Hi, I am looking to establish (adopt) a project management methodology within out agency. I'm sure this has been done many times before. I thought I would ask if anyone ware of any standard criteria that is used to enable the evaluation of various methodologies to determine the best fit for the organisation ?
Thanks
Shane Saving Changes...
Hi Shane, Do you really need a method that fits the whole organisation? For tech and knowledge work it's often better to allow project teams to choose their own ways of working. Saving Changes...
Hi David, thanks for the input and you raised a good point and I will raise this internally. Our tech work is done by another department which use the Agile approach as I understand. The types of projects we are considering to create a level of standardization in methodology, governance process, terminology, forms and templates etc. are projects that have fixed end requirements/objectives, typically these projects may be small to medium parks management capital works and planning projects (e.g. events, products, statutory management plans) etc. Appreciate your thoughts! Shane Saving Changes...
Rather than taking on a methodology "out of the box", it would be better to come up with a minimally sufficient set of practices and artifacts based on the relative complexity, risk and desire for control you have over an "average" project but provide practitioners with flexibility to scale this up or down as needed to fit the specific project context they face. It is always easier to start simple and add more later than it is to start heavy and then try to roll things back.
And definitely engage a subset of the project teams in developing standards to increase the likelihood of buy-in and sustainment.
Kiron
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1 reply by Shane Kearney
Nov 04, 2020 9:24 PM
Shane Kearney
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Hi Kiron, thank you for this input, the project I have been asked to undertake is to establish a virtual project office (with tools, templates and guidance) and we had been focusing on what methodology should the agency adopt in the first instance. Your input has given me another way to look at this and I think now that perhaps our focus on a methodology is narrow and may not provide enough flexibility for PM's to mange to scale, complexity and risk. Turning our minds to look at perhaps framing the standards (practices/artifacts as you say) centric to the business seems more sensible (and less limiting). Thank you Shane
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Take into account this: there is not a project management method. That´s the big mistake people made from years, sometimes the PMI helped on that. What you have is a way to create a solution, where solution is "the thing" to be created plus "the way" to create it. In this equation two critical roles exists: business analyst (or BRM) and PM. So, both works from idea to monitoring of the solution when it is in place. Then, "the way". You have a pyramid: approach in the basement (agile, lean, etc), on top of that and based on that the life cycle model (predictive, adaptive), on that the life cycle process (waterfall, iterative, incremental, etc) on that the method (V, SDLC, PRINCE2, PM2, etc), on that the tools. You decide what to use including it you can create your own. All these is defined at the moment of idea creation and it could be a project by itself. But going deep to your question my recommendation is taking a closer look to PM2 which is free, is used in lot of places of Europe, I use it from the begining of its existence, and it works with multple approaches/lifecycles/tools
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1 reply by Shane Kearney
Nov 04, 2020 9:28 PM
Shane Kearney
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Thank you Sergio, very enlightening, I will follow up and have a look at PM2
Saving Changes...
Wan-Phek HowCareer and Project Management Coach| Wan How ConsultingBurnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Hi Shane,
I agree with Kiron and Sergio. Please allow me to share from personal experience.
Years ago, as the new leader of a Project Management Office, I received many requests for standardization. Internal clients, managers and directors who used project services, told me that project managers ran projects differently. They wanted a standard experience. PMs also asked me for standard processes and tools. Interestingly, this request did not come from the sponsors at all; neither did it come from my VP. Nevertheless, I decided to head to the source of project management wisdom and duly registered for a PMI conference. My focus was to learn best practices for standardizing a PMO. My takeaways were three Ps: purpose, people, and process.
Thanks Wan-Phek How, I did read the article, having the PMO (virtual in my case) as the strategy execution office seem consistent with Sergio and Kirons input and has helped me to think differently. From your experience in establishing PMO's, have you ever seen a virtual project office and is there any material around framing/example of this that you know of? Thanks
Shane
Rather than taking on a methodology "out of the box", it would be better to come up with a minimally sufficient set of practices and artifacts based on the relative complexity, risk and desire for control you have over an "average" project but provide practitioners with flexibility to scale this up or down as needed to fit the specific project context they face. It is always easier to start simple and add more later than it is to start heavy and then try to roll things back.
And definitely engage a subset of the project teams in developing standards to increase the likelihood of buy-in and sustainment.
Kiron
Hi Kiron, thank you for this input, the project I have been asked to undertake is to establish a virtual project office (with tools, templates and guidance) and we had been focusing on what methodology should the agency adopt in the first instance. Your input has given me another way to look at this and I think now that perhaps our focus on a methodology is narrow and may not provide enough flexibility for PM's to mange to scale, complexity and risk. Turning our minds to look at perhaps framing the standards (practices/artifacts as you say) centric to the business seems more sensible (and less limiting). Thank you Shane Saving Changes...
Take into account this: there is not a project management method. That´s the big mistake people made from years, sometimes the PMI helped on that. What you have is a way to create a solution, where solution is "the thing" to be created plus "the way" to create it. In this equation two critical roles exists: business analyst (or BRM) and PM. So, both works from idea to monitoring of the solution when it is in place. Then, "the way". You have a pyramid: approach in the basement (agile, lean, etc), on top of that and based on that the life cycle model (predictive, adaptive), on that the life cycle process (waterfall, iterative, incremental, etc) on that the method (V, SDLC, PRINCE2, PM2, etc), on that the tools. You decide what to use including it you can create your own. All these is defined at the moment of idea creation and it could be a project by itself. But going deep to your question my recommendation is taking a closer look to PM2 which is free, is used in lot of places of Europe, I use it from the begining of its existence, and it works with multple approaches/lifecycles/tools
Thank you Sergio, very enlightening, I will follow up and have a look at PM2 Saving Changes...
I agree with Kiron and Sergio. Please allow me to share from personal experience.
Years ago, as the new leader of a Project Management Office, I received many requests for standardization. Internal clients, managers and directors who used project services, told me that project managers ran projects differently. They wanted a standard experience. PMs also asked me for standard processes and tools. Interestingly, this request did not come from the sponsors at all; neither did it come from my VP. Nevertheless, I decided to head to the source of project management wisdom and duly registered for a PMI conference. My focus was to learn best practices for standardizing a PMO. My takeaways were three Ps: purpose, people, and process.
Thanks Wan-Phek How, I did read the article, having the PMO (virtual in my case) as the strategy execution office seem consistent with Sergio and Kirons input and has helped me to think differently. From your experience in establishing PMO's, have you ever seen a virtual project office and is there any material around framing/example of this that you know of? Thanks
Shane Saving Changes...
