A two-speed issue in customer organization

Differential gear

The easiest analogy is the differential gear in a car. “A vehicle’s wheels rotate at different speeds, mainly when turning corners. The differential is designed to drive a pair of wheels with equal torque, whilst allowing them to rotate at different speeds.”

Until the outcome has been successfully delivered, the project is the slower part. It absorbs resources both in terms of money and energy from stakeholders who usually are key players in their functions (from management to final users).  Therefore, the benefits have to blossom for the creation of a new balance.

A dynamic Business Case

The template for the business case, like that suggested by Prince2, covers almost any situation. Moreover, its structure contains all necessary elements for further validations. Thus, the ability to deal with changing situations will be gained through the shaping of each component.

Reasons

The main point is about the company strategy (see post). This fosters the specific strategy for the project. Therefore, this offers a frame for asking an advice to the Sponsor.

Business Options:

“Presenting the available options”.

This is the pool of the available opportunities. From a Risk Management viewpoint, it is the place where to search for the “alternative route”, when the risks posed to the actual plan are just too big.

Benefits

“The benefits that the project will deliver expressed in measurable terms against the situation as it exists prior to the project”.

The assessment of the progress toward realization has to include the impact on the ongoing operations. As a result, explicit references to the current processes are requested for negotiating the needs of both sides: project and operating business.

Risks

The list of the most dangerous risks is reasonable if, and only if the strategy has been clearly stated. Without a clear choice, it is impossible to define those risk can be generated.

Costs

They will be analyzed and balanced in the investment appraisal section.

Timescale

It has to consider the business operational (e.g. testing and then training) needs. However, the time to market is a key factor for setting (and delaying) the delivery date.

Investment appraisal

This is the place where the business finds the future benefits (and the dis-benefits). Clear links to stakeholders could dramatically increase the project acceptance’s opportunities.

Conclusion

The Business Case represents a light-house for the project.

Therefore, the principles and the metrics for monitoring the performances cannot be modified without a complete review of the project itself. However, the elements cannot be considered simple martinets. They need to be built for responding efficiently and efficaciously to the continuous changes of the business environment.

Credits:

The concept of “Benefit Realization Management” comes from MSP manual – OCG.

http://leake.ge.uiuc.edu/autodesk_inventor_10.htm

Risks’ nature

From this premise, the Business Case should univocally establish the “owner” of the solution. Therefore, this declaration cannot be left the orphan .This means that level of the producing organization’ mastery of the technology / production’s process / capacity has to be indicated as one of the key elements on which the strategy has been built.

The importance of strategy

The word comes from Greek, it means “moving an army”.  This implies the following factors, listed by their importance:

1. Create a structure to face a challenge. The elements span from a command’s chain to a well defined target, where all the energies can be aimed.
2. A list of benefits (or avoided damages) which can be bargained against the incoming expenses. This includes a robust metric system for keeping a tally of the expenses and gains.
3. An alternative to the main route is necessary. Whether the intelligence of the “enemy’s willingness” is available or not, other factors like terrain (e.g. logistic conditions) can determine the success of the enterprise.
4. The route and clear rules for moving the bulk of the forces toward a target must be shared and accepted by every stakeholder.
5. A leadership that makes sense of the efforts, and then a war chest that could supply money to cover expenses.

Keeping the chain of command short, notwithstanding the organization’s dimension, more layers of strategy are required. Therefore, the cascading logic is maintained through the “managing by exception” golden rule.

The choices forming the strategy oblige the nature of the risks.

Given the initial statement, there are these deductions:

1)      Lack or incompleteness of strategy is the paramount risk.

2)      The strategy set the guidelines for the Risk analysis.

3)      The alternative route is the main reference to any plan for tackling problems that hamper the outcome’s delivery.

Conclusion

The assumption of responsibility can only be a first step for improving the correct spirit of collaboration. There are several factors that influence this decision. They span from the key-player (the person who has the knowledge) to the brand’s power. The essence of this suggestion lies in the consideration that risks are an integral part of every project; however, the best way to face them is clarity.

Credits

Some concepts have been developed on the ideas and documents generously supplied by “Herding Cats“

This document describes the output (either service or product) that fulfils the benefits sought in the Business Case. This is aimed to supply all necessary indications for producing the output within the limits (budget, time and scope/quality) fixed in the Project Brief.

People and tools

“A long trip always starts with a single step”. Making it in the right direction is essential for reaching the goal. However, the direction is often an imaginary line toward a wonderful but very distant aim. Checking the ground firmness and assessing the available energy to put a step after another is the key of any enterprise.

The “naked emperor”

Tailoring a methodology involves the availability of some good fabric. Using internet and weaving home-made stuff for making nice canvasses where plans are designed does not sound reasonable.

With the same logic, the supposition: “one size fits all” is a futile, if not dangerous, attempt of standardizing that has not properly investigated; it sounds like to order heavy boots and hard hats to acrobats for the sake of the standard safety rules.

Prince2 implementation, as per my experience in Europe, needs a good stuff for starting the process of preparing robust guidelines that will be detailed for matching the needs of specific realities (either for their dimensions or nature). Customer likes to see something of “tangible” for their money; therefore, the offer of some well tailored templates can be a good start.

Plans and reality

Don’t be fooled by the idea that some neat forms make a process. It is the same concept that a plan suffices to do the product. The necessary confidence to start this kind of project could be acquired through a bargain. One side there are a process that increase the people confidence by setting some basic rules (e.g. mandates). This will be swapped with their willingness to work up to the new (firmer and more clear) rules.

This capital of energy and trust has to be invested into the growth of a system. Something can sustain all the efforts of dealing with real situations. Once the people are acquainted with templates, they can cope much better with the novelties, when these have a credible background.

Conclusion

Methods and tools are worth the people are using them. However, a blunt tool is a burden that added to the lack of experience takes away any bit of enthusiasm. Project in a Box offers (also in its Community Edition – means free) an excellent set of tools. They can be considered as shoes; they will not do the trip for you; however, they make it possible.

Quality Strategy Management

This document is used to define the quality techniques and standards to be applied to all projects are products. Quality is a specific property of the scope (see “Iron Triangle”) and dictates the standards to be used for accepting any outcome.

Creating more value with integrated templates

The production of information within the project is a matter that is almost outreaching of the Project Manager capabilities. Any stakeholder is a source of production and a destination of data; therefore, the necessity of validating the data becomes of paramount importance.  In fact, the credibility of the Project Manager depends upon the quality (reliability) of the information released with the official imprimatur. This does not avoid the presence of gossips, a certified system for granting the “usability” of the information set the difference between rumors and clear statements.

The reliability of the information has to be built through the creation of a system working on the principle of the “Business Intelligence”. Loads of data will be collected in the most neutral and efficient way. Therefore, these activities will be treated as a project itself. These are the main steps suggested by Craig Curran-Morton in his post :

• Planning
• Collection
• Storage
• Analysis
• Delivery

Planning

While the requirements are set in the Quality Management Strategy, the actual planning of the production of the procedures (scripts for manning the data collection and dispatching) will be agreed with the developers’ team. The active participation of them will increase the chances of success of the whole system.

Collection

Most if not all the work shall be done in background. Automated procedures allow the capture of the actual values with no interference or workload.

Storage

The “register” type of the templates is conceived for storing data for further analysis. This policy has to be agreed with the IT department also for logistic (space and network) reasons.

Analysis

It is a part of the Quality Management Strategy document.  One of the most important tenets is the active participation of the developers’ team. This increases the acceptance of the settings and grants the necessary maintenance and enhancements.

Delivery

This has to be synchronized with the actual production plans.

This document offers the global approach to one of the most important tool/system for managing any project that involves more than one developer (however, it is extremely useful in that case too). The concept evolves from the distribution of the correct (updated) information to the management of each produced item. In this way, any asset is ranked on the basis of its readiness (quality) and made available in a way that any action on this piece of work can be collected to be analysed either for auditing or  evaluation purposes.

The template has been built on the Prince2 indications. A lot of care has been dedicated to the Quality section, where are listed some very important topics.

Topic of the day: micro-management

Working on templates requires a certain dose of system-centric attitude. However, tools are built for being used by colleagues. This means that every instrument (with its set of rules) fits with the others, this to form an elastic structure that allows any user (producer or consumer) to find his/her hand with the tool.

Rules and management

There is an interesting post about Agile and micro-management. As usual, there is the spook of a manager who needs to interfere with developers decisions. Especially when these decisions are taken by the group that works as a posse comitatus . If anybody needs to impose any decision onto the colleagues, just for the sake of his/her own position, the person – from any viewpoint – is a danger for the company. Being accountable of the results could imply some judgment that shall be asserted. This is a process that involves the whole group. Each person should find comfortable enough for completing the task he/she has accepted within a reasonable grade of freedom. Any scenario where the “boss” – having lost the confrontation either with his/her peer or boss (customer) wants to take a revenge on the team, the problem lies within each person forming the aggregation of people who were not able to form a team. Literature, from Greek Tragedy to the modern psychoanalysis is bountiful of examples about these sort of conflicts. A project is not an arena or a stage where personal issues can be brought in for the sake of our self-complacency.

This document is issued with the scope of providing all necessary elements for introducing and managing the project.

In the PMBook, it is called “Initiation”. In the proposed version, all “reasonable” questions are listed for probing all aspects: from commercial to technical and financial.

One of the success’s factors for managing projects is the negotiation of the correct terms. From a clear picture of what has to be delivered (when and how) it is easier to create a common ground where all stakeholders can find a match for their interests.

Topic of the day

There is an interesting discussion about the 2.0 Project Management, in essence the adoption of “social media” could improve the communications among the stakeholders. An increasing of volume (either in a number of exchanged messages or people reached) does not increase the quality of information; where the quality is the ability to answer to the need of knowledge.

Tools like “IM” can increase the speed of transmission and then improve the sensation of mimicking a conversation; however, when the information is left to each person’s memory, it has lost most of its value. (Written) history is at the basis of property. With no shared traces, it is extremely difficult to have any serious reference. Good willingness and cooperation are essential values that could be easily overwhelmed by the pressure produced by financial hassles.