 Reforming Project Management |
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Saturday, November 16, 2002
More on Managing Project Uncertainty
A few more thoughts on Managing Project Uncertainty: From Variability to Chaos...Earlier this week I participated in a workshop in Washington, DC titled How will homeland security shape tomorrow's capital projects?. The workshop was the second in a series for mapping the technology for automating the delivery of projects for the construction industry. I could only attend the first day due to other commitments (I'll write about that tomorrow.). The conference was sponsored by the Construction Industry Institute, the National Science Foundation, The White House National Science & Technology Council, and others. The key note speakers were great. (Read more about the speakers and the agenda.) I'll just comment today on one of the talks: Vulnerability of Public Infrastructure: A Systems Perspective, by Robert Prieto, Chairman, Parsons Brinckerhoff. Mr. Prieto has been moving around the speakers' circuit, previously seen at the Polytechnic Institute's conference Engineering the Protection of Our Cities. Bob shared his views on homeland security and project management. He was a principal investigator of the tragedy at the World Trade Center. Bob gave good marks to the changes that had been made since the previous bombing in '93. What caught my attention were these remarks,
Bob also spoke at length about projects. Here are two of the more relevant quotes:
Later in the day we were tasked with assessing how project planning and management could deal with the evolving homeland security issues and innovations. Bob Prieto's words couldn't have been more relevant. After quite the discussion of how building codes must evolve so they don't limit the adoption of innovations, we discussed how our style of project management would matter. Flexible, adaptive, multi-headed project management will be needed to deal with the increased level of uncertainty introduced by newly understood customer needs and emerging innovations. Call it scrum or call it lean; either way, the way we deliver capital projects will have to deal with an increased uncertainty in the project environment. As the authors of Managing Project Uncertainty put it we need a style that anticipates the unknown unknowns and responds appropriately. Comments are now working again
Sorry for the problem with the 'comments' not working on the weblog. I don't know what happened...somehow the code on the template changed.
Thanks fo all who are sending me writing proposals, links, and other suggestions. And thanks, as well, for your ratings on HOT or NOT? If you haven't already rated the weblog please do so by clicking the link. Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Lower Utilization to Reduce Variability
I've been writing about variability and uncertainty for the last few days. Someone asked, "What do we do when we are already busy? We'd like to improve but we don't seem to have the time for it." It just so happens the same group manages the project staff to virtually 100% utilization. They do it by seeing that everyone has more than one thing to do. The reasoning is understandable. So much of what we work on in projects is not ready for completion. People are expected to do what they can, then go on to another task. All the while, they keep their utilization high. This is a usual condition, particularly in engineering organizations and professional services firms.
High utilization is not equivalent to high productivity. Managers fail to realize the cost of the repeated de-mobilizations and re-mobilizations of work. Not only is that mobilizing time a pure waste, but for knowledge work and creative work the performer has fallen out of flow. The quality of the work has to suffer. Managers also fail to see they can do something about the exact issue they are responding to. They can set out to make work ready. Ready work can be promised reliably. Ready work can be performed uninterrupted. Ready work completes on a predictable basis releasing work for others in the same predictable way. Ready work is simply more rewarding for the performers. It is a principal responsibility of the project manager and the planning system to make work ready. The Last Planner™ System of Production Control is an approach for planning and preparing the work of the project team. In doing so, a principal source of variation -- planned work in an unready state -- is minimized. Oh, but we (the project team) don't have the time (capacity) for making work ready. What a shame. Stop what you are doing! Adopt the rule: only begin tasks that are in a condition for completion. Watch productivity soar! Monday, November 11, 2002
Help me get the word out on Reforming Project Management
I am beginning my twelfth week at this endeavor. Frankly, I didn't know whether I'd have something to say or comment on for this long. (Although some of my friends knew better!) What started as a personal writing project has become a project to educate Hal.
I am enjoying this blogging thing. It has been quite easy to get going, particularly with the wealth of tools available (most for free). My inspiration came from Dan Pink. His Just One Thing weblog connected me day-to-day to Dan and his evolving interests. However, what looked like an easy practice of writing a journal has turned out to be quite the research effort. That's good. I am getting more grounded and clear about why a change is needed and what possibly we can change to. I really appreciate all of you who are steady readers. My inbox is certainly flooded with unsolicited email. For you to subscribe, adding to the email you get everyday, is quite a compliment. As of this morning 55 people are subscribing. Thank you. I also appreciate those of you who are mentioning me in your weblogs and various forums. I've seen an 80 times increase in the number of mentions in a Google search from the day I started 'til now. Finally, I can't give enough thanks to the people who comment on the postings. You sharpen my thinking and my writing. I'm a junkie for your comments! I am getting ready to speculate (I don't dare say "propose") on a basis for a new theory and practice of project management. In the upcoming weeks I'll write more about uncertainty as a basis of project theory and practice. I'll try to identify a collection of principles for a new unifying theory. I'm also considering proposing a curriculum for the reformed project manager. As I do this I want to connect to more people who share a dissatisfaction with the status quo. I need your help in getting the word out. This morning I added Hot or Not?, the weblog rating service, to the bar under the Reforming Project Management title. Please take the time to click on the link and rate the weblog. Over the last 8 weeks I added an email subscription process (Bloglet), a refer-a-friend process, and a blogrolling link for others who are writing weblogs. If you are enjoying the weblog, then please subscribe, tell others about it, and most especially comment on the postings or email me. Thank you. Special note to those subscribing by email: visit the weblog every once-in-awhile to check out the new links and documents I post. Sunday, November 10, 2002
Reduce Uncertainty by Promising Reliably
The authors of Managing Project Uncertainty suggest the usual practices of risk management on projects fall short of what we need to be doing to deal with uncertainty.
In working with many different teams on a variety of projects most of the week-to-week variability is in the control of the project participants. No kidding. The primary source of variability is the tasks are not in a condition to be started and finished as planned. Upon further analysis the cause of that state of 'unreadiness' is a failure of coordination. That failure I call not making a reliable promise. Promising is in our control. We can say "yes" or "no". (I know some people think they must say "yes" to keep their job.) When we say "yes" but we mean "no" we add uncertainty to the project. When we say "yes" but fail to allocate sufficient capacity to the task (blocking time in our calendar) we add uncertainty. When we say "yes" but don't understand what will satisfy our customer we add uncertainty. Do I need to go on? We can't know what will happen tomorrow, let alone 14 months from now. What we can do is minimize the stacking effect of uncertainty upon uncertainty by adopting a practice of promising reliably on projects. Perhaps many of the 'complicated' situations described by the authors of Managing Project Uncertainty are just complex projects compounded by sloppiness in promising conversations. Stop adding variability to the uncertainty. Set the standard of securing reliable promises on your projects. You'll have more time for dealing with the remaining variability. Visit the Archives for more postings |
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