Project Management

Superfactory Excellence Program™

www.superfactory.com

© 2004 Superfactory™. All Rights Reserved. 1

 Outline
 PM in today’s environment
 rapid change

 BPR

 The project plan

 Management & communications
 Organizational, people, political issues
 Stakeholders
 Tools & methodologies

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 Three Disciplines

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 Why Projects Succeed
 User involvement
 Exec management support
 unequivocal sponsorship

 Clear understanding & statement

of requirements
 Effective planning
 Realistic expectations
Standish Group survey of IT execs

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Customers= Needs/Requirements

 Needs analyst traits:

 strong ability to deal with customers

 political skills

 technically competent

 open-minded & imaginative

 high tolerance for ambiguity

 articulate

 Technicians tend to produce Mercedes not the Hyundai that=s

wanted

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 Attaining Political Credibility

 Establish mission
 what products/services we provide
 Identify customers
 functional (direct)
 political (indirect)
 Survey customers
 what expectations/perceptions exist?
 criteria for measuring them?
 triggers for them?

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 Sources of Project Risk
General sources
 environmental (largely uncontrollable)

 external, e.g. government regulations

 internal, e.g. new division VP

 technical

 market

 financial

 people

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 Realistic Estimating

 Lots of reasons for poor estimates

 inexperience, technical problems, changes optimists, low-
balling, politics
 Bottom-up cost estimating
 rollup the WBS packages

 Top-down or Parametric estimating

 from experience to complex models

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 Configuration Management (CM)

 Resist change via bureaucracy

 Change control via CM
 Rigorously screen changes
 formal process for assessing merit
 major or minor impact?
 if major goes to Change Control Board (CCB)
 document changes
 update baseline

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 Earned Value Approach

 Developed in 1960s for large defense projects; now used in smaller

projects
 50-50 rule assumes task 50% complete when started, 100% when
completed
 Compare earned value to planned costs
 Collecting data
 large projects employ cost account managers
 for smaller projects, use 50-50 rule, take advantage of
milestones, or can guess using experience
 Limitations of earned value
 availability of accurate, timely data
 educational; need organizational understanding

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 Post-Implementation Audit

 Evaluate project’s achievements against plan

 budget, deadlines, specifications, quality of deliverables,
client satisfaction
 Six questions:
1. Project goal achieved?
2. On time, within budget & per specs?
3. Client (stakeholder) satisfied?
4. Business value realized?
5. PM lessons learned?
6. What worked, what didn’t?

© 2004 Superfactory™. All Rights Reserved. 11