pm-lotus by Howard Vaughan

Posts Tagged ‘Principles’

Not so clear

Ambiguity is the enemy of project success. Its one of the first things I instruct new project managers on. I call it the First Law in project management.

Its not hard to find ambiguity in projects. Look closely at the objectives, the requirements, the scope definition and the schedule. Are they each as clear and as accurate as they can be? Most importantly, do we know what “done” really looks like? This is crucial. (Glen Alleman’s prolific and consistently excellent blog at Herding Cats has a host of outstanding posts on this – check it out). Each ambiguity is a potential source of conflict, rework and failure.

Clarity Checks

The antidote to ambiguity is clarity – here are a few items that must be on the ‘Clarity Checklist’:

• Are deliverables defined with clear boundaries?
  • Are there detailed and explicit descriptions of inclusions and exclusions?
• Are completion and acceptance criteria clearly stated for each deliverable?
  • Do we know what “done” looks like for each deliverable?
• Are tasks defined at an appropriate level of detail?
  • Are most tasks in the range of 4-40 hours of duration? (a useful guide for most projects)
• Are task outputs tangible?
  • Have the outputs been agreed upon by their owners and dependents?
• Is progress tracked at task level?
  • Is evidence of progress validated before being reported upward?

Leaving ambiguity unchecked simply increases project risk. The pursuit of clarity isn’t always popular because it makes people have to think ahead a little harder. But its necessary. So put on your flak jacket and go on a mission – seek out ambiguity and destroy it… before it does some damage.

(See all 5 Laws summarized in The 5 Laws of Effective Project Management)

RIP project triangle

Its good to see the PMI moving with the times and dispensing with the sacred Triple Constraint. Now we’re advised to balance additional constraints such as quality, risk and resources. So no longer is project success to be measured per the old PMBOK 3, in which we learned that “High quality projects deliver the required product, service or result within scope, on time and within budget”.

This change has been nicely acknowledged by Telstra, Australia’s privatized telecommunications giant. According to itnews.com.au, the telco recently revealed payment of a $2.2 million bonus to its ex-COO for outcomes relating to its IT transformation program despite it running $200m over budget and behind schedule with currently only half of the legacy systems planned for consolidation switched off. The chief exec declared it a ‘good result’ apparently.

I wouldn’t mind trying for just a mediocre result under this new approach – say half the bonus for double the cost overrun… the Triple Constraint has a lot to answer for!

Over the years I’ve had the good fortune to observe, lead and coach dozens of project teams in all sorts of organizations in a variety of countries and cultures. It struck me that while we have a multitude of overwhelming specifics and references for sound project management, (think PMBOK, PRINCE2 etc.), many project managers would benefit from simply absorbing a few basic realities—or, put another way:

Universally Useful Mantras

So some time ago I started wondering if we could condense recognized best practices in project management into a simple set of guiding principles. My answer – YES, I think we can.

A few simple rules

So here are my own personal mantras:

1 –  Ambiguity kills Projects

2 –  Credibility requires Detail

3 –  No Truth, no Trust

4 –  Uncertainty is Certain

5 –  Satisfaction is not Guaranteed

I believe these realities hold true irrespective of the nature or complexity of project. They reflect the strongest forces for shaping success or failure on most projects, most of the time.

I’ll be expanding and evangelizing my perspectives on each of these in future blogs… so stay tuned!