Volume X - Issue V - May 2008
Featured Papers
Foundations, Frameworks & Lessons Learned
By Robert Prieto The delivery of complex capital programs worldwide is increasingly challenged by the depth and breadth of management skills required for successful program execution. Capital programs today continue to grow in scale and complexity; face growing human and critical material resource constraints; require global resources or as a minimum compete for them; and are increasingly sensitive to successful execution in terms of schedule, quality and cost. Program management in the engineering & construction industry is focused on providing this execution certainty by putting into place the organizational, management and supporting frameworks which are prerequisites for successful delivery of large capital programs. This paper reviews the ingredients of a successful program management approach and specifically differentiates it from good project management. While many of the tools and techniques of successful program management are similar to those applied in project management, the focus differs in some fundamental and important ways.
Storey’s Gate By Mark Kozak-Holland Most people are very familiar with Winston Churchill but may not be familiar with his “agile” approach to project management and his skills as a PM in the summer of 1940. With an invasion imminent Part 20 looked at the third area of the overall project (Part 16) RAF Fighter Command, and how emerging technologies could better manage its pilots and fighters in an integrated air defense or sense-and-respond system. This article looks at the fourth area of the overall project, command and controlof the whole system. A command centre at the heart of the solution was the final piece in the jigsaw. For the British the Battle of Flanders/France was a wake up call as agility was the new paradigm in modern warfare. An agile war is dependent on making the best decisions quickly based on the best intelligence available. This starts at a strategic level with the commander at the top passing strategic directives that are cascaded to operational leaders to make decisions and implement in the field. Churchill as a soldier knew the importance of this, so in May 1940, when he visited the newly completed underground facility Storeys Gate, he recognized the value of a secure, and blast proof site. It was close to Downing Street and was designed to protect him, and the War Cabinet, from the expected air raids. For Churchill it was much more than a bunker (see figure 1 below), and when he saw this he became very enthused to declare: “This is the room from which I will direct the war.” The facility was designed to provide Churchill a conducive decision making environment so he could respond with agility. It was a principal facility of close collaboration that made overriding decisions that affected the three other areas (Part 16-20). As a result, it subsequently became his new headquarters for the rest of the war. Read earlier papers in this series.
Catapulting Productivity with IT Project Management By Jim Miller According to MIT Sloan Schools’ Center for Information Systems Research, companies with IT governance earn at least a 20% higher return on assets than organizations with weaker governance. And according to Gartner Research, the worlds leading information technology research and advisory company: The Project Office: Teams, Processes and Tools: “IT organizations that establish enterprise standards for project management, including a project office with suitable governance, will experience half the major project cost overruns, delays, and cancellations of those that fail to do so.” In other words, to thrive in today’s demanding high tech business climate, there is no question that IT Project Management must enlist the aid of strategies that accelerate progress. To ensure best practice ideas, project management leaders, particularly in the IT world, must focus on keeping a team on track and above all, help to avoid costly mistakes. This is where IT Project Management and Corporate Governance come in.
Adaptive Project Management By Lev Virine, Ph.D. Originally developed by ecologists, adaptive management has become a powerful framework for project management. It is a structured and systematic process to continually improve decisions and practices by learning from the outcomes of previous decisions. Adaptive management includes a number of organizational principles, such as iterative development and avoidance of irreversible decisions. Adaptive management relies of metrics and quantitative methods to integrate actual project performance to the management of projects. What is Adaptive Management? Will polar bears die because of global warming? Most likely not, as they, like all other living creatures, are capable of adaptation. Of course, if global warming is extreme, no adaptations the polar bears make will help them find suitable habitats. Nevertheless, the ability to adapt is a distinctive feature of all life.
The trend of Earned Value Management as a Cross-Industry By Alexandre Rodrigues, PhD, Prof., Eng., PMP Introduction The Earned Value Management (EVM) method has been introduced to the Project Management community for a number of decades. Initially developed in 1962 as a result of a joint effort between NASA and the US Department of Defense, the practical application of this project controlling technique was for a long period of time confined to specific industries and types of projects, particularly to the defense sector and to large projects. This phenomenon has mistakenly created the perception that EVM is only applicable (or worth applying), to these scenarios. Our practical experience over the last ten years of using and applying EVM in the field, has demonstrated exactly the contrary: Earned Value can be used effectively in any type of project and industry sector, very often requiring little effort in small projects. Ranging from small consulting projects with durations from 1 to 2 months and teams of 1 to 3 consultants, to large multi-year complex projects in the defense or telecommunications industries, we have been using Earned Value successfully. This is not only because Earned Value is, per se, a very complete and effective method for project performance measurement and controlling, but also because we developed a set of unique extensions to the basic method along with additional supporting tools and procedures. In this paper, we briefly present this extended version of Earned Value Management along with the critical factors for successful implementation, in particular communication and data quality issues.
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