Most people with an interest will know that PMI have released the PMBOK® Guide 5thEdition, the Standard for Program Management 3rdEdition and the Standard for Portfolio Management 3rdEdition, with an official publication date ofthe 31stDecember 2012. PMI’s other key standard; the Organisational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) is in the review and pre-press stage for publication later this year.
If my team and I were on a mission to standardize our program control software, we might perform a benchmarking exercise. I firmly believe if we performed such an exercise, we would find that one-hundred different organizations would have at least one-hundred-five software architectures between them. In fact, that may be optimistic.
The scheduling conundrum is simple:
We know effective scheduling makes a significant difference to project success and we know what effective scheduling looks like but in most projects, the schedule is ignored, bad scheduling practice is the norm and most projects finish late.
Probably the most common action undertaken by project planners everywhere is assigning a duration to a task; most of us do this almost automatically. Generally it is only when a dispute arises that the complex interaction of the factors discussed involved in setting the duration come into play.
There is no universal answer to the question of what is the ‘correct’ way to assess durations but here is an overview of the multiple factors that should be considered by competent planners and managers.
Distributed contingencies are normal in most aspects of project management but often result in sub-optimal use of resources. Typical examples include allowing some safety margin in each CPM duration estimate (eg, setting the durations at an 80% probability), allowing contingencies on a project by project basis for risk, setting budgets with a 90% confidence limit, etc.
As the end of 2012 approches, and assuming the world won't end of the 12/12/12 I have a few thoughts for every scheduler’s New Year resolutions.
I had a situation recently where a client stated that despite his people working as fast and seemingly efficiently as they could, he was seeing next to no progress reflected in his performance reporting, his end date was pushing out, his efficiency was down, people were asking questions.
Undoubtedly the longest running ‘urban myth’ in circulation within the general project management community, arising from US Defence based research from the early 1990s, that the Cost Performance Index (CPI) always stabilizes at the 20% completion and the final outcome will be within 10% of this value and usually worse. This myth has been extended by some authors to all projects in all industries; and I would suggest that this is demonstrably false in at least some circumstances.
These are words of desperation, a client or senior manager who's got his back to the wall.
I was faced with this exact situation on a consulting job a few weeks back, the business owner, facing heavy penalties for late delivery was desperate for answers and didn't know a better way to react.
Unfortunately, what he hoped were a matter of weeks to completion, in my mind were more like months to completion! Surely he could see that?