Per an earlier post (here), I have a bee in my bonnet about ”supporting” deliverables and how to measure their success.  The excellent comments from Glen and Stephen (here) pointed to the answer.  From Glen:

We are looking for cost savings, efficiencies, and other process improvements. This is the typical work flow process improvement approach. Extend that to the human processes - monetized - and you can define MOP’s and MOE’s [measures of performance and effectiveness respectively].

In retrospect, it should be obvious that training deliverables — and their measures and incentives — should make such deliverables accountable for the relevant process/solution/project/program success measures.   In other words, CRM call center training should be judged by the how well the call center solution delivers the intended capabilities.

This approach is not so obvious to many training professionals, largely because many have never been held to the same standard as process owners.   My experience — from observing a particularly savvy SAP customer — is that a few pointed questions do concentrate the trainers’ minds:

• Are you worried that the training does not support the actual execution of the processes?
• What do we need to change in our training approach so that it delivers value to the project?
• Why am I spending money on training if it can’t be held accountable for project/process succeess?
• Do you still wonder why trainers aren’t better paid?

Posted in Implementation Costs, Methodology, Organizational Change Management, Performance Management   Tagged: deliverables, ERP training, measures, metrics, soft stuff, Training   

Phew!

That was a busy year…

Reflections are something that is as fundamental to the Agile philosophy of software development as iterative development… And regardless of your agility are always good practice. It’s easy when you are busy to just bunker down and get on with the work, but for your professional development and for your future customer’s sake you need to keep an eye on personal continuous improvement.

So, looking back at this year, what did I learn?

I can probably list dozens of things that I discovered but I think I can round it off into three main areas. And being an analytical type I can then plug a couple of sub points into each heading.

Technically
1. Requirements are your first priority for software projects
This year I reinforced my already keen knowledge of how important requirements management is to a project’s success.

My view has been and remains that solid requirements are the number one thing to focus on if you want a good project outcome. I believe that issues like executive sponsorship, strategic alignment, poor scope and value management etc are all aspects of poor requirements management.

(Particular nod to that neat IAG report from early this year.)

2. All about Scrum and XP
Nice processes/methods which make a lot of sense. While they have their limitations they also have plenty going for them. In particular they help avoid some of the cost burden of a development team waiting for a business client who keeps changing their mind!

However – both of these frameworks (?) push the concept of requirements management pretty much out of the project team. They push responsibility squarely onto the client.

Given that many clients don’t have much capability in this space, what are they to do? It won’t matter in small system developments, but as you scale up in complexity and size, an integrated and thought through product roadmap, architecture and feature set become more and more important.

See lesson 1.1 above.

3. Strategy is not as hard as people think
Strategic decision making suffers from the same problem as project requirements management. There is something to be said for simple models and seeking information by practically exploring and experiencing scenarios.

Iterative approaches to software development are one way of trialling these ideas. Another can be revealed through clever mechanisms like Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas.

What’s more important is having clear pragmatic goals. If you can visualise it, and can see practically how you’ll get there - it will be fine. If you need to rely on months of consultants’ time to establish your goals – you will be just as lost at the end as you were to begin with.

Professionally
1. Tyner Blain is a great website
I learned that Tyner Blain is a really good reference source for printing/emailing pages to get short succinct messages across to project team members and stakeholders. Go there. Subscribe to the RSS feed and use the search engine. The chances are the idea you want to present has already been worked into a well though through article by Scott.

2. It's easy to go from trusted advisor to just another grunt
I (re) learned that no matter how much you are regarded in one environment, when you make a substantial industry/geographical switch you are back to zero reputation and virtually zero trust.

3. The BABOK is an exciting endeavour
I reviewed sections of the draft of the IIBA’s BABOK 2.0 and found it falling short of where I wanted it to go. Of course the BABOK committee feels the same way, but version 2.0 is a milestone in a journey, not an end result. And its goals are to improve the quality of requirements work in the industry, which I am sure it will do.

It was rewarding to me to participate in this process as I felt I had something worthwhile to say. It also sparked my interest in the discussions at the IIBA leadership team’s blog.

Personally
1. Teaching project management
This year I taught project management in a subject for masters degree students at MIT/Ballarat university and learned a number of details about good practices and why things are the way they are in our industry.

Thanks on that front to both the university for the gig, and to the textbook authors; Kathy Schwalbe, (Information Technology Project Management) and Cliff Gray and Erik Larson (The Project Management Process.) Both these textbooks have a typical dated feel you get in a university textbook, but at the same time focus on the human aspects of project management and so have timeless lessons in them.

The slide presentations from the lectures are here. I hope you enjoyed them.

2. Team blogging
This year I invited readers to join me in blogging here at Better Projects. Chris, Raphael and Andrew all wrote a handful of great posts for me, but dropped off along the way. Janet, however, has stuck with it. And usually her posts have been very popular, sparking posts on other blogs about the topic.

Thank you guys and thank you Janet for contributing.

3. The day job
Well… mixed blessings really, but a lovely bunch of people despite all the heartache.

4. Modern Analyst
Although my contribution has waned, the Modern Analyst site continues to grow in popularity among BAs. Not only do the forums provide lively discussions on a variety of topics, but the article repository just gets deeper and deeper. It was a pleasure to help kick that site off and to see it grow and thrive.

Drop by and say Hi to Adrian and the gang. Tell them I sent you.

5. Henry
Lastly, my little boy learned to sit up, eat food, turned one, and can even walk. What an amazing year it’s been for him and me.

Have a good break and I'll see you next year.


(photo by me, hosted at Flickr)

First, I’d like to thank and congratulate my team and our PMO partners on the amazing job they’ve done in responding to the challenges and opportunities that cropped up this year.  I’ve tried to convey some of what we’ve been up to in 2008, but I’ve only scratched the surface. 

Also, I’ve posted our family newsletter for those interested (here).

Finally, this holiday season comes at the end of a trying year. One of my favorite Christmas carols now sounds even more melancholy and timely than ever. Better times are coming, but…

Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2009,
Paul

Posted in Random      

Back after a bit of year-end organizational fun and games…  so this Investor’s Business Daily article on talent retention posted on Yahoo (here) is particularly relevant.   This quote captures the challenge of managing top talent in a downturn:

Even with the economy slumping, employment consulting firms say tracking, coddling and nurturing young turks is vitally important….  “We think some of these best and brightest, if you don’t communicate with them and engage them, they’re going to be looking for their own bailout package,” said Steve Krupp, partner and leader of the executive talent management practice at Delta Organization & Leadership.

SAP’s Top Talent program is mentioned prominently, especially the fellowship program.  I had an opportunity to leverage the fellowship program, both as a fellow and as a hosting organization.   For me, the fellowship experience was by far the best part of the Top Talent program to date.  As Paul Orleman from SAP notes:

The key to such a program, experts say, is that it has to be embraced by the CEO on down. If not, it’s all too easy for a key employee in one division to be pigeonholed.  To help avoid that, SAP offers some of its highest prospects six-month fellowships in another line of the company’s business, usually in a different geography.

Other parts of the SAP Top Talent approach aren’t as mature — the marketplace and networking initiatives are uneven at best.  However, there’s not doubting the prominence of the effort; the program is part of the Office of the CEO.  I’ll be curious to see how it evolves in 2009, given the pending CEO transition.

Posted in SAP   Tagged: retention, talent management, top talent   

This week Rally's weekly newsletter had a short article in it about reference models for project mnagers.  Co-incidentally this week I attended a workshop where we were looking some something in that vein for a largish programme that's in it's early days.

The discussion was about rating the seriousnes of a problem so that it can be business-cased into scope.  In particular we were looking at non-financial drivers such as reputaion, regulatory compliance and customer satisfaction.  Most of what we discussed came out of some fairly standard risk management models.

Then we got to discussing the idea of developing organisational capability.  How do you quickly put a value to the quality of a solution?

With time and effot you can model out a whole of life cost - and see the comparison between a large up front investment vesus a small up-front - and the relative payoff over following years.

But at that initial stage - where you only want to spend 30-60 minutes on te topic, what do you do?

(photo care of kevindooley, CC at Flickr.)

In 2001 Peter Meyer of AST Group (South Africa) wrote a top ten list of reasons why projects fail.

Here is his list;

The top 10 factors that have driven failed projects are:

1. Project sponsors are often not committed to the objective. 
2. Some projects do not meet the strategic vision of the company.
3. Projects are started for the wrong reasons. 
4. Project team members lack experience and do not have the required qualifications.
5. Incomplete project scope.
6. A project plan that is insufficient.
7. Project value management is not put into practice.
8. Insufficient funding.
9. No formal project management methodologies.
10. Not all project are going through a formal process.

The full article and descriptions can be found here.

I have two questions for you.

1. How many of these issues did you face at your organisation in 2008?
2. How many of these issues are able to be addressed by selecting one project process over another?

My view: Skilled and experienced people both in the project team and at the sponsor/steering committee are the essential ingredients for project success.  Process is secondary.  Tertiary even.

If you personally have a good track record you are amazing and the exception to the rule. Your customers may not tell you but they value the work you do highly (very highly) and you should seriously consider raising your rates.

You are worth it.

(Photo by B Tal, CC at Flickr)

…and with better handwriting than Dad!

Posted in Random      

Regular Crossderry readers know I’m partial to ERP upgrade tips and advice (here, here, here, and here).  This list by Beth Stackpole stood out as one of the more practical and insightful “Why to upgrade” lists around.  In particular, point four is often overlooked.

1. Upgrade an ERP system that’s more than five years old.
2. Upgrade when ERP system integration is difficult.
3. Upgrade when an ERP system is missing the “modern” features and functions required to efficiently run the business.
4. Upgrade when employees, partners and consultants aren’t using the system — or aren’t available to fix it.
5. Upgrade when it’s obviously time, whether the hard upgrade ROI is clear or not.

As they say… read the whole post.

Posted in Business Case, Complexity, Implementation Costs, IT Strategy   Tagged: Beth Stackpole, SAP Upgrades, SearchManufacturing, SearchSAP, Upgrades   

Not my leadership role model...

In the latest in an occasional series of horn-tooting posts, I’m pleased that my colleagues in PMI’s Global Corporate Council recently selected me to join the council’s leadership team. 

I’m currently serving as First Vice Chair; in April 2009 I’ll succeed Steven Borowski from Accenture as the council’s Chair.

Posted in Background, Random   Tagged: Global Corporate Council, Project Management Institute   

Thanks for Bas de Baar for proposing this chat on global and virtual teams and for the honor of his first audio interview.  The link to Bas’s post is here.

A little background… Bas and I had a great conversation on the topics as a warm-up for the interview.  Unfortunately, as we started to transition to the formal discussion, some Skype gremlins hit.  Fortunately, Bas had forwarded the questions — and I had bothered to prep a bit — so the recording ended up sounding coherent.  I guess that the “6 P’s” and a bit of risk response planning do work!

Of course, the interview was supposed to be 10 minutes and it is just over 20.  Hmmm… I wonder if I was confirming this PM myth.  Maybe you should think of it as a “gold-plating special”,  just perfect for you insomniacs!

Posted in Globalization, PMO   Tagged: global teams, matrixed teams, virtual teams, virtual work   

You... a "Hyneman"? I bet Kari can grow a Hyneman faster than you!

Finally, a guide to where one’s facial hair fits in the great chain of beard being.  I’m afraid I’m at “Comic-Con” right now (though my only “Con” experience is “Star Trek”).  I’ve had fuller beards before, but they’ve been pretty lame and untamed (in between a “Wandering Jim” and a “Brillo Brush”).

I have my quibbles with the taxonomy.  For example, it is a dream of mine to get to a “Hyneman” one day – I don’t get how it can be below my current level.  But it gets the lamer variants right.

BTW, kudos to my dad, who at one time sported the pinnacle of beard evolution — the “Claus-Esque”.  I hope it wasn’t jealously, but sadly his son’s malign influence has dragged him down to a “Comic Con” as well…

Posted in Random   Tagged: beards, Hierarchy of Beards, Jamie Hyneman, Mustaches, Mythbusters   

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

This quote from the Iron Lady resonated with me, because I’m feeling harried and impatient right now.  It is the end-of-year rush and everyone’s trying to book my time, get decisions made (the more hurried and ill-thought through the better), cadge some budget, etc.   From my experience, we run the risk of making bad decisions and generating useless deliverables just to tick off MBOs and get “home for the holidays.”

Perhaps this also works in reverse.  If I show patience maybe I can delay or mitigate the worst of the Christmas rush.  That I can make sure that I get my own way; or maybe more appropriately, that I point us in the “right” way.

Posted in Leadership   Tagged: decision making, Margaret Thatcher, patience, PM Quote of the Day   

OK, that title isn’t exactly what this post is about, but I couldn’t resist the echo of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.  When I posted on promoting a deliverables-oriented mindset a few weeks ago (here), I started a draft post about project deliverables that don’t get held to the same standard as most product-related deliverables. 

The first group that came to mind were supporting deliverables: training, [added 9 Dec for clarity] organizational change management, etc.   While such deliverables may be tangible, validating the effectiveness of such deliverables is more problematic.  At least in my experience, the tendency in both cases is to focus on production measures (e.g., classes delivered, content uploaded/downloaded) or soft measures such as customer or training satisfaction.

We wouldn’t accept such fuzzy success measures for our solution deliverables, would we?  Have you all see better ways to measure and ensure the effectiveness of such enabling deliverables?  I have a few ideas and experiences, but I’d like to hear from you all first.

Posted in Methodology, Organizational Change Management, Scope Management   Tagged: deliverables   

Breanne at The MBTI Blog posted a comment on my Typealyzer post (here).  I didn’t take Typealyzer quite so seriously as some — after all, my post’s title was “My Blogging Personality Type”.  My take is that Typealyzer mostly an interesting coding exercise.  It is hardly consistent (I tried it again after another post and it came back ISFJ) and could be misinterpreted, so  Breanne’s comment was constructive:

… I write a blog about the MBTI and wrote a post about how Typealyzer is basically junk. I know lots of people are checking it out for entertainment sake- and that’s totally cool…but I hope you don’t confuse those “blog type” results for your own personality type…. [H]ere’s the original post: http://www.thembtiblog.com/2008/11/websites-that-ruin-my-day.html.

Of course, Breanne’s comments beg the question of the reliability and validity of the MBTI itself. Like most psychological tools, it measuring multiple dimensions of a chaotic system.  And MBTI is about as reliable and valid — if not more so — as other personality inventories. 

MBTI tests, however, aren’t reliable in the way most lay people think of reliable.  For example, did you know that on retests, people come out with three to four [MBTI] type preferences the same 75% to 90% of the time?  Not quite as impressive as the .01 and .05 significance tests one plays around with Stats 101? 

This misunderstanding of the limits of the tool compounds the misperception that one’s MBTI type is black-and-white and immutable.  To my mind, self-awareness and mindfulness benefits aside, one of the main advantages of doing MBTI with a professional is that he/she can point out such caveats — usually by noting which of one’s preferences are strong and which are weak.

Posted in Communications   Tagged: MBTI, Myers-Briggs, personal change, Personality Tests, Personality Type   

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation. 

I’ve always liked this quote and I happened upon it last night again.  Regardless of Spencer’s  (somewhat unearned) academic infamy as the father of Social Darwinism, it was other aspects of his thought that penetrated the way we think today. 

In particular, Spencer emphasized the ability of individuals to learn and discern.  His attempt to integrate 19th century concepts of evolution into this idea of perfectibility — an attempt to merge “nature” and “nurture” – ended up obscuring that optimistic message behind the more arbitrary and harsh ideas of natural selection.  

His suggestion here, that everyone could use the ideals of scientific enquiry to progress and improve, highlights the most attractive dimension of his thinking.

Posted in People Development   Tagged: Herbert Spencer, ignorance, personal change, PM Quote of the Day   

Nothing is inevitable until it happens.

A. J. P. Taylor was perhaps the best-known British historian of the 20th century.  He is best known for his controversial revisionist take on the causes of World War II.  In particular, he discounted the then-popular idea that Hitler had a grand plan to start World War II, he highlighted the flaws of the Versailles Treaty, and he pointed out the popularity and allure of policies that now appear to have been mistakes.  Taylor’s revisions have in turn been revised themselves — most historians don’t buy the fundamental thrust of Taylor’s thesis — but his work is still regarded as valuable because he shattered stereotypes that prevented a balanced look at the run-up to the war. 

Like many historical events, the failure and success of many projects appears very cut-and-dried in retrospect.  In fact, even the most successful projects were often life-and-death with certain issues and failed initiatives rarely believed that their failure was pre-ordained.  An additional Taylor quote puts this concept nicely:

The historian deals with past events and therefore to him all history is inevitable. But these past events were once in the future and then they were not inevitable.

Posted in PMO   Tagged: A.J.P. Taylor, inevitability, PM Quote of the Day   

Just readiong some stuff... and was reminded that PRINCE2 stands for "Projects in Controlled Environments."

Aha! A disclaimer!

So, if your environment is not controlled, does this mean Prince2 is not for you?

Saying nothing… sometimes says the most.

This quote attracted my attention, probably because I recently posted a Calvin Coolidge quote touching on a similar theme (here).  While poking around the ol’ Interweb I found a Tom Evslin post on negotiation (here) that conveys just how well silence can reinforce the few words you do say.   I particularly like the way Tom transitions to the start of the negotiation itself:

We didn’t apologize for keeping them waiting. Mr. Oak [Tom's negotiation mentor's pseudonym] didn’t ask how they were hitting them or about their wives and families. He instructed me to read the list of offences which I did. When I finished, they started to read the list of our offences which Mr. Oak hadn’t let me prepare for.

“That’s irrelevant,” Mr. Oak said. On his desk under a plastic sheet he kept lists of words. They were in columns of harsh, strong, and mild. For example, “fight”, “argue”, “discuss”.  Lesson #10: Choose your few words carefully.

Also, isn’t that great advice about the lists of words?   I’ll have to work that into my commonplace book.

Posted in Communications, Leadership, Random   Tagged: Emily Dickinson, PM Quote of the Day, Tom Evslin   

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my project. Prepare to die.

Nice to see that projects are being ended more often than I would have thought.  Michael Krigsman (here) points to a survey (here) where just under 45 percent of the surveyed organizations claimed to have ended a IT project before it was fully implemented.

Roughly half of these projects were stopped for business-related reasons: changed priorities or business needs or because they didn’t align with business strategy.  Another 40 percent were ended because of what sound like project execution issues: they didn’t deliver as promised or were over budget.

A big miss IMO, is that the survey results don’t note the phase in which these projects were ended or how much of the budgeted cost was spent.  That would have given more insight into how effective the portfolio review processes really were.

Based on my experience, projects stopped for business reasons experience a quick and efficient death.  Any rudimentary portfolio process — even if informal — usually catches these issues earlier and dispatches them in such a way that all know that it was the right thing to do.  Sadly, poorly executed projects often become undead zombies or vampires — hiding and spending in the dark – until someone finally puts a stake in their hearts (FYI, zombie execution techniques here).

Posted in PMO, Portfolio Management, Program Management, Project Management, Strategy Management, Troubled Projects   Tagged: IT Project Failures, Michael Krigsman, Zombie projects   

[T]he principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance. It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities; that we are actually to practice a genuine humility.

Yup, I did it... amazing huh? Sure I don't understand it, but never mind that. Oh, and call my team if something breaks...

Many misunderstand the main purposes of anonymity in 12-step programs — it isn’t just about protecting a member’s reputation.  While medical treatment of alcoholism and addiction is much more accepted than when AA started in 1935, it still carries a stigma in some circles.

As a practical matter, anonymity also protects the 12-step program itself.  It has become a PR cliche to have a failing celeb hit the rehab circuit — there’s even a Celebrity Rehab series — which is great for making people aware such programs exist.  However, such publicity isn’t exactly great evidence for the effectiveness of the 12-steps.

The deeper purpose of anonymity is seen when we look at the quote: the “principle of anonymity” is something of “spiritual significance.”  12-step programs are quite explicit that the reprieve they offer is contingent on the maintenance of one’s spiritual condition… and self-seeking is hardly a marker of good spiritual condition.

Consciously and notoriously breaking anonymity elevates the member over the fellowship or the program.  It is just like a manager claiming credit for something he/she wasn’t truly responsible for.  Also, ego elevation isn’t exactly what most alcoholics or addicts need.  Ultimately, anonymity protects the alcoholic or addict from the “tyranny of self.”

Posted in Leadership   Tagged: 12-steps, AA, anonymity, gratitude, humility, NA, PM Quote of the Day