PM Practices January - February 2005
TASK FORCE TO STUDY MANAGEMENT OF LARGE I&IT PROJECTS
Technology Experts To Provide Strategic Advice To Government
Toronto– September 10, 2004 – The Ontario government is appointing a special task force to seek ways to improve the management of large-scale government I&IT projects, Management Board Chair Gerry Phillips announced today.
“This initiative supports the government’s priority to build a government that works, by ensuring that the government receives value for money for its I&IT investments and provides the best possible service to the people of Ontario,” Phillips said.
The expert panel will be chaired by L. Denis Desautels, a former Auditor General of Canada. The other two members of the task force are Carol Stephenson, the Dean of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, and David Johnston, the President of the University of Waterloo.
Reporting directly to Phillips, the task force will examine the government’s experience with large technology projects as well as recommend best practices for the future. The task force will provide general strategic advice to the government related to large-scale I&IT projects. Its report is due early in the new year and will be available to the public.
The Ontario government uses I&IT systems to support all aspects of its business, including systems to help police track offenders, to register drivers and vehicles and to deliver health care to remote locations. Large-scale I&IT projects are projects that are multi-million dollar in scope, require significant system development, and have a major impact on the delivery of government business.
Over the past five years the government has undertaken a number of projects using I&IT as the key to improving public service delivery. At any given time there may be between 20 and 25 large-scale I&IT projects underway in the Ontario Public Service.
“Large-scale I&IT projects are extremely complex by their very nature — we want to ensure that Ontario’s are well-planned, governed and managed,” Phillips said. “The task force’s recommendations will help ensure appropriate steps are in place to sustain and manage future I&IT initiatives.” [ More ]
[ Ontario Government Press Release Backgrounder ]
"Why Major Project Fail - Some Personal Observations"
by Dr. Martin Barnes
Executive Director Major Project Association
Leading
As the Executive Director of the Major Projects Association (MPA) , Dr. Barnes is a leading voice on the subject. The MPA is an international and inter-disciplinary organization providing a knowledge and experience-sharing forum for those involved with large and complex projects.
There are projects where failure is obvious and cannot be denied, he said. On close examination, the chances are that they will contain at least one of four main causes of failure:
- Lack of clarity about what is to be achieved
- Too much complexity-too many interfaces to manage
- Too much technological innovation in the project
- Poor relationships and using the wrong kind of contracts between those who contribute to the project
"Any one of these introduces a good chance of failure. If you have all four writ large, there is no project manager, however competent, who stands a chance of finishing the project on time and on budget and so that the finished thing works, " said Dr. Barnes.
Whatever the project and whatever the industry sector, the four failure factors can all apply. But can good project management really be a cure-all? Dr. Barnes believes it can, as long as the project manager is involved from the very beginning and can manage out the failure factors.
Right from the start, there must be clarity of objective, he stressed. Fundamental questions need to be asked and answered, such as why is this project being done and what is it expected to achieve?
Unless you have the reasons and set the right objectives you cannot win success.
Design
Design - whether for a building, an IT project or a new jet fighter plane - needs to be kept on track to ensure that the end product does the job. Building-in masses of innovation and new technology will complicate matters, risk failure and may be unnecessary.
"There is an argument that says, for example, if we want to equip the air force with planes that work we should restrict the number of new things to the absolutely essential for combat, reducing the amount of innovation and giving a better chance of the plane working properly when it is finished."
"The same applies to IT and building projects. Many designers always want to make their project technically better than the one before. Unless constantly kept in check they can build in two of the four failure causes quite unnecessarily and without anybody knowing until too late. Intense focus on the project objectives by everybody is what is needed."
Objectives
Making the business case at the start is as important for individual projects as for programs. It sets out the objectives, within a wider scheme, and provides a clear direction for all decision making.
"I believe very firmly that if a project manager is appointed to a project and has not seen the business case, they should ask for it before a start is made and, if there is'nt one, then help the project sponsor to work one up."
"Take a 'soft' project, such as a merger. The drivers for emerging two businesses are usually things like to make economies of scale and to tap wider markets. It is often not until after the merger that it is discovered that these things are not happening. Statistics show that 80 per cent of substantial business mergers fail."
"Most of these projects have been managed as projects only up to the point of merger. If they had been planned and managed right up to delivery of the real objectives they would have stood a chance."
"A good project manager would say on day one ' What is this project intended to achieve? It is not enough to know what it is, I need to know what it is for', "
"An experienced IT project manager, who might see thousands of lines of brand new program being worked up by the systems people should want to know which bits of system really need to be new. The PM can not decide that unless he has a very clear idea of what the system is for and how it is to be used and insists on the designers sticking to that objectives."
The larger and more complicated the project, the higher the risk of failure. said Dr. Barnes:
"Everybody's project is somebody else's sub-project. On a real major project of some technical complexity, you can be talking about a thousand or more different contributing organisations. They all need to be committed to producing to an appropriate quality and to doing their bit to make sure it all appears on time."
"If they have all been appointed on lowest tender and are motivated by their contract to make things even cheaper in order to improve their profit, the likelihood of the thing working when it is put together is zero. It is absolutely essential that the proper contract is being used, a modern contract designed to stimulate cooperation and a 'can do' culture."
"A project is a project from when somebody says 'We will adopt this good idea' until the idea has been turned into reality and the improvement hoped for is being achieved. Project management is always getting from State A to a better State B. It follows that a definition of a project manager is the person who can organise everything and manage that process. It is their job to deliver successful projects and the skills and knowledge that they bring to bear on all aspects will bring that about."
Dr. Martin Barnes, Hon FAPM, FREng, FICE
Email: cornbrash@aol.com
Executive Director Major Projects Association
Martin Barnes was appointed President of APM in 2003. He was one of the founders of APM in 1972 - his membership number is 10. Always active in the Association, he is an Honorary Fellow and was Chairman in the 1980's. A practicing project manager throughout his career, Martin is one of the best known advocates of project management of his generation. Currently, in addition to his consultancy work in the field, he is Executive Director of the Major Projects Association.
Big Project Management Opportunities in Healthcare
Reported by Barbara Ann White, R.Ph., FASHP
According to a recent article "Big IT Spenders" by Gary Baldwin in HealthLeaders News (November 11, 2004, see http://healthleaders.com/ accessed 12/10/04), there are big opportunities for project managers in the healthcare industry. Baldwin's article describes the transformation from paper based reporting to electronic medical records systems that is beginning in US healthcare. Large health systems with multiple hospitals and clinics have begun to commit resources to reaching the goal of electronic medical record systems and automated clinical processes. The commitments are in the millions of dollars for these long-term projects. The commitment goal described by one health system is to increase efficiency by integration of the clinical and business components of the healthcare operations.
The healthcare IT projects are high-risk. Baldwin states in his article "CEO support may put clout behind an IT overhaul, but successful implementations require teamwork from hundreds of employees and, more importantly, a culture prepared for automation." Several health systems describe how they prepare to undertake these projects, prepare implementation roadmaps, use project management offices and deal with the risks associated with such large projects. While there will be many opportunities for project managers in healthcare, many opportunities will also exist with the vendors of healthcare IT products and with the health systems that will be working with the vendors or developing their own IT solutions. The future appears promising for project managers who accept the challenges to assist the healthcare industry reach it's goal of optimizing clinical and business operations.
Barbara
White, a pharmacist and Fellow of American Society of Health System Pharmacists
is a Business Technology Analyst at Missouri Rehabilitation Center, University
of Missouri HealthCare. She is the project manager and principal investigator
of the hospital-wide medication use redesign project that will utilize the
latest wireless, barcode technology. She has provided IT consulting in both
home health and hospital settings in the US and Canada.
Max writes to bring the PMFORUM up to date on his latest research in project management.
A read of Max's project management "Issues and Concerns" provides
valuable insight into project management frequently asked questions avoiding
the hype and misinformation that is so prevalent in today's PM field.
January 2005 - We open the new year with a Papers commentary on a valuable report out of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Room for Improvement provides insights into the current state of project management around the world suggesting great opportunities and challenges for project management practitioners. Our Guest article comes form South Africa. Hessel Friedlander's case study explains how he Did Everything Right but Got it Wrong. In Musings we present another Email exchange, this time on PMBoK, Order and Six-Sigma.
November 2004 - Our Guest Bryan Shapiro, partner at the law firm of Shapiro Hankinson & Knutson, in Vancouver, BC, Canada shares his experiences concerning inappropriately formulated construction contracts. In it he presents his Guiding Principles of Risk Allocation in Construction Claims and Contracting Strategies. Good advice for those responsible for contracts in any kind of large project. In Musings, Kevin Lines of Queensland, Australia, asks about problem solving and decision-making particularly associated with project selection - and we try to answer in Where Do Projects Come From?
October 2004- Russ Archibald completes his four-part Guest paper with Project Management State of the Art - 2004. Part 4. In this he discusses project management in the next five years and his view of project management around the world. He concludes with a comprehensive list of references. Also in the Guest department, Tim Corman describes an Assignment Revamp: The Challenges of a Chemical Plant Upgrade. This will be of particular interest to project managers who are increasingly becoming involved in rehabilitation, renewal, renovation or other upgrade projects.
In Musings, I reflect on how the original Apple Macintosh computer project changed the world of personal computing (including the spur to develop Windows®) back in 1984 and, more particularly, its impact on the IS departments of the day and the expectations of IT departments tomorrow. The article is called A Project for a Life Time.
December 2004 - This month's Guest article comes from a variety of contributors who have written to me because the Earned Value Technique Sparks Discussion. It appears that it is not as simple as it seems, nor perhaps is it quite as useful. Our Musings also arises from a question raised by Barbara White, a contributor to this web site. Hers is A Question on Real-Life Contract Closure - what do you do when your contracts department makes final payment with out your consent as the project manager? Dr. David Frame supplies the answer. This will be of particular interest to those in the information technology arena.