Tuesday, July 30, 2019

How to Improve Your Organization's Project Management Capabilities

How to improve your organization's project management capabilities
One (relatively) easy and effective way of increasing the number of successful projects in your organization is improving your organization’s project management capabilities.

Business capabilities are a combination of people, process, and technology. Although I very much agree with Tom Peters when he says that “business is people doing things for other people,” when it comes to project management capabilities, process comes first, people second, and technology last. People and technology support the process.

In his book “The Handbook of Program Management: How to Facilitate Project Success with Optimal Program Management” James T. Brown describes a very straightforward approach on how to improve your project management capabilities by creating accountability and maintaining discipline. In other words, he shows how supporting the process can lead to project management success.

Create Accountability

A big advantage of processes for project management is that they drive accountability into the system at all levels. Project managers and project sponsors should use leadership and strategy not only to make the project team accountable, but also to make external stakeholders and the leaders in your organization accountable.

Two levels of accountability are critical for improving your project management capabilities. The first level is having someone who is accountable for the establishment, improvement and compliance with the project management processes themselves. These processes should include project management, program management, and portfolio management.

The second level of accountability involves clearly defining all roles and responsibilities for project sponsors, steering committee members, project managers, team members, consultants, and PMO staff.

Developing accountability begins with selling your people on the concept that project management is best accomplished through a structured, repeatable process.

Not too many processes, not overly bureaucratic processes, but strategically thought-out “just enough” processes that are based on the organizational context. These processes are then created and rolled out in an orderly fashion to ensure acceptance and minimize disruption of existing work.

Most people agree that implementing every process that is logical, right, and valuable immediately all at once will overwhelm any organization. Therefore, you must prioritize these processes on the basis of the challenges your organization is facing and then establish a strategy for implementing the processes. 

Strong accountability practice includes establishing an individual who is accountable for managing each process.

Maintain Discipline

Do we always follow the logical, well-thought-out, planned process we have established for repeatable success, or do we short-circuit the process every time an imminent deadline, cost pressure, or demanding client or stakeholder surfaces? I am not saying that you should never violate processes, but when you do, you must have a process by which such deviation is approved and publicly acknowledged to all.

When you handle these deviations properly, you signal to the whole project management community in your organization that you and they will act with integrity under pressure.

And although such deviations should be rare, they are very important because they help improve your process.

In a nutshell: Project management is simply the application and execution of structured, organized common sense.

When you need some guidance on how to define and measure project success, just download the Project Success Model by clicking on the image.


The Project Success Model

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Tuesday, July 23, 2019

What Is the Real Budget of Your Project?

Why you should express your project budget in terms of expected value
Your real project budget should always be expressed in terms of the expected project benefits.

Simply put, project success occurs when outcomes add value to the business. The value of a project is defined by subtracting all costs from all benefits the project delivers.

Using this logic, when your expected project benefits are $3 million and your company wants a return on investment (ROI) on each invested dollar of 50%, your project budget is $2 million. In other words, project budget = project benefits / 1.5.

If the expected benefits of your project go down, your project budget should go down. It is that simple.

Many people confuse the real project budget with the authorized project budget. The authorized project budget is the total amount of authorized financial resources allocated for the particular purpose(s) of the sponsored project for a specific period of time. It is usually based on a mixture of project cost estimations, department budgets, free cash flow, and other factors.

But as soon as your costs go over the authorized project budget (which is highly likely for technology projects), or the expected benefits are not as big as planned (highly likely as well) you should ask yourself what the real budget of your project is and if you are willing to spend it or not.

How do you know whether you’re looking at the right factors when it comes to determining the real budget?

Whether or not your company can spend this money is a financing and risk question, not a budget question. You could even secure a loan to do certain projects. This increases risk and reduces ROI (because of paid interest) but can be a valid option.

Whether or not this budget is enough to realize the project is a cost estimation and risk question, not a budget question. You should never confuse your cost estimations with your budget. Budget is what you can spend, while cost estimation is what you think you will spend. Ideally, the latter is less than the former.

And whether or not your organization is willing to spend their money on this project is a prioritization question, not a budget question.

In a nutshell: Always express your project budget in terms of expected benefits delivered and you’ll have a better idea of the real budget of your project.

You can buy my eBook The Project Valuation Model ™ by clicking here or on the image.

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Monday, July 22, 2019

Product or Service Success Does Not Automatically Mean Business Success

Product or service success does not automatically mean business success
I have written many times about project success, and why I think it must be defined on three separate levels. These levels are:

1) Project delivery success: Will the project delivery be successful? Essentially, this assesses the classic triangle of scope, time, and budget.

2) Product or service success: This refers to when the product or service is deemed successful (e.g., the system is used by all users in scope, up-time is 99.99%, customer satisfaction has increased by 25%, and operational costs have decreased by 15%).

3) Business success: This has to do with whether the product or service brings value to the overall organization, and how it contributes financially and/or strategically to the business’s success.

In a LinkedIn discussion around project success, some people challenged the notion that numbers 2 and 3 are separate levels. They are.

Here are some examples that will to help explain why product success doesn’t necessarily equal business success.

Imagine a new investment product for a bank that has a high margin but also carries a significant risk for the bank, not just the customer. The product was wildly successful and many clients bought it. Many more than expected, which made the risk profile for the bank too high.

Now imagine that this one product is still very successful and is creating revenue and happy customers but it goes against everything that is defined in the new strategy of the company, and this is blocking the company from moving in a different direction.

Or that this very successful product with many happy clients, instead of helping the company to get additional clients, is actually cannibalizing their existing clients.

Or that this very successful new service in the direct business of the company is competing with services offered through partners of the business, and these partners are so pissed that they jump ship and it results in a huge net loss.

All the above are true stories that illustrate how product success can be completely different from business success.

For smaller companies with only one product, or a very small product/service portfolio, you might argue they are similar and very tightly correlated.

But for larger companies with bigger portfolios, I’m of the opinion that product success and business success are fundamentally different. This is reflected in the three separate levels I recommend to define project success.

In a nutshell: Be aware that product or service success does not automatically mean business success.

When you need some guidance on how to define and measure project success have a look at my Project Success Model here or by clicking on the image.

The Project Success Model

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Friday, July 19, 2019

Case Study 5: Workday Did Not Work for Sacramento Public Schools

Case Study: Workday did not work for Sacramento Public Schools
California’s Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) thought they were getting a good deal when they hired software as a service (SaaS) provider Workday and their service partner Sierra-Cedar for a program intended to improve the management of the district’s finances, payroll, and human resources (HR).

Unfortunately, SCUSD’s high hopes of cutting costs and increasing efficiency in these areas were more than dashed. They were completely destroyed. The school district alleges that after two years of major financial investment in the project, they were left with zero results. Not only that, but in a complaint filed in August of 2018, the district claims that each company infringed their contracts, falsely presented themselves, and defied California’s business and professions code. In addition, SCUSD alleges that Sierra-Cedar committed fraud.

Sierra-Cedar boasts a workforce of approximately 900 employees and has been in business since 1995. They purport to provide consulting services that pertain to upgrading, strategizing and implementing technologies specific to certain industries.

Sierra-Cedar claims to hold “over two decades of enterprise applications experience across a variety of industries including Higher Education and [the] Public Sector.” According to SCUSD, Sierra-Cedar stated that they would provide staff with specific expertise and experience in their area of the public sector, namely K–12 education. Yet the district alleges that no such staff was provided. Rather, they state that they were given consultants with no knowledge or work history in the subject.

Workday is 10 years younger than its codefendant, beginning as a start-up in 2005 with the goal of selling HR and finance technology. The company specifically targets many different industries, including education, specifically calling out to K–12 schools and school districts. Workday claims that their software can be used for teacher recruitment, to gain useful HR information, and to reduce overhead, among other services. It is designed to manage payroll and expenses, track absences, and organize job candidates.

According to SCUSD’s complaint, Workday has more than 8,000 employees and brings in billions of dollars in revenue each year. Workday had its beginnings with private companies, but soon branched into work with public entities like local governments.

In spite of Sierra-Cedar and Workday’s alleged failures to perform contractually required work for the Sacramento schools, the companies raked in enormous amounts of cash in the project. The school district claims that the contracts were written in such a way that both companies were able to extract enormous fees whether or not they performed up to par.

The district extended the project’s end date twice, presumably hoping to see an improvement in results, but none came. Finally, with a cringe-worthy payroll testing quality of, at best, a mere 70 percent, SCUSD threw in the towel. The project was never implemented and the district lost a serious amount of money. As the district so sharply stated:

“While Workday and Sierra-Cedar got paid… they put the district right back where it started with nothing to show after two years.” – SCUSD

These harsh words showcase the depth of the issue at hand.

As a result of claimed damages and a demand for the recovery of fees paid, SCUSD is suing for $5.2 million and they need that money badly. These days the district is in dire straits, suffering the threat of insolvency. It may soon have no more funds left and risks being taken over by the state.

The district claims that, should they be taken over, it will take 10 years to recover and the process will be highly detrimental to the student body.

If you want to make sure your business critical project is off to a great start instead of on its way on my list with project failures? Then a New Project Audit is what you are looking for.

If you want to know where you are standing with that large, multi-year, strategic project? Or you think one of your key projects is in trouble? Then a Project Review is what you are looking for.

If you just want to read more project failure case studies? Then have a look at the overview of all case studies I have written here.

Timeline of Events

2013

SCUSD serves more than 43,000 students across 77 campuses and employs more than 4,200 individuals. The district operates with an annual budget of more than $500M in annual spend. In 2013, they determined the district’s HR and ERP systems did not position them to effectively move forward.

The district’s chief business officer (CBO), with the help of a consultant, set out to identify possible replacement options. In early 2013, the district personnel engaged with the Workday sales team and began to discuss their requirements. Over the course of a number of months, through the exchange of phone calls and emails, it was determined that Workday could meet the district’s requirements (even though Workday had no K–12 implementations).

Workday presented CedarCrestone as a qualified implementation partner and the project was initially presented to the board with a budget of $816K for the first year of Workday cloud fees. The maximum estimate for the time and materials contract presented by CedarCrestone was $3,871,000. The project was scheduled to run from August 2014 through October 2015.

2014

In July 2014, Sierra-Cedar was formed by combining the operations of Sierra Systems US and CedarCrestone.

In October 2014, the numbers were adjusted to $1.275M in annual fees to Workday, and Sierra-Cedar’s anticipated fees were reduced to $3.098M. It is not clear if the amount of Sierra-Cedar’s PO represented the full maximum estimate.

2015

In August 2015, the CBO left SCUSD. Around that same time, it was determined that the targeted January 2016 go-live date would not be met. The school district claims that they pressured Workday and Sierra-Cedar to provide a go-live date that would absolutely be met. The parties agreed to a target go-live of July 2016.

2016

As the go-live date approached, the project team could not achieve payroll testing quality of more than 70 percent. With more than $250M in annual payroll at risk, SCUSD made the call that they would not go live.

Additional negotiations took place with Workday and Sierra-Cedar, in an attempt to salvage the program. In November 2016, SCUSD decided to kill it.

2017

In July 2017, SCUSD named a new superintendent. And in August 2018, SCUSD filed a suit in Sacramento Superior Court. The lawsuit alleges that Sierra-Cedar committed fraud and that both Workday and Sierra-Cedar violated the business and professions code, misrepresented themselves, and breached contracts they had with the district, among other things.

What Went Wrong

According to the complaint filed by the school district, Workday and Sierra-Cedar had agreed to provide a cloud-based software system to suit their needs. SCUSD chose this particular software in hopes that it would improve many of their most important operations. Yet, after spending millions on the system and related services, the district claims they were left empty-handed.

No experience with K-12 schools

The district argues that Workday and Sierra-Cedar used SCUSD as a test experience with the schools in order to “tout and enrich themselves as experts in elementary and high school, or K-12, education technology ‘solutions.’” Most significantly, the district argues for the return of the fees spent on what should have been functioning technology which, they say, was agreed upon but never delivered.

They allege that Workday never suggested that their systems could not be used effectively in K–12 schools. In fact, SCUSD claims that company representatives presented the software as being fully capable of handling the CBO’s specific requirements. In other words, SCUSD placed their trust in these companies to do as they promised.

However, SCUSD now believes that they were duped. Workday’s intentions, rather than to provide a cloud system to suit the needs of Sacramento’s schools, was, according to the district, a means to enter into the K–12 sector with as little financial risk as possible for what they refer to in their complaint as a “practice run.” Furthermore, SCUSD believes that Sierra-Cedar was well aware of Workday’s intentions.

The district claims that Sierra-Cedar was presented as the only option available for project implementation and that they were, thus, qualified to do so. A series of contracts were drawn up which the district assumed to be fair following the many conversations SCUSD’s CBO had shared with Workday regarding the project’s parameters. Workday, they believe, was under obligation to provide staff experienced in the K–12 sector and that were capable of getting the job done. Sierra-Cedar vowed to provide such staff for implementation.

In spite of their promises to provide experienced staff, Sierra-Cedar SCUSD the district with a project manager with no experience in the K–12 sector. This was also allegedly true of the additional staff they provided.

Due to the staff’s alleged lack of understanding and knowledge of the K–12 sector, they had great difficulty in handling the schools’ data and organizing the technology to suit the district’s needs. SCUSD claims their data mapping and conversion was regularly late, incorrect, or only partially completed, which led to extra expenses and delays.

One-sided contracts

The financial side of the project was problematic. The district believes that the companies wrote the contracts in such a way that all the financial risk fell on the schools. Before the project was made live, Workday required the payment of two fees of over $1.5 million. Training payments were requested to be made before training had begun. In addition, the district was to pay an hourly rate to Sierra-Cedar.

Workday promised many things: regular reviews of Sierra-Cedar’s work, a subscription to Workday’s software as a service (SaaS), training for school staff, and support throughout the project. Various steps were agreed upon which would be applied in the course of project implementation. It was understood that Workday would check up on Sierra-Cedar and ensure they were performing in an agreed-upon manner. This did not happen.

Payroll accuracy

Another important aspect of Workday’s SaaS solution was that it was supposed to handle the schools’ payroll. Yet, between January and June 2016, Sierra-Cedar was unable to get the payroll accuracy to over 70%. Though Sierra-Cedar and Workday assured the district that they could go ahead and implement payroll, the accuracy numbers from the test were too low for the district to agree. Moreover, the district claims that the companies would not assure them that payroll would be correct if they did decide to implement it. Thus, the schools chose not to do so.

No usable outcome

By November 2016, SCUSD decided it was not possible to continue the project in spite of investing millions of dollars in it. They claim that in 2016, the proposals that the companies made were entirely insufficient and not possible to put into action. On November 22, SCUSD notified Workday and Sierra-Cedar that they were putting an end to their relationship.

The school district believes that the project was an enormous loss of funds and time for them, while Workday and Sierra-Cedar exited the contract with both K–12 experience they could market to other customers and a gain of millions of dollars. In other words, the district claims that the companies made significant money using SCUSD as their K–12 guinea pig while enriching themselves.

In fact, on their website, Workday describes the company as a program which “streamlines the ‘business’ of education” for K–12 school districts by providing assistance in business planning, financial management, human capital management, and prism analytics. SCUSD believes they were the testing ground for forming this K-12–specific focus.

In the end, the school district sued the two companies for the following:

> Breach of Contract against Sierra-Cedar for not performing their contractual obligations;

> Breach of Contract against Workday for not providing the experienced K–12 sector experts they were promised, not offering sufficient check-up, and not fulfilling their contractual duties;

> Breach of Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing against Sierra-Cedar for failing to truly attempt to make the project go live and instead giving insufficient fluff proposals;

> Breach of Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing against Workday, for not offering true and real support to successfully release the project on the go-live date;

> Fraud against Sierra-Cedar for agreeing to provide staff with K–12 experience and expertise in the contract, then proceeding to do no such thing. In fact, SCUSD claims that Sierra-Cedar knowingly used whatever staff they had available for the project and took advantage of the opportunity by using the school district as a K¬¬–12 training ground while gaining a substantial hourly rate. If true, Sierra-Cedar would have knowingly misrepresented themselves. The school district claims that this misrepresentation caused a breach of their rights;

> Negligent misrepresentation against Sierra-Cedar for stating that they would offer experienced employees and then not doing so;

> Violation of the Business and Professions Code against Sierra-Cedar for unfair competition through their alleged misrepresentation and for allegedly using SCUSD as a K–12 experiment;

> Negligent misrepresentation against Workday for presenting Sierra-Cedar as being capable of carrying through on the project; and

> Violation of the Business and Professions Code against Workday for unfair competition through their claim that Sierra-Cedar employees were experienced and could complete the work well.

In the end, Sacramento City Unified School District claims to have paid $3,240,955.45 in fees to Sierra-Cedar, a substantial sum for any school district. Moreover, they never received the benefits which were promised by Workday representatives way back in the early conversations with the school’s Chief Business Officer Forrest.

For the school district, the project with Sierra-Cedar and Workday was a disaster.

How SCUSD Could Have Done Things Differently

If SCUSD’s allegations are true, both Workday and Sierra-Cedar were deeply in the wrong. But SCUSD also has to think hard about their own role in this project failure.

If you sign up a trusted advisor, make sure they are qualified.

The lawsuit claims that SCUSD used an experienced K–12 consultant to assist with the ERP selection process. This program looks like a disaster from top to bottom. It is not clear what experience the initial consultant had. Perhaps SCUSD is suing the wrong party. Or maybe the advice was sound, and SCUSD just ignored it.

Get IT on board.

The lawsuit makes no mention of IT. The published board documentation makes no reference to IT. Any well-qualified CIO would have likely stopped the idea of planning to use software that had not had a thorough industry shakedown, particularly in the public sector where budgets are tight and regulatory compliance requirements are high.

Get a decent lawyer on board.

The suit claims that simple boilerplate contracts were used that offered very little protection to SCUSD. They were largely relying on the “good word” of their suppliers. Given this was a $5M spend that involved a system that controlled the payment of more than $400M in salaries and benefits, you would have thought that somebody from Legal would have been a little more forceful in protecting SCUSD.

Never be first … unless you are willing to have the project blow up in your face.

SCUSD could have and should have known that there were no Workday K–12 customers. A simple reference check would have told them that. Any company that signs up to be the beta test for any software should do so with some form of significant financial gain possible.

If you do want to be the first, make sure the vendor is paying their share.

If Workday and Sierra-Cedar wanted to penetrate the K–12 market so badly, Sacramento could have likely gained major contract concessions to offset the risk they were willing to take. Having an experienced negotiator on their side could have saved SCUSD millions of dollars up front and likely increased the probability of success with the vendors having more skin in the game.

Do quality checks.

As a part of the Workday implementation practice, quality checks are performed, and the results are reported to the client. The lawsuit, while mentioning the quality checks were to be performed, makes no mention of what was reported and what the issues were that the team might be dealing with. It is entirely possible that Workday identified issue(s) described in this article. And even if they didn’t, as the paying client, you are always responsible for doing quality checks yourself as well. Never trust a third party to sign off on quality.

Be ready for the project and engage yourself.

Given the apparent lack of participation of IT and Legal, and the apparent lack of quality and detailed requirements documentation, it is highly probable that there was insufficient participation throughout the program. If quantifiable participation was called out as a part of the boilerplate contract, then this is going to be a heavy lift for SCUSD’s legal counsel.

Closing Thoughts

The loss of millions of dollars down the drain for Sacramento’s public school district doubtlessly affects teachers, students, staff, and parents. SCUSD had high hopes of implementing a tech program that would save them time and money. In the end, dollars and hours were simply wasted.

Yet the school district is not a wholly innocent victim here, even if the allegations prove true.

Staff and school officials did not do their due diligence in checking up on the company’s background in K–12 or looking into the project managers they had on staff. Rather than simply accepting Workday’s word that they had experienced professionals at Sierra-Cedar, SCUSD ought to have looked deeply into the matter.

The schools would have done well to request specific evidence of Workday’s SaaS solution working successfully in other school districts. With a bill in the millions and hours of invested time, it seems like the least they could have done.

The district should have more carefully checked the language in the contracts to ensure that the companies could not have exited the project with the cash without delivering a functional product.

Regardless of the Sacramento Superior Court’s final decision, it’s clear that both the plaintiff and the defendants could have done better.

If you want to make sure your business critical project is off to a great start instead of on its way on my list with project failures? Then a New Project Audit is what you are looking for.

If you want to know where you are standing with that large, multi-year, strategic project? Or you think one of your key projects is in trouble? Then a Project Review is what you are looking for.

If you just want to read more project failure case studies? Then have a look at the overview of all case studies I have written here.

Sources

> Sacramento City Unified School District vs. Workday Inc a Delaware Corporation. No. 2018-00238302. Sacramento Superior Court. 1 August 2018

> Meeting Minutes Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Education, 19 June 2014

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Thursday, July 18, 2019

Principles of Project Success (Part II)

Principles of Project Success (Part II)
Project management principles are the foundation on which the profession of project management is built. Conformance to these principles is a prerequisite for successful project management.

I have written about the five principles of project success from Glen Alleman before. And they are still the best I have come across so far.

But last weekend I stumbled on an older blogpost from Bill Duncan that also gives a very clear and interesting perspective on the principles of project success.

Bill Duncan was the primary author of the original version of “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge”.

He wrote the post titled “Principles of Project Management?” in response to a question on LinkedIn, but originally wrote the text more than 20 years ago building on some work done by Max Wideman, Bob Youker, and others.

Bill starts his post with the following definitions.

Principle: A basic truth, law, or assumption; a rule or standard, especially of good behavior; a basic or essential quality or element determining intrinsic nature or characteristic behavior. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Project: A unique, temporary endeavor undertaken to create a product or service.

Project management: The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project. (PMBoK Guide, first edition)

Stakeholders: Individuals or organizations who may help or harm the project.

Next, Bill dives in to his five principles of project management.

Project Management Principles

1) There must be a project.

Project management is best applied to the management of a project, and all projects should be managed with project management. The usefulness of some project management tools and techniques outside the project context does not mean that project management is a substitute for general management. Likewise, the fact that project management borrows heavily from general management does not mean that general management skills and knowledge will be adequate for successful management of a project.

2) Projects must be properly authorized. 

Each project should be formally authorized by a level of management commensurate with the resource needs of the project: the greater the needs, the higher the organizational level which should authorize the project. Unauthorized projects are likely to be unsuccessful no matter how well-managed.

3) The project sponsor(s) must provide adequate resources

Resources include tangibles such as financing, people, and material as well as intangibles such as time and support. The need for the sponsor to provide adequate resources does not absolve the project management team of the responsibility (a) to communicate the impact of receiving inadequate resources or (b) to identify alternative courses of action that may be possible with fewer resources.

4) There must be an integrated project plan

Your plan must be documented and distributed to appropriate stakeholders and must include:

> Scope, schedule, cost, and responsibilities defined at an appropriate level of detail for the size, complexity, and phase of the project.
> A defined process for dealing with uncertainty in scope and work definition.
> Success criteria defining how the project will be judged and measured.
> A defined process for dealing with changes to the plan.

5) There must be periodic assessments of performance against the plan 

Periodic assessments are necessary to ensure that the project will achieve its purpose. Projects which no longer support the purpose for which they were undertaken should be cancelled or significantly redirected.

Principles of Project Success

The Five Immutable Principles from Glen are stated in the form of five questions. When you have answered these questions, you will gain insight into the activities required for the project to succeed in ways not found using the traditional process group’s checklist, knowledge areas, or canned project templates.

I) What does “done” look like? 

You need to know where we are going by defining “done” at some point in the future. This may be far in the future—months or years—or closer—days or weeks from now.

II) How can you get to “done” on time and on budget and achieve acceptable outcomes? 

You need a plan to get to where you are going, to reach done. This plan can be simple or complex. The fidelity of the plan depends on your tolerance for risk. The complexity of the plan has to match the complexity of the project.

III) Do you have enough of the right resources to successfully complete the project? 

You have to understand what resources are needed to execute the plan. You need to know how much time and money are required to reach the destination. This can be fixed or it can be variable. If money is limited, the project may be possible if more time is available and vice versa. What technologies are needed? What information must be discovered that you don’t know now?

IV) What impediments will you encounter along the way and what work is needed to remove them? 

You need a means of removing, avoiding, handling or ignoring these impediments. Most important, you need to ask and answer the question, “How long are you willing to wait before you find out you are late?”

V) How can you measure your progress to plan? 

You need to measure planned progress, not just progress. Progress to plan is best measured in units of physical percent complete, which provides tangible evidence, not just opinion. This evidence must be in “usable” outcomes that the buyer recognizes as the things they requested from the project.

Comparison and Closing Thoughts

When you compare Bill’s project management principles with Glen’s Five Immutable Principles, you will see many similarities.

Principle 1 is implicitly stated by Glen, because his principles refer to projects. But yes, they only apply to projects, so there should be a project in place.

Principle 2 is not part of Glen’s principles and I tend to agree with Bill that, when it comes to larger companies, this is a prerequisite for project success.

Principles 3 and III are similar, but I like Glen’s definition better. The project sponsor is not solely responsible for resources. Suppliers can have resource issues no matter how much money you give them.

Principle 4 is the same as principle II.

Principle 5 is the same as principle V.

Principle I is not a separate principle for Bill, but it is mentioned in principle 4.

Principle IV is not a separate principle for Bill, but I think it should be.

The post made by Bill Duncan has not convinced me to change my adoption of Glen Alleman’s principles. However, it did gave me a very interesting new perspective on project success principles, and I will go back and add a sentence to my previous articles stating that Glen’s five principles are only valid for authorized projects. This addition will cover Bill’s first two principles.

I hope this article will make you think about your own project success principles and practices. When projects do not work out, you can usually trace the root cause back to one of the principles and start fixing it.

In a nutshell: When you want to give a new project the best chances of success, you should start with the basic principles of a project in mind.

When you need some guidance on how to define and measure project success have a look at my Project Success Model here or by clicking on the image.

The Project Success Model

Read more…

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Project Success and Project Failure Are Not Absolutes

Project success and project failure are NOT absolutes
Project success and project failure are NOT absolutes. It may not be possible to be a little bit pregnant, but you can be a little bit successful.

Every project has multiple success criteria related to business results, product/service results, and project delivery results (cost, schedule, scope, and quality).

Some criteria are absolute, meaning they must be completed on or before the original planned date, and some are relative, meaning they must be completed by a date acceptable to the client.

Project success is determined by how many of your success criteria are satisfied, and how well.

Whether or not a project is successful depends on who you ask. The very happy project manager that implemented the SAP project as scoped on time and below budget (I know, this will NEVER happen), the end users who absolutely hate the complexity and slowness of the new system, and the COO that has seen IT costs double whilst none of the expected savings materialized may all have very different opinions on the success of the project.

Project success also depends on when you ask. Twelve months after go live the users will have a better grasp of the system and initial performance problems will have been solved. And slowly but steadily, the expected savings will often start to materialize as well.

In a nutshell: In order to determine project success, you must define all the criteria relevant to your project, define how you will measure them, and define when you will measure them.

When you need some guidance on how to define and measure project success have a look at my Project Success Model here or by clicking on the image.

The Project Success Model

Read more…