MP NETWORKMAKING PROJECT MANAGEMENT INDISPENSABLE FOR BUSINESS RESULTS.®

JUNE 2014 VOLUME 28, NUMBER 6

Junior Barrett, GM, Detroit,

Michigan, USA

Big Data Gets Bigger PAGE 14

APPS

STATUS REPORT

FAST LANE

PAGE 26

IN THE

WRITE A MORE VALUABLE

PM N

ETWO

RK JU

NE 2014, V

OLU

ME 28, N

UM

BER 6A

PPS IN TH

E FAST LA

NE

PAGE 52

PMN0614 Cover-final.indd 1 5/6/14 2:22 PM

44 PM NETWORK JUNE 2014 WWW.PMI.ORG

Making

the Leap

>What four organizations gained by moving to standardized project m

anagement.>

PMN0614 C-First Features-2.indd 44 5/6/14 1:59 PM

JUNE 2014 PM NETWORK 45

LeapMoving from ad hoc practices to standardized processes may seem

daunting, but organizations that invest the time and training and have

an enterprise-wide orientation to project management can reap long-

term benefi ts. These include happier customers, improved effi ciencies in cost and

schedule that lead to a stronger bottom line, achieving organizational strategies and

objectives, and a more durable outlook for the future.

According to PMI’s 2014 Pulse of the Profession® study, high-performing orga-

nizations are three times more likely than low performers to use stan-

dardized, organization-wide project management practices.

Here’s a look at how four organizations made the leap—

and the lessons they learned along the way.

BY SARAH FISTER GALE ■ ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS GASH>What four organizations gained by moving to standardized project m

anagement.>

PMN0614 C-First Features-2.indd 45 5/6/14 1:59 PM

46 PM NETWORK JUNE 2014 WWW.PMI.ORG

From the Ground Up

For years, the Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS) had no formal approach to project management. Each division of the department—which is responsible for law enforcement and vehicle regulation in the U.S. state of Texas—had its own priority projects, and many groups didn’t report their progress or follow

proper closeout procedures. “There was no consistency,” says Amanda Arriaga, assistant director, TxDPS, Austin, Texas, USA.

Projects hit their stride or stumbled with limited guidance, as the depart-ment’s director struggled to oversee funds and deliverables. So Ms. Arriaga set out to create a formal project management practice and build an enterprise project management office to lead it—all from scratch.

She spent a month reading everything she could about how to set up orga-nization-wide project management and talking with project managers from organizations that had established their own practices. Then, in early 2013, she got to work.

Ms. Arriaga knew it wouldn’t be enough to just create a process to follow. “I had to sell the idea to the entire agency,” she says.

Since the TxDPS is not focused on financial ROI, she had to show employ-ees how the process would benefit them by improving efficiency, transparency and effective use of limited resources—without adding burdens. “I wanted to give them something that was easy and would help them avoid problems and rework,” she says.

She started by taking the project management templates from the state’s IT department and modifying them for non-IT staff. The templates included a process for building a project business case, and ways to report on project goals, budgets, change orders, risk and status.

“The IT project management reports were long and intimidating,” she says. “We shortened them and made sure they were easy to use and would provide all the information the state needed for tracking, so project leaders wouldn’t have to do any extra work.”

The simplified tools serve a dual purpose, adds Jessica Iselt, TxDPS deputy assistant director of policy and planning. They give clarity to project teams about what to report, and they ensure stakeholders can easily understand the status and impact of projects. “By getting rid of the technical jargon, everyone knows exactly what they are signing off on,” she says.

The more mature oversight and reporting also allowed Ms. Arriaga and Ms. Iselt to weigh in on which projects the organization should tackle based on TxDPS’ overall strategic goals. For example, many units prioritized build-ing their own custom software systems, which meant an ongoing larger project to roll out an enterprise software solution never received enough attention or funding.

As a result of the new organization-wide project management structure, which rolled out in May 2013, the agency has been able to consolidate proj-ects and complete them more quickly because teams have the structure and resources they need, Ms. Iselt says. “It’s allowed us to become a lot more effi-cient and transparent in meeting the agency’s strategic goals.”

Employees had to be shown how

organization-wide project management

would benefit them by improving efficiency,

transparency and effective use of limited

resources—without adding burdens.

—Amanda Arriaga, TxDPS, Austin, Texas, USA

PHO

TO C

OU

RTES

Y O

F U

NO

PS

PMN0614 C-First Features-2.indd 46 5/6/14 1:59 PM

JUNE 2014 PM NETWORK 47

The United Nations Office for Project Services, which oversees projects like this Sri Lanka harbor construction, lacked a formal global project management process.

A Humanitarian Approach

At the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), good project management isn’t just about maximizing efficien-cies—it’s about saving lives. UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations that oversees thousands of peace-building, humanitarian and development projects around the world.

Projects run the gamut from building roads and hospitals to running elections and procuring food and medicine for hard-hit communities.

But for years, the organization struggled to meet schedule and budget goals, and to ensure the needs of sponsors and communities were aligned. “There is a big lack of project management understanding in the humanitarian sector,” says Ricardo Viana Vargas, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PMP, director, sustainable project management practice group, UNOPS, Copenhagen, Denmark.

PHO

TO C

OU

RTES

Y O

F U

NO

PS

PMN0614 C-First Features-2.indd 47 5/6/14 1:59 PM

48 PM NETWORK JUNE 2014 WWW.PMI.ORG

That began to change in 2011, when the organization decided to transition from an ad hoc project management practice—in which every project team

in every country had its own approach—to a formal global strategy followed by everyone.

“If you don’t have a formal methodology and process, you are relying on one manager to deliver your goals,” Mr. Vargas says. “That ad hoc approach creates a much higher probability of risk.”

Mr. Vargas was hired to lead this transformation and tasked with ensuring not only that projects came in on time and on budget, but that they were the right projects to sup-port. “We knew UNOPS’ challenge was to have a set of tools and methodology that made better use of resources and allowed us to manage our risks,” he says.

He began by training UNOPS staff in project manage-ment and developing a formal methodology that focuses on detailed project planning and mechanisms of project gover-nance. “One of our key goals from the start was to make sure every project is properly planned before execution,” he says.

The method begins with an analysis of the project’s benefits and risks—including worker safety and the com-munity’s needs—and whether the project aligns with the U.N.’s core goals. Fourteen tools define the project’s budget, schedule, risks, communication and stakeholder engage-ment strategies.

UNOPS launched the new project management group as a formal unit in June 2012. “In the beginning it was very hard, because it is not just a work change, it is a culture change, and people struggled to accept it,” he says.

But as the process started yielding stronger project out-comes, project teams began to embrace it. “Our projects are much more structured today than they were two years ago,” Mr. Vargas says. “We have more control and greater aware-ness when problems arise so we can take action right away.”

Along with enabling UNOPS to meet goals, the new structure allows for more effective measuring of the impact of projects. For example, after the tsunami in Sri Lanka,

UNOPS launched a US$10.7 million project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, to rebuild fishing harbors in the south of the country by 2013. Thanks to careful planning, stakeholder engagement and ben-efits management, the project team was able to show that the project was deliv-ered on time and on budget—and determine that it created 105,000 labor days for the community and expanded the business of more than 4,000 fishermen.

UNOPS teams around the world are achieving similarly improved outcomes. “Our partners are happier with their projects, and they are more aware of the benefits of good project planning,” he says. “Managing projects better has helped us deliver that value to the final beneficiaries, the people and communi-ties where the United Nations operates.”

“If you don’t have a formal methodology and process, you are

relying on one manager to deliver your goals.”

—Ricardo Viana Vargas, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PMP,

UNOPS, Copenhagen, Denmark

Ricardo Viana Vargas, director of sustainable project

management at UNOPS, says

organization-wide project management

is yielding better outcomes.

PMN0614 C-First Features-2.indd 48 5/6/14 1:59 PM

One Process, One Voice

When an organization expands through acquisition, it’s vital the company operates as a single cohesive unit, says David Sargent, PMP, project management senior practice man-ager for OpenText, an enterprise information manage-ment software company, Reading, England.

That was the case for OpenText, which acquired several software vendors in the past five years, each of which brought its own project management process. As a result, every customer project experience was potentially different, Mr. Sar-gent says. “We needed one best-practice approach that would create a single voice and process for the client.”

Mr. Sargent was asked to make that happen for the U.K. office in July 2013. To find that single solution without alien-ating his colleagues, he asked the 10 senior project managers to share their best project management tools and practices, and to jointly select the ones to keep. “We had a lot of good ideas at the table,” he says.

They pooled all of their budget control documents, risk management registries, status-reporting tools and other tem-plates, and discussed what they preferred. Then they built a standardized project management toolkit that is now used by all project teams.

The new methodology instantly saved time, because proj-ect teams no longer had to reinvent every document for every project, he says. Teams can also track profit margins and compare project outcomes more easily because everyone is using the same metrics.

But most important, OpenText customers now have the same project management experience, whether they are launching a new website or rolling out business process management software. “Our standardized approach to project management is changing our relationship with the customers for the better,” Mr. Sargent says.

And that is a critical business driver for his company. “If we deliver a project that makes the customer happy, they will want us to stick around,” he says.

TALK THE TALKOrganizational project manage-ment (OPM): A strategy execution framework utilizing portfolio, program and project management as well as organizational-enabling practices to consistently and predictably deliver organizational strategy leading to bet-ter performance, better results and a sustainable competitive advantage.

Methodology: A system of practices, techniques, procedures and rules used by those who work in a discipline.

Source: Implementing Organizational Project Management: A Practice Guide

“Our standardized approach to project management is changing our relationship with the customers for the better.”—David Sargent, PMP, OpenText, Reading, England

JUNE 2014 PM NETWORK 49

PMN0614 C-First Features-2.indd 49 5/6/14 1:59 PM

50 PM NETWORK JUNE 2014 WWW.PMI.ORG

Making the early leap to orga-nizational project manage-ment isn’t the only move to be made.

Siemens has been adher-ing to formal project management practices for more than 14 years, and the engineering and electronics conglomerate has its own methodol-ogy and training programs. But it’s not enough, says Andrea Demaria, PMP, senior consultant and assessor for project management maturity, corporate technology department, Siemens, a PMI Global Executive Council member, Munich, Germany. “It remains challenging to bring all business units of the company to an ultimate point of maturity. Siemens is constantly adapting and optimizing its processes and approaches. In this sense, consistency and innovation need to be carefully balanced.”

That’s why, in 2012, Siemens launched the process and production consulting team, a group that supports business units in part by focusing on project management.

In some cases, Mr. Demaria’s group addresses recurring project problems, such as teams that regularly miss deadlines or have an abundance of change requests. In those instances, the consultants work with the team to review its entire methodology and identify areas for improvement. For example, for teams facing chronic delivery delays, the group might help implement a more robust risk management oversight process for supply chain vendors.

Once the improvement is implemented, the group sets a date—usually two to three years out—to assess the impact of the changes. “The goal is to be able to show the business result of the improvement,” Mr. Demaria says.

In other cases, the group will support a team struggling with a specific project. Mr. Demaria’s team is currently working with a large products business unit, for example, that is trying to balance project management requirements with factory

Never-Ending Journey

PHO

TO B

Y EN

NO

KAP

ITZA

PMN0614 C-First Features-2.indd 50 5/6/14 1:59 PM

JUNE 2014 PM NETWORK 51

LEARN MORE! From preparing for an OPM implementa-tion to developing a tailored methodology, PMI’s Implementing Organizational Project Management: A Practice Guide provides a rich roadmap for making the leap. Down-load a copy and link to other valuable resources at PMI.org/methodology.

production requirements. � e solutions in these cases aren’t easy, he says.If the project team focuses only on meeting project plan goals, the factory

might need to work overtime or pull resources from other projects to meet the goals. However, if the team focuses only on the production process, the customer could end up being disappointed, he says. “� e key is to � nd that interface so they can balance the e� ectiveness of the factory with the need to ful� ll consumer-speci� c requirements.”

Mr. Demaria’s group helps teams � nd that balance by focusing them on the business goals of the project and tracking the broader impact of the decisions they make. Ultimately that’s what keeps Siemens ahead of the competition, Mr. Demaria says. “Half of Siemens’ business is delivery by projects, and our reputation is largely based on our project performance,” he says. “It’s essential that we excel in project management. It’s not the only thing, but it plays a very important role.” PM

“It remains challenging to bring all business units of the company to an ultimate point of maturity.… Consistency and innovation need to be carefully balanced.”—Andrea Demaria, PMP, Siemens, Munich, Germany

PHO

TO B

Y EN

NO

KAP

ITZA

PMN0614 C-First Features-2.indd 51 5/6/14 1:59 PM