beteo ALM Experts Blog

Category: Project Management

  • Three Phases for Project Leadership Success

    The article Efficient and Targeted Project Execution describes how on time and on budget execution and successful completion of complex projects can be realized. It requires clearly defined leadership process covering all people involved supported by software-based leadership systems.

    Basically, the process of managing and driving project execution has three stages

    • Leadership Initiation
    • Leadership execution management
    • Leadership Closing

    Drei Phasen im Führungsprozess

    Fig.: The three stages of the leadership process

    1. Leadership Initiation

    The execution of every project should be marked by a clearly defined initiation. Setting up the process on an intelligent, elaborate and accurately described base concept can save a considerable amount of time and money.

    Initiation provides the project framework and defines the project guidelines, giving the project the actual go-ahead. A successful project start is crucial to the whole course of the project. Initiation particularly includes an exact definition and approval of the project. If the project scope including the individual goals is precisely and consistently defined, initiation is the valuable foundation enabling targeted work all daily leadership activities.

    2. Project Leadership – Project Execution Management

    The main phase is the actual phase where the project execution is managed. To ensure a highly efficient, proactive, and targeted leadership, it is recommended to base the leadership process on a standardized approach, a repetitive leadership process of measuring, evaluating, defining measures based on software-based project leadership system. Using both, leadership process and leadership system, has proven to significantly add to the chances of project success.

    3. Leadership Closing

    Every project must end with a closing phase. A deliberately scheduled closing resulting in an approved closing report avoids subsequent interventions. Apart from the closing report, the closing phase includes the acceptance by the client (e.g. customer, management), documented «Lessons Learned» and results that can be reused in next releases of the project or by other projects.

    A proper closing phase is an important and highly beneficial activity in the organization’s Lifecycle Management process and discipline.

    About the author:
    Robert Sutz is CEO of TimeWinner AG , Wallisellen, Switzerland.  TimeWinner AG develops and markets the Internet-based Leadership $ystem TimeWinner.

  • Advantages of Using a Project Leadership System

    The articles Efficient and Targeted Project Execution describe how project leadership systems support project and portfolio managers. The following list summarizes the advantages of the use of a Project Leadership System.

    • Modern project leadership systems provide fast and efficient access to all leadership information for the leadership team – from project manager to steering committee.
    • All leadership information is merged into one system, making the project leadership system the central source for leadership information for all project team members.
    • The project leadership system maximizes the transparency of project leadership across all activities, times and open issues. Particularly, this lays open repeated inefficiencies. Transparency is also important when project leaders change; for Handover it saves time and money.
    • Standardized, tool-supported and tool-enforced processes improve the attention of all people involved in and responsible for leadership and simplify the leadership task of driving execution.
    • Intelligent interfaces allow relevant leadership data (e.g. master plans from MS Project or Open Workbench) to be imported into the leadership system.
    • By using the possibility to connect leadership information and to define causal relationships, significant leadership scenarios or parameters can be traced back to the sources – a perfect instrument for modern risk management and internal control system.
    • Formalized, documented and precise sources in the leadership system, make statements more reliable and secure. Project leaders are able to make precise statements referring to possible requests.
    • All information is immediately indexed and permanently recorded. Redundancy is avoided.

    About the author:
    Robert Sutz is CEO of TimeWinner AG in Wallisellen, Switzerland. TimeWinner develops and sells Internet-based  Leadership System TimeWinner.

  • Efficient and Targeted Project Execution (Part 2)

    To support project and portfolio managers in their daily management of project execution work, Leadership Systems are used more and more frequently. Modern Project Leadership Systems offer predefined project execution processes which support the activities and decisions of the leadership team. In addition, they allow all relevant information (requests, decisions, risks, provisions, changes) to be centrally stored, contextually interrelated and preprocessed to support information needs of different steakholders.

    Leadership System – Core Features

    The most significant benefit of a Project Leadership System comes from mapping, complementing and supporting the leadership work. This includes all project tasks during the different phases, from efficient initiation, to complete documentation, to closure. Providing a basis for leadership, the Project Leadership System stores all leadership-relevant information including milestones (e.g. imported via an interface from MS Project), or goals and execution management cycles.

    In the process of running the execution of a project, coping with an awful lot of decisions, provisions, changes, risk assessments and notes is one of the leadership team´s tasks. The total of this information is not only stored in the Project Leadership System, but also indexed. So causal and restricting relations are recognized and visualized, resulting in reliable statements as to the target and result scores.

    From Leadership Meeting Support to Risk Management

    The range of features of a Project Leadership System covers all phases from the support of leadership meetings, active change management, progress quantification, conclusive reporting, uninterrupted documentation, traceability of the leading activities, up to a sophisticated risk management.

    Proactive risk management is gaining importance. Regulations have come into effect which call on enterprises to improve risk management and establish „internal control systems“. Such legal instructions can be comprehensively met by a Leadership System.

    Can Leadership be Quantified?

    Where is the project right now? What about target and result scores? Quantification is a significant factor in project leadership work. But can leadership be quantified? Modern Project Leadership Systems prove it! They include features offering business management and portfolio managers a variety of alternatives for assessing and comparing. They allow the definition of project leadership parameters relating to quantifiable criteria such as progress, cost, performance, motivation, and change management. Cross-enterprise benchmarking of project execution management is enabled.

    Project Leadership Systems – Summary

    A Project Leadership System is not only able to map the complete process of running a project or project plan to a single system, but supports all people involved in leadership with automated processes comprehensively, directly and flexibly. The resulting significant work relief and time saving can easily be verified. In addition to an increase in efficiency and project information value, there is more time to focus on the essential: the proactive, targeted leadership of a project.

    About the author:
    Robert Sutz is CEO of TimeWinner AG in Wallisellen, Switzerland. TimeWinner develops and sells Internet-based  Leadership System TimeWinner.

  • Efficient and Targeted Project Execution (Part 1)

    In order to meet time and budget requirements in complex projects and to accomplish projects successfully, clear leadership is required involving all project team members. At this point, software and Internet-based leadership systems are a great support.

    It´s no secret to project managers, portfolio managers and people in charge of planning: According to new statistics, about 60 per cent of all projects are not successfully completed. „Not successfully“ in this context does not imply that the project failed altogether. The point is that the project management did not succeed in achieving the goals related to time, cost and quality. What are the reasons? Or to put it the other way round: Which are the factors leading to a successfully completed implementation of a planned project?

    Managing a project means leading a project
    The factors enabling successful implementation of a planned project are manifold and largely depend on the particular project. But there is one aspect which is crucial to success or failure of ALL projects: targeted and efficient leadership. This being accepted, is makes sense to give some thought to what leadership should be like, and how it should be implemented. Who has which competencies? Which methods are used for leadership? At which intervals do the responsible people meet? How does the management of pending items look like? Or is there maybe an explicit leadership methodology to be followed?

    In order to support those in charge of planning, project managers as well as business managers in their daily work, so-called leadership systems are starting to get more commonly used. These systems systematically map leadership and leadership tasks related to a particular project. And, more importantly all leadership information is stored in a Leadership System, contextually interlinked and prepared to support the needs of particular target group.

    The leadership system maps the leadership process
    Usually, a person responsible for project planning works with a number of supporting software programs such as ERP systems, office applications, collaborative environment and project management solutions. As a result, the leadership information is often widely scattered in different systems making efficient and targeted tracking of data very difficult, for example when it comes to reproducing the reasons for a certain decision or a time delay.

    How then can the process of leading, the action of leadership, be mapped and sustainably documented? In contrast to the different programs from which the leader gathers data and facts needed for decisions, the leadership system systematically maps the process of leading the project planning and answers, among others, the following questions: At which point of the project are we? How can we quantify progress and recognize, define and estimate possible risks and bottlenecks? How do we – in accordance with our particular Leadership Methods – usefully and permanently map changes, requests, decisions, events, risks or measures, all in the same place? As it is the leadership meetings that best reflect how leadership is implemented, leadership systems usually offer a variety of automated functions related to the planning, calling, conducting and documentation of meetings.

    In the follow-up article Efficient and Targeted Project Execution (Part 2) I will focus on leadership meetings, proactive risk management and the question if there is a way of quantifying leadership.

    About the author:
    Robert Sutz is CEO of TimeWinner AG , Wallisellen, Switzerland.  TimeWinner AG develops and markets the Internet-based Leadership $ystem TimeWinner.

  • Integrating HP PPM with HP Quality Center – As Simple as It Looks?

    Very often, the processes of change & transport and quality management in the IT organzation are technically not very tightly integrated. Although organizationally, they are well coordinated, with both processes being clearly defined, digitized, automated and constantly improved, I doubt if their integration is tight enough.

    Integration von Change Management und Quality Management

    HP Software, a significant vendor not only of the process engine for change and transport management HP PPM, but also of HP Quality Center as the leading test management solution, provides a basis for an integrated solution. I was asked to carry this over into practice – an exciting as well as seemingly simple task.

    The first step was to technically join both environments together and logically merge them into one platform.

    The Search

    Well, searching for information in the Internet was not very fruitful or, to be exact: there is none. So I was forced to utilize my good connections to HP to get holf of the documents I needed. Thanks to the competent people I addressed, it was a success.

    Compatibility with versions

    An overview of the compatibility of versions was particularly important and helpful. Our PPM versions required that we used the PPM extension Application Change Lifecycle (ACL 2.0) for the intergration with QC. The newer tool Managing Application Change Tool (MAC) does not yet work with our customer´s version.

    Integration guide

    The procedure of integrating PPM and QC is documented in the Integration Guide of HP and described step by step. So it was my job to work out the 200 pages of this guide one page after another.

    Mappings

    Applying the technical procedure to our actual environment and system landscape was a challenge, particularly with regard to the mappings. The intergrated standard workflows and interface definitions may be a good basis for implementation. But to meet all requirements, the mappings of data, stati, and processes must be elaborated. Careful attention must be paid to the change of stati in the workflow in order to avoid uncontrolled process steps.

    What next?

    So far, I have made a huge step towards the integration aimed for. But I am sure there will be more problems to be sorted out. In due time, I will report on my experience with the ongoing implementation. Comments and further hints from fellow sufferers or sympathizers are welcome.

  • A Question of Culture

    Perhaps you know the history of the PT Cruiser. Sure, you have seen this car on the street, the look is retro, fuel consumption is too high, technology and security are average. When Daimler joined in the responsibility for Daimler Chrysler, the PT Cruiser was just launched and taken for a flop. The production was driven down and banned into a small factory in Mexico. But it came different. The demand could no longer be served and customers were dissatisfied. – Today the PT Cruiser is a sales success.

    A cultural fault! In the cultural patterns for car in the U.S. are freedom feeling and originality in the first place. The PT Cruiser meets these to a great extent. German and europeen values as technology and security are the subordinate.

    Success of failure within enterprises are often depending on culture:

    • Marketing. A product does not fit into a given market. – In Germany, the PT Cruiser was obviously never a winner .- Or the other way around: With new products presented cultural values no longer fit for the culture of the company. In the wake sales are stagnating.
    • Strategic Alignment. Cultural values in a company  as “security” and “stability” do not fit to the new strategy, which “entrepreneurship” and “risk”.
    • Corporate culture. From above announced corporate values such as “appreciation” and “enthusiasm” are not lived. –  In the past things ran very well with a certain “arrogance” and “skeptical”. – Cultural patterns cannot develop their potential, if stubborn management decisions take a different direction.
    • Change Management. Change and development of the company fails to the tenacity of the existing cultural patterns.

    Questions of culture are (1) cultural fit and (2) cultural change: How much fit is needed and how much change is possible? And if change cultural patterns is needed, how can this best succeed? How can the cultural potential of the company to be used?

    About the author:
    Dr. Michael Loebbert is Coach and Management Consultant and author of the montly publication “Change Management Short Cut“.

  • ITIL, PRINCE2, PMI – Just Paper Tigers?

    Historically developed IT structure
    Within their IT organizations, enterprises historically distinguish between project business, IT operations and IT development. In addition to these separate areas, there are several processes and systems for project requests, notification of incidents and problem management.

    ITIL, PRINCE2 and PMI are Used Separately within their Silos?
    For these processes, there are standards such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), PRINCE2 and the PMBOK of Project Management Institute (PMI). But the project management office (PMO) and the change advisory board (CAB) execute their requests and analyses separately. This way of thinking in separate categories creates redundancies and ignores the synergistic potential. Interdependencies and influencing factors are neglected.  IT Service Management Forum (ITSMF) states:

    „Change management is responsible for the control of changes within the productive environment. It is not responsible for changes within running projects. However, a close coordination between development project managers and the change manager is expected.“

    From a project perspective, PRINCE2 and PMI require that operation must be included into planning. But the prioritization process in classical project portfolio management only covers project requests. Also change requests are only managed for projects. Neither of the two seems to be responsible. However, regarding them in isolation from one annother is a barrier to a holistic handling which enables a provisioning of IT services conforming with strategy.

    An Isolating View has Negative Effects
    There is no basis on which decision makers could define an order of priority for the activities between project business and IT operations. Although IT service management (ITSM) as well as project portfolio management (PPM) are already implemented and operated with a good process maturity level, the list of problems is long. Typical examples are:

    • Repeated processing of the same objects
    • Intransparent dependencies create higher risks
    • Troubleshooting and project implementation are delayed
    • Inaccurate planning due to lack of information
    • Critical resources can not be optimally used
    • Service level agreements (SLA) are defined only selectively
    • Changes cannot be tested comprehensively

    Comprehensive Service Portfolio Management is Desirable

    • Would it be helpful to view and evaluate all requests and requirements?
    • Could harmonizing the individual release processes (CAB und PMO) facilitate IT control?
    • Would pooling of problems and projects increase efficiency?
    • Could a holistic resource and schedule planning help to reach overall enterprise goals more efficiently?
    • Would a comprehensive view on risks help to avoid failures of IT operations?

    The Solution: Problem Portfolio as Part of Service Portfolio
    For these requirements, there are no established standards. The following method of procedure helps to clearly improve the efficiency of IT organziations:

    1. Establishing a problem portfolio

    • Situation analysis of incident, problem and change management
    • Definition of requirements for an overall problem management handling
    • Definition of an integrative problem management process
    • Harmonizing with incident  and change management
    • Establishing a problem portfolio as a control instrument

    2. Expanding and integrating service portfolio management

    Summary
    ITIL, PRINCE2 and PMI are highly useful frameworks capable of laying the foundation of an IT organization. But in order to challenge the „silo mentality“ and to take adequate advantage of them, they must be integrated with one another forming a holistic service portfolio & project management. Otherwise, they will be nothing but paper tigers.

  • OC Oerlikon – How SAP Roll-in Projects can Fail

    On Friday, October 26, 2007, inside-it.ch reported that OC Oerlikon will stop its super SAP project. The new approach is said to provide a „more intelligent, more flexible and cheaper solution that integrates all ERP systems of the business units using a central SAP consolidation tool“.

    This seems to simplify things, but why is it that SAP roll-in projects fail one after another? As a solution architect and interested oberserver of such projects, I dare to give some simple explanations:
    The originally pragmatic plan to technically avoid a number of varying ERP environments is in most cases not the primary goal. Often, the roll-in project is targeting to implement an operation with identical processes all across the enterprise and to benefit from best practices. Extremely challenging goals!

    Unfortunately, the project’s target organization and processes for the overall company often end up being insufficiently adjusted to SAP. In addition, the organizational and cultural complexity of such a original technical project requires that all quality assuring measures are clearly defined and strictly adhered to right from the beginning. Very often in such initiatives this is done much later, if at all.

    Of course, these are not the only things to be observed in order to ensure success of a SAP R/3 roll-in project or any other super project. But to begin with, every project manager is well advised to be alert to the stumbling blocks in SAP roll-in projects as described above.

  • Project Roadmap: Quick Wins with Iterations

    My blog Scoping – A Guarantee for Success through Harmonized Expectations describes how to identify factors that are most relevant to the success of the project:

    • Expectations of all key roles are defined and synchronized from the start
    • The technical system architecture is designed
    • The functional requirements are defined
    • An implementation roadmap comprising project contents, required organizations and project procedure is set up

    Harmonized Expectations and Step-by-Step Implementation Targeted at Partial Success
    Experience has shown that defining and synchronizing expectations is of great importance. With regard to expectations, the project scope plays a major role. Unfortunately, project team members as well as clients often fail to define the project precisely enough, including a variety of options and features into the project. Limited time and budget available for a maximum content are part of everyday business. Teams are getting unfocussed and bogged down in details loosing sight oft the project target. The project clients get impatient, failures mute motivation, and the original business cases are questioned.

    It is well known that projects promise to be successful only if sub-goals are defined ensuring step-by-step success and continuously producing a visible benefit. This is particularly true for long-lasting projects. The main issue here is to focus on the most important and prioritized requirements and functions and adhere to their consistent implementation.

    Implementation Roadmap and Iterations
    One oft he main issues of the scoping phase is to generate a practice-oriented implementation roadmap. This includes clearly defined targeted project objects, a time schedule, and the organization implied. Experience has shown that dividing the project into several iterations with clearly defined targeted objects leads to business quick wins and to a successful completion of the project. To follow this strategy, the most relevant requirements and core functions are identified and implemented in iterations.

    The main goal is to provide constant benefit for the project client and the users as soon as possible. Quick wins are achieved by first implementing those functions which are most suitable to ensure the highest possible benefit. In further iterations, more functions are added to those successfully implied to finally integrate the solution step by step into further processes, methods, systems and organizations. At the same time, a consistent project management und project marketing support the roadmap implementation. Management, client, and users know at any time which functions are available to them, and when.

    Iterations Optimized by Quick Wins
    Dividing projects into several iterations provides decisive advantages. They vary depending on context and task, but in most cases, the following advantages are ensured:

    • System with core functionality which rather soon works efficiently
    • Systematic knowledge transfer to users and business by targeted training at the right time.
    • Quick benefit as a basis and guideline for further procedure
    • Early integration of business organization and building up support services
    • Optimistic attitude towards the project by successfully completing iterations and meeting the expectations
    • Flexibility in structuring the functional requirements and a manageable basis for Scope Change Management
    • Organziational changes are implemented step by step and associated with achieving success
    • Short feedback loops, „lessons learned“, can be implemented in the next iteration

    The Challenge of Implementing Iterations
    Very frequently, a rigid project procedure is set forth by large enterprises. In addition to document templates, this includes specified and standardized rules of phase acceptance. The project passes through several phases, comprising preliminary studies, rough and detailed concept, realization, implementation, and operation. A new phase can only be started, after the preceding phase has been completed. This approach is often contrary to the basic idea and the immense benefit achieved by an iterative procedure.

    It is true that dividing the project into several iterations results in quick wins. But if all iterations, i.e. new functions, are repeatedly forced to pass through all project phases from the preliminary studies to operation,  this necessarily implies disprofit by loss of time and additional effort. The great benefit is given away!

    It is quite important to find common solutions in collaboration with the responsible persons, for example, from the project management office (PMO) or from quality control. Experience has shown that it is recommendable to have the most prominent mile stones approved „officially“, whereas the individual iterations can be approved by project members and application of quality assurance measures. A step-by-step extension of this approach to include scoping and phase acceptance which is attuned to an iterative concept would be useful.

    beteo Iterations

    Summary
    The benefit of an iterative approach is enormously high. In the context of standardized and rigid project implementation, this can be quite a challenge. However, addressing it at an early stage, iterations can easily be integrated into the existing environment. In a further step, this concept can be extended to include scoping and phase acceptance particularly attuned to iterations.

    After harmonizing the expectations of all key roles and prioritizing the requirements, all functions should be divided into individual iterations according to their importance. This allows you to focus on the core features and the highest possible benefit. Systems are available to users at an early stage, providing efficiently working core functionality. There is a fast and well-structured knowledge transfer leaving more time for the organization to implement changes. Quickly and successfully completed iterations result in a sense of achievement and promote an affirmative attitude  towards the project.

    In addition, the iterative approach allows you to carry out faster feedback loops and more flexibility in planning further iterations. This ensures quick wins and step-by-step success of the project.

  • Project Scoping – Aligning Expectations

    Projects often fail to be successful due to diverging, badly aligned expectations
    Dozens of statistics seem to suggest that there are dozens of reasons why projects fail to be successful. However, a great deal of them are attributable to vaguely defined objectives, problems related to technical architecture and a lack of management support. These causes, in turn, are in most cases due to either too optimistic or diverging expectations of the parties involved. Very often, projects are initiated without having identified and documented expectations as well as requirements on the part of all expert and management key roles.

    Scoping: Efficient approach to defining project content
    This is where scoping comes into play. This approach is extremely helpful when it comes to describing the functional requirements, defining project content and an adequate proceeding, and designing the technical architecture. The scoping phase targets at mapping the relevant context, ideas, requirements and prerequisites of all parties involved in the project in a well-structured way, reaching an agreement upon the project scope and establishing the project guidelines. Fixing an order of priority and laying down a clear structure makes the demanded objects transparent, well-defined, and synchronises the expectations of all persons involved. Experience has shown that syntonized expectations are one of the most important factors to ensure the success of a project.

    Scoping Ansatz

    Scoping phase in practice
    Several steps are necessary to reach these goals. Most of them must be executed in close collaboration with the client. This includes:

    • Defining a common objective and selecting relevant persons for workshops and interviews
    • Informing or training the project team members in order to create a common basis
    • Recording of business-related and functional requirements, needs and ideas during workshops and interviews
    • Understanding the technical requirements and challenges, the system landscape, and the necessary integrations
    • Prioritization with regard to quick wins and a high payback
    • Attending to a common understanding and identifying the points where the project gains momentum
    • Elaborating a detailed implementation roadmap, including time management and organizational planning, split up in iterations optimized by quick wins
    • Presentation of the results to the management

    Implementation Roadmap
    One of the most significant results from the scoping phase is the roadmap for implementation. The roadmap includes not only project content and proceeding, but also a time schedule and organizational planning, and provides a basis for the project. It is recommended to split up the project scope into several implementation iterations in favor of a clearly structured step-by-step planning and in order to immediately provide maximum benefit to the project client.

    Core factor of success
    Principally, scoping should be a closely integrated part of the project methodology. If, for example, there are no interviews, this will cause lead to a sign of alarm at the quality gate. If necessary, this item must be re-worked – or there is a clear decision not to do so.
    Experience has shown that the choice of persons involved in the scoping phase is of great importance. The key roles might vary depending on the task and the context, but it is indispensable to involve the client, the top management, the users, and the experts as regards content and technical issues. As soon as the participants are selected, the core factor of success are their availability as well as competent scheduling. We also recommend to have two persons hold the interviews in order not to loose sight of important aspects and to ensure complete documentation.

    Summary
    Scoping is a good way of fine-tuning project ideas and analyze the approaches to solution finding. Preferably, the scoping phase is an integral part of the typical procedure of all projects. As all information is collected by relevant key roles, the required data can be accessed, translated into requirements, and given a defined level of priority. From this, the concrete implementation roadmap is derived. Thus, the project idea is clearly defined, and the project scope is fixed with consideration of processes, organization, systems, including required system integrations, and other dependent processes. All persons involved in the project have a common interest in and are focused on the same issues. Their expectations are synchronized. The momentum gained by this common basis is the most significant stimulus for all to make the project a success story.

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