Voices on Project Management

by Cyndee Miller

Throughout its history, Los Angeles has picked up many a well-known nickname—La La Land, City of Angels, The Big Orange come to mind. But it might be time to add a new one to the list: Champion of Change.

Over the years, this city has proven it’s ready, willing and able to not just embrace change, but lead it. Just this year, the L.A. metro became the first mass transit system to adopt body-scan technology to screen passengers for explosive devices. The city has also stepped up as a leader in water diversification, laying out an ambitious goal to slash reliance on imported water in half by 2025. And my favorite example: P-22, the cougar who calls the Hollywood Hills home. A veritable celeb, he’s changing attitudes about how wildlife can cohabit with the local denizens.

This change-happy city makes the perfect backdrop for PMI Global Conference, where talk of change dominated. It all started with keynoter Jon Dorenbos, whose entire life has been a study in adapting to change.

The retired pro football player turned magician has faced unspeakable family tragedy, life-altering health conditions and an often-unpredictable career path. It’s a slate of challenges that, understandably, left him with a negative view of the world. “I blamed a lot of people when I wasn’t having success,” he said. “The more I blamed people around me, the more I lost myself, bit by bit, piece by piece.”

Eventually, he let the negativity go and revaluated who he was bringing into his inner circle. “You are who you surround yourself with,” Mr. Dorenbos says. “Surround yourself with people who you want to win more than you want to win.”

That new outlook brought him success beyond imagination, including a Super Bowl ring and a final-round finish on “America’s Got Talent.”

The secret, he says, is a willingness to embrace—and not become a victim of—change.

“The sooner we can come to grips with our reality, the sooner we can accept that change is not a bad thing,” he said. “It keeps us on our toes.”

No doubt words that resonate with the hardcore change makers, but how do you convince skeptical stakeholders of that?

By Wanda Curlee

What is the state of portfolio management technology?

That, of course, is a loaded question. Many factors—including the company and the industry—come into play. Nevertheless, most will agree that the tools of portfolio management have progressed.

While portfolio management can still technically be done with spreadsheets, it’s a labor-intensive approach that doesn’t make sense for every organization. So, if you’re ready to upgrade your spreadsheets, how do you know what tool is right for you?

If your organization lacks the expertise, you may need to hire a consultant to help. A consultant can assess the situation and determine the most effective approach to follow. It might be as simple as creating spreadsheets that need to be completed and analyzed differently, or as complex as implementing a new customized tool.

Whether you hire a consultant or not, picking the right portfolio management tool for your organization is a project. And there are many moving parts.

1. Create a wants and needs—or requirements—list. As many of you are already well aware, this is a wish list and there is probably no tool that will meet the full list. The requirements need to be ranked and maybe even weighted to provide a true assessment among tools. One tool may provide only one highly sought requirement but many less-desired requirements. On the other hand, another tool may provide multiple highly sought requirements but no less-desired requirements.

The weighted average can help those make a case for one tool over another. Those making the recommendation should be different from the final decision maker.

2. Customize the tool. The customization should not be done with rose-colored glasses. There should be a pilot program to see if the requirements are producing the results expected or if tweaking is required.

3. Begin implementation. Since this is a portfolio, I would recommend the big-bang approach. That means all projects and programs within the portfolio must be loaded. They need to be analyzed to ensure that the correct information is inputted. The project and program managers need to be trained to understand what is needed on the new tool. Remember, most portfolio tools also work for some (or extensive) project and program management.

Team members working in the portfolio need to be trained as well. Those producing reports and what-ifs must understand how the tool does these things correctly. Without understanding the tool, results may be less than adequate.

4. Compare the before and after state. Once the tool is implemented, the portfolio manager should run a couple tests to see if the previous state and the new tool produce similar, if not exact, results. If not, then there is an issue that needs to be resolved. It may be an easy fix, but more than likely there will need to be some analysis done.

Remember: A tool is not a silver bullet. However, if you have a large portfolio, a tool might be necessary. But don’t expect miracles. You will still have to do the value-add!

By Ramiro Rodrigues

The term path is used for a sequence of activities that are serially related to each other.

Imagine, for example, that your colleagues have decided to organize a barbecue. After dividing up the work, you are responsible for hiring the catering services. For this task, you are likely to have to look for recommendations, check availability and prices, analyze the options and then choose the best one. These four activities are a path. In other words, they are a sequence of activities that must be carried out sequentially until a final goal is achieved.

A project manager’s job is to estimate the duration of each planned activity. And if we return to our example, we could consider the possible durations:

• Activity 1: Seek professional recommendations—three days
• Activity 2: Make contact and check availability and prices—six hours
• Activity 3: Analyze the options—one day
• Activity 4: Select the best option and confirm—two hours

This sequence of activities will last 40 hours, or five workdays. And since the whole barbecue has been divided among various colleagues, other sequences (or paths) of activities—such as choosing the venue, buying drinks, organizing football, etc.—will also have their respective deadlines.

The critical path will be the series of activities that has the longest duration among all those that the event involves.

Let's imagine that the longest path is precisely this hiring of the catering services. Since the process is estimated to take five days, the barbecue cannot be held at an earlier time. And if it were held in exactly five days, all the activities involved in the path have no margin for delay. This means that if, for example, my analysis of options is not completed on the date or within the duration planned, then the barbecue provider will not be selected in time, which will invariably lead to the postponement of the barbecue—and leave a bad taste in my co-workers' mouths.

Under the critical path method, there is no margin for delay or slack. If there is a delay in any activity on that (critical) path, there will be a delay in the project. At the same time, other "non-critical" paths can withstand limited delays, hence the justification of the term.

It is the duration of this path that is setting "critical" information for all projects—when all the work will have been completed.

Do you use the critical path method in your work? If so, what are your biggest challenges?

Find Purpose to Unlock Exceptional Performance

By Peter Tarhanidis, MBA, PhD

There are three common maturity levels in developing project management leadership:

• In the first level, the project leader becomes familiar with PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) and begins to implement the methods in their initiatives.
• In the intermediate level, project leaders broaden their abilities by implementing more complex projects and demonstrating a strategic use of the methodology.
• And in the most mature state, project leaders demonstrate high performance by using advanced project methodology and leadership competencies to take on an organization’s most critical initiatives.

It takes many years to cultivate the skills necessary to execute complex initiatives of all sizes and types. And project leaders may find gratification in the personal development to sustain their performance, as well as their project achievements. 

However, over time, it’s not unusual to lose sight of that passion, excitement and engagement for executing initiatives. Instead, the project leader may default to simply providing the project management administrative activities of project execution. This reversal of development is a leadership pitfall and creates a chasm between high performance and exceptional performance.

One way to bridge the chasm is to be purpose-driven. A defined purpose distinguishes oneself as a distinctive as a brand. A brand is underpinned by one’s education, abilities and accomplishments. By identifying what is central to your interests and commitments, project leaders can re-engage with purpose and unlock exceptional performance. This can be broad or can be very specific in a subject expertise.

I have use the following method to find my brand and define my purpose:

1. Develop a purpose statement—this is your elevator pitch that quickly and simply defines who you are and what you stand for as a project leader.
2. Assign annual goals to achieve the purpose and watch your performance increase.
3. Create a network of relationships that support your purpose and brand.

Having used this approach to define my purpose, I learned I enjoy the macro view of the firm. I regularly coach leaders and help them develop their teams. Therefore, I like to simultaneously drive toward exceptional performance to achieve a firm’s mission and to advance the needs of society.

Please share your purpose and any examples of exceptional performance you achieved toward that purpose.

by Christian Bisson, PMP

Project success is typically defined as being completed within budget, schedule, and scope, and that has been imprinted so much in project managers’ mind that it blinds them to other important aspects that defines a project’s success.

Client Satisfaction

This aspect of project success seem to be more and more popular, and with reason, if clients are not happy, they will shutdown the projects, or proceed with another organization. If your project is on budget, delivered on time, and does exactly what it should be doing, but the client is so unhappy that they ceases to work with the organization, can you consider the project a success?

For example, if you focus so much on being on budget/schedule/scope, that you decline everything the client asks for without a second thought, chances are the client will not want to work with you long term. On the opposite side, giving everything the client wants and ending up late or 200% above budget is not an acceptable alternative. You or the team will often need to be creative to find ways to balance things out, and properly managing the client’s expectations is also key top this.

Project value

Another very important aspect of project success is the value it’s adding. A project that is doing what was planned, but ends up being useless, is not a success.

For example, if you create a great website, the client loves the design, the development phase had only few minor issues that were fixed rapidly so the team is happy, the project is delivered on time, on budget, and does what it’s supposed to do, however, users that go on the website are completely incapable of finding the information they need, and they end up always calling customer service instead, then is that really a success?

It’s important to identify right from the start what metrics will be used to calculate the project’s success, and tie those metrics to features of the website as you go to make sure a feature is not useless or solves an issue that has nothing to do with the project’s objectives..

Organization Satisfaction

The organization that has provided the services needed to make the project happen is also a key aspect to look at to define the project success, and unfortunately often due to lack of transparency from management, can be a challenge.

For example, there are projects that the organization’s management know they will lose money on, but for them it is considered a long-term investment to bring more business. If that’s not communicated, the project manager will see the project as a failure because it’s over budget.

It’s important to have visibility on the organization’s goals and expectations around the project in question.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you use other aspects to define project success?