The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

IS CoP webinar; 2/15 at 12h00 Eastern - Behaviors that Lead to Exceptional Performance

There will be a IS CoP webinar titled "Behaviors that Lead to Exceptional Performance" on 2/15 at 12h00 Eastern.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

Integration of Earned Value and Risk Management webinar

Today I finally listened to the recording of the PMI Risk Management CoP webinar called Integration of Earned Value and Risk Management.

Glen Alleman issued his own comments previously, here are mine.

I am in a situation that is somewhat different from the one discussed in the webinar.  I typically don't work on fixed cost projects so I do my own risk management activities.  My clients do theirs; I do communicate my risk assessment to clients.  The Management Reserve (MR) is invisible to me until a risk turns into an issue that requires funds to mitigate.  The size of the MR is actually unknown to me.  Same goes with any slack they built in after the deadlines they communicate to me.

Given that, if a risk does not materialize or if it is mitigated using the existing budget (with or without drawing on the MR), what is left is returned to the pot for use at a later date (or not).  Same goes with any slack in the schedule.

I would add a Work Package (WP) to the schedule only if the risk, now an issue, involved a missing deliverable.  Otherwise, tasks would be added to an existing work package and to the schedule.  In either case the MR might get drawn down and Earned Value (EV) affected.  If I deliver more value to the project, as opposed to fixing an unforeseen issue, more value is being delivered and that offsets the potential change is cost.

Although it does not happen in my projects; if a risk does not occur, I don't see how leaving the associated funds (or slack) in the PMB would improve performance.  If I read Glen's comments accurately, we are on the same page.  No deliverable equals no value and keeping the extra funds in the calculation would mess up EV.  Same with any extra slack; no issues does not mean you get free slack.

I liked the answer on the use of Monte Carlo simulation in risk management.  Limiting the Monte Carlo simulation to the tasks on the critical path is dangerous in my opinion.  You could have significant changes in the critical path of a schedule depending on the varying work durations during the simulation.

I would also not say that the MR is for "unknowns unknowns" in the schedule.  A bit too Donald Rumsfeld for my taste and also a bit too restrictive in my opinion.

Overall it was an interesting webinar because it gives some insight on how grown ups manage projects.  If a risk become an issue you keep on using good project management practices instead of watching the wheels fall off the cart.  I also liked that there was not too much material for the hour and that the presenter did not have to race through the presentation.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Does Risk Management have a place in an Agile Lifecycle webinar

Today I listened to the PMI Agile CoP webinar called Does Risk Management have a place in an Agile Lifecycle.

 They introduced agile risk management as an alternative to "traditional" risk management.  They reviewed the "traditional" approach and then the Agile approach. 

Traditional approach:

• Identify the risks
• Estimate the Impact
• Estimate the likelihood
• Calculate the risk rating = impact * likelihood
• Categorize
• Decide on how to react to the risk
• Done once in a project.  Really?  Look at their slide 17 for more pearls like this one.

The Agile approach:

• Same beginning.
• Do life risk management throughout the project.  Now that is new!
• Be collaborative. Newer!!
• Involve the client.  Newest!!!

The lady presenter backtracked a little when she said that there is bad and good "traditional" but then continued without saying there can be good and bad Agile too.  Is Agile perfect?  There are no crappy Agile risk management.  I say BS.

The guy presenter go to taking about percent complete and risk.  Agile is a binary thing; done or not.  None of that 99% done and the 1% takes forever.  Who works like that in "traditional" project management and gets results?  I do % complete on a macro level; for example, my project is 53% done, at 50% of its budget.  Clients love that while they usually don't care about individual tasks (nor should they).

The guy presenter then goes on to say that you should do "traditional" risk management when there are big upfront risks because the project is very innovative, experimental, or you're out of your comfort zone.  I don't know, but I don't start a project for making chocolate chip cookies.  My clients do not hire me to do what they could do themselves with their eyes closed and their hands tied behind their backs.

I'm an old ape.  When someone states the obvious and what a good project manager would do on projects and tells me its new, I think they think I am a fool.  Maybe I should rename this blog "The Agile Hard-nosed Project Manager".  Same old, same old but it would appear to be new and shiny.  As a plus I'd get to make even more borderline pronouncements...

Good thing that the webinar format used did not allow live interactions.  There would have been a hell of a shouting match I think.  The webinar finished 7 minutes early.  Thank God!

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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A Project Manager’s resolutions

I just decided today that I should have project manager’s resolutions.  Luckily I thought about that today (honest!) and that makes me late, not a procrastinator.

First, I resolve to listen to the following podcasts:

• The Project Management Podcast.  The granddaddy of project management podcasts, hosted by Cornelius Fichtner.  I don’t always agree but it always makes me think.
• The PMO Podcast.  Mark Perry’s thoughtful interviews and viewpoints.
• The Mentisor Soapbox.  I’m biased; I’m in the show pretty much every week.  Quality content provided by others.

Second, I resolve to catch up and read the following blogs:

• Herding Cats .  For Glen Alleman’s encyclopedic knowledge of project management.
• PaperCut Edge.  A different take, through Geoff Crane’s eyes.
• quantmleap.  Project managements and other things.  From down under with Shim Marom.

Third, I resolve to read some business books and find a program management application to their subjects.  Write a book review.

Fourth, I resolve to stop while I’m ahead…

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Agile CoP webinar; 1/27 at 12h00 Eastern - Does Risk Management have a place in an Agile Lifecycle

There will be a Agile CoP webinar titled "Does Risk Management have a place in an Agile Lifecycle" on 1/27 at 12h00 Eastern.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

January 2012 PM Network – Agile special report

The January 2012 issue of PM Network contains a special report on Agile.  I read it to get a different take (hopefully) to an approach I see as a fad.  I’m not saying it doesn’t work; I’m saying prove it works.  Prove it with hard numbers, the scientific way.  If you don’t, you may be seen as a snake oil salesman…  If the benefits of Agile are tangible then they are measurable.  If they are measurable, spill the beans and show your numbers.

The first article on Agile (“The Evolution of Agile”) talks about creating hybrid approaches between hardcore Agile (my expression) and hardcore waterfall (again my expression).  Pepper this with a little bit of Kanban, etc. and voilà!  Maybe this is new, but I’ve heard this before (see my Traditional Agile post).  It also states that a hybrid approach would free you from excessive paperwork and documentation.  Sorry but hybrid approaches did not cause this change, cost pressures did that.  I work in a very regulated industry and cost pressures forced some sense into documentation as well as testing.  Everything is now risk based as a way of mitigating cost.

The second article “Agile to the Rescue” makes Agile a major contributor to the relief effort in Chile in 2010.  I’ll agree that having a platform to recruit people rapidly or to find missing people rapidly sure does help.  We are extremely dependant on our existing infrastructure and when it falls, we need a replacement quickly.  Of course if you throw a website together enough some infrastructure must remain to make it accessible; Katrina proved that I believe.  However a statement like “People were coming and going, and at any given time 100 volunteers working together in an office that typically is occupied by 20” as nothing to do specifically with Agile.  NGOs and armies sent to do relief work are in those types of situations every day and they are not following the Agile manifesto.  They’ve been like this for years.

I’m old enough and I’ve been around the block often enough to think that we are being served the same old, same old renamed and warmed over.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Does Earned Value Work on All Projects?

The joke about project management as well has Earned Value is that we use the same words to describe a mouse as we do a herd of elephants.

- Roger Kent in the January 2012 edition of PM Network, Feedback page

Wow!  That is quite a statement.  I started reading this issue because I wanted to read the articles about Agile (more on that in future posts) but this pearl almost made me choke on my sandwich.

Project management is not a one size fits all activity; actually pretty much nothing is.  Project management is also not about dogma.  If someone needs to comfort themselves in project management fundamentalism I suggest they find something else to do.  You don't want to do EV?  Though, it is not because something is difficult for you to do that you just can forget about it.

As for the military saluting and doing as they’re told (another pearl from the same letter), I’ll take that as a compliment.  Soldiers get the job done.

I’ll go back to doing me EV on my crappy, short term, sub $1M, non-defense and non-aerospace project…

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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PMI IS CoP webinar - Tearing down Project Barriers between the Business and I.T. on 1/18

There will be a PMI Learning IS CoP webinar on Tearing down Project Barriers between the Business and I.T. on 1/18 at 12h00 Eastern. I will not be able to attend live due to a previous engagement but those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar recording becomes available.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.