PM ADVISORY:

The 4Ps of Project Management – The PMPs

By Donald A. Pillittere

Every aspect of business comes with the soup du jour of tools most notable by their easy to remember acronyms.  This list grows daily as academics and businesses march along creating what they hope will be the antidote that fixes all that ails business.  In fact anyone that has worked on project teams has at one time heard or uttered some of the following in their career:

4Ps, 5S, CAPA,
            DMAIC, DOE, FMEA,
                      PDCA,QFD, SWOT,
                                  TIMWOOD, TQM, etc.

Many have become popular because they focus a team on the problem at hand in a clear and concise manner eliminating human emotions that sometimes get in the way of developing a strategy or solving a problem.  Add to this the many home grown acronyms and teams have the business equivalent of the Swiss Army Knife at their disposal to tackle anything that impedes progress.

What is missing in my opinion is a simple tool that can be used by project leaders to guide them along the project expedition.  My personal favorite among the many acronyms is the 4Ps of the marketing mix: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.  Why, because after reading an 800 page marketing text as part of my MBA program, the 4Ps pretty much summed up the entire text!  So during my career when I had the opportunity to go to the dark side – into a marketing role – the 4Ps came along for the ride.  My peers and customers actually thought I was qualified for the role as I frequently opened the 4Ps blade in my knife.  Frankly, this simple tool slay many marketing dragons with great success and focused an otherwise ADD marketer (yours truly).

Given my plutonic love for the 4Ps of the marketing mix, I thought it would be fitting to come up with the 4Ps for Project Management (PMPs).

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About the Author Donald Pillittere Donald Pillittere is a Project Manager with Axxcelera Broadband Wireless, a leading provider of solutions and services for the global broadband wireless market, where he manages operational activities related to the manufacture and deployment of a portfolio of WiMax compliant broadband wireless products.  Consulting with engineers around the world, he also manages supplier relationships and reviews manufacturing materials and processes to ensure compliance with European RoHS/WEEE directives. Mr. Pillittere has consulted on a wide range of projects including the launch of a new CD-authoring product and the redesign of a factory site. As Worldwide Product Manager for the Eastman Kodak Company’s Professional Division until 2004, Mr. Pillittere managed the development and introduction of numerous award-winning products that exceeded sales projections and profitability goals. With Kodak, he also held positions in the Health Sciences Division and with Kodak Health Imaging Systems, Inc. Mr. Pillittere has taught graduate courses in Operations Management, Manufacturing Strategy & Tactics, Managing Manufacturing Resources, and Supply Chain Management as an Adjunct Professor in the College of Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) since 1999. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo in Electrical Engineering; and an MBA from RIT in the USA. He can be contacted at dpillit1@rochester.rr.com.