FEATURED PAPER

Is Something Missing from Project Management?

By Walter Lipke

USA

Abstract

There are many elements to a project … requirements, schedule, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk, procurement, and… Every project is complex and extremely difficult to manage to successful completion, even those considered “small.” The majority of the life of a project occurs during its execution. Although the execution phase is preponderant, there doesn’t seem to be much emphasis on it. The literature, the training, professional meetings, and conferences do not commit proportionate energy to methods and techniques to prepare project managers for monitoring and reporting performance. Neither do these venues for knowledge transference bring focus to addressing performance measures and indicators, or using them for controlling the project. This paper examines the assertion and proposes the application of Earned Value Management and its extension, Earned Schedule, as a way forward.

Introduction

Over the last 30 years, from about 1980 until the present, there has been a significant evolution in software development, quality systems and project management. The foundation for this advancement in practice is strongly connected to a few devoted quality experts and world events occurring more than 70 years ago.

After World War II the United States (U.S.) was the predominant industrial nation in the world. The U.S. produced. The world consumed. The quality of the U.S. products was of little concern; they would sell regardless. This economic position was held until about 1970 after which the market for U.S. products declined.

Beginning with the post war reconstruction, Japan’s business leaders learned and adopted manufacturing practices the U.S. utilized during and prior to the WWII. Most notably, the Japanese were taught the methods of quality by W. Edwards Deming. As Deming had prophesied to Japan’s leaders, economic growth came from their dedicated use of the techniques he had learned from Walter Shewhart at Bell laboratories.

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About the Author Walt Lipke Author Walt Lipke retired in 2005 as deputy chief of the Software Division at Tinker Air Force Base. He has over 35 years of experience in the development, maintenance, and management of software for automated testing of avionics. During his tenure, the division achieved several software process improvement milestones, including the coveted SEI/IEEE award for Software Process Achievement. Mr. Lipke has published several articles and presented at conferences, internationally, on the benefits of software process improvement and the application of earned value management and statistical methods to software projects. He is the creator of the technique Earned Schedule, which extracts schedule information from earned value data. Mr. Lipke is a graduate of the USA DoD course for Program Managers. He is a professional engineer with a master’s degree in physics, and is a member of the physics honor society, Sigma Pi Sigma (SPS). Lipke achieved distinguished academic honors with the selection to Phi Kappa Phi (FKF). During 2007 Mr. Lipke received the PMIÒ Metrics Specific Interest Group Scholar Award. Also in 2007, he received the PMIÒ Eric Jenett Award for Project Management Excellence for his leadership role and contribution to project management resulting from his creation of the Earned Schedule method. Mr. Lipke was recently selected for the 2010 Who’s Who in the World.  He can be contacted at waltlipke@cox.net.