My manager is insisting to have criteria to help us decide when a project (in the most simple meaning the word "project" can have) needs to be helped by the project manager and the project management tool (in our case Wrike).
I don't know if you use these kind of criteria and if you use some kind of decision tree for that. What I told my manager is that any project that are dealt with by more than one person and/or that is taking more than 1 month should be put in Wrike and needs help from me, but he wants something more formal I guess.
Rather than write a long post, I will take my own advice and say: Keep it simple.
Use a dashboard instead of a decision tree. A dashboard in your car shows you a select few things you can change or tell you about the overall health of your vehicle. Pick out your crucial health measures and define your red/yellow/green criteria for what is healthy.
You can always add more as you go. Tire pressure or vendor quality is a common issue? Add that to the list of things on your dash board to scan for common issues. Likewise, if some criteria prove less valuable and simply add more work, remove them from your dash board. Saving Changes...
Another thing is that for any new project, they want me to set a "tool" to help them chose what to do next (let the PM know about the project for him to use Wrike and his Project Management job, or just handle the project themselves if it's simple enough): - Mr X want to start set new standards in his department, he uses the tool to confirm he should let me know about this project - Mrs Y has tasks to track with some customers, she uses the "tool" to see if she should put the tasks in Wrike and let me know about that "project" for me to track her tasks "Mr Z has a big project including several stakeholders and which will last for 2 year, he uses the "tool" to check if he should let me handle the project as the PM of the company, all with the help of Wrike to track tasks/milestones. Here it's obvious that we need the PM and PM tools but the want a "tool" to see the limit between a project that need a PM and a project that doesn't.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
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1 reply by Keith Novak
Dec 28, 2022 1:35 PM
Keith Novak
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What your employer is asking for is an algorithm based PM system.
Computers do this all the time, especially distributed systems like web hosted applications. Algorithms like is the process frozen?; What is the most efficient pathway to communicate data? How to obtain consensus among disagreeing members?, etc. map very closely to PM functions.
Those algorithms however operate on very repeatable processes. In PM, the answer to most of the best questions start with "It depends". There are so many variables that decision trees can become infinite.
I would recommend trying to get your employer to scale that concept back. Rather than trying to build the Mother of All Decision Trees, (which will be very expensive and mostly useless) identify some key areas and build some smaller algorithms/decision trees to answer some specific questions. That will reveal both the complexity of a deterministic process to make relatively simple decisions, before trying to scale the simple things up to the very complex things.
Good luck! That's likely to be more of a political football than anything else.
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
The tool to use must support the process you define to run projects and programs. So, that is the first criteria to select a tool. Tool can be anything from a simple excell to something more sophisticated like Primavera. Saving Changes...
Kiron is right. However, I think your manager needs you to give him a tool that considers the prioritization/importance/classification criteria. You should be able to categorize the projects somehow. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Ibrahim
in a similar environment I used a risk checklist to determine the level of PMO support. It certainly included the 3 criteria mentioned by Kiron, but also others that were identified as causes when projects ran into trouble.
The level of PMO support could range from monthly/quarterly checkpoints to checking estimates and using certain tools. Saving Changes...
Another thing is that for any new project, they want me to set a "tool" to help them chose what to do next (let the PM know about the project for him to use Wrike and his Project Management job, or just handle the project themselves if it's simple enough): - Mr X want to start set new standards in his department, he uses the tool to confirm he should let me know about this project - Mrs Y has tasks to track with some customers, she uses the "tool" to see if she should put the tasks in Wrike and let me know about that "project" for me to track her tasks "Mr Z has a big project including several stakeholders and which will last for 2 year, he uses the "tool" to check if he should let me handle the project as the PM of the company, all with the help of Wrike to track tasks/milestones. Here it's obvious that we need the PM and PM tools but the want a "tool" to see the limit between a project that need a PM and a project that doesn't.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
What your employer is asking for is an algorithm based PM system.
Computers do this all the time, especially distributed systems like web hosted applications. Algorithms like is the process frozen?; What is the most efficient pathway to communicate data? How to obtain consensus among disagreeing members?, etc. map very closely to PM functions.
Those algorithms however operate on very repeatable processes. In PM, the answer to most of the best questions start with "It depends". There are so many variables that decision trees can become infinite.
I would recommend trying to get your employer to scale that concept back. Rather than trying to build the Mother of All Decision Trees, (which will be very expensive and mostly useless) identify some key areas and build some smaller algorithms/decision trees to answer some specific questions. That will reveal both the complexity of a deterministic process to make relatively simple decisions, before trying to scale the simple things up to the very complex things.
Good luck! That's likely to be more of a political football than anything else. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
This seems to me to be a basic risk assessment and management process. A project at risk "needs to be helped by the project manager and the project management tool". It can be argued that all projects are at risk (which is why we manage them) but the level of risk should determine the extent to which we manage them.
The PM and tools applied are measures to mitigate the risks.
Your posts suggests that you believe "that any project that are dealt with by more than one person and/or that is taking more than 1 month" carries sufficient risk to warrant specific mitigating measures - PM and tool. Show that that is the case through risk analysis. What could go wrong and how would the PM and/or tool mitigate (make it better). Saving Changes...
Hello all!
Back after few more months of experience in this startup.
Introducing best practices is easy but adoption is hard.
I focused on quick wins and how I can make their lives easier everyday. I'll continue to implement PM basics month after month and see how it can help.
Again, thank you all very much for you help.
Ibrahim Saving Changes...
