The Acronym Mill
Categories:
Leadership
Categories: Leadership
| Are you failing to rake in the respect, admiration and monetary recompense that are consistent with your advanced level of project management expertise? If so, you need your own business or management model, complete with its own slick-sounding acronym, in order to truly set you apart and make you stand out in a crowd of (otherwise) management equals. This is easier than it looks. For example, someone can, say, set up a traditional Responsibility/Accountability Matrix (RAM), deconstruct them into detailed instructions with lot's of fuzzy terms like "strategic," "engage" and "implement", slap an acronym on it--like RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed)--and voila! They've developed their very own management model. I love reading the synopses in the management course catalogues I get in the mail (yeah, I know, I need to get out more). You can almost track the entire debate among the Agile management practitioners, the Scrum advocates and the more traditional Waterfall Model believers just by reading what the instructors or paper presenters believe they are bringing to the table. I know: I'm inviting a truckload of comments questioning my intelligence. But Agile management strikes me as little more than the practice of loosening up baseline change control parameters to the point of almost begging scope creep to hit your software project in a bid to acquire the kind of managerial latitude needed to deliver software faster. Throw in some trendy tactics, like re-arranging the desks in the office and bring along the ever-present admonition to achieve better communications (especially with stakeholders), and then you can profoundly influence the conversation on management theory around the globe. I first became aware of the practice of deconstructing already-existing management practices and trotting them back onstage re-packaged during the 1980s, when "Activity Based Costing" was suddenly a hot topic. For you gen-exers out there, Activity-Based Costing (note how easily the acronym falls off the tongue: ABC) was the idea that a project's basis of estimate should be created at the lowest level of the Work Breakdown Structure, or activity level, and "rolled up" to total project cost. Problem was, this was the way that valid estimates had been created since the dawn of project management. Besides, what's the alternative? Estimating based on the availability of the organization's resources? For manufacturing, process or asset management, that might be a workable approach, but it was never so in the realm of project manager. Nevertheless, a plethora of ABC-themed paper presentations' titles started appearing in project management and cost engineering seminars. True to form, of the ones I attended, the content was made up of deconstructing the act of generating the basis of estimate into some sort of process guide--almost like a recipe--and then sprinkling in vague but trendy management-speak terms to make it appear new, or more sophisticated. To engage in a bit of deconstruction myself, at the end of the day all management models are nothing more than formulaic attempts at telling other people how they should be managing their projects. I can see why such models are appealing to consultants. But, for the rest of us, do they really merit all of the books, articles and presentations devoted to them? |
Managing Through Layoffs
Categories:
PM & the Economy
Categories: PM & the Economy
| The bad news keeps pouring in when it comes to job markets around the globe. In Israel, nearly 20,000 people lost their jobs in January. In Ireland, that number neared 37,000. And in the United States, it was a staggering 600,000. While such details are simultaneously horrifying and fascinating, it raises a question: Who is taking on all the work these layoffs have left behind? In a recent article, Cynthia K. West, Ph.D., vice president of Project Insight, highlighted several factors that organizations, resource managers and project managers must face when job losses occur. They include: • Replacing resources on existing processShe goes on to say: "The most immediate challenge that arises is the replacement of resources on existing projects. More often than not, projects in process still need to be completed on schedule--and within budget. The questions that must be answered are: Do the remaining resources on the team have the skill sets to complete the work? Can we transition these tasks without getting behind schedule? Does the organization have an effective way to look into the resource pool and know what skill sets the team members have?"So what is the solution? Ms. West makes several suggestions for managing these problems, for example she suggest organizations should put together a resource pool together to keep track of employee skillsets, while at the same time creating a knowledgebase that all employees can access and benefit from. It should include best practice documents, lessons learned, etc. She also says it's important to ask the question, "Does this project help the organization reduce cost?" And then prioritize. But what do you think? According to a recent poll here on Voices, more than half of our readers organizations' have experienced layoffs thanks to this global economic crisis. How is your organization dealing with the mounting workloads--and making sure you don't lose any critical knowledge? |
A Tough Question
Categories:
Leadership
Categories: Leadership
| Why do we require project managers? For delivering the project on time and within the current budget. But the project manager doesn't do anything on the project--it's the team or team leads who work hard to deliver the project. The project manager is the white elephant that sits on top of the team and does nothing. But, if a project fails, no one in the organization complains (except the project manager) about the team. Instead, everybody runs after the project manager since he or she was responsible for the delivery (without doing anything). But, is there a structure in which someone else capable among the team would be responsible for the delivery? The reason I ask is because in Asia many of the small-to-medium-size IT companies are more inclined to technology rather than project management. Their success or failure depends on the technology competence and project management has little to do with it. So should the technology manager be responsible for the success or failure of the project? It seems to make more sense, to me at least, that the project manager should just help him out on process implementation, preparing the plan, providing resources, etc. |
Come Out of Hibernation ...
| Even in these tough economic times, it's important to remember that organizations can still improve. Not everything has to be about cutbacks and budgets. (I mean, some things do, but not everything.) I came across this great whitepaper by @task called Driving High-Performance Projects Despite Shrinking Budgets: Three Keys to Increasing Productivity and Reducing Costs Across the Enterprise. It seems to sum things up pretty well: "There are many corporations getting ready for hibernation. They've already resigned themselves to crawl into a cave and wait things out. Organizations may need to reevaluate the way they do business in today's market, but there's no need to hide and let potential profits evaporate like the snow in spring. ... Project managers challenged by shrinking budgets can still drive high-performance projects." The whitepaper gives three keys for increasing productivity and reducing costs across the organization: 1. Make sure your organization has access to accurate information. 2. Focus on bottom-line activities. 3. Make the organization's vision accessible to everyone. What do you think? Is your organization hibernating or rising to the challenge? |
Credential Milestone
Categories:
PMI
Categories: PMI
| Roger Chou, Taiwan-based CEO of Advanced Business Consulting and founder of the Institute of Taiwan Project Management, recently became the first person in Asia to receive PMI's Program Management Professional (PgMP®) credential. We recently discussed what earning the certification means to him and what it could mean for the region. Why did you pursue the PgMP credential? Over the last three years, I have trained over 2,300 [Project Management Professional (PMP®) credential holders], boosting the number of qualified managers in Taiwan to 5,388. This brought us into the top eight countries of PMP-certified project managers in the year 2008--overtaking Germany and Great Britain, which were originally the 8th and 9th place. But I wondered if the PgMP [credential] could help Taiwanese enterprises cope with the worldwide economic downturn. I observed successful international enterprises survive previous economic hardships--what strategies did they use? I analyzed what they had done, and found they had produced synergies between their projects through portfolio strategies. Soon I realized these were lessons learned from PgMP [credential]. We can see the PgMP credential philosophy behind such successes as Nintendo's new Wii video game console, Sony's range of stylish consumer electronics, like Vaio laptops and Bravia digital TVs, and Apple's iPhone, combining mobile phone, PDA, music player, video player, and digital camera functionalities all into one. Unlike the PMP [credential], whose target audience are project managers, the PgMP [credential] is aimed at senior managers, such as company CEOs. The PgMP [credential] exam is concerned mainly with how to do things in the most effective way (especially with large programs), ... improve competitiveness, and, more importantly, guide business leaders on how best to coordinate projects to produce the greatest synergy. Why is continuing education and training important to you? I think if you want to stay on top of the world, you should always work to improve yourself by accepting challenges, which will certainly help you survive this economic downturn. How does it feel to be the first Chinese manager in Asia with this certification? It is absolutely an honor. It is almost an impossible mission for Chinese managers to obtain PgMP certification. I have read through 13 textbooks in English, which is a tough challenge even for native English speakers. My mother tongue is not English, and passing an exam that even native English speakers find difficult means a lot to managers throughout Asia. It signifies that as long as we are willing to make the effort, and use the right method, we can do anything. Editor's Note: Find out more all of PMI's credentials by visiting PMI.org. |
