PM Methodology and Performance Improvement
By George Pitagorsky, PMP
Pitagorsky Consulting
© 2006 International Institute for Learning
Introduction
Performance improvement is an objective of every organization. Every organization wants to continuously increase return on investment (ROI), minimize costs, get to market faster with better products and services, to increasingly satisfy customers, shareholders, regulators and employees. A project management (PM) methodology that promotes a lean (no waste) and agile (flexible and supportive of good interpersonal relations) approach is a means to the end of improving organizational performance.
Projects and Process Orientation
Projects are the way organizations improve performance. Projects result in new and improved products and services, improve processes by increasing effectiveness, lowering costs and increasing quality. Project management is a critical factor in making sure that projects are performed well to achieve their objectives. PM methodology improves PM performance.
Process orientation is the awareness that all outcomes are the results of a process and that process improvement is the means to improve performance. A process is the set of steps to accomplish anything. The process may be defined or not.
A methodology is a defined process. It may be called guidelines or a framework. In essence it is a written set of policies and procedures, supported by tools, role and responsibility definitions, checklists, and templates. Implementing a PM methodology to promote lean and agile performance overcomes resistance and avoids bureaucracy and unnecessary paper work is a challenge.
Performance Improvement Program
While PM methodology is a critical success factor, it alone does not improve project performance. Performance improvement is complex. It requires a concerted effort to bring together tools, methods, and knowledge to enable people to work more effectively.
Improving project performance requires an enterprise perspective that recognizes the interplay between strategic planning, portfolio management, program management, project management, resource management, tools, competency development, creating a PM community of practice, critical thinking and decision making. Organizational change management is required because improvement involves changes to the way people think, are organized, their roles and responsibilities and accountability.
The elements that are required for improvement in project management are sustained management support, knowledge management, methodology with best practice tools and techniques, organization structure that supports project management, a process owner (PMO), commitment to continuous improvement. This article will focus on the methodology for performing individual projects. It is necessary to implement integrated methodologies for all the aspects of enterprise project management.
Improvement requires a program to.
1. Acknowledge the need for improvement by identifying and quantifying the cost of performance shortfalls and the opportunities for gains from improvements,
2. Prove that improvement is possible by seeing what other organization’s have done
3. Identify goals and objectives,
4. Plan and execute projects to perform the program
5. Sustain the gains through continuous improvement.
PM methodology implementation is a sub-program that involves acquisition of a methodology/knowledge management tool, development of the methodology, ongoing refinement, education and training, compliance monitoring, and motivation.
PM Methodology implementation is generally championed by a project or program management office.
Change Management – Avoid/Overcome Resistance
Methodology is a “loaded” term. Many people fear that methodology will create bureaucracy and excessive paper work. People want to do things their way, not the way some experts tell them to do it. Performance oriented executives don’t want to spend the time and effort required to do what they consider to be an academic exercise.
The need for organizational change management is clear. The people who will sponsor methodology development and promote ongoing compliance and continuous improvement must be convinced that methodology adds value. Everyone must get the message that methodology is not synonymous with bureaucracy. This requires a communications process and sensitivity on the part of methodology developers and champions.
Education, open dialogue and meaningful involvement by the people who are to be affected by the methodology are critical parts of the program. A working group of key and well respected project managers is the corner stone of effective methodology development. The objective is to ensure that the methodology is practical and that the PM community will accept it. Often, methodologists have a theoretical orientation. This must be balanced by the practical orientation of practitioners.
A clear and continued message from senior management is another essential ingredient of successful methodology implementation. This message takes the form of initial kick off support to motivate the staff and make sure that everyone understands why methodology is a critical business issue. It also includes periodic reminders and a commitment to supporting compliance monitoring through audits and reviews.
As in many organizational change management situations, middle management is a key to success. There have been many instances in which senior management authorizes methodology implementation and rollout, people are trained and the methodology is rolled out but after a short while, no one follows the methodology. Often this is caused by the absence of middle management – both managers of project managers and functional mangers – commitment.
Middle managers are often confronted with conflicting demands to deliver immediate results and make long term improvement. In one internal IT organization managers were driven by aggressive demands from powerful internal clients. Implementation of a PM methodology had the initial effect of slowing project implementation because of the need for greater formality in documentation and control. Pressure from internal clients was passed from the IT managers to their PMs. Very soon, PMs were cutting corners, avoiding formal project documentation. Soon no one was following the methodology.
Organizational change management efforts must involve middle managers and their clients. The fundamental change is a shift from an individual project centric view to a multi-project, organizational view. Effective methodology eliminates some of the root causes of poor project performance; for example, scope creep caused by unclear and undocumented requirements and uncontrolled scope change. PM Methodology compliance supports portfolio management to ensure that only strategically aligned projects that have a compelling business case are initiated. This might be a jarring change to clients and middle managers whose pet projects have always been performed.
Methodology implementation must address the issues confronting middle management and clients through education and through senior level motivation and a monitoring process that highlights accountability for compliance.
When one is on a fast moving treadmill it is all one can to do keep up. Change is out of the question. Effective change management requires that the treadmill is slowed enough to get a sense of other options that will improve things going forward.
Methodology Enables Greater Throughput
A major misconception about methodology is that it slows things down. The perception is that because there is more formality, more documentation and review, projects will take more time and effort.
Certainly some documentation takes more effort than none. But, if the methodology is effective it will work to increase throughput (the number of useful projects that are accomplished by the organization). Formal paper work will be kept to minimum and will support controls at the multi-project level as well as avoiding problems in individual projects, like scope creep.
A major driver of methodology is the desire of senior managers for a consistent view of what projects are being initiated and why and where every project is in its life cycle. This enables better portfolio management decisions regarding which projects are to be initiated, suspended or cancelled. This reduces the instances of wasteful projects and moderates the flow of projects to better utilize resources. The end result is more successful projects being performed with the same or fewer resources.
Another driver for methodology is the quest for increased efficiency through more effective process. Methodology promotes consistency and consistency enables finding best practices and eliminating bottle necks and waste. Post project reviews and the analysis of their lessons learned across multiple projects increases efficiency over time. Consistent practices across projects reduce learning curves and increase the organization’s ability to move people between projects.
Using a Proven Base and Customizing
Use a well proven base PM methodology as a foundation. There is no need to “reinvent the wheel”. When developing the UPMM™ methodology, the IIL team started with the PMI PMBOK® Guide model and modified it to fit our needs. Our needs were to implement a scaled and highly flexible PM methodology for a global manufacturing organization. When we were done we had a solid foundation to use in providing other organizations with a strong model which could then be easily customized to their needs.
But external methodologies are not the only source for methodology development. Many organizations have areas that have developed and are using PM procedures, templates, tools and techniques. Make use of internal experience to minimize unnecessary change and effort and to reuse what has already been developed.
Using a proven base does not mean adopting it out of the box. It must be customized to the needs and character of your organization. Terminology, content, look and feel of templates as well as tools and other aspects of the methodology should be made to fit unless you make a conscious choice to go the other way and fit your organization to the base methodology. Note that, usually, there is a mix between fitting the external methodology to the organization and the organization to the external methodology. Part of your methodology planning should address this choice.
Methodology and Knowledge Management Tool
A methodology tool supports methodology development and makes methodology available to project managers. It is a knowledge management tool. Methodology is a significant part of an organizations’ knowledge. Tied to the methodology are all of the policies, operating instructions, “how to’s”, lessons learned, and project archives that contain examples of how best to utilize the methodology.
For best results; use an on-line PM knowledge management tool that delivers the methodology and all other PM knowledge to project managers’ desk tops. The tool should walk the PM through the process, enable immediate access to templates, checklists, tools and tutorials for each step. The same tool, like IIL’s UPMM™, should enable project managers to access best practice examples from past projects, get advice online and conveniently interface with other PM tools.
Ideally, a PM would get coaching in a highly interactive yet electronic way using frequently asked questions and access to experts and peers. The integration of just in time training and coaching and the availability of a single mechanism for getting input from peers support the overall transfer of knowledge in the organization. As project managers address issues, the PM knowledge manager can capture lessons learned and best practices for inclusion into the knowledge base.
An effective methodology tool must enable methodology development and ongoing refinement. That means that qualified administrators and methodologists have secure access to features that allow the methodology to be defined and customized, with multiple variations for different types of projects.
The methodology tool should interface easily with project management information system tools (e.g., Microsoft Project, Primavera, etc.) to enable project activity lists to be generated automatically and to make access to past project archives easy.
A PM methodology tool helps to ensure compliance, multiply the effect of training, promote the use of best practices and build a community of practice.
Scaling
One size does NOT fit all in PM methodology. Different organizations have different needs for detailed compliance with regulatory requirements; different projects have different needs depending on their size, complexity, type of work, the experience level of the project manager among other criteria.
An effective methodology must enable scaling to the needs of different kinds of projects without forcing each project manager to reconstruct the process. This means delivering methodology variations for different types of projects, each with its own documentation and control requirements, which can then be “tweaked” to the needs of each individual project.
Methodology does not imply that there is a lot of paper work and bureaucracy. An effective methodology makes sure that the essentials are in place:
· A common written understanding of project objectives and constraints
· A documented plan with a comprehensive activity list, at an appropriate level of detail, expected deliverables, and realistic schedule and budget
· Common understanding of how the team will communicate and manage information
· Clear understanding of roles and responsibilities
· Performance monitoring and reporting
· Managed expectations
· Quality control
· Post project review.
Risk management, communication and change control are embedded in the scheduling, budgeting, progress monitoring and managed expectations items.
There are many ways to accomplish these. The objective is to do it with the least amount of effort while satisfying control and complexity needs. For example, the size of the project and the experience of the project manager might be criteria that are used to determine how many project checkpoints are needed in order to monitor performance and maintain control. In a small project a single document may suffice to define objectives and establish the plan while in a large project several documents might be needed to accomplish the same thing.
PM Methodology and Delivery Methodology
The difference between project management and project performance adds another interesting dimension to the methodology issue. Project management addresses the management of the work being performed in a project. Performance methodology or delivery approach addresses the way the core work itself is to be performed. The performance methodology is often referred to as project life cycle (PLC) or in the IT field, systems development life cycle.
Implementing PM methodology is a challenging task in itself. Implementing project life cycle methodologies, usually for multiple types of projects, is even more complex. Project performers are often quite attached to the way they do their work. There are often opposing philosophies (e.g., iterative approach vs. more linear waterfall approach). All of these make the definition of a suite of PLC methodologies a complex and time consuming effort over and above the definition of PM methodology. By separating the PM methodology from the PLC methodology, PM improvement can be fast tracked while performance improvement on the PLC side is addressed in parallel.
Organizations have a choice between implementing PM methodology and PLC 1) separately and then having them merged by the project manager when the project plan is being developed or 2) as a single methodology that embeds the PM activities into the PLC. The advantage to handing them separately is to enable the use of the same PM methodology across multiple PLC methodologies and to simplify methodology maintenance. The advantage of the combined approach is that it is a bit simpler for project teams who are unfamiliar with project management as a discipline.
The Team – Collaborative Approach
Methodology development is a team effort. The team should consist of both methodology specialists and practitioners. As stated above, this enables organization change management by making sure that the methodology is both practical and that it complies with the organization’s regulatory and control needs.
Collaborative effort is led by the methodology specialist who brings a “straw man” to the team for evaluation and change. The methodologist or another member of the team must act as a facilitator. Working step by step, artifact by artifact, the team agrees on an approach that works for each type of project to be addressed by the methodology.
Among the team’s decisions should be selection of the base methodology and the methodology/knowledge management tool.
If the team cannot come to consensus, it may be a sign that they do not fully understand their roles and objectives. It is important to explore the root causes of the difficulty to come to consensus to determine if the methodologists are being too rigid or if the practitioners are resisting the change to a consistent way of managing.
Methodology Rollout
Rolling out the methodology is a major event in any organization. It can be handled in many ways. In one organization, the methodology was made available as a set of guidelines which were announced as job aids to be used at the discretion of the project managers. The rollout was planned this way to avoid resistance and get valuable feedback from project managers and to allow the self selection of pilot groups.
In other organizations there is the rollout of a minimal set of must-haves combined with a set of discretionary standards. Still other organizations choose to rollout their methodologies with greater compliance requirements.
The rollout approach should be determined based on the cultural needs of the organization, its current maturity level and driving forces such as the need for regulatory requirements.
Training and Methodology
Training and orientation are parts of the methodology rollout as well as parts of the overall PM performance improvement approach. At IIL we have implemented training in a number of ways to support PM improvement in our clients’ organizations.
In some cases initial PM training is generic because the organization does not have a methodology. As a methodology is developed and implemented, training to introduce it is delivered and ongoing PM training is customized to integrate the methodology’s templates and terminology.
Where formal PM is being introduced along with PM methodology implementation, fully integrated training can be started from the beginning.
The methodology documentation, particularly if it is delivered through a knowledge management tool, is both a training vehicle and a reinforcement of formal training. For example, courses in planning and estimating lay a foundation for effective performance but it is not until the PM actually goes to plan a project and reads methodology guidelines and uses templates that the leaning sinks in. “A ha moments” occur when formal knowledge meets practical application in the real world. Therefore it is necessary to make sure that there is a clear correspondence between training contents and the methodology.
Compliance and Variance
Compliance monitoring is a necessary part of methodology implementation. Without it the probability of ongoing adoption of the methodology is small. Compliance monitoring requires that a group is empowered to evaluate whether a project team has sufficiently followed the methodology.
This is best done by an audit group that is utilizing the methodology as a baseline. A common alternative is to have the PMO monitor compliance. This may cause the PMO to be seen as a policing/audit group rather than a support and facilitation group. Another alternative is for managers of PMs to monitor compliance and then in turn be accountable to an audit group and senior management.
Compliance monitoring should be integrated into the overall project review process. At project initiation, PMs should submit their plans for review and acceptance. Compliance to the methodology should be assessed at checkpoints and at the project’s completion. If the compliance group has the power to stop or delay a project that is not in compliance, it will be a strong motivation for PMs and their managers to follow the methodology.
Of course, if the compliance group is very rigid and lacks good judgment the entire organization will suffer. While the letter of the law is important it is its spirit that maters most.
To balance the compliance monitoring it is necessary to have a variance process within the methodology. The variance process should enable PMs to opt out of following some aspects of the methodology. Of course the PM must justify the variance with a logical argument based on what is best for the project and the organization.
Continuous improvement
Methodology is a living body of knowledge. Continuous improvement should be built in.
In the IIL UPMM™ methodology we included a step called Ongoing Improvement. Its inputs are lessons learned from projects performed in a period along with best practice examples, frequently asked questions, comments from PM practitioners and the results of bench marking efforts. The outputs are updates to the methodology, including new methodology variants, changes to steps, templates, examples and knowledge base contents.
Continuous improvement ensures that the methodology remains relevant to the organization. Relevance translates into ongoing use. Ongoing use translates into a methodology that becomes a natural part of the organization and that leads to performance excellence.
Conclusion
Project management is a mission critical process. Methodology development and deployment is a program within the broader program of PM improvement. Methodology addresses process orientation – the recognition that process improvement is the means to the end of performance improvement.
Methodology is a central part of the organizations knowledge. A PM methodology/knowledge management tool is a means for developing and delivering knowledge to the desk top, transferring knowledge and building PM competency.
