Managing in the Presence of Change
Project Management == Herding Cats?
By Glen B. Alleman
The deployment of Project Portfolio Management and its connection with business process measures is critical to the functioning of any Program Management Office. I've described - in not much detail - how phased incremental deployment of short-term bookable value is needed if any change processes is to successful. In this column some of practical aspects of managing in the presence of change will be described.
Before moving to the practical issues with Project Portfolio Management deployment I've run across an issue in the discussion of the management of software development projects. The gap appears with folks who start with the premise that project management processes are performed separately from the management of software development processes. These software development processes are placed into a nice little box they call "product" development.
This provides them with the comfort of discussing project management in the absence of any specific business terms. Sort of like talking about accounting in a classroom setting, when what I'm interested in is applying accounting to a specific business problem.
Project Management and Software Development Management
One major difficulty in discussing the project management aspects of software development is the lack of a shared set of semantics. Many consider the management of software development to be a "product development methodology." While nearly universally, software development managers consider their role of managing the activities of developers and the delivery of software products to be "project management."
When "agile project management" is introduced to the vocabulary,
the traditionalist scoff at not only the concept of "product management"
as "project management," but that most of the agile processes are
simply re-hashed concepts developed in the PMBOK-style process manner.
What has finally dawned on me is the following:
- The PMBOK-style project management separates the management of projects from the management products and services through the creation of a "project manager" as a separate and distinct "specialty."
- Agile-style project management merges these two roles into a team where
each member plays are specific but possible changing role in the delivery
of software to the customer.
What then is the role of a separate and distinct "project manager" in a agile software development environment.
Whither the Role of Project Management
This is not only a troubling question, but a timely one as well. I've been asked to sit on a panel discussion at the upcoming OOPSLA '03 (Object Oriented Programming Systems, Languages, and Applications) conference with Kent Beck and other distinguished speakers to discuss the role of project management in XP development. What's curious here is that on the OOPSLA panel I'll be representing the formal project management point of view - from my office of Program Management. In the PM forums I try to represent the agile PM point of view. Two side of the same coin? Maybe.
Deploying PPM Requires Change Up and Down the Organization
Modern project management is heavily influenced by the belief that a project management process can be improved by scientific methods. These include the beliefs that:
- Clear-cut investment opportunities with an explicit purpose, beginning, duration, and end can be identified early in the project.
- Low opportunity costs for each business or technical decision exist, in most instances with a reversible decision process.
- Feasible, suitable, and acceptable project attributes can be identified.
- Accurate predictions of project duration and resource demands are possible once the requirements have been defined.
- Worst-case consequences can be determined in advance.
- The failure of the project was due to lack of skills rather than inappropriate feasibility, suitability, or acceptability of the solution.
Project Portfolio Management is a method of addressing the issues listed above. This is done by asking and answering questions directed at each "belief." But most importantly for the agile project manager the "traditional project management" view of project management must be replaced by an "agile" view. In an emergent software development domain, projects can be characterized by:
- Highly uncertain facts about the project attributes.
- Constant disputes about the values and expectations.
- High decision stakes with irreversible consequences.
- Urgently needed decisions in the presence of insufficient information.
- Outcomes that affect broad communities of interest.
In this view the project management can apply project portfolio management to answer the questions above "within the context" of software development instead of from the view of "project management as a separate and distinct discipline" divorced from the realities of the development domain, the market place, and the underlying foundation of users and business processes.
About the Author:
Glen
Alleman is Vice President, Program Management for the Information and Network
Services organization of CH2M HILL's Communication Group. Prior to this
position Glen was the Principal Consultant for Niwot Ridge Consulting, where
he specialized in the management enterprise application integration projects.
At CH2M HILL, Glen provides services to Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site. This work involves program management services for software development, server and network operations, infrastructure installation and removal, as well as telecommunications and wireless devices. Glen B. Alleman < galleman@niwotridge.com>
Follow Glen Alleman's practice of Agile Project Management through his recent PM World Today Viewponts. Here is a list of his 2002-2003 columns.
o Nine Best IT PM Practices
o Agile Project Management
o Principles of an Agile PM Method.
o Practices of an Agile PM Method.
o Agility and the Myths of Software Projects
o Agile Project Management And Earned Value
o Agile PM and EV - A Field Report
o Agile Project Management - A July 02 Field Report.
o Agile Project Management - A February - March
03 Field Report.