Triple Threat and article by Roberto Toledo.

Triple Threat and article by Roberto Toledo.

I read an interesting article in the August 2013 PMnetwork. I guess that shows that I am behind in my reading. Roberto Toledo wrote about the triple threat of complexity, uncertainty, and changeability. After briefly looking at the triple constraints of scope, cost, and schedule, he discussed the three concepts of complexity, uncertainty, and changeability as the three biggest threats to project success.

Although, project managers need to keep in mind balancing act between cost, schedule and quality, this mindset also creates a barrier for project managers. It is true that if there is a change in schedule would need to look at the impact on cost and quality. If there’s a change in cost, we need to understand the impact on schedule and quality. There is also the possibility that a change in cost my created an opportunity for exploring new ways of approaching a schedule and for new ways to define the quality of the deliverables. I’ve seen a number of incidences where we have been able to increase the quality components of the deliverable and at the same time reduce costs or schedule or both. This takes some innovative thinking that can be constrained by only looking at the model of the triple constraints.

Toledo looked at complexity, uncertainty and changeability as concepts that need to be managed on every project. He suggested managing complexity through the process of “divide and conquer”. This included using your WBS to break your project down into smaller components. Uncertainty refers to the risk on the project in dealing with risk management. Changeability focused on managing the scope with effective change management process.

Although this was a very brief article, Toledo did an excellent job of summarizing the concepts. These are three concepts that managers need to manage effectively for the project success. Risk management and change management at the end the part of the project manager’s toolbox for long time.

Complexity of the project is less discussed. Toledo did not define complexity. What might be considered complex than one project profile may not be considered complex one another project. It would’ve been interesting to hear more from Toledo on how he defines complexity and expand on more than one method of managing complexity.

Russ

Asheville PMI Chapter Meeting

Local PMI Chapter Meeting

I attended the local PMI Chapter meeting in Asheville NC last night. Jon M Quigley was scheduled to discuss Agile Project Management vs. Traditional Project Management. Unfortunately, Mr. Quigley was unable to make it and the Chapter Satellite Chairperson (Gary Jarvis led a discussion on risk. I was looking forward to a lively discussion on how we define traditional project management.

Agile Project Management vs. Traditional Project Management might infer that there are two types of projects; agile and traditional project. Agile projects I understand. There has been a great deal of writing on the concept of agile projects. Traditional projects, not so much. If by traditional projects we mean every project that is not appropriate for an agile approach, then this maybe too simplistic. Projects vary significantly and the project management approach must meet the needs of the project profile.

This was the discussion I was looking forward to. We had a discussion on Risk that was interesting. We had insurance, medical, construction and operations represented in the discussion and each industry seems to take a little different approach to risk. The insurance company has a very defined approach to identifying and tracking risk. The construction industry is very mature in procedures but maybe less so in implementation. The health care industry, represented at the meeting, seemed to indicate there was very little structured approach to risk in the health care industry. This may not apply to the medical application but to the management of health care systems or projects.

I enjoyed the discussion and look forward to becoming more involved in the Asheville Chapter.

Russ

Project Management Journal review

February 11, 2014

Reviewing the December 2013, Project Management Journal

I enjoy dissecting project management research and attempting to translate the results for project managers. After reading the latest edition of the Project Management Journal (PMJ), I went back to read the mission of the journal.in essence, the mission is to advance the theory and practice of project management. After reading all six articles in the PMJ, I tried to digest a few nuggets of information that might be useful for a project manager in the field today. Here is what I thought might be useful for you.

In the first article (Inter-Team Coordination Patterns and Outcomes in Multi-Team Project;  

Perttu Dietrich, Jaakko Kujala and Karlos Artto) my most important take away was the coordination of teams within a project. The researchers identified three approaches; centralized, decentralized and balanced. The researchers were looking at how you, as the project leaders, manage your teams within your project team. How much control do you exhibit? Although you have to read very carefully to draw any conclusions for the research, I took away that project managers should adjust their management (control) over project teams depending on the task of the team. The more vague the task, the more inter-team contact is needed and more planning cycles. This does not appear to be new knowledge but reinforces the need for project managers to understand the profile of their project when develop the tools, processes and mechanisms for managing their project.

In the second article, (Complex New Product Development Projects: How the Project Manager's Information Sharing With Core Actors Changes Over Time, Lisbeth Brøde Jepsen) the researcher concludes that analyzing emails is a legitimate method for studying communication of project managers and that in this study the project manager changed communication patterns during the life of the project and these changes benefitted project success.

It was good to see professors from my alma mater, Western Carolina University. From Every Direction—How Personality Traits and Dimensions of Project Managers Can Conceptually Affect Project Success, Todd Creasy and Vittal S. Anantatmula.

This article appears to be a literature review. There was discussion of communication apprehension, innovativeness, self monitoring, conflict management, change orientation and Myers- Briggs Type. The authors concluded: “It appears that the soft skills of project management are gaining in perceived importance  ...” (p.46).  I would add that this might be related to an increase in the complexity of projects.

I started more doctoral work later in life and I believe this contributed to my focus on the relevance of research. Sometimes it is important to use a vocabulary that enables the researcher to be very specific in the use of terms.  The terms and language used in the PMJ is often vague and unnecessarily complex. More important there is a serious disconnect between the language used in research and the language used by project managers. I found some interesting reading in this month’s PMJ. What I did not find was anything that would be useful for a practicing project manager.

I am interested in your thoughts.

Russ

PMI Conference in New Orleans

In an earlier blog, I indicated I would reflect on my experiences at the project management Institute global conference in New Orleans. New Orleans is a great place to visit and Teri Beth traveled with me to this conference. One morning, we were able to have coffee and beignets at Café du Monde.  The hotel room was overpriced and the food at the hotel did not meet your typical New Orleans standards. But for October, the weather was great and the walk from the hotel to the conference was an enjoyable little stroll.

The conference itself seemed to have fewer attendees and this is a trend over the past few years. It may be that the cost of the conference is prohibitive, or that the value of the conference relative to the cost is decreasing. It was a large contingent of attendees from Nigeria. Looking at some of the data, Nigeria was the third largest represented country.

Complexity still seems like a hot topic because several presentations had the term complexity in the title. I attended one of these presentations and even though the presentation provided a basic overview of risk there was never mention of complexity in the presentation. So I assume that the author included complexity in the title to increase the likelihood that the subject would be accepted for the conference.

Most of the keynote speakers were high-priced presenters that make the conference circuit based on book sales and some overriding for developing creative topics of interest to readers. Daniel Pink talked about leadership in the principles of influence, Mark Sanborn talked about leadership without titles and John Grotzinger discussed the NASA Mars Rover Mission. Each of these presentations was interesting and although only lightly connected project management, the provided an opportunity for reflection.

I attended a couple of presentations on agile project management and there still seems to be the need for those with a focus on agile to compare agile and traditional project management. As I discussed in other posts, I find this mental construct less helpful in understanding projects and maybe even damaging. One presenter grounded his presentation by discussing the Standish research, which concluded that most projects fail. This research has some major flaws pointed out by a number of researchers, but that has not stopped people from quoting the data to justify the point of view.

During my breakfast, lunch and break conversations I asked people why they were attending the conference. A large majority indicated that they came to the conference to get the PDUs they needed for their PMP recertification. With all the free webinars in the numerous PMI chapter events that provide PDUs, this seems like an expensive way to obtain the PDUs requirements.

Over the years, I found the PMI conferences an opportunity for me to reflect on project management from a number of different perspectives and the latest thinking by the presenters. Typically, I will fill a notebook full of notes and ideas for later development. I walked away from this conference with very few ideas in my notebook.

Russ