Voices on Project Management

By Conrado Morlan

The project you led is complete! You are celebrating with your stakeholders and other project managers. The company is right on track to achieve its strategic goals based on the benefits delivered by your project.

After handing over the project to the business functions, you are now ready for your next move. You are nervous and excited about discovering your new assignment, so you don’t worry about your recently completed project. Somebody else will be following up on the project’s contributions to the organization. You’re done, right? Well, let’s find out.

During the first six months of your new assignment, you overhear that the benefits of the project you recently completed are not at the expected level. In parallel with your current assignment, you start looking for clues about what’s gone wrong.

Your findings reveal that related processes supporting the product or service delivered by your project are not aligned and are producing damage and losses, resulting in the erosion of benefits. Examples may include:

• Regulatory fines—The project’s support processes did not provide regulatory reports on time or were missing data requested by federal and/or local authorities. The lack of compliance results in fines.
• Overtime—The lack of clarity about the process and the changes brought by your project led the operational areas of the business to continue to do work as usual, producing incorrect results that had to be redone.
• Overlooked tax deductions—The finance department was not notified of the new process, and the organization continued to pay taxes that were supposed to be exempted after the project was completed.
• Union disputes—The implementation of the new project impacted union workers’ duties that weren’t contemplated in the current contract. New contract negotiations tend to be long and have a large impact to the organization.

So what should you do? Focus on your current project assignment and ignore the benefits erosion? Or work on a solution with the project’s stakeholders?

Whatever your answer, one thing you will need to do for sure is update the project’s lessons learned. The project may be over, but benefits didn’t reach the expected levels. So as the former project manager, you’re obligated to document what went wrong to support efforts at establishing a solution.

Have you ever learned of benefits erosion after completing one of your projects? If so, how did you react?

By Conrado Morlan

I once led a program to implement a new regional billing system. But to my surprise, the key performance indicators (KPIs) did not show the improvement we had expected.

Four of the program’s KPIs were low: quality of invoices, number of credit notes, internal cost per invoice and days of outstanding debt. Only one KPI showed improvement: duration of the monthly and annual billing closing processing time.

One stakeholder commented that the only “benefit” of the new billing system was to produce worthless invoices faster and reduce customer satisfaction quickly.

I needed to demonstrate the benefits, value and importance of the new billing system and improve the KPIs. So I used this SIPOC (supplier, input, process, output and customer) tool to help me focus on KPIs that were low: 

Exhibit 1

First, I identified the suppliers and input affecting the quality of invoices: The sales department provided the customer data, billing address and financial information. The contracts department provided the type of contract, contract terms, rates and volume discounts. Operations provided the manual orders and confirmation of order delivery.

This led me to discover the most common invoice errors: incorrect billing addresses, incorrect financial information and rates, invalid account numbers and missing discounts. All of these errors meant someone had to manually create credit notes, which increased the cost per invoice dramatically as well as adding to costs like postage and overtime.

I met with sales, contracts and operations to identify their data sources and the state of them. Sales used a customer relationship management (CRM) application to manage clients, but we discovered that its data was often incorrect, incomplete or missing entirely. Next we discovered that many contracts had expired, and rates and volume discounts needed to be updated.

The operations department electronically sent online and manual orders to the billing system several times a day. I discovered that the online orders had the fewest errors. But the manual orders, despite having great KPI scores, were filled with errors.

With these findings in hand, I recommended a joint effort to solve the billing problems. The goal was to show improvements in the three months. The following action items were established and assigned to the different areas:

• Sales—Cleanse CRM data and update customer master file
• Sales and contracts—Notify customers of contract expirations and submit contract renewals including new rates and volume discounts
• Change management—Create and deliver mandatory training to sales, contracts, operations and finance to explain the consequences of supplying bad data
• Finance—Establish monthly workshops with stakeholders to review the progress, record results and review improvements
• Billing center—Suggest changes to technology and processes that would improve operation and effectiveness
• Sales, contracts, finance, billing center, project management and change management—Produce/update lessons learned binder
• All areas—Update KPIs to be more meaningful

After the first three months, we started to see improvement in the quality of invoices. Customers also noted it; the customer satisfaction level increased progressively quarter after quarter.

In addition, the company’s cash flow improved with the better quality of invoices. Customers received the correct invoice the first time and so were able to pay on time. Fewer credit notes meant less rework, which helped the billing center focus on its core functions.

At the end of all this, I was able to report a successful program. And  stakeholders learned that KPIs results are in the eye of the beholder.

How are project problems tackled at your organization? Do you find your KPIs are accurate reflections of the truth?

By Conrado Morlan

The number of credentials offered by professional associations, hardware and software vendors and other organizations has grown sharply in the last decade. So have the number of credential holders.

There’s much to be said for certifications. Many companies require a certification to advance along their career path. In addition, salary surveys show that, overall, credential holders earn more.

On the other hand, some professionals and employers are not fans of certifications. They argue that many people have forged a career and reputation without them, that accelerated changes in science, technology and government regulations makes certifications hard to maintain, and that the cost and time of pursuing credentials are too high.

I see the value of certifications from two perspectives: the value given by the credential itself, and the value of my contributions to the credential.

The value given by the certification is the importance of the knowledge gained through earning it, the reputation of the institution or professional association that awards it, and the certification’s years on the market.

The value of my contributions to the credential has to do with how it engages me to actively research trends within my profession. This process can help experienced practitioners turn into thought leaders who share their experiences leading and managing projects across the globe. In other words, the value of a certification can cascade beyond the credential holder. Knowledge is shared with other practitioners, helping them to advance in the profession.

Yes, it’s true that some credential holders fall behind and don’t keep up with the latest knowledge and/or renew their credential. Other credential holders don’t follow the established code of ethics, which harms the reputation and value of the credential. But such misbehavior or lack of up-to-date knowledge isn’t the fault of the credential or the credential-awarding organization.

PMI, for example, has a strict renewal process for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification that requires certification holders to earn a specific number of credits per cycle to keep the credential current.  And over the 30+ years since the PMP was created, those requirements have been updated to cover market and industry demands.

You may be wondering why I didn’t mention the cost of certifications, and whether they’re worth paying. To me, it’s a no-brainer. I take my professional development personally and always recall former Harvard University President Derek Bok’s quote, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

If you’re a certification holder, how do you measure its value?

By Conrado Morlan

Do you know an experienced project manager assigned to a high-visibility project who keeps asking himself and others why he was selected? Colleagues and managers believe this individual is the ideal candidate. He brings strong industry knowledge, leadership skills and relationships across the organization that will lead to a successful project.

Yet he still doubts himself. In fact, it’s estimated that 70 percent of people feel they don’t deserve their station in life.

In the late 1970s, psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes coined the term “Imposter Syndrome” to refer to the idea that capable individuals find it hard to believe in their own capabilities or internalize their own accomplishments. These people see evidence of their competence as mere luck and sometimes feel they are not actually qualified for the position they hold.

For a while, I suffered from the Impostor Syndrome. Then I had two wake-up calls. The first came at the PMI Global Congress 2008—Latin America in São Paulo, Brazil. I met two members of the PMI Mexico Chapter who found out that I had recently achieved the Program Management Professional (PgMP) credential. They were more excited than I was about the achievement. I didn’t realize that I had not made the PgMP credential an important part of me.

The second wake-up call was at the workplace. I was part of a 360-degree evaluation process, and I discovered that the scores I provided to describe my performance were quite a bit lower than the feedback provided by my peers.

In my mind for many years, I was an imposter. In the eyes of others, I was crackerjack.

Have you suffered from the Imposter Syndrome? What was your wake-up call?

By Conrado Morlan

Over the years, I’ve had many discussions about whether project managers should pursue the Project Management Professional (PMP)^® credential. Some people argue that extensive experience is much better than the knowledge they can acquire through the PMP credential.

I appreciate the value of my counterparts’ experience and respect their opinions. Before I earned my PMP certification, I shared their views. But while studying the PMBOK^® Guide—my employer required all project managers to be certified within six months of hiring—I found that my experiential knowledge was enhanced by the new tools and techniques I learned about. I wished I had known about them during previous projects.

My eyes were also opened by a quote from Lewis E. Platt: “The danger of success is to think what made you successful in the past will make you successful in the future.”

The project management profession, like many others, evolves constantly. As a responsible practitioner, I need to keep my skills and knowledge current by reading the latest PMBOK^® Guide edition, as well as being familiar with evolving methodologies and standards in project management.

Here’s an example of why not keeping up with the latest publications and standards can be problematic. I often hear people talk about the “triple constraint.” But that concept is not in the latest edition of the PMBOK^®. Nowadays, project management is a strategic competency for organizations. It enables them to tie project results to business goals—and thus, better compete in their markets.

Finishing a project on time, on budget and within scope doesn’t necessarily help an organization meet its business goals. Today, organizations need to respond quickly to internal and external influences, which may lead to sudden changes in scope, budget, and schedule.

The need for competent project managers will persist—PMI projects  that between 2010-2020, 15.7 million new project management jobs will be created in just seven project-intensive industries.

Organizations no longer look for project managers with technical skills only. They’re looking for people whose technical skills are complemented by business, strategic management, and leadership skills.

The project management profession is changing, and pursuing a certification makes it more likely that you’ll stay up to date with the times.

What’s your view on the value (or lack thereof) of the PMP certification? Share your thoughts below.