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In this instalment of my occasional Ask the Experts column, I spoke to Kevin Baker (pictured), Head of Project & Programme Management Operations at Airbus, about the work he has been leading to improve project management standards and culture at the company, including the improvement of project financial controls.
Kevin, you've enhanced the project management culture at Airbus. Has any of this work been around standardising project financial control or risk management? If so, what?
At Airbus we have been working to standardise all aspects of project management, and of course this includes financial control and risk management. Together with schedule management and quality, these form the pillars of a robust project management approach.
What have we actually done? The principles of financial management and risk management have been known in Airbus for many years, there is nothing really new here. What is new is to have a standard set of methodology and tools, so that all actors in the company start to work in the same way, and to use the same language. Over a period of a few years, and with a strong push from the senior management, this starts to embed the new way of working into the company.
Yes, it is really important to have that senior management support. Have you implemented any common tools for project managers to use for managing project budgets or project risks?
In Airbus we have a number of very large projects, like our new aircraft – the A350XWB. Their size and complexity requires a special treatment and we have developed our own toolset – it is called Unified Planning. This takes the schedule status and the cost status at work package level and then aggregates this up to give the overall picture at total project level, that is the status for the complete aircraft development. We also compare cost to schedule achievements to produce an Earned Value indicator. This gives the managers at all levels the visibility of where they are, and how they are performing. And it makes sure that everyone is working to the same information.
Do smaller projects use the same tools?
We also have many hundreds of smaller projects, and we have adopted a simpler toolset for these. But it follows the same basic principles – monitor cost vs budget, and schedule progress vs plan, then calculate earned value.
We cannot say that these new tools will overcome all the difficulties on our projects, but they make sure that we know where we are so that the project managers can quickly start a corrective action if necessary. We are not steering ‘blind’.
Data is a key part to making the right decisions. In order to get there, you’ve had to change the culture at Airbus. What was the biggest challenge in trying to get the company to embrace project management as an intrinsic part of how everyone works?
Airbus is just over 40 years old, and its strength comes from a determination to build the best performing products to the very highest standard of safety. The challenge now is to promote a project management culture alongside these existing strengths. That is to make sure that we not only build fantastic products which perform well but also that we make sure that we do it on time, and within the budget.
We know that the culture change is a long process. It is about making sure that we all think ‘project’. We have made good progress, but the journey will never end. So what is next? – it is more of the same. We keep pushing for a common way of working, a common mindset, a common language. We are deploying some levers to help here. For example we have a project management career path, which is linked to an internal project management certification process. This will help to make project management into a real profession in Airbus – to make more people want to be project managers, to be more proud to be project managers. We are also expanding our range of PM training focussing more now on soft skills.
Thanks, Kevin!
About my interviewee: Kevin Baker is Head of Project & Programme Management Operations at Airbus. He spoke at Project Zone Congress in Frankfurt last month about this programme of work to enhance project management culture at the company.
Posted on: April 09, 2013 04:46 AM |
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