This is a seemingly simple question, at least, for a certified project manager. After all we all know that a project is an “endeavor that has a definite start and an end, undertaken to deliver a unique product a service”. Usually this definition is followed by a couple of illustrative examples:

• Creation of the first prototype of the Formula One car is a project since it does have a defined start, an end and produces a unique product.
• Mass production of, say, canned soup is not a project, since while it has a defined start it does not have a defined end. Also, thousands of cans can’t be considered a unique product since all of them are identical.

These examples unfortunately do not reflect the complexities that are usually encountered when deploying project management at various organizations. I remember a consulting engagement when we were working together with a focus group of the employees at a large government organization. One of the tasks on our agenda was to determine what would be considered a project by the company standards and thus require the application of the project management methodology. The following conversation took place between one of the employees and me:

Me: Project is an endeavor that has a definite start and an end undertaken to deliver a unique product a service.

Employee: Wait a second! So, according to this definition the act of sending an e-mail is a project, right? It has a defined start and an end and represents a unique product …

Me: Well, you can look at it this way …

Employee: Does this mean I have to write a project charter, requirements document and a project plan every time I intend to create an email?

Introduction

I was once introduced to a PMO Director of a large North American port authority by a colleague of mine at one of the project management conferences. We chatted for a while, when he told me that his organization had been experiencing serious problems with their current projects and would appreciate my assistance in the matter.

We arranged for a meeting with the PMO Director, the CEO, COO and the CFO of the port authority where we agreed to proceed with an improvement program designed to address their problems.

Problems and Challenges

Interviews with various employees of the organization revealed the following problems (percentage of people who mentioned the issue are shown in brackets):

• Lack of communications between the departments on larger interdepartmental projects (97%)
• Lack of uniformity in project management approach across the departments (93%)
• Lack of accountability for cost & time overruns and poor quality (80%)
• Lack of feasibility analysis in project selection (77%)
• Projects are not prioritized properly (75%)
• Issues with underestimation (68%)
• Projects are frequently over the budget or late (either underestimated or due to lack of skills) (64%)

Some comments from the participants:

Introduction

Nowadays many organizations are seriously overwhelmed with project portfolios that have dramatically grown in size, sophistication and the number of resources involved. Just to illustrate this point, recently a CEO of a large financial institution mentioned in a private conversation with me, “It seems only yesterday we had a couple of fifty-thousand dollar projects in our portfolio and today we have ten ongoing endeavors ranging in size from $5 to $20 million. We were not prepared for this".

How should these organizations adjust their business models? Many companies are attempting deployments of their own project management frameworks to address the issues above. This article is aimed to provide senior executives of such organizations with the key lessons learned by the author stemming from numerous previous projects of similar nature.

Implementing Project Management

How Are We Doing?

Before we venture into the discussion of the finer points of project management implementation, let us analyze the current situation in the industry and assess our ability to handle projects.

According to researchers 19% of the project undertaken in 2008 were complete failures (i.e. cancelled because of significant cost overruns or being late). Forty six percent represented troubled projects (i.e. significantly over budget and/or late but completed nonetheless). And only 35% of projects undertaken were delivered on time and on budget (give or take a couple of percent here and there).

I don't think anyone would argue that these figures demonstrate that we are a long way from perfection when it comes to selecting, planning and executing our projects.

The Key Steps

Here are some of the lessons learned derived from several successful implementations of project management frameworks performed by Thinktank Consulting at various organizations in Canada, US, Asia and Middle East.

Lesson # 1: Customize Methodology - Never try to impose an "off-the-shelf" project management methodology onto any organization. Instead:

The Phone Call

About six months ago I was contacted by a senior manager of a large company who proceeded to tell me: "Listen, we know that you have a project management course and we are interested in it … But would you be able to come in and just assess what it is that we are doing wrong with projects and maybe customize your course according to the findings?" Obviously I agreed to get together with him and we arranged for a meeting.