Things changed drastically in August 2004, though, when the company started using a software-based project collaboration tool called BuildOnline. Now, he says, project managers routinely handle three projects simultaneously—a resource utilization increase of well over 100 percent. Plus, the company cut paper and courier costs by 10 percent—which is all East Thames had been expecting when it began using the tool.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
| By using resources more efficiently, it is possible to take on more projects. | |
| Let people concentrate on their tasks. Don't waste valuable or scarce resources on low-value activities that don't require them. | |
| Regular reviews of past projects can reveal poor resource allocation. |
As businesses of all kinds strive to run leaner, the prospect of improvements like those achieved at East Thames hold a compelling allure. Pressed to deliver more with less, many project managers find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. A few simple precepts can go a long way toward easing the pressure, though. Simple changes to the way projects are planned and managed can yield major benefits. As East Thames shows, software solutions have a part to play in improving resource utilization, too.
The system has undeniably made the organization's project managers themselves more efficient, Mr. Clark says. Multiple versions of the same building design documentation are no longer a problem, for example. There's now one consistent “version of the truth” across the organization, he says. In every one of the projects across the organization's extensive portfolio, a common folder structure, designed to promote best practice, is used to store and manage documentation. That documentation is created and maintained to common standards. “Everyone is working to the same set of documentation—and they know that it's the right documentation,” Mr. Clark says.
“BIG BANGS” ARE NOT POPULAR AMONG PROJECT MANAGERS. OUR PREFERRED PHILOSOPHY IS CRAWL, WALK AND THEN RUN.
Steve Hoddinott, Managing Director, Maconomy, Twickenham, Middlesex, U.K.
Construction times on the organization's multimillion dollar projects have been reduced by up to 15 percent, he says. Its recent 62-home Redbridge Foyer project, for example, was completed on time and on budget. What's more, Mr. Clark says, BuildOnline allows East Thames to “easily meet” British government-mandated performance improvement targets in capital cost, defect rate, construction time and workforce personal injury rate on public-sector building projects.
Beware of Shiny Objects
Many project plans spread people too thinly, according to Carl Pritchard, PMP, president of Pritchard Management Associates, Frederick, Md., USA. “People are at their most efficient when they are focused,” he says. “It's a simple fact that someone spending a quarter of their time on each of four projects won't be as efficient as someone focusing 100 percent on one project.”
Think of the daily interruptions to the working day brought about by phone calls, voice-mails, e-mails or just people stopping by the office to chat. “I call these things ‘shiny objects,’” he says. “People are distracted by them—and it's the same with multiple projects. As a profession, we need to acknowledge that people need some consistency in their working life if they are to work at their highest level of efficiency.”
Easier said than done, perhaps. Such multitasking usually arises for a reason—typically, because skills aren't evenly distributed across the organization, and projects may require scarce skills to be shared. Yet help is at hand, and from a perhaps unlikely quarter. Many project managers fail to recognize the innate potential of that most fundamental of project management tools: the project plan, and the “float” (or slack) implicit in the activity timing that it contains, says Art Drake, senior business strategist, Group Health Inc., New York, N.Y., USA. He is also executive chair of PMI's Program Management Office Specific Interest Group.
CONSTRUCTION TIMES ON THE ORGANIZATION'S MULTIMILLION DOLLAR PROJECTS HAVE BEEN REDUCED BY UP TO 15 PERCENT.
—STEPHEN CLARK
BIG BANGS
Sometimes it's the deadline that drives resource efficiencies. In December 2004, IBM announced it was selling its PC business to computer-maker Lenovo in Beijing, China—and a complex project was set in motion. The deal called for 11,500 IBM employees—serving more than 100,000 customers, earning over $10 billion in revenues and working in 23-plus functions in 66 countries—to move over to Lenovo. Plus, it all had to happen in just 143 days.
Aggressive? When Hitachi undertook a similar divestiture in 2002, it took 245 days to transfer half the number of affected employees, half the number of countries, half the revenue and one-tenth the customer base, according to Laurie Schaefer. The Raleigh, N.C., USA-based IBM program director and project manager spearheaded the transfer from her position in the jointly established IBM-Lenovo program office.
The deadline was met. “The tight timescale drove efficiencies,” Ms. Schaefer says. “There was no room for inefficiency. The timetable forced people to work efficiently.” She and her team also exercised strict change control.
Open and flexible matrix management helped, too. While more than 90 separate project plans were in place, there was no over-arching plan in the project office. “If someone had said, ‘Put the whole project on Microsoft Project,’ that would have taken a year. There wasn't the time. We couldn't manage it centrally as a core team and retain the flexibility and efficiency that the deadline called for,” she says.
The strategy was high risk. “Big bangs” are not popular among project managers. “Our preferred philosophy is crawl, walk and then run,” says Maconomy's Steve Hoddinott. “You tend to get a better and more assured ROI with a phased approach.”
Robbins-Gioia's Bob Woodruff agrees. “I've been involved in both ‘big bangs’ and phased approaches, and in my view big bangs are much more difficult. Phased offers an opportunity to learn as you go, and make adjustments as you go—which is much safer.”
IBM's performance was deeply impressive—but it's not one that everybody seeks to emulate.
To the project manager with an eye on improved resource utilization, the concepts of free float and total float can be powerful techniques, he says. Defined very simply, total float is the amount of time a string of more than one activity can be delayed. Once that is consumed, that string of activities will have zero float and, by definition, will now be on the critical path, impacting the project's completion date if delayed. Free float, on the other hand, is associated with one activity alone.
Both concepts can help identify if there's sufficient flexibility to move resources from project to project or from task to task within a project to concentrate them more effectively. In effect, you are borrowing resources to improve efficiency. “Float allows you to manage time as a resource,” Mr. Drake says. “When you run out of float, you can impact the project—but using free float, you can reallocate the time to activities that may need it.”
Evaluation Time
Project managers also should evaluate the activities upon which those resources are expended—not all of which will be on the project plan, or indeed even contribute to the project.
“It's one thing to charge time to a project and quite another for a manager to know which activities that time has been booked to,” says Mike Gettle, chief financial officer of Millward Brown, Chicago, Ill., USA. The brand and advertising market research firm has more than 70 offices in 43 countries with “thousands of projects on the go at any one time,” he says.
IT'S A SIMPLE FACT THAT SOMEONE SPENDING A QUARTER OF THEIR TIME ON EACH OF FOUR PROJECTS WON'T BE AS EFFICIENT AS SOMEONE FOCUSING 100 PERCENT ON ONE PROJECT.
Carl Pritchard, PMP, President, Pritchard Management Associates, Frederick, Md., USA
Millward Brown defines an activity that adds value as one that achieves something that the client wants. “Our aim is to eradicate activities that don't add value, while minimizing or automating activities that add little value,” he says.
Worse still, “low-value activities aren't always low-cost activities,” says Steve Hoddinott, managing director of Maconomy, Twickenham, Middlesex, U.K. The Denmark-based company is a provider of project and portfolio management solutions. Mr. Hoddinott offers his own twist: Ensure that the resource being utilized on low value-added activities is appropriate for the task. Don't waste expensive or scarce resources on tasks that don't absolutely need them.
For the latest in Project Management Institute (PMI) news and project management information, visit PMI's Web site at www.pmi.org.
REGULARLY REVIEWING PAST PROJECTS WITH AN EYE TO IDENTIFYING AREAS OF PREVIOUS POOR RESOURCE UTILIZATION CAN BE A USEFUL DISCIPLINE.
Predicting such activities in advance doesn't require a crystal ball. A rear view mirror, it turns out, is a better tool. Regularly reviewing past projects with an eye to identifying areas of previous poor resource utilization can be a useful discipline, says Gina Davidovic, director of project solutions at Bay3000 Corporate Education. The project management training consultancy is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. “Which activities turned out to be redundant, or took longer than anticipated, or consumed more resources? Especially on bottleneck resources or constrained resources, understanding what happened in the past can help avoid repeating errors in the future.”
Regular reviews also can highlight another source of poor utilization: resources expended on projects that are no longer required or which are no longer fully aligned with the objectives of the organization. “Regular reviews provide an opportunity to see if resources can be freed up and switched to other projects,” says Bob Woodruff, director of operations at project planning firm Robbins-Gioia, Alexandria, Va., USA. “It's basic good governance—and if you don't hold regular reviews, resources can be wasted on projects that no longer have a strategic value, and which should be terminated.” PM