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CROWDSOURCING
MP NETWORKMAKING PROJECT MANAGEMENT INDISPENSABLE FOR BUSINESS RESULTS.®
JANUARY 2012 VOLUME 26, NUMBER 1
HYBRIDS: NEW TAKE ON AGILE
BATTLE CONSTRAINED RESOURCES WITH
CRITICAL CHAINHOW TO FOSTER INNOVATION
APPLE, FACEBOOK, GOOGLE AND AMAZON: THE BATTLE FOR TALENT
DOES
WORK?
CROWD SOURCING-
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44Crowd Control Crowdsourcing projects can tap into a huge talent pool and cut costs—but also raise quality and security risks. by Sandra A. Swanson
LeadJanuary 2012 | Volume 26, Number 1
Alora C. Chistiakoff, BrainMatch, Austin, Texas, USA
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january 2012 PM NETWORK 3
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Special report
the evolution of agile Project professionals are creating hybrid twists on the agile approach, blending whatever techniques best fit their needs.By Sarah Fister Gale
34 agile to the rescue Staring down the devastation of a natural disaster, Chilean developers and IT project managers use an agile hybrid to bring their fractured country back together. By Sarah Fister Gale
chain reactions Dealing with constrained resources? Critical chain project management can set you on the right path. By Kelley Hunsberger
pMi 2011 project of the year finaliSt
power to the people A team merges two stalled initiatives into a US$1.92 billion energy megaproject—all while incorporating 30-year-old equipment. By Kevin Allen
7 Sectors to WatchHere’s where the jobs are—and the skills you need to get them.By Michelle Bowles Jackson 50
28
FeaturesJanuary 2012 | VOluME 26, NuMbER 1
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THE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTENETwORkPMI StaffVice President, Brand Management Lesley Bakker; [email protected] Donn Greenberg; [email protected] in Chief Dan Goldfischer; [email protected] Production Supervisor Barbara Walsh; [email protected] Associate Natasha Pollard; [email protected] Feedback: [email protected]: [email protected]
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Unless otherwise specified, all letters and articles sent to PMI are assumed for publi-cation and be come the copy right property of PMI if published.
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contrIbutIng edItorSBud Baker, PhD, Wright State UniversityAlfonso Bucero, PMP, Bucero PM Con-sultingSheilina Somani, PMP, Positively Project ManagementRoberto Toledo, MBA, PMP, Alpha PM ConsultingNeal Whitten, PMP, The Neal Whitten Group
2012 PMI board of dIrectorSChair Peter Monkhouse, BSc(Eng), MBA, PEng, PMP +1 416 702 9574, [email protected] Chair Deanna Landers, MBA, PMP +1 303 378 8459, [email protected] and Chair, Performance Oversight Committee Jane Farley, MSc, FPMINZ, PMP +64 21 890 254, [email protected], Strategy Development Oversight Committee Ricardo Triana, PMP +52 55 8421 8373, [email protected]
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Publication & MeMbershiPPM Net work (ISSN 1040-8754) is pub lished month ly by the Proj ect Man age ment In sti tute. PM Net work is printed in the USA by Quad Graphics, Sussex, wisconsin. Pe ri od i cal post age paid at Newtown Square, PA 19073-3299 and at ad di tion al mail ing of fic es. Canadian agreement #40030957. Post mas ter: Send ad dress chang es to PM Net work, 14 Campus Boulevard, New-town Square, PA 19073-3299 USA. Phone +1 610 356 4600, fax +1 610 482 9971.
The mission of PM Net work is to facilitate the exchange of information among professionals in the field of project and program management, provide them with practical tools and techniques, and serve as a forum for discussion of emerging trends and issues. All articles in PM Net work are the views of the au thors and are not nec es sar i ly those of PMI.
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© 2012 Project Management Institute Inc. All rights reserved.All rights reserved. “PMI,” the PMI logo, “Making project management indispen sable for business results,” “PMI Today,” “PM Network,” “Project Management Journal,” “PMBOk,” “CAPM,” “Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM),” “PMP,” the PMP logo, “PgMP,” “Program Management Professional (PgMP),” “PMI-RMP,” “PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP),” ”PMI-SP,” “PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP)” and “OPM3” are registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc. “Project Management Profes-sional (PMP)” is a service mark of Project Management Institute, Inc. in the United States and/or other nations.
PM Network welcomes story ideas and/or suggestions about sources. Our stories are written by profes-sional journalists. Please contact Imagination editorial director Cyndee Miller or PMI editor in chief Dan Goldfischer with your ideas and suggestions. If you are interested in submitting articles for the PMI knowledge Shelf, located at www.PMI.org/knowledge-Center/knowledge-Shelf.aspx, please contact Dan Goldfischer. More information can be found at www.PMI.org/en/knowledge-Center/Publications-PM-Network.aspx . Published articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the magazine or the Project Management Institute. PM Network is not responsible for loss, damage, or any other injury to unsolic-ited manuscripts or other material.
Digital eDitionA digital edition of this issue is available to PMI members by logging on to www.PMI.org and selecting knowledge Center, then Back issues in the online library. The digital edition of PM Network is also accessible on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, via the PM Network app.
reaDer servicesFor placing orders or for inquiries, please contact PMI Publishing Department at [email protected]. Permissions. Requests to reprint articles published in PM Network must be made in writing to the publisher using the online form at www.PMI.org/Forms-Permissions.aspx. No part of PM Network may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ ing photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.back issues. Back issues may be purchased when available by contacting [email protected]. Pricing varies with number of copies, and members receive a discount.PDF Files. Articles in PDF format are available for download from the Marketplace at www.PMI.org. The most recent five years are at no cost to members; older articles are US$10 each for members and US$5 each for student members. Non-member price for all articles is US$15 each.glossy reprints. Requests for glossy reprints of articles in quantities of 100 or more can be sent to [email protected] copies of current issue. Copies of the current PM Network can be obtained in quantities of 25 or more. Orders must be placed 40 days prior to date of issue. The cost is US$5.50 per copy plus shipping.change of address. Members can edit their demographics, including their addresses, by logging onto www.PMI.org and accessing “My PMI.” All readers can send change of address information to [email protected] or call PMI customer service at +1 610 356 4600 option 8.
PMN0112 1-31.indd 4 12/13/11 11:23 AM
january 2012 PM NETWORK 5
THE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE
Publication & MeMbershiPPM Net work (ISSN 1040-8754) is pub lished month ly by the Proj ect Man age ment In sti tute. PM Net work is printed in the USA by Quad Graphics, Sussex, Wisconsin. Pe ri od i cal post age paid at Newtown Square, PA 19073-3299 and at ad di tion al mail ing of fic es. Canadian agreement #40030957. Post mas ter: Send ad dress chang es to PM Net work, 14 Campus Boulevard, New-town Square, PA 19073-3299 USA. Phone +1 610 356 4600, fax +1 610 482 9971.
The mission of PM Net work is to facilitate the exchange of information among professionals in the field of project and program management, provide them with practical tools and techniques, and serve as a forum for discussion of emerging trends and issues. All articles in PM Net work are the views of the au thors and are not nec es sar i ly those of PMI.
Sub scrip tion rate for mem bers is US$42/year and is in clud ed in the an nu al dues. PMI is a non prof it pro fes sion al or gan iza tion ded i cat ed to ad vanc ing the state of the art of proj ect man age ment. Mem ber ship in PMI is open to all at an an nu al dues of US$119. For in for ma tion on PMI pro grams and mem ber ship, or to re port change of ad dress or prob lems with your sub-scrip tion, con tact:
Proj ect Man age Ment in sti tute 14 Campus Boulevard / Newtown Square, PA 19073-3299 USA Tel +1 610 356 4600; Fax +1 610 482 9971E-mail: [email protected]: 1 855 746 7879 (United States) / 1 855 746 7879 (Canada) / 1 800 563 0665 (Mexico)
PMi asia Pacific service centre Singapore Tel: +65 6496 5501 / E-mail: [email protected]
PMi europe-Middle east-africa (eMea) service centre Lelystad, Netherlands Tel: +31 320 239 539 / E-mail: [email protected]
toll-free numbers00 800 7464 8490: Austria, Belgium*, Bulgaria*, Czech Republic*, Denmark, Estonia*, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia*, Lithuania*, Luxembourg, Malta*, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic*, Slovenia*, Spain, Sweden*, Switzer-land, United Kingdom, Vatican City00 800 4414 3100: Cyprus, Greece07 810 800 7464 8490: Russia*+31 320 239 539 (toll number): Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Ukraine
*Use the toll number (+31 320 239 539) from mobile phones in these countries
PMi india service centre New Delhi, India Tel: +91 124 4517140 / E-mail: [email protected]
other locations Beijing, China; Washington, D.C., USA; Shenzhen, China; Mumbai, India; Bengaluru, India; Montevideo, Uruguay; Porto Alegre, Brazil
See www.PMI.org/AboutUs/Customer-Care.aspx for contact details.
Publications Mail agreeMent #40030957 Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: Circulation Department / P.O. Box 1051 / Fort Erie, Ontario L2A 6C7
© 2012 Project Management Institute Inc. All rights reserved.All rights reserved. “PMI,” the PMI logo, “Making project management indispen sable for business results,” “PMI Today,” “PM Network,” “Project Management Journal,” “PMBOK,” “CAPM,” “Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM),” “PMP,” the PMP logo, “PgMP,” “Program Management Professional (PgMP),” “PMI-RMP,” “PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP),” ”PMI-SP,” “PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP)” and “OPM3” are registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc. “Project Management Profes-sional (PMP)” is a service mark of Project Management Institute, Inc. in the United States and/or other nations.
PM Network welcomes story ideas and/or suggestions about sources. Our stories are written by profes-sional journalists. Please contact Imagination editorial director Cyndee Miller or PMI editor in chief Dan Goldfischer with your ideas and suggestions. If you are interested in submitting articles for the PMI Knowledge Shelf, located at www.PMI.org/Knowledge-Center/Knowledge-Shelf.aspx, please contact Dan Goldfischer. More information can be found at www.PMI.org/en/Knowledge-Center/Publications-PM-Network.aspx . Published articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the magazine or the Project Management Institute. PM Network is not responsible for loss, damage, or any other injury to unsolic-ited manuscripts or other material.
Digital eDitionA digital edition of this issue is available to PMI members by logging on to www.PMI.org and selecting Knowledge Center, then Back issues in the online library. The digital edition of PM Network is also accessible on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, via the PM Network app.
reaDer servicesFor placing orders or for inquiries, please contact PMI Publishing Department at [email protected]. Permissions. Requests to reprint articles published in PM Network must be made in writing to the publisher using the online form at www.PMI.org/Forms-Permissions.aspx. No part of PM Network may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ ing photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.back issues. Back issues may be purchased when available by contacting [email protected]. Pricing varies with number of copies, and members receive a discount.PDF Files. Articles in PDF format are available for download from the Marketplace at www.PMI.org. The most recent five years are at no cost to members; older articles are US$10 each for members and US$5 each for student members. Non-member price for all articles is US$15 each.glossy reprints. Requests for glossy reprints of articles in quantities of 100 or more can be sent to [email protected] copies of current issue. Copies of the current PM Network can be obtained in quantities of 25 or more. Orders must be placed 40 days prior to date of issue. The cost is US$5.50 per copy plus shipping.change of address. Members can edit their demographics, including their addresses, by logging onto www.PMI.org and accessing “My PMI.” All readers can send change of address information to [email protected] or call PMI customer service at +1 610 356 4600 option 8.
also in this issue6 Feedback Who’s in your network?
18 Metrics The latest research and statistics
66 Help Desk Add-On Modules By Peter Fretty
68 Marketplace Books on project management
70 Directory of Services Project management resources
72 Closing Credit Identifying whale sharks
the pulse
8 Tech Talent Wars Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon battle it out
9 Early Arrival Design-build helps a crowded airport expand faster 10 Rethinking Disaster Relief Facing shortfalls, FEMA casts a critical eye on project funding
12 False Sense of Security A survey shows tech threats often go unaddressed
12 Rain Dance China’s new cloud-seeding program
13 Race to the Top Two buildings pursue a new standard of sustainability
14 E-Cars Charge Ahead The next step for electric vehicles: infrastructure
16 Is ICT the New Oil? GCC nations turn to tech for economic diversity
17 Eye on Innovation A new contact lens projects text and images
Voices20 Peer to Peer Culture of Innovation
Andrei Cernasov, PhD, and Venkatraman L, PMP
24 From the Top Leader of the Pack Megan Ferland, Girl Scouts of Colorado, Denver, Colorado, USA
26 In the Trenches What’s the Diagnosis? By Reuben Levett
27 Project Perspectives Are You Ethical?
columnists25 Managing Relationships Accent on Clarity By Sheilina Somani, FAPM, PMP, Contributing Editor 62 The Business of Projects A Very Serious Disconnect By Gary R. Heerkens, MBA, CBM, PMP
63 Take the Lead Wisdom of the Ages By Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
also
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January 2012 | VOLUME 26, NUMBER 1
making proJect management indispensable for business results.®
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VOICES ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT
A “REVOLUTIONARY” TIP
In “Pancho Villa’s Approach to Project Communication,” blogger Jorge Valdés Garciatorres, PMP, writes:This communication technique reduces communication chan-nels by holding one team member to be responsible for sharing important aspects of the project’s journey with one or two other team members. For every two people on the project team, there should be one person updating them. In my experience, I have found this kind of communication useful with small teams be-tween 8 to 12 people.
Do you think this technique would work for you? Weigh in at pmi.org/voices.
FEEDBACK
28,043 MEMBERSWhere members fall within the organizational hierarchy:
PMI’S CAREER CENTRAL GROUP ON LINKEDIN
37% have job functions in program and project management, followed by IT, consulting, engineering and operations.
1 New York, New York, USA
2 Washington, D.C., USA
3 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
4 São Paulo, Brazil
5 San Francisco, California, USA
6 Bengaluru, IndiaTOP
CIT
IES
REPR
ESEN
TED 32%
are in IT, followed by telecommunications, computer software, management consult-ing, oil and energy, and fi nancial services.
IND
UST
RIES
Stats as of December 2011
The joke about project management as well as earned value is that we use the same words to de-scribe a mouse as we do a herd of elephants.
Earned value comes from the quasi-military land of elephant herds—very large, long-term aerospace and defense projects. You’d better have a lot of scope defi ned before you begin to spend US$100 million taxpayer dollars. When told to “collect the actual data,” the military
resource salutes and says, “Yes, sir,” turning away and muttering under her breath, “What kind of number do you want me to make up?”
Regarding percent complete: How much of your life have you completed? Or better yet, have you ever been 95 percent complete on an activity for a long time?
Ten years ago, I went to a workshop with [earned value management author] Quentin Fleming. When
I asked him about the diffi culty of collecting valid actual data, he assured me that most companies had reliable systems in place for doing this. I then knew we were from different planets. My mentors tell me EVM works on very large, structured projects that last over a year and spend more than US$1 million. Meanwhile, I tend my pack of mice.
—Roger Kent, The Project Group, Sacramento, California, USA
43%SENIOR
3%OWNER
3%VICE PRESIDENT
21%MANAGER
12%ENTRY-LEVEL
12%OTHER
6%DIRECTOR
Who’s in your network?
Does Earned Value Work on All Projects?
Share your take at PMI’s Career Central group on LinkedIn.
PMN0112 1-31.indd 6 12/13/11 11:07 AM
8 PM NETWORK january 2012 WWW.PMI.ORG
thePul se
17% The percentage above IT industry market
value Amazon pays its employees
US$82,600 The median starting
salary at Google
12%The portion of Facebook
executives that came from Google
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january 2012 PM NETWORK 9
thePul seTech Talent WarsThe clash of the tech titans is raging as Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook fight for world dominance—or at least the digital equivalent. Who comes out on top may hinge not only on who has the best project ideas, but also which one can then deliver them on time, on budget and with the right features. And for that, they need project professionals who can lead the innovation charge while keeping a diligent eye on constraints.
The latest salvo came in late 2011, when Amazon launched the Kindle Fire tablet, aimed at taking a bite out of Apple’s iPad-fueled rule of that market. Google is waging a two-front battle, with its Android phone competing with the Apple iPhone, and Google+ a direct assault on Facebook’s social media dominance. Despite being dwarfed by the other three in terms of revenue, Facebook hasn’t given up the fight. In late September, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg debuted a development project that would allow Facebook users to con-sume media—including movies, news and music—on any device, without leaving the site.
And, of course, Apple finds itself in unknown territory after cofounder Steve Jobs’ death last October left the company without its creative heart. However, that hasn’t stopped construction on a sprawl-ing new campus or a project to create a TV that would wirelessly sync content with Apple’s other devices.
Cream of the CropEven the best new product ideas won’t get very far unless an organization is able to recruit and retain top tech talent. All four companies have wasted no time snapping up some of the most talented IT professionals from around the world. Sometimes that has meant offering high salaries and extra perks—and often raiding the competition: 12 percent of Facebook employees and four of its top 11 executives were poached from Google.
The median starting salary at Google is US$82,600 and jumps to US$141,000 mid-career, according to PayScale. Amazon entry-level employees start out with a median salary of US$72,200, though salaries level out around US$110,000 mid-career, comparable to Apple. And then there are the bonuses, which ranged from US$8,000 to US$21,000 for software engineers in 2010, according to Glassdoor.com.
The tech giants can afford to be generous. Economic growth in the San Jose-Santa
Early arrivalIn the air travel industry, fast turnarounds are a must-have—an attitude that has carried over to at least one airport expansion project. Two project teams are working to add a slew of new features to the San Diego International Airport in San Diego, California, USA, and they attribute the design-build delivery system to shortening the schedule.
The US$1 billion project calls for a 445,000-square-foot (41,342-square-meter) termi-nal expansion, new ticketing facilities, a transit center, and new roads and parking lots, including six overpasses. It’s all aimed at preparing the airport for an expected 33 million pas-sengers annually by 2030.
Both contractors involved in the project are using building information modeling to stream-line construction, which they say is a necessary adaptation for a 650-acre (263-hectare) site sur-rounded by existing infrastruc-ture and the Pacific Ocean.
“We shaved a year off the process with design-build,” Daniel McGuckin, project direc-tor on the construction aspect of the expansion, told the Engineering News Record.
For more on talent management, visit PMi’s Career Central.
Image courtesy of Turner
WE’rE building MassivE data CEntErs and inFrastruCturE, and WE nEEd PEoPlE to CoordinatE thosE ProjECts and ProvidE a ClEar Path to suCCEss. that’s WhErE ProjECt ManagEMEnt skills arE so iMPortant.
—David Gardner, Facebook, Palo Alto, California, USA
17% The percentage above IT industry market
value Amazon pays its employees
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10 PM NETWORK january 2012 WWW.PMI.ORG
Clara-Sunnyvale, California, USA area jumped 13.4 percent to US$168.5 billion, compared to overall U.S. GDP growth of 2.6 percent in 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment in Silicon Valley also fell below the national average.
To keep up the growth, Silicon Valley’s big four will need to expand into new areas. For that, they need employees with the right skills, including project management.
“By definition, tech companies are con-stantly building out projects one by one. It is the essence of their business model,” says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an executive search consul-tancy in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
David Gardner, group technical program manager at Facebook in Palo Alto, Califor-nia, USA, says everyone he hires has some degree of project management skills and experience.
“We’re building massive data centers and infrastructure, and we need people to coordinate those projects and provide a clear path to success,” he says. “That’s where proj-ect management skills are so important.”
Along with seeking out project manage-ment experience in new recruits, Mr. Gard-ner makes sure everyone on his team gets project management training so they can keep projects—and engineers—on track.
“A lot of engineering folks don’t like proj-ect management,” he says. So he looks for project managers who can guide team mem-
thePulse
bers toward a common goal and keep them on schedule without bogging them down. “When you couple good engineers with good technical project managers, you get to the end result faster,” Mr. Gardner says.
That’s a powerful combination in an industry where success depends on the speed with which development projects transform into market-ready products.
“The key is making sure that when you apply project management, you are doing so in an extremely effective way,” Mr. Gardner says.
Part of that comes down to measuring projects not only against the company’s own past results, but putting them up against top rivals. “You always want to be the best in the industry,” he says. “But you know you’re really good when you’re competing against yourself.”
Rethinking Disaster ReliefWhen a disaster hits the United States, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is there to save the day—at least in theory.
Whether it’s a cataclysmic event, such as 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, or one of the dozens of floods, tornadoes and tropical storms that occur each year, FEMA is expected to swoop in with funding for relief projects.
There’s just one small problem: FEMA has run out of money six times since 2003, most recently in September 2011, when tropical storm Irene ravaged the country’s East Coast. Every time the coffers have run dry, the U.S. Congress has eventually allocated more money. But the perpetual shortfalls add another layer of complexity to projects being launched under already trying circumstances.
It could be time for the beleaguered agency to adopt a new approach.
In the first 11 months of 2011, FEMA declared 14 disasters with damages exceeding
Imag
e co
urte
sy o
f Wik
iped
ia
Top IT Company Salary RatesIn U.S. dollars
Amazon $72,200 $110,000 17%
Apple $43,100 $112,000 15%
Facebook $59,100 N/A* 13%
Google $82,600 $141,000 23%
Mid-career pay calculated as total annual compensation earned with 10 years of experience in a field of work. *Not enough Facebook employees report 10 or more years of experience to come up with an average, mid-career pay number.
Source: PayScale
Company Starting median pay
mid-Career median pay
% above market pay for it induStry
PMN0112 1-31.indd 10 12/13/11 11:07 AM
JANUARY 2012 PM NETWORK 11
A Flood of ClaimsA potential roadblock to FEMA’s effectiveness is its relationship with private insurance com-panies. The agency doesn’t issue relief funds to homeowners or businesses until their fl ood insurance claims have been processed. But in the aftermath of August’s tropical storm Irene, only 62 percent of private claims have been pro-cessed, according to a FEMA survey. And that’s slowing the agency’s ability to react.
“In order for FEMA to be responsive and put money on the ground, the private fl ood insurance fi rms must move more quickly to process and ap-prove claims from those families and businesses that were harmed by these devastating storms,” said Senator Charles Schumer.
US$1 billion each, in addition to several smaller ones that entitled states to millions of dollars in project funding.
“� e problem is, nobody ever turns them down,” Joe Allbaugh, FEMA director from 2001 to 2003, told USA Today in October, referring to state governors who seek disaster aid. “We can’t say ‘yes’ all the time.”
FEMA has no plans to start turning states away. However, the agency is looking at revamping fund disbursement and payout methods in an e� ort to cut costs and streamline project delivery.
New tactics include establishing processes to reevaluate project costs and to identify funds that could be “de-obligated” and returned to the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), which FEMA manages. Last October, for example, the agency reassessed the extent of � ood damage to an Iowa wastewater-treatment plant and cut funding to the rebuild project by US$50 million.
“Although we cannot predict the size, scope or cost of future disasters, we have improved management of DRF to maximize available resources,” FEMA administrator Craig Fugate told the U.S. House of Representatives in October.
By increasing oversight of the relief projects it supports, he said, FEMA
BILLION-DOLLAR U.S. WEATHER DISASTERS 2011Epicenters of disasters; all fi gures in U.S. dollars
SNOWSTORM 29 October$3 billion
SNOWSTORM 2 February$3.9 billion
TORNADOES 9 April$2.2 billion
FLOOD May$2 billion
TORNADOES 16-22 June $1.25 billion
TORNADOES 9 April$2.2 billion
FLOOD 27 August$3 billion
TORNADOES 14-16 April$2 billion
DROUGHT, WILDFIREThroughout year$3 billion
TORNADOES 4 April$2 billion
TORNADOES 25-30 April$5.5 billion
FLOODSeptember$1 billion
FLOODMay$4 billion
Source: AON Benfi eld
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has been able to return more than US$4.7 billion in excess funds to the DRF since the beginning of the 2010 fiscal year.
Currently, the agency reimburses the total cost of a project once it’s complete. But larger projects that remain open require a level of administration and oversight that can strain FEMA resources. Instead, the organization has proposed breaking large projects into two parts, starting with a design phase that includes a thorough cost projection. Once that’s approved, it would make a single payment at the start of the second phase to cover the full cost of the project. This funding would align with the initial estimate; increased governance would ensure budget compliance.
“Have an engineer, architect or records say it’s going to cost us this much to go build this fire station—we’re done,” Mr. Fugate told a House panel.
False Sense of SecurityMost IT and information security executives believe their companies are keeping data safe and secure—but those rosy assessments don’t align with the ugly reality.
Seventy-two percent of 9,600 respondents from around the world said they were con-fident in their organization’s information security capa-bilities, according to the 2012 Global State of Information Security Survey by PwC.
“Survey respondents believe that the information security function is doing its job quite well, and in some cases can add real bottom-line value to a company,” says Mark Lobel, PwC principal in New York, New York, USA and coauthor of the report.
thePulse
Investments in core IT security capabilities are on the declineIT field 2009 2011
Identity Management Strategy 48% 41%
Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery 53% 39%
Annual Privacy Policy Review 52% 39%
Dedicated Monitoring of Employee Internet Use 57% 49%
Source: 2012 Global State of Information Security Survey
Rain DanceThe Chinese government is giving Mother Nature a helping hand, launching four regional programs to increase rainfall and boost crop production. The country already produces 50 billion cubic meters (65 billion cubic yards) of artificial precipitation, but the new efforts could bring more than five times that amount by 2015.
To succeed, the China Meteorological Administration must coordinate rockets and planes to seed clouds at the right time to maximize potential for precipitation.
The agency will also focus on providing technical support to regional weather stations.
The programs were launched with the goal of helping the country reach an annual grain yield of 550 million tons by 2020 in the face of increasing droughts and flooding.
China has had mixed results with cloud seeding. The technique was credited with clearing smog from Beijing during the 2008 Olympics, but a 2009 effort was blamed for heavy snows that cost US$650 million in damage and killed dozens.
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Yet IT executives have a skewed take on what’s actually happening at their companies. “There is a significant false sense of security out there, based on what they believe compared to what they say they are actually doing,” Mr. Lobel says.
To be an information security leader, Mr. Lobel contends companies need:1. An information security strategy2. A chief security officer who reports directly
to organizational leadership3. An annual measurement and review process4. An understanding of past security events
The bad news is that only about 13 per-cent of companies meet those requirements. “There’s a lot of opportunity for improvement,” Mr. Lobel says.
The good news is that effective project man-agement practices can dramatically boost an organization’s information security practices and outcomes, he says. “Project management is a huge part of this issue, because every IT project could have—and most should have—a security component.”
By prioritizing and measuring IT security factors just as they assess resource allocation, budget and schedule, project managers are more likely to proactively identify and deal with risks—before security is compromised. “You can’t think about security at the end of a proj-ect,” Mr. Lobel says. “It has to be part of the overall solution.”
Race to the TopTwo ultra-green projects in the United States are in a race to stake their claim as the Interna-tional Living Future Institute’s first “living” office building. To make the cut, a structure must have net-zero energy and water use as well as meet additional sustainability requirements involving the surrounding environment. Each occupant must be stationed no farther than 30 feet (9.1 meters) from an operable window, for example.
Here’s a comparison of the top two contenders:
Project: Oregon Sustainability CenterLocation: Portland, Oregon, USAProject launch: Construction to begin in early 2012Slated completion date: Late 2013Stats: 7 stories tall, 150,000 square feet (13,935 square meters)Estimated project budget: US$62 millionWhat’s the Big Difference?: “We worked with partners and the design team to provide a common baseline from which to identify, track and assess differences between the center and a conventional office building,” says Lisa Abuaf, central city manager at the Portland Develop-ment Commission. Give the Sponsors What They Want: The cen-ter’s public, private and not-for-profit partners provide a broad network of involvement and investment. But that adds a level of complexity and coordination.
“We convened a board of key decision-makers with whom the design team met on a regular basis to receive coordinated feedback, allowing for them to hit a relatively short design timeframe,” Ms. Abuaf says.Let the Sunshine In: The center will boast at least two and as many as four different types of photovoltaic cells, including groundbreaking bifacial panels that let visible light pass through while also generating electricity.They’re Watching You: Sensors throughout the building will take stock of energy use on an individual level, keeping track of typically unreg-ulated plug loads such as appliances. Tough Sell?: The center is publicly funded, but it must find private-sector tenants willing to pay nearly double the cost for current comparable units in Portland. Some skeptics doubt the center can fill spaces, bringing the value of the project into question.
Buildings account for
49 percent of energy use and
46.9 percent of carbon diox-ide emissions in the United States.Source: Architecture 2030
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Project: Bullitt CenterLocation: Seattle, Washington, USAStats: 6 stories tall, 50,000 square feet (4,645 square meters)Project launch: August 2011Slated completion date: Third quarter 2012Project budget: US$30 millionWhen the Clouds Roll In: Given that it’s not always sunny in Seattle, the idea that solar energy alone could meet the needs of a multistory office building was risky. Project leaders found the solution in a combination of increased panel efficiency and a decrease in energy demands via integrated engineering and specially selected building materials.Water Watch: The project team is collecting rainwater in a 50,000-gallon (189,271-liter) underground cistern and then filtering it on site. But local regulations require that water for consumption be chlorinated—which doesn’t comply with Living Future Institute’s prohibitions on toxins. The team is negotiat-ing with state authorities over having the center’s water independently tested to prove it would meet quality standards. As a backup, the building will be connected to the munici-pal water supply.Seal the Deal: Common building materials that contain PVC plastics, mercury, cadmium and about 360 other hazardous substances can’t be used per institute regulations. In one instance, The New York Times reports, the team negotiated with a supplier to remove phthal-ates from its sealant so it could be used in the structure.
thePulse
E-Cars Charge AheadElectric cars have the potential to drastically reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels—but only if the supporting infrastructure can keep up.
The plug-in EV (electric vehicle) market is in its infancy but is projected to post 48 percent annual growth, with 5.2 million vehicles sold worldwide by 2017, according to Pike Research. For sales to truly take off, though, drivers need a place to plug in. More than 85 percent of people said the inconvenience of charging the battery was one of the top factors for not buying an EV, according to a Deloitte survey of 13,000 consum-ers around the world.
China, with the fastest-growing number of cars on the road, has declared the EV industry a top priority. The country earmarked US$1.5 bil-lion annually over the next 10 years to encourage production of clean vehicles. Government leaders have called for 25 pilot cities to draw up plans to push EV sales, including developing charging infrastructure projects.
In the United States, President Barack Obama has expressed a hope to see 1 million EVs sold in the country by 2015, although there are fewer than 15,000 currently cruising U.S. roads, according to Plug In America, an EV advocacy
Only three buildings in the world have been certified as “living” by the International Living Future Institute:
Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Lab Kamuela, Hawaii, USA
Omega Center for Sustainable Living Rhinebeck, New York, USA
Tyson Living Learning Center Eureka, Missouri, USA
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group. And charging options are still lacking. Pike Research projects that 13,000 public charging sta-tions will be in service in the United States by the end of 2012, less than one-tenth the number of gas stations in operation.
Without the right infrastructure, EV sales could stall out. “Public infrastructure is a necessary part of the vision to give consumers the confidence to invest in electric cars,” says Tim Armitage, associ-ate director at Arup, a global construction and engineering consultancy in Solihull, West Mid-lands, England.
Plugged InLooking to jump-start sales of eco-friendly EVs, many governments are offering incentives and subsidies to support charging projects, Mr. Armit-age says. In the United States, the Department of Energy launched a public-private partnership with ECOtality, which is overseeing the installation of approximately 14,000 commercial and residential charging stations, including ones in Walmart and Ikea store parking lots.
Rival start-up Better Place plans to launch its first nationwide charging networks in Israel and Denmark within the first quarter of 2012, followed by deployment projects in Australia, the United States, China, Japan and Canada. Drivers will be able to exchange their low battery for a fully charged one in about five minutes. Better Place also plans to offer charging posts in parking lots; drivers can find locations of switch stations and charging posts on a dashboard GPS screen. For
now, however, only one EV is compatible with the swap stations.
That disconnect underscores the serious ques-tions that remain on the technical side.
“There is still a lot of guesswork with the EV domain, as the technology is quite new and is developing so quickly,” Mr. Armitage says. “Many early adopters in this realm made the mistake of choosing the wrong technology, and some of those projects are already obsolete.”
That risk should diminish as technology becomes standardized, a process already under-way in some parts of the world. In October 2011, automakers Ford, Audi, BMW, Daimler, General Motors, Porsche and Volkswagen agreed on a sin-gle integrated charging system for all EVs in North America. The new standard uses a single-port charging system for all configurations, from small home units to large public setups. The new solu-tion will be backwards-compatible with the current industry options in the United States and Europe.
Those responsible for charging infrastructure projects mustn’t get tied to one technology, says Mr. Armitage, who is managing such a project in England. Early efforts taught him to future-proof his projects: anticipating increased electrical demand, choosing modular components that can be swapped out and requiring three to four times the necessary power to the stations.
“This is a young industry, and the technology is still developing,” he explains. “If you build in a lot of redundancy, you won’t have to dig everything up when the technology changes.”
Watts Happening?Electric car charging projects are popping up around the globe:
northern Ireland recently announced the launch of a £2 million project to build a net-work of electric vehicle charging points in six cities over the next two years. The project will also explore opportunities to install charging points in workplaces and residences.
In Germany, private park-ing garage operators Bavaria Parkgaragen GmbH and E.ON AG have teamed up to open eight jointly operated charg-ing points for electric cars in Munich.
Portugal is rolling out 1,300 slow-charging stations and 50 fast-charging stations across 25 municipalities and along main highways through-out the country.
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Is ICT the New Oil?They possess more than a third of the world’s oil reserves—not a bad position to be in. And now Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are using that revenue to fund tech projects in a push to modernize and diversify their economies.
“Information and communications technology (ICT) projects are pervasive in the transformation of GCC governments,” says Ramez Shehadi, vice president, partner and head of the business tech-nology practice for the Middle East at consulting giant Booz & Co. in Beirut, Lebanon. “They are a critical element of knowledge-based economies and sustainable growth.”
From 2011 to 2015, ICT spending across the six GCC countries—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain—is projected to reach US$318 billion by 2015, yielding an average annual expenditure of US$64 billion, according to a 2011 report by the Kuwait Financial Centre. Challenges remain, however, with the report’s authors pointing
to inadequate or dated infrastructure and bureaucratic issues in the adoption of
technology on a government level.GCC countries won’t be able to
meet bold ICT development and economic goals unless they bolster their tech adoption, infrastructure modernization, and project manage-
ment processes and capabilities, says Mr. Shehadi, coauthor of Fast, Lean,
thePulse
and Agile: How GCC Governments Can Make the Most of ICT Investments.
Big SpendersSaudi Arabia is expected to account for more than 50 percent of the GCC’s ICT spending over the next three years, with US$67 billion slated for tele-com projects by 2012. The kingdom also unveiled what it proclaimed to be the GCC’s largest health-care project last November, a five-year initiative to digitally integrate 300 of the nation’s hospitals.
Qatar is also upping its tech investments as it prepares to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The current project lineup includes the development of a high-speed data network and a QAR2 billion initiative to provide greater Internet access. The country is also building its first high-capacity sat-ellite, expected to launch by next year.
Qatar ranked fourth in the world for overall readiness to use ICT, according to the Global Information and Technology Report 2010-2011, released by the World Economic Forum in April 2011. The country’s government sector took second place, leading the way with strong penetration levels of personal computers, Inter-net connectivity, broadband connectivity, local access network connectivity and organizational web presence.
“[The] report illustrates how much progress Qatar has made in leveraging ICT to advance our economy and quality of life,” ICT Qatar secretary general Hessa al-Jaber, PhD, said last April. “Nonetheless, we know that much work remains to be done as we shift to a knowledge-based economy.”
The country’s near-term goals include building
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Kuwait $5.1 $5.3 $5.6 $5.9 $6.1
Saudi Arabia $29.3 $30.6 $31.9 $33.4 $34.9
United Arab Emirates $11.5 $12.0 $12.5 $13.1 $13.8
Qatar $8.8 $9.6 $10.1 $10.6 $11.1
Bahrain $0.9 $0.9 $1.0 $1.0 $1.1
Oman $2.2 $2.3 $2.4 $2.5 $2.6
Total GCC $57.9 $60.8 $63.5 $66.5 $69.6
The GCC ICT InvestmentAll figures in billions of U.S. dollars
Source: Markaz Research, WITSA and IMF
US$ 318 billion
The expected ICT spending across the six
Gulf Cooperation Council countries by 2015
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a next-generation communications infrastructure and developing the ICT skills of the country’s workforce. Dr. al-Jaber is also making efforts to streamline project management processes and ensure greater government transparency.
“We wanted to make sure the market supports sustainable business growth in the ICT sector,” she told The Prospect Group in June 2011. “We want to have very advanced and innovative services that serve the needs of the country and the consumers. When we introduced competition, we initiated a very clear and transparent process that was open to major operators worldwide.”
Such project management skills development, communication enhancement, delivery innovation and progress transparency is exactly what GCC countries need, especially for those GCC nations lagging in those areas, Mr. Shehadi says.
“These government leaders need to move beyond seeing technology as a simple, back-office necessity and look at it as a means for competi-tive advantage, socioeconomic development and greater sociopolitical inclusion,” he adds.
Government sponsors must also foster greater communication between business units and IT teams. “Project managers often don’t fully
understand the business drivers or priorities at a sufficient level, and their oral communication and written project plans are often not business relevant,” Mr. Shehadi explains.
For GCC countries to achieve their ICT goals and move into the future, he argues that they must focus on four strategies: n Create an environment that enables change
through regulations, legislation and high-level project sponsorship.
n Invest in human capital and infrastructure by ramping up secure, resilient and cost-efficient broadband infrastructure and building a robust tech talent pool.
n Align projects with specific usage and services goals, such as speeding healthcare delivery through implementation of electronic health-record systems.
n Establish key performance indicators to mea-sure the impact of ICT investment and change over time.
“It’s not enough to have the project manage-ment capabilities,” Mr. Shehadi says. “The coun-tries need the leadership skills and vision to deliver complex projects that will bring sustainable value to the community.”
EyE on InnovatIonThe line between science fiction and reality continues to blur. A project team at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA, is working on contact lenses that could project text and images in front of wearers’ eyes, bringing new meaning to the term “virtual reality.”
Current prototypes of the lenses, tested on rabbits, are only capable of projecting about a pixel of visual data, and the wireless battery only works when it’s very close to the lens.
The project team has overcome one obstacle, though: the eye’s natural inability to focus on objects very close to its surface. The solution came from using a special type of thin lens to magnify the visual data being displayed.
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S A U D I A R A B I A
[metrics]
MECCA
MEDINARIYADH
DAMMAM
RABIGH
JEDDAH
KING OF THE DESERT
SAR375 billion The value of infrastructure projects slated for development in Saudi Arabia, making its infrastructure program the largest in the Middle East
[Saudi Arabia] recognizes the key role of infrastructure development in transforming the country into a regional economic powerhouse. We can thus expect more infrastructure projects to be announced in the future and an accompanying increase in demand for technologies, services and expertise required by these projects.
—Mohammed Al Hussaini, Riyadh Exhibitions Co., Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Haramain High Speed Rail Project Electric trains will run 320 kilometers (200 miles) per hour between Jeddah, Mecca and Medina. The five stations will accommodate an anticipated 60 million passengers.
Mecca Infrastructure ExpansionThe Saudi government plans to spend an estimated SAR100 billion on the construction of roads, restroom com-plexes, housing, and the expansion of existing open areas and roads.
National Housing ProgramThe Saudi Ministry of Housing has launched a program to build 500,000 houses at 11 sites across the country. The largest, in Dammam, will cover 10 million square meters (3.9 square miles).
Riyadh Tech ComplexThe US$667 million IT and communi-cations facility will be the largest tech-specifi c complex in the nation, featur-ing two 24-story towers, two buildings devoted to research and development, a library and a health club.
THE LATEST STATISTICS, SURVEYS AND STUDIES
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60%
Adopting corporate standards
for IT
STRANGERS IN STRANGE LANDS
51%The percentage of U.S. companies that said they plan to do business abroad in the next year or two.48% already have a global presence.
For those companies, the leading challenges to operat-ing abroad are seen as more intense when operating in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China): = companies operating abroad
= companies operating in BRIC countries
Finding the right business partners
Establishing adequate cross-cultural management
Finding suffi cient local talent
Source: Private Company Trendsetter Barometer, PwC. Results based on a survey of 236 CEOs and CFOs at privately held U.S. businesses released in September 2011.
GATHERING CLOUDS
Source: The ROI of Cloud Apps, Forrester Research. Results based on survey of 305 North American and European IT services decision-makers published in June 2011.
STRICTLY BUSINESS52% of senior IT executives said they need to demonstrate the business value of all IT projects.
The top strategies executives use to ensure better alignment to business goals:
Source: 2011 Role of the CIO Beyond the Crossroads Survey, SearchCIO.com and MIT Sloan CIO Sym-posium. Results based on a survey of 641 global IT executives released in summer 2011.
51% of IT decision-makers expect their spending on software as a service (SaaS) to increase over the next year.
68%
85%
63%
79%
56%
69%
55%
47%
Becoming more involved in business objectives development
Adopting an IT management
framework
6.8%The amount the U.S. solar industry grew in
the 12 months ending in August 2011
24%The sector’s predicted growth for 2012, which would add 24,000 new solar jobs
100,237The current number of jobs in the U.S.
solar sector as of August 2011
45%Becoming more involved in budgeting process
ROOMS AVAILABLE Hotel construction in China is ex-pected to grow 52 percent by 2013, even though the country’s cur-rent occupancy rate of 61 percent is the second-lowest in Asia.
SUNNY OUTLOOK
Source: National Solar Jobs Census 2011, The Solar Foundation. Results based on a survey of 1,149 U.S. solar companies published in October 2011.
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Voic
esPe
er to
Pe
er Andrei Cernasov, PhD, and Venkatraman L, PMP, discuss
the ROI of pushing project teams to pursue the next revolutionary idea.
How do you define innovation?Andrei Cernasov: To me, it’s creativity with constraints. I’ve often heard that creativity that brings money is the only possible form of innovation a company should get involved with.
Inventions are new, non-obvious ideas that are useful to one person—essentially, the inventor. And from that point on, it becomes a matter of socializing that idea to see if we can convert it into innovation, something useful to many.
Culture of Innovation
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Venkatraman L: Innovation lies in not only creating some-thing disruptive, but also in trying to add value to something that was not there before.
How can project managers and their organizations foster a culture of innovation?Dr. Cernasov: The project manager has to be more of an innovation educator than a practitioner, and that’s tricky. You do that by building a track record. If project managers who consistently foster innovation outperform conservative ones, then other people will want to join in. But project manag-ers have to provide the tools that allow people to implement innovative practices. You can train innovation up to a certain level, but you also have to identify and bring in naturally in-novative people.
Mr. L: If someone has an innovative idea, it can’t go into a black hole. What’s the process by which these ideas are nurtured? Is there an organizational sponsor? Are innovators motivated to do more?
Companies must build a culture where you’re allowed to
fail, but at the same time there’s support and a clear vision. It’s also about creating an environment where team members are able to see the trends in the external world. Project man-agers play a significant part in fostering that culture.
Dr. Cernasov: I may swim against the current here. Changing an organizational culture is very difficult. Culture is the result of many years of hiring practices, of encouraging certain behaviors, of making certain kinds of investments.
When I got here, we had a pool of 3,000 very conservative engineers doing what they wanted to do and doing it very well. We identified a small group of people who could create a subculture of innovation. Our management consistently encouraged this subculture to outperform the rest. We expect more people to join in and sort of spread by example.
Our innovation program has three major parts:One is the protection of ideas. We developed a database so
no idea is lost, belittled or ignored. Two, we have the small group of innovation catalysts
whose role is to protect the person with the idea, regardless of their rank, from whatever issues he or she may encounter.
The third rung is top-down. Because of the nature of what we do, sometimes we have to innovate around something our team members are experiencing in the field, and we have to solve that problem quickly. So our management will issue a request for innovation, which in turn triggers a set of work-shops designed to address the problem.Mr. L: I agree with Dr. Cernasov. At the earlier firm I worked with, at least twice a year we had an innovation fest, where people showcased their ideas with proof of concepts and data points in terms of how this can benefit the organization. There are people benchmarking and saying, “This is going to give us x number of
Venkatraman L, PMP, is head of proj-ect management at InMobi, a mobile advertising network in Bengaluru, India.
Andrei Cernasov, PhD, and Venkatraman L, PMP, discuss the ROI of pushing project teams to pursue the next revolutionary idea.
Andrei Cernasov, PhD, is innovation coordinator at the U.S. Department of Defense Armaments Research Devel-opment and Engineering Center at the Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, USA.
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page views more,” and things like that.
Once a particular innova-tion becomes a prototype, a lot more team members see it has value. They start saying, “Maybe I’ll also try some-thing.” It starts to spread.
How do you measure the ROI of innovation?Dr. Cernasov: The ultimate question is: Does your client see your product as highly in-novative, highly differentiated from the competition, or not?
Early on, what you’re look-ing for is management’s commitment to innovation. To me, this is the most important leading metric. Does upper management provide guidelines to human capital for the hiring and training of people in innovation? How much money does the company invest in innovation? How much risk does the company assume?
At the trailing end, we have industry impact: how many patents you have and how many new ideas you have actually deployed in your product line. Then there are open innovation practices. Are you open to other people’s ideas? What percent-age of the ideas you don’t use do you make public? Do you try to monetize the excess innovation? Be-cause if you don’t allow such exchanges, you’re suppressing some of the innova-tion out of your people, and that’s not a good thing.
Mr. L: There are a couple of things to measure. There are the immediate concerns, the incremental value to the top line or bottom line—for example, reduced costs. That’s a more tangible way to look at it. There’s also customer satisfaction and time to market. Instead of deliver-ing a project in six weeks, how about four?
Make sure you know how many ideas are coming in, how many are getting implemented, and how many have really made a difference to the company.
We also have incremental innovation. Start with a product in
hand. Everybody gets into a room and says, “It’s not going the way we want it to. Can we try something new?”
Where do most organizations go wrong when it comes to innovation?Dr. Cernasov: Some companies appreciated as great innovators have a bad habit: They have this idea funnel, and they want to have hundreds and hundreds of ideas feeding it. Then they man-age it using stage gate processes.
At each stage gate, each idea is evaluated against milestones. A lot of ideas are terminated. Some program managers, unfortunately, take great pride in a high kill rate because it reflects that not only do they have a lot of ideas at the input, but that they have a very strict set of criteria to decide which ones are funded.
There’s a backside to that proposition: A very high number of disenchanted inno-vators make it to a certain point, and then
say, “I’m not going to suggest another idea because it will get killed.”Instead of killing ideas when milestones aren’t met, we imple-
mented an idea maintenance system, where ideas are visited regularly to see if, under changing conditions, those ideas can be improved or be used in an existing project. This keeps innovators engaged. They’re not disenchanted, and they get trained so their ideas, in time, con-verge more and more with our enterprise’s and our clients’ needs. PM
Don’t pride yourself on a high kill rate of ideas. You might be demonstrating your strict demand for proof of ROI to executives. But after too many ideas get nixed, your colleagues will cease to offer innovative suggestions.
The Idea Funnel
KeeP InnOVaTORS enGaGedInstead of killing ideas when milestones aren’t met, implement an idea maintenance system. revisit ideas regularly to see if, under changing conditions, they can be improved or be used in an existing project.
Be a part of the conversation
Is there a subject you’d like to discuss with another practitioner? Send your ideas to [email protected].
SaVe FOR laTeR
adaPT FOR anOTheR PROjecT
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Megan Ferland is a real trooper, forging a path into the uncharted territory of project management at the Girl Scouts of Colorado.
As CEO of the Denver, Colorado, USA organiza-tion, she oversees the programs, camps and activities of the state’s 31,000 Girl Scouts, along with 10,000 adult members and a full complement of volunteers and staff. Looking to better meet the needs of this large and dispersed group of stakeholders, she spearheaded the introduction of a formal project management method-ology in 2009.
“As difficult as it is to implement, if you take the time to go through the planning process and train your staff on how to do project management and why it’s important, you’ll see results,” she says. “It won’t happen overnight, and even today we’re not perfect. But we are so much better today because of the project management tools and processes we are using.”
How is project management helping?Having a plan, working that plan and refining that plan based on lessons learned has helped us drive bet-ter project results. It’s also contributing to a rise in our overall numbers. We’ve seen a 43 percent increase in membership this year, and that’s the first time that has happened in years.
And as people within the operation see better results, that drives buy-in for the project management process at the member and staff levels.
What’s your approach to project management?It begins with a leader and a project plan. If a proj-ect requires a cross-functional approach, the person most accountable for the outcome is made the project leader. Then we develop a charter, a purpose state-ment and a timeline, and we identify any external
resources or experts we need to bring in to facilitate the goals. That charter becomes our skeleton guide for the work.
Can you share a specific example?Each community does its own fundraising activities for Girl Scouts of Colorado, and the process and oversight has been pretty inconsistent. It was causing some angst.
We brought these groups together and came up with a charter to develop guidelines that will facilitate con-sistent, efficient fundraising activities across the orga-nization. The project will entail a series of meetings to define what we know, what we need to tackle and who is responsible for which tasks. We’ll have weekly prog-ress reviews, and eventually we’ll share the results with the board-level committee, which serves as a feedback loop for us and will help us refine our results.
What challenges do you face?One of our biggest is that we’re a relatively new orga-nization within a very old brand. The Girl Scouts of America has been around for 100 years, and everyone expects that we have everything figured out and that our projects will be delivered seamlessly. But Girl Scouts of Colorado is only a few years old, and we have a lot of processes and procedural infrastructure that we’re only starting to put in place.
Originally, there were five smaller Girl Scout councils across the state, and they each managed their opera-tions in their own way. Now when we put together a new project charter, we make sure we have appropriate representation both functionally and geographically, and we try to take into consideration any issues they might face. For example, rural representatives may have transportation challenges that metro representatives wouldn’t think about. Having a formal planning process helps us to be sure we’re truly inclusive. PM
S
Accent on clArity
Having a plan, working that plan and refining that plan based on lessons learned has helped us drive better project results.
Leader of the Pack
voices From the Top Megan Ferland, girl SCoutS oF Colorado, denver, Colorado, uSa
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SSomething as seemingly slight as an accent can have a huge impact on communication.
While delivering a recent ethics and values session in the United Kingdom, a participant asked me how to manage communication across geographical bound-aries, “especially when they have such difficult accents.”
The individual raising the question was completely unaware of his own accent, focusing solely upon issues he has had with team members and suppliers.
When communicating, perception can cause distortion. A speaker, or sender, perceives that he or she is saying something of interest and value, sharing infor-mation or seeking confirmation.
But if a listener, or receiver, has already decided a speaker is “difficult to understand,” he or she is predisposed to find a communica-tion less interesting or useful, or to completely dismiss the content.
As project team members, we manage an increasing range of accents and vocabulary; variations arise from geographical, technologi-cal and colloquial sources. The receiver can choose to respond in a variety of ways—dismis-sive, inclusive, avuncular or judgmental.
When communicating, we can consciously choose our emotional state, our willingness to cooperate and how much time we want to invest.
The arT of CommuniCaTionHow can we, as project professionals, improve communication in a global net-work? Some of the approaches I use include consciously increasing awareness of how I filter information, and selecting what I communicate and, indeed, what I receive.
As someone who is demonstrative when speaking, I literally sit on my hands and focus on the sender to ensure that I actively hear the content, rather than passively listening. It’s a conscious process that ensures I invest my attention fully.
I keep a notepad handy to illustrate the conversations, creating branches for other conversations already taking place or that have yet to be had.
Accent on clArity
Sheilina Somani, FAPM, PMP, is the owner of the U.K.-based consultancy Positively Project Management, a project manager, a speaker and a mentor.
I also employ flip charts to illustrate and share content. When others have ideas and suggestions, they add to the charts. Subsequently, I photograph and distribute the images.
When communicating remotely, I often use Skype. Prior to the call, I send annotated documen-tation and images. I always clearly number each item so we can cover them during the call without team members having to struggle with terminol-ogy, enunciation or pronunciation. After we’ve exchanged pleasantries, the team runs the meeting, citing the numbers with which they’d like to start and finish.
When we work on Skype, we have agreed prac-tices of rechecking what we’ve heard from one another, regularly summarizing the information. When the conversation has concluded, we circulate written updates and include images.
As technology advances, project profession-als will need to master an exponentially growing skill set. However, we still need traditional values: respect, appreciation, acknowledgement and collaboration.
We often have different accents, intonations and approaches to communication, but we all have a similar goal: to successfully deliver working solu-tions to our users.
So with good humor, grace and patient repetition, we can rise above communication distortion. PM
Communication has become more complex—and we might not realize that
we often create our own barriers.By ShEiliNA SOMANi, FAPM, PMP, cONTRiBUTiNg EdiTOR
MANAgiNg Relationships
When communicat-ing, we have filters, including our emotional state, our willingness to cooperate and how much time we want to invest.
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ReportingDiscuss the health check’s findings with the sponsor and project manager to ensure there aren’t any surprises. Validate any findings that are not clear. Create a simple report that includes recommendations of practical, work-able actions to improve project performance if necessary.
The health check can provide peace of mind if a project is going well, or it can provide any relevant details to make informed decisions about the initiative’s future. To encourage a spirit of togetherness, be sure to thank all re-view participants for their valuable input.
Support The final step of a project health check is help-ing the project team implement the recom-mendations. Begin this support as soon as the report is complete by developing an imple-mentation roadmap and monitoring progress toward achievement.
Value AddedThe process is similar regardless of when in the project life cycle a health check occurs. It provides a snapshot view at a point in time, and should adhere to the general principles of being quick, accessible and valuable to a project.
Health checks can assist in several ways beyond the primary purpose of providing sponsors and project managers with confidence in the project’s status. They are a great way to capture best practices for future projects. This feedback loop is integral to an organization’s ongoing development of project management maturity. PM
voices In the Trenches
What’s the Diagnosis?Project health checks offer a quick, simple means to monitor status.by REubEN LEvETT
Reuben Levett is a senior project manager at the telecom company vodafone New Zealand in Auckland, New Zealand.
In An IdeAl woRld, it would be common to deliver all projects on time and with-in budget. However, project management statistics tell us a very different story across the globe. In fact, the reality is that many projects still fail—even though they’re a significant part of how organizations deliver core services and strategic change. Even if a project does meet its budget and schedule, it still may not deliver the expected
benefits or meet stakeholders’ ever-increasing expectations.
As the saying goes, “Preven-tion is better than cure.” Avoiding some of the bigger problems that projects encounter is increasingly important, as many project manag-ers and their teams are so involved in daily activities that risks and issues go undetected at times.
Project health checks can provide part of the solution, sup-plying independent and impartial guidance to identify obstacles that may prevent successful project delivery. The primary purpose of a project health check is for a project management office or program manager to increase the level of confidence sponsors and project managers have in the status of the initiative. To ensure consistency and accuracy, health
checks should consist of the following phases:
AssessmentSet expectations with the sponsor and project manager on what is required from a project review and the intended benefits. See how the project is performing in terms of scope, time, cost and risk. Then review relevant documentation to come up to speed quickly and identify any areas of focus for the review.
The next step is to conduct interviews with key stakeholders to get their perspective on how the project is progressing and whether any areas of im-provement exist. To encourage those interviewed to express their true feelings, mention that the report will not identify specific individuals. It is good practice for the reviewer to ask open-ended questions, retain an open mind regarding innovation and be prepared to change direction quickly if more important is-sues emerge.
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Raise Your Voicewould you like to be a guest columnist? Send your ideas to [email protected].
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voices Project Perspectives
Mike Leisegang CEO, Know-It-All Project Management Training, Johannesburg, South AfricaI was a program manager on a large government project. At one stage, we had approached a number of suppliers with a request for quotation for product information and indicative pricing, as well as for informa-tion on how well their products met a set of pre-determined criteria. The product—approximately 3,500 devices, worth a small fortune—would have been rolled out to the entire country. The suppliers were invited to put their products through a set of stringent tests in our laboratory, and the results were scored.
One of the engi-neers who scored the products then pro-duced a draft report that contained the test results and pric-ing. It was circulated to the project team for comment.
My manager had one of the suppliers at his desk when the re-
port came out, and he somehow managed to show the results of the report to the supplier. Within a day, the report had been copied and circulated to the rest of the sup-pliers, who were furi-ous that their pricing was now available to their competitors.
Because I had seen what had happened between my manager and the supplier, I reported them via the government’s whistle-blowing scheme. As it turned out, the scheme did very little to protect my anonymity, and it didn’t take long be-fore my manager and his manager were finding reasons to try to terminate my contract. It was very challenging to con-tinue working there while I found another contract. Although it had unpleasant con-sequences, I knew I had done the right thing ethically.
Geraldine Mongoldproduct manager, Seilevel, Austin, Texas, USA At a previous job, I was hired to manage a project that was foundering. I threw myself into defining requirements, devel-oping a realistic ROI and getting the right stakeholders in-volved. Meanwhile, the CIO and COO battled over wheth-er the project should be cancelled. I came to the realization that the project was much more complex than I’d originally thought and would likely not provide the benefits that had been initially estimated. Recom-mending that the project be cancelled felt like signing my own pink slip [dis-charge notice], and I knew that I would make an enemy out of the COO, who had invested a lot of personal power into the project. But it was the right thing to do.
Hannah Molette, PMP independent contractor, Atlanta, Georgia, USAEthics is critical in every aspect of busi-ness today. Over the years in my role as a project manager, I have learned that you should value your integrity. Being a person of sound ethical behavior is challenging at times, but acting with great integrity is like a parachute or a safety net. Nine times out of 10, the evidence you have left behind in an unethical act will be discovered at some point in the future.
Michela Ruffa, PMP senior project manager, Hotelplan, Bologna, Italy Ethics in project management is, in my opinion, the way stakeholders choose to inhabit the project “space” and make it the suitable reality they desire. Without ethics, no projects are possible.
My most chal-lenging ethical dilemma is one I face every day—making the right choices to guarantee project success while making sure the project is where stakeholders want it to be. All other ethical dilem-mas come about as a consequence of this.
Are You Ethical?
Sonya Surrett, PhD, PMP Robbins-Gioia, Oxford, Alabama, USA Ethics are a part of every project—and they can come into play as early as the team compilation process. Steer clear of any ethical dilem-mas when putting together the ideal team by consider-ing the candidates’ proven skills and specific knowledge. A person’s station in the organization’s hierarchy or connec-tions should not be a factor. By abstaining from office politics, you are creating an environment that helps defuse conflicts within the group.
“BEINg A PERSON Of SOuNd EThICAl BEhAvIOR IS ChAllENgINg AT TIMES, but acting with great integrity is like a parachute or a safety net.”— Hannah Molette, PMP
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evolutiontheof
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evolutiontheofagile
Project professionals are creating hybrid
twists on agile, blending whatever techniques best fit
their needs.
by Sarah FiSter Gale ==== illuStration by mike auStin
Special report: agile
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AAgile has inexorably changed the project management landscape. That’s largely due to its adaptability: Iterative development allows teams to deliver functional pieces of a project quickly and adjust on the fly.
Now project managers are taking adaptability to the next level, blending method-ologies to make new agile hybrids.
“I don’t believe that agile or Scrum is always the right choice,” says Børge Haugset, research scientist at SINTEF ICT, a research organization in Trondheim, Norway. “Quite the opposite: When highly skilled teams can pick and choose the tools and rules that work for them, they can hit gold.”
To break out of the typical agile framework, teams can use workflow boards from lean manufacturing process Kanban or task backlogs borrowed from Scrum. And more often than not, that combination includes traditional practices such as those in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), says Mike Cottmeyer, founder and president of LeadingAgile, an agile consultancy in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Even though an agile hybrid model may not have the fine-grained project plans of a traditional waterfall environment, teams still need to meet schedule, budget and ROI expectations.
“That’s where the PMBOK® Guide comes in,” Mr. Cottmeyer says, drawing parallels between rolling-wave planning and project roadmaps. “You don’t know what you need until you need it. But the further out you plan, the more abstract you have to be. It’s thinking about tradi-tional project portfolio management in smaller increments.”
Raya, an IT company in Cairo, Egypt, is a hybrid convert. The company re-alized its waterfall approach wasn’t allowing its teams to consistently deliver projects with the expected quality and timeliness. So it implemented agile, and the transition went well—at first, says Ali Zewail, general manager of software development and technology services at Raya. His team launched two major software development projects as agile pilots. Both met budget goals, one came in ahead of the deadline, and customers were pleased with the results.
But the next projects didn’t deliver the same stellar results, and the novelty of the new approach started to wear off.
“There was a real learning curve that
Agile: Short iterations of work are delivered with little up-front documentation of specs or requirements. Frequent delivery aims to ensure visibility of progress, creating opportunities for real-time feedback and changes in scope throughout the life cycle.
Kanban: Tasks are placed on a physical board to create a workflow that shows team members what needs to be accomplished and in what order. The idea is to encourage small, continuous changes and consensus-based decision-making without the constant oversight of a leader.
Scrum: Project leaders create a prioritized backlog of tasks which teams deliver in sprints, implementing groups of tasks from the top down. Each sprint has a defined time-line, after which working iterations are shared with the customer, who then offers feedback. Daily meetings, or scrums, are used to keep tabs on progress.
Rapid Application Development: Software development teams quickly produce prototypes, followed by writing small pieces of code with less planning.
Waterfall: Projects proceed sequentially through a series of phases beginning with written specs or system require-ments, and moving through design, implementation, test-ing and release. Phases can last for weeks or months.
HybRiD Toolbox
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we had to accept,” Mr. Zewail admits. “We had to change our mindset and our cor-porate culture if we were going to really be agile for the long term.”
Project leaders opted for a hybrid approach, applying strategies from the PMBOK® Guide to the company’s agile formula. Teams began using audits and lessons learned, and established measures of project success to create accountability and ensure that teams were adopting the same techniques across the enterprise.
No LoNger Buried iN PaPerworkOne of agile’s basic tenets is to require less documentation and fewer defined speci-fications at the front end of the project, instead of relying upon constant tweaking throughout the life cycle. The goal is to free project team members from the need to document everything so they can focus on quickly producing high-quality de-liverables.
“Too much focus on documentation can be difficult to maintain, especially if documentation is seen as an ‘extra chore’ by many agile developers,” Mr. Haugset says. “On the other hand, too little documentation makes the project more difficult to understand, especially if key components are undocumented.”
Adopting an agile hybrid lets teams adapt the documentation processes as the project progresses. At the outset, when ideas are broadly defined and changes antici-pated, less documentation is required. But as iterations are completed and reviewed with the client, the scope narrows and the need for documentation is more evident.
Mr. Haugset uses traditional quality-assurance tests to help shape the documenta-tion process to ensure problems don’t go unnoticed and that the project remains stra-tegically aligned to organizational goals. These tests are conducted during reviews to evaluate the inputs, functionality and expected outputs of each iteration.
28 percent of 450
software profes-sionals
said they use a hybrid approach. Another 12 percent use lean soft-
ware development, which includes agile
processes.Source: 2011 Agile ALM and Testing Survey,
SearchSoftwareQuality.com
Of 4,770 respondents from 91 countries,
90 percent
said they use some form of agile.
Only 27 percent of respondents solely
use one type of agile, while 35 percent mix agile with waterfall, and 39 percent mix agile with Scrum.
Source: Analysis.Net and VersionOne
if you’re looking for a way to showcase your agile knowledge, earn the new PMi agile Cer-tified Practitioner (PMi-aCP)SM certification. Find out more at PMi.org/agile.
Special report: agiLe
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“The tests act as mediators to enhance communication be-tween the client and the team, and to help us jointly define when something is done, meaning the team has made something that runs in a way that the customer understands and agrees upon.”
Every time the team completes a sprint, a test is conducted, and the results are added to a database. “It acts as a safety har-ness to ensure the code is correct,” Mr. Haugset says.
Winning MindsWhatever combination of techniques a project team uses, one constant remains when any element of agile is introduced: Team members must be self-directed, fo-cused, strong communicators and able to make quick decisions.
“The core of the agile philosophy is that people need to talk to each other and work together,” Mr. Haugset says. “That requires a lot of trust among the team and an unbe-lievable amount of customer cooperation.”
It also requires more talent and experi-ence than might be necessary in a waterfall environment, where higher-level designers can leave the actual coding to those with less experience. “If you have a detailed spec with clear requirements defined at the beginning of a project, it is simple for any developer to create,” he says. “But when you incorporate agile techniques, you shift a lot more responsibility to the team mem-bers, so you need them to be able to make the right choices. To do that, they need to be skilled.”
Adopting agile in any form also often takes a radical change in attitude—and not just among team members.
“Sometimes the biggest hurdles are political,” warns Richard Banfield, CEO of Fresh Tilled Soil, a user experience and interface design firm in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Project leaders must devote time to change management,
Pivot PointsOrganizations should always be looking for trouble—and shift their project management approach accordingly.
If a project team is experiencing unexpected bottlenecks, for example, it could implement a Kanban workflow board so everyone involved can see, at a glance, how the project is progressing. Team members can then choose tasks that best align with their skill set and the project’s need in real time—rather than waiting for a team leader to assign them.
Or, on smaller projects when the need for a deliverable model is more urgent, team members can apply rapid application develop-ment techniques and construct prototypes to flesh out user require-ments in a “feature-light” version that serves as a proof of concept.
“The key is being able to recognize that when something doesn’t work, try something else,” says Richard Banfield, Fresh Tilled Soil, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
transition tiPsMy project team is in the planning stages of transitioning to an agile environment from a more traditional, waterfall-style environment. Recognizing that becoming agile is more of a paradigm shift than a simple implementation of a collection of processes, we are developing a strategy docu-ment that lays out the progression from current state to desired future state.
Accordingly, I’m curious as to whether anyone has experience driving the transformation to agile, and if any light can be shed on the timing and sequence of appli-cable implementation activities. Additionally, any insight into change management frameworks that have helped to facilitate this change would be very much appreciated!
—Matt Lee
i’d suggest taking an agile approach to the transition. You should expect your desired future state definition to change as you gain experience and use retrospectives to figure out what works for your workplace. Keep your strategy document simple, with a focus on what you want to achieve by transitioning to agile.
Our reason to experiment with agile was to resolve ongoing issues with our projects. After the first pilot projects, it was easy to say that an agile approach was addressing these issues and therefore providing real value. When the value is visible and tangible, it is easy to get buy-in to continue the rollout.
For timing, I suggest getting just enough training to get a pilot project team going as soon as you can. That team will give you feedback as to how to proceed.
We’ve always treated our waterfall-ish project frame-work with a “do what makes sense for your project” attitude. We are doing the same with agile. I’m on our agile core team. We developed and present our in-house agile training and are assigned as agile coaches as needed. We facilitate sharing knowledge, experience and lessons learned across the project teams. The practice of frequent feedback through retrospectives is a valuable benefit of agile. Use it to tune your processes.
—Rebecca Jahelka
What do you suggest? Weigh in at the PMI Agile Community of Practice: agile.vc.pmi.org.
show off your agile expertise:Join the conversation at the PMi agile Community of Practice at agile.vc.pmi.org.
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“The tests act as mediators to enhance communication be-tween the client and the team, and to help us jointly define when something is done, meaning the team has made something that runs in a way that the customer understands and agrees upon.”
Every time the team completes a sprint, a test is conducted, and the results are added to a database. “It acts as a safety har-ness to ensure the code is correct,” Mr. Haugset says.
Winning MindsWhatever combination of techniques a project team uses, one constant remains when any element of agile is introduced: Team members must be self-directed, fo-cused, strong communicators and able to make quick decisions.
“The core of the agile philosophy is that people need to talk to each other and work together,” Mr. Haugset says. “That requires a lot of trust among the team and an unbe-lievable amount of customer cooperation.”
It also requires more talent and experi-ence than might be necessary in a waterfall environment, where higher-level designers can leave the actual coding to those with less experience. “If you have a detailed spec with clear requirements defined at the beginning of a project, it is simple for any developer to create,” he says. “But when you incorporate agile techniques, you shift a lot more responsibility to the team mem-bers, so you need them to be able to make the right choices. To do that, they need to be skilled.”
Adopting agile in any form also often takes a radical change in attitude—and not just among team members.
“Sometimes the biggest hurdles are political,” warns Richard Banfield, CEO of Fresh Tilled Soil, a user experience and interface design firm in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Project leaders must devote time to change management,
including educating stakeholders. If they don’t understand the rapid pace of iterative deliverables, and when and how they will be required to deliver feedback, stakeholders can logjam the process.
Mr. Banfield’s team learned that lesson last year when it started to rebuild the foundation application for Communispace, a social marketing and research platform, using a purely agile process.
The project team delivered frequent iterations that required a steady stream of stakeholder feedback. But the client required more time to respond because of the number of stakeholders.
The project team adapted, slowing its sprints from two weeks to four to get the client’s leadership team accustomed to the process.
“As they got more comfortable, we were able to speed things back up,” Mr. Banfield says.
To avoid such delays, he now begins many projects with an educational phase for leadership teams. “We have to be sensi-tive to the client structure and customer satisfaction,” Mr. Ban-field says.
It takes time to adapt—and a hybrid approach can work as a stepping stone.
“Project managers and developers need to understand that agile isn’t a set of unbreakable laws,” Mr. Banfield says. “It’s about using what works and recognizing that there will always be exceptions.”
Because in the end, being able to adapt is the essence of any agile process. PM
Pivot PointsOrganizations should always be looking for trouble—and shift their project management approach accordingly.
If a project team is experiencing unexpected bottlenecks, for example, it could implement a Kanban workflow board so everyone involved can see, at a glance, how the project is progressing. Team members can then choose tasks that best align with their skill set and the project’s need in real time—rather than waiting for a team leader to assign them.
Or, on smaller projects when the need for a deliverable model is more urgent, team members can apply rapid application develop-ment techniques and construct prototypes to flesh out user require-ments in a “feature-light” version that serves as a proof of concept.
“The key is being able to recognize that when something doesn’t work, try something else,” says Richard Banfield, Fresh Tilled Soil, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Agile BrAnches outAgile project management is the brainchild of the software development world, but that doesn’t mean it’s not applicable in other fields. These days, agile is used on projects span-ning an array of sectors, from construction to event planning.
“Agile can help any organization improve its delivery capacity,” says Karen White, PMP, PMI Fellow, Weare, New Hampshire, USA-based author of Agile Project Management: A Mandate for the 21st Century. “Smaller companies that don’t have the capacity for tradi-tional project management can apply the concepts of agile project management tech-niques to better manage their projects.”
Daily stand-up meetings—a cornerstone of agile—help companies “identify the day’s priorities and discuss concerns without wasting a lot of time,” says Ms. White, principal of Applied Agility, an agile project management consulting company supporting not-for-profit and small businesses.
Agile enables teams to focus on near-term tasks, even when the project is a wine tast-ing event months away, as was recently the case with Ms. White. Instead of spending valuable resource time on ticket sales (which wouldn’t occur for another several weeks), she led the planning committee through a series of sprints focused on near-term objec-tives such as finding volunteers, choosing the venue and planning logistics.
“It’s about approaching the project in little chunks, looking at what you can get done today and worrying about the other stuff later,” she says.
too Much focus on docuMentAtion cAn Be difficult to MAintAin, esPeciAlly if docuMentAtion is seen As An ‘extrA chore’ By MAny Agile develoPers.— Børge Haugset, SINTEF ICT, Trondheim, Norway
special report: Agile
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AGILEto the Rescue
PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA
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AGILEto the Rescue
SPECIAL REPORT: AGILE [CASE STUDY ]
Staring down the devastation of a natural disaster, Chilean developers and IT project managers use an agile hybrid to bring their fractured country back together.
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OOn 27 February 2010, an earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale slammed Chile, killing 700 and leaving 1.5 million people displaced. Hours after the disaster, a software developer sent out a single tweet on Twitter, pleading for volunteers to put their IT skills to use. Hundreds responded—and later that day 60 IT professionals hunkered down in a tiny office in Mapocho Valley to launch a website development project. Called Chile Ayuda (ayuda means “help” in Spanish), the site aimed to aid users in finding lost family members and friends, and allow people to donate money and direct disaster relief to where it was needed most.
Over the next two weeks, the total number of volunteers, which included software developers, journalists and web designers, had shot up to more than 300.
“It was very chaotic,” says Agustín Villena, a project volunteer, founder of the agile network ChileÁgil and CEO of LeanSight Consulting, an agile and lean thinking consultancy in Santiago, Chile. “People were coming and going, and at any given time there were 100 volunteers working together in an office that typically is only occupied by 20.”
But the growing group of volunteers was unified under a common goal: create a single source of information as quickly as possible.
To make the most of its resources, the team relied on a hybrid recipe that included:n Self-organized multidisciplinary teams focused on specific deliverablesn Agile-like small releases to deliver rapid iterative deliverables of the site and applicationsn Kanban to create workflow boards that allowed some teams to visualize their work and choose
tasks without waiting for assignments n Holacracy—an organizational operating system centered on adaptability—to harness self-
organizing teams through rapid decision-making techniques The results were phenomenal: The team launched the first iteration on Day 1, and in less than a
week the site was fully functional.
CirCle of lifeThe project called for multiple features, including:n Creating the website interfacen Integrating Google’s Person Finder app with a Twitter stream to help users track peoplen Integrating an interactive map donated by Ushahidi, a Kenyan not-for-profit tech company, that
allowed users to mark locations with tags such as “bridge destroyed” and “town without help”n Creating a Facebook app to help people search for missing family and friends
PhO
TO b
y JO
sé L
uIs
sTE
PhEN
s
photo courtesy of wikipedia
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When an earthquake rocked Chile, Agustín Villena (left) and a team of more than 300 volunteers crammed into an office and used agile techniques to deliver a website in less than a week.
special report: Agile [Case study ]
Agile Roadblock Agustín Villena, ChileÁgil, Santiago, Chile, says the difficulties in implementing agile in Chile are:
1. Low national priority on innova-tion (less than 1 percent of the gross national product comes from research and development).
2. Software developers tend to be protective of their codes.
3. A tendency to view testing disparagingly.
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photo courtesy of wikipedia
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It was an ambitious project, but a hybrid agile approach eliminated the need for a single leader, Mr. Villena says. Each team of developers had its own Kanban board that let the volunteers choose the tasks that best fit their skills and schedule. And volunteers used the Holacracy framework to organize themselves into teams and make decisions.
“If no one had a good argument against a decision, we implement-ed it, which is a much faster process than requiring everyone to agree,” Mr. Villena says. “This model allowed us to give a voice to everyone within the group without endless meetings.”
The project was organized so that each team worked on a mul-tidisciplinary task and synchronized with a computer coordinator using a double-linking approach from Holacracy. Decision-making was structured in circles, with a lower-level circle always connected to a higher-level one via the functional leader and a representative. The two individuals took part in the decision-making process of both circles.
“It was a very confusing situation, and it was important that we gave everyone a way to manage their workflow without the need for leaders telling them what they must do,” Mr. Villena says.
6 March: The final site is up, and the Person Finder app is integrated between Google and Twitter—in time for the telethon, which exceeds fundrais-ing goals.
Rap
id R
espo
nse 27 February 2010:
An 8.8-magnitude earth-quake strikes Chile, killing 700, leaving 1.5 million people displaced and causing an estimated US$15 billion to US$30 billion in damages.
28 February: Software developers and IT project professionals launch a project to create a website to help users track people affected by the disaster and to send relief efforts to the hardest-hit communities.
1 March: Teams organize by goals and begin integrating Google’s Person Finder app. A rough version of the site is completed.
3-5 March: Volunteer teams work around the clock to im-prove the site, integrate applications, and design an interface and brand for an upcoming telethon.
2 March: The site is overloaded with traffic and crashes. After the site is running again, coaches reorganize the volunteers into new goal-oriented teams.
Lightning-Fast LaunchSprints lasted 24 hours, with a new version of the site or tool up and running by day’s end.
“Instead of iterations, we used a continuous flow of value,” he says. The teams delivered a constant stream of tasks, then dissolved, mov-ing on to the next task and a new work group.
To make sure everyone was headed in the same direction, a few dedicated agile coaches (led by Mr. Villena) and project leaders:n Oversaw quality-assurance testingn Evaluated the state of the task board
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It was an ambitious project, but a hybrid agile approach eliminated the need for a single leader, Mr. Villena says. Each team of developers had its own Kanban board that let the volunteers choose the tasks that best fit their skills and schedule. And volunteers used the Holacracy framework to organize themselves into teams and make decisions.
“If no one had a good argument against a decision, we implement-ed it, which is a much faster process than requiring everyone to agree,” Mr. Villena says. “This model allowed us to give a voice to everyone within the group without endless meetings.”
The project was organized so that each team worked on a mul-tidisciplinary task and synchronized with a computer coordinator using a double-linking approach from Holacracy. Decision-making was structured in circles, with a lower-level circle always connected to a higher-level one via the functional leader and a representative. The two individuals took part in the decision-making process of both circles.
“It was a very confusing situation, and it was important that we gave everyone a way to manage their workflow without the need for leaders telling them what they must do,” Mr. Villena says.
Lightning-Fast LaunchSprints lasted 24 hours, with a new version of the site or tool up and running by day’s end.
“Instead of iterations, we used a continuous flow of value,” he says. The teams delivered a constant stream of tasks, then dissolved, mov-ing on to the next task and a new work group.
To make sure everyone was headed in the same direction, a few dedicated agile coaches (led by Mr. Villena) and project leaders:n Oversaw quality-assurance testingn Evaluated the state of the task board
special report: agiLe [Case study ]
Leadership
CommuniCations
map person Finder app Website board it
doubLe-Linking teChniqueThe project team attempted to incorporate various elements of Kanban and Holacracy, but only the double-linking technique worked. Decisions were made by the functional leader in communications, who represented the various project team members, and a representative from the leadership group.
n Provided mentoring and training The team held stand-up sessions three times a day to report on
progress and establish priority goals for the next eight hours. “This was important because we never had a broad planning meeting,” Mr. Villena says.
The day after launch, a technological failure disheartened the team: The server overloaded, causing the site to crash.
“When that occurred, teams couldn’t follow our original goals and dissolved into panic,” he says.
The focus quickly shifted to getting the site running again, and leaders reorganized the group into goal-oriented teams.
On 6 March, seven days into the project, the team deployed the fi-nal integration of the Person Finder app between Twitter and Google, connecting 3,500 people with their loved ones. The project’s Facebook page also reached 150,000 fans.
“The reason it worked was because everyone involved was tal-ented and had a desire to help,” Mr. Villena says. “They didn’t need to ask, ‘What should I do now?’ They were motivated to take on whatever needed to be done.” —Sarah Fister Gale
the western façade of the contemporary art Museum in santiago suffered damage in the quake.
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The ScenarioTo stay on top of a competitive market, homebuilder Shea Homes wanted to build more houses in less time—without spending additional money.
The ScenarioPharmaceutical giant Lilly launched a project to develop two docu-ment management sys-tems (DMS) for medical documents provided to physicians and medical sales representatives. The project team created one system for internally produced documenta-tion, and the other for published articles and statements.
Critical chain methodology eliminates multitasking to help a construction
company deliver projects faster.
When a pharmaceutical company launched two
document management systems simultaneously, critical chain
sped up the process.
Chai
n R
eaCt
ion
s
An engineering firm implemented critical chain methodology to prioritize
resources and improve its bottom line.
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Resource availability: It’s often the main culprit behind missed deadlines. And as many orga-nizations still struggle with the effects of an unstable economy, project managers are using critical chain to build this factor into the planning process.
The technique, based on the theory of constraints, sets out the quickest path from project acceptance to completion. Instead of simply basing the path on what needs to be done, it also addresses who should be doing it.
Critical chain project managers add buffers to critical milestones to protect projects from slippage. But buffers increase complexity.
“Monitoring buffer consumption is the biggest challenge,” says Abdelrahman Hussein, PMP, project planning and scheduling analyst at URS Corp., a construction company in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. “The project manager has to pay ultimate attention to buffer expenses. The whole idea of eliminating slack from the network and accumulating it as buffer reservoirs is dangerous. Uncontrolled expenses of the buffer account can take the project to a point where significant damage is inevitable no matter what recovery procedure is being adopted.”
The critical chain approach can provide much-needed relief for overloaded team members on a tight deadline.
“With critical chain, priorities are clear and multitasking is reduced, so employees can finish work quicker,” says Richard Smal, senior project manager of supply chain at Philips Consumer Lifestyle, a branch of the electronics giant in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Critical chain empowers team members, but for it to work, they must be convinced they wield that power.
“People often believe that improvement is out of their control and, therefore, main-tain the status quo,” adds Mr. Smal, who is also a partner at Goldratt Implementation Group, a critical chain project management consultancy. “It takes a strong leader who is not happy with the status quo to sponsor this change.”
Here are three case studies that demonstrate how critical chain methodology can help an organization maximize constrained human resources.
Dealing with constraineD resources? critical chain project management can set you on the right path. by Kelley hunsberger
The ConstraintThe housing development project involved more than 54 subcontractors, including carpenters, con-crete suppliers, concrete layers and plumbers—all moving between multiple jobs. It seemed the only way of getting work done faster was to bring in more workers, but that would be a hit to the bottom line. “Resources equal money,” says Daniel Walsh, a founder of Exepron, a critical chain software pro-vider in San Diego, California, USA. “If you can do it with fewer resources, you can increase profit.”
The ScenarioPharmaceutical giant Lilly launched a project to develop two docu-ment management sys-tems (DMS) for medical documents provided to physicians and medical sales representatives. The project team created one system for internally produced documenta-tion, and the other for published articles and statements.
The ConstraintBecause the same resources would be used on both DMS developments, the team planned to build the systems in parallel. That meant it had to develop a schedule that wouldn’t double-book team members.
The ScenarioAt Rio Tinto Alcan Alesa, an engineering company that designs and commissions ship unloader and conveyer systems for ports around the world, a majority of projects were running behind schedule. To get current projects back on track and improve the organization’s abil-ity to take on more work, senior leader-ship decided to implement critical chain project management into its design, engi-neering and procurement processes.
Time to ChangeThe company took six weeks to plan implementation. “Critical chain is a paradigm shift for a company,” says Gerry Kendall, principal at TOC International, a constraint-based consultancy in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, USA. “If you only do it on one project, you still have some of the negative behaviors going on in other projects.” Execution requires changes in people’s behavior, he adds. “A lot of this is driven by senior management. They can’t all of a sudden get this wonderful opportunity and want to over-ride the whole critical chain priority system. Get them to see what the bottom-line impact is to the company—and if they can’t see it, then it’s not likely to be sustained.”
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Before Critical ChainTasks were done out of sequence. For example, a team of roofers would start on “House A” but would switch to other projects when those teams experienced problems. The multitasking meant roofing took five days or longer.
After Critical ChainThe roofers were given three days to complete House A’s roof. The job typically took two with no interruptions, and day three became the task’s time buffer. The team had to finish House A before working on another roof. “In critical chain, we schedule both the task and the resources needed to complete that task,” Mr. Walsh says. By eliminating multitasking, the organization created a continuous workflow. “If everyone did that—the bricklayers, painters, carpenters, etc.—and you synchronized the schedule, think of the time that could be saved,” he explains.
The Team’s PerspectiveBefore starting the development of either DMS, leaders had team members par-ticipate in project planning, including task handoffs. “That’s a crucial point in a criti-cal chain project because you’re trying to run the project in relay-race mode,” says Daniel Veldkamp, PMP, a recently retired project management consultant in India-napolis, Indiana, USA. “You have to put more emphasis on the planning phase and the involvement of the team in that plan so they have more ownership in the project.”
Buffer ZoneTeam members were also asked how long it would take to complete a task in a best-case scenario—meaning no interruptions, emergencies, late arrivals of key materials, personal illnesses or IT glitches. “In critical chain, the task is due as soon as you are able to complete it—but that doesn’t mean late nights or weekends,” Mr. Veldkamp says. “Set corporate standards for buffers, typically 50 percent of the critical chain. So if the length of the project is 120 days, you have a buffer on the end of an additional 60 days.”
The Best Use of ResourcesThrough the project phase, the team identi-fied the point of diminishing returns. Devel-opers were one of the effort’s constrained resources. Three were working on both projects, but the team determined that if it used four, it would complete the project one month sooner. Using five, it would be completed only two weeks earlier than that. “Adding more of the constrained resource, at some point, doesn’t make the project go any faster,” Mr. Veldkamp says. “You have to reach an optimal point with the number of resources you have.”
Before Critical ChainThe project included tagging documents with a searchable taxonomy. The task was sched-uled to begin six weeks in, but the manager ordered the team member to start tagging right away. She finished her task before it was even scheduled to begin. Over those six weeks, though, the team learned more about how the DMS taxonomy should work—and the tagging task had to be completely redone. “Standard projects often have this rush to task at the beginning,” Mr. Veldkamp says. “Critical chain schedules tasks to begin when it makes sense—as late as possible, but not so late as to put the proj-ect at risk.”
The Constraining ResourceExecutives looked at the resource pools and identified mechanical engineering as the limit-ing phase: Most of the project’s hours were within this phase, and therefore that element determined how many projects the company could deliver. Multitasking is one of the biggest sources of lost capacity in projects.
Before Critical ChainThe organization had 13 projects in the works, and most were behind schedule. When a client requested a change, whoever initially worked on that project aspect was assigned the job.
After Critical ChainA pool of engineers was set up to handle rework and other tasks, such as proposal drafting, so that the engi-neers doing project efforts would not have to multitask. The company decided to freeze six initiatives, and a new mechanical engineering project wouldn’t start until one had been completed.
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After Critical ChainThe roofers were given three days to complete House A’s roof. The job typically took two with no interruptions, and day three became the task’s time buffer. The team had to finish House A before working on another roof. “In critical chain, we schedule both the task and the resources needed to complete that task,” Mr. Walsh says. By eliminating multitasking, the organization created a continuous workflow. “If everyone did that—the bricklayers, painters, carpenters, etc.—and you synchronized the schedule, think of the time that could be saved,” he explains.
Time to ChangeFor critical chain implementation to work, the organization had to undergo a behavioral shift. Everyone from the president to the team member swing-ing the hammer needed to buy into critical chain. The organization held training sessions that explained how the technique worked and walked employees through computer simula-tions of the new process. “It’s a switch from efficiency to effectiveness,” Mr. Walsh says.
The End ResultAfter implementing critical chain methodol-ogy, the homebuilder reduced build times by 42 percent, significantly increasing ROI. Plus, the company could offer customers a guaranteed move-in date—a significant competitive advantage and marketing tool. “In critical chain, we identify high risks in the project and develop time buffers,” Mr. Walsh says. “It’s like a chess game: You have to protect the king. All of the other pieces are there to protect it. We identify the criti-cal chain and then we protect it. All of the strategies, all of the decisions you make, are to protect the critical chain.”
The Best Use of ResourcesThrough the project phase, the team identi-fied the point of diminishing returns. Devel-opers were one of the effort’s constrained resources. Three were working on both projects, but the team determined that if it used four, it would complete the project one month sooner. Using five, it would be completed only two weeks earlier than that. “Adding more of the constrained resource, at some point, doesn’t make the project go any faster,” Mr. Veldkamp says. “You have to reach an optimal point with the number of resources you have.”
Before Critical ChainThe project included tagging documents with a searchable taxonomy. The task was sched-uled to begin six weeks in, but the manager ordered the team member to start tagging right away. She finished her task before it was even scheduled to begin. Over those six weeks, though, the team learned more about how the DMS taxonomy should work—and the tagging task had to be completely redone. “Standard projects often have this rush to task at the beginning,” Mr. Veldkamp says. “Critical chain schedules tasks to begin when it makes sense—as late as possible, but not so late as to put the proj-ect at risk.”
The End ResultThe project team determined that completing each DMS separately would have taken about six months. By overlapping efforts and pipelining resources, though, it shortened the schedule to four months.
After Critical ChainEach person had to let the team member downstream know when a task neared completion, as well as update the estimated time of completion in the critical chain management software system.
From Red to GreenExecutives and project man-agers met every day for 15 minutes to identify issues that blocked task completion. If project managers found tasks in the red zone, where buffers were being consumed faster than critical work was being completed, they were expected to meet with the resource manager to figure out how to get back on track. If they still could not resolve the issue, executives had 24 hours to do so.
The End ResultOnce the organization got back on track, it was able to complete more projects with the same amount of resources—boosting its bottom line. The firm reported a 31 percent increase in throughput, and the completion of 40 percent more projects than the previous year within the first eight months of implementation. “It’s a strategic change that can be a dramatic way to enhance profit,” Mr. Kendall says.
join a discussion on critical chain at the PMI Scheduling Community of Practice: scheduling.vc.pmi.org.
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CrowdsourCing projeCts Can tap into a huge talent pool and Cut Costs—but also raise quality and seCurity risks.
Alora C. Chistiakoff, BrainMatch, Austin, Texas, USA
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by SaNdRa a. SWaNSON
PhOTO by RObERT hOuSER
CrowdsourCing projeCts Can tap into a huge talent pool and Cut Costs—but also raise quality and seCurity risks.
Alora C. Chistiakoff, BrainMatch, Austin, Texas, USA
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tThere’s wisdom in crowds, and an increasingly connected world allows companies to take advantage of it.
Crowdsourcing first seemed to be the cure-all for businesses working with limited budgets and constrained resources. But several misfires point to a need for organizations to adapt their project and portfolio management processes to address the risks crowdsourcing raises.
“Project managers shouldn’t ignore the potential of crowd-sourcing as a solution to the supply of products and services in their projects,” says Marcelo Yamada, IT project coordinator at
construction company Promon Engenharia in São Paulo, Brazil.
Of course, crowdsourcing isn’t as simple as presenting a project to the masses and wait-ing for the work to come flow-ing in. Google, for example, relies on crowdsourcing for its Places online phone book and social network project. But the company soon discovered that when information isn’t closely monitored, problems arise. In September, the Internet giant admitted that some unscru-pulous business owners were listing their competitors as “per-manently closed” in an effort to poach customers.
Google’s experience serves as a cautionary example for busi-nesses that choose to explore a crowdsourced approach to proj-ects. Risk management must be
a top priority if organizations are to reap the benefits of the crowd while avoiding sabotage and unintentional errors.
DiviDe anD ConquerCrowdsourcing creates discomfort within enterprise organi-zations, particularly for corporate legal teams, says Alora C.
Insider KnowledgeWhile crowdsourcing can be a useful way to expand the capacity of in-house project teams on an as-needed basis, even the savviest crowd won’t have knowledge on par with employees when it comes to company strategy, competitive positioning or internal processes, says Matt Johnston, uTest, South-borough, Massachusetts, USA. “It’s best to hand off clearly defined pieces of a project that don’t require a great deal of internal domain expertise beforehand.”
A Project MAnAger’s “Worst nightMAre”?In the post “Does Crowdsourcing Work in a Project Environment?” on the Voices on Project Management blog, Geoff Mat-tie says that crowdsourcing “seems like a project manager’s worst nightmare.”
The requirements and quality manage-ment alone must be a huge undertaking:n How do you ensure a team of people
who aren’t getting paid remain focused enough to see your project through to completion?
n How do you ensure no one is trying to game the system?
n How do you reward those contributing more than others?
Laurent Stanevich replies:I think you’re exactly right on many fronts—adding compensation to the mix opens up a whole new level of complex-ity. It’s hard enough just getting a crowd to row in the same general direction, but the open source movement has actually managed to evolve a pretty extensive set of approaches that they use to coordinate development. You still see projects die on the vine or totally blow deadlines all the time, but there are definitely some that work pretty efficiently.
Nevertheless, that’s in sort of an economic vacuum. As soon as you start to have money flowing through it, or even vaguer issues like recognition and creative credit, it all gets a lot more complicated.
read more at pmi.org/voices.
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Chistiakoff, Austin, Texas, USA-based founding team member of BrainMatch, an organization that works with companies to provide students with project-based internships. Organizations that open their IT infrastructure up to people outside their control face risks, including secu-rity breaches and, in extreme cases, the need to pursue legal action.
“Try suing a developer in Ukraine for copyright infringement, and see how far you get,” she says. “There are plenty of legal departments that do not consider this an acceptable risk.”
By limiting crowdsourced team members to isolated tasks within a project, you can help protect your organization from risk.
“A project manager can parse out stand-alone deliverables within a project and use crowd-sourcing to complete them independently while retaining the integration effort in-house,” says Ms. Chistiakoff, who is also an engagement manager at SysIQ Inc., an e-commerce implementation firm, where she focuses on large-scale engagement and program management. “That way, no one crowd-sourced team member has the full picture.”
What’s My Motivation?You and your colleagues may register a palpable sense of urgency sur-rounding projects. But don’t assume that feeling automatically transfers to crowdsourcing participants.
There are ways to motivate those in the crowd, though—even when participants don’t receive monetary compensation.
“Of course, money talks. But the transparency of crowdsourcing moti-vates people to build strong reputations based on performance,” says Matt Johnston, uTest, Southborough, Massachusetts, USA. “This is often the only way they can earn future work and the respect of their peers.”
Organizations may want to consider vetting their crowdsourcing com-panies based on the effectiveness of their performance ratings and recog-nition levels for top-performing community members. That allows them to choose and incentivize the right professionals in a community.
“It’s far better to partner from the get-go with crowdsourcing vendors that take a proactive approach to driving high-quality work than to be in the position of having to reactively motivate volunteers who are perform-ing below expectations,” Mr. Johnston says. “If a crowdsourcing company can’t walk you through its process of vetting, rating and matching its crowd with each project, then keep asking questions or shop around.”
For the past year, Tim Causer, PhD, research associate at University Col-lege London in London, England, has helped oversee hundreds of unpaid volunteers for a crowdsourcing effort to transcribe the manuscripts of philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The project has more than 1,400 registered volunteers helping, but a group of about 12 “super transcribers” do the bulk of the work, Dr. Causer says.
The team developed a points system and leaderboard to rank those involved in the crowdsourcing effort. But when it conducted a survey to discover what led people to take on complex transcription tasks without pay, the team found competition and recognition were low motivational factors. Instead, volunteers—including the most prolific one—said the work was stimulating and were mostly motivated by an interest in history, philosophy and Mr. Bentham in particular, as well as contributing to the “greater good” by making transcripts available to the public.
What motives one crowdsourcer may not motivate another—and it’s up to project leaders to figure out what works.
“Any successful crowdsourcing project must have a number of motiva-tional strategies,” Dr. Causer says.
1,400 people participating
12 “super transcribers”
It’s interesting!
It’s interesting!
It’s interesting!
It’s interesting!
Reputation
$$
Greater good
Number-one contributor
It’s interesting!
$$
Greater good
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She notes that the intelligence community has historically used a similar approach, breaking apart the pieces of a puzzle to make sure that no one without authorization ever understands the overall picture.
That’s the tack Deniz İren, PMP, researcher and project manager at METU (Middle East Technical University) in Ankara, Turkey, took on a recent crowdsourced project to digitize documents. To keep the sensitive data confidential, the project team used image-processing techniques to develop a program that scrambled the words.
Sectors that deal with sensitive information are often less suited for crowdsourcing. “While it’s not a hard and fast rule, it’s more difficult to crowdsource work in heavily regulated industries,” says Matt Johnston, chief marketing officer at uTest, a Southborough, Massachusetts, USA-based company that provides crowdsourced software-testing services.
For example, if a defense contractor were to use the technique, it would have to address the security clearance of every single person brought onto the project team.
That still leaves vast opportunities to leverage crowdsourcing for project tasks such as graphic design, animation, content production and application testing, Mr. Johnston says.
TRUSTING STATISTICSOrganizations crowdsourcing a project must ensure that quality control practices are planned according to the nature of the work and conducted throughout the process, Mr. İren says. If the work package consists of a large number of “microtasks,” such as translating sentences or mapping craters on the surface of Mars, checking the quality of all outputs is generally not feasible.
Instead, he suggests project teams periodically conduct quality control checks by statisti-cal sampling. One microtask should be performed multiple times to see if a consensus exists. This may sound inefficient and costly, Mr. İren says, but it can offer an effective strategy for quality assurance and sabotage prevention.
The technique proved its worth on a crowdsourced digitization project. “In crowdsourcing, we pay for the deliverable, not for the time spent,” Mr. İren says.
“Thus it eliminates many risks and costs. And the pay rate is significantly lower than the pay rate of full- or part-time staff. Even if it causes redundant work, it still is cheaper.”
Documents were scanned as images, and the crowd would transcribe the text. The team set the redundancy threshold at two tasks, meaning that when a picture of a word was tran-scribed the same by two people, the system recognized it as correct.
A project team member controlled the quality of the work, comparing the actual texts with the scans of selected documents.
While it’s not a hard and fast rule, it’s more difficult to crowd-source work in heavily regulated industries.— Matt Johnston, uTest, Southborough, Massachusetts, USA
In Action ■ One crowdsourcing project tapped users of the online game Foldit to solve
the structure of a protein virus. More than 600 players took part, solving in 18 months a problem that scientists had wrestled with for more than a decade.
■ NASA (U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration) created a com-petition to help with its software code-writing projects. Researchers post their needs online, then choose the best solution from those submitted.
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“The team member carried the role of ‘crowd-master,’ and constantly monitored the work on the crowdsourcing engine,” Mr. İren says.
Thanks to crowdsourcing, the project team digitized over 45,000 pages, with more than 90 percent accuracy.
needed: a new Skill SetCrowdsourcing can create challenges for integration—one of the most critical func-tions of project-based organizations.
“If you have a piece of software that has been divided out among several teams, each deliver-ing different pieces, then who makes sure that they all work together?” asks Ms. Chistiakoff.
That role often falls to the technical lead on a project. But juggling teams that are not allowed to know about each other’s work changes the nature of the job, she says. And not everyone with experience as a technical lead will be able to do this type of parsing and reassembling of compartmentalized information and assets.
“It will be a few years before the IT industry and project managers really understand the full extent of the new management disciplines that will be needed in order to really maximize crowd-sourcing’s power,” Ms. Chistiakoff predicts.
Crowdsourcing’s potential to offer project managers an inexpensive, decentralized sup-plier for products and services means dealing with a large quantity of occasional suppliers of small work packages, contracted with minimal bureaucracy and low loyalty—an entirely new landscape for most project professionals.
“Relying on this type of delivery requires the development of new management processes—both project management and knowledge man-agement,” says Mr. Yamada, who also teaches knowledge management at Senac de São Paulo University.
Project professionals are already figuring out some of those so they don’t get lost in the crowd. PM
1. Opens companies up to poten-tial data security breaches
2. Quality control is more of a challenge3. Integrating divided project
tasks is much harder
Pluses and Minuses
1. Don’t have to pay staff or contractors2. Larger workforce means projects
reach completion faster3. Inexpensive, decentralized sup-
plier of products and services
1. Opens companies up to poten-tial data security breaches
2. Quality control is more of a challenge3. Integrating divided project
tasks is much harder
Pluses and Minuses
1. Don’t have to pay staff or contractors2. Larger workforce means projects
can reach completion faster3. Inexpensive, decentralized sup-
plier of products and services
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PowerA team merges two
stalled initiatives into
a US$1.92 billion energy
megaproject—all
while incorporating
30-year-old equipment.
P M I 2 0 1 1 P R O j E c T O f T h E Y E a R aWa R d f I N a l I s T
from left, Charles Lyda, Ram Seshadri, PMP, James Brown, PMP, Clinton W. Smith, PMP
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PowerA
PeoPleto the
After being shut down for more than three decades, the prospects for ac-tually building a new power plant in Central Texas, USA looked bleak.
In the mid-1970s, Luminant (then called TXU Corp.) approved projects to build power plants at two sites, Twin Oaks and Forest Grove, with each to deliver more than 800 mega-watts of power.
Not long after the company ap-proved construction of the two plants, the projects were deferred because of a reduction in the demand for new power.
In 2005, though, Luminant de-cided it was time to resurrect the efforts. The company tapped consulting giant Fluor in April 2006 to handle engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning.
The team decided to combine the two projects onto the Twin Oaks site, because site preparation, including construction of the power plant’s foun-dation, had already been started there. The equipment at the Forest Grove site was moved over to be used for a two-unit site at Twin Oaks, renamed Oak Grove Steam Electric Station.
by KEviN AllEN // PhOTO by jEff AMbERg
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A Fresh Look At An oLd ProjectFluor rebaselined the project, holding several meetings with Luminant to ensure expectations were aligned.
“We worked on detailing the scope of work and the items that the client wanted within that scope of work,” says Ram Seshadri, PMP, project coordinator at Fluor in Green-ville, South Carolina, USA. “Then we determined the cost estimate openly with the client, so they had a lot of confi-dence that we had put together an estimate in tune with the scope of work that they signed up for.”
To ensure team members had a common understanding of project objectives, roles and responsibilities, key activi-ties, performance goals and potential risks, the companies conducted a final alignment session in April 2007.
The project scope included the construction of: n Two supercritical boilersn Two steam turbine generatorsn An air-quality control systemn Two 420-foot (128-meter) chimneysn An ash landfill, removal and disposal system n A lignite coal receiving and handling system
n A substationn A lake cooling facilityn A distributive control system
“When we started off with Oak Grove, it was the proverbial question, ‘How do you eat an elephant?’ And the answer was, ‘One small piece at a time,’” Mr. Seshadri says. “We used that philosophy to develop our work break-down structure for the project. We divided it into two main areas of expertise: engineering and construction.”
Fluor subdivided the work among its offices in Greenville, China and India. The company split the construction portion of the project into procure-ment, construction and commissioning.
“By subdividing the work breakdown struc-ture into these areas, it helped us realize what the scope of the project was, who was going to execute the work and where it was going to be executed,” Mr. Seshadri says.
Pow
er
shiF
ts
May 1973 Original
agreement for Luminant’s Twin
Oaks and Forest Grove power plants.
November 1976 First of several project
delays. The project is started and halted several times through the 1980s and 1990s, but is never formally
cancelled.
July 2005Project is reinstated as Oak Grove, using the Twin Oaks site and Forest Grove
equipment.
April 2006Fluor signs
engineering, procurement,
construction and commissioning
contract.
June 2007Groundbreaking
at Oak Grove plant.
June 2007Texas Commission for Environmental Quality approves
air permit.
September 2009Unit 1 achieves
first fire on lignite coal.
February 2010Unit 2
achieves first fire.
Softening the Blow“Oftentimes during projects, you hear people say that it’s very hard to communi-cate bad news up to management and to the client,” says Ram Seshadri, PMP, Fluor, Greenville, South Carolina, USA. “On this project, we took a very open, collaborative approach. We decided that if there are going to be issues, then we’re going to inform our client and all of our senior management on a very timely basis.”
In one instance, absorbers in the gas desulphurization system cracked and failed, bringing commissioning activities to a complete stop.
The Fluor team explained the issue to the project owner, Luminant, and sought a timely solution.
“The client dug into its organization and was able to bring in technical experts who had a lot of knowledge within this particular area,” Mr. Seshadri says.
The project team worked with the supplier to come up with an interim design fix. The commissioning team kept the schedule moving forward with a guarantee of perfor-mance and delivery of the final product within six months.
“The impact on the project from that issue was minimal,” he says. “Inform the stake-holders, client and senior management in a timely fashion, no matter how bad the news is going to be. It really serves your project better.”
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Not Just ANy old thiNgOne obstacle was obvious right from the start: The team was dealing with old equipment.
“We had to go in and do a current assessment of that 30-year-old equipment,” explains James Brown, PMP, director of engineering at Fluor, Greenville, South Carolina, USA. “What kind of shape is it in? How can we ensure that it’s going to be ready for performance when we put it into operation?”
He and his team compared the codes and standards in place at the time the equipment was built to current ones to determine which modi-fications and restorations were needed to make the equipment usable.
A shifting regulatory landscape added complexity. “There was a significant increase in the environmental controls re-
quirements and restrictions placed on the facility throughout the proj-ect life cycle,” Mr. Brown says. “It had to incorporate the most techno-logically sound state-of-the-art equipment.”
Rather than investing in new equipment, the team refurbished the stored materials from the original projects.
“We took the necessary controls for pollution-distributed control systems and incorporated those into that 30-year-old equipment,” he adds.
3,000+The number of
people who worked on the project
850,000The average number of
Central Texas, USA homes the Oak Grove
plant can power
September 2009Unit 1 achieves
first fire on lignite coal.
February 2010Unit 2
achieves first fire.
June 2010Project completed, with both units in full commercial
operation by August.
Early construction on the power plant at the consolidated site
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The Middle of NowhereThe project site’s remote location made it tough to recruit qualified team members. Oak Grove sits 150 miles (241 kilometers) northwest of Houston and 135 miles (217 kilometers) south of Dallas, Texas.
“We’re out in the middle of land that has a lot of cattle and so forth, so you’re quite far from any kind of workforce,” says Clinton W. Smith, PMP, Greenville, South Carolina, USA-based vice president of solid-fueled projects in Fluor’s power group.
Further complicating the search, much of the local talent pool was diverted to cleanup efforts along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, causing the human resources group to aggressively pursue staff outside of the region.
Fluor used the results of a labor survey conducted in the area in May 2006 to determine the level of salary, benefits and incentives it would take to attract workers while staying within budget.
Community outreach efforts helped address the question of whether there would be enough accommodations for the more than 3,000 employees who worked on the project throughout its life cycle. Per-diem incentives were pro-vided to workers willing to commute from College Station (a 45-minute drive away) and Waco (over an hour and a half away).
Fluor used its risk-management framework to identify risks to labor and equip-ment throughout the project, from the proposal stage to the end of the project warranty phase. The team updated the framework on a quarterly basis and
Fluor conducted 17
risk-management sessions
during the project, identifying
114 major risks.
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shared the results with senior management.
All told, Fluor conducted 17 risk-management sessions during the project, identifying 114 major risks. Each was ranked on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (very high), and was assigned to an individual whose re-sponsibility was to ensure a mitiga-tion strategy was employed.
The chimney contractor’s avail-ability was one of the more severe risks. The company was in high demand and found it difficult to commit to a deadline. Fluor was working with the contractor on several projects at the time and leveraged its relationship to con-vince the contractor to send its best resources to the Oak Grove
project. The Fluor team also worked with the client to obtain approval for a different chimney liner than specified, which sped up the process.
“Soliciting that particular subcontractor early gave rise to firming up its quotes and the needs of the project in order to meet the aggressive schedule,” Mr. Smith says.
Standard Operating prOcedureFluor takes a two-pronged approach to ensuring that project management standards are followed.
“One is through people,” Mr. Seshadri says. “Our power group consistently provides project management training and communication to all our members.”
The second is using the organization’s project management manual, which is regularly updat-ed. “We look at how consistent our tools and our processes are with the standard, which is A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide),” he says.
Fluor encourages its employees to earn the PMI Project Management Professional (PMP)® credential. During the Oak Grove project, 16
team members did so. “Having a PMP® credential helped individuals
see the broader view of the project and understand what kinds of deliverables they needed to provide to the other groups to be successful,” Mr. Brown says.
The commissioning team, led by Charles Lyda, made sure that the appropriate resources from all vendors were available to start up the power plant. Mr. Lyda and his team members engaged the client early in the project to ease the turnover process.
The project was completed within its budget of US$1.92 billion and two weeks ahead of schedule.
During the execution phase, management aggressively challenged all milestone dates and motivated team members to do the same. To ac-complish this, three-week look-ahead meetings were established that reviewed key construction, engineering and management personnel.
The team constantly reworked its one-page schedule overview with red and green milestone tracking to communicate schedule statuses, and material or technical problems. In one case, team members met daily with stakeholders to update progress on a troublesome steam turbine generator.
“We did a very good job of analyzing the schedule and communicating all of the sta-tuses to the major stakeholders,” Mr. Seshadri says. “This helped them make timely decisions on the project, which eventually helped us de-liver it two weeks ahead of schedule.” pM
12 million
The number of hours completed
safely and without environmental
incident
Watch videos of the project of the Year winner and finalists on pMi’s Youtube channel.
Learn more about pMi’s professional awards (and nomi-nate a project of the Year candidate) at pmi.org/awards.
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7Sectorsby MIchEllE bOWlEs JacKsON
IllusTRaTIONs by NEIl WEbb
Who’s hiring? What sectors are faring well? Which of your skills are in demand, and which are yesterday’s news?
Here’s a sector-by-sector breakdown of project management job opportunities.
to watchHere’s wHere tHe jobs are—and tHe skills you need to get tHem.
career track
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SectorsTThe aerospace and defense industry is facing a massive wave of retiring workers
in the next 10 to 20 years. And that’s good news for job seekers with the right stuff: Thirty-some organizations report they expect to hire more than 129,000 people by 2013, according to an Aerospace Industries Association survey.
“The aerospace industry is experiencing a greater need for experi-enced and effective project managers who can manage cost, schedule and quality issues while limiting scope creep—all while putting out the myriad fires that come up during every project,” says David L. White, PMP, senior project manager and team leader for payloads engineer-ing in the product cost improvement program at aerospace behemoth Boeing in Everett, Washington, USA. He is responsible for cost reduction on the 747, 767 and 777 aircraft programs.
“Boeing is not only hiring project managers, but they are also developing project managers through project management interest groups, communities of practice and communities of excellence,” Mr. White says. “I believe many of the larg-er U.S. cities with service or manufacturing industries could use project and program managers who have experience in either product or process cost im-provement programs, both of which enable improvement of the corporate tri-ple bottom line statistics.”
That means opportunities for project professionals in outsourcing hubs as well. French aerospace giant Airbus, for one, is sending innovation projects to India.
“There is a huge demand for project managers in aerospace and defense,” says Walter Mascarenhas, managing director at the IT and human resources consul-tancy ATG Solutions, who divides his time between Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Bengaluru, India. “These project teams are working on technology that will be coming down the pipeline in 10 to 20 years’ time.”
by MichEllE bOWlEs JacKsON AEROSPACE & DEFENSE[Outlook: Very promising]
to watchHere’s wHere tHe jobs are—and tHe skills you need to get tHem.
[Career Advice] industry experience required.“aircraft are complicated systems, and project managers need to un-derstand the systematic integration aspect of their projects,” Mr. White says. “Otherwise, they can foul up the overall integration of the projects and programs by not understanding which deliverables are critical path and necessary to attain scheduled milestones—and which have more schedule leniency.”
Thirty-some organizations report they expect to hire more than129,000 people by 2013.
source: aerospace industries association
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w
Construction took some of the heaviest hits in the global recession. Construction
projects, particularly new-home builds, nearly came to a halt—and
stimulus funds didn’t provide the job stability many governments leaders were banking on.
The worst may be over, though. The United Kingdom, for instance, posted a
22 percent increase in construction job vacancies in 2011 over the prior year, the website TotalJobs.com reported.
And that demand also speaks to the need for project managers to lead teams.Expect to see opportunities in the fol-
lowing countries, says Pedram Daneshmand, planning and risk manager for major projects at UGL Infrastructure Ltd., an infrastructure management, engineering and construction firm in North Syd-ney, Australia:n China: Boosted by stimulus
spending, China overtook the United States in 2010 to be-come the world’s number-one construction market, PwC re-ported. In fact, by 2015, half of the world’s new building con-struction will take place in China, according to The World Bank.
n India: “India is set to race ahead of the United States and Europe,” Mr. Danesh-mand says.
n Canada: By 2020, Canada should be the fifth largest construction market in the world, PwC reports.
n australia: The number of building and construction jobs in Australia is expect-ed to increase by 300,000 to around 1.3 million employees by 2020, according to Master Builders Australia.
“These countries are preparing for their next boom in five to 10 years,” Mr. Daneshmand says.
In the United States, construction job growth has been uneven. In June, the Associated General Contractors of America reported that while 22 states and Washington, D.C. added construction jobs in the past year, the other 28 states decreased them.
“Layoffs are falling, but hiring has not picked up dramatically—especially in the housing sector,” says John David (J.D.) Harrison, PMP, PgMP, director of risk management at the engineering and construction firm CH2M Hill in Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
CONSTRUCTION[Outlook: Booming in some markets; suffering in others]
ENER
GY
[Out
look
: Get
ting
brig
hter
]
[Career Advice] Go where the jobs are.The right combination of experience and educa‐tion can land you a job in the sector—provided you’re flexible.
“As long as you are willing to move to where the work is and you have the right background, credentials and attitude, your prospects of work‐ing in the construction sector are really good,” Mr. Harrison says.
As construction organizations see the value of proper project management, employer demand for credentials has increased, Mr. Daneshmand says. “Due to the rise of the project manage‐ment profile in the construction industry, more employers understand and appreciate project management as a profession. This supports the requirements of relevant credentials and accredi‐tations,” he says.
In addition to maintaining the usual con‐straints, construction project managers contend with uncontrollable issues such as natural di‐sasters, and increased environmental and safety regulations.
To work successfully with engineers, contrac‐tors and stakeholders, project professionals need strong communication skills and a cooperative attitude, Mr. Harrison says.
“Develop your communication skills early in your career,” he says, suggesting to:n Join Toastmasters, a public speaking and
leadership organization.n Do volunteer work that enhances
communication skills.n Offer to assist those above you at your
organization. n Work on proposals for your next project.
Project professionals in this sector should also be familiar with the various types of delivery methods used in the construction industry, such as design‐build and design‐bid‐build.
“And more so than ever before, it is critical that project managers have good risk manage‐ment skills,” he adds, recommending a special‐ized certification, such as the PMI Risk Manage‐ment Professional (PMI‐RMP)® credential.
1The ranking of China in the global construction sector, overtaking the United States for the first time
more than
US$1 trillion
The amount China invested in new construction projects last year
Source: Financial Times
Source: Financial Times
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wT
CONSTRUCTION[Outlook: Booming in some markets; suffering in others]
ENER
GY
[Out
look
: Get
ting
brig
hter
]
FINANCIAL SERVICES[Outlook: Stabilized]The financial services industry has been slammed in the past few years, but ceased its freefall in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Despite the hard times, there is a need for good project managers,” Mr. Mascarenhas says.
Project management jobs are actually at less risk than others in the sector, Rob Coo-per wrote on The IT Job Board Blog. With increased financial regulations and mergers afoot, insurance and banking companies are contracting project and program managers for their expertise.
[Career Advice] Pursue advanced education.Credentialed project managers are more likely to win out over their non-credentialed counter-parts, Mr. Mascarenhas says. And a master’s in business administration (MBA) focusing on proj-ect management is especially enticing.
“Credentialed project managers can be de-pended upon to use systematic and defined pro-cesses,” he explains. “The financial sector is very competitive, and a knowledge of project and pro-gram management will go a long way in creating robust systems.”
An IT financial services project manager with an MBA has an average salary range of US$73,915 to $103,238, according to OnlineMBA.com.
[Career Advice] Go where the jobs are.The right combination of experience and educa-tion can land you a job in the sector—provided you’re flexible.
“As long as you are willing to move to where the work is and you have the right background, credentials and attitude, your prospects of work-ing in the construction sector are really good,” Mr. Harrison says.
As construction organizations see the value of proper project management, employer demand for credentials has increased, Mr. Daneshmand says. “Due to the rise of the project manage-ment profile in the construction industry, more employers understand and appreciate project management as a profession. This supports the requirements of relevant credentials and accredi-tations,” he says.
In addition to maintaining the usual con-straints, construction project managers contend with uncontrollable issues such as natural di-sasters, and increased environmental and safety regulations.
To work successfully with engineers, contrac-tors and stakeholders, project professionals need strong communication skills and a cooperative attitude, Mr. Harrison says.
“Develop your communication skills early in your career,” he says, suggesting to:n Join Toastmasters, a public speaking and
leadership organization.n Do volunteer work that enhances
communication skills.n Offer to assist those above you at your
organization. n Work on proposals for your next project.
Project professionals in this sector should also be familiar with the various types of delivery methods used in the construction industry, such as design-build and design-bid-build.
“And more so than ever before, it is critical that project managers have good risk manage-ment skills,” he adds, recommending a special-ized certification, such as the PMI Risk Manage-ment Professional (PMI-RMP)® credential.
[Career Advice] Build up your expertise through a contract position.It may be difficult for project managers to transition into the industry, Mr. Ibi-lola warns. “In energy, background knowledge of the sector is very important,” he says, adding that project professionals should be familiar with the duties of petroleum engineers, geoscientists, drilling engineers, civil engineers and other roles of project team members.
“Prospective project professionals targeting the energy sector should focus on a particular aspect (for example production) and get familiar with the basic knowledge needed in this area,” Mr. Ibilola says. “This can be achieved by read-ing several energy journals, some specific short courses on the area of interest or through on-the-job learning.”
Due to the highly technical and capital-intensive nature of the energy sector, “awards of contract are mainly based on the track record of the individual or company having performed similar functions, technical skill and financial abil-ity,” he adds. “As such, a project manager who is not conversant in these areas will have some challenges.”
Worldwide energy consumption is on pace to grow by 53 percent from 2008 to 2035, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s International En-ergy Outlook 2011.
Project management is still new for many energy organizations—especially in de-veloping nations, where much of the sector’s future growth is predicted.
“Job prospects for project managers in the energy sector are improving, though at a very slow rate,” says Olaoluwa Ibilola, Lagos, Nigeria-based business development manager at Korea National Oil Corp.
“The regions that have giant oil fields and facilities could be tagged as hot, including Libya, Kuwait, Syria and Norway,” Mr. Ibilola says. “Demand for project managers also depends on the amount of discovery and development in these regions. For instance, a huge gas discovery has been made in Western Australia, and that will obviously mean more jobs for project managers in that region.”
Renewable energy is also posting impressive numbers. It’s slated to account for nearly one-third of the world’s electric generating capacity by the end of 2035, accord-ing to a U.S. Energy Information Administration report. U.S. investors, executives and entrepreneurs predicted the clean tech and renewable energy sector would play at least a moderate (57 percent) or significant (25 percent) role in U.S. job creation over the next five years, according to a survey of industry leaders conducted by Cooley LLP.
In the United States, the solar energy industry has bright days ahead, with a 24 percent market growth and 24,000 new jobs predicted for next year, according to The Solar Foundation’s National Solar Jobs Census 2011.
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I
GGOVERNMENT[Outlook: Rock-solid]
HEALTHCARE[Outlook: Healthy prognosis]“In countries like the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, the prospects are high,” Mr. Mascarenhas says.
The United States expects to add 50,000 to 200,000 new healthcare IT jobs by 2015, according to a survey by the American Society of Health Informatics Managers.
In Australia, the healthcare IT market is expected to grow about 10 percent each year from 2009 to 2014, Frost & Sullivan reported. And the European Union announced its plan to digitize all of its citizens’ health records by 2015.
Outsourcing hot spots such as India and Brazil should continue to fare well, as healthcare organizations take advantage of their talent pool of project professionals.
But opportunities are more limited in regions not known for developing new healthcare solutions, such as the Middle East, Mr. Mascarenhas adds.
Governments around the globe are devoting more resources to IT and infrastructure projects. That spending has been a boon for project profes-sionals, who are being brought on to add efficiency in how the projects are run.
New powerhouse nations such as India and China are throwing mil-lions of rupees and yuan into road and airport construction, power and IT projects (such as India’s national ID initiative).
The U.S. Office of Person-nel Management recently added a specialized IT pro-gram management job clas-sification and career path. In addition, IT programs that don’t have full-time program managers will no longer be funded.
Project professionals seeking government work should hone their technology skills, Mr. Mascar-enhas suggests, as many opportunities are IT-related.
Sometimes your best bet is to seek employ-ment among the IT giants hired by governments
rather than applying to the governmental orga-nizations themselves, he adds.
Because government projects often are un-der public scrutiny, project managers in this sec-tor should play up transparency, due diligence and accountability aspects.
[Career Advice] Focus on IT.
In some parts of the world, “the healthcare industry has not necessar-ily followed a formalized process before,” Mr. Mascarenhas attests. So, as in other sectors, credentialed project professionals are in highest demand, he says.
Many organizations feel that “a credentialed project manager will bring to the table a combination of processes and systems, while a
non-Project Management Professional (PMP)®-certified project man-ager may miss something,” according to Mr. Mascarenhas.
Healthcare IT projects tend to require strong interpersonal and communications skills to work well with administrators, doctors and nurses. In addition, many organizations require technical expertise in the medical field.
[Career Advice] Implementation skills are a plus.
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LLooking to make their business processes more effec-tive, more organizations are investing in IT projects. But global information technology spend will signifi-cantly decelerate this year, predicts Forrester Research. While spending will grow, the growth would be at half the rate seen in 2010, according to the Global Technology Market Outlook.
Technology spend will grow about 5.5 percent in 2012, compared with last year’s approximately 11.5 percent. IT purchases globally will be US$2.15 trillion in 2012, up US$112 billion from last year. Spend on system integration and IT consulting related services will make up another $405 billion, Forrester estimates.
As more organizations turn to the cloud to manage projects, software as a service (SaaS) in particular is gaining significant ground. More than 95 percent of organizations expect to maintain or increase their investments in SaaS, according to a study by Gartner—and more than one-third had projects to migrate from on-premise software to SaaS underway as of the middle of last year.
The information and communication technology markets in Asia Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America are poised to grow the fastest, according to market intelligence firm IDC. PM
HEALTHCARE[Outlook: Healthy prognosis]“In countries like the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, the prospects are high,” Mr. Mascarenhas says.
The United States expects to add 50,000 to 200,000 new healthcare IT jobs by 2015, according to a survey by the American Society of Health Informatics Managers.
In Australia, the healthcare IT market is expected to grow about 10 percent each year from 2009 to 2014, Frost & Sullivan reported. And the European Union announced its plan to digitize all of its citizens’ health records by 2015.
Outsourcing hot spots such as India and Brazil should continue to fare well, as healthcare organizations take advantage of their talent pool of project professionals.
But opportunities are more limited in regions not known for developing new healthcare solutions, such as the Middle East, Mr. Mascarenhas adds.
non-Project Management Professional (PMP)®-certified project man-ager may miss something,” according to Mr. Mascarenhas.
Healthcare IT projects tend to require strong interpersonal and communications skills to work well with administrators, doctors and nurses. In addition, many organizations require technical expertise in the medical field.
IT[Outlook: Appears to be slowing down— but remains lucrative]
[Career Advice] Look outside the IT industry proper.As enterprise IT systems and SaaS developments become increasingly com-plex, IT project management will require a keen knowledge of that technology.
In addition, Alejandro Iván Tapia Lazcano, project manager at Fulltek S.A., an engineering and IT consultancy, working in Antofagasta and Santiago, Chile, says IT project managers must be skilled at:n negotiation: “All day we’re negotiating,” he explains, “primarily with stake-
holders, service providers or the project team. We must balance all of the stakeholders’ interests so everyone benefits.”
n Conflict management: “IT project managers are intermediaries,” Mr. Tapia Lazcano says. “We must unify all perspectives, and if the interests of stake-holders are not in line, we must intervene and ensure that they are.”
n Problem solving: “If, for example, an event occurs that was not considered, this could affect the project schedule,” he says. “IT project managers must come up with a fast and effective solution.”
If you lack specific technical expertise, seek out a knowledgeable mentor, he adds. “An expert or consultant can be found in your professional network. Networking is very important and should be done whenever possible.”
As for career opportunities, IT project managers aren’t just in demand in the tech sector, Mr. Mascarenhas says. Because IT projects are now widespread at all types of organizations, those with experience can find entrée into a variety of industries.
IT purchases globally will be US$2.15 trillion in 2012, up US$112 billion from last year.Source: Forrester Research
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AAs I have mentioned in previous columns, a project’s financial analysis is a vital component of the overall project approval process. You may know this procedure by either of its common names: cost-benefit analysis (CBA) or return on investment (ROI) study.
The foundation of any project financial analysis is a cash flow chart. As the name suggests, a cash flow chart displays all of the economic impacts associ-ated with a proposed project through some future span of time—typically somewhere between three and eight years, depending upon the nature of the project and the assets it delivers. These economic impacts can be either posi-tive (benefits) or negative (costs). The review of cash flow charts is an infor-mative, insightful and necessary element of the project approval process.
about the disconnectMany projects carry with them some sort of post-project cost obligation related to headcount and staffing. For example, the introduction of a new product may require an increase in the quantity of product support person-nel. Or the installation of a new piece of equipment may require an incre-mental increase in the maintenance staff.
If properly constructed, cash flow charts will clearly define the future headcount and staffing requirements associated with any proposed project. But at many organizations—even those that do an excellent job of developing cash flow charts—there is no meaningful connection between the down-stream headcount and staffing obligation introduced by approved projects and enterprise-wide resource planning processes.
Please note that I am not referring specifically to having a formal, com-puterized enterprise resource planning (ERP) software product in place. I am simply referring to the act of recognizing that figures on project cash flow charts may represent actual people who must exist somewhere in the future if the full benefit of a project is to be realized. I am also referring to the fact that if this connection is not made, there can be adverse consequences.
a real-life exampleSome time ago, one of my training clients—an IT project management office (PMO) director—told me a story that characterizes this dilemma. The project
A Very SeriouS
DiSconnect
Gary R. Heerkens, president of Management Solutions Group Inc., is a consultant, trainer, speaker and author. His latest book is The Business-Savvy Project Manager.
managers had reached a point where they found themselves spending 60 percent of their time supporting software systems they had installed over the past few years. This, of course, meant that his PMO was not doing what it had been created to do: implement new project opportunities. So while the approval of projects at his company should have prompted an increase in system sup-port personnel, no one actually hired these people.
Some might argue that this specific sce-nario does not necessarily qualify as having a severe business consequence. Agreed.
But consider that this disconnect is truly a widespread issue. And consider that the approval of countless projects with addi-tional staffing requirements is colliding with a future where downsizing is occurring. In its own way, the disconnect is contribut-ing to an environment where people are working a ridiculous number of hours and getting further behind. I put this discon-nect—and its effects—in the category of a “silent epidemic.”
While there is no simple fix, promoting awareness of this disconnect is the first and most critical step toward improving the dire situation. I hope I have done that here. PM
The future impact of projects is rarely tied to resource planning systems.
By Gary r. HeerkenS, MBa, CBM, PMP
THE buSINESS of Projects
W
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WWhile working on my new book, I interviewed 25 United States citizens aged 67 to 87 who roughly represent the ethnic, religious, economic and social groups that make up the country. I found their hard-earned lessons, shared below, to correlate well with the needs of becoming more effective project leaders.
“Be deliBerate with your life. Your life and what you make of it is up to you. Don’t just let it happen to you. Be deliberate in the decisions that you make and the paths that they lead you to.”
Project leaders must be proactive—making things happen—rather than reac-tive—waiting for people and events to stir them. Take the initiative to work with stakeholders to discover problems before they can cause unrecoverable harm.
“Start your day with quiet time. My day always seems to go better when I start it with some quiet time for meditation. This quiet time helps me set my energy level, think about what I want to accomplish, get in touch with who I am and confirm who I choose to be.”
Plan your workday early to the best of your ability. Then manage to your top three priorities; they define your contributions, value and overall success.
“look forward. Don’t live your life looking in the rear-view mirror. When you make a mistake—big or small—don’t sit there and kick yourself forever. Do what you need to do to recover, learn from it and move on.”
Let go of past project failures—but learn from them first. Admit mistakes, demonstrate accountability in correcting them, be professional to ensure they are not repeated and then move on to channeling your energy in the present.
“do the right thing. You know you are doing the right thing when you feel it in your very soul. Doing these things helps me feel whole, connected and fulfilled.”
Listen to your inner voice—your instincts—and treat it as the wise and trusted friend it is. Take the appropriate action at the appropriate time: It may be speaking up on an issue, initiating a work or escalation meeting, or making a proper but unpopular business decision.
“don’t Blame ‘the SyStem’ or allow it to limit you. If you are not content with your success in life, do not blame the system around you; instead, look inward for a solution.”
Wisdom of the Ages
Neal Whitten, PMP, president of The Neal Whitten Group, is a speaker, trainer, consul-tant and mentor. His newest book is The Gift of Wisdom: Lessons for a Lifetime.
While no one has absolute control over the outcome of events, we have far more influence than many leaders choose to believe. As project leader, you must ensure proper adherence to factors that affect the health and success of the project, such as a satisfactory change control process, com-munications and issue mitigation. Change happens because someone chooses to make it happen. Be a catalyst.
“enjoy thingS aS you go. Don’t put off the fun things until later. Later can have a habit of never arriving.”
Celebrating the successful completion of a milestone is motivating and exciting, and helps the team to bond. It’s a great way to promote a culture that encourages the best from people and shows its appreciation of their contributions.
As leaders, we can benefit from listening to the wisdom gained from those who have gone before us. The best leaders take deliberate actions, demonstrate discipline, learn from the past (but live in the present), listen to their instincts, take accountability for mistakes, care about the team, make time to have fun and believe in their own ability to make things happen. Is this you? If not, it can be! PM
We can learn from those who have gone before us.by NeaL WhiTTeN, PMP, CoNTribuTiNG ediTor
TaKE the Lead
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It’s an all-too-common and frustrating
scenario: Not long after an organization
invests in and deploys an enterprise-wide
system, its leadership finds itself longing for
more. While these comprehensive packages
often cover core components such as asset
utilization, accounting and inventory control,
even the best have shortfalls. In a worst-case
scenario, system shortcomings can lead to
project failures; even in the best cases, they
prevent project teams from operating at peak
performance. That’s where add-on modules
come in, covering just about any need an
organization might have.
Today’s trends—mobile tools, social media
and the big data explosion—all point organiza-
tions in the direction of analytics and collabo-
ration modules, says Laurie McCabe, partner
with Northbrough, Massachusetts, USA-based
SMB Group, a market research firm focused on
small to medium-sized business technology.
“In most instances, this means stakeholders
have far more interactions and through differ-
ent platforms, including mobile and social. As
a result, the number of data points continues
to climb. Unfortunately, most businesses do
not use this data at all and most have no idea
what they even have.”
Almost every piece of equipment produces
data that organizations collect yet often fail to
use, she adds.
Take a manufacturing firm as an example.
Production equipment provides daily reports,
and quality control and inventory control sys-
tems offer even more data.
“However, the only time most companies
ever slow down to look at the data is when
they receive customer complaints,” Ms. Mc-
Cabe attests. “At that point they are looking
in the rearview mirror with pressures to figure
out a problem they do not understand.”
And that’s detrimental to the overall
portfolio. When prioritizing and selecting
projects, “an organization should not be
making decisions that do not allow it to see
real-time data,” says Cindy Jutras, principal
with Mint Jutras, an independent analyst and
research firm in Windham, New Hampshire,
USA. “Real-time data is crucial,
especially in time-fluctuating
markets. The picture can change
significantly, and operating on
anything less than real time
can ultimately skew a project’s
trajectory.”
This is where business ana-
lytics modules make sense, Ms.
McCabe explains. “Whenever an
organization lacks the ability to
mine data intelligently, it often
results in missed project op-
portunities,” she says. “Ideally,
data mining leads to predictive
modeling as well as helping
guide new product development
initiatives or improvements.”
A word of caution, though:
“Analytics is a big bucket,” Ms. McCabe warns.
“These modules can be pricey, and each busi-
ness has its own uniqueness. So it’s important
to start by targeting solutions that fill the
biggest area of need.”
The goal when adding analytics is to find
system-applicable dashboard capabilities,
Ms. Jutras says. “Whether it’s at the project,
portfolio, program or enterprise view, a good
dashboard needs to pull everything into one
spot so the user can stay focused on the role,
project or portfolio of concern,” she says.
Another popular add-on option is a
collaboration module, which can close any
disconnects between departments or virtual
project teams. Most medium-sized businesses
understand the need for integrated capabili-
ties, according to SMB Group’s 2011 SMB Col-
Add-On ModulesOrganizations are discovering holes in their enterprise-wide solutions and filling the gaps.
by Peter Fretty
HelpDesk
Free SolutionsThe growing social media craze has brought about a number of providers, and many offer free services. Yammer, for instance, provides organizations with a private, se-cure social network. Google+ is showing great promise with its customizable Circles, Messenger and Hangouts, and recent integration with the suite of Google Apps.
The lack of out-of-the-box enterprise resource planning integration serves as the primary limitation to the numerous free collaboration tools. To address the issue, some of the larger foundational providers have introduced free collaboration modules, including Chatter on Salesforce.com and SAP StreamWork with SAP solutions.
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laboration and Communication Study. In fact,
43 percent already have a collaboration mod-
ule integrated into their project management
office, and 23 percent intend to integrate one
in the next year.
“Collaboration becomes most relevant
when silos exist,” Ms. McCabe says. “Without
communication between the layers, these
issues end up becoming customer-facing prob-
lems. In most instances, the actual tool isn’t as
important as the ability to make the business
processes streamlined with views integrated
from all layers. It is a matter of bringing every-
thing together to capitalize on your assets.”
On software development projects, for ex-
ample, “collaboration tools can empower team
members to check in or check out code, so
two people are not working on it at the same
time,” Ms. Jutras says. “Or they can offer smart
document sharing with real-time engagement
between project managers and stakeholders.”
Analytics Modules
While some foundation software providers
develop their own analytics modules, many
established analytic tools also integrate well
with enterprise systems.
SAS Business Analytics
Known for its easy-to-navigate dashboard
and customizable reporting capabilities,
the SAS solution provides analytics embed-
ded in a framework that supports the entire
decision-making process. The company is
well-entrenched in manufacturing, healthcare
and financial environments.
IBM Cognos Express
Designed to provide midsize businesses with
in-depth analytics, Cognos Express provides
integrated reporting, analysis and planning ca-
pabilities to drive greater efficiencies, manage
costs and identify growth opportunities.
Collaboration Tools
Avaya one-X
The Avaya solution works well for organizations
adding call centers into the mix of collabora-
tion layers. Known for its ability to integrate
with IBM, SAP and others, Avaya gives users
always-available access to real-time enterprise
communication capabilities. This desktop soft-
ware client works well for users who communi-
cate frequently, manage multiple calls and set
up ad-hoc conferencing. PM
APPEARANCE OF ANY PRODUCT OR MANUFACTURER IN PM NETWORK DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN ENDORSEMENT.
Up to Speed With CompetitorsWhen prioritizing and selecting projects, “an organization should not be making decisions that do not allow it to see real-time data,” says Cindy Jutras, Mint Jutras, Windham, New Hampshire, USA.
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Serghei Floricel, PhD, Sorin Piperca and Marc Banik, PhD
Increasing Project Flexibility: The Response Capacity of Complex Projects
“Expect the unex-pected” is excel-lent advice for all project managers. This PMI research report addresses an organization’s ability to deal with unex-
pected events—its “response capacity.” A three-stage approach includes theoretical development, qualitative investigation and quantitative exploration. The study draws from fundamental social theories and prior project management research, and examines 17 field studies completed across a variety of business sectors. A survey measures the practical use of the concepts developed theoretically. This study is an important addition to project literature and research. Its details provide value to academics and practitioners alike.
Project Management Institute, 2011, ISBN: 9781935589372, paperback, 165 pages, $29.95 Member, $23.95 Nonmember
HOW TO ORDER Online: Marketplace.PMI.org | Telephone: 1-866-276-4PMI (U.S. and Canada) or +1-770-280-4129 (international) | Email: [email protected] Phone ordering hours now extended until 8:00 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time (GMT -5)
pmiMarketplace Serghei Floricel, PhD, John L. Michela, PhD, and Mark George with Line Bonneau, PhD
Refining the Knowledge Production Plan: Knowledge Representations in Innovation ProjectsThis research report stands apart from others in its view that knowledge exists not abstractly in the brain, but concretely in the form of external representations ranging from sketches or email texts to high-resolution images and prototypes. The conceptual framework is comprehensive and complete. Qualitative research includes the results from interviews with managers on 18 different projects in a variety of business sectors. Quantitative research includes results from an online questionnaire that drew 151 responses. This report is rich with information that could serve as a foundation for further investigation or for analysis and development of knowledge representations in practical contexts.Project Management Institute, 2011, ISBN: 9781935589389, paperback, 195 pages, $23.95 Member, $29.95 Nonmember
KIM H. PRIES aND JON M. QUIGLEy, PMP
Scrum Project Management
This book intro-duces Scrum basics and explains how to apply that adap-tive technique to effectively manage a wide range of pro-grams and complex
projects. It provides proven planning methods for controlling project scope and ensuring projects stay on sched-ule, including scrum tracking methods to help teams focus on improving throughput and streamlining communi-cations. The authors demonstrate how to combine traditional project manage-ment methods with scrum and discuss improvisation, creative problem-solving and emergent phenomena—detailing the methods needed to ensure teams achieve project success.
Taylor and Francis, 2010, ISBN: 9781439825150, hardcover, 198 pages, $47.45 Member, $49.95 Nonmember
CHaRLES G. COBB, PMP
Making Sense of Agile Project Management: Balancing Control and Agility
Mr. Cobb proposes that collaborative, cross-functional teams rely on their train-ing and skill to adapt project
methodology to the problem that they are attempting to solve, rather than force-fit-ting a project to a particular methodology. The book focuses on how Agile project management fits with traditional project management models to create a more effective strategy. It includes many cases taken from real-world companies illustrat-ing good and bad Agile implementation, and provides discussion of Agile and non-Agile methodologies. Its straightforward approach enables project managers to grasp concepts quickly and develop adapt-able management tools.
John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2011, ISBN: 9780470943366, paperback, 264 pp., $52.25 Member, $55.00 Nonmember
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Project professionals must know the answers to questions such as: Is work being accomplished as planned? Is it costing as planned? What is the remaining work likely to cost? It is even more critical as a project manager,
though, to be able to identify where the problems are occurring, how critical the problems are and what it will take to get the proj-ect back on track.
This is where earned value management (EVM) methodology can fill a vital need.
The Practice Standard for Earned Value Management—Sec-ond Edition expands on the information in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—Fourth Edi-tion. EVM is often referred to as “management with the lights on” because it helps objectively and succinctly identify where a project is and where it is going. The methodology incorporates project scope, schedule and costs, and the process is applicable across many Knowledge Areas and Process Groups. This practice stan-dard is intended for anyone who wants to better develop his or her project management toolset and know how to potentially improve project performance through the use of EVM.
The use of EVM as a project management methodology is experiencing explosive growth in the global community. The Practice Standard for Earned Value Management—Second Edition expands the available resources on its use for medium and smaller projects—while still being relevant for larger initiatives. The practice standard is intended to guide both novices and experienced project management practitioners who are familiar with EVM. It also provides insight and detailed explanations of the basic elements and processes of EVM, and demonstrates how to scale the methodology to fit varying project sizes and situa-tions. Additionally, it expands on covering the basic elements with in-depth coverage of more complex EVM subjects.
This practice standard is filled with graphical examples and detailed explanations that will allow the reader to establish and execute EVM on projects in almost any environment and in a wide range of sizes. When used in concert with good project management principles, EVM methodology will provide a greater return on any project and results that will directly benefit your organization.
Project Management Institute, 2011, ISBN: 978-1-935589-35-8, paperback, 135 pages, $44.75 Member, $55.95 Nonmember
Marketplace.pMI.orgpmiMarketplace Featured Books
The practice standard is intended to guide both novices and experienced project management practitioners who are familiar with EVM.
Project Management Institute
Practice Standard for Earned Value Management—Second Edition
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ServiceS Directory
Have you found an article in PM Network® you’d like to use as a presentation tool? Would you like to distribute a project management article as part of a newsletter? Contact the Project Management Institute (PMI) for information on reprint ing articles ([email protected]) and permission to distribute them ([email protected]).
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17, 71 American Graduate University www.agu.edu
70 Bellevue University www.bellevue.edu
71 PM Educate www.pmeducate.com
64, 65 Project Management Institute www.pmi.org
2, 23 Project Management Training Institute www.4PMTI.com
C2 RMC Project Management www.rmcproject.com
70 University of Houston www.tech.uh.edu/programs/professional/
71 University of Management and Technology www.umtweb.edu
7 Velociteach www.velociteach.com
C4 VMEduc Inc www.PMstudy.com
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closing Credit
Weighing over 20 tons, whale sharks rank as the largest fish in the sea. Scientists have no trouble getting photos of the plankton-eating giants—the problem is tell-ing them apart.
So, in 2003, marine conservationist Brad Norman launched the Ecocean Whale Shark Photo-Identification Library project in Ningaloo Reef, Australia—one of the leading whale shark dive spots.
The line and spot pattern on a whale shark’s skin is unique, like a human’s fin-gerprints. The project team modified a NASA (U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration) algorithm that recognizes star patterns to identify individual sharks in photos based on their markings. Researchers and tourists submit images online, and the library compares and identifies them.
With more than 4,200 whale sharks entered into the database, the project has entered its second phase. Scientists are analyzing the information to learn about the threatened species’ behavior and how better to protect them by routing ships away from their feeding grounds. —Lisa Tomcko
PROJECT: Ecocean Whale Shark Photo-Identification Library
LOCATION: Ningaloo Marine Park, AustraliaDATABASE: Includes 4,200 whale sharks
PARTNER: NASA
“The project is providing a tool for monitoring whale sharks both regionally and worldwide, which in time will give us an understanding of the global whale shark population and its health.” —Brad Norman, Ecocean, Cottesloe, Western Australia
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