H O W T O R E D U C E C O S T S & G A I N V I S I B I L I T Y

AC RO S S YO U R P RO J E C T P O RT F O L I O

I N T R O D U C T I O NTake a moment to think about your project portfolio. Have you experienced unusual, repetitive delays or budgeting issues? Every project is going to encounter some problems, and it would be unrealistic to expect the completion of a project within budget, without any potential problems at all. However, your future employers or partners do not care about what happened: they care about deadlines, budgets, and the quality of your completed projects.

H O W T O R E D U C E C O S T S & G A I N V I S I B I L I T Y A C R O S S Y O U R P R O J E C T P O R T F O L I O

P R O B L E M O N E :

A L AC K O F P RO C E S S S TA N DA R D I Z AT I O NIn project management, standardization is one of the chief characteristics and factors in reducing costs and

increasing visibility. However, missing aspects of process standardization, including and up to a complete lack

of process standardization, will naturally lead to errors in judgment, inappropriate work quality, and insufficient

data collection for upper-level management, stakeholders, and other appropriate parties. Furthermore, a lack of

process standardization goes back to key failures in work processes, which include quality management, training

for all individuals in the project, and continuing education.

H O W T O R E D U C E C O S T S & G A I N V I S I B I L I T Y A C R O S S Y O U R P R O J E C T P O R T F O L I O

An example of a lack of process standardization for skilled workers.

When you hire a skilled worker for your project, you expect

that individual to use his or her abilities, reasoning, and skills to

provide the greatest benefit for your project. For example, you

may need to hire a gas metal arc welder (GMAW) for joining

aluminum materials together. However, you need to consider the

specific, GMAW-related skill sets of each welder. A welder who

specializes in GMAW welding would be better suited for the job

than a welder who has only been exposed to this type of welding

in a classroom setting. Unfortunately, the less experienced welder

may seem like the better option if you have a surplus of traditional

welding needs, but you only need to use GMAW welding for

a small portion, less than 5 percent, of your project’s welding

requirements.

H O W T O R E D U C E C O S T S & G A I N V I S I B I L I T Y A C R O S S Y O U R P R O J E C T P O R T F O L I O

What Specific Actions Should Have Been Taken?In the example, hiding information or refraining from disclosing an accurate representation of facts negatively

affected the planned budget and visibility in the project. To prevent these problems, the project manager must

thoroughly vet all employees and workers appropriately. If the project manager is not the person performing

these tasks, he or she should take steps to ensure the appropriate party, such as the hiring director, verifies all

information about the given employee. Since labor represents a resource in project management, the project

manager must determine if the worker is appropriately experienced or trained for the given project’s needs,

not just part of the project. If the applicant needs additional training, it should be noted at the beginning of the

project, before any work had been started.

H O W T O R E D U C E C O S T S & G A I N V I S I B I L I T Y A C R O S S Y O U R P R O J E C T P O R T F O L I O

How Do You Implement Standard Processes?

All parties involved in the project should know exactly what processes and workflows to follow to prevent

problems. In the example, every conversation or communication with the respective welder should have been

documented. All employees or other workers should have known what questions to ask the potential employee

as well.

For example, a refined hiring process would have flagged the welder for insufficient training in GMAW

welding techniques. Additionally, this aspect of data should have been reported to the project manager, if not

the program manager, such as when overseeing multiple projects.

This represents another instance where the problem could have been identified before it materialized and

affected the project. Similarly, the organization should have a set standard of reporting on each situation, the

potential employee in this example. Since our example did not dictate the reporting of a potential applicant’s

experience or work history to stakeholders or upper-level management, the project manager may not have

known of the missing skills.

All employees and workers should know how to respond to each situation in the course of tasks and activities.

However, this naturally leads to the other cause for project delays and budgeting issues, disjointed systems and

methods of data collection.

H O W T O R E D U C E C O S T S & G A I N V I S I B I L I T Y A C R O S S Y O U R P R O J E C T P O R T F O L I O

P R O B L E M T W O :

D I S J O I N T E D S Y S T E M S A N D M E T H O D S O F DATA C O L L E C T I O NAs seen in our example, the information for the prospective employee did not go beyond the initial hiring decision.

Furthermore, the information was not relayed to upper-level management until it had resulted in the need for

repairs to the completed work to pass quality inspection. This goes back to the storage, reporting, and sharing of

data across the project with stakeholders, board members, or other regulatory entities.

H O W T O R E D U C E C O S T S & G A I N V I S I B I L I T Y A C R O S S Y O U R P R O J E C T P O R T F O L I O

How Does an Organization Take Advantage of Data Point Collection, Analysis, and Sharing?

Hundreds of different tools and programs exist to make data point collection, analysis, sharing, and reporting

available to an organization. However, these applications are not all equal, and stakeholders need to understand

how a third-party application provider should be involved in the following ways:

• The software or program provider should provide assistance in selecting the best type of product for each

type of project. For example, the provider should offer comprehensive programs for risk analysis and

scheduling. If the organization only needs a risk analysis program, the provider should ensure the new

system can be integrated with the existing system.

• Training and ongoing education about how to use each type of product should be included with the product

selection. This is an especially important consideration as many products include frequent upgrades,

such as in Primavera P6’s recent upgrade to 15.1, which brought back certain features and capabilities in

maintaining visibility and reporting.

H O W T O R E D U C E C O S T S & G A I N V I S I B I L I T Y A C R O S S Y O U R P R O J E C T P O R T F O L I O

T Y I N G E V E R Y T H I N G T O G E T H E R …Identifying the failures in our example is not simply enough to prevent them from recurring in another aspect in your project portfolio. A lack of process standardization and disjointed systems led to a dramatic exacerbation of a simple problem. Although these problems could have been lessened through the use of standard, followed-by-all procedures, they would be consequently disjointed if all the staff members do not know how to access and review data

about the project. Not only does a project manager need accurate, timely data collection, but stakeholders, upper-level management, members of the project management team, and other

leaders need to know how to access this data and use it to make informed decisions.

Implementing standard protocols and processes and connecting data systems must be thought of as a fundamental part or project management. Ultimately, creating and using a unified

system, from software providers to stakeholders to project managers and workers, makes up the formula for reducing costs and increasing visibility across your project portfolio.

H O W T O R E D U C E C O S T S & G A I N V I S I B I L I T Y A C R O S S Y O U R P R O J E C T P O R T F O L I O

G E T T H E F U L L V E R S I O N H E R E

Thank you for reading. Click the link below to get the complete version of our How to Reduce

Costs and Gain Visibility Across Your Project Portfolio

F O L L O W U S