EVM – Not the Dinosaur You Thought It Was

jurassic worldI came across a great article in PM Network this month that you should check out: EVM – Still Proving Its Value. As always, there are relevant tips and tricks that will help you in your career. First, EVM translates well across industries. Everyone speaks the language of money. When schedule and progress are expressed in monetary terms, everyone can understand that. I will add that this takes some education on the part of the Project Manager. It really is your job to promote and sell the concept to your business leadership.

Fortunately, there are two excellent vignettes on how to achieve buy in from the team and the executive suite for implementing EVM.

How is that applied in small IT environments? Well, it’s tricky, especially if you are working on contract for the company. Take just a portion of the project and apply EVM to it. Perhaps you can use EVM for just one feature or phase of the project. This is a scalable tool.

One more great tip from the article about integrating with Agile: Don’t be afraid of the multiple baselines and changes. Roll with those changes and show how EVM helps keep things on track.

Friga Recommends the Scientific Method

Minions use the Scientific Method

Kevin & Dave use the Scientific Method!

The title is meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. We all know that this model has been around a few centuries now. What Friga proposes isn’t necessarily new, but he advocates for a return to the basics as it were. A friend of mine said a long time ago, “If you never leave the basics, you don’t have to worry about going back to them.”

Apparently, many top-level business executives have left the basics of this model due to 3 factors that Friga describes in his introduction:

  1. Information overload
  2. Shareholder pressure
  3. Shortened business cycles

Those factors can be debated, but for anyone used to dealing with strategic business decisions, you quickly realize that you simply don’t have the time to do deep research on every decision. Many decisions are made using your gut. Friga proposes framing those decisions using the Scientific Method instead of just your gut.

So what does it look like? It’s just like you remember from your junior high science class:

  1. Define the problem
  2. Develop a hypothesis
  3. Gather data
  4. Interpret data
  5. Make Decsion

The article is a fairly quick read so I’ll leave it to you to explore the article. The purpose of my review is to tell you if it is worth your time or not. It is definitely worth your time. There are some nuances that Friga highlights that will add to your decision toolbox.

The biggest improvement that stood out to me was in step 4. Many times, we interpret the data to fit our own biases. We see this in the business world due to politics, budget constraints, and market forces. Instead of giving in, Friga recommends you examine data fairly – for and against – your hypothesis. If you can do that; if your team can do that, you have a much better chance to make a good, data-supported decision.

Check out the article, you won’t be disappointed.

The McDonaldization of Project Management?

McDonaldization of Society Book CoverI know there’s a more recent update to this, the 20th Anniversary edition, but I happened upon #6 at McKay’s Books in Nashville, TN for a great price.  Ray Kroc and McDonald’s weren’t the first to introduce this idea of rationalization into business processes.  That distinction belongs to none other than Henry Ford.  But the McDonald’s company perfected it. They’ve perfected it so well that many other companies across most industries have implemented some form of rational methods in their own systems.  Project Managers rationalize the process of team-based work. I was intrigued because while it is good in some areas, this process can be detrimental to other areas. This book had a great structure to analyze what is happening. There are 4 dimensions around which he works through the issue – Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability, and Control.

  • Efficiency – the optimum method for getting from one point to another. In other words, it is the simplest, cleanest, fastest way to satisfy a customer’s need.
  • Calculability – the quantitative aspects of products sold and services offered.  Everything must be measured so that the final two dimensions can be used.
  • Predictability – the assurance that products and services will be the same over time and in all locales.  There’s a scene in the movie “The Memphis Belle” where Virgil is describing his idea for a franchised hamburger restaurant. Danny says, “Virg, no one is going to want the same old food everywhere they go!” Virgil simply replies, “Sure they will, it’s comforting.”  Danny couldn’t argue with that and neither can we.
  • Control – increased control of humans through the utilization of nonhuman technology.  This technology encompasses machines, procedures and processes.

The book was excellent in its analysis but weak on solutions. The author spends a considerable amount of time setting up his thesis and then describing supporting data and anecdotes. It all stems from the work of Max Weber’s Bureaucracy and then extended by Frederick Taylor’s ideas of Scientific Management.  Any student of business management theory will be familiar with these works and concepts. McDonald’s simply brought rationalization out of the factory floor and into the food factory. The same process can be seen in any rationalized process, even in Project Management.

As a reader, I was left convinced that this is a serious phenomenon.  What was sorely lacking was any kind of lucid response to this problem of over-rationalization. He spends only one chapter describing three half-hearted examples that might possibly overcome this trend:  Starbucks, Ebay, and Web 2.0.

As anyone who has visited Starbucks or Ebay, or surfed the Web knows, those are all fairly rational systems.  The difference is that they use local systems to extend their rationality.  It isn’t really fighting McDonalidization as it is diverting it along a new path.

I can still recommend the book for its analysis of the current situation. As a project manager, I realize that most of my work consists of rationalization of processes and procedures.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. The interesting thing is how to avoid the problem of over rationalization. When does it go too far? When does it end up hurting people?

My interest in this subject is to ensure that wherever I practice project management, I prioritize people over processes. I believe we retain our humanity in all walks of life as we strive to do this.

The McDonaldization of Society is a great primer for exposing what is wrong. I highly recommend it.  But you must look elsewhere for answers. Begin with yourself.

Stakeholder Identification – Who is your REAL Customer?

As I opened the email from one of our project managers, my first thought was, “What did we just miss?!?”

This PM was holding a routine post-project review of the application our department helped create.  Unbeknownst to her and others in the room, a stealth stakeholder showed up and demanded to know why this software had the features it did.  He wanted to know why he wasn’t consulted.  He wanted answers and he wanted them yesterday.  We all know the type.

Kathy* (not her real name) forwarded me this gentleman’s diatribe.  It was a bit condescending, but had a valid point:  why wasn’t he included earlier in the process?  Didn’t we know about his expertise?  Why wasn’t it utilized?

A bit of research revealed that although this was a subject matter expert, the scope of the project was purposely limited to one department.  They wanted to use this software as a sales tool.  What brought this to light?  A thorough scope statement of course!

We often want to jump right into planning without first considering the audience.  We want to dispense with the small hoops that help us define our projects.  Yet, Initiation is every bit as important to the project as Execution and Closing.  We had done our homework and so we had the support to justify our exclusion of this stakeholder.

The lesson learned is that while it seems we whiffed on a key assignment, we had proceeded according to our original scope after all.  The PM forwarded the email to our CIO and he was able to effectively defend our decisions.  Proper initiation and planning made all the difference.  Make sure not to skip the small steps.  Small steps set the course of your journey.

Comments?  Feel free to post below!

PM Work Could Be Illegal

allyourbaseWhen I first saw the abstract in the most recent PM Journal*, I was taken aback.  I couldn’t believe that the patent wars had reached the shores of the Project Management industry.  Yet, here it is.  They’ve stormed the beaches without us even knowing they were there.

Here’s the key statement in the entire report:  “Nearly every typical activity in project management is protected by a respective business method patent.” How did we get here?

Business method patent law has been steadily evolving over the past 15 years.  A 1998 case involving Signature Financial vs. State Street Bank established business methods as patentable. Please check out this article that explain the patent troll companies.

A patent troll uses patents as legal weapons, instead of actually creating any new products or coming up with new ideas. Instead, trolls are in the business of litigation (or even just threatening litigation). They often buy up patents cheaply from companies down on their luck who are looking to monetize what resources they have left, such as patents.

This isn’t to say that the companies that own these business method patents intend malicious harm, but why go through the trouble? And who owns these project management related business patents? The usual players:  IBM, Microsoft, SAP, HP, and Oracle.

Theses are large conglomerate companies not dedicated to project management. In contrast, single product project management companies don’t have patents due to lack of experience with the law or, more likely, due to their opposition to intellectual property rights.  These companies also tend to be open-source.

The article is worth a review if for nothing more than to chronicle the encroachment of the big players into project management business methods. In short order, all patents could be the domain of the “Borg” software companies listed above.

*Project Management Journal, February/March 2014, Volume 45, Number 1
p.38, “Project Management Related Software Systems and Their Legal Protection:  Emergence, Distribution, and Relevance of Business Method Patents”

An Agile Migration in North Carolina

migrating birdsI’m reflecting on the Exchange migration discussed in the February 2014 issue of PM Network, “Migratory Patterns.” We implemented our own Exchange migration in 2012.  Our user base was less than 500, so by comparison, it was relatively easy.  We were able to use the traditional PMI waterfall model and it worked very well. Mecklenburg county migrated almost 10,000 machines and devices from Exchange 2003 to MS Office 365.  An impressive feat that didn’t follow the usual track.

This excellent article discusses some key components that will help you in your next implementation project.  First, they abandoned the waterfall model in order to compress the timeline.  Instead, the PM instituted an Agile approach.  This allowed the team to run migration every night, Monday’s through Thursdays.

Planning and documentation ahead of time were keys to success once implementation started.  Consider a centralized storage of data such as a Google Docs spreadsheet.

One other key factor was having a triage team available immediately after the migration to answer questions and ensure the users had made a smooth transition.

In our own migration in 2012, we conducted training classes using material and video from Lynda.com.  We then recorded those sessions and made them available online to any who had missed the webex and in-person training.

The next time you have a migration to plan, don’t be so quick to use only one staid methodology if your project would benefit from an alternate method.

PM Opportunities Abroad – Iraq!

Iraq-Erbil1It seems counter-intuitive, but there are a plethora of PM jobs all over the world for those willing to travel. I live in North America, but I’m working hard to take off the blinders of my U.S.-centric view. Case in point: Erbil, Iraq. In this month’s issue of PM Network, there’s a story in “The Edge” about conducting business there. Interesting article. It’s worth a look.

Myth Busters – Debunking 5 Misconceptions

busted-4e06601e43bb3The following is a quick reader’s digest review of an important article in this month’s issue of PM Network.*

Myth – Process Trumps People
Key Takeaway – The right people need to be empowered to break away from established standards. “Apply as much of the process as is necessary.”

Myth – Execution is Everything
Key Takeaway – A shift from proactive planning immediately to execution leads to reactive firefighting.

Myth – Risk Registers are Only for Planning
Key Takeaway – Convene separate risk review meetings regularly throughout Execution to ensure the mitigation plans are ready in case a risk is triggered.

Myth – You Should Never Kill a Project
Key Takeaway – “To have the business sense and strength to terminate a project that no longer fits the environment is to be praised, not punished.”  My own take is this:  It only takes one failing project to doom a company.

Myth – After Budgets are Set, New Project Ideas Must Wait
Key Takeaway – Accept new ideas and prioritize them throughout the year in order to maximize the best use of resources.  This may mean bumping an existing project, but if the goal is to innovate and improve, you don’t want to wait until budget season to do it.

A lot more could be said on each of these topics.  Please review the article beginning on page 43!

*PM Network, February 2014