PM Practices September - October 2004
David's Tip
Project Dashboards
Project Dashboards are useful to keep stakeholders, particularly senior management, up to date on the status of all the key projects in an organization. They help Project Managers to focus on significant project issues and assist in securing executive management support when the project starts to run into problems.
State of Virginia Dept of Transportation's Project Dashboard
http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/dashboard-intro.asp
State of Michigan Dept of Information Technology's Project Dashboard User
Guide
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Dashboard_Users_Guide_60672_7.pdf
The Michigan DIT also has an excellent example of a Strategic IT Plan, which
is a key component for any PMO to align and plan with and map to all projects:
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Strategic_Plan_91271_7.pdf
Stronger Management Practices Are Needed to Improve DOD's Software-Intensive Weapon Acquisitions. GAO-04-393, March 1
Highlights,the link ends with " high.pdf"is a one-page document gives the key findings and recommendations of this GAO report. You should use the Highlights to decide whether you wish to see the full report or testimony. [ Read the Report Highlights ]
GAO Report Abstract
Software developers and acquirers at firms that GAO visited use three fundamental management strategies to ensure the delivery of high-quality products on time and within budget: working in an evolutionary environment, following disciplined development processes, and collecting and analyzing meaningful metrics to measure progress.
When these strategies are used together, leading firms are better equipped to improve their software development processes on a continuous basis. An evolutionary approach sets up a more manageable environment—one in which expectations are realistic and developers are permitted to make incremental improvements. The customer benefits because the initial product is available sooner and at a lower, more predictable cost. This avoids the pressure to incorporate all the desired capabilities into a single product right away.
Within an evolutionary environment, there are four phases that are common to software development: setting requirements, establishing a stable design, writing code, and testing. At the end of each of these phases, developers must demonstrate that they have acquired the right knowledge before proceeding to the next development phase. To provide evidence that the right knowledge was captured, leading developers emphasize the use of meaningful metrics, which helps developers, managers, and acquirers to measure progress.
These metrics focus on cost, schedule, the size of a project, performance requirements, testing, defects, and quality. In a review of five DOD programs, GAO found that outcomes were mixed for software-intensive acquisitions. The F/A-18 C/D, a fighter and attack aircraft, and the Tactical Tomahawk missile had fewer additional cost and schedule
On The Theory of Constraints and Critical Chain Project Management
For some time now I have not taken the time out to understand the Goldrath Theory of Constraints (TOC) methodology. In any case I said to myself it is simply another variation on the many versions of the Operations Research deterministic network methodology. Russell Archibald in his tour de horizon of the State of the Art of Project Management, a series presented in the recent issues of the PM World Today mirrored my first cut concept of Critical Chain.
However from long experience in using the project management approach to the business of managing significant one time undertakings I am accutely aware that we are all prisoners of our experience. My personal experience in project time management was in the development and implementation of integrated project management master schedules which used the standard Critical Path Method and high end software like Artemis or Primavera to provide a time model of significant project undertakings. All to good effect.
My PM time management intellectual curiousity was recently revived by a new Yahoo discussion group dedicated to the Theory of Constraints. The interesting aspect of this new discussion group is the promise to start from the beginning and move gradually through user dialogue towards an understanding of the Theory of Constraints and Critical Chain Project Management.
Clarke Ching has set up the "Theory of Constraints Sofware Yahoo Group". His welcome message and introduction was..
"If you are interested in: Software development methodologies (especially Agile/lean) and Learning about Goldratt's Theory of Constraint's (TOC) thinking process then you might want to to join the new TOCSoftware Yahoo group
The analysis will be based on the work my MBA dissertation which was a TOC analysis of a real-life Waterfall style project. A revisit to this analysis will be guided by TOC expert Jim Bowles and have a much broader level of input.
Documents or diagrams created through this TOC dialogue will be published to the TOC Software Web Log."
I found the Critical Chain Project Mind Map on the Advanced Projects Inc. web site the place to start a "journey to an understanding of the Critical Chain". A backup glossary of Critical Chain terms is also online when the initial flood of acronyms becomes confusing to the uninitiated. For example, I had some trouble with the defintion of UDE ,that is undesirable effects to project work. .
This attempt at dialogue and email discussion is, in effect, an extended tutorial on the Critical Chain method and in easily digested steps. This online user discussion and the facilitation of Clarke Ching with mentoring of Jim Bowles of Advanced Projects Inc. has promise of leading to a better understanding of the Critical Chain methodology for the management of projects.
The August - November 2004 Issue of the Defense Acquistion Journal featured a Research article "Applying Theory of Constraints Principles And Lean Thinking At the Marine Corps Maintenance Center by Mandyam Srinivasasan , Darren Jones and Alex Miller. The abstract states
"The Maintenance Center for Marine Corps Logistics Base, Albany, Georgia, launched a program in 2001 combining principles drawn from the Theory of Constraints and Lean thinking...By implementing a pull system for scheduling repairs, the Center revealed capacity that had been masked. Today, the Center is ahead of, or on schedule, for 99 percent of the production lines where the Theory of Constraints principles have been implemented"....
The Defense Acquisition Review Journal's Home Page has a Table of Contents for current issues of the Journal at http://www.dau.mil/pubs/arqtoc.asp The Marine Maintenance Center's web site at http://www.ala.usmc.mil/maintctr prominently features Theory of Constraints and Lean Thinking.
David Curling
Editor PM World Today
An IT Project Valuation Survey
Sorin Gudea, a PhD student at Claremont Graduation University writes...
"I am conducting a study to understand whether country and national characteristics affect the choice of valuation techniques used for Information Technology projects.
The survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. I would greatly appreciate you sharing this information with the PMFORUM readers, asking them to participate in the survey. A larger number of participants will definitely increase the significance of the findings. The survey is already operational, and will remain open throughout July 2004 providing ample time for participation. The results of the survey are intended for publication in one of the journals in the field."
The survey is available at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=62670505805
Thank you kindly,
Sorin Gudea
PhD student
School of Information Science
Claremont Graduate University
USA
On Work Flow and Project Cycle Time
Donna Fitzgerald writes in the NewGrange email discussion list ...
"I found this article http://finance.isixsigma.com/library/content/c040519a.asp (on the Six Sigma - Financial Services Web Site)
The author’s contention is that the secret of success is matching the number of projects in the official pipeline to the project completion rate. I think the article is interesting but it doesn’t seem to be directly applicable to most of the project portfolios I’ve worked with. The reason is that the pipeline would have to be limited to only projects that have a duration of x period. With smaller projects (read enhancement projects) this might be possible but would it really work better than some other gating system?
This is one of my concerns about six sigma and six sigma related programs. I’m not sure that all management processes, especially those process with a high degree of variability, like project management really lend themselves to be treated the way would treat a product going through a manufacturing line."
Donna
Fitzgerald is the creator of the Nimble Approach to Project Management and
is a partner with Knowth Consulting. Prior to joining Knowth she held a variety
of jobs with such companies as Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Rolm, and Verizon
in finance and product management. She is the cofounder of the NewGrange Center,
a web based nonprofit project management society with worldwide membership
and the author of frequent columns where she explores the practical details
of agile project management. [The
Knowth Consulting Web Site ]
PM Solutions' Project Management Maturity Model (PMMMSM)
The Project Management Maturity Model (PMMMSM) is a formal tool developed by PM Solutions to measure an organization's project management maturity. It provides a conceptual framework within which specific project management processes can be optimized.
PM Solutions' PMMM provides best practices to help organizations determine the maturity of their project management processes, identify areas for improvement, and map out a logical path to improvement. It enables them to clearly outline what steps they must take in order to achieve project management growth and excellence.
Published in book form in 2002, the PMMM follows the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model's (CMM®) five evolutionary maturity levels, and examines maturity development across nine knowledge areas in the Project Management Institute's (PMI®) A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). The PMMM integrates both industry-leading standards for project and process management, the PMBOK Guide, and CMM, respectively, to provide a comprehensive, straightforward, and easy-to-follow plan for advancing organizational project management maturity.
PM Solutions has completed an extensive review and analysis of PMI's Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) and mapped it against the PMMM. Using the PMMM, PM Solutions is able to identify the most important OPM3 best practices that are currently being used in practice today and organize them by PMBOK Guide knowledge areas within the PMMM.
For more information on PM Solutions' PMMM, and free resources on project management maturity, visit http://www.pmsolutions.com/maturitymodel.
StickyMinds.com - the online resource for building better software
StickyMinds.com is an informative and useful online resource for IT project management practitioners. Styled as a resource for software development the StickyMinds site top level links to discussion and articles on requirements definition, project management, reviews and configuration management.
The PM Section is focused on software project management. More than 400 articles are listed on project management topics ranging from communications, team building to software development life cycle plans. A quick site survey reveals a large number of on line articles of current interest to those directly involved in the software development process and with a particular interest in software development quality assurance..
For software development methodologies there are articles on "Xtreme PM" and the use of "Agile development" for the building software applications. A StickyMinds Newsletter is a free sign up "for software professionals who care about quality".
This site is a must bookmark for IT project management practitioners. For more see [StickyMinds.]
"Best Practices" and "Context-Driven": Building a Bridge
by Neil Thompson
This Stickyminds.com article discusses how to employ "best practices" and how to also implement them as daily "good practices" for your project. The author's goal is to help your team understand the best practice versus context-driven debate and how to apply that understanding within your own team. Read the article on the Stickyminds web.