series of iterations – breaking large scale change into smaller chunks and success stories.
• Thus, large scale projects are broken down into a series of shorter steps or phases. Each step will deliver benefits and move the organisation to sustaining change. It is urgency that sustains change and this is only possible when results are achieved rapidly. Not only does this give recognition and encouragement to those working hard to accomplish change it also builds faith in the change effort.

...Not Whales

David Feeny – a prominent British academic and authority on business transformation – first introduced me to the concept of dolphins not whales. It effectively shows people how sustaining change should be implemented. That is, creating a climate for change by increasing urgency and engaging and enabling the organisation through short-term wins.

Dolphins, Not Whales

Dolphins, not whales is a great way to grasp what is at the heart of change. When leading change use this to win hearts and minds.

Thanks for reading.

Images: CastleIslandPhoto, NOAA’s National Ocean Service and Martin Webster.

Related articles

• Kotter’s 8 Steps of Change, part 1 (martinwebster.eu)
• Kotter’s 8 Steps of Change, part 2 (martinwebster.eu)
• Kotter’s 8 Steps of Change, part 3 (martinwebster.eu)
• Structural Cybernetics and IT Organisational Redesign (martinwebster.eu)

• The Project Leader – My take on project leadership.
• Forming: Building a New Team – I’m building a new team from scratch in 2012. This is the beginning of my story.
• Discovering Your Purpose and Identity – This year was a journey of discovery that landed me a new job.

I’ve enjoyed developing my writing this year and will continue to do so in the New Year. Look out for my posts on the invisible leader, advising upwards and problem solving. Please sign up for my blog or follow me on Twitter to make sure you don’t miss a post.

Happy New Year: 2012

Finally, I’d like to thank my regular readers for their support and encouragement in 2011. Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading.

Image: Ludie Cochrane.

Martin Webster

December 2011 has been a difficult and challenging month and I’ve found little time to blog regularly. So I thought I’d end the year – my first year of blogging on project management, change and leadership topics – with a selection of my most popular posts.

5 Tips to Motivate Your Project Team – change introduces uncertainty. The project leader must learn how to keep the team motivated.

How to Prepare a RACI Matrix – this is a short and succinct definition of the responsibility assignment matrix with instruction on using the tool correctly.

Kotter’s 8 Steps of Change, part 1  (1 of 3) – a series of posts on John Kotter‘s people-orientated model of change management.

I’ve enjoyed writing immensely this year and will continue in the New Year. I’ll be writing more about team leadership, stakeholder engagement and managing change. Please sign up for my blog or follow me on Twitter to make sure you don’t miss a post.

Finally, I’d like to wish the many new friends I’ve met online a very happy and fulfilling New Year.

Thanks for reading.

Related articles

• Kotter’s 8 Steps of Change, part 2 (martinwebster.eu)
• Kotter’s 8 Steps of Change, part 3 (martinwebster.eu)

Many people get hung up on project planning. Some say they don’t have the time to prepare one. Others think they are unnecessary. They assume the project plan is a complex document; one that accounts for every minutes of every day.

Planning Helps Form the Basis of Understanding

This week I wrote the first part in a series of guest posts about project planning for the Tom’s Planner Blog. The first part – Why Plan? | Project Planning, part 1 – deals with the importance of project planning and aims to dispel some common myths.

Read the complete article and let me know what you think: Why Plan | Project Planning, part 1.

Effective planning provides a foundation for your project and tackles these pitfalls head on. Project planning is about defining scope – what will be done (and by who) and what will be left out. What’s more, project planning, if started early enough, will support an assessment of value – the business benefits – and help work up ideas into the business case. Likewise, the project plan is the basis for communication and gaining senior management support.

Thanks for reading.

If you would like me to write a guest blog you please send a DM to @TristanWember or visit my contact page. Thanks.

Leadership

However, when I think about someone who consistently delivers on projects I don’t think of the times they produced a great Gantt chart or the quality of their progress reports. No. I think about their qualities, attitudes and behaviours. Their leadership skills. Their tenacity. The way they inspire and motivate people. The way they take action.

Whilst I’m not knocking the need for a disciplined approach to project management processes – they are important – I do think we place too much importance in these methods and certifications. Sending someone on a five-day course doesn’t make a project manager. Creating standard document templates doesn’t guarantee success. Projects continue to fail. They fail to meet the needs of the business. Fail to come in on time. Or they cost too much.

There is a mismatch between what is perceived to be important and what works. What we need is project leaders.

Projects are vehicles for business change; they are key to creating benefit. Clearly project management is a core competence for any organisation implementing change. Yet I wonder if those directing and managing change grasp this?

Is this why success is often so elusive? I think so.

Project Leadership

Project managers come in all shapes and sizes. They come with different experiences, skills and strengths. But they are often treated as a one-size-fits-all resource. They’re not. There are four types of project and as many types of project leadership.

Leaders are defined by their followers.

Some projects are evolutionary and some revolutionary. Some have clear goals. With these it is clear what is needed and how to do it. Others are inherently foggy. This is a project where there’s no clear understanding of what to do nor how to do it. Whether the project is about improving operations or responding to a change in business circumstances it is clear that every project has different characteristics that need different leadership skills.

Therefore, choose project managers according to the sort of behaviour, skills and attributes needed to run the project. If the project is akin to painting by numbers choose someone with experience and the ability to plan and deliver. On the other hand, if the project is more like a walk in the fog you need someone who is calm, has excellent communication skills and builds trust.

Leaders are defined by their followers. If we correctly match project with project manager we are more likely to succeed. We are more likely to find the right project leader!

Thanks for reading.

Image: Ed Gaillard.

Related articles

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Planning Helps Form the Basis of Understanding

Many people get hung up on project planning. Some say they don’t have the time to prepare one. Others think they are unnecessary. They assume the project plan is a complex document; one that accounts for every minutes of every day.

In this series of posts I aim to dispel these myths. I will show you that project planning is an essential activity that happens to result in some really useful documents – documents that will help you to achieve your goals.

plan vb. to make plans; to have in mind as a purpose; intend

Project planning helps us form the basis of understanding. In other words, planning is an aid to predict and prepare for difficulties, and to identify what needs to be done to succeed in our endeavours.

What’s more, project planning helps us to answer a variety of questions with confidence. For instance

• Can it be done?
• Will it be finished on time?
• How much will it cost?
• Is it viable?
• Will it work?
• How can we be sure if it will deliver the right benefits?
• What if we change something?
• How much progress have we made?
• What if someone is ill or unavailable?

If you’re still not convinced of the value of project planning let me remind you of the main reasons projects fail. If you think it has something to do with complexity or the use of technology you’d be wrong. In fact projects fail because

1. Their scope isn’t managed effectively – poor project planning
2. People lose sight of the original goal – a weak business case
3. Top management aren’t supportive – little engagement with stakeholders

Effective planning provides a foundation for your project and tackles these pitfalls head on. Project planning is about defining scope – what will be done (and by who) and what will be left out. What’s more, project planning, if started early enough, will support an assessment of value – the business benefits – and help work up ideas into the business case. Likewise, the project plan is the basis for communication and gaining senior management support.

What’s In the Plan?

The project plan is a management document. It is prepared by the project manager during the earliest stages of the project and refined as the project proceeds. The plan should include the following information along with resources and costs

• Stages – periods of a project when work is done
• Work packages – a grouping of activities with defined scope, time-scale and cost that only one person is responsible for delivering
• Activities – components of work that must be delivered to complete the project
• Milestones – major events with zero duration that normally depict the start of a stage
• Deliverables (products) – output produced by the project and defined in the business case
• Reviews – a checkpoint where a deliverable (or the entire project) is evaluated against the business goals
• Interdependencies – when a deliverable can only be achieved when a deliverable from another work package (or project) is completed

Typically cost and resource plans are presented in tabular format. In contrast, project schedules are most conveniently presented as Gantt charts.

The project schedule provides a detailed view for the day-to-day management of the project and a summary view for presenting to the project sponsor and senior management.

In the next part I will show you how the elements of the plan may be built up from a list of products to be produced by the project. Once this is done, and dependencies between activities are readily identified, the resources needed to carry out the activities may be scheduled.

Thanks for reading.

Future articles

• Product-Based Planning | Project Planning, part 2
• The Project Schedule | Project Planning, part 3

Related articles

• Do You Schedule Time to Stay on Top of Project Plans? (ghazzpro.wordpress.com)
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Project Management Maturity

Many businesses set up a strategic change programme to govern, co-ordinate and control the process of achieving its ambitions for improvement and transforming the quality of the products and services it provides to customers. Typically, processes for managing the project life cycle from the development of a business case through to the delivery of a completed project and the tracking benefits are established.

Yet it is my experience that the consistent implementation of effective programme and project management practice across all change projects is not widespread in many large organisations. This leads to a number of difficulties when managing projects:

• Inconsistent approach to project management leading to confusion over what the project is expected to achieve
• Key project roles are not sufficiently articulated resulting in a lack of direction or poor decision making
• Appropriate expertise is not employed in projects resulting in products being delivered that are not fit for purpose or incur added cost to correct or replace

Moreover, it’s worth noting that the reasons most often cited for the failure of business change are:

1. A lack of clear strategy
2. An ineffective means to manage the required changes

In this article I aim to address the second reason for failure. In so doing I advocate the use of a project process framework to increase the likelihood of success.

The Project Process Framework

Implementing a project process framework helps businesses to manage projects in a controlled and consistent way that is based on standard practices and procedures. However, it is my belief that the introduction of new processes and procedures is insufficient without the inclusion of a tool kit for continual project management improvement.

The overarching goal and objective of a project process framework is to create a foundation upon which the business can build a structured approach to project delivery. A framework should address:

• Effective prioritisation of project activities
• Standardisation of the approach to project initiation and governance
• The adoption of common processes, standards and practice
• Continual improvement
• Measuring and quantifying the benefits of project management activities

Success or Failure?

Increasingly, organisations are facing transformational change and projects have become the means of choice for implementing change. However, there is a common concern with projects because too many fail to deliver even though best practices seem to be used – project management best practices do not necessarily guarantee success nor does their absence guarantee failure.

The following factors determine if a project has delivered:

• Delivery according to the planned schedule (time)
• Meeting of financial goals (cost)
• Completeness of planned deliverables (scope)

When comparing organisations’ project management practices with the standard practices used by private industry and government agencies I found that the three most common reasons for project failure were often attributed to:

1. Poor project planning, i.e. the absence of effective product/ work-based planning
2. A business case that fails to articulate the benefits/ no reassessment that the project is on track to realise the stated benefits
3. Insufficient clarity about the project management roles

If this is true, why is project management is said to be of value to the organisation whilst at the same time project management practices seem to be poorly applied? I believe this has much to do with project management process maturity. Businesses value project management at the operational and tactical level but do not consider it to be a strategic asset.

Project Management Process Maturity

Project Management Process Maturity

Recent research, including that undertaken by the Project Management Institute, has established a dependency between an organisation’s project management process maturity and benefit realisation. Process maturity refers to the level of consistent application or establishment of defined processes within an organisation. Hence, it is concerned with the benchmarking (measurement) of performance in terms of the implementation of project management processes and project performance, e.g. time and cost since these are readily quantifiable.

For these reasons a project process framework needs to be much more than a set of standardised processes. Rather it should present a structured project management environment with clear objectives for continual improvement and measures for determining the value of project management to the organisation (specifically executive management.)

The levels of a simple process capability maturity model for project management are described in the image.

Accordingly, the aim of a project process framework is to lead to a higher level of project management maturity, which will improve project performance and increase the likelihood of success.

Implementing a Project Process Framework

When implementing project management process improvement the following components should be used together:

• A simple project management process capability maturity model
• A benchmarking exercise to establish current performance and facilitate the measurement and quantifying of project management benefits
• A staged process framework required for the consistent planning and execution of projects

There are many capability maturity models for project management available. Some free-to-use and others licensed. Project management maturity models are derived from a capability maturity model originally developed by Carnegie Mellon University for assessing an organisation’s ability to deliver contracted software projects.

Many models are onerous and involve significant investment to implement. This is unnecessary; payback can be achieved quickly if a simple maturity model is adopted. My recommendation is to use the Serge Schiltz model. I suggest this because it is freely available, is relatively easy to apply and support, and maps well to current project management best practice approaches including PRINCE2.

Moreover, by using the questionnaire provided, it is possible to establish the current level of project management maturity. Whilst this cannot tell the organisations how to improve it does show problem areas; those key processes that project success is dependent upon. With this knowledge the organisation can target specific areas for performance improvement and introduce a framework with top management support.

Expected Benefits

Use the project management process maturity model to offer arguments for investment in better project management practices. Although it does not answer the question of what an organisation should do to improve, it does give information about the extent of the problem.

It also establishes the magnitude of the financial impact of weak project management processes; information decision-makers will want to scrutinise and ultimately base their decisions on.

In gaining commitment it is possible to implement a process framework that addresses those areas ripe for improvement, which will ultimately lead to a higher level of project management maturity within the business.

Thanks for reading.

Reference

A Practical Method for Assessing the Financial Benefit of Project Management [PDF], Dr. Serge J. Schiltz, PMP

Images: Cappellmeister/ Flickr and Martin Webster.

Related articles

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• Teaching ‘Strategic Project Management’ at University College London (zdnet.com)
• Book Review: The Power of Interpersonal Skills in Project Management (martinwebster.eu)

To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. Edward R. Murrow.

Negotiation

For example, they may have a view on the way things should be done, the efficacy of project management techniques or the time and effort scheduled for a particular task. Therefore, the project manager must be able to negotiate with experts, functional managers, and senior management to secure resources, agree priorities, and determine responsibilities.

In other words, the project manager must learn to influence people and move them to action. If we are to motivate someone to do something for us we need to be sure they understand the objective:

• Know what to do
• Know how to do it
• Accept the schedule
• Believe they can do it
• Grasp the significance of not doing it

This is not straightforward. The project manager has to influence senior stakeholders and direct people from different parts of the organisation. Negotiation is a fact of life for the project manager. However, negotiations must be done in such a way that they do not jeopardise ongoing relationships and the project.

Principled Negotiation

Fisher and Ury advocate seven fundamental principles of negotiation that often lead to win-win situations and mutual gain:

1. Commit to negotiate for mutual gain
2. Avoid bargaining over positions
3. Separate people from the problem
4. Separate the relationship from the substance
5. Focus on interests, not positions
6. Generate options for mutual gain
7. Use objective data or standard

Also see Guidelines for Successful Negotiations (new page.)

This approach is right for the project organisation; project managers must negotiate on consensus not position. Acting in good faith is necessary – nay essential – when you don’t have direct control of your resources. Building trust and improving understanding will help the project manager to focus on the real issue and to avoid arguments over position.

Moreover, separating people from the substantive problem whilst balancing the need to resolve the matter and maintain good working relationships will lead to an informed and lasting solution. What’s more, the project manager is often able to see how a potential solution can benefit other parties; opposed positions often lead to compatible interests.

To negotiate successfully the project manager must insist on using objective criteria because this increases the chance of success. In contrast, negotiations that end in conflict – positional bargaining – are inefficient, unlikely to achieve a win-win outcome, and damage working relationships.

Image: Nick in exsilio/ Flickr.

Related articles

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