The Path To The Corner Cube - A Project Management Fable, Chapter VI: Peering Into The Corner Cube

 

It was a Monday, the day before the next Operations Review Meeting, where I would get my only shot at meeting with Glenn Daystrom, the CEO of Acme Corporation. In last week’s blog I had given Oscar Pennington a list of data points I needed collected, and how to process them into the information needed for loading a Corner Cube model, and I was simply reading the stenciled script on my frosted glass office door, yrrebpsaR .T ylnastS, eyE etavirP, waiting for Oscar’s call. Finally, the phone rang.

“Mr. Raspberry? It’s me, Oscar. I have all the data ready, but I don’t think I should take it off-site. Can you come down to Acme?”

“Are you in an office, or a cubicle?”

“Cubicle.”

“I’ll need an office.”

“If it’s okay with you, we can invite Jane, and ask to use her office. How long will you need to generate your analysis?”

“If you have all of the data, then only about an hour.”

“Okay, let’s shoot for 2:00.”

“I’ll be there.”

* * * *

Oscar was waiting for me in the foyer as I badged in.

“Jane’s office is over in one of the transportable buildings on North Campus.”

I smiled to myself. Oscar noticed.

“Is that amusing?” he asked.

“Not per se, it’s just that you can tell an awful lot about a corporate culture based on the relative placement of the Project Management Office as opposed to, say, the CFO’s office. Is Lindstrummer’s office in a transportable?”

Oscar looked at me incredulously.

“I think you already know the answer to that question.”

“Hence my amusement.”

As we left the main administration building and towards the PMO, I could see the primary manufacturing facilities to my left.

“Upper management wanted the PMO located near the manufacturing plant.” Oscar commented.

“Of course.”

We walked up a short steel staircase, and into the transportable. It was arranged with a large bull-pen of cubicles in the middle, surrounded by enclosed offices with large glass panels. Jane’s office was in the corner, and she greeted us as Oscar knocked briefly and escorted me in.

“Mr. Raspberry! It’s good to see you, but I have to point out that we’re running out of time! Daystrom is going to make the call on the utilization of the new invention any day now, and I have no counter to Lindstrummer’s assertions that the decision has to be made on the basis of projected return on investment. What are you going to do about it?” Jane was NOT happy.

“I think I have a handle on it, but it will require, perhaps, some modifications to the way you view the problem, Jane. Are you feeling flexible?”

Jane sat back down, still clearly tense.

“I’m wound pretty tight, but I’ll try to give you some room.”

“Great! Oscar, sit down at the desk, open your laptop, and connect it to Jane’s projector. Then, fire up the spreadsheet that has the data I asked you to collect.”

As Oscar did so, Jane pulled down the blinds over her office’s glass panels, so that we were the only ones who could see the data.

“Let’s start with Jane’s data. Add all of the Earned Value amounts of the projects in the portfolio, and divide it by the sum of their cumulative actuals. I want the aggregate Cost Performance Index.”

Oscar typed and mouse-clicked at an impressive rate.

“Done. The cumulative CPI as of the end of the most recent reporting period is 0.97.”

“Okay, next let’s do Randy’s data, market share. Acme is currently at approximately 33%, and he thinks 38% is a reachable target. Put those two data points into your spreadsheet. Finally, Acme’s return on investment is 4.8%, but place the target at the most recent prime rate, 4.3%.”

“Done and done. What’s next?”

“Create an XYZ graph. Name the X axis ‘Return on Investment,’ the Y axis ‘Market Share,’ and the Z axis ‘Project Performance.’ Set the minimum of the X axis at 4.00, and a maximum of 5.00. Set the minimum of the Y axis at 30%, and its maximum at 40%. Finally, set the Z axis minimum at 0.9, maximum at 1.10.”

Oscar continued to type and click for a few minutes. Finally, he looked up at me.

“I think I’ve got it.”

“Throw it onto the screen.”

As the XYZ graph appeared on the screen, I couldn’t help but mutter “Oh no. The Trap.”

Jane heard me.

“Trap? What trap? What is this showing us?”

“This, my dear Jane, is the Corner Cube model of Acme Corporation, and it’s conveying bad news. Of the three types of management, only Asset Management is doing well, in that it’s beating its nominal target. Do you see the placement of the marker in the graph? In the Corner Cube model, there are eight possible overall scores, and Acme’s score places it in the sub-cube named ‘The Trap.’”

“Why is it called that?”

“Because if an organization is doing well with respect to its Asset Management, but falling behind in its Project and Strategic areas, then not only is the Asset Management indicator about to take a dramatic turn for the worse, it’s often hard to convince upper management of the need to address the other two arenas. This is the score of an organization about to enter its death-spiral, unless something turns around, and soon.”

“So all we need to do is to do better in Project Management?” Jane asked, anxiously.

“Well, yes, but in the near-to-mid term, that means that the Asset Managers need to be on-board with spending more freely in pursuit of not only the Project Management goals, but the Strategic ones as well, before pushing for better asset performance. Most CFOs will be reflexively against this type of management flex.”

“No way that’s happening with Lindstrummer” Oscar muttered.

“He’s right” Jane confirmed. “What do we do?”

Next week: What we’re going to do.