PM
JUNE 2014 VOLUME 28, NUMBER 6
NETWORK MAKING PROJECT MANAGEMENT INDISPENSABLE FOR BUSINESS RESULTS.速
APPS FAST
Junior Barrett, GM, Detroit, Michigan, USA
IN THE
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Big Data Gets Bigger
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WRITE A MORE VALUABLE
STATUS REPORT PAGE 52
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oving from ad hoc practices to standardized processes may seem daunting, but organizations that invest the time and training and have an enterprise-wide orientation to project management can reap long-
term benefits. These include happier customers, improved efficiencies in cost and schedule that lead to a stronger bottom line, achieving organizational strategies and objectives, and a more durable outlook for the future. According to PMI’s 2014 Pulse of the Profession® study, high-performing orga-
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Here’s a look at how four organizations made the leap— and the lessons they learned along the way.
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nizations are three times more likely than low performers to use standardized, organization-wide project management practices.
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From the Ground Up
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Employees had to be shown how organization-wide project management would benefit them by improving efficiency, transparency and effective use of limited resources—without adding burdens. —Amanda Arriaga, TxDPS, Austin, Texas, USA
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or years, the Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS) had no formal approach to project management. Each division of the department—which is responsible for law enforcement and vehicle regulation in the U.S. state of Texas—had its own priority projects, and many groups didn’t report their progress or follow proper closeout procedures. “There was no consistency,” says Amanda Arriaga, assistant director, TxDPS, Austin, Texas, USA. Projects hit their stride or stumbled with limited guidance, as the department’s director struggled to oversee funds and deliverables. So Ms. Arriaga set out to create a formal project management practice and build an enterprise project management office to lead it—all from scratch. She spent a month reading everything she could about how to set up organization-wide project management and talking with project managers from organizations that had established their own practices. Then, in early 2013, she got to work. Ms. Arriaga knew it wouldn’t be enough to just create a process to follow. “I had to sell the idea to the entire agency,” she says. Since the TxDPS is not focused on financial ROI, she had to show employees how the process would benefit them by improving efficiency, transparency and effective use of limited resources—without adding burdens. “I wanted to give them something that was easy and would help them avoid problems and rework,” she says. She started by taking the project management templates from the state’s IT department and modifying them for non-IT staff. The templates included a process for building a project business case, and ways to report on project goals, budgets, change orders, risk and status. “The IT project management reports were long and intimidating,” she says. “We shortened them and made sure they were easy to use and would provide all the information the state needed for tracking, so project leaders wouldn’t have to do any extra work.” The simplified tools serve a dual purpose, adds Jessica Iselt, TxDPS deputy assistant director of policy and planning. They give clarity to project teams about what to report, and they ensure stakeholders can easily understand the status and impact of projects. “By getting rid of the technical jargon, everyone knows exactly what they are signing off on,” she says. The more mature oversight and reporting also allowed Ms. Arriaga and Ms. Iselt to weigh in on which projects the organization should tackle based on TxDPS’ overall strategic goals. For example, many units prioritized building their own custom software systems, which meant an ongoing larger project to roll out an enterprise software solution never received enough attention or funding. As a result of the new organization-wide project management structure, which rolled out in May 2013, the agency has been able to consolidate projects and complete them more quickly because teams have the structure and resources they need, Ms. Iselt says. “It’s allowed us to become a lot more efficient and transparent in meeting the agency’s strategic goals.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF UNOPS
The United Nations Office for Project Services, which oversees projects like this Sri Lanka harbor construction, lacked a formal global project management process.
A Humanitarian Approach
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t the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), good project management isn’t just about maximizing efficiencies—it’s about saving lives. UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations that oversees thousands of peace-building, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Projects run the gamut from building roads and hospitals to running elections and procuring food and medicine for hard-hit communities. But for years, the organization struggled to meet schedule and budget goals, and to ensure the needs of sponsors and communities were aligned. “There is a big lack of project management understanding in the humanitarian sector,” says Ricardo Viana Vargas, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PMP, director, sustainable project management practice group, UNOPS, Copenhagen, Denmark.
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“If you don’t have a formal methodology and process, you are relying on one manager to deliver your goals.” —Ricardo Viana Vargas, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PMP, UNOPS, Copenhagen, Denmark
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That began to change in 2011, when the organization decided to transition from an ad hoc project management practice—in which every project team in every country had its own approach—to a formal global strategy followed by everyone. Ricardo Viana “If you don’t have a formal methodology and process, Vargas, director of you are relying on one manager to deliver your goals,” Mr. sustainable project management Vargas says. “That ad hoc approach creates a much higher at UNOPS, says organization-wide probability of risk.” project management Mr. Vargas was hired to lead this transformation and is yielding better outcomes. tasked with ensuring not only that projects came in on time and on budget, but that they were the right projects to support. “We knew UNOPS’ challenge was to have a set of tools and methodology that made better use of resources and allowed us to manage our risks,” he says. He began by training UNOPS staff in project management and developing a formal methodology that focuses on detailed project planning and mechanisms of project governance. “One of our key goals from the start was to make sure every project is properly planned before execution,” he says. The method begins with an analysis of the project’s benefits and risks—including worker safety and the community’s needs—and whether the project aligns with the U.N.’s core goals. Fourteen tools define the project’s budget, schedule, risks, communication and stakeholder engagement strategies. UNOPS launched the new project management group as a formal unit in June 2012. “In the beginning it was very hard, because it is not just a work change, it is a culture change, and people struggled to accept it,” he says. But as the process started yielding stronger project outcomes, project teams began to embrace it. “Our projects are much more structured today than they were two years ago,” Mr. Vargas says. “We have more control and greater awareness when problems arise so we can take action right away.” Along with enabling UNOPS to meet goals, the new structure allows for more effective measuring of the impact of projects. For example, after the tsunami in Sri Lanka, UNOPS launched a US$10.7 million project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, to rebuild fishing harbors in the south of the country by 2013. Thanks to careful planning, stakeholder engagement and benefits management, the project team was able to show that the project was delivered on time and on budget—and determine that it created 105,000 labor days for the community and expanded the business of more than 4,000 fishermen. UNOPS teams around the world are achieving similarly improved outcomes. “Our partners are happier with their projects, and they are more aware of the benefits of good project planning,” he says. “Managing projects better has helped us deliver that value to the final beneficiaries, the people and communities where the United Nations operates.”
One Process, One Voice
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hen an organization expands through acquisition, it’s vital the company operates as a single cohesive unit, says David Sargent, PMP, project management senior practice manager for OpenText, an enterprise information management software company, Reading, England. That was the case for OpenText, which acquired several software vendors in the past five years, each of which brought its own project management process. As a result, every customer project experience was potentially different, Mr. Sargent says. “We needed one best-practice approach that would create a single voice and process for the client.” Mr. Sargent was asked to make that happen for the U.K. TALK THE TALK office in July 2013. To find that single solution without alienating his colleagues, he asked the 10 senior project managers Organizational project manageto share their best project management tools and practices, ment (OPM): A strategy execution and to jointly select the ones to keep. “We had a lot of good framework utilizing portfolio, program ideas at the table,” he says. and project management as well as They pooled all of their budget control documents, risk organizational-enabling practices to management registries, status-reporting tools and other temconsistently and predictably deliver plates, and discussed what they preferred. Then they built a organizational strategy leading to betstandardized project management toolkit that is now used by ter performance, better results and a all project teams. sustainable competitive advantage. The new methodology instantly saved time, because projMethodology: A system of practices, ect teams no longer had to reinvent every document for every techniques, procedures and rules used project, he says. Teams can also track profit margins and by those who work in a discipline. compare project outcomes more easily because everyone is using the same metrics. Source: Implementing Organizational Project Management: A Practice Guide But most important, OpenText customers now have the same project management experience, whether they are launching a new website or rolling out business process management software. “Our standardized approach to project management is changing our relationship with the customers for the better,” Mr. Sargent says. And that is a critical business driver for his company. “If we deliver a project that makes the customer happy, they will want us to stick around,” he says.
“Our standardized approach to project management is changing our relationship with the customers for the better.” —David Sargent, PMP, OpenText, Reading, England
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Never-Ending Journey
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aking the early leap to organizational project management isn’t the only move to be made. Siemens has been adhering to formal project management practices for more than 14 years, and the engineering and electronics conglomerate has its own methodology and training programs. But it’s not enough, says Andrea Demaria, PMP, senior consultant and assessor for project management maturity, corporate technology department, Siemens, a PMI Global Executive Council member, Munich, Germany. “It remains challenging to bring all business units of the company to an ultimate point of maturity. Siemens is constantly adapting and optimizing its processes and approaches. In this sense, consistency and innovation need to be carefully balanced.” That’s why, in 2012, Siemens launched the process and production consulting team, a group that supports business units in part by focusing on project management. In some cases, Mr. Demaria’s group addresses recurring project problems, such as teams that regularly miss deadlines or have an abundance of change requests. In those instances, the consultants work with the team to review its entire methodology and identify areas for improvement. For example, for teams facing chronic delivery delays, the group might help implement a more robust risk management oversight process for supply chain vendors. Once the improvement is implemented, the group sets a date—usually two to three years out—to assess the impact of the changes. “The goal is to be able to show the business result of the improvement,” Mr. Demaria says. In other cases, the group will support a team struggling with a specific project. Mr. Demaria’s team is currently working with a large products business unit, for example, that is trying to balance project management requirements with factory
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“It remains challenging to bring all business units of the company to an ultimate point of maturity.… Consistency and innovation need to be carefully balanced.”
PHOTO BY ENNO KAPITZA
—Andrea Demaria, PMP, Siemens, Munich, Germany
production requirements. The solutions in these cases aren’t easy, he says. If the project team focuses only on meeting project plan goals, the factory might need to work overtime or pull resources from other projects to meet the goals. However, if the team focuses only on the production process, the customer could end up being disappointed, he says. “The key is to find that interface so they can balance the effectiveness of the factory with the need to fulfill consumer-specific requirements.” Mr. Demaria’s group helps teams find that balance by focusing them on the business goals of the project and tracking the broader impact of the decisions they make. Ultimately that’s what keeps Siemens ahead of the competition, Mr. Demaria says. “Half of Siemens’ business is delivery by projects, and our reputation is largely based on our project performance,” he says. “It’s essential that we excel in project management. It’s not the only thing, but it plays a very important role.” PM
LEARN MORE! From preparing for an OPM implementation to developing a tailored methodology, PMI’s Implementing Organizational Project Management: A Practice Guide provides a rich roadmap for making the leap. Download a copy and link to other valuable resources at PMI.org/methodology.
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