My project isn't dead yet, but it's definitely fading fast. It shouldn't be that way: We're blending three proven technologies, our processes are well-understood and we've been attentive to risk management. I'm at a loss as to what I could've done differently. Any thoughts?
Sure, but to fully understand you'll need to meet the makers of my new car. It's hardly an exotic machine, just a regular Buick Enclave made in Detroit, Michigan, USA. But the people who designed this car understand the cause of your dismay: It's all about integration.
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—Fourth Edition has a pretty thorough discussion of integration management. In a nutshell, consider integration the combining of multiple elements—components, processes, technologies—into a seamless unit. Experienced project managers know that even having simple, well-proven subsystems is no guarantee that they'll work together seamlessly when they need to. Consider for a moment what we've recently learned about the interaction between a car's carpet and its accelerator: Neither is overly complex, but together they're capable of all sorts of mischief.
So let's go back to that new Buick. I am the lowest-tech person you know, but I know successful integration when I see it, and this Buick has it. For example, when the phone rings, it automatically lowers the radio volume. Now that is integration: two separate components, working seamlessly and transparently together.
Now I bet many of you aren't impressed by that. You understand technology, and when you imagine any new car work breakdown structure (WBS), the radio isn't all that far away from the phone. Now consider this, you skeptics: That same incoming phone call prompts the car to lower the speed of the heating and air conditioning fan. Suddenly the car is totally silent, with nothing to drown out the voice of your caller. Now there's a WBS miracle: two systems with virtually nothing in common, likely managed by project managers in two separate groups, working together seamlessly.
Double Trouble
This isn't just about automobiles, of course. I'm part of a study right now for an aerospace organization, examining root causes of some recent project failures. The story emerging is a familiar one. The technologies involved turned out to be nowhere near as stable as originally claimed. And when they were prematurely married to other equally underdeveloped systems, the results were predictable: disappointing performance, cost overruns, schedule slips and bad publicity.
If successful integration is important to planes, trains and automobiles, it's even more critical for spacecraft, where the opportunities for rework and repair are decidedly limited. So it may be no surprise to learn that over the last 35 years, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has been developing one of the prime tools to prevent these shortfalls.
Its technology readiness level (TRL) system starts with TRL 1, the most rudimentary. They then make their way through intermediate levels using increasingly faithful prototypes tested in ever-more-realistic environments. This leads all the way to TRL 9, where a full system has been proven operationally in actual spaceflight.
The use of TRLs got a big boost in 1999, when the U.S. General Accounting Office published an in-depth assessment of 23 technology integration projects, ranging from spacecraft to Ford's adaptive cruise-control system for its Jaguar line. The findings were utterly unambiguous: Going into production with unproven technology—counting on future breakthroughs that are always “just around the corner”—is a fast route to project failure.
Like any good idea, TRLs have morphed into other shapes: manufacturing readiness levels, system readiness levels and more. There's even a TRL calculator available.
Of particular relevance to project managers is the integration readiness level (IRL) system, which attempts to solve our problem of combining multiple components or subsystems into a seamlessly working whole. As with TRLs, IRLs are organized into nine tiers, from an interface being observed (in IRL 1) through increasingly rigorous demonstrations of maturity all the way up to IRL 9.
The system is only as good as the discipline of its users, of course. But if implemented honestly and properly, the assessment of technological, system and integration maturity can help create projects that meet and exceed expectations in terms of performance, cost and schedule. PM
Bud Baker, PhD, is a professor of management at Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, USA. Please send questions for Ask PM Network to [email protected].