Project management and the recession

Did you complete the Arras People 2010 Project Management Benchmark survey?  If so, your data has contributed to forming a picture of how the recession has affected the UK’s project and programme community over the last 18 months.

It’s the fifth annual survey that Arras have run, and that means they can set the results in a historical context, so we can see the evolving trends.  The headlines this year are:

• Programme and Project managers in the private sector have been hit harder than those in the public sector.
• Contractors were the hardest hit group: 42% saw their pay fall compared to only 14% of public sector full-timers.
• However, public sector workers are more nervous about the next phase of the economic cycle and the impact of the forthcoming general election.

Project and programme managers were also asked about their confidence for the coming year.  What did they predict for 2010? Read more »

CAT, CMCS tie up to boost project monitoring

The Contracting and Trading (CAT) Group has entered into a partnership with Collaboration, Management & Control Solutions (CMCS) to help enhance project monitoring and control processes throughout its Middle East and global operations.

CAT is a leading general contractor providing integrated procurement and construction services in the Middle East, African and European regions.

The partnership, which seeks to meet the highly demanding nature of complex construction, infrastructure and oil & gas projects of CAT Group, is a strategic move that complements the predicted 33 per cent growth in the oil & gas sector by the end of 2009.

Under the terms of the agreement, CMCS will help provide vital project management software like Hard Dollar Cost Estimation, Control and Management, Primavera Project Portfolio Management and Primavera Contract Management for CAT Group projects that commonly utilize heavy machinery, diverse multiple resources and run over a long period.

Implementation of the different software will be complemented by special training sessions, licensed accreditations, and consultancy services to be administered chiefly in CAT Group’s headquarters in Beirut and its other branches spread across the globe.

The company is currently ranked 95 in Engineering News Record’s (ENR) international list of top 100 contractors.

Read the story here..

3 Project Pitfalls

All projects run the risk of getting into trouble along the way.  Here are three pitfalls and how you can avoid them.

“Let’s do it all now”

It’s  not possible to deliver everything in one go.  Part of the role of a project manager is analysing the best way to get to the desired solution.  That might be through rolling out a piece of software to 100 sites in one go, or ten million users, and if that genuinely is the best approach for whatever reason, then go with it.  But most often you will have the choice of several different deployment solutions and it is a prudent project manager who chooses not to do it all in one go.

A pilot will give you the chance to learn from development, delivery and implementation mistakes across the full range of technology and business change.  It will help you identify who are key supporters and where you may have issues with stakeholders in the future.  Reviewing your pilot with real-life customers or end users will also give you the confidence that you are delivering what they want.  They will hopefully go on to become champions of the project and able to support you and your team during the complex later stages.

“Let’s break it down”

Breaking down a large project into manageable chunks is a good thing.  However, those chunks don’t always fit back together again.  The risk here is that by decomposing the project into stages, phases, small projects or even work packages you end up with lots of small pieces that individually do a good job, but that overall don’t actually fit into the whole you were after.  This creates problems like:

• The inability to effectively realize benefits
• Separate teams or team members working on the same integration exercises
• A ‘whole’ that is less than the sum of its parts
• Rework
• Successful unit testing but unsuccessful integration or smoke testing, which results in extensions to the project schedule while these errors are resolved
• Different project approaches or standards used for individual elements
• Confusion at the time of project handover into support as there may be multiple ways of doing things being handed over instead of a standardised approach
• Increased costs

This is particularly relevant in software development projects where a large software release is broken into components for ease of development.  They need to be joined back together – and this joining needs to be planned.  This was one of the key messages at the prestigious BCS Lovelace lecture given by Maurice Perks this month.

If integration of components – whether they are software elements or smaller parts of a large programme of business change – are not designed with fitting together in mind, chances are they will not fit.

“Let’s fix the scope”

You have to start with a view of what you want to achieve.  After all, if you don’t know where you are going you will certainly end up somewhere else.  However, fixing the scope forever is not practical and not desirable.  Scope is a fluid concept.

At the end of the requirements phase and at the beginning of the development or delivery phase, you have to know what it is you are trying to do.  In this sense, you do need a fix on the scope.  But that isn’t to say the scope is permanently fixed.

Business needs change, the economy and the environment change, and a PESTLE analysis* will flag any items that are at risk of influencing your well-defined scope.

Your change control process should include a method by which people can raise potential scope changes for analysis and recommendation.  You may choose not to implement them, but if there is a valid reason, then the changes could (should) be adopted.  If you choose to ignore or refuse sensible changes there is every likelihood that the project you deliver will no longer be fit for purpose. You could spend months working on something that essentially will never be used by the end customer as it has failed to meet the changing business need.

It’s much better the manage scope change as a constructive and formal process, instead of organically, which leads to confusion in the team as no one knows what the latest position in and scope creep.

* Next week read the article about PESTLE and how you can use it on your projects.

On-Time Delivery, Standardization and a PM Job

Steps to On-Time, On-Budget Project Delivery

CIO – Businesses of all sizes embark on thousands of projects for new products and services every year. Unfortunately, most projects are doomed to fail outright, or at launch, because the original success criteria were not met. Some project failures lead to delays in product launches, such as the AirBus A380; others, like Boston’s Big Dig, incur huge cost overruns. These examples, as well as the results from survey after survey, show that American businesses have not been able to figure out how to consistently get products and services delivered on time, on budget and with the highest quality.

Government calls for standardised best practice Programme & Project Management

The Programme and Project Management (PPM) Council has called for the standardised use, across the public sector, of three programme and project management methodologies – PRINCE 2, Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) and Management of Risk (MoR), to support the delivery of greater value for money outcomes from public sector programme and project management.

The body, charged with providing strategic direction for the government’s skills and capability in PPM, has said that the standardised use of these methodologies would improve understanding and ease of working on cross-government programmes and projects.

It has also stated this would avoid duplication of design efforts and the costs associated with this. The Council will make further recommendations on the use of other methodologies and tools developed in government throughout 2009 and 2010.

The Council also recommends that programme and project managers should join relevant professional bodies, including the Association of Project Managers, which will enhance their ability to meet the complex and challenging demands of public service delivery.

The published recommendations state that membership of appropriate professional bodies will give access to information sources, networking opportunities, events, sources of learning and development, and to professional qualifications that public sector bodies themselves may be unable to provide.

US Courts: Project Manager/Architect

Office of the Circuit Executive
United States Courts for the Ninth Circuit

Job Announcement 09-02

Position: Project Manager/Architect (Full-time, temporary; year and a day position with the possibility of extension, subject to continued Federal funding.)
Location: San Francisco, CA
Classification Level/Salary: CL-29 ($75,880-$123,359) (GS/JSP 13 equivalent)
Closing Date: June 26, 2009 (or until position is filled

Project Managment News

Government Looks To Improve IT Project Management

Fed CIO Vivek Kundra pledges better and timelier details on the health of federal IT projects in as close to real time as possible.

The federal government is better known for spending $600 on toilet seats than being frugal, and IT projects are no exception. Cost overruns have plagued federal IT projects in the past, and the Government Accountability Office has written any number of reports detailing IT failures in government.This week, Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., introduced a bill that aims to make more public information available about federal IT spending, “require greater accountability for cost overruns,” and improve investment management strategies.

The new legislation comes at a time when the Office of Management and Budget has placed a renewed focus on IT spending under newly minted federal CIO Vivek Kundra, whose office walls are notably adorned by graphs of the federal IT budget. Kundra has advocated transparency as a way to push more accountability for government IT projects.”If we look at the tough economy we’re in, the fact that we’re in two wars, it’s very important that we make sure every dollar that’s spent produces real value,” he said in a recent interview with InformationWeek. “We’re divesting and killing projects that don’t perform and we’re investing in projects that do perform. We do not want to throw good money after bad money.”

Read the full story here.

IGNOU to launch new programme

NEW DELHI: Come July and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) here will launch a new post-graduate programme for certificate in project management.

The University is going to collaborate with the Indian chapter of the London-based International Project Management Association (IPMA) — Project Management Associates — and Center for Excellence in Project Management to develop the content for the course, engage resource persons and create placement opportunities. The IPMA is present in 44 countries teaching people the tools and art of how to handle projects. According to Manoj Kulsreshtha of the IGNOU School of Engineering and Technology who is the project coordinator for the new course, “Project management education should be encouraged in the national interest. Applications of project management concepts can improve our ability to keep pace with the international happenings. Education and training in the area of project management is an effective means of transforming a society into a project-oriented society.” The certificate programme is likely to be useful for working professionals, academia, aspiring managers and technical manpower.

Read the full story here.

People in Business for May3, 2009

Stacey Hopkins has been named a project manager at I.T. by Design in a role that includes management of development staff, project planning and  technical leadership. He was a senior software developer.

Sherry Etheridge-Soileau has been named private client group manager at Wright & Percy Insurance, responsible for business development in the agency’s personal lines department.. She was a personal and commercial lines producer for Lewis Mohr Insurance Agency.

Eddrick Martin has been named associate executive director of programs and program development at the A.C. Lewis Branch of the YMCA of the Capital Area. He was program director

Read the full story here.