Project Management

Ways to Succeed at Project Management and Transform Your Business

At the beginning of a new project, no-one expects it to fail but, disappointingly, 84% of all projects fail in some way. According to Standish Research, 53% of projects overrun on time or budget while 31% are cancelled prior to completion. So how do you make sure that your new project is one of the 16% that succeeds?

4-consulting director, Sandy Pratt, considers current project management techniques and pitfalls to watch out for as well as explaining an approach which led to one of 4-consulting's clients becoming one of the top 50 companies to work for in the UK.

In 1989 the Government's Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency ("CCTA"), launched a project management methodology called PRINCE (i.e. "Projects IN Controlled Environments") that embodied best practice in project management techniques. The methodology was largely common sense and orientated as an administration and documentation approach to project management. However, in spite of its origins in the private sector, its heavy-weight approach resulted in the private sector's reluctance to adopt the methodology. Today, the CCTA has been absorbed into the Office of Government Commerce and PRINCE has been improved and reformed into PRINCE2. The private sector is largely aware of, and uses PRINCE2. There are many project managers accredited to the methodology and it has become a de facto international standard. The IT sector is particularly switched on to the methodology.

In spite of various methodologies, the majority of all projects still fail in some way, with project costs on average between two and four times the budget and projects taking up to two-and-a-half times longer than originally planned.

In our experience, the most common reasons for projects failing are:

	Poor co-ordination of resources and activities
	Failure to engage with stakeholders resulting in products being delivered which are not what the customer wanted
	Poor estimation of duration and costs, leading to projects taking more time and costing more money than expected
	Failure to establish a justifiable Business Case, particularly the real value of anticipated benefits
	Insufficient measurables
	Scope creep
	Inadequate planning of resources, activities, and scheduling
	Poor control over progress resulting in project sponsors not being aware of potential failures until it is too late
	Inadequate quality management, resulting in products that are unacceptable or unusable
	Failure to recognise that the business has "moved on" and that the project will not deliver all the benefits
	Failure in project governance

The UK government's Modernising Government initiative has driven an enormous corporate change programme in public authorities and given rise to a wealth of IT development programmes. Although many projects have been delivered successfully, there are a number of notable failures including Inland Revenue Personal Tax Returns Electronic Filing, MOD Stores Management System, National Insurance administration and the Criminal Records Bureau. In the private sector, long-term planning horizons continue to shorten forcing IT projects to be completed quicker with shorter pay-back periods.

Project Management - Avoiding Disaster

Business managers can no longer think in terms of "Business as usual". There are too many pressures on businesses to allow them to stand still; the organisation has to keep on adapting if it is to continue to serve its customers. Therefore, organisations have to come to terms with constant change and develop techniques for their speedy and effective transformation.

We believe that, for many organisations, adopting project management as a regular management competence across all its business activities can be highly effective for delivering transformational change. In fact, using a programme of customised training, we helped one of our clients, Martin Currie plc, to introduce this approach to their business. They are now one of the top 50 best companies top work for in the UK and we applaud their achievement.

At 4-consulting, we believe that the 7-S model, explained in the article 'Delivering the "grand vision" by successful transformation', also in this ezine, can be applied directly to the organisation of project management as shown below.

7-S Organisation Element	Centralised Project Management Approach	Empowered Team Approach
Shared Values	Successful projects	Successful projects
Strategy	Standard organisation-wide processes	Empower teams and allow them to select applicable processes, procedures and systems to use
Skills	People trained in each of the disciplines	Value and understand the disciplines but recognise that full compliance may be counter productive
Staff	Experts for each discipline available to project	People who value low level of policies and procedures, who are creative and resourceful
Structure/ organisation	Separate departments for each discipline, e.g. the project office, the quality group	Flat and teamed based
Systems	Audit the standardised approaches Continuously improve the standardised processes	Shared learning; project tracking
Style/Culture	The organisation values consistent results, champion “our way” of doing things	Creativity is valued, finding new ways is good. Empowerment and accountability accepted

The centralised project management approach is ideal for organisations with large projects where tight project control is required. On the other hand, the empowered team approach is better suited to creative organisations.

The constant process of change means that project management has to be a core competence for all business managers. Indeed, anyone involved in delivering a project should have an understanding of the basics of good project management and project administration.

Good project managers are few and far between and organisations should look carefully at their own staff to see if there are people with the potential to become project managers. The attributes a successful project manager needs to have include:

	Leadership - motivating and negotiating with people
	Detailed planning
	Estimating
	Communication
	Knowing their technical limitations
	Not being afraid of asking for help
	Recognising risks
	Multi-tasking

Project Management in Practice - Delivering Success

If projects are to deliver the planned benefits on time and budget, we offer the following recommendations:

	Create project management as a career path in your organisation
	Make project managers part of the overall business planning processes so that they understand how projects must be fully aligned to the corporate plan
	Encourage project managers to break down large projects into "bite-sized chunks"
	Allow project managers to select their own team members
	Ensure that project sponsors/directors have sufficient authority to make hard decisions without upward referral
	Ensure that the organisation does not commit to too many projects
	Work out the financial value of anticipated benefits; even intangible benefits have a value if you think about it properly before the project is approved
	Establish the criteria for success and when success is expected to arise before the project starts
	Ensure that every project carries out extensive stakeholder analysis at the outset to ensure that both the project manager and the stakeholders understands what is to be delivered
	Plan backwards from a "go-live" date and manage-out criticality and contingency time
	Avoid any sense of "blame culture" but encourage a "learning culture" where past experiences can be captured in a knowledge database and used to improve estimating and future projects planning
	Recognise that the degree of innovation that marks every IT project also makes its course very unpredictable.

Our Approach

4-consulting uses a form of project management, developed for Martin Currie Investment Management Limited by Alan Fowler of Isochron Ltd. The methodology incorporates much of the PRINCE2 principles but is easily applied to the smallest of projects. We encourage extensive efforts devoted at the outset in establishing the feasibility and alternative approaches, business case preparation, benefits realisation and planning. The approach also addresses the key areas of risk, change and issues management.

We have developed a training programme that explains how to structure, govern and manage projects. The training programme, which is delivered to senior managers, project sponsors, project managers, stakeholders and project members, describes their roles and their contribution to projects. Patrick Cox of Martin Currie will be delighted to tell you how much his company's approach to project management has benefited the business.

If you would like more information about how we can help you improve your success rates in projects and be one of the 16%, please contact sandy.pratt@4-consulting.com

Sandy Pratt is a director of 4-consulting, click here to view his profile.

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