Presentation given on 24 May 2018 to SWWE branch

1. How Do You Know Your Project Is On Track?
The Role of Data
(c) James Lea
May 24, 2018
APM South West
(c) James Lea How Do You Know Your Project Is On Track? The Role of DataMay 24, 2018 1 / 29

2. Why Explore?
George Bernard Shaw
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we
stop playing.
Albert Einstein
Play is the highest form of research.
(c) James Lea How Do You Know Your Project Is On Track? The Role of DataMay 24, 2018 2 / 29

3. About the Presenter
James Lea
Degree
has
Professional Membership
holds
Expertise
has
Approach
my
BA Hons Physics
(Oxford)
from
MSc Sat Comms
(Surrey)
from
APM
with
BCS
with
Business
transformation
3 years
Project and
Programme Delivery
14 years
Engineering
10 years
Data Science
8 years
Sceptical
empiricist
is
Flow
favours
Wasteabhors
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4. Experience
Aerospace Scientific
(c) James Lea How Do You Know Your Project Is On Track? The Role of DataMay 24, 2018 4 / 29

5. Why are we here?
We deliver the benefits our clients need, on time and cost with confidence.
Which journey will you take your project on?
(c) James Lea How Do You Know Your Project Is On Track? The Role of DataMay 24, 2018 5 / 29

6. Objectives
In this session we will:
1 Identify the relationship between data and project success
2 Learn how we can use data to keep our projects on track
3 Make data work for the benefit of our teams
4 Explore how to apply a data driven approach back in our projects
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7. Exercise - Good Projects
In groups, take five minutes to reflect on a ”good” project you’ve been
involved with:
How did you feel on the project?
What was it about the project that made you feel that way (the
foundations)?
Feedback (five minutes).
(c) James Lea How Do You Know Your Project Is On Track? The Role of DataMay 24, 2018 7 / 29

8. Feelings and foundations of a good project
Feelings
Smooth
Flow
Predictable
Confident
Challenging
Safe
Supported
Transparency
Integrity
Rewarding
Trust
Foundations
Customer Engagement
Right Delivery Model
Mandate and Business case
Requirements
Basis of Estimate
Plan and Schedule
Roles and responsibilities
Development process
Verified Product
Change Controlled
Benefits Realised
(c) James Lea How Do You Know Your Project Is On Track? The Role of DataMay 24, 2018 8 / 29

9. Why Measure?
Without objective measures, anything can happen - and does!
As project managers we need to constrain the variables to improve
our chances
With the right information we can make the right decisions
Data-driven project management helps us do this
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10. What Can We Do with Data?
With good data we can:
Understand what we’re doing
Size the work
Build strong plans
Secure resources
Measure and report progress
Improve performance
Deliver with confidence
Build trust
Delight the client!
(c) James Lea How Do You Know Your Project Is On Track? The Role of DataMay 24, 2018 10 / 29

11. Which Measures Matter?
”Help! What should I measure?”
Distinguish the signal from the noise using a conceptual framework
My favourite frameworks:
IDEF0 lite / SIPOC
Flow and Turbulence (lean, customer value)
Earned Value Management
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12. IDEF0 lite
”Size of”, ”Change in”, ”Change per month/sprint/week/day in ..”
Activity
•
Vision
•
Goal
•
Contract
•
Requirements
•
User Stories
•
Features
•
Module
Specification
•
Change Requests
•
Design information
•
Time
•
Staff hours
•
Office
Space
•
Equipment
•
Licenses
Value Adding
•
Software
•
Hardware
•
Assemblies
•
Instructions
•
Training
•
Benefits realised
Waste (internal work)
•
Emails on project file
•
Abandoned
documents
•
Defects
•
Ignored lessons
•
Rework of all kinds
Inputs Outputs
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13. Flow and Turbulence
Does your project flow, from beginning to end?
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14. Back flow
A
B
C
D
E
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15. Earned Value Management on a page
Planned Spend and Actual spend not enough..
.. is the work being delivered to budget? (cost efficiency)
.. is the work starting and finishing on time? (time efficiency)
For each activity EV = PercentComplete ∗ BudgetAtCompletion
Compare PV, AC and EV curves1 to help predict project outcome
Rules of credit
Activity Percent Complete
Not started 0
Started 10
In review 70
Completed 100
0
10
20
30
40
50
0 10 20 30 40 50
EVcurrency(£orhrs)
Time
Earned Value Management curves
Planned Value
Actual Cost
Earned Value
1
CV, SV, CPI, SPI, ...
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16. Exercise - What can we count?
In groups, take five minutes to discuss:
What is counted or measured on your project?
What could be counted or measured, but isn’t? And why not?
Feedback (five minutes).
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17. Case Studies
Examples of scenarios where I’ve used data to both track the work,
and lift the project performance
Understanding measures lets us see the variation
When we see the variation, we can act on the causes of variation -
this is not target setting
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18. Case Studies
1 Building product from requirements
2 Diagnosing and fixing faults
3 Tracing complex product development
4 Document reviews
5 Setting and tracking goals
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19. Individuals, Teams and Data
How do we join this all up and make it self-sustaining?
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20. Beneficial Feedback Loops
The magic begins when teams see how the data relates to their
performance.
Data is not for reporting. It is to inform those closest to the
action who stand the best chance of making improvements.
Design measures that work for your team. When everyone sees the
value, those measures will become self-sustaining.
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21. Data - A Team Sport
Primary
Loop
Secondary
Loop
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22. The Art of Counting
Focus on the work through the lifecycle
Target measures on turbulence
Find measures that help you predict (leading not lagging)
Make the data informative and link to project goals
Favour measures that are relevant to the customer
Evolve, experiment with correlations, explore - follow your intuition!
But..
Caution: not everyone likes sunlight.
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23. Art with Data
Make the data accessible and spark imagination!
Discern signal from noise: time-phase the data: flow, trends,
velocities, intercepts - visual intuition!
Coverage, percent complete → charts
PBS, OBS, WBS, CBS → dynamic trees
Weighted hierarchies → treemaps, sunbursts
Process maps; document dependencies, responsibility assignment
matrix; PERT → graphs
Change control → swimlanes
Make it interactive - Javascript in the browser2
2
d3js.org, visjs.org, three.js
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24. Tools
I use:
Pen and paper
Real time frameworks (Jenkins, Jira, browsers HTML5)
Databases (Graphs - Neo4J; traditional - SQL)
Visualisation (Graphviz, Javascript, SmartArt, R, Gnuplot)
Code (C, Excel3, Haskell, Python, R)
3
Use with caution
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25. Data Dos and Don’ts
Do:
Design your project around data
Explore and find correlations (”gold dust”)
Count consistently with standards
Understand variations
Reinforce a no-blame culture
Explain what the data means
Don’t:
Copy and paste / Import and Export
Publish without buy-in
Cherry pick
Go free style
Present tables of numbers - I will ignore you
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26. Exercise - What Are You Going To Do?
Five minutes: how will you apply some of these techniques on your project?
A reminder of what we’ve covered:
Set the culture - tell the stories of success
Scope and design the work around data (parametric techniques)
Choose a measurement framework
Work with the team to find useful measures
Understand and Act on Variations
Iterate and Improve
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27. Conclusion - Design, Measure, Track and Deliver
(c) James Lea How Do You Know Your Project Is On Track? The Role of DataMay 24, 2018 27 / 29

28. Thank You
Thank you for your time.
If you have any questions, or would like to explore any of the techniques
presented further, please get in touch - I would be delighted to hear from
you.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-lea-27b92517/
Credits to pexel.com for images
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29. Document Control
Version Date Remarks
1.0 Draft 13 Aug 2017 Initial release of synopsis
1.1 Draft 22 Nov 2017 Incorporate comments
1.2 Definitive 24 May 2018 APM South West Branch 24 May 2018
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