Featured Papers - December 2006
- Measuring for Maturity in Process Improvement Using DataDrill EXPRESS - by Peter Baxter
- Churchill the PM - (Part 6) Churchill Assesses the Problems - by Mark Kozak-Holland
- How SOX Affects Payroll Professionals - by Curt Finch
- Project Management Benchmarking for Measuring Capability within the Organisation - by Laurence Nicholson
- Balancing Design Costs in EPC Projects: In-Office Design vs. The Site Engineering Adjustments - by Florin Gheorghiu
Measuring for Maturity in Process Improvement Using DataDrill EXPRESS
by Peter Baxter
Introduction
The practice of measurement has been experiencing a well-deserved elevation in priority in recent years. Demand is high across a wide range of industries for more complex software and software-intensive products that capitalize on rapidly advancing technologies. Delivering these products requires new management control and monitoring to ensure that the end product is of top quality, delivered on time and within budget, and satisfies all customer requirements. The principle mechanism for providing managers with the information to achieve these goals is measurement. As such, a measurement process is a critical asset for executing business functions and delivering
products.
PM World Today Editor’s Note: This paper is published with permission of Distributive Management, Inc. (www.distributive.com). We do not normally publish articles that promote specific products or businesses. In this case, however, we feel there is sufficient valuable information related to maturity assessments and process improvements that might benefit technology organizations with enterprise project management improvement needs or programs underway. As always, we welcome reader comments and feedback.
Read the full text of Measuring for Maturity in Process Improvement Using DataDrill EXPRESS
About the Author:
Peter Baxter
Peter Baxter is the founder and President of Distributive Management, where he directs the design and delivery of performance management and measurement products and services. He is actively involved in the development of measurement standards and guides in leading professional organizations, including IEEE, INCOSE, PSM, ISO and the SEI. Peter is a frequent author, trainer and presenter on the subject of measurement and metrics at events such as STC, Better Software, INCOSE, StarEast, TUGC and other symposium and professional meetings related to management and measurement. Peter can be contacted at pbaxter@distributive.com or (540) 891-8811 in the USA.
Additional information about Distributive Management, Inc. can be found at www.distributive.com.
Churchill The Project Manager - (Part 6)
Churchill Assesses the Problems
by Mark Kozak-Holland
Most people are very familiar with Winston Churchill but may not be familiar with his approach to project management and his PM skills. Part 5 looked at how Churchill acquired the project on May the 10th 1940, and took his first actions. This article looks at how in less than a week the situation deteriorated into a near catastrophe. Churchill had to quickly assess and prioritize the problems around him, a skill important for today’s project managers.
In today’s world many project managers have little choice in saying “no” to a project that is thrust upon you, especially one that is already in flight. They have to make the most of it, and quickly get a grip.
Read the full text of Churchill the Project Manager - (Part 6) Churchill Assesses the Problems
About the Author:
Mark Kozak-Holland
The latest book in Mark Kozak-Holland's the Lessons-From-History series is titled “Churchill's Adaptive Enterprise: Lessons for Business Today”
It draws parallels between events in World War II and today's business challenges. Mark is a Senior Business Architecture with HP Services and regularly writes and speaks on the subject of emerging technologies and lessons that can be learned from historical projects. He can be contacted via his Web site at http://www.lessons-from-history.com or via email to mark.kozak-holl@sympatico.ca
How SOX Affects Payroll Professionals
by Curt Finch
Editor’s Note: Employee time management is often one of the most important and difficult aspects of project cost control. For organizations where significant investments or expenditures on projects occur, time management becomes an important accounting and governance matter. This has increased with the Sarbanes Oxley legislation in the USA. The integration of payroll with timesheet and project cost reporting functionality is an important topic for those developing enterprise project management solutions. This article discusses some of those issues in the context of corporate governance.
What is SOX?
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 is a congressional act passed in the USA to prevent future scandals of Enron proportion, and is considered one of the most significant changes to federal securities laws in the United States. The Enron scandal, and other similar scandals, damaged investors’ confidence in the accuracy of all public corporate financial statements. Among the major provisions of the act are: criminal and civil penalties for securities violations, auditor independence/certification of internal audit work by external auditors and increased disclosure regarding executive compensation, insider trading and financial statements. In layman’s terms, the SOX act essentially says that you will go to jail if you are signing off on the veracity of certain documents in a public corporation and they turn out to be incorrect, even if it wasn’t really your fault. It requires certain executives at the top to sign off on the financial statements that stockholders typically examine before buying a stock. This potentially exposes those top executives to the risk of jail time.
Read the full text of How SOX Affects Payroll Professionals
About the Author:
Curt Finch
Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx (http://pr.journyx.com), a provider of free Web-based software located in Austin, Texas, USA that automates billing, payroll & project management by tracking time, expenses and mileage. Finch is a software industry veteran. In 1997, Curt created the world's first Internet-based timesheet application and the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt has managed development teams creating enterprise-level software solutions since 1985, with a focus on distributed workforce management. In 1992, Finch led the team porting Tivoli's product line to the AIX operating system, which led to the company's acquisition by IBM. As a member of the executive team, Curt helped launch The Kernel Group (TKG), a venture-backed firm that grew to 50 employees and $7.5 million in sales during his tenure. Curt has a B.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech University in the USA. Curt Finch can be reached at curt@journyx.com.
Project Management Benchmarking for Measuring Capability within the Organisation
by Laurence Nicholson
- Poor Project Management cited as the #1 cause of project failures!
- 61% of all IT projects fail!
- 52% of all projects finish more than 187% over budget!
Given the fact that projects have a low success history in general as highlighted above, especially IT projects – you only need to look at the press for the latest high profile IT Project gone off the rails – as well as construction projects (Wembley Stadium), it has taken some a long time to realise that in the same way that manufacturing processes are measured for quality, so too should Project Management. The questions are: How do you measure Project Management? What criteria should you use to evaluate the performance of your project managers? What do I use as a reference point?
As with other areas that have been measured for many years such as the manufacturing arena, selecting the correct set of metrics is critical to gathering useful and accurate information for management to act upon. Selecting the right metrics is more difficult in this service related arena and care must be taken not to create metrics that are of no value to the process and simply cost the organisation time and money without any return.
Read the full text of Project Management Benchmarking for Measuring Capability within the Organisation
About the Author:
Laurence Nicholson
Laurence Nicholson, PMP, MAPM, FPMA, is a highly experience executive and Senior Manager at Xoomworks, Ltd. in the UK. He has successfully led teams of 40+ consultants and developers, in multi-million pound international projects. He is a qualified Accounting Technician and has in-depth knowledge of several project and development methodologies as well as being a Project Management Professional (PMP), a Fellow of the International Professional Managers Association (FPMA) and a member of the Association for Project Management (APM). He has had numerous articles published in multiple languages. Mr. Nicholson can be reached at laurence.nicholson@xoomworks.com. Xoomworks provides extensive Project Management services across a number of business verticals ranging from practical hands on Project Management to providing advisory and PM Auditing services for internal and outsourced projects. For more information, visit www.xoomworks.com.
Balancing Design Costs in EPC Projects: In-Office Design vs. The Site Engineering Adjustments
by Florin Gheorghiu
Contractors dealing with Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) projects are often faced with balancing conceptual design costs vs. site detailed design costs as a result of adjusting the technical solutions to fit the construction concept.
These are stressful situations for the Contractor due to contract provisions that require the contractor to establish the final quantities for materials and equipment while simultaneously completing the detailed design. This is especially true for T&M (time and material) contracts. The situation is worse for open-ended contracts where the scope is not fully defined. In this case, the Contractor must establish on its own the final quantities of work and materials.
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Balancing Design Costs in EPC Projects: In-Office Design vs. The Site Engineering Adjustments
About the Author:
Florin Gheorghiu
Florin Gheorghiu, PMP, has more than 10 years of experience in Project Management methodology and process implementation covering the entire project life cycle. His applied expertise is centered on “turn key” Engineering-Procurement-Construction projects in the power sector. His experience includes large power plants rehabilitation projects financed by the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development (IBRD) and the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD). He has worked for Parsons Power (Gilbert Commonwealth), Lahmeyer International and Pennsylvania Power & Light (PP&L) as a project Consultant.
Recently he joined UTI Group, a holding of company in the field of large public buildings rehabilitation projects and building complex security systems. Mr. Gheorghiu is acting now as a Professional Project Manager for his company. His current assignment is a large complex hotel rehabilitation project owned by a globally reputed hotel chain operator. Mr. Gheorghiu lives in Bucharest, Romania and can be reached at fgheorghiu2001@yahoo.com.
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