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“

The appeal of the plans

The idea of allocating the people time into neat lines has its appeal. Building a sort of bulwark against any inconvenient seems a reassuring act. However, the rows appearing on Gantt are just the result of so many others traced on a series of documents that often are neglected (from Risk to budget). The excuses range from the boredom of bureaucratic work to lack of courage to assess (and receive written confirmation) about vague promises or uttered decrees.

Time and energy

Time is just an empty container. Only energy can make it useful; then, if no accident diverts our efforts, the time will be made meaningful by the results of our actions. This can only be obtained when a portion of the future is allocated along with the necessary resources (energy, tools and skills). For longer and complex activities this container should be structured into smaller units.

These are the reasons to support this policy:

1. Natural gates for checking results.
2. Time allocated for reviewing and reflections.
3. More manageable units for dealing with issues.
4. More homogeneous the tasks’ nature, easier the Risk Management.
5. Given a better articulated plan, risk proximity becomes easier to evaluate.

Conclusion

The “strategic” choice of delivering something that could be considered “good enough” is not an easy one. Less than perfect outcomes are likely to receive some critics. When these are taken as suggestions, any comment is a new source of energy.

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 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.

The Benefit Review Plan is the tool for validating the assumptions stated in the Business Case. The product, as envisioned, is split into its functions. The result gives “what is done” through the definition of the required properties and then the criteria used for testing them.

From the procedural viewpoint, this document is sitting between the Business Case and the “operational” documents (e.g. Risk Analysis, Quality, Planning – which means staffing resources for delivering as per the proposed schedule).

In view of its importance for the project, any modification will be approved by the Project Owner in accordance with the Sr User (a.k.a. customer’s representative).

This template can be easily used for incremental approach in Agile style. In essence it helps to define the properties that will form the conditions of the functional tests. From my experience, this is essential for designing the “proof of concept“, it is especially true for the architecture (e.g. workload).

Quote of the day

For professional reasons, I was not able to read the blogs during the week-end. A soon as possible I will catch up with them with the aim of continuing a dialog with friends and colleagues to whom I have a big debt of knowledge.

Knowledge is power (ignorance is a form of defense)

However, knowledge with no communication is a defensive weapon. When people feel under siege, the analogy with the hedgehog is almost obvious. No leakage is allowed, when the information can be used for creating or improving a case against the under performing person or team.

Usually the lack of clear targets (what shall be done and how its properties – a k a qualities – will be gauged) creates this situation.

One of the symptoms, to be checked for better and quickly understanding this scenario, can be easily spotted with a friendly chat over a cup of coffee.

Any condition is special. The adoption of common standards is almost impossible.

After many years of working in many different realities (both industrial and cultural) doing the very same things, I discovered that the pure and simple incompetence (mixed with intellectual sloth) creates insurmountable barriers between the existing (flawed) situation and a reasonable sub-set of conditions set on the specific industrial standards.

Personal bureaucratization

Some software blogs spend a considerable amount of energy ranting against systems. These are presented as a bulwark set by too distant management for defending their tenures. In the same way, other procedures – with different names – are proposed with the caveats that are specific for the single team.

In my opinion, this means to wipe out our history (both art and science). Rules are applied in the art (e.g. from prospective to Cubism) as well as in the science. In both areas, the actor (scientist or artist) is valued for his/her ability to cope with reality. Therefore, any personal interpretation has to follow some metrics (e.g. Joyce’s Ulysses).

Working in a team that is part of a project (possibly a program) framed into a company strategy, means to deal with other people. Thereby, setting common procedures (e.g. from language to calendar) make possible to reach the target. Furthermore, if it could include some negotiations with who has imposed not realistic conditions.

Fighting the fear

Moreover, for who is working in a consultant position (i.e. Time & Material) the policy of dragging the problems through the continuous ignorance of the elephant under the carpet does not change the result. Some monies gained in this way are lost in terms of self respect and a sound professional profile.

Template

Today I added the Lesson Learned Report. From my viewpoint, the log can be more properly substituted by Issue and Risk registers.

1. A sound architectural design where services are neatly conceived for managing values and entities.
2. Collection requirements including boundary values (see Boundary values ). Thereby, the tests will be focused on the “critical” scenarios.
3. Developers able to work in a TDD (Test Driven Development).
4. Scripts (e.g. Based on Ant/Crusader) to send the data results to a repository. This information (developer, task and result) is linked to the WBS/PBS (detailed at work-package level).
5. SQL based procedures for storing the results (see previous point) into a DB, which will be pooled for updating the performances (see post) based on the following values (as described in the following paper[1]):

• Time (Plan)
• Quality of production (As stated in the Acceptance Criteria)[2]
• Cost and reserves
• EVM
• Risks (e.g. listed both for proximity and impact)
• Issues (pending)

Pros and cons

In the following table are listed gains and costs:

Conclusion

The choice of avoiding the automation can be solved with the manual input of “personalized” data. This does not change the necessity of collecting and analyzing data both for evaluating the producers’ performances (Burn down charts) and the team output.

To use technology as ancillary requires that masters would be able to take their own responsibilities (i.e. accepting the existing reality).

[2] The quality of the processes will be monitored through the “Learned Lessons” applied to the Governance.

[3] http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/consulting/sw_estimation/EstimatingHandbook.html