On the Subject of your November Editorial on the
Future of Project Management
November 4, 2008
David
I have some comments on your paper on the future of PM. I like and agree with most of your points but would like to emphasize a couple of additional ideas.
1. I see project management (PM) and general management (GM) growing closer together. Young MBAs will get PM jobs early in their careers. All MBAs will learn PM which is not rocket science. With flatter organizations Projects are becoming much more part of general business. PM will be a path way to general management and many future bosses will be promoted from PMs. The PM’s job in a matrix allows managers to learn multiple functions early in their careers while functional managers learn just one function and grow biased. Good PM will become a very important part of the success of organizations to meet the requirements of faster, better and cheaper. General Managers will need to know project management.
2. PM will be managing the entire project life cycle not just the Implementation Phase as the PMI PMBOK seems to say. How projects get selected and how they relate to the corporate strategy is the interface between PM and Corporate Planning. PMI PMBOK says nothing about this. The selection of projects and managing the organization’s portfolio of projects is the interface between General Management and Project Management.
3. I agree on different PM approaches for different types of projects. Russ Archibald and I have worked on this for years and I gave papers on it at IPMA Florence and PMI Philadelphia. A revised version is available on Max Wideman’s web site.
Are agile and scrum just for IT software, by the way?
Bob Youker
Maryland, USA
On the Subject of the Precedence Diagramming Method
of Scheduling
November 5, 2008
Hi David,
I am always disturbed and 'distressed' when I read [re Alan Stretton] someone glorifying PDM as the Holy Grail of networking methods.
I have to wonder if they 1] really know what they are saying, 2] aren't woefully out of date with contemporary practices and the pitfalls thereof, and 3] deluding themselves as to the validity of the 'schedules' they are developing.
Given, Alan's example was from the 60's when we didn't have the computer solutions to the resource allocation challenge that we have today and have had for the past 30 years, albeit rarely used. Whereas PDM may have avoided his double dummy situation in the classic 'ladder-feed' diagrams it is not apropos today, nor has it been for a long time. The 'ladder-feed' method was of course an attempt to schedule resources when the limit was only one resource per activity and that was implied by the activity's description. Kelley & Walker told us 50 years ago that this practice should be discarded as it fixes 'a' solution and hides all the other possibilities.
I think you know that I have divided PDM into 2 parts: basic and compound.
Basic PDM has only F-S relationships, no leads, lags, S-S, or F-F ties. Interestingly, the State Dept's scheduling specification requires only this method. Compound PDM has all the other bells and whistles and I challenge anyone to tell me the schedule parameters for just a simple 10 activity fragnet. And moreover, what happens when just one activity is delayed after it starts.
Just like the KISS principle, simpler is better because with it we can understand what we are doing. Who are we trying to impress anyway ? Compound PDM is the stuff of which claim litigation is made of.
I will read your editorial tonight at dinner. 10 pages ?
Best regards,
Earl Glenwright
Sofia, Bulgaria
On the Subject of PM World Today
and my November Paper
5 November 2008
Hi, David.
I wanted to commend you on all the work that you are doing to expand PM Forum and PM World Today. The involvement of the recently announced international correspondents, as well as Professor Anbari, will certainly increase the value of this already premium online PM magazine. Congratulations!
BTW, I also wanted to share that a few readers have given favorable feedback about my PM World Today November article – the first time any of my publications has elicited a response. It’s gratifying to know that something one has written has positively impacted someone else – no doubt that’s very familiar terrain for you.
Regards,
Andrea Nicholas, Principal
Optimize!
Plano, Texas, USA
www.optimizesolutions.net
On the Subject of Your November Editorial
November 12, 2008
Dear David,
Re: PM WORLD TODAY - EDITORIAL - NOVEMBER 2008: “The Future of Project Management is Not a Straight Line!”
Some potted comments . . .
DP: Rather than dwell on definitions or first principles, however, I prefer to discuss context as a basis for predicting the future.
and -
DP: The evolving global environment for projects and PM should also be considered,
including the cultural, economic, industrial, political and social conditions within
which projects are being initiated around the world today.
Does that context and environment include the current economic melt down??!
DP: Typical attributes of projects being analyzed in a PPM process include each project's total expected cost, consumption of scarce resources (human or otherwise) expected timeline and schedule of investment, expected nature, magnitude and timing of benefits to be realized, and relationship or interdependencies with other projects in the portfolio." [11]
To say nothing of the broader aspect of risk in the corporate environment as distinct from simple project risk . . .
Project portfolio management, by the way, although it obviously involves projects, is not an extension of project management. It is an executive level discipline of general management that involves different process and different skills to manage.
DP: * Classic Model A - based on early development from the 1950s and since then
in the space, defense, engineering and construction industries, this model represents planning and management methods for capital investment and national or social infrastructure projects;
Oh, if only we could get our academics to get their heads around the fact that "Managing the Technology" is not the same as "Managing the Project". Obviously, the two must move in sync but they are NOT the same thing. We would all be able to see the discipline of project management much more clearly if the two were separately identified.
The process of managing the technology (be it construction, IT, admin., whatever) is a process within the process of managing the project.
Managing the project is largely similar in principle whatever the type of project. Managing the technology, on the other hand, varies widely depending on the product being produced.
Max Wideman
PMI Fellow
Vancouver, BC, Canada
On the Subject of Your November Editorial
November 24, 2008
Dear David,
Your November Editorial -- "The Future of Project Management Is ... Not a Straight Line!" -- is excellent and stimulates the following responses on my part.
The definitions of PM that you quote are almost entirely related to "Operational PM'. We must expand the recognition of the significant difference between Operational and Strategic PM. Strategic PM deals with program and project selection, alignment with higher level strategies, prioritization, allocation of resources, and strategic direction during execution. In other words, Strategic PM is the management of programs and projects at the portfolio or enterprise level.
While PMOs and project managers can and do contribute to Project Portfolio Management/PPM, they do not make the strategic decisions that comprise PPM, as I tried to prove in the paper "Interfaces Between Strategic Management of an Enterprise and Project Management Portfolio Management Within the Enterprise" that I presented on Nov. 11 2008 at the 22nd IPMA World Congress in Rome. (Available for download at www.russarchibald.com .)
I am happy to see your emphasis on the importance of reaching a broadly recognized (and systematic, I hope) definition of project categories among all PM practitioners. As I have argued in the references you cite, project categories must be defined differently for each of the various strategic or operational purposes for which they are being categorized. To add support to your position on this I offer the following observations:
- Organizational maturity in PM is meaningless unless it refers to specific project categories.
- An organization's PM Process, in order to be practically useful and to enable the application of systems thinking for continual improvement, must reflect the best adaptation of the most appropriate project life cycle model, whether predictive or adaptive, for each project category of importance to the organization. One sized life cycle model does not fit all projects. One PM Process does not work well for all project categories.
- Project Managers are not readily interchangeable between most major project categories. Advanced training of Project Managers must be tailored to specific project categories.
- Advanced project specialist training, in particular in planning and scheduling and in the use of advanced PM software packages, must be tailored to specific project categories.
- In reality, most effective PM consultants become specialists in specific project categories.
- PM certification beyond the entry level really has little value to enterprise executives unless it is tied to specific project categories.
There have been some research and some useful publications on how projects can be (and are) categorized and classified. In my opinion, what we really need is recognition and acceptance of how organizations are actually categorizing their projects for what purposes. Then we can determine if there are better ways to define those categories, as well as the purposes. Rather than more classical research, we need a task force to establish a framework for compiling the current practices in this regard within industries and governmental agencies in all countries where PM is important, and then we need to perform the actual compilation. I predict the results of such an effort will produce significant improvements throughout the world of Project Management.
I will be disappointed if at least some of your readers do not disagree with at least some of these observations. Perhaps some with agree with some of these points. If so I hope they will share their ideas and opinions here, or with me at russell_archibald@yahoo.com.
Russ Archibald
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
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