examining a pmi best practice - cdn.ymaws.com · pm profile getting to know pieter du plessis pg 16...

cover Project net new.fh9 29/7/04 2:06 PM

Composite

C M Y CM MY CY CMY K

web: www.pmisa.org.zaemail: [email protected]

Examining a PMI best practiceExamining a PMI best practice

FOR MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE PMSA

JULY / AUGUST 2004

Examining a PMI best practice

Why project close-outsare importantWhy project close-outsare important

Are you a Project Management Education/Training provider?

Due to the numerous enquiries received from Project ManagementEducation/Training Providers in the past, PMSA has launched, as an addedservice to our members, a Registered Education & Training ProviderProgramme (R.E.T.P.P.) and would like to invite those of you who are trainingproviders to list your services / organisation on the PMSA website.Listing on websites is an economical and effective way to promote yourservices in today's competitive marketplace. The new PMSA website is onlya few months old but is already accessed by more than 500 people per day.

The R.E.T.P.P. is designed to enhance the ongoing professional developmentof PMSA Members and other project management stakeholders throughparticipation in various learning experiences and activities related to thefield of project management.

The objectives of the PMSA Registered Education & Training ProviderProgramme may be summarized as:

Encourage the continuing professional development of Project Managers,PMSA members and all other stakeholders in the project managementcommunity by providing qual ity educational opportunit ies .• To establish appropriate criteria and policies permitting PMSA to provide

recognition to qualifying providers of education/training in the field ofproject management.

• To provide a foundation for a co-operative effort between PMSA andthe project management education & training community.

• To create a forum for the exchange of ideas and best practices, andfoster the growth of project management.

• To provide a searchable database, via the PMSA website, of RegisteredEducation & Training Providers to the project management community.

The responsibilities of a PMSA Registered Education & Training Provider wouldamongst others be to:• Adhere to the criteria, guidelines and code of ethics listed in the

registration Form• Inform PMSA, via the Programme Description Form, of each new or

modified programme being offered in the field of project management• Maintain attendance records for one year after the end date of the

individual educational programmes being offered• Agree that PMSA may randomly audit a selected number of Registered

Education & Training Providers for quality conformance on an annualbasis.

To find out more about fees and benefits, go to the PMAA website atwww.pmisa.org.za

Project net july august2004 29/7/04 2:11 PM Page 1

INSIDEPresident’s Pen A word from Les Labuschagne Pg 2

Global Network Balanced scorecards and project dashboards Pg 4

Focus on OPM3 Pg 8

Insight Examining a PMI best practice Pg 10

Outlook Why project close-outs are important Pg 12

PM Profile Getting to know Pieter du Plessis Pg 16

Our World News from the PM fraternity Pg 18

Reviews How good is this book? Pg 20

1

ProjectNet is an alternate monthly publication

produced by Cyan Sky Communication

Consultancy and distributed free of charge to the

members of PMSA, on behalf of PMSA.

Editorial Director:

Prof Les Labuschagne, PMSA President

Managing Editor:

Taryn van Olden

Design and Layout:

Paper Plane Communication Design

Reproduction and Printing:

Remata Inathi Communications and Printers

Please direct editorial submissions and enquiries,

plus requests for additional copies to:

The Editor, ProjectNet, [email protected] or

082 779-1314.

Advertising enquiries can be directed to

The Editor at the above email address.

Distribution, training and PMSA membership

enquiries should be directed to the PMSA:

[email protected].

General contact details related to this magazine:

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.projectnet.co.za

Address: PO Box 1072, Ferndale, 2160

Cover image:

Project Manager Pieter du Plessis featured in our

PM Profile section on page 16.

Copyright©

The copyright of all material in this magazine is

reserved by the proprietors, except where

expressly stated. The editors will, however,

consider reasonable requests for the use of

information provided the source and author are

clearly attributed.

Please note: Editorial submissions are welcomed but are subject to review by the PMSA Exco, ProjectNet’seditorial team and editor before a decision is made regarding inclusion. Product- or service-specificinformation submitted in the form of a news item may be considered for publication in the News and Viewssection, but may not be accepted in any other section. Please contact the Editor for content classificationsto guide your submissions. The editor reserves the right to shorten articles but will consult the author shouldany adjustments be deemed necessary.

this edition


Standing at the start of a new presidential

term of two years, several challenges face me

and the PMSA. Filling this position is not going to

be an easy task. Looking back, all the past

presidents have made significant contributions

to building the PMSA into what it is today. All of

them have left deep footprints in the profession

and continue to do so.

Project management in South Africa has

made great strides in the last few years, yet

there is still a long and difficult road ahead to

get the profession to where it deserves to be. I

ask, therefore, for your support in our

endeavours. There are many volunteers that

sacrifice their valuable time to help build the

profession. I am referring in particular to the

National Executive Committee as well as all the

Branch Executive Committees and SIGs. A lot

of work is done by these people behind the

scenes that members are not always aware of.

This year we have seen a renewed interest

in the profession, which is reflected in the

positive growth in membership. I want to

encourage new and existing members to get

involved with their branches and SIGs and to

directly support their profession. The value of

your membership is determined by yourself.

The more you put it and take part in PMSA

activities, the more you will get out.

One of the biggest challenges facing us is

to educate the public about what project

management is all about. It would appear that

every second person that does not know what

they actually do for a living calls themselves a

project manager without having the necessary

knowledge or skill to lay claim to the title. The

term project manager is being abused by

these people and it is hurting the profession in

the same manner as those calling themselves

consultants did a few years ago. Soon the term

consultant developed a stigma – of being

under-informed yet overpriced “experts” - and

people began losing respect for anyone

calling themselves a consultant.We have to be

careful that the same does not happen to

project management. It is up to us to educate

those around us about what it means to be a

real project manager. A good place to start

would be the youth of today as they will

become the next generation of project

managers.

I would like to extend a personal invitation

to all members,and non-members, to email me

suggestions about how we can improve the

PMSA to better meet your needs. In the near

future we will send out a survey to determine

your needs. We ask of you to please complete

and return these surveys as it is in your own best

interest to do so.

I look forward to serving the project

management community and hope that I can

count on your support to develop it into what it

deserves to be.

Prof Les Labuschagne

[email protected]

2

Looking forward"All growth depends upon activity.

There is no development physically

or intellectually without effort, and

effort means work." - Calvin

Coolidge (1872 - 1933)

The President’s Pen


Cindy Callow came to Concord Mass. USA-

based Eggrock Partners LLC on a mission. The

technology consulting firm’s 175 employees

were brilliant but delivered projects through

heroism, rather than consistent methodologies.

“They were unconsciously competent,” says

Kalow, who joined the company as chief

delivery officer in 1999.“They were smart so they

were successful. I was hired to bring some

consciousness to their competence and

enable the company to expand to other

geographies.” In a word, she needed to make

the project-oriented company’s successes

repeatable.

Kalow started by interviewing Eggrock’s

corporate executives and project managers.

An early conclusion: Delivery personnel must

be more involved in the sales cycle. Kalow

sketched the progress of opportunities through

the sales process and decided to bring

delivery people as soon as a customer solution

had been framed. She coordinated the new

arrangement with her counterpart in the sales

department via conference calls and

Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

To focus and communicate Eggrock’s

sales-delivery coordination effort for busy

administrators, project managers and the

sales force. Kalow employed a simple

software-based graphical Excel overlay,

commonly called a dashboard. Each

project’s on-time, on-budget status and other

key metrics of progress were represented by

coloured icons on a computer screen: Red

required senior management intervention,

yellow called upon a project’s manager

to make a course correction, and green

indicated smooth sailing.

After six months, Boston-based Breakaway

Solutions Inc. bought Eggrock Partners. Kalow

says Eggrock’s delivery prowess, of which the

dashboard was part, “was a key reason the

company wanted to acquire us.”

When Breakaway succumbed to the dot-

com bust, Kalow formed her own consulting

firm,Rhumbline Partners Inc.,Minneapolis,Minn.,

USA, but she says her experience with Eggrock

and similar companies taught her important

lessons about dashboard and balanced

scorecard project management tools.

“The success of a dashboard [depends on]

looking at the right things,” Kalow says.

“Managers tend to gravitate to sales and profit

measures, though these are superficial.”

Feeding back into the organization continuous

real-time data about the underlying factors

that influence those measures, such as

comparisons of estimated and optimal team

sizes, hours employed towards specific goals

and progress toward on-time, on-budget

delivery schedules, will establish and reinforce

the discipline necessary to meet core financial

goals, she says.

Organisations also tend to track too many

factors, Kalow says. Instead, managers must

determine both what the customer wants out

of the project and what metrics will materially

advance the project towards success.

At Eggrock, the need to link delivery to the

sales process led Kalow to measure on-time

delivery, staffing levels and periodic surveys of

customer expectations and satisfaction,

among other factors, which she fed back

to delivery and program managers and

executive administrators.

The senior executive team must reach

consensus and commitment about a project’s

goals and the overall strategy to reach them.

“Organisations that get the results they want

are ultimately clear on what their purpose is,

what their destination is, have developed

a strategy to get there and have a strategy

to get them executed,” Kalow says. “The

4

Global Network

The view from 50000 feet

By William Hoffman, (Project Management Institute, PM Network, ProjectManagement Institute, Inc. 2004. Copyright and all rights reserved. Materialfrom this publication has been reproduced with the permission of the PMI®.)


YOUR POCKETBOOK

Global Network

scorecards and the dashboard are not going

to be a success if we don’t have agreement

among the executives about what the project

or the business is supposes to accomplish.”

The Finish Line

The balanced scorecard was built around

the axiom, “What gets measured, gets done.”

The tool establishes a limited set of key

measures – typically fact-based, numerical,

financial, customer service and satisfaction,

internal process and employee learning and

growth metrics – channeled through a

continuous feedback process towards

strategic goals.

A business dashboard is an easy-to-read

user interface that organizes and presents

portfolio data in the same way that an

automobile’s dashboard displays performance

information.

Often designed to look like a simple Web

page, dashboards graphically represent

progress toward those balanced scorecard

goals. For a firsthand description, see The

Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into

Action [Harvard Business School Press, 1996] by

originators Robert S Kaplan, professor at

Harvard Business School, and David Norton of

the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative.

“One of the biggest misunderstandings

about [the balanced scorecard] is that it’s just

about having financial and non-financial

measurements,” says Bill Barberg, president and

founder of Insight Information Co.,

a Minneapolis, Minn., USA-based consulting

and software firm that developed Microsoft’s

Balanced Scorecard Framework for

its Office and SQL database

products. Corporations also must

formulate a strategy map for

transforming balanced

scorecard metrics into real

change with measurable

results, he says.

Setting up a balanced

scorecard usually is

a relatively quick process

(see sidebar, The 7-Step

Scorecard). Michael Carter,

co-founder and chief

5

marketing officer at CXO Systems Inc.,

Waltham, Mass., USA, says it took his company

seven weeks to fashion a scorecard and

dashboard for British American Tobacco (BAT)

PLC’s operations, which stretch from London to

Malaysia.

“We worked with CXO to implement a

dashboard application that shows metrics

such as average lead time on orders, forecast

accuracy and a collection of other metrics

that show how manufacturing capability is

meeting the demands of different sales

operations around the globe,” Kevin Poulter, a

BAT application technology manager in

London, told eWeek magazine in 2003.A rolled-

up view of all BAT operations available to

central management reduced the

organisation’s considerable exposure to

fluctuations of supply and demand, Carter

says. “One wrong projection and it’s an extra

trip, and extra trips are millions of dollars.”

Your Pocketbook

Expensive custom tools are not necessary to

implement a balanced scorecard, as long as a

basic IT infrastructure – computers, and intranet

or other technology, and trained personnel –

exists. However, installation likely will be more

costly relative to a smaller company’s revenues

and sophistication at the time the system is

implemented. The four-partner, Itasca, Ill., USA-

based certified public accounting firm Corbett

Duncan & Hubly reported spending between

$150 000 and $200 000 for balanced

scorecard- and dashboard-related staff

development, performance-based pay,

hardware and software in the late 1990s, while

the application CXO sold the multinational BAT

starts at $75 000. Sandeep Mathur, PMP,

manager – project governance for the

A business dashboard is aneasy-to-read user interfacethat organizes and presentsportfolio data in the sameway that an automobile’sdashboard displaysperformance information.


SIZE

MAT

TERS

Australian Tourist Commission (ATC) in

Sydney, says his office uses a one-page

Microsoft PowerPoint slide published over its

intranet to provide budget and schedule

performance, key milestones, risk management

and project status across the organization.

“Dashboards have enabled ATC to

standardize project reporting,” Mathur says. “It

has had no impact on the organizational

relationship but has provided management a

better vehicle to monitor the project portfolio.”

A company’s existing information systems

can compliment the cost justification. XML-

compliant database platforms can reduce the

cost of integrating an organisation’s new and

legacy applications, Carter says, though the

number and age of such systems may require

additional outlays for information conversion

and consolidation. CXO’s dashboard software

is “application agnostic,” Carter says, so it can

work for companies that employ SAP, Oracle,

Microsoft and other systems simultaneously in a

single organization.

It can be especially costly to aggregate

and display continuously updated balanced

scorecard data from multiple sources across

the organization into a dashboard that

decision makers will understand and use. “If

you’re a business manager or senior executive,

the two most visible aspects of IT are,‘Does my

e-mail work, and is it secure?’ and’ Can I do

current reports on my own without asking for

help or getting old data?” Carter says.

Implementation costs of translating and

reducing complex data usually depend more

on management’s time to formulate the

balanced scorecard and strategy map than

on the price of software to process and display

the data, Carter stresses.

Size Matters?

Balanced scorecards scale well to

organizations of all sizes and are customizable

to particular lines of business, says Paul David,

president of the Scanlon Leadership Network in

East Lansing, Mich., USA. It’s critical to

determine the fact-based metrics that senior

executives and managers agree upon based

on priorities of a company’s strategic plan,

according to The Balanced Scorecard

Institute’s article, “What is the Balanced

Scorecard?” Processes then are designed to

collect relevant information and convert it to

numerical formats for display, analysis and

archiving via a dashboard, so decision makers

can track results and provide feedback.

Senior management commitment to the

process, consensus on strategy and goals, and

cohesiveness of employees and executives in

their pursuit is more important than size.

However, larger companies can run into

trouble with turf-protecting, change-resistant

executives. “The administrative (chief

technology office] type is probably our worst

nightmare,” Carter says. Smaller companies

that work on tighter budgets and rely on more

flexible, innovative management tend to have

fewer of these problems, Carter says.

Like any enterprise-wide mandate,

dashboard and balanced scorecard

implementation has to have senior

management sponsorship and participation,

not just buy-in, Kalow says. Both approaches

thrive on focus and simplification – though not

oversimplification. Be wary of managers who

concentrate on “red-light” problems to the

exclusion of other measures. “Make sure

everyone doesn’t rally around the red

[warning signs],” Kalow says, "because if you

do, your greens will go yellow and your yellows

will go red.

William Hoffman is a freelance writer based

in Denton, Texas, USA.

6

Gl

ob

al

Network


7-STEPTHREE. The senior management team

formed discussion groups to consider the

corporation’s goals and the financial and non-

financial metrics that would be key to reaching

those goals. Whip says the financial metrics

were the easy part: Executives wanted to

double 2004 fiscal year sales growth over the

target achieved in 2001 fiscal year, along with

some profit objectives.

FOUR. Based on non-financial metrics, the

company invested in the telecommunications

equipment, trained personnel and monitored

systems necessary to measure progress toward

that goal. The key metrics – customer service

and satisfaction, internal process improvement,

and employee learning and growth – fed back

into the financial performance measures.

FIVE. Company managers whittled their

performance measures to a key few and then

linked them through the strategy map to

corporate goals as a collaborative one. “The

discussions were really good, and I think in just

about every case we came to a consensus,”

Whip says.

SIX. Whip licensed Barberg’s InsightVision

dashboard software to allow everyone from

the boardroom to the warehouse to monitor

Horizon Fitness’ progress toward its goals.

“People tend to work a little harder because

they can and follow the results,” he says.

“They’re not shut out.”

SEVEN. Managers meet monthly to review

performance and conduct an annual

strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and

threats (SWOT) assessment as a review of the

competitive landscape. Whip says the firm is at

105 percent of its first quarter 2004 sales target.

“The thing I’ve learned,” he says,“is that [setting

up the balanced scorecard has] been a really

good way to bring your core management

into the process and give them ownership over

the strategy.”

7

7-STEPScorecardBob Whip, chief executive officer of Horizon

Fitness Inc., De Forest, Wis., USA, started his

wholesale fitness business in 2000 with a small

staff aiming for a high growth curve. He

adopted a balanced scorecard in 2002 as a

way of communicating the company’s

strategy throughout the organization.

ONE. Whip started with Web research. He

attended a seminar held by the Balanced

Scorecard Collaborative Inc., Kaplan and

Norton’s Lincoln, Mass., USA-based

professional services firm dedicated to

proselytizing the concept. “I wanted to make

sure that this was something that would stick –

not a fad,” Whip says.

TWO. Whip drew in his senior management

to view Web videos and other Internet-based

information. He brought in consultant Paul

Niven, author of Balanced Scorecard Step-by-

Step: Maximising Performance and Maintaining

Results [John Wiley & Sons, 2002], who took the

executives through some exercises and helped

them formulate Horizon Fitness’ strategy map.

Gl

ob

al

Network

Scorecard


PAST

management knowledge and practices and a

common project management lexicon, PMI

assists in improving the competence of

experienced and new project management

practitioners worldwide. Ultimately, these

current and future PMI Standards will lead to

worldwide excellence in the practice of

project management through consistently

applied project management knowledge and

practices.

Standards in the Publishing Process:

Continuing the tradition of periodically

updating the PMBOK® Guide, the PMBOK®

Guide – Third Edition Project Team, led by

Dennis Bolles, will be released later this fall

(South Africa’s spring). Please watch PMI’s

News section at www.pmi.org for information

on the release of the update to PMI’s de facto

standard for project management.

Standards in Development:

If you are interested in helping to achieve

their objective, please consider applying for

participation in one of these active projects:

• Program/Portfolio Management

• Practice Standard for Configuration

Management

• Practice Standard for Scheduling

• Practice Standard for Work Breakdown

Structures Update

• Automotive Extension to the PMBOK‚

Guide Individuals who wish to assist the

program inits work as a volunteer are asked to

visit PMI’s Web site at:

http://www.pmi.org/info/PP_StandardsVolunteering.asp

and follow the instructions for new volunteers.

The Past, the Present and the Future of OPM3

In this edition, we look at the past…Look out

for the present and future in the next edition.

Past: The OPM3 Charter

Organizations of all kinds devote significant

effort to defining their objectives, and to

designing strategies to help them achieve

strategic goals. Yet, as has been well

documented, strategies often fail to deliver the

successful, consistent, predictable outcomes

they were devised to produce. Sometimes

strategies fail because they are unrealistic;

sometimes organizations cannot achieve the

8

Global Network

Two Thousand Three marked the ‘Twentieth

Anniversary’ of PMI® volunteers’ first attempt

to codify the Project Management Body

of Knowledge (PMBOK®). Published in 1983,

the Project Management Quarterly Special

Report, Ethics, Standards and Accreditation,

was PMI’s first published Standard. Building

upon that work, in 1987, chartered by PMI,

volunteers’ work led to the publishing of the

PMBOK Standards. The next step in the

evolution was A Guide to the Project

Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK‚

Guide), published in 1996. The current PMBOK®

Guide – 2000 Edition refined the first edition and

continued PMI’s commitment to continuously

refresh, in accordance with a standard refresh

cycle, and improve this important reference.

Today, twenty-one years after the ESA report,

PMI’s Standards Program objective is to develop

Standards for the project management

profession that are valued by PMI members,

other stakeholders and the marketplace. In

addition, PMI is committed to further expanding

the PMBOK® by publishing additional standards.

Since the PMBOK® Guide – 2000 Edition was

published, PMI has published four other

standards: the Government Extension to the

PMBOK® Guide, the Construction Extension to

the PMBOK® Guide (Provisional Standard), the

Practice Standard for Work Breakdown

Structure, and the Project Manager

Competency Development Framework, and as

well, has adopted a fifth Standard, the US DoD

Extension to the PMBOK® Guide.

By identifying, defining, documenting and

championing generally accepted project

PMI’S STANDARD PROGRAMAnd a Focus on OPM3

By Lisa Marie Kruszewski, Standards Project Specialist,Project Management Institute


internal alignment required to move the strategy

forward; but often, strategies fail because

organizations have not acquired or developed

the capabilities to successfully implement these

strategies at the detailed, tactical level.

In a global economy, we may be competing

with organizations about which we know very

little, in parts of the world with which we may not

be at all familiar. It is clear that one critical

competitive advantage is the ability to translate

strategy into organizational success through

projects. This advantage means developing not

only the facility to accomplish individual

projects—as important as this is—but developing

an overall organisational orientation toward

treating as many endeavors as appropriate as

projects, and managing them individually and

collectively in such a way as to support the

organization’s strategic goals. This approach is

what is meant by the term “organizational project

management,” which PMI® defines as “the

application of knowledge, skills, tools, and

techniques to organizational and project

activities to achieve the aims of an organization

through projects.” While individual projects may

be considered tactical, organizational project

management is, by definition, strategic because,

used properly, it reflects an organization’s business

strategy and provides a high-level perspective

and regulation of critical resources that directly

impact financial results. Seen in this light,

organizational project management is a strategic

advantage in this highly competitive economy.

How, then, does an organisation improve in the

area of organisational project management?

• An organization needs to know what specific

best practices—knowledge, skills, tools,

techniques—have been proven consistently

useful in other organizations;

• An organization needs a method to assess its

current competence state of maturity; and

• An organization needs to know how

to improve the specific capabilities it identifies

as requiring improvement.

In attempting to address these needs,

individuals and organizations have developed

various models and methodologies to assist in the

pursuit of maturity. In 1998, the Project

Management Institute (PMI‚)—a global

membership organization serving over 135,000

9

PAST

members in the project management profession—

entered this important arena by chartering the

Organizational Project Management Maturity

Model (OPM3‰) Project Team to develop

a global standard for organizational project

management. OPM3’s intent is:

• To guide the development of capabilities

necessary to execute organizational strategy

through successful projects, distinguished from

capabilities associated only with the

management of individual projects; and

• To be able to be used by organizations of all

sizes and types, in virtually any industry or culture.

Past: The OPM3 Research

PMI is, among many things, a standard-setting

organization; therefore, above all else, OPM3 is a

standard. PMI believes the project management

profession and organizations in general will

embrace OPM3, as the global standard for

organizational project management. In the effort

to achieve this result, the OPM3 project team

conducted the research that would ensure that

the end product would reflect true end-user

requirements. This research was accomplished

through a process known as Quality Function

Deployment (QFD), which resulted in what is

called a House of Quality (HoQ). The HoQ

illustrates the consensus-derived requirements that

knowledgeable people indicated OPM3 would

need to fulfill, in order to meet the needs it is

designed to address. Throughout the OPM3

development process, large numbers of volunteers

from the global project management community

were involved, bringing highly diverse

backgrounds from many geographies, industries,

organizations, and levels within organizations. As a

result of this research, QFD, HoQ, and the global

breadth of input, OPM3 is a comprehensive

model, satisfying important identified customer

requirements.

In fulfilling the chartered objectives for OPM3,

the OPM3 Project Team conducted extensive

research of many maturity models, surveyed many

executives and garnered input from many project

management professionals. They received input

from large and small organizations, from virtually all

industries, and from many countries around the

world. The result is a standard that is applicable to

most organizations, in most industries, in most

locations, most of the time.


1. Determine the applicable performance

criteria

2. Decide on the desired levels of proficiency

3. Perform an assessment

4. Plan to address gaps in proficiency

5. Progress through to greater proficiency

PMI provide a full description of the

competency development process in their

publication ‘Project manager competency

development framework’.

Competency and Role Matrix

Creation of the role matrix requires

understanding of the key roles and

competencies needed to deliver successful

projects. These will vary according to the

nature of the organisation. For instance in an IT

development team roles might include; Project

Manager, Process Architect and Product

Architect to name a few.

Each project role should be identified and

then the competencies needed to fulfil the

roles can be described.

Some competencies would be applicable

to more than one role, so a matrix that maps

roles against specific skill sets is the most

economic means of documenting and

presenting the relationships.

For instance the competency relating to

project cost management includes ability to

revise cost estimates and create budget

updates. This may also be a requirement that

applies to certain technical or line staff that

support project efforts from within

departmental boundaries.

Competencies need to be described in

terms of criteria that can be used as objective

measures of performance. A formal

performance ‘contract’ between the project

and the resources assigned may be desirable.

Such a contract should refer to the

performance measures that will be applied

when the assignment is complete.

Competency assessment reports

In some organisations assessments are

conducted by the line manager. While the line

may have functional responsibility for the team

member, it may not have a complete picture

10

Insight The standard selected is identified by the

statement "The organisation uses a formal

assessment process to measure the

competency levels of project personnel".

Evidence that such systems and processes

are in place consists of

o A competence assessment plan

o A competency and role matrix

o Competency assessment reports

o Individual performance metrics

o Competence based recruitment and

job allocation

o Competency reports

The rest of this article explores what these

processes may look like in practice. The

material itself is drawn from a variety of sources

and is not included in the OPM3 model itself.

The Competence Assessment Plan

The competency assessment plan includes

developmental steps. These are followed as a

cycle over time. This ensures that competency

assessment leads to learning and growth for

the individual. A five stage process for the

individual to progress through is suggested.

Measuring Competency

in Project Staff.

Examining a Best

Practice from PMI’s

new standard OPM3

Insight

TThere is a growing body of material describing the

new PMI® standard for organisation project

management maturity OPM3. This article explores

one of the numerous best practices contained in

the standard.

By Ian Jay


the

y m

ay

no

t h

ave

a c

om

ple

te p

ictu

re o

f p

erfo

rma

nc

e.I

n t

his

situ

atio

n s

om

e in

pu

t n

ee

ds

to b

e p

rovi

de

d b

y th

e r

ec

ipie

nt

of

the

te

am

me

mb

ers

se

rvic

es.

In t

he

ca

se o

f a

pro

jec

t m

an

ag

er

this

wo

uld

pro

ba

bly

be

th

e p

roje

ct

spo

nso

r.Fo

r o

the

r te

am

me

mb

ers

th

e p

roje

ct

ma

na

ge

r m

ay

be

be

st p

osit

ion

ed

to

giv

e t

his

inp

ut.

Co

mp

ete

nc

ies

are

ma

de

up

of

seve

ral e

lem

en

ts.P

MI u

se a

tw

o p

art

mo

de

l,o

ne

re

latin

g t

o p

roje

ct

ma

na

ge

me

nt

kno

wle

dg

e c

om

pe

ten

cie

s a

nd

th

e o

the

r to

pe

rso

na

l

co

mp

ete

nc

ies.

Wh

ate

ver

mo

de

l is

use

d it

sh

ou

ld b

e a

pp

lied

co

nsis

ten

tly a

cro

ss t

he

org

an

isatio

n t

o e

nsu

re t

he

inte

grit

y o

f c

om

pa

rativ

e r

esu

lts b

etw

ee

n g

rou

ps

an

d in

div

idu

als

.

Ind

ivid

ual P

erf

orm

anc

e M

etr

ics

Fro

m t

he

ass

ess

me

nt

pro

ce

ss it

sh

ou

ld b

e p

oss

ible

to

tra

ck

co

mp

ete

nc

y o

f in

div

idu

al p

roje

ct

ma

na

ge

rs.R

eg

ula

r re

vie

ws

sup

po

rtin

g t

he

co

mp

ete

nc

y b

uild

ing

pro

ce

ss a

re

req

uire

d.I

n t

erm

s o

f m

ea

surin

g p

erfo

rma

nc

e,a

nu

mb

er

of

me

tric

s m

ay

ap

ply

.Ap

pro

pria

te m

etr

ics

will

va

ry w

ith c

ircu

mst

an

ce

s b

ut

a ro

ug

h g

uid

e is

se

t o

ut

be

low

.

For

the

pro

jec

t m

an

ag

er

the

me

tric

s c

an

be

sp

lit in

to t

wo

are

as;

Bu

sine

ss r

esu

lts,a

nd

Ma

na

ge

rial p

erfo

rma

nc

e.

Co

mp

ete

ncy

Ba

sed

Re

cru

itme

nt a

nd J

ob

Allo

ca

tion

Best

pra

ctic

e s

ug

ge

sts

rec

ruitm

en

t b

e b

ase

d o

n c

om

pe

ten

ce

an

d t

ha

t in

div

idu

als

are

ass

ign

ed

to

role

s th

at

be

st s

uit

the

m.

To b

e e

ffec

tive

pro

jec

t m

an

ag

ers

sh

ou

ld b

e c

om

pe

ten

t in

pla

nn

ing

,co

mm

un

ica

ting

,ne

go

tiatin

g,l

ea

din

g,a

nd

pro

ble

m s

olv

ing

.

of performance. In this situation some input

needs to be provided by the recipient of the

team members services. In the case of a

project manager this would probably be the

project sponsor. For other team members the

project manager may be best positioned to

give this input.

Competencies are made up of several

elements. PMI® uses a two part model, one

relating to project management knowledge

competencies and the other to personal

competencies.

Whatever model is used it should be

applied consistently across the organisation to

ensure the integrity of comparative results

between groups and individuals.

Individual Performance Metrics

From the assessment process it should be

possible to track competency of individual

project managers. Regular reviews supporting

the competency building process are required.

In terms of measuring performance, a number

of metrics may apply. Appropriate metrics will

vary with circumstances but a rough guide is

set out below.

For the project manager the metrics can be

split into two areas; Business results, and

Managerial performance.

Business results can be measured by

o On time delivery

o Meeting contractual requirements

o Performing within budget

Managerial performance can be measured by

o Effectiveness of the project

management process

o Direction provided

o Overall leadership

o Team performance

Competency Based Recruitment and JobAllocation

Best practice suggests recruitment be

based on competence and that individuals

are assigned to roles that best suit them.

To be effective project managers should be

competent in planning, communicating,

negotiating, leading, and problem solving.

According to research personal characteristics

should include experience, commitment and

the need to achieve.

The outcome of such practices is that

morale can be expected to improve and

performance will climb with it.

Competency Reports

The final indicator supporting the best

practice under review is the competency

report. These are on the job assessments of

competency. As mentioned earlier these need

to be consistently applied to yield meaningful

results. Reporting back to the line or functional

manager by the project manager is a critical

aspect of this organisation capability. The level

of formality may vary in organisations but the

feedback needs to be shared with the team

member to facilitate learning and growth. The

same information goes to the line manager to

ensure appropriate developmental support for

the team member.

Conclusion

The OPM3 standard suggests that to

support the processes described above the

development of cross functional teams and

establishment of training programs would be

appropriate.

One benefit of different functional

department members working together is

learning about each others roles. In time the

organisation develops individuals with multiple

skills. Training programmes coordinated with

these processes provide foundation

knowledge to underpin the learning and

development process.

References1. Kerzner, Harold; Project Management a systems approach

to planning, scheduling, and controlling" 8th Ed. Wiley 2003.

ISBN 0-471-22577-0

2. PMI; "Organisational Project Management Maturity Model"

Project Management Institute 2003. ISBN 1-930699-08-5 & 1-

930699-43-3

3. PMI; "Project Manager Competency Development

(PMCD) Framework". Project Management Institute 2002.

ISBN 1-880410-93-1

4. Sauer, Christopher; Liu, Li; Johnston, Kim; "Where Project

Managers are King". Project Management Journal Vol. 32,

Number 4, pp 39 – 49. December 2001.

5. Whitten, Neal; "The Enter Prize Organisation organising

software projects for accountability and success". Project

Management Institute 1999. ISBN1-880410-79-6

11

Insight

Insight


Project closeouts are also effective for

driving ongoing enhancement of enterprise-

wide capabilities through a participative,

timely, data driven process. Organisations

should expect to see cost savings and/or

operational efficiencies brought about by

interventions to eliminate problems and root

causes surfaced through the closeout process.

I believe that successful project closeouts

are best done in a phased manner. First,

“discover” what people think, then “define”

root causes and next steps, and lastly

“communicate commitment” on key take-

aways and action items. While it is not

absolutely necessary to overtly communicate

closeouts as a “phased” process, distinguishing

the distinct stages of a closeout will help the IT

project manager suitably align resources and

expectations to meet respective phase

objectives.

Discovery

Awareness about the project closeout

phase and activities should start at the project

kickoff stage itself. Team members and

stakeholders should be encouraged to keep a

personal log of their feedback/ideas/

comments throughout the project lifecycle. This

will engage them in a constructive role, make

them feel “heard” and will ensure that there is

relevant data to make the closeout

meaningful.

Initiate the closeout through e-mail: One

of the easiest ways to start a project closeout is

send out an e-mail asking teams to respond

with inputs on “things that worked” and “things

that could be done differently.” Project

closeouts come down to just two assessment

aspects--“pluses and deltas.” If your team

members have been maintaining a log,

generating this feedback will not be a time-

consuming additional task to reckon with. The

expected outcome of this process would be a

master list of all inputs, maintained in the same

language and tone that they were received in,

under these two headings.

Orienting the closeout to this goal-oriented

framework and consumable internal

12

Out Look

The strategy of repeatable project

closeouts is to prepare the organisation for

continuous improvement by addressing and

acting on stakeholder expectations and

feedback. There is value to IT teams in terms of

better service delivery, increased credibility,

acceptance levels and customer satisfaction. It

is probably the only phase of a project, where

all stakeholders will have an equal opportunity

to weigh in with their inputs and feedback-so

why not make the best use of it?

Why Project

Close-outs Matter

What can project closeouts do for you?In a nutshell, you should:

Ask them to list the things that workedand things that can be done differently.

Separate issues from ownership, andhone in to ascertain root causes on internalvariables.

To share knowledge on what works well,and signal commitment to fix the painpoints through suitable interventions.

Discover

Define

Communicate commitment.

what stakeholders andteam members think.

the root causes.

Copyright 1999−2004 gantthead.com, Inc. Reproduced by permission ofgantthead.com, Inc


Out L

ook

Out Look

assessment package will go a long way toward

ensuring that the closeout is accepted and in

fact welcomed across different groups as a

positive initiative for the organisation.

Conduct a solution-oriented brainstormingsession to collate and share inputs.The e-mail-based discovery should be followed

by a brief facilitated brainstorming session.

Engage the audience in an interactive process

of collating their non-edited inputs. They might

tend to either build off each others' inputs or

take a different view altogether. Regardless of

what you hear, make sure that all inputs are

“thrown on the board.” A solution-

oriented brainstorming session

will help all team members

see each others feedback,

and possibly refine their

own initial contributions to

the process.

The key message

should be to share the

inputs and feedback freely,

reserving any judgments for

a later time–where you start defining the

potential root causes for the various feedback

items.Lets look at how you can channel these

inputs toward achieving outcomes that add

value to the project and your organisation.

Definition

The goal of this phase is to review all the

feedback and filter out the root causes from

the observed symptoms. Also, the goal is to

completely "depersonalise" the feedback, and

remove all references to specific individual

names and hone in on roles and responsibilities.

The expected outcome of this process will

be a master list of all inputs, bringing in some

standardised tone and tenor to all the

feedback. The biggest challenge will be in

keeping this an explorative and positive fact-

finding exercise - and making sure participants

relate to those objectives.

Separate the issues from the ownership.

To set the foundation of the Discovery

phase, separate discovery of the root causes


Communicate Commitment

This phase signals the collective

interest of an organization to find

solutions to the pain points,and a

commitment to continue doing

things that work well. The

commitment phase helps

organisations define specific

appropriate interventions that meet

the set of needs identified above.

Communicate action items and log of

learning. The commitment phase is all about

identifying the list of action items that address

key pluses for repeating in the future, and

deltas that need to be addressed. While doing

so, make sure that you separate the short term

from the long term, and the internal from the

external variables.

The pluses should be put together into a live

log of learning that all project managers should

have access to across the enterprise. Where

possible, it would be valuable to include

templates/samples of artefacts that helped

create value in the project. This would provide

an incentive and opportunity for enterprise-

wide visibility, and de facto, help share

organizational assets that can be leveraged by

14

Out Look

from the ownership of the root cause. It's really

about the ability to frame the real problem in

an explorative manner,without diving into "who

owns the issue." Bringing in the ownership

dimension will bring in a degree of sensitivity

that deflects the effectiveness of the

improvement process.

Articulate the real root causes.

The core deliverable of the Definition

process is to articulate the real root causes for

both the "pluses" and the "deltas." Identifying

root causes enables organisational and

personal soul searching of what causative

factors influenced the people, processes and

outcomes throughout the project.

For instance, instead of noting, "The systems

architect did not respond well to design

change requests" or "the system architect was

not cooperative," focus the attention on why

the systems architect was unable to meet a set

of expectations. The root causes could be

aplenty, all the way from conflicting project

priorities, lack of clear requirements, lack of

escalation paths to seek advice, being risk-

averse, etc. This process requires an open

dialog in a collaborative and safe

environment.

Separate internal and external variables.

As the root causes are identified, separate

the internal from the external variables. The

internal variables are those that can be

controlled under the direct influence of the

involved persons, and that carried over to the

commitment phase. Knowing that certain

variables are outside direct control and

intervention will set expectations around

realistic next steps.

The expected outcome of the Definition

phase would be a core list of identified root

causes for things that worked and things that

can be done differently.


a larger set of stakeholders. Some people

might even call this a self-perpetuating

knowledge management environment!

The deltas should result in a list of action

items and intervention points that will be

implemented to ensure that the causative

factors are addressed. By addressing the

expectations and feedback from key

stakeholders and team members and

channeling it toward opportunities for future

change, organisations can ensure that their

structures, processes and skill sets continuously

facilitate successful outcomes.

The long-term benefit of repeated project

closeouts done through such a constructive

framework is that eventually the root causes

that impact solution delivery and operational

efficiency across the organisation will be

addressed. As an added bonus, IT project

teams would ensure that their reputation and

credibility continues to rise. The value of project

close out applies to the entire organisation,

and not just IT teams.

So, the next time you chart a Work

Breakdown Structure, ink in enough time for

conducting results-oriented project closeout

sessions. Stakeholder feedback counts!

About the Author: Sainath Nagarajan plays

business analysis and project management

roles at a global, publicly traded business

services company. These views do not

necessarily represent the views of his employer.

Sainath has a Masters degree in Information

Systems Management from Carnegie Mellon

University, a Masters degree in Financial

Management, and has read at the Program on

Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

Out L

ook

Out Look


ProjectNet: How did your career in Project

Management start?

Pieter du Plessis: I started out as a chemical

engineer. One of my first jobs was to get a plant

up and running for the Atomic Energy

Corporation. The plant had a lot of

uncertainties, such as technical risks and a lot

of improvements were required so we turned

increasingly to project management in a client

project management-type capacity, which

helped me to understand the basics. I became

a commissioning manager of the plant and

one day I realized that I’d spent the whole day

doing shift registers and decided that it was

time to move on. Bateman was recruiting

people who they could grow into future

leaders – so personal attributes were more

important than experience, so I sent my CV.

They interviewed me, asking which area of

Bateman I was interested in. I knew nothing

about materials handling so decided to make

a complete career change and started there

as a project manager.

PNet: What did you learn about the pm

environment in the earlier years?

PdP: Having come from a client project

management background and then working

in a contractor project management role, after

a few months I thought I must have been mad.

From having a high-level perspective of the

projects, I had to adjust my view to deal with

detail – the bottom line - and assume ultimate

responsibility for the projects. I learned a lot – I

realized that in this environment I had to know

the detail. I remember sitting at a progress

meeting with an instructional engineer who

questioned my knowledge of the terminology

being used. He gave me a structural steel

handbook, which acquainted me with the

detail.

The Bateman projects in equipment supply

allowed me to get into lump-sum work in which

Bateman took the risk. I had to learn about

managing risk – the biggest part of project

management.

Some project took me overseas, such as one in

Hong Kong, and as a result I learned a lot about

other cultures. I also realized that a person’s

country has less influence on their outlook on a

project than their school of training.

PNet: How many projects would you say you

have you worked on in your career?

PdP: Probably about 40 or 50. The benefit of

doing a lot of smaller projects is that you learn

something through each lifecycle. I believe that

someone who has done ten small projects has

learned more than someone who has done one

big one.

PNet: What are your views on a pm certification

such as the PMP?

PdP: It’s a good exercise for people getting into

project management,but doesn’t help you take

on a project. It teaches the language of project

management.

PNet: So what does make a good project

manager?

PdP: Training helps, but leaders are born.

Successful project managers usually have a

specific personality profile. Experience and

training can improve your knowledge but it is

difficult to change your personality, which

determines how you motivate a team, and your

attention to detail, for example. You can be

taught to do certain things, but in a crunch

people revert to their natural style.When I recruit

team members I look for those with a particular

16

Getting to Know You

In our first people profile section,

ProjectNet talks to Bateman Minerals

MD, Pieter du Plessis about his career

in project management.

PM

Profile

PM

Profile


aptitude. You can give someone with aptitude

knowledge, but you can’t give someone with

the knowledge aptitude.

PNet: Is project management as a practice

interchangeable between industries?

PdP: I don’t really subscribe to the idea that

project management can be applied to any

environment. I think you need to know the

industry you’re in to be a good project

manager. This contributes to good stakeholder

management – being able to identify them

when you communicate a specific piece of

information, understanding the relationship

between aspects is absolutely key to

understanding and adequately managing the

risks. Commercial training related to the project

you’re involved in is also important, such as

international finance.

PNet: Do you see project management as a

management function or a career/profession

in itself?

PdP: If you want to be successful – it should be

seen as a career. The demands on a project

manager are becoming so complex that it

deserves a more professional status. That said,

there are few courses offering a degree in

project management and those that there are,

aren’t comprehensive enough. People who

excel in project management usually excel in

general management, and typically become

senior management. This shouldn’t mean,

however, that they don’t make a career out of

being a project manager.

PNet: Who or what has significantly

contributed to your growth as a project

manager? How can aspiring project managers

develop themselves?

PdP: A project manager is someone with lots of

scars on their back. You learn through trial and

error. There is no single recipe for any project.

You get "street smart", learning more from

projects that went wrong than those that went

right.

I do read a lot, and I’ve read most published

works on project management. Sometimes I

agree with the approach, sometimes I don’t,

but it helps you hone your skills.

As early as possible, aspiring project managers

need to get themselves into a position on

projects where they can learn to understand

and manage the aspects of the different

engineering interfaces and their impact on

each other.

PNet: Which projects have been a highlight

and a lowlight in your career?

PdP: A highlight would be a Zimbabwean

project, the biggest lumpsum turnkey project

Bateman had ever done at that stage. It had so

many facets to it. It was funded by a SA and

Bateman export scheme. Zimbabwe ran out of

money, which caused some delays, but at the

end the client was happy. I realized that

whether or not you think a project is successful is

irrelevant; the client perception is what counts.

A lowlight would be the AEC project. We were

dealing with partly-developed technology and

were trying to define the outcome before

realizing there were technical barriers that

meant starting over on a different tack. I was

common to go to work at eight on a Monday

morning and go home at five on a Friday

evening.At some stage I was quite despondent

about what had gone wrong [losing the

gradient on the cascade] and I went to my

manager and offered to resign. His response

was, "I’ve just spent X million Rand on your

training and you want to resign?"

PNet: In your view, what are some of the

important considerations with regard to project

management?

PdP: In South Africa there are not enough

standardised methodologies and this causes

misinterpretation of the information put out.

Project managers need to focus on getting the

right blend of personality traits in their teams.Not

enough people do team profiling, where you

can base teams on their psychometric makeup,

such as combining capability for high attention

to detail with low. It’s a fact that some people

attract success, while others attract failure. Of

course you’ll want the former on your team.

Pieter is married with children. He occasionally

hunts in winter and enjoys being in nature. His

spare time is taken up largely by his children

and their sport.

17

PM

Profile

PM

Profile


IPMA-ICEC International ExpertSeminar

The Project Engineering Area at the

Engineering School of Bilbao, University of the

Basque Country, is pleased to take their turn in

organizing, together with the International

Project Management Association (IPMA), the

International Cost Engineering Council (ICEC)

and the Spanish Project Engineering

Association (AEIPRO), the III IPMA-ICEC

International Expert Seminar. The event will

constitute a suitable forum for those

professionals in the different branches of

engineering. The Organising Committee of the

Congress is pleased to invite all specialists

working in Industry, Administration, Engineering

and Consulting Companies, Universities,

Research Centres, and other Organisations

related to projects, to attend the presentations.

Topic Areas

The Congress will be accept various kinds of

research and development material related to

Project Management and Cost Engineering,

including technological aspects and

applications with sufficient conceptual,

methodological or other relevant contributions.

The following topic areas are suggested

1. Project Management at all levels

2. Project Cost Management

3. Project Risk Management

4. Project Management: the Profession

5. Leadership and Project Team Building

Bilbao your host City

Bilbao, capital city of Bizkaia, located at the

western side of the peninsular Basque

Provinces is the natural hub of a cross-border

area known as the Atlantic Arch. The city is

located at about 14km. from the coastal line,

at the beginning of an ample marine estuary

dividing Bilbao into two clearly defined parts.

On the right bank stands the old downtown

and in the left is located the modern city.

A massive infrastructure transformation and

urban regeneration process has turned the city

towards the highest goals of urbanism,

sociability, progress, hospitality, culture, and civil

development.

Bilbao Guggenheim Museoa, well known

around the world represents what Bilbao wants

to become in the coming years. In the near

future it will have to reinforce its tradition of a

industrial and financial city,

Call for Abstracts

Abstracts should be sent to the Congress

Secretariat by electronic mail, and should be

written in Word format or compatible. They shall

not exceed 300 words, and the topic areas

(maximum of two) to which they subscribe,

must be shown at the end. Candidates should

clearly express the purpose, results and

conclusions of the work.

Provisional suitability of the papers will be

notified to the authors, and final acceptance

will be dependent on the final paper.

18

Our WorldNews and views in PM


CALENDAR

LANGUAGESAWARDS

Calendar

Deadline for submission of abstracts:

May 10, 2004

Deadline for submission of full papers:

June 30, 2004

Deadline for final full paper acceptance:

September 3, 2004

Languages

Communications will be admitted in

Spanish, Basque or English indistinctly

Awards

In order to encourage the submission of

papers, AEIPRO provides several awards for the

best papers presented.

The survey forms completed by delegates

at Global Knowledge 2004 have been

analysed and here are some of the results:

• Attendants were asked where they found out

about the conference. The emailing list and

PMSA website seem to have been the most

effective, together accounting for about 70%

of the information-sharing.

• All those who responded indicated that

there is a need for the conference, and

nearly all received significant value from

attending.

• The majority of respondents rated the

programme as good or very good. The same

applied to the general quality of

presentation material, professionalism of

presenters, quality of conference material,

relevance of topics covered, the facilities

and overall efficiency.

• Some of the feedback on the venue was that

delegates would have preferred rooms to be

closer together. This will be a consideration

when identifying future venues, though the

options are limited by the layout of available

conference facilities to accommodate

different streams in conferences of this size.

• The majority of respondents rated the

following as "good": workshops and panel

discussions; research papers; gala dinner;

cocktail evening; and sponsor exhibition.

• The current frequency of the conference,

held every two years, remains the preferred

frequency.

• Less than half of the delegates were PMPs

• About 60% of the delegates were already

PMSA members.

• The most popular speakers were Bill Duncan,

Lynne Crawford, Terry Cooke-Davis and Louis

Mercken and Alan Harpham, which shows

the money spent of bringing these experts to

South Africa was well worth it.

The Tshwane branch is committed to offering

member value and one of the avenues for

achieving this is their monthly workshops. In

June, Patrys Visser of the Standards Generating

Body and Les Labuschagne, PMSA President,

made presentations to approximately 25

workshop attendees on the topic of career

paths in project management. Patrys

explained the role, progress and outcomes of

the standards generation process for project

management and Les spoke about project

management as a profession, comparing the

often-confused concepts of knowledge,

education and certification.

19

Quick facts – Conference 2004

Tshwane branch puts knowledgesharing and networking into action

B o t h m e m b e r s a n d n o n - m e m b e r s a t t e n d e d t h e T s h w a n e b r a n c h w o r k s h o p i n J u n e .


Capturing lessons and building them into

later projects has always been hard. This book

provides some insight into methods of doing

this. By using models, the context of lessons is

fully appreciated, and the real systematic

lessons are discovered. By using a dedicated

model builder for all projects the lessons of one

can be transferred to the next. The lessons may

only become apparent during the process of

claims. By using models to support claims

realistic costs can be arrived at. In addition the

root cause of the claim can be identified and

avoided in later projects.

The author, Terry Williams, is a Professor at

Strathclyde University. He is a specialist in

project modelling. This is supported by a

background in operations research and risk

model development.He uses project models to

support claims in large civil and defence

contracts.

The project model can support a claim

The problem Terry concentrates on, is

dealing with estimates in the project model. He

mainly covers cost and duration problems,

though the aspect of quality is also mentioned.

The problems are not trivial, and Terry provides

some insight, relating to the pitfalls of estimating

techniques. Well built models of the project

make it possible to forecast the impact of

changes and risks. Post event models can be

used to establish the precise value of a claim.

The main problem faced by the modeller is

deciding what constitutes a realistic estimate.

A variety of approaches from basic single

estimates are discussed. Most of these revolve

around PERT. Terry explains some of the main

drawbacks to the PERT approach, and gives

insight into other methods of getting the same

results.

The third problem area discussed is the

relationship between System Dynamics (SD),

and normal network models. Project managers

have not adopted SD as a common tool and

Terry gives some of the reasons for this. He then

explains the use that SD can be put to in a

project.

Simulation helps

Terry explains the role that models play in

the planning process. For instance he shows

how the classification of risk events impacts the

model design. In particular the impact of risk is

examined with simulations. These are based on

Monte Carlo tools, these run in spreadsheets or

on network models. Such models help separate

critical and crucial activities. They also show

how likely a crucial activity is to become

critical.

The role of the model builder

As a professional ‘model builder’ Terry offers

some interesting views about the role. He

explains how the model builder needs to

interact with the project team. He also provides

some advice about how to obtain estimates

from the team. The organisation context of the

role is discussed. Terry suggests that the model

builder should be part of the Project Office

staff. From this position lessons can be

examined and transferred from one project to

the next.

The book provides a lot of useful information

about model building in general. It also gives

insight into accepted project modelling

practices. It has a substantial bibliography that

draws on the field of operations research, as

well as the various project journals. It is not

‘light’ reading, but gives practical advice to

project planners. Aerospace and civil

engineering projects are used as examples in

the text, but the techniques can be used

anywhere.

Terry Williams; ‘Modelling Complex Projects’

Wiley 2002, ISBN 0-471-89945-3

20

Rev

iew

"ModellingComplex Projects”

Review

By Ian Jay


examining a pmi best practice - cdn.ymaws.com · pm profile getting to know pieter du plessis pg 16...

Documents