The purpose of strategy is to provide direction and concentration of effort as organizations continually strive to improve their position or gain the upper hand within the marketplace. Basically, it’s a struggle for advantage, and the one with the best advantage wins. It’s that simple. On what areas must businesses concentrate? Businesses clearly have to:

• Gain new advantages that increase or improve customer satisfaction, which will differentiate them from their competitors
• Either eliminate or minimize their competitors
• Achieve speed to market
• Re-engineer business processes for improved competitiveness
• Align their organizations to the latest economic trends
• Implement the strategy through projects
• Evaluate the success of the strategy by measuring project success

From project management’s point of view, there is no need to manage any project if the project manager has no idea why it’s being done in the first place. It’s crucial for any project manager to address the larger issues of the business strategy and see where the project fits in the overall framework. It isn’t easy—but it needs to be done.

Therefore, organizations must focus on project management as the key business driver that will achieve these advantages for them. With sound project management methodology and processes in place, project management is able to support the overall business strategy of an organization with these logical benefits:

1. Reduced delivery costs. Project management can provide products and services more cheaply by following a structured and formalized project methodology and by ensuring that excessive costs are not spent without due consideration.

2. Quicker product to market. The advantage permits the business to deliver products or services more efficiently than the competitors and the business is able to react more favorably to market demands.

3. Focused advantage. The projects will be focused more on the client needs and products, instead of having a solution that does not deliver the expected returns.

4. Quality and timely deliverables. Project management builds quality into the products or services right from the start, ensuring that the right things are developed at the right specification.

5. Proven customer advantage. Project management gains advantages for their organization by working together with the customer and by accommodating their needs and requirements.

Summary

Today’s organizations are challenged, as they need to keep pace with competitive markets, client needs, and marketplace trends. Winning is basically about who has the upper hand – either with new technology or quicker project implementations. The only winners will be those executives who are able to reinvent their companies quickly enough to take full advantage of the efficiencies that solid project management practices can offer.

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I like what Jason Charvat has presented in terms of Project Management methodologies in his book “Project Management Methodologies – Selecting, Implementing, and Supporting Methodologies and Processes for Projects.” He basically goes by the same premise that I do – there can really be no standard methodology to be utilitized to fit most or all projects – hybrid methodology must exist. Your methodology must fit what you do, who your customers are, and what your capabilities are.

Project Methodology Overview

Key decision makers must often determine whether a universalized project life-cycle methodology is sufficient for all their projects. The answer to that question is an unequivocal no! Very few people are capable of creating a state of-the-art, concisely defined, phenomenally small, highly prescriptive, measurement-intensive, fast, and cost-efficient methodology allowing project managers greater performance improvement (consisting of an expertly designed/optimized family of policies, procedures, plans, specifications, forms, logs, and metrics). Every company has its own process flow diagram. This flow originated from a methodology created to ease implementations of new technologies or new project ideas. These process flow diagrams have many different stages, all similar in nature.

Even dynamic project-based organizations such as Accenture, KPMG, Deloitte Touche, RCG Information Technology, Bechtel, and Keane are far more than a collection of individual projects. If that were all they were, they wouldn’t be multimillion-dollar organizations. They all use various arsenals of project methodologies for each solution they undertake. Companies are becoming very much like small film studios. Each project is a “movie” all by itself and has its own “director” and “script.” The movie needs project funding to begin and is short lived; project teams are also short lived, and, amazingly, in this brave new model, they follow a unique project methodology, because if they don’t, no one will invest in a “movie” or project. Therefore, projects need to be innovative, they need process, and they need to adhere to the “script” or methodology. Each movie script is different from the next; this is where we focus our efforts throughout the book.

By simply assessing those project methodologies that exist today, we see that a universal project approach simply won’t work. The main reasons that a single “be-all-and-end-all” methodology won’t work from industry to industry are differences in:

• Life cycle
• Market sector
• Product
• Size
• Technology
• Situation

For instance, a nuclear plant or space shuttle project has very specific heavyweight life-cycle components (e.g., work breakdown structure, activities, tasks, task durations, priorities, skill sets, and economics) compared to a small construction project. In other words, they use different phases and activities on their projects (i.e., communications and navigation equipment, operating systems, and a variety of technologies).

In addition, the life cycles for construction projects (e.g., bridge building), compared to information systems projects (e.g., three-tier architectures), may be vastly different from one another. This means much tweaking is needed if you have to accommodate every kind of project. Hence, different methodologies are needed. Therefore, we have a catch-22 situation—various technologies and industries make it very challenging to design a one-size-fits-all project life cycle. It does not seem likely that an individual project manager or executive can actually design a highly operational, functional project methodology that meets the needs of every single project—irrespective of its technology or industry. Hence, some creative genius is needed to bridge this gap. A project life cycle is, therefore, a collection of project phases. Project phases vary by project or industry, but some general phases include:

• Concept
• Development
• Implementation
• Support

Remember that products also have life cycles. Many companies have project managers or executives who are unwilling to follow systematic project methodologies all of the time. Instead, they tend to rely on standard business activities to get them through the project. They are simply trying to keep up with all this talk of project methodologies and associated processes and techniques. Questions such as “Why are there so many methodologies?” and “Which one do we use?” often arise. Over the years, even those involved in managing projects have observed that projects have common characteristics that can be formalized into a structural process, which allows them to manage projects more effectively.

Each phase can typically be brought to closure in some logical way before the next project phase begins; and each phase results in discrete milestones or deliverables, which provide the starting point for the next phase. Project methodologies should be structured to take advantage of the natural phases that occur as work progresses. The phases should be defined in terms of schedule and specific accomplishments. Define how you will know when you have finished each phase and what you will have to show for it.

Cost and schedule estimates, plans, requirements, and specifications should be updated and evaluated at the end of each phase, sometimes before deciding whether to continue with the project. At times, you may want to hold off or cancel the project. Large projects are usually structured to have major program reviews at the conclusion of significant project phases. These decision points in the life of a project are called major milestones. The figure below shows how project phases are somehow linked to one another. This is the basis of how project phases, once incorporated, form a typical project development methodology.

Figure: Depiction of general project methodology phases.

Milestone decisions are made after conducting a major program review in which the project manager presents the approved statement of requirements, acquisition strategy, design progress, test results, updated cost and schedule estimates, and risk assessments, together with a request for authorization to proceed to the next phase. The early project phases tend to shape the direction for all further efforts on the project. They provide requirement definitions, evaluation of alternative approaches, assessment of maturity of technologies, review of cost, schedule and staffing estimates, and development of specifications.

A relatively short-term or technically straightforward project may have only a few basic milestones or deliverables following a (1) proposal, (2) feasibility study, or (3) business case. Nevertheless, the project manager should report to clients and executives at intervals to keep them up-to-date on project progress, thus ensuring project direction.

On small projects, if no formal agreements are written, the project manager should deal with clients and executives in an informal, yet somewhat structured and logical, manner. This means managing expectations and making clear agreements about what will be produced and when. You simply cannot do this on the fly.

On long-term projects, you may find project phases take place over many months or even years, and, in this case, it is vital to provide interim deliverables to give the clients and executives a sense that work is being accomplished, to provide an opportunity for feedback, and to capture project successes in documented form. This is exactly why a project methodology works. How else are you going to do this?

It is wise that the project processes be built around the specific project methodology. Particular care should be given to defining the work to be accomplished in each phase. This should include definition of the deliverables to be produced, identifying testing and demonstrations to be completed, preparing updates of cost and schedule estimates, reassessing risks, and conducting formal technical and management reviews.

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The Intervals team recently completed a significant infrastructure overhaul during the first half of the year, and is continuing to improve the service by increasing response times and adding new features based on customer feedback. New features include the ability to update several project tasks at once and a quick-search enabled page for editing tracked time details. “We really want to make a difference and listen to our customers, which is something many software companies have failed to do,” said Michael Payne of Pelago. Pelago has stated on many occasions that their goal is to differentiate their software by offering superior customer service. “We have quadrupled our numbers since this time last year while adding several new features, many of which were suggested by our customers,” stated John Reeve, also of Pelago.

… More

Bottom-up view on challenges to project management

Results of a new global study conducted by ESI International reveal project portfolio management (PPM) challenges from a “bottom-up,” project and program management perspective. Leading concerns noted by project and program managers polled in the study included: greater need for PPM improvement given the economic downturn; lack of PPM experience, tools or process in commercial and public organizations; redundancies and conflicts in project portfolios; and inconsistent project reviews with poor follow-up. Survey respondents were project and program management professionals representing government, as well as commercial industries in financial services, telecom, IT, energy, pharma & health, professional services, manufacturing and other sectors in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.

“ESI’s global Project Portfolio Management Survey provides senior management with insights to guide them in charting a path to increased ROI from their project portfolios,” said Mario Arlt, PMP, vice president of client solutions, ESI. “The survey’s focus on project and program managers rather than senior executives offers a reality check for executives to ponder.”

… More

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Location:      Hampshire
Salary:      £40-45k + package
Company:      Management Recruitment Group
Job type:      Permanent

Role Summary:

One of the UK’s leading privately owned M&E Contractors with a proven track record in successful delivery of multi-million £ projects our client is seeking an experienced Mechanical Project Manager / Contracts Manager. Able to demonstrate a successful track record in management of projects values ranging up to £5m you will be responsible for timely completion to budget & spec.

The Company:

One of the UK’s leading privately owned specialist ME&P Contractors our client is able to offer their established client base co-ordinated Project Management service covering HVAC & electrical building services installations. In addition they are able to provide in-house ductwork fabrication, pipework prefabrication, refrigeration, electrical, and controls services. They have also taken a leading role in the monitoring and control of refrigerant gases and the introduction of alternative gases as recommended by the Institute of Refrigeration.

Flood Defence Project Manager

Location:      Bath, Avon
Salary:      unspecified
Company:      Project Resource
Job type:      Permanent

The role:
The client is seeking a Project Manager who has experience in flood defence as our client is a leading provider of integrated river and coastal management solutions.
The Project Manager will be part of a growing team that design sustainable projects for drainage, river, estuarine and coastal environments and help coastal communities adapt to climate change.

The Client:
The client are a leading consultancy with a global presence who specialise in environmental, water and energy projects. Our client is well established within there respective sectors and are at the forefront of sustainable projects.

Location: Wiltshire

Remuneration: Dependant on experience ( Basic salary plus good benefits package.)

Requirements:
The project Manager must have flood defence, coastal or river experience and have come from a technical background within this field as well as over 5 years Project Management experience. Degree qualifications would be preferable but not essential.

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• Employer: London Borough of Barnet
• Posted: 23 Jun 2009
• Reference: SS/129/09
• Location: Barnet
• Sector: Local Authority
• Contract: Permanent
• Hours: Full Time
• Position: Assistant Project Manager
• Salary: £35,067 – £37,692 pa inc.

PLANNING, HOUSING AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Assistant Project Manager
£35,067 – £37,692 pa inc.

Delivering a successful City-Suburb and taking forward ambitious growth realising Barnet’s Three Strands Approach: Protect, Enhance, Grow.
As the fastest growing outer London borough, with over 32,000 new homes and at least 22,000 new jobs expected from planned development over the next 20 years, Barnet will be a place of opportunities.

Working within the Regeneration Service, you will take a key role in delivering the regeneration projects across the borough. You will work with internal and external stakeholders to drive forward the regeneration projects, managing the change control process in order to ensure the necessary requirements are delivered.
With proven success in project management, you will lead and advise on various aspects of the project plans and work with the Senior Project Managers to identify gaps, conduct reviews and put actions in place to ensure the programme delivers on cost, to time and to the required standard. You will influence and co-ordinate programme activity and ensure that projects are managed to corporate project management standards.

With a sound knowledge of property development and regeneration, in the context of housing, mixed-use and economic development, you will be self-motivated with excellent project management, organisational and interpersonal skills; able to manage complex workloads, and communicate effectively verbally and in writing at all levels in the organisation.

For an application pack, please visit our website: www.barnet.gov.uk

Please quote reference: SS/129/09

Closing date: 3 July 2009.

Apply here..

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PRINCE2 is used in countries all over the world and Practitioners can be found on all 7 continents (even Antarctica!). It has taken a significant effort to update the methodology. Thirteen organisations were involved in piloting the new approaches, which provided the authoring team with the ability to field test their recommendations and new text. For the last couple of years Andy Murray’s name has been synonymous with the Refresh, and as lead author he managed a team of 5 to deliver the new version.

The new version is different in two major ways: the handbook has been split into two and the content has been overhauled.

Instead of the one (iconic) red handbook there are now two guides, tailored to be role specific. Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 is written for project managers, team managers and those involved with project support. It includes all the information you would expect on running a project. Directing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 is aimed at senior managers who have a role on the project board. It covers the project environment, what is expected of the senior stakeholders and how to tailor PRINCE2 to suit your organisation.

Tailoring PRINCE2 for your company is one of the areas that is given more focus. Apparently the team has received feedback over the years highlighting the fact that it is difficult to know exactly how to scale the methodology for different types of project. The new version has specific guidance on that, which should make it easier for new organisations to adopt PRINCE2.

There are other content changes too. The new version is less prescriptive, with fewer management products. There is more emphasis on seeking lessons learned and ensuring these are applied successfully. Quality plays a bigger part, as does the business case and benefits management. There is also more guidance on the use of tolerances, managing issues and changes. Finally, the methodology has been brought into line with other OGC offerings to ensure consistent terminology is used. This also makes it easier for organisations who are using other OGC standards like MSP or MoR, as the approaches are now linked in a more cohesive way.

The exams have not changed as much as you would expect, given the content update. The message from Emma Jones, Chief Examiner, was ‘evolution, not revolution’. The syllabus has been rewritten, but from a candidate’s perspective the exam experience should remain almost the same.

The Foundation paper is still multiple choice. For those candidates who go on to do the full Practitioner certification, the exam is shorter by half an hour, and the pass mark has gone up a little bit. Practitioner certification still lasts for five years, after which point candidates have to take a further exam. Re-certification is still a paper of one hour, and again the pass mark has gone up a little bit.

The new books are available now, but training companies have six months (effectively to the end of 2009) to update their course materials to ensure they are teaching the up-to-date syllabus. The new exams are available from 6 July 2009. Advice from Andy Murray on Twitter recently was that if you are looking to sit the Foundation or Practitioner exams for the first time, you can take either the old or new style, whichever your training provider has available. However, if you are re-certifying, you may be better off taking the exam with the new syllabus.

The new syllabus has one final advantage for candidates: the books are half a kilo lighter than the old red handbook, so they are a lot easier to carry around for people studying on the move!

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The Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Project Management Association (IPMA) with view to becoming a member of the IPMA in September.

“Being linked in as a key member of this reputable international body will bring a wide range of opportunities,” said Dr Bill Young, AIPM national president. “Membership of IPMA will enhance opportunities for our colleagues in the Asia-Pacific region to participate in a large and growing global project management community.”

Young said the membership would assist the transferability of Australia project management skills internationally: “Ultimately we expect this initiative to raise project management standards and open doors for Australian project managers internationally.”

Signing of the memorandum occurred at the close of the 23rd IPMA World Congress in Helsinki yesterday. The AIPM will submit its membership application later this year and also make a submission to host the IPMA World Congress in Australia.

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The list by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., includes projects others would identify as ideal for creating jobs and benefiting generations of Americans: skateboard parks, streetscapes, upgrades of park facilities, bike trails and parking garages.

Coburn’s list is partially a collection of news stories that questioned local projects to be funded under President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program. The White House has promoted the program by selecting favorable newspaper stories.

One of the most fiscally conservative senators, Coburn cited the repair of 37 rural bridges in Wisconsin that average little more than 500 vehicles apiece each day — with one carrying no more than 10 cars a day. The projects jumped over larger, urban repairs because they were “shovel ready.”

Local officials had a different perspective. Coburn, for instance, criticized $840,000 to repair a bridge in Portage County, Wis., that carries 260 vehicles a day largely to a backwater saloon and a country club.

Bill Weronke, the county highway commissioner, said the bridge has “lived its life expectancy” and is dangerous. “It’s a pretty crucial bridge in Portage County,” he said. He added it soon will be a shortcut to a state highway.

Coburn also criticized a $3.4 million Florida Department of Transportation project for an “eco-passage” — an underground wildlife road crossing for turtles and other wildlife in Lake Jackson, Fla., along U.S. 27.

“Why did the turtle cross the road? To get to the other side of a stimulus project,” the Coburn report says.

Josh Boan, the Florida Transportation Department’s natural resources manager, said a large number of turtles and other wildlife are killed in the area. In addition to protecting wildlife, he said the project is needed for safety: turtles hit by vehicles can become flying projectiles.

The project north of Tallahassee is to begin in September.

An administration spokesman said the stimulus program already is a great success.

Ed DeSeve, senior adviser to the president for Recovery Act implementation, said, “We have approved more than 20,000 Recovery Act projects to get Americas economy moving again.

“With 20,000 projects approved, there are bound to be some mistakes. When we find them, we have been transparent about it, and worked on a bipartisan basis to shut them down immediately. Sen. Coburn’s report, however, is filled with inaccuracies, including criticisms of projects that have already been stopped, projects that never were approved, and some projects that are working quite well.”

Read more..

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Employer :LBi
Location : London
Job Discipline : Marketing (General)
Contract Type : Permanent
Position :Project Manager

Project Manager sought by LBi, Europe’s leading digital agency. You will be managing the full project life cycle whether the solution is for leading edge websites, intranets, digital media projects or eMarketing campaigns.

You will be experienced as a Project Manager leading multi-disciplinary teams to design and deliver innovative and creative online solutions. You will have working knowledge of contemporary project management tools and methodologies such as PRINCE2, as well as a background in one or more of Internet technology development, business analysis, user research, online marketing, visual design, information design, content strategy

Employing over 400 full-time digital experts in the UK, and 1600 worldwide, LBi is a global marketing and technology agency, blending insight, creativity and expertise to solve business problems. Our scale of expertise is unrivalled, ranging from high-level strategy to heavyweight technology implementation and award-winning media and creativity – building believable brand experiences for our large international client base.

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package, details available upon request.

Apply here…

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I refer to Phase 2 as the Exploration phase. Ideally, the customer has performed some process analysis and requirements analysis on their own prior to the kickoff of this phase of the project. The customer should aspire to head into the Exploration phase with a decent – and hopefully documented – concept of their current business processes as well as what their future state (ie, post-implementation) processes need to be. The primary goal of the Exploration phase is to nail down the overall business requirements for the project so that both teams leave the Exploration phase with a common understanding of the requirements that the system or software will be developed against.

The primary deliverable of the Exploration phase is the Business Requirements Document (BRD) and it should require a formal customer signoff. Without that signoff, the Project Manager could be chasing scope issues for the duration of the engagement. In my opinion, and usually general practice for external customer projects, every one-time deliverable on every project should receive a formal customer signoff. The BRD deliverable from this phase is the document that lays the groundwork for the creation of the Functional Design Document (FDD) or Functional Requirements Document (FRD) – depending on what you want to call it – which is your primary deliverable for the next phase of the project – the Design phase.

It’s worth noting here that on projects that are smaller or with very tight timeframes, the Exploration phase and the Design phase can be compacted into one combined phase. I usually refer to this combined phase as the Design phase. I don’t recommend it if it can be avoided as separating the phases allows a deeper dive into the business requirements and provides you with a better chance to go into Design with a common understanding of the requirements you will be developing the system to meet. However, it’s not always possible so this is a good chance to gain some time back for the critical Development and Testing phases if the timeframe is tight.

The Exploration phase should kickoff with a meeting of both project teams. At this point, the delivery team really still only needs to be comprised of the Project Manager and the Business Analyst – at least that’s all that absolutely needs to be in front of the customer during this phase. The customer team should be represented by the project sponsor and the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) from the relevant business areas or units affected by the project so that the business processes and requirements can be discussed in detail and finalized.

Weekly status reports and formal weekly project status meetings – usually held remotely – begin with the Exploration phase and continue throughout the rest of the project. Issues and risks are revisited and re-assessed throughout the Exploration phase and documented as part of the weekly status report or as an addendum to the weekly status report in the form of a risk register or issues list.

Exploration Phase Deliverables:

• Business Requirements Document (BRD)
• Revised Project Schedule
• Revised Risk/Issues List
• Project Status Reports
• Weekly Project Status Meetings

Next up: Project Phase 3 – Design

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