In Part I we introduced the Project Steering Committee (PSC) and demonstrated how it can, nay MUST, set priorities for projects. In Part II, we considered two more key responsibilities of the PSC, resource allocation and some organizational issues. With these elements in place, the PSC needs to address the planning efforts that are required of all project teams. This is the subject of Part III of this series.
PLANNING ISSUES
The success of Modern Project Management (MPM) is based on the credibility of the planning effort. If the plans are not credible, then all the work to manage the plans will be one of redrawing, reforesting and pure frustration. Below are some areas in which the Steering Committee can play a very positive role.
Project Life Cycle (PLC)
A Project Life Cycle provides a template or a model of all the tasks that have to be performed in order to produce the end-product or deliverable from the project. This template decomposes the project into a standard to-do list of activities that need to be performed. The to-do list is call a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The purpose of this standardized WBS is to let everyone work off of the same “songbook,” bringing consistency into the planning process.
Organizations need to be thinking of developing a generic PLC that will be appropriate for all projects being performed in the organization. (Some may find it relevant to classify their projects and develop a PLC for each class.) This will mean that the plans will be completed much more quickly and everyone will have a better understanding of the tasks they are being asked to perform. Furthermore, with this consistent PLC, there is the opportunity to collect historical data as a basis from which to plan similar projects in the future.
Project Management Life Cycle (PMLC)
Superimposed over the Project Life Cycle described above is the Project Management Life Cycle (PMLC). This life cycle is also a template or model; but this model is composed of the steps that need to be taken to initiate, plan, control, change and close out a project. As in the project life cycle, there are supporting procedures and forms that must be filled out as well as rules and regulations that must be followed.
Estimating
Once the activities in the specific project are identified from the PLC and the PMLC above, the work content required and the duration of each activity needs to be determined. Estimating can better be accomplished if there is an estimating model in place; in other words, a check list of variables that need to be considered when extrapolating the best guess into the estimate that will be used in the scheduling process. These variables may be concerns such as: will the correct materials be available when needed? which people resources will be available and when? what else do these resources have to do other than work on this project?
This last question is an important one. Typically, people do not work 100 percent of their time on projects in general, and especially on any one given project. Of the eight hours a day that people normally work, other demands on their time include meetings, organizational emergencies, personal emergencies, sickness and vacation. As a rule of thumb, 60 percent of a person's time will be applied to pre-planned project activity work. If eight hours is considered your base, then a person will be applying about six hours of their day to project-related work. And if they have to work on more than your project, consider that in your estimating.
Joan Knutson is president and founder of Project Management Mentors, a San Francisco-based project management consulting and training firm. She is a graduate of Ohio State University, and has worked with a wide range of disciplines and industries spanning the areas of high-technology, insurance, banking, pharmaceuticals, and utilities, to name a few.
Resource Availability for Projects
Each fictional department needs to determine the categories of work their people perform. For example, one of my clients said that his people's time was divided between officially approved corporate projects, technical services offered by his department to other departments, internal cost-saving projects not under the corporate umbrella, exploration of new technology, and dealing with regulatory issues. If all of these efforts are part of the whole, then each functional department needs to decide what percentage of a person's time is to be allocated to each category. This information should be communicated to the PSC so that they do not use the base of eight hours but use a more realistic base for resource allocation.
History Bases
All of the planning topics discussed above can be better supported by the maintenance of a history base. This is the accumulation of activities performed, the work content, and duration expended on each similar past project. This data can be accumulated if a consistent PLC is employed and if the resource allocation software is designed in such a way as to archive this data for future use. This is the most important effort you can make to ensure successful project planning.
“Chunking” Projects
Decompose a project into subprojects that are approved and funded separately. For example, the Feasibility Study is planned in detail, approved and funded by the PSC. After the Feasibility Study is presented and approved, the Design effort is planned in detail, presented to and funded by the committee. Lastly, after the Design effort is complete, the project team comes back to the committee with a detailed plan requesting funding for the Development and Roll-out/Implementation efforts.
This “chunking” of projects keeps the PSC continually in the loop and allows them to make considered business decisions throughout the entire project life cycle. If canceling a project is appropriate, the committee has the information in a timely manner to make that decision. If they decide to continue to fund the subsequent phases of the project, they are doing so on an informed basis.
Adequate Time for Planning
A very frequently overlooked aspect of modern project management is providing time for adequate planning. If there is to be a chance to complete the project on time, within budget and achieve the performance expectations of the product of the project, the people responsible for executing the project must have time to develop an adequate plan. This seems so obvious, but the “pressure” to get started, both apparent from management and perceived by action-oriented people, often leads to starting on the project before the plan is in place.
SUMMARY
There is a very strong temptation for planning to be relegated to the back burner when initiating a project. “Get the long-lead-time items on the way and we will finish the planning as we go,” is a common admonition. It is seductive. Yet time and again, project team members who have taken time to do thorough planning have emerged from these meetings with greater enthusiasm and understanding of what they are about to do than they had ever experienced on projects where the planning was approached in a more casual manner. It takes a great deal of resolve on the part of top management to tell the project team, “You are not to go ahead on the project until you have completed the planning.” There may beno greater benefit of having the Project Steering Committee than this deliberate discipline in planning.
In Part IV we will discuss how the PSC maintains control over the portfolio of projects over which they are responsible. We will consider how the PSC should operate in order to ensure that they are informed on the application of MPM. We will also present some ideas on how members of the PSC and others in the organization can be provided the training essential to fully realize the benefits of MPM. ❏