The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

Thinking about risk

We are all aware of what is in the news this week.  Most of us can also remember previous industrial or technological disasters.  On top of that I’ve been listening to podcasts and webinars related to risk assessment and risk management.  Seems like a good topic for today.

I will not go into the current events and the rumors that are circulating in the media because part of their business model is based on sensationalism and because I am not an expert in the nuclear industry or in risk assessment and management.  In fact, in my line of work, redundant systems are few and far between.  Risk assessment revolves around business continuity and regulatory compliance and most of the risk management is procedural. 

This is very different from what takes place in large industrial systems or complex technologies.  Some examples of incidents from the past:

• The crash of a jetliner potentially caused by the failure of multiple speed sensors.  This would have sent wrong  information to the pilots and to the auto-pilot system
• The crash of a jetliner caused by the failure of multiple attitude (artificial horizon) sensors.  This caused both pilot to fight each other while trying to level the airplane.
• Shutdown of a large scale data center following loss of main power, depletion of the primary backup (UPS batteries),  and failure of the secondary backup (water in the generator’s fuel)

In all these case we are talking about failure of the primary system, its backup, and of the secondary backup.  Another aspect that gets factored in is experience (hindsight); this was very nicely presented by a NASA risk management expert that was discussing the safety history of the space shuttle program.  What she stated was that it is now clear that the risk had been underestimated.  Note that she did not state that risk assessment and management had been shoddy but that, knowing what they know now, they had underestimated risk.

The people who determine how many backup systems are needed and of what type do so based on their years of experience and on best practices derived from previous incidents.  Typically incidents do not repeat themselves exactly and future problems hit another part of the system. 

If any of the readers of this post care to explain the thought process that guides those in charge of risk assessment and management of complex industrial or technological system I would be grateful to them.  I would also like if someone could point out reference material (books, articles, websites) on the subject.

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Half ethical is like half pregnant.

OK, I must admit that this subject is not as sexy or controversial as Agile and that it may be anticlimactic for this 100^th post (I know, it is both a shameless plug and a quest for praise; please oblige…) but it goes to the heart of business and human relations.

Can you be half ethical?  How does half trustworthy sound to you?  I’m asking because over the last few days I’ve had to ponder this both at work and in conversations with friends.  Here are some of the issues that came to my attention:

• A project manager has been changing procurement rules after milking a solution provider for information over many iterations of a potential project that never quite starts.  These iterations took place over 3+ years.  It also appears that the project manager may have given part of previous bid packages to the provider’s competition.
• A program manager has been hiding key information from his project manager, his solution provider’s project manager, and his own stakeholders.  This information was critical to proposals and to the successful delivery of projects.  Expectations are now out of sync with what is actually feasible.
• A solution provider has been talking with its clients in a way that would suggest to that client that almost unlimited resources can be made available to his projects although this is far from the truth.

In none of these situations can the culprits say with a straight face that they have been 100% ethical and trustworthy.  All of these situations describe a damaged relationship that will probably never be mended.  What if all participants always behaved like they are in a relationship (for the long term) instead of executing a transaction (a one night stand)?  What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

So, I used the word Agile twice which should perk up my statistics.  All that is missing now is your praise; don’t make me wait too long…

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Agile; still not convinced

Today I was listening in on a PMI Agile CoP webinar entitled "Beyond Scope, Schedule, and Cost: Rethinking Performance".  I do try to broaden my horizons...

I must say that I am still not convinced that Agile is that different from other iterative approaches.  Actually, at some point, the speaker adopted RUP terminology and if you had just joined in you'd have been confused. 

Much of the argumentation was anecdotal; for example:

• Claiming that Agile yielded an 89% improvement (decrease) in the number of defects over the "traditional" approach is great but when you mention that the organization was apparently 4 times over the average for its industry you could say that the problem lied somewhere outside of the methodology.
• Claiming that a Gantt chart is not as good as a Parking Lot chart is not comparing apples to apples if when the deliverables are not the same.  Comparing a crappy Gantt to a good Parking Lot is a weak argument.
• The fact that some projects fail due to feature bloat is not news.  Using Agile (or RUP, or something else) does not by itself fix that issue.  The "traditional" approach did not cause that problem either.

Making claims from a position of authority does not win debates, it speaks mostly to those who are already believers and it may create in others the perception that the claims cannot stand on their own.  

Using a different vocabulary to talk about the same or equivalent concepts is not enough to create buy in for Agile.  For example, Story Points vs. $ is at some level similar to $ vs. Euros; all we are talking about here is currency conversion.  What if, from now, all projects Agile or not used goats as their currency?  Would that make Agile better or worse than the "traditional" approach?

I'm still open minded about this subject but still not convinced.  What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Run, don’t walk (or crawl)!

Yeah, I know, it should be the other way around; but often it is not.  Why people or companies try to start any endeavour directly at the top instead of progressing from their current level evades me.  In project management you often see this with PMOs or Enterprise Project Management (EPM).

Enterprises get into a mad rush to create one or many PMOs when, up to that moment, they had never thought of actually managing projects or of having any type of processes however simple.  Suddenly an Encyclopaedia Britannica sized manual lands on your desk and every newly christened PM must abide by all of its teachings.  The reality is that typically these new processes are ill formed, ill fitting, and bypassed as much as possible.  Of course processes evolve on a weekly basis. 

The PMO craze has been going on for years now and in many organizations is in its Nth incarnation.  PMOs are not useless unless you design them to be that way.

EPM is the newer craze but in many regards follow the same path as PMOs.  I know of an organization where, up to very recently, no schedules where ever prepared yet they have gone whole hog on EPM.  You have to prepare a schedule, upload it, and maintain it.  Simple, no?  Maybe, maybe not:

• You are told not to put too many tasks in your schedule (nothing below deliverables).  When you contradict that edict with a whopping 700 tasks for a 6 month, 10 person project you find out why; the poor server can barely load, save, and publish something that size.  Forget resource levelling; my laptop is more powerful.
• In total contradiction with the prior directive, schedules are treated like a collection of post it notes.  Everything that comes to mind is now required to go into the schedule.
• In total contradiction with the prior directive everything that your sponsor does not want to explain must be taken out of the schedule even if doing so deletes predecessors or successors.  You can always add them later!
• You must stick to the original end date regardless of delays, scope changes, resource shortages, or whatever else happens.
• When you ask for the WBS field to be part of the enterprise template you are asked by the EPM administrator if you mean Work Breakdown Structure.  What else the freaking hell could I mean?  You are then told that you have to wait for a meeting of the steering committee to find out if adding your field will be allowed.  Something tells me that no one on that committee has ever run a project.
• You are told that you need to update a traffic light status based on earned value metrics but promptly find out that none of the EV related fields are visible.  I guess I’m supposed to go to that steering committee for that too.  By the way I found out that the traffic lights are not linked to EV anyway; they are set by hands and there are no guidelines for setting them.  All green anyone?

I guess that, if you insist on jumping off a plainly visible cliff, you may as well run and be out of your misery sooner instead of inching up to it.

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Mission statement and Executive Leadership

I hate corporate mission statements.  The kind of ”ACME will be the best something or other company in the world” statement that rings about as true as those inspirational poster about teamwork.  I also feel that Executive and Leadership are two words that almost never belong in the same phrase.  I never saw the correlation between someone’s place in an org chart and leadership especially since most executive have a very short shelf life, a pre-packed golden parachute, and almost never exhibit care for those they “lead”.

Well, Saturday as I was driving around, I listened to a Stanford University Entrepreneurship Corner podcast by Guy Kawasaki.  The title of the podcast is “Creating Enchantment”.

Kawasaki is a much better speaker and communicator than I’ll ever be so allow me to direct you to listen to the segment from 21:35 to 23:30 for his take on mission statements.  I wish I could have voiced it as well as he does.   Note that he also threw in tidbits about Executive Leadership and team building.  That sealed the deal; I’m buying his book!

Oh, by the way, listen to the whole thing.  It’s worth your time.

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Off topic (again)

I one of my previous off topic posts I echoed the July 2010 Bloomberg Business article “How to Make an American Job Before It’s Too Late” by Andy Grove.  The basic point he was making is that America, or any other country for that matter, needs to have a manufacturing capacity of its own.

The March 2011 Wired article “Made in the USA” makes for a nice read and discusses the pros of manufacturing at home. 

• Better quality
• Shorter supply chain with shorter delivery and cheaper shipping
• Diminishing salary gap between offshore and home manufacturing
• Intellectual property protection

That article put a smile on my face.  Don’t get me wrong; I would not buy American or Canadian crap out of sheer patriotism but I’d be willing to pay a premium for homemade quality

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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