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When is a project
not a project?
By Ian McKenzie, Senior Consultant Arras Services
I've been thinking about
this on and off for years, ever since an IT manager
told me he ran his whole department as a project.
- When is a project just
daily routine or perhaps just a business process
to those carrying out the tasks on a daily basis?
- When does the routine
or process become a project?
- An action that is "ongoing"
or "ASAP" is probably not going to
happen.
- Is it a project because
it is claimed to be running to a methodology's
governance structure. You are managing the method
and not the project.
- So selected projects
i.e. build a house or create your Big Mac are
a set of every day routines to a builder or
a MacDonald's counter assistant.
- How many definitions
are there of a project.
On the other hand a project
to me is about implementing a change, it has a
finite life in terms of resources (including budget)
and has a known deliverable with understood benefits
once the new capabilities are made available.
The Project delivers that change into the daily
routine of the previously mentioned builder or
counter assistant. If these criteria are not meet
you break McKenzie's first rule of Extreme
Projecting, it is not a project it is
a mess and therefore a risk.
Back to my IT Manager friend,
if everything is a project that implies constant
change that says change is normal, many people
do not want change of that order, a little variation
is perhaps acceptable.
In the IT department, is
the first line help desk a project or an ongoing
routine service? If you apply McKenzie's second
rule, "the project has a beginning middle
and an end", the service desk will cease
when the planned resources run out or really when
the business decides it no longer needs it because
a change has been made. It is very important to
separate resource for change from resource for
delivering the businesses day to day requirements.
If you confuse the two, how do you know what it
costs? i.e., your resource baseline to run your
business on a day to day operational basis, without
including costs and resources for the projects
or changes you are implementing. Project cost
should be seperated from the cost of running business
as ususal.
If constant change is the order of the day where
or how do you achieve a constant service, a true
quest for most IT customers? Most customers in
any business internal and external are looking
for a consistent reliable service that they believe
is improving, where you know what you are getting.
The same is true of the Hamburger, you know what
you like, and perhaps you might change your ketchup,
but probably not every time.
Food for thought; how many
projects do you know that are not really projects
and how do you or your organisation define a project
and for further consideration do they.
Extreme Projecting
© Arras Services 2004
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The
Real Project Toolbag!
By
Lindsay Scott, Arras People
(ex-Project Co-ordinator)
We were laughing the other day about the
things we used to use when supporting projects,
not the magic templates and wonderful spreadsheets
when trying to adapt PRINCE2 into something
that was usable and not a time consuming
pain! But rather a real toolbag with real
tools.
It
became an expected thing that if you needed
anything on the project,or something was
broken or the project team were so overworked
(!) they couldn't perform basic functions
such as buying their wife a birthday present
(yes really, and you thought the PA Vs Project
Co-ordinator days were long gone!) the person
in the know and with the will to make something
happen was the Project Co-ordinator
That's
when I started building up the real project
toolbag, you can see some of the toys and
tools I used on the site at >Toolbag<
The
project little black book, you know,
the one which would have the name of the
hotel which would be guaranteed to have
a bed for the night, or the best restaurant
in town which would guarantee you a table
when the stakeholders from the States just
happened to be in town. The freeware
software that you take from project to project
that some techy guy recommended years ago
that just happens to fix that annoying document
formatting bug. The Project Co-ordinator
was also considered to be the knowledge-guru
when it came to knowing about their own
organisation - who do you talk to about
getting deliveries sorted out? what was
the name of the guy in marketing who deals
with press releases?
The
knowledge and the skills of the project
co-ordinator run far deeper than just knowing
about supporting a project, you become the
person who fixes all those little details.
Have you got a toolbag? Are you recognised
and rewarded for these little extras that
you provide for your project?
 win
your own little toolkit addition - the super
"dongle" or memorystick as it's
more boringly known as by telling us about
your super toolkit! <toolbag@projectmanagementnewsletter.co.uk>
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How
often do project managers deliver real business
change for organisations?
By John Gough
Not often, if the latest
research from Gartner is to be believed. Their
latest annual survey of 956 enterprise class CIO's
, published in March, points to the majority of
IT departments and CIO;'s concentrating on the
back office and system delivery rather than embracing
real business issues.
Only 16% of CIO's are what
Gartner classifies as 'breakaways', focused not
only on technology and service delivery, but focused
on business effectiveness, trusted by senior management
and seen as business leaders in their own right.
Marcus Blosch, vice president and research director
at Gartner EXP (Gartner Executive Programs) put
it this way, 'My advice to the CIO is spend time
with your business, and make it a priority to
really understand them, because the strongest
connection between trust and respect, in the survey,
was time spent with the business'.
Most IT project managers ensure that time is spent
at the start of a project to understand the business
as well as technical requirements. Indeed most
IT projects would not get off the ground without
a compelling business case, but how often do projects
really consider the effect of change on people,
both staff and customers? How often are the people
who will experience the change, really involved
in designing the change, innovating the change,
executing the change and implementing the change.
Project delivery is about process, business change
is about people. It seems that this is a lesson
many CIO's and project managers have yet to learn.
John Gough is a director of Diabolo. www.diabololimited.com
Have
you learnt your lesson?
A summary of the PPSO Specialist Interest Spring
Conference
By Lindsay
Scott, Senior Consultant, Arras People
An excellent
start to the new year of Programme and Project
Support Office specialist conferences, the only
conferences specifically aimed at and run solely
for people who perform the various roles found
within this area. This Spring conference looked
at the McCartney Report - the document put together
to highlight the key recommendations on how the
public sector can modernise and improve programme
and project delivery. There's enough information
contained within it that applies well to the private
sector too, so everyone at the conference was
able to identify with it.
Key recommendations
areas in the report included;
- Business Change
- Leadership
- Project Management
- Risk Management
- Benefit Realisation
- Procurement
- People and Skills
- Peer Reviews
- The lessons learnt process
Hefty subjects to be thought
about and discussed during workshops, over coffee
and the scrummy lunch. PPSO SIG delegates come
from a variety of different organisations and
each with their own approaches to PPSO functions.
Often
the gasps can be heard, " what do you mean
you don't do Risk Management!" or "I've
not thought about that, that sounds like something
we could do".
An interesting point during
David Marsh's presentation in the leadership and
skills area, was a little statistic that I thought
I'd share with you. "60% of projects being
delivered are by Project Managers doing their
first project", this ensure a great discussion
about the value of Project Support staff and how
many perform an advisory role to their PM's.
Yet again this was a great
day out, the sun was shining and the delegates
went home happy with the knowledge that yes, there
are other people out there who do the same role
as you and yes, they struggle sometimes too and
that why this conference is so good - you learn
and you network!
>
The PPSO SIG website
>
The McCartney Report
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Careers
When
job hunting becomes a full-time job by a current
job-hunterby Sharon Day
Arras
People approached me to put together my thoughts
about what I think about my new full-time position
as a job hunter, well that's the way it feels
sometimes! I've been searching for my next position
for about a month now having decided to make the
break from a permanent role that was going nowhere
in terms of career progression. I decided to try
out the contract market - thinking the exposure
I'll gain from working in different organisations
will be great for my skill set. So the journey
- and the lessons learnt have already started,
so I'm going to share some of my experiences with
you.
| 1.
Multiple CV's - I have a number
of different CV's in different formats,
some making skillsets stand out more
than others, for example; if a role
advertises for an expert in planning
tools I have a CV already formatted
with this information made more prominent.
The same goes for cover notes,
I have different versions which accompany
the CV's. |
| 2.
Initial contact with agencies
- no doubt you've also discovered
that agencies vary quite drastically
in interaction with you but there
is one thing that I always make sure
I do - read through the specification
that's available (that's if its more
than 3 lines!). Often there are instructions
from them in terms of what the applicant
should do - contact by email only,
directions to a website, asking for
salary or availability. |
| 3.
Remember what roles you've applied
- a pretty obvious one, but I
got caught out at the beginning. Applying
for a number of roles and with no
records as to what I've applied for,
things can soon get in a tangle. When
you get that call to talk further
about the role, there's nothing more
unprofessional than saying "...just
remind me which role was that?" |
| 4.
Remember what you do for a living
- the initial contact I'm having
with agencies and sometimes directly
with organisations is obviously important
"first impressions count"!
It's expected in my day to day role
of being a project management professional
that I should be able to manage multiple
events, have excellent communication
and interaction skills, be focused,
be a leader etc etc. It's well work
remembering all this when applying
for roles because often the employer
will take the cover letter and CV
and the way its presented as their
first impression and they'll be expecting
to see the professionalism. |
| 5.
Ask who the position is with -
often agencies tell you about the
role but more often than not will
not mention the client name. Ask who
the position is with, it's just as
important to you to know who your
next long term role might be with
as it is to the agency who want to
keep these things a secret. In the
long run it'll be best for both parties! |
| 6.
Pick a time and place - I always
let people know when I'm available
to talk as well as the obvious part
of making sure they have contact details.
If I'm uncontactable one day I mention
this in the cover note or if i know
I'm going to have difficulties talking
(on the train or on those rare occasions
I'm carrying out a short assignment)
I also add this in. |
| 7.Telephone
interviews - make sure you have
plenty of time to talk with agencies,
there's nothing worse than not being
able to answer questions because I'm
in the middle of ordering a coffee
and nto having the desire to tell
the whole shop what my previous salary
was! Get the agency to call when the
time suits you! |
| 8.
Get ready for that interview -
and all the above before you've even
got to see a real life employer! Make
sure you have has much information
as possible from the agency before
you attend that interview - get the
original specification forwarded on
from the employer, website address
etc etc. The agency should be happy
to help you get the best advantage
you can. |
So
there's just a few of the things I've
learnt so far from my new job as "professional
job hunter", I'd like to say I'll
be back next issue with some new ones
but fingers crossed I'll be back in the
job I know and love! Happy Job Hunting
Project
Management Qualifications
We're
still in the process of collecting and
collating our survey results to find out
more about your main motivations in gaining
these accreditations. There's some pretty
interesting results there already and
in the next issue we'll publishing the
whole results
There's
still time to take part > Start
Survey <
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