One of the most important lessons I learned after spending close to 20 years in the project management profession is that the underlying interests, constraints and risk tolerances of the project team and other stakeholders – especially customers - are never identical. As a result of this proposition we can derive the following project management axiom:

Good project manager can increase the size of the pie by looking for things that are of low cost to him and his team and high value to the customers (and vice versa).

One of the best examples of this technique is demonstrated in the so-called “Orange Fable”:

Two kids (a boy and a girl) are quarrelling over an orange. Their father enters the room and, operating under the “fixed pie” assumption, cuts the orange in two equal halves. And then he notices that the brother ate the orange and threw away the peel, while his daughter used the peel from her half as an ingredient in pastry while disposing of the fruit. At that point of time the father realizes that had he asked the question “What do you need this orange for?”, he would have doubled the size of the pie for both parties involved!

Here is another example of this technique used on a real project. A relatively small construction company lands a very lucrative deal to build a shopping mall for a large and established real estate management company. All the contracts have been discussed and signed when a project manager from the construction company receives a call from a representative of the real estate management organization…

Customer: “I would like to add another clause to our contract. If the work is on the new mall not finished by the deadline in the contract, I want your company to pay a penalty of $5,000,000”

PM: “Hmm, we have already signed the contract without the late penalty clause; I am not sure how our management would react to that …”

Customer: “I am sorry, but I have been instructed by my boss not to proceed ahead without this modification to the contract”

PM: “And may I ask you why do you, guys, feel the need to add this clause?”

Introduction

The project to deliver the most expensive warship in the world is $2.3 billion over the budget and 2 years (and counting) late. The US Navy’s newest $13 billion aircraft carrier is still not ready for combat because of mechanical delays that have already put it two years behind schedule, according to the Pentagon’s top weapons tester.

The USS Gerald R. Ford (see Figure 1 for more info) was supposed to be ready by September 2016, but Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation, said in a June 28 memo that the warship had ongoing launch and recovery problems.

Figure 1

The construction of the ship started in November 13, 2009 and is still ongoing. Click on the video below to watch the time lapse.

Video - USS Gerald Ford Construction Timelapse

The Problems

Table 1

The Root Causes

Let us try to analyze the root causes first.

"Unrealistic business cases, poor cost estimates, new systems rushed to production, concurrent design and construction, and problems testing systems to demonstrate promised capability"

Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Senator John McCain

However the some officials indicated that missed deadline can be attributed to the decisions made when the Pentagon committed to building the advanced ship in 2008.

"The decision to proceed with these three systems was made many years ago, prior to their maturation, when transformational approaches to acquisition were a DOD policy,"

Mark Wright, a Defense Department spokesman.

Let us try to make some sense out of the information presented above:

An interesting (to say the least) conversation took place between yours truly and a vice president of software development several years ago during a job interview. Today I just wanted to share this experience with you and ask for your suggestion on how to deal with it:

VP: So, you have been working as a project manager for close to ten years now, right?

Me: Yes that is correct. The only thing I wanted to add is that I have also been working as a business/requirements analyst over that period of time.

VP: But I don't see any technical (developer) experience on your resume.

Me: Actually I have finance/management science educational background.

VP: So, you never worked as programmer?

Me: Not really.

VP: And how the heck do you expect to manage technical people?

Me: (confused) I am sorry, I am not sure what you mean ...

VP: Well, say you join our team and get assigned to work on a project. You are estimating the duration of the tasks and your programmer tells you that the activity would take 5 days. Whereas in reality it would take only 2 days. How would you know that he is lying if you don't have any developer background? What can you possibly do in this situation?

Me: (turning to the HR Manager who was also present in the boardroom) I would probably suggest that you fire your human resources manager ...

VP: (very surprised) What??

Me: (smiling) Well, you just said that most - if not all - of your programmers are liars. Shouldn't the personnel department try to do a better job when hiring people?

While this response was probably a bit harsh, I was just wondering what would you do in a situation similar to the one described above?

A) Roll up your proverbial sleeves and try to convince the VP that project managers do not have to possess technical skills in order to successfully run projects.

B) Agree with him, leave the office, cry a bit and forever abandon your project management career in software development and IT.

C) Ignore his comments, wait for the interview to finish and go look for a company with a less toxic  environment.

Introduction

Our company was commissioned to take over a large portfolio including several regulatory projects ($50,000 to $250,000) and a flagship infrastructure overhaul project ($15,000,000). Also Thinktank Consulting was requested to provide its expertise and assistance in the rollout of the mew project management methodology and the establishment of the Project Management Office (PMO).

Problems

There were several problems associated with the above-mentioned goals. Firstly, the company culture and organizational structure (functional) provided the newly-hired project managers with a very complex environment. Furthermore the new PM methodology developed in the European headquarters needed fine-tuning for the local conditions.

Constraints

Most of the bank's IT portfolio consisted of the regulatory projects mandated by the various North American, European and international governing bodies. One of the main aspects of such projects is that the scope and deadline is fixed by the government leaving little room to “manipulate” the project management triangle. In addition the number and the size of the IT portfolio has grown by approximately 50% compared to the previous year while the technical team has grown by only 10-20%. This factor has obviously increased the pressure on the management team with respect to project resource allocation.

Solution

Thinktank Consulting determined that the only way to deliver the regulatory project on time and with the limited resources was to concentrate on quality Requirements Engineering, Project Prioritization and Project Management. Special attention was dedicated to the involvement of our business counterparts in the requirements gathering and management processes.

Our company has also participated in the deployment and fine-tuning of the new project management methodology. The work, among other things, included enhancing the standard Requirements Document, adding several sections to the Project Plan and collaborative development of the Project Roadmap document.

We have also provided several training sessions in the areas of Negotiations, Estimation and Requirements Engineering.

Introduction

Close to the very end of the last year Thinktank Consulting has completed a very exciting project that has been two years in the making. We have successfully finished a very large project and portfolio management implementation initiative at one of the leading European telecom providers.

The company has experienced a significant growth in the number and size of their projects. Currently a typical project portfolio at the organization consists of approximately fifty ongoing large endeavours. As a result of the above-mentioned developments the company started experiencing problems in the areas of resource planning, allocation and management. Furthermore, there are certain issues with proper planning of the projects, adequate project control and performance reporting.

Company management has contacted Thinktank Consulting Inc. to assist them with an independent, unbiased assessment of the situation and provide its expertise in addressing their problems.

Problems and Challenges

Project Portfolio Management

• Lack of strategic planning/ portfolio management/ project prioritization
• Lack of strategic resource allocation

Project Management

• Lack of proper project planning
• Lack of unified project management methodology
• Lack of qualified (trained) and dedicated (full time) project managers
• Poor Interdepartmental communications on projects
• Lack of proper requirements elicitation, documentation and management
• Lack of proper and/or fair estimation

Freestyle Comments from Participants

Portfolio Management/Resourcing

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: