Volume IX - Issue VII - July 2007
Featured Papers
Project Lessons from the Great Escape - Stalag Luft III By Mark Kozak-Holland Project Managers are always looking for short cuts, lessons learned from other projects that can help them with their current project. This article is taken from the www.lessons-from-history.com series whose mantra is “lessons from the past that assist the projects of today to shape the world of tomorrow.” Many people today would not consider the Great Escape anything but a great war movie from the sixties let alone a real life event that actually happened, or even less so a project that embodies today’s principals of project management. However, it warrants a second look as a project in its own class simply on the risks that were taken, the management of risk, and the lessons learned. How often do you come across a project were you are putting your life on the line with the outcome of a project. Whether knowingly or not this is what happened in 1944, the POWs were absolutely committed to a cause to continue a fight as prisoners and cause maximum havoc within the enemy’s backyard. The film the “Great Escape” (1963) has had mixed blessings for the ex-POW’s of Stalag Luft III. It certainly brought attention to the escape and captivated its audience with its humor and action but, it takes poetic license with the escape. Most people will recollect the motorbike scene and Steve McQueen entangling in barb wire fences in an attempt to break across the Swiss border. But this is a very distorted view of the actual event as by 1944 the U.S. POWs had been segregated to a separate compound, and no motorbikes were ever used in the real escape. A train ride was the best transportation most escapees could hope for.
Managing Programs to Success: By Russ Martinelli and Jim Waddell Introduction Humans know that measures such as their blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, and white blood cells levels reflect the state of their health. Similarly, program managers know that metrics such as time-to-money, development cost, gross profit margin and profitability index are measures that reflect the health of their program. It is commonly understood that one of the key rationales for using metrics is that what gets measured warrants attention and gets improved. In particular, using program performance metrics will help program managers, their sponsors, and other stakeholders understand how well a program is performing, where and why a program has problems and tailor actions to eliminate the problems. This will, in turn, improve the program and keep it on track toward achievement of the objectives. Program metrics not only measure the health of individual programs but also show the effectiveness of program management-related processes, such as strategic management and portfolio management. In this manner, program management metrics are an effective means to integrate and synchronize strategy, planning, and execution activities. In the final paper of this series, we’ll look at how to design the right set of metrics for a program, describe how strategy drives the metrics selection process, and give some guidance as to how many metrics are needed to fully comprehend the performance of a program. An extensive set of program management metrics can be found in our book titled, Program Management for Improved Business Results (ISBN: 0-471-78354-4). Read complete paper in English
Read earlier papers in the series. Program Management: It's About the Business! (Part 1) Conquering Complexity with Program Management (Part 2) The Program Management Maturity Model TM: A Framework for Change (Part 3) Power, Politics and Program Management (Part 4) Managing Programs to Success: Key Program Management Processes (Part 5) Managing Programs to Success: Key Program Management Tools (Part 6)
Bridging the Academic and Business Worlds By Professor A. Jaafari, ME, MSc, PhD, CPEng, FIEA Centuries ago Confucius observed: “I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I learn” This maxim implies that professional development requires engagement to learn. Confucius has another interesting but related maxim: “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” I note that learning through engagement must be coupled with reflection to be effective. A major point is that ‘imitation’ or normative learning as I put it, is no longer sufficient for professional development in a world characterised by complexity and indeterminacy. Learning from one’s mistakes (assuming that such opportunities were to be available) is not feasible; situations are seldom repetitive and imitative learning is no longer an option. This is particularly true in projects and programs where high complexity is the order of the day. This being the case, one is left with the question of whether or not the current undergraduate degrees or even discipline-based graduate degrees are sufficient preparation for entering the world of business and industry, in an age of increasing complexity, uncertainty and change. There have been an explosion of new universities and institutions of higher education around the world in the last decade. Even in the developing countries governments have sunken a large percentage of their education budgets on higher education. While the number of university graduates has risen substantially, there is an acute shortage of competent managers and professionals at all levels of industry and business worldwide. Read complete paper in English
Human Resource Management in a Project By Sujit Mishra Introduction As we know that people are an important part of a project’s success. The projects are resource constrained. The management of the human resources on a project has a major impact on the project’s success or failure. Of course, this article has taken a general view, human resource processes are strongly influenced by the human resource policies and procedures of the delivery organization. Much has been written about dealing with people in the operations of an ongoing enterprise; leading, communicating, delegating, motivating, team building, recruiting, appraising, etc. Much of that knowledge is directly applicable to leading and managing people in a project environment and the project manager should be familiar with it. However, the project manager must also be sensitive to the unique needs of the project environment and as to how this general knowledge is applied in a different way than in the operational environment of the ongoing enterprise. Read complete paper in English
Introducing the Project Complexity Model
- (Editor’s note: this paper prepared exclusively for PM World Today, submitted by Trade Press Services.) Traditional project management techniques are based on a desire to decompose work into simple and easily managed components. Yet such a building block model just doesn’t capture the reality of projects in today’s complex and interconnected world. Until now, project management has lagged behind other corporate processes in its quest for simplicity while global entities have embraced complexity, even chaos. For example, enterprises have created complex organizational communities comprised of alliances with strategic suppliers, networks of customers and partnerships with key political groups, regulatory entities and even competitors. It is these alliances that allow them to address the pressures of unprecedented change. Scientists studying complex systems from ant colonies to galaxies agree: Complexity and chaos are the very nature of the universe. Isn’t it time for project management to catch up to what ants have known all along? Read complete paper in English
When Uncertainties Become Assumptions By Rebecca A. Winston and Pramod Mallick What happens to risk when one characterizes uncertainties incorrectly? How does an uncertainty become characterized incorrectly and why? What is the impact to the project beyond the implications just to the impact on the calculation of contingency? And if we know all these implications, why are we continuing to mischaracterize uncertainties? The authors of this paper have experienced first hand through an assessment exercise over the past six (6) months at seven (7) separate operational sites for the Department of Energy in the United States Government what the impacts are. The assessors are a private consultant with over twenty (20) years experience practicing portfolio, program, and project management in the Department of Energy Complex for private managing and operating contractors and a Department of Energy Program Analyst with over twenty-five (25) years of experience. The assessment was conducted using a set of interview questions that were standard at each site as well as requesting a standard set of project documents including the project execution plans, risk management plans, risk registers, risk assessment forms, meeting agendas, meeting notes or minutes, quarterly project review slides, earned value reporting, monthly reports, integrated project team charters, and other project documentation that may be available. Read complete paper in English
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