Executive management has invested a lot in project improvement. Since early 2000 we, as a community, have observed that many companies have embraced the idea of installing a Project Management Office (PMO) – a centralized organization dedicated to improving the practice and results of project management. The assumption is that each project contributes to the strategic objectives of the company. If this is not the case, why do the project?

Because projects’ benefits are not realizing in full, the company does not reach, in due time, the expected strategic objectives.

Why does this happen? Is it, because everything is ‘out of our hands’? Is it because of bad luck? Or could it be something else, something we are able to change, from within.

Assuming that you are running an excellent company which realizes the necessity of project management.  You already have some kind of centralized supportive organism to improve project management results to drive ROI and create value.  This centralized supportive organism does have a charter and it shows which value it plans to generate, by when and how, justifying the money invested.

According to Gerald I. Kendall and Steve Rollins in their bestselling book ‘The Advanced PMO: How to generate ROI at warp speed’, such a PMO must deliver through all following processes:

• Choosing the right balanced project portfolio, with enough market-side (marketing and sales) projects that are strategic (not rather focused on short-term, tactical sales support) , and not too many supply side projects(focus on cost, efficiencies, supportive functions)
• Aligning the current and planned projects to the executive team’s strategies
• Managing the project portfolio in an effective manner
• Measuring the PMO to tangibly improve project performance relative to the executives’ strategic goals

The essential element of effectively managing a PMO is that the projects themselves are delivered in full according to scope, time and budget.

Many studies by research companies tell us that only 26% of the projects they surveyed were successful (For IT projects, the figure is only 16%). If most projects are not realized within their initial commitments, the strategic objectives are not met. Why? If we don’t find out why, what will be our project results? How would we expect to have success resulting from our project?

In order to know why, we first must look for the complaints.  Most common complaints are that projects take too long to complete, they over-run budgets, over-run schedules, finish later than their original target date,   do not have enough resources, there are too many changes, project information is misleading or non-existent, people have too much to do, project people have to work overtime, people are stressed and there is too much rework.  Unfortunately we don’t see much change in the type of complaints from several decades ago.

Now, when you look in your own company what are the official reasons given for project overruns?

‘The bigger the change, the bigger the resistance! ‘  everybody knows that.

Really?

In a company with many ideas about how to achieve their strategic objectives, all these ideas result in programs, projects and daily operations. When the company wants to achieve its objectives, isn’t it obvious one should maximize their project flow?
So, when it is paramount to ensure the required maximization of project flow is realized, one must have a profound knowledge of how the functions in a company are interlinked, one has to have a factual picture of the interdependencies. Most of the time there are several individuals with great knowledge, mostly limited to one or more functions, while no one has a clear picture of the whole. Since it seemed to be too difficult to have a view over the whole, some or many companies have decided to break the company up in many divisions (cost centers, P&L centers..) and, defined goals and measures per division. Measures drive (most part of) behavior. Unfortunately, all divisions are interdependent, and, when the local measures don’t take this into account, these division leads to many conflicts, induced by these measures. Where there are conflicts, there is resistance because it is not in their interest (since they are measured differently) or conflicting with how people’s performance (contribution) is measured. Therefore, to initiate another technological solution, which may not solve this problem may be another waste and just adding to the complexity and frustration of the organization.
In order to avoid unneeded costs and investment, must one not first know what is really blocking the company, now, from doing better with the same? Of course, everything can be improved, every process. But since we have only limited people, limited resources, when one wants to maximize ROI, isn’t it best to find a solution for what is most urgent, most blocking the company from achieving its objectives?
When people resist change, they have a good reason for that. I assume that people are good, there is only bad behavior induced by wrong policies, measures, procedures, that drive our behavior.
In addition one must not only show what the advantages of the change are for each individual, but also consider what the risk is of not changing and, in the meantime, showing how you have adressed the risks that are inherent with the proposed change. The latter can be accomplished by taking into consideration the reservations that people have for the change. These reservations may be concerns about the viability of the proposed change, will the solution really bring the suggested benefits without creating new problems? Other reservations may be ‘Can we do this, can we implement it, in which sequence?’.
What would happen if one skips one of the following questions for any change project?
1. Why change (define goals and measurements)?
2. What to change? (making sure one addresses the lever, the one thing which will have the most beneficial impact for the company)
3. What to change to? (agreeing on the solution)
4. How to cause the change? (agreement on how to implement the chosen solution to the identified root cause problem)

For any technical solution proposals I would suggest always to ask the following questions:
1. What is the the power of the new technology?
2. What current limitation does it address?
3. What are the rules created to cope with the previous limitation that must be changed?
4. What are the the new rules needed to exploit the power of the technology?
5. What are the resulting required changes in technology itself?
6. How the technology provider, integrator and user can work together to enable the implementation of the required changes on win/win basis?

In addressing all above solutions, I assume it is also extremely important to have every stakeholder represented to provide answers. In that way you’ll have the very necessary buy-in from the people. Otherwise, you’ll start with resistance, and one may only cooperate because they feel they are forced to. A lack of consideration is a proof of disrespect. Disrespect is one of the reasons of low motivation, high resistance. Misalignments is another reason. When a technological solution facilitates effectively and efficiently addressing the misalignments, lack of consideration and disrespect, the solution may be worthwhile implementing. But, is it really necessary to use a technological solution in every company in order to bring respect, consideration and alignments in place? That, has to be assessed, and the above 6 questions may be used for that assessment. Hope this is helpful to you, the reader.

The deployment of an efficient social mediated environment, properly implemented can add to the flow of projects, just as well as the implementation of a robust and efficient IT architecture, or, a new ERP system….

Allthough, this may be necessary, it may not be suficient. Or maybe other improvement projects should be executed first, to remove the more urgent blockages. What blockage would an efficient and properly deployed idea/technology/initiative remove, which currently keeps organizations (both for profit and non-profit) from achieving more of their global intentions, goals?

Once it is clearly identified which blockage it removes one can decide to implement this improvement project when no other improvement project is needed first or, adresses better, with less risk and the least investment possible a more imminent deeper lying root cause.
Many times, in all kinds of organizations there are a lot of ideas that all improve something. The real question is whether the something will really add to achieving the company’s goal units. Shouldn’t we first make sure that we know what is blocking us right now from doing better? When we know what is blocking us, we can go out and look for different ideas that tackle the blocking factor. This may, or may not be one or many of the suggested ideas, or not.

It may also be the prioritization of projects (to maximize the ROI, ROA of the project portfolio), and the removal of deeply ingrained behaviors induced by either a physical blocking factor (like the capacity of a machine or the lack of humans with a certain capability), or it may be contradicting policies, rules or metrics that have once been put in place but that have become obsolete during time. Often we find that ‘old’ companies and organizations are a coral reef of policies, rules, procedures and metrics that were once valid, but have never been questioned again.

Could the result be, more and more contradictory policies, procedures, rules and metrics that drive behavior to tackle with the ‘fires’, the symptoms, local issues, of deeper underlying common root causes?

What would happen if we would decide which improvement project to implement before we have a good enough understanding of the general structure and interdepencies of the various functions as well as the current policies and procedures?

Could we be ever confident in our decision,  that the change project will really be a sustainable improvement to the organization’s goals?

Based on our experiencesthe most succes and most confidence in implementing any improvement project is  achieved when one has found the few blocking factors and the appropriate improvement project(s) are withheld by the sponsors (governance board) while they be implemented in the most appropriate, necessary logical sequence (eg. when the blocking factor is not enough market demand, the first focus should be on fulfilling the market’s (customers) needs more).

What would a change project bring to the company when it does not directly address what is imminent, necessary and sufficient, right now?

We start this Blog in order to assist you to maximize your project flow and your ROI at the same time.

Topics covered will be:

- What are the typical complaints in the multi-project environment that we hear from senior management and project teams?

- What do these complaints have in common?

- What are the benefits of solving these undesirable effects? How to calculate the impact when one would implement a solution to the undesirable effects?

- What are the root causes of the seemingly everlasting, recurring undesirable effects in the multi-project environment?

- What are the solution criteria for a solid, viable and effective multi-project management solution?

We welcome you to join discussions by commenting on every blog entry.

Best wishes,

Kurt

www.12solve.be