Project Management Attila Mate Kovacs

Project Management October 2009 Attila Mate Kovacs

Agenda A. Introduction & Action plan 3 B. Projects & status 5 C. Organization 11 D. Project management & development 14 E. Change management & knowledge sharing 19

Strategic BPR and management is only feasible after critical issues are treated - This leads to a 4-step methodology Diagnosis 1 Projects, statuses 2 Organization 5 Strategic BPR Action 3 Project management & development 4 Change management & knowledge sharing “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there”…Confucius

Project management & projects are deeply multi-dimensional… How projects are managed and how they really work?

The transparence of projects & business critical processes is enabled by adequate planning & reporting

Managing & planning in project cycles: Lifecycle & Planning Project lifecycle Project planning cycle

Keys to success: minimising project documentation Project Plan This is the most important document that a project manager should create and maintain through the life of the project. It contains the dates of all appointments, consultancy sessions, development work, etc. It should be used to allow the project manager to understand when the project is on track and when there have been slippages. It should also plan for the delivery of products necessary to the project. Goal Log A goal is not “Develop the new sales order processing system”. This may well be the deliverable of the project but it conveys no information to the development team. A goal such as “Allow the automated processing of web orders” or better still “Allow the automated processing of 20,000 orders per day” relays a message to the team. Visibility of these goals helps in design and development decision making. Risk Log It is important that everyone is aware of the risks inherent in a project. These may be as simple as “The customer may not have appropriate hardware” to “The project may slip and miss the deadline”. The risk log should be created as a single document with the risk, the agreed actions and the impact if the problem occurs. Everyone should be aware of this document and it should be maintained constantly. One line per risk should be suitable; a new document per risk is generally overkill. Issue Log Much like the risk log, an issue log should be maintained by the project manager. This is again a simple list of issues raised during the project with their intended resolution. These issues should be visible to all and everyone should be given the opportunity to add new items. Action Log / Agreement Log By creating a log of actions and agreements rather than separate sets of minutes, the project manager can have a single reference point for these items. During project meetings, these can be reviewed and contradictions highlighted. An action log is also a great place to identify who has completed their actions, what remains outstanding and how this creates risks to the project.

Keys to success: SMART goals S - Specific, Significant Each goal should be as specific as possible and should be clearly understood by anyone with a working knowledge of the project. Rather than saying “Improve the sales process”, how about “Automate sales processing from order taken to manufacture of the custom product”. A goal should also be significant. It is much better to have four or five large goals than hundreds of the irrelevant ones, “Copy each order from the web site to the SOP system in less than three seconds”. M - Measurable If you define a goal but it is not possible to determine when the goal has been achieved, the goal is meaningless and should be re- worded or dropped completely. Ideally, a goal is measurable to the extent that the progress towards the goal can be expressed at any point in the project. “Make it easy to see the sales orders” is not measurable. “Present the sales orders in the dashboard application” is better. A - Agreed, Achievable It is critical that everybody from the customer team and the development team agrees all of the goals. If the customer is in disagreement, achieving a goal will not be relevant. Goals must be achievable for the reverse reason. Agreeing upon a goal that cannot be achieved is simply inviting project failure. R - Realistic Every goal must be realistic. If the goal is not technically feasible or is not within the bounds of the project’s budget or deadlines, do not agree it. Once the goal is on paper, the expectation is that it will be delivered. Unrealistic goals will not be delivered and will lead to the project being deemed to be unsuccessful. T - Time-Based Tying the goals to a timescale sets a marker for the project team and the customer. A goal with a reasonable budget of time and a sensible deadline allows the customer to track the progress of the project and understand where a goal generates a large cost. The larger budgets may then be slimmed with a little pragmatism allowing redistribution of budget to other tasks. “Allow automation of the production line using 25 days of budget and completing before December” beats “Allow automation of the production line” every time.

Organizations have specific issues & challenges, some of them rooted in culture or structure…

Managing projects & change require detailed analysis & understanding of the organization Structure Strategy How is the company divided? What is the hierarchy? What is our strategy? How do the various departments coordinate activities? How do we intend to achieve our objectives? How do the employees organize and align themselves? How do we deal with competitive pressure? Is decision making and controlling centralized or decentralized? How are changes in customer demands dealt with? Is this as it should be, given what we're doing? How is strategy adjusted for environmental issues? Where are the lines of communication? Explicit and implicit? Systems Skills What are the main systems that run the organization? What are the strongest skills represented within (considering financial and HR systems as well as the company? communications and document storage) Are there any skills gaps? Where are the controls and how are they monitored What is the company known for doing well? and evaluated? Do the current employees have the ability to do What internal rules and processes does the the job? organization use to keep on track? How are skills monitored and assessed? Style How participative is the management/leadership Shared Values style? What are the core values? How effective is that leadership? What is the corporate culture? Staff Do employees tend to be competitive or cooperative? How strong are the values? What positions or specializations are Are there real teams functioning within the What are the fundamental values that the represented within the organization? organization or are they just nominal groups? company was built on? What positions need to be filled? Are there gaps in required competencies?

Project management example: Saudi Airlines ERP and MRO Implementation Project

Project management example: American Airlines BPR ‘The fundamental rethinking of business operations, focusing on key processes that create & deliver value to the customer, resulting in dramatic & sustainable improvements in business performance.’ * High-level timeplan Whole-process vision & phasing of AA BPR project Process alignment - Clear process owners - Horizontal process Process alignment management - Align processes to -Process strategies corporate objecives -Process flexibility -Distinguish core from -Significant process & support business improvement - End-custorner focus -Whole-process / Process awareness outcome measures - Work as a process - Focus on value-added - Language of activity management - Horizontal focus but - In-process measures vertical process -Vertical process management management - Recognize radical -Finding some quick improvement hits opportunities Process Process Ownership Process Alignment Awareness *SABRE Decision Technologies, "Business Process Design Introductory Workshop", American Airlines, USA, 1994

Project management & projects are deeply multi-dimensional… How projects are managed and how they really work?

Success also requires balancing Cost, Time & Scope • Causes of Project Trade-offs – Shifts in the relative importance of criteria related to cost, time, and performance parameters • Budget–Cost • Schedule–Time • Performance–Scope • Managing the Priorities of Project Trade-offs – Constrain: a parameter is a fixed requirement. – Enhance: optimizing a parameter over others. – Accept: reducing (or not meeting) a parameter requirement.

Change management & knowledge sharing Further reading, sources & contact Managing Change (Attila Mate Kovacs) Managing Projects (Attila Mate Kovacs) Accenture www.accenture.com Association for Project Management www.apm.org.uk Budapest Corvinus University www.uni-corvinus.hu McKinsey & Co. www.mckinsey.com Project Management Institute www.pmi.org Roland Berger Strategy Consulting www.rolandberger.com XSN Management www.xsn-management.hu Dobák Miklós: Szervezeti formák & vezetés Akadémiai Kiadó, 2008 Kotter, John P.: A Sense of Urgency Harvard Business School Publishing, US; 2008 www.hbsp.harvard.edu Mantel, Samuel: Project Management in Practice John Wiley & Sons, US; 2007 Mintzberg, Henry: Managing BerrettKoehlerPublishers, US; 2009 www.bkconnection.com Wind, Jerry Yoram - Main Jeremy: Driving Change Simon & Schuster, US; 1998 Contact: Attila Máté Kovács Kovacs.Attila@malev.hu attilamate.kovacs@gmail.com attilamate.kovacs@xsn-management.hu

Project Management Attila Mate Kovacs

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