how do you know the status of your project? project monitoring and controlling
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How Do You Know the Status of Your Project? Project Monitoring and Controlling. Kristine A. Hayes Munson, MBA, PMP, CIA State Street. Learning Goals. You will be able to apply systems thinking to monitoring and controlling after: Reviewing PMBOK® Guide basics - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
How Do You Know the Status of Your Project?
Project Monitoring and Controlling
Kristine A. Hayes Munson, MBA, PMP, CIAState Street
Learning Goals
You will be able to apply systems thinking to monitoring and controlling after:◦ Reviewing PMBOK® Guide basics◦ Selecting key performance indicators (KPI)◦ Knowing when to implement change or when to
leave a project “as is”◦ Determining whether or not proposed changes
will positively or negatively impact the project
Why This Topic?
Managed an user acceptance testing project to onboard a client to a major system within firm
Project went from greenish-amber to red in less than a week with no major fires
SVP comment on the project:◦ The team is working frantically◦ The team is not working hard enough
“There is no such thing as a fact concerning an empirical observation. Any two people may have different ideas about what is important to know about any event. Get the facts!”—W. Edward Deming
Agenda
PMBOK® Guide Basics Review Key Performance Indicators Why Change?
◦ Special Cause and Common Cause Variation ◦ The Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle
Seeing is Understanding◦ Deming’s Red Bead Experiment◦ Deming’s Funnel Experiment
Understanding My Project
Definition – Monitoring and Controlling
Those processes required to:◦ Track, review, and regulate the progress and
performance of the project◦ Identify any areas in which changes to the plan
are required◦ Initiate the corresponding changes
What are we monitoring and controlling? (Hint 9)
Scope Schedule Cost Quality
Communications Risk Procurement Stakeholder
Management Integrated Project
Missing =
Human Resources
Monitoring and Controlling Activities
Comparing planned results with actual results
Reporting performance Determining if action is
needed, and what the right action is
Ensuring deliverables are correct
Acquiring sign-off on deliverables
Assessing overall project performance
Managing risks Managing contracts
and vendors
What are our results?
Monitoring & Controlling Restated
Translate project execution data from information
into knowledge Make the right management decisions and take
the right action◦ Implement appropriate, planned changes◦ Allow the project to function “as is”
Select 3-5 key performance indicators (KPI)◦ Ask stakeholders what is most important◦ Identify the impact of not completing the project
Make KPIs “SMART” Remember may need to be “bad” at some things
in order to be “good” • Ensure project team knows and understands
Focus on the Key Few
Take Action
Think about a project that you are currently managing.◦ Identify what are the 3-5 KPIs?◦ What are you going to be intentionally bad at?
Why are we trying to “change,” “fix” or “improve” something?
We observe variation from our expectations
Questions
How do we decide whether or not to “change,” “fix” or “improve” something?
How do we determine if a change will positively and/or negatively impact a project?
Life is Variation
Common Cause◦ Fall inside the
control limits Special Cause
◦ Something that is special, not part of
the system of common causes
◦ Fall outside the control limits
Two Mistakes
Mistake 1◦ To react to an outcome as if it came from a
special cause, when actually it came from common causes of variation.
Mistake 2◦ To treat an outcome as if it came from common
causes of variation, when actually it came from a special cause
Dakota Indian Tribal Wisdom
When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.In many companies more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
Changing ridersArranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses
Appointing a committee to study the horseLowering the standards so that dead horses can be included
Reclassifying the dead horse as ‘living impaired’Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horseHarnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed
Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance
Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance
Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower
overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to the mission of the organization than do some other horses
Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses…
Causality
A
B
C
D
Plan
DoCheck
ActPlan a change or a test, aimed at improvement–Which option to test? – What is anticipated result?
Carry out the change or test (preferably on a small scale)
Study the results. What did we learn? What went wrong?
Adopt the change, or abandon it or
run through the cycle again
Beware of Unintended Consequences
Deming’s PDCA Cycle
The Red Bead Experiment (Sort Of)
Help Wanted◦ 3 willing project team members (must be brave)◦ 3 QA lead (must be able to count)◦ 1 project manager (must be able to add & use
PowerPoint)◦ 1 senior manager (sets the rules – me)
The Red Bead Experiment (Sort Of)
Worker Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Total
Marc 15 22 20 57
Vance 12 26 20 58
Ron 38 26 15 79
Deming’s Lessons Learned
Wrong to rank people◦ Demoralizing◦ Really ranking the effect of the process on
people Futility of pay for performance; rewarding and
punishing the process Display of bad management; procedures were
rigid No basis to assume that best team member
would be the best in the future
The Funnel(Sort of)
Help Wanted◦ 1 will project team member (must be able to hold
funnel)◦ 1 project manager (must be able to use a
marker)◦ 1 senior manager (sets the rules – me)
No one gets fired in this experiment.
Deming’s Lessons Learned
Avoid management tampering ◦ Taking action based on the belief that a
common cause is a special cause◦ Overreacting ◦ Causes losses – management by results◦ Increases variation
Sometimes the process should just be left alone
Take ActionProject Team Discussion
What is the most important decision we face on our project right now because we observed variation?◦ What long-term consequence do the short-term
issues have?◦ How does this decision relate to the project’s
3-5 KPIs? How will we determine if this variation is a special
cause or a common cause variation? How does this knowledge impact your decision? How will you test your decision?
Learning Goals
You will be able to apply systems thinking to monitoring and controlling after:◦ Reviewing PMBOK® Guide basics◦ Selecting key performance indicators (KPI)◦ Knowing when to implement change or when to
leave a project “as is”◦ Determining whether or not proposed changes
will positively or negatively impact the project
“The truth is often buried deeper than where your intuition can reach. Uncovering it starts with the willingness to stop treating your beliefs as facts.”— Frances Frei and Anne Morriss
“Learning the word ‘no’ is the hardest lesson for many project managers.”— Jim Johnson
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