If the BP Oil Spill Were a Project…

If the BP Oil Spill were a Project, would the cleanup and well capping process be going differently?  I’ve been asking myself this question a lot this week so I figured it was time to put words to down and see what our readers come back with.

I have to believe that British Petroleum (BP) actually is treating this issue like a project, but I’ve never seen so much back to back failure in any project I’ve ever managed or witness from a distance so it’s truly hard to believe that PM best practices are being applied to this one.

Here are the facts we have so far:

• Oil has been flowing freely for 46 days so far
• A low end estimate of per day oil flow is 210,000 gallons
• That’s 9,660,000 gallons spilled over the 46 days
• The White House has just sent BP a $69 million bill for cleanup efforts

These numbers are amazing and shameful all at the same time.  And there’s almost no end in sight due to BP’s repeated failures to make progress on capping the well.

Questions we have to ask?

• Did BP do on-going risk analysis?
• Have laws been broken?
• Should any BP executives still have their jobs when this is finally over?
• Do you think the BP Project Manager will ever get another gig?

This may not be the case, but each new attempt to cap the well or channel the oil flow to a surface ship seems to be a new shot in the dark and continually ends in failure.  It’s easy to say that customer confidence is at an all time low right now for BP.  Each new attempt needs to be treated as a separate project – or at least a separate sub-project with planning already in the works for the next attempt.  Potential issues need to be reviewed, risk analysis and risk mitigation discussions need to be happening 24/7.

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More on Pleasing the Customer and Management

Already my recent article on “Who’s More Important to Please – The Customer or Your Management?” has generated interesting discussion and feedback on LinkedIn.  Hopefully we’ll start seeing some comments here on PM Tips as well.

In response to the discussions that are going on so far, I’d like to follow up with some thoughts on the matter.

The general agreement among responders is that both need to be important – and I agree.  Also, it is being said that a talented project manager will make it apparent to both the customer and their management what is important and align the goals of each.  I agree on this as well – in most cases.

The issue is, most of us have been in one or more poorly planned or poorly run project management offices or organizations with poorly run project oversight.  In some of these cases, it really won’t matter how talented the project manager is, if management doesn’t get it, isn’t focused on project successes, or is often trying to ‘solve’ things behind the scenes before taking it to the customer (and by that time making it too late to resolve the real issues) then there’s not much that can be done.

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Who’s More Important to Please – The Customer or Your Management?

I ask this question from the perspective of the W2 employee.  If you consider this from the independent consultant angle, it gets too messy.  In the consulting scenario, often your management in the PM role is YOUR customer and their customer is also YOUR customer.  So, for the purpose of this article, I’m really just considering direct hire employees.

So who’s more important to please – your management or your customer?  As a project manager, I always consider my customer to be the number one reason I’m carrying out a project.  It’s their money and I’m trying to help get them to the solution that they are looking for – or at least the one that they really need (even if they need educated somewhat along the way).  I’ve often been frustrated at the roadblocks that management has put up in front of me – rather than knock down – along the way to project success.  And on at least two occasions the path that management has directed me to take on a project has led to utter disaster.  I’m not saying my path would have yielded success, but the likelihood of success was definitely higher.

So for me personally, I err on the side of the customer.  That is probably what makes me a better consultant than employee.  In a perfect world you have management, a PMO Director, and an executive staff that is involved and helps build paths to project successes.  But in more than half of the PMOs and project situations I’ve been involved in as a W2 employee that has not been the case.  How can I tell beyond my own frustrations?  Well, in all of those organizations either the PMO was eventually eliminated, the PMO Director removed, or the company shut down altogether.  So in those instances, I’m banking on my opinion over theirs.

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April Survey – PMO Effectiveness

In making this unofficially PMO month for many of my articles, at least, here on PM Tips, this month’s survey concerns PMO effectiveness.

The survey is available here, but please read on for more information prior to taking the survey.

Unlike past surveys where everyone was encouraged to respond, I would like to hear only from those of you who are either currently involved in a PMO (managing one or in a PM or other role within one), or have been in the past.  And, if you’ve been involved with more than one PMO, I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to complete the survey once for each PMO that you’ve been involved with.  For example, I’ll take the survey three times because I’ve worked with PMOs in three separate organizations.

Again, it’s fairly brief as in past months – just five questions because I STILL have not upgraded my website to allow for more questions.  But I also don’t want to bore you to the point of not participating or make the act of gathering the data for me too cumbersome.

Here are the basic questions so that you can be thinking of them before you head over to take the survey at my site…

• If you had to choose, would you say the PMO Director or leader was more of a Director or Project Manager? What was that person’s primary function, in your opinion?
• Were consistent, repeatable processes and procedures in place to help you manage projects and effectively do your job?
• Concerning available training, please indicate which of the following is/was true? (followed by a list to choose from)
• In terms of PMO visibility with your company’s executive leadership (beyond the PMO director)… (another list to choose from)
• In general, do you feel that your PMO was effective?

Now, to take the survey, please go here…  April PMO Effectiveness Survey

Thanks in advance for participating.  If you have any questions, please feel free to comment here or email me at Brad.Egeland@pmtips.net.

Do You Trust Your Organization’s Leadership?

This may seem like a simple question, but the answer is bigger than we think it is.  We’ve all grown somewhat immune to the mocking of those in charge – you see the President of the United States mocked on Saturday Night Live all the time.  But really, what about the leadership of your company?  Do you have confidence in them?  Do you think they have your back?  Do you feel like they’re leading you, your co-workers … even your customers in the right direction?

I think the answer for many of us is often ‘no.’  And that’s sad.  Why is that … why do we feel this way?

Let me look – generically – at situations I’ve both encountered personally at organizations I’ve worked with and for, as well as situations I’ve seen at customers and clients I’ve worked with.  I’ll try to not be too specific so you can’t tie a situation back to one of my past employers – but you know who you are!

Examples of leadership failure

One Fortune 500 organization did very little support their PMO.  I was around long enough to see it created, witness it flounder and fail, see it disassembled, and then see it re-assembled.  And through all of this, there were other organizations within the company who were acting in renegade mode leading projects – and getting support from executive leadership to do so (crazy!) – while the actual PMO struggled and disintegrated.  Rarely have I personally witnessed such an extreme waste of time, effort, good people and good money.

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