I work for a financial services institution and I'm in the enviable position of having a reasonable say in implementing a new Project Management Methodology. I'm interested in your thoughts as to what method may suit the characteristics of my company (see below)
- Approx 300 staff
- In house IT
- Program office to control all projects and own methodology
- Projects are diverse (ie not just software development)
- PM's will be sourced from across the business, so some will not have extensive PM experience
- Previous waterfall type methods have not been effective, my feeling is that an iterative model would be better
- Often difficult to get sign off and buy in from stakeholders
Based on this small amount of info, any suggestions as to some methods I could look into?
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Rosemary HossenloppPM Consultant| Project Management Perspectives LLCMountain View, Ca, United States
James,
Focus first on an initiative of a development methodology. It doesn't appear that your corporation has a strong sense of how to adapt to current needs. Settle that issue first. Then provide tailoring guidelines for the process initiatives; traditional iterative approaches for the complex projects and determine which products which lighter approaches. The corporate development methodology and tailoring guidelines need to be in place before a project management approach can be selected that maps to the project needs. Project Manager roles are very different in traditional methodologies vs agile methodologies. I would be interested in following your progress. Saving Changes...
You first need to conduct some sort
of needs analysis, benchmark similar
organizations in your industry, and
understand culture, objectives, maturity
level, understand the complexity and
size of IT projects of your organization
BEFORE developing PM and IT methodologies.
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You could look into PRojects In Controlled Environments - PRINCE, which is a PMM developed by the UK Government and is available to use free of charge. The methodology is widely used by both Public and Private companies throughout the UK and is suitable for both IT and non-IT projects. Further Info is available here: http://www.ogc.gov.uk/prince/ Saving Changes...
I've been in the same situation before however my company has +3000 employees. The challenge is that technical people will want to use their IT methodologies or what I call engineering tools as the PM methodology. I suggest that you take your company processes (the whole value chain) and map your PM environment into it. This will give you all the handshakes (who decides that ABC is a project, what happens next, who do you hand over to etc). Once these have been mapped you are not far from what methodology to use and my guess is YOUR OWN METHODOLOGY which complements your business strategy. If you buy one you might have to twig it for some time. Saving Changes...
I've been implementing PRINCE2 within the organisation that I work for. I feel that there are many valid points below.
Firstly I'd recommend searching the web for lots of free seminars based on different methodologies. This will give you an overview of what is out there.
Secondly decide what you want? Guidlines? A full process that is to be followed? Don't forget implementing a method will mean a complete cultural change throughout your company.
Again it is dependant on what you want to acheive as there are lots of options. ASAP for SAP implementations.
I chose PRINCE2 in the end as it has been developed from lots of success and mistakes, and it is not sector specific. It's based on Processes, Components and Controls. The key to this method is that you use the core of the method (Business Case drives the project), you then use and discard all the bits you don't need depending on the size and complexity of the project.
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Andy JordanPresident| Roffensian Consulting S.A.Cherry Grove, AB, Canada
I too have been in a similar position, also in the Financial Services Industry.
People get hung up on the methodology and lose track of what it is they actually want to achieve. I have to agree with Thembile, work on the core things for you and the methodology looks after itself, otherwise the danger is that you try and fit round pegs into square holes.
If the organization is relatively immature in terms of project management it probably can't cope with much beyond gateways, key processes, etc at this point anyway. It will need to evolve into the rest. Saving Changes...
OK, I'm admittedly late to this party, but I've faced the same sort of question and want to throw in my US$.02.....
First, like other folks who've responded here, my basic approach would be "Results come first, systems(methods) come second."...
Second, your initial question sounds for all the world to me like "Which software development methodology should I use to manage projects?" I see them as two different things (as, I suspect, do the folks who recommended the PRINCE project management methodology.) That said, I think that different software development methodologies are tools, and are particularly effective for different types of projects and environments. (If you have a minute, you might check out Barry Boehm's book "Balancing Agility and Discipline", he describes the 'home ground' for different methodologies.) Personally, I'd like the flexibility to use the tools that best suit the task at hand......Third, you're begging the question a little. When you say 'waterfall-type methods have not been effective', on what evidence do you base the assessment? (I'm not asking in a smartass way..I'm asking how you knew that the approach was ineffective, or even what specifically in the method was ineffective, was it the method, or the performance level? and so on.) Have you done any sort of 'failure mode analysis'?.....OK, maybe it wound up being US$.10... Saving Changes...
