Continuous Improvement Areas Project management methodologies must undergo continuous improvement. This may be strategically important to stay ahead of the competition. Continuous improvements to a methodology can be internally driven by factors such as better software availability, a more cooperative corporate culture, or simply training and education in the use of project management practices. Externally driven factors include relationships with customers and suppliers, legal factors, social factors, technological factors, and even political factors. Five areas for continuous improvement to the project management methodology are shown in Figure 9.2 and in the following: Existing Process Improvements Frequency of use: Has prolonged use of the methodology made it apparent that changes can be made? C o n t i n u o u s I m p r o v e m e n t A r e a s 111 Access to customers: Can you improve the methodology to get closer to your customers? Substitute products: Are there new products (i.e., software) in the marketplace that can replace and improve part of your methodology? Better working conditions: Can changes in the working conditions cause you to eliminate parts of the methodology (i.e., paperwork requirements)? Better use of software: Will new or better use of the software allow you to eliminate some of your documentation and reports? Integrated Process Improvements Speed of integration: Are there ways to change the methodology to increase the speed of integrating activities? Training requirements: Have changes in training requirements mandated changes in your methodology? Corporate-wide acceptance: Should the methodology change in order to obtain corporate-wide acceptance? Behavioral Issues Changes in organizational behavior: Have changes in behavior mandated methodology changes? Cultural changes: Has your culture changed (i.e., to a cooperative culture) such that the methodology can be enhanced? Management support: Has management support improved to a point where fewer gate reviews are required? Impact on informal project management: Is there enough of a cooperative culture that informal project management can be used to execute the methodology? Shifts in power and authority: Do authority and power changes mandate a looser or a more rigid methodology? Safety considerations: Have safety or environmental changes occurred that will impact the methodology? Overtime requirements: Do new overtime requirements mandate an updating of forms, policies, or procedures? Benchmarking Creation of a project management COE: Do you now have a core group responsible for benchmarking? Cultural benchmarking: Do other organizations have better cultures than you do in project management execution? Process benchmarking: What new processes are other companies integrating into their methodology? L e v e l 5 : C o n t i n u o u s I m p r o v e m e n t 112 Managerial Issues Customer communications: Have there been changes in the way you communicate with your customers? Resource capability versus needs: If your needs have changed, what has happened to the capabilities of your resources? Restructuring requirements: Has restructuring caused you to change your sign-off requirements? Growing pains: Does the methodology have to be updated to include your present growth in business (i.e., tighter or looser controls)? These five factors provide a company with a good framework for continuous improvement. The benefits of continuous improvement include: Better competitive positioning Corporate unity Improved cost analysis Customer value added Better management of customer expectations Ease of implementation The Never-Ending Cycle Given the fact that maturity in project management is a never-ending journey, we can define excellence in project management as a never-ending cycle of benchmarking continuous improvementsingular methodology enhancement, as shown in Figure 9.3. D e v e l o p i n g Eff e c t i v e P r o c e d u r a l D o c u m e n tat i o n 113 This implies that Levels 3, 4, and 5 of the PMMM are repeated over and over again. This also justifies our statement of the need for overlapping levels. Examples of Continuous Improvement As more and more industries accept project management as a way of life, continuous improvement opportunities in project management practices have arisen at an astounding rate. What is even more important is the fact that companies are sharing their accomplishments with other companies during benchmarking activities. Ten recent interest areas are included in this chapter: Developing effective procedural documentation Project management methodologies Continuous improvement Capacity planning Competency models Managing multiple projects End-of-phase review meetings Strategic selection of projects Portfolio selection of projects Horizontal accounting These 10 topics appear to be the quickest to change. However, as project management evolves, other topics, such as those discussed in Chapter 11, may replace some of these. Established Practices Although project managers may have the right to establish their own policies and procedures, many companies have taken the route of designing project-control forms that can be used uniformly on all projects to assist in the communications process. Projectcontrol forms serve two vital purposes by establishing a common framework from which: The project manager will communicate with executives, functional managers, functional employees, and clients. Executives and the project manager can make meaningful decisions concerning the allocation of resources. Success or failure of a project depends on the ability of key personnel to have sufficient data for decision-making. Project management is often considered to be both an art and a science. It is an art because of the strong need for interpersonal skills, and the project planning and control forms attempt to convert part of the art into a science. Many companies tend not to realize until too late the necessity of good planning and control forms. Today, some of the larger companies with mature project management structures maintain a separate functional unit for forms control. This is quite common in aerospace and defense, but it is also becoming common practice in other industries. Yet some executives still believe that forms are needed only when the company grows to a point where a continuous stream of unique projects necessitates some sort of uniform control mechanism. D e v e l o p i n g Eff e c t i v e P r o c e d u r a l D o c u m e n tat i o n 117 In some small or nonproject-driven organizations, each project can have its own forms. But for most other organizations, uniformity is a must. Quite often, the actual design and selection of the forms is made by individuals other than the users. This can easily lead to disaster. Large companies with a multitude of different projects do not have the luxury of controlling projects with three or four forms. There are different forms for planning, scheduling, controlling, authorizing work, and so on. It is not uncommon for companies to have 20 to 30 different forms, each dependent on the type of project, length of project, dollar value, type of customer reporting, and other such factors. Some companies have as many as 50 tools for project managers to use, and each tool has its own procedural documentation. In project management, project managers are often afforded the luxury of being able to set up their own administration for the project, a fact that could lead to irrevocable long-term damage if each project manager were permitted to design his or her own forms for project control. Many times, this problem remains unchecked, and the number of forms grows exponentially with each project. Executives can overcome this problem either by limiting the number of forms necessary for planning, scheduling, and controlling projects, or by establishing a separate department to develop the needed forms. Neither of these approaches is really practical or cost-effective. The best method appears to be the task force concept, where both managers and doers have the opportunity to interact and provide input. In the short run, this may appear to be ineffective and a waste of time and money. However, in the long run, there should be large benefits. There is growth in the use of a flexible project management approach. This approach depends on the trust executives have in the project managers. With this approach, the organization establishes a library of forms and allows the project team to select which forms are appropriate for a project. The team may also design their own forms to meet a clients needs. To be effective in traditional project management, the following ground rules can be used: Task forces should include managers as well as doers. Task-force members must be willing to accept criticism from other peers, superiors, and especially subordinates who must live with these forms. Upper-level management should maintain a rather passive (or monitoring) involvement. A minimum of signature approvals should be required for each form. Forms should be designed so that they can be updated periodically. Functional managers and project managers must be dedicated and committed to the use of the forms. Categorizing the Broad Spectrum of Documents The dynamic nature of project management and its multifunctional involvement create a need for a multitude of procedural documents to guide a project through the various L e v e l 5 : C o n t i n u o u s I m p r o v e m e n t 118 phases and stages of integration. Especially for larger organizations, the challenge is not only to provide management guidelines for each project activity, but also to provide a coherent procedural framework within which project leaders from all disciplines can work and communicate with each other. Specifically, each policy or procedure must be consistent with and accommodating to the various other functions that interface with the project over its life cycle. This complexity of intricate relations is illustrated in Figure 9.4. One simple and effective way of categorizing the broad spectrum of procedural documents is to utilize the work breakdown concept, as shown in Figure 9.5. This concept organizes the principal procedural categories along the lines of the principal project life-cycle phases. Each category is then subdivided into (1) general management guidelines, (2) policies, (3) procedures, (4) forms, and (5) checklists. If necessary, the concept can be extended an additional step to develop policies, procedures, forms, and checklists for the various project and functional sublevels of operation. Although this level of formality might be needed for very large programs, an effort should be made to minimize layering of policies and procedures, because the additional bureaucracy can cause new interface problems and additional overhead costs. For most projects, a single document covers all levels of project operations. P r o j e c t M a n a g e m e n t M e t h o d o l o g i e s 119 As We Mature As companies become more mature in executing the project management methodology, project management policies and procedures are discarded and replaced with guidelines, forms, and checklists. More flexibility is thus provided to the project manager. Unfortunately, reaching this stage takes time, because executives need to develop confidence in the ability of the project management methodology to work without the rigid controls provided by policies and procedures. All companies seem to go through the evolutionary stage of relying on policies and procedures before they advance to guidelines, templates, forms, and checklists. Project Management Methodologies The ultimate purpose of any project management system is to drastically increase the likelihood that your organization will have a continuous stream of successfully managed projects. The best way to achieve this goal is with the development of a project management methodology. Good project management methodologies are based on guidelines and forms rather than policies and procedures. Methodologies must have enough flexibility that they can be adapted easily to each and every project. There are consulting companies that have created their own methodologies and that will try to convince you that the solution to most of your project management problems can be resolved with the purchase of their (often expensive) methodology. The primary goal of these consulting companies is turning problems into gold: your problems into their gold! L e v e l 5 : C o n t i n u o u s I m p r o v e m e n t 120 One major hurdle that any company must overcome when developing or purchasing a project management methodology is the fact that a methodology is nothing more than a sheet of paper with instructions. To convert this sheet of paper into a successful methodology, the company must accept, support, and execute the methodology. If this is going to happen, the methodology should be designed to support the corporate culture, not vice versa. It is a fatal mistake to purchase a canned methodology package that mandates you change your corporate culture to support it. If the methodology does not support the culture, the result will be a lack of acceptance of the methodology, sporadic use at best, inconsistent application of the methodology, poor morale, and perhaps even diminishing support for project management. What converts any methodology into a world-class methodology is its adaptability to the corporate culture. There is no reason why organizations cannot develop their own methodologies. The amount of time and effort needed to develop a methodology will vary from company to company, based on such factors as the size and nature of the projects, the number of functional boundaries to be crossed, whether the organization is project-driven or non project-driven, and competitive pressures.

Summerize the above content. No plagiarism,