Abstract
Strategic Project Management is all about choosing the correct development methodology and Project Management approach for your project. By aligning your methodology and approach with the project's environment you will increase the value you provide. This paper is geared towards project leaders who are focused on delivering successful projects through choosing the right methodologies and approaches. It offers a four-step process on how a project manager can improve specific project performance.
Introduction
What causes so many projects to fail? A lot of money is wasted while executing a project even on successful projects. The key is to look at the whole picture to prevent sub-optimization. Sub-optimization can happen when you focus on optimizing every single task in your project. Lance Armstrong has won six Tour de Frances in a row, yet he only won a few of the daily stages. Amstrong knows that winning the race is not about winning stages (Poppendieck, 2003). In sports, as in business, it is often a bad strategy to optimize every task.
Corporate environments, internal and external, are volatile which means that projects deal with constantly changing environments. To optimize project results, it is crucial to adapt and tailor both development methodologies and Project Management approaches to the current environment and not just use a “cookie cutter” process. This paper will provide a high level overview of steps needed to achieve successful projects while avoiding sub-optimization pitfalls.
Product Development Framework
Before understanding how a project manager can be more successful at adapting to environmental change and chaos, it will help to understand the Product Development Framework. There are three areas involved in the art and science of delivering new solutions or products:
Exhibit 1 – Product Development Framework
1. Managing the Product — The Function of Product Management
This area focuses on the “what” of the Product Development Framework. Product Management is responsible for managing all activities from product conception to product discontinuance. The product manager actively proposes how Product Development strategies can be met through acquisitions, new Product Development, partnerships or agreements. This function enables the corporation to meet customer demand, expand market share and strengthen the corporate competitiveness. Product Marketing has a sub-function in this area of positioning the benefits of a product to a target market, including promotion, advertising, public relations, and direct marketing.
2. Managing the Project — The Discipline of Project Management
This area covers the “how-to” of the Product Development Framework. Project Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements (PMI, 2000). It is accomplished through the use of the processes such as: initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. The purpose of Project Management is to meet customer expectations and complete projects within schedule and cost constraints.
3. Managing the Work — The Domain of Development Methodologies
This area forms the “heart” of Product Development Framework: the methodologies and collection of tools that build new products, solutions and services. Teams are organized to execute the overall process of strategy, organization, concept generation, product and marketing plan creation and evaluation. The purpose of managing work results in the commercialization of a new product, application or solution. (PDMA, 2004).
To ensure success, a corporation needs to continuously choose the correct approach in every area: Products, Projects and Work. At the intersection of these three Product Development areas is Strategic Project Management. Managing the Project strategically means that the customer is kept as the center focus, not the project. Within the Product Development Framework, it is the project manager's responsibility to integrate all aspects of the new Product Development process. Exhibit 2 shows the project manager's core team members.
Exhibit 2 – Project Manager's Core Team
Team members from different disciplines can have their own views on how to drive the Product Development process. This can create barriers to operate a successful project. The key to breaking barriers is an empowerment of individuals instead of exercising control through processes. If the barriers are not broken down, there will be limitations in the value delivered to the customer shown by the following sub-optimizing focuses:
| Development Viewpoint | Excellent Products |
| System Engineering Viewpoint | Excellent Traceability |
| Project Management Viewpoint | Excellent Processes |
The project managers should see themselves as coaching a team. It is their job to remove project roadblocks and to set expectations both internally and externally while acting as change agent. They are the integrators of many different disciplines.
How to Generate Project Success
How does the Product Development Framework, made up of managing products, managing projects and managing work, work in practice? Corporations form around a compelling idea, a vision. This vision provides a picture of what business the corporation is in and the market they are serving. Based on this vision, environmental analysis takes place providing a foundation for the corporation's goals and objectives. Goals are high-level statements of what a corporation is trying to achieve, while objectives are more quantifiable descriptions of those goals. These goals and objectives flow down into product road maps. Based on these product roadmaps a portfolio strategy is created that evaluates and prioritizes return on investment (ROI) for the entire corporation's projects (J. Davies; President of Accept Software Corporation, personal interview, April 20, 2004). Project Management is generally concerned with the domain of specific release schedules. These may be external customer commitments or internal requirements to meet ROI goals.
Exhibit 3 – Management Structure
Four Steps to Improving Project Performance
- Step 1: Analyze environmental factors
- Step 2: Choose development methodology
- Step 3: Adapt Project Management Approach
- Step 4: Execute successfully
Step 1 - Analyze Environmental Factors
Newspaper headlines in August 2003 read: “France: More than 10,000 dead in record heat wave”. After unusually high temperatures throughout June and July of 2003, a heat wave reached its peak early August, with temperatures soaring to 40 degrees Centigrade. The government ignored warnings and failed to anticipate the consequences of the intense and prolonged heat in a country where few private homes or offices have air conditioning.
In many situations, we take into account the environment; however, when it comes to projects this aspect is generally forgotten. Miscalculating environmental changes that affect projects can have disastrous results. In general, people do not die because of a miscalculation in the project environment, however, money is wasted and ‘death march’ projects do impact the quality of life of the people on the project team. To generate project success it is crucial to analyze the project environment and use this information to pick the right development methodology, and then tailor your Project Management approach to fit both.
There are two groups of project environment factors: internal and external. Internal factors include company culture, practices, processes and policies. This also includes resource availability and skill set. External factors include market volatility, technology level, and regulatory standards.
Project managers need to identify areas that might impact successful project completion. They need to assign issue resolution to other players on the core team, like product marketing or the systems architect. They should analyze and summarize potential risks in risk plan, as well as create mitigation plans and then actively manage the changing environment's effect on the project.
Step 2 - Choose Development Methodology
A methodology is a body of methods, rules, and assumptions employed by a discipline. It includes guidelines, conventions, tools, and roles & responsibilities. A corporation needs to find the balance between no process and too much process. Why use a methodology since they generate a lot of work, produce a lot of paper and limit creativity? The real benefit is that a methodology consists of a proven series of steps and tasks to be followed to build systems or products faster, at lower costs, with less risk.
How do you choose a methodology? Simply stated, you review the current project environment factors, evaluate their influence on your project type, and choose a development methodology. There are different names referring to two main groups of development methodologies: “predictive” and “adaptive”. Predictive methodologies tend to feature a complete system before testing, view process as a control mechanism and are resistant to change since predictability gives the ability to use people with lower skill sets. Adaptive methodologies welcome change, are based on feedback mechanism through development iterations and only use processes when they support the work of development team.
The project manager should only have an advisory role in the decision of which development methodology to choose based on certain key environment drivers. The development technical lead selects the methodology that is the best fit for the current project environment. Exhibit 4 gives a generic overview of the preferred development methodology listed by their environmental drivers.
Exhibit 4 – Choosing Development Methodologies
Step 3 - Adapt Project Management Approach
A Project Management approach is a particular manner of taking steps. A corporation needs to tailor these steps to manage the work and find the balance between no process and too many steps. The real benefit of a Project Management approach is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to managing project activities to meet project requirements (PMI, 2000).
It may seem counter-intuitive to adapt the Project Management approach to the chosen development methodology since Project Management approaches should be generic enough to be able to accommodate any development methodology. However, project size will determine the extent of the integration activities needed to ensure the various steps are coordinated. This means that Project Management approaches need to be tailored for the corporate size and the development methodology.
When adaptive approaches are chosen by the development team and the corporate size is small, informal Project Management approaches can suffice for project control. For example some adaptive approaches propose co-location of all development team members and so development, communication and control processes can be informal. This significantly reduces project integration overhead in many of the steps of the Project Management approach (Highsmith, 2004).
When predictive approaches are chosen by the development team and the corporate size is small, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (PMI, 2000) compliant approach should be choose to manage the integration between the project phases. A PMBOK® Guide approach ensures that structure is in place to manage the phased steps and phase gates in both managing the work and developing the product.
When adaptive approaches are chosen by the development team and the corporate size is large, the core team needs to work creatively with the project manager to tailor the Project Management approach to the environment. Teams may be separated by distance or the project may be comprised of teams working on multiple features. Development team leads can still use agile approaches for project control for short sprints of development deliverables (Schwaber, 2004).
When predictive approaches are chosen by the development team and the corporate size is large, propriety Project Management approaches are used for all aspects of the Project Management approach. Billion dollar corporations develop specific ways to manage projects that are enforced by corporate process experts that developed agreements with all stakeholders.
Exhibit 5 – Adapting Project Management approaches
Project Management is primarily focused on achieving results. The project manager needs to create an environment in which a project can succeed. This is not done by mandating methodologies or processes. This is done by analyzing the environment drivers that drive selection of a Development Methodology and then adapting the Project Management Approach to the corporate size.
Step 4 - Execute Successfully
Technologies change techniques, cultures change norms and distances change communication. Because of this it is not conceivable to have a single, common methodology or approach. Every project is slightly different and will needs its own. View the Project Management approach and development methodology strategically. At the start of the project define the environmental drivers, then select the right development methodology and tailor it. Only then, adapt the Project Management approach.
Implementation success means that you stop sub-optimizing. If you follow these four steps you will generate project success as you integrate the three areas of Product Development: Product Management, Project Management and the technical work.
Benefits
What are the benefits of following this four step process? How do you convince the executives to follow this process? Transforming the corporation's thinking to see every project as unique with its own needs, will limit disruptive surprises during the project life cycle that cost time, money and profitability. Utilizing a perspective of environment drivers as a process starting point will improve the integration with corporate strategies, increase the accountability, improve project responsiveness to the environment and increase the visibility on how project results create customer value and stakeholder value. An additional benefit to the project manager is that it will transition the project manager's role from a being a manager to becoming a project leader.
Conclusion
There is no easy ‘silver bullet’ solution. Generating project success requires a substantial amount of work and effort from all participants. As a project manager you should focus on delivering customer value. The four step process outlined in this paper is path to generate project success by tailoring both the Project Management Methodology as well as development methodology to the environment. Following this path will improve the overall product quality and the way products are brought to market. It will not happen without some of the pain and discomfort that accompanies any beneficial change.