Project Governance – Maturity Level V

"There is a universality to comedy.”
                                      - Simon Pegg

We have been building to this post for a while now.  This is the final installment of my series on project governance – or, more accurately, governance in the project context.  In the first post I introduced my arbitrary, tongue-in-cheek governance maturity level (gml).  Having covered all of the descriptions for project governance maturity up to this point, it is now time to reveal the ultimate state of governance of interest to project managers.

Historically, the highest level of governance is some variation on the theme of continuous improvement or optimizing, but I announced in my previous post that that was not the case for this maturity model.  And that post described the penultimate maturity level as alignment with organizational strategy, so what remains for the highest level of project governance maturity?

For strategic projects, there are really only three reasons that justify the project:  it increases revenue;  it reduces cost;  it is a regulatory requirement.  (Do you know of any other reasons that legitimately justify a strategic project?)  For most enterprises, what department has the highest stature?  Marketing?  HR?  Procurement?  FINANCE (hint hint)?  Of course it’s finance.  And it’s time finance started seeing projects as generating revenue or reducing expenses.

In May, Angelo Baratta presented a webinar for PMI’s Information Systems Community of Practice titled “The Value Triple Constraint: Project Value Left Behind” (PMI and ISCoP membership required).  In it, Baratta reminded us that projects have an economic benefit to the organization.  So often as project managers, we are focused on cost (along with time and scope) and leave benefit and value to the cost-benefit analysis or the charter – and to bean counters or stakeholders with “higher pay grade.”  But because there is this positive financial component, delays (among other choices) have a financial impact to the organization.

The highest level of project governance maturity, then, is when projects are recognized as enterprise assets.  Just like raw materials and capital investments, we (the PM community) should be lobbying to have our projects recognized as corporate assets.  This would immediately transition us to the big leagues.  Our babies would be elevated in stature within the corporate and political pecking order.  Project choices (delay, increase scope, cut scope, etc.) would have clear financial impact to the organization.  Getting resources, as Baratta noted in his presentation, would be straightforward to justify when the alternatives can be quantified.

Of course, these benefits don’t come without perils, but such is the consequence of maturity.  We will no longer be able to operate informally.  We will operate in the spotlight.  We will have to learn to speak “executive” (cut your vocabulary in half!).  Risk management will impact the corporate risk profile.  Governance in the project context will be integrated into the organization’s financial governance (think Sarbox).

One of the objectives of PMI is to have “Project Management” recognized as a discipline (or profession) distinct from “Management.”  A step in this direction is to elevate the governance maturity and to transition project delivery from a technical discipline to a financial discipline with direct consequence for the enterprise bottom line. 

From gml-I Chaos, gml-II Solution, gml-III Consultancy, and gml-IV Alignment, we have climbed the maturity staircase.  Getting to gml-V Capitalized is governance your CFO would recognize – the next stage in PMI maturity.

Has this journey been worth it?  What changes would you make to gml?  Or how would you define a project governance maturity model?

© 2013 Chuck Morton.  All Rights Reserved.

Project Governance – Maturity Level IV

The alignment of the project with stakeholders’ needs or objectives. (p30)

Project Governance: The alignment of project objectives with the strategy of the larger organization by the project sponsor and project team.  A project’s governance is defined by and is required to fit within the larger context of the program or organization sponsoring it, but is separate from organizational governance.  (p553)

                                                                                                - PMBoK v5

This is the fourth and penultimate installment of my series on project governance – or, more accurately, governance in the project context.  In the first post I introduced my arbitrary, tongue-in-cheek governance maturity level (gml) and expanded on the subject in the second and third posts.  With this post, we advance to describing gml-IV, moving beyond the strict focus on project governance.

Project governance is needed – that is, there need to be controls in place to assure project delivery according to the organization’s defined processes.  But project governance alone is not sufficient for most organizations.  Successful projects (completing projects successfully) assumes that the right and proper projects are being done.   In fact, The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) has almost no references to project governance.  All references to “governance” are either in the introductory first two chapters or are in an appendix (such as the definition, above).  As these representative quotes indicate, for PMI project governance is more about delivering the right project than about delivering the project right.  (In contrast, for Microsoft Solutions Framework, governance is strictly about delivering the solution.)

The interesting thing is, there is another accepted term for doing the right project:  project portfolio management.  But project portfolio management, like any other process or methodology, needs to be paired with a governance structure.  There need to be checks and balances, oversight, and independence.  These governance processes need to integrated with organizational governance, most appropriately around strategic planning and success.

With my next post, the final post in this series, I will introduce gml-V.  Everyone, of course, already knows that gml-V, like all good maturity models, will be about continuous improvement, what SEI CMMI calls Optimizing.  Surprise:  that isn’t what gml-V is.  So stick around, read the next post and be surprised.

You’ve read what I’ve posted on governance so far, so what would be your five governance maturity levels?  Specifically, what would you have for the highest level of project governance maturity?

© 2013 Chuck Morton.  All Rights Reserved.

Project Governance – Maturity Level III

Project governance is an oversight function that is aligned with the organization’s governance model and that encompasses the project life cycle.  Project governance framework provides the project manager and team with structure, processes, decision-making models and tools for managing the project, while supporting and controlling the project for successful delivery.

                                                                                                - PMBoK v5 (p34)

This is the third post in my series on governance in the project context.  In the first post I introduced my arbitrary, tongue-in-cheek governance maturity level (gml) and in the second post described gml-II Solution, the first level of maturity of project governance.  With this post, we advance to describing gml-III.

Remember from the previous post that minimal project governance is focused on the project solution.  Advanced project governance, in contrast, is focused on project delivery.  Rather than just being concentrated on Executing Process Group (PMBoK v5 section 3.5) activities, gml-III governance covers the entire gamut of process groups:  Initiating, Planning, Monitoring and Control, and Closing.

At gml-II, governance activities were directed at the product deliverables.  At gml-III, in contrast, expect the governance team to examine the project charter, statement of work, status reports, meeting minutes, and all deliverables in the organization’s methodology, all the way through to the project retrospective and closing.  Not only will they be looking to see that the work product was produced, but that the proper template was used, the content conforms to standards, it was distributed properly (both audience and time), and that approval authorities are correct.

While governance processes may be similar to those at gml-II, the tools used at this level are ratcheted up.  Periodic audits with formal auditing checklists, scoring models (i.e., a project that is not conforming to process is higher risk than one that does), and public, structured project reviews are all normal practices.  These audits and reviews are distinctive in that performance is not determined by time, cost or scope;  performance is exclusively measured by conformance to process and proper use of tools by the right people.

At this level, there are also differences from the previous level with the governance team.  All governance is a form of “Check and Balance” to assure credibility.  At gml-II, project governance is within the project delivery methodology, for example, stage gates.  As such, it is contained within the department or division;  it might even be within the PMO.  At gml-III, in contrast, the concern for credibility goes much higher in the organization, thus governance is completely separate from the project delivery organization.  At a pharmaceutical company, for example, governance may report up through the legal department;  at a financial institution, depending on what department the project team is in, governance may report to legal or to the CFO;  in a large (completely projectized) consulting firm that I worked for for many years, the governance team reported directly to the COO.  That is, the project delivery organization existed, with branches, branch managers, PMs, Delivery managers, divisions, VPs, etc.  But governance was completely independent of the project delivery organization.  The project auditors that worked at the branch level did not report to the branch managers, but reported up through their own hierarchy that reached directly to the company president.  This demonstrates that gml-III is the appropriate governance level for the consultancy PM.

My final comments on gml-III are that, because the governance elements are formal and process-ized, the environment is positioned for continuing process improvement.  The project audits will encourage post-project reviews and documented Lessons Learned.  These will, in turn, be fed back as inputs into the project audits, resulting in improvements to the checklists, tools, templates and training.  This virtuous cycle represents the capstone of gml-III maturity.

In my first post in this series, I mentioned that we would explore governance in the project context.  So far, we’ve been exclusively discussing project governance, but with the next post, on gml-IV Alignment, we will step outside the project to see what penultimate governance looks like in a project organization.

When governance is discussed, someone usually bemoans the inefficiency, the overhead, the burden.  Does your organization have too much, too little or just the right amount of governance?

© 2013 Chuck Morton.  All Rights Reserved.

Project Governance – Maturity Level II

"I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it”

                                                                                                - Frank A. Clark

In my previous post, the first post in this series on governance in the project context, I introduced my arbitrary, tongue-in-cheek governance maturity level (gml) and described gml-I Chaos.  With this post, we advance to describing gml-II, the first maturity level where governance is contributing to project success.

Effective governance is external to the project (and therefore to the project team).  I’ll dwell on this more in a later post in this series, but this means that project governance cannot be performed by the project manager;  governance is someone outside the project looking at what the project manager and the project team have done.  Other requirements for the organization to be at gml-II are a project methodology, project standards, and deliverable templates, since, for governance there must be something to govern to. 

At the lowest level of mature project governance, the attention is on the project solution, the product or service , such as in the Product & Service Delivery (P&SD) organization.  Governance at this level is focused on the Executing Process Group (PMBoK v5 section 3.5) activities and the product deliverables.  Examples of project governance activities at this level include architectural reviews and stage gate reviews.

Another factor I check is how the project managers are measured and incented.  This is a topic I touched briefly a while back (How Should a Project Manager be Measured?), so I won’t dwell on it here.  Suffice it to say, though, that if the organization has a methodology and standards and the PM is not measured (and incented) based on those standards (rather than the PM Triple Constraints), then the organization is most likely still at gml-I Chaos.  After all, the organization is sending a mixed signal on whether they want the PM to follow the standards or to abandon them to deliver the product or service solution any way they want.

Governance models that describe governance maturity level II are Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) and the SEI Capability Maturity Model – Integrated (CMMI), which are both solution-focused methodologies.

In my next post, we’ll move slightly up the food chain to gml-III Consultancy, which will discuss a more advanced implementation of project governance.

Does your organization have effective project governance?  How does it stack up so far based on this description?  Do you think I’ve fairly described minimal project governance?

© 2013 Chuck Morton.  All Rights Reserved.

Project Governance – Maturity Level I

"Good project governance provides just enough oversight, process, guidance, and rigor to efficiently and effectively use project resources, deliver a solution, and handle trade-off decisions while optimally balancing adherence to a set of potentially changing project constraints.”

- Michael S. V. Turner, Microsoft Solutions Framework Essentials: Building successful technology solutions.  p271.

With this post I start a new series on governance.  Project governance, yes, but not just project governance.  Governance in the project context, though.  This should be a fun exercise, and I invite you to join the conversation.  Project managers historically have a love-hate relationship with governance, but it shouldn’t necessarily be so.

I have worked in the financial, pharma (GxP), and government domains, among others.  These are all high-governance environments and, with that experience, I can say that governance is a project manager’s good friend.  Understand that both you and the governance team have the same objective – project success.  If you don’t grasp that, then the yin-yang balance between advocate and adversary will be lost for you;  you’ll see governance only as an adversary to your success.  This will not be to your (or, more importantly, the project’s) benefit.  One thing in particular that keeps me on my toes is that, in these environments, I know someone who knows what they’re doing is going to be looking over my shoulder and evaluating my results critically.

There is probably some governance professional organization with its own body of knowledge and well-defined formal maturity levels for governance.  I wouldn’t know.  With apologies to that organization and to SEI and, completely tongue-in-cheek, I’m creating for this series an arbitrary set of maturity levels.

The first governance maturity level (gml), then, is one where any of the following are true:  there is no formal project governance process or methodology;  the project governance methodology is ineffective or insufficient;  or, the project manager perceives the project governance as (substantially) an adversary to success.  This is generally, in the maturity level worlds, called the state of chaos.  And that epithet clearly applies.

In the next post, I’ll advance to gml-II Solution and expound way too long on the characteristics of the first level of project governance maturity.

I would love to hear your stories on governance.  Have you found it to be an ally or an adversary?  What guidance do you have for fellow PMs?

© 2013 Chuck Morton.  All Rights Reserved.

Measuring Software Productivity

Enhancing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Application Development.  Michael Huskins, James Kaplan, and Krish Krishnakantham.  August 2013.  (registration required)

I just read this recent article from McKinsey and Company that extols the virtues of software productivity metrics, compares several alternative methods, and offers their recommendation.

I find it amazing that in the several years I have been publishing this blog, I have never discussed software productivity metrics – but after a review today, that is exactly what I found.  As an avid advocate and proponent of metrics, the topic has certainly been on the list for discussion.

Had I written the article before today, I would’ve advocated Function Points.  Function Points have several advantages, including being the most consistent, accurate and reliable of the various methods and the one most appropriate for evaluating and measuring vendor software.  In particular, if you are comparing building a package versus buying a commercial (COTS) package for the same capability, then FPs offer an objective measure for comparing both features and cost to determine the appropriate path.  Likewise, it is similarly appropriate when comparing products from multiple vendors.

As the McKinsey article explains, though, FPs are expensive and challenging to introduce.  For organizations that rely primarily on software development (rather than purchasing vendor offerings), the McKinsey authors introduce a new (to me) method called Use Case Points, compare this to Lines of Code, Story Points, and FPs, and describe how to introduce UCPs into the organization.  Further, the article notes that UCPs are comparable across applications and teams.  And UCPs can be used with both agile and waterfall development methodologies.

I encourage you to take a look at this article for your application development environment.  Metrics add a valuable tool to your toolbox.  And metrics are an absolute, foundational necessity for continuous improvement.

Have you worked in an organization that uses software productivity metrics?  What benefits did you find?  What problems did you encounter?

© 2013 Chuck Morton.  All Rights Reserved.

Planning or Delivery is More Important?

"Maturity of mind is the capacity to endure uncertainty.”
                                                                                                - John Finley

Which would you say is more important:  Project Planning or Project Execution?

There are lots of these question forms that are just meaningless, but this one isn’t.  You can have good (consistent, reliable) project delivery even with poor planning;  but you cannot have good planning without good delivery.

If you think about it even briefly, it’s obvious why successful planning requires reliable execution.  Planning is, after all, the projection of future activities.  The plan includes the activities to be performed as well as predictive criteria about the activities (start date, end date, duration, cost, etc.).  If you can’t predict the activities that will be performed, then the plan is flawed and unreliable.  If you can predict the activities, but the activity criteria are unpredictable then the plan is flawed and unreliable.

Reference Figure 1, a control chart example I created for this post.  Note that you cannot predict the quality of the result because the process is out of control (and apparently worsening).   There’s a saying that you can’t control what you don’t measure.  I’ll take that to the next level by saying that you can’t plan for what you can’t control.

Figure 1

 

Figure 1 and unreliable project delivery capability are prime examples of an organization that is not process mature.  This is comparable to the CMMI Maturity Level 1 organization.  To improve delivery, your organization needs to move up the maturity level capability for whatever methodology (e.g., P&SD PM or Consultancy PM) is most important (whether that is CMMI or OPM3, for example).

Since the essence of project delivery is the combination of planning processes with monitoring and controlling processes, this offers some insight on where to start if your organization needs to improve the project delivery capability.  First, capture and track (the right) project metrics.  Next, select the maturity model that is appropriate for your organization.  Then, begin systematically implementing and institutionalizing the processes in the maturity model.

Once you have the capability to deliver consistently, reliably and predictably, then you can plan and your plan will also be reliable.  Now that’s maturity.

Do you know how to use a maturity model to assess and improve your organization’s project delivery capability?  What has been your experience implementing maturity model capabilities?  What were the results?

© 2013 Chuck Morton.  All Rights Reserved.

How Should Project Manager’s Be Measured?

"Being in power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't”

                                                                                                - Margaret Thatcher

“How should I measure my PMs?” is a frequent question (in a number of variants) on various LinkedIn discussion boards.  The classical answer to this question, of course, is that the Project Manager is measured on their success at delivering the contracted/ chartered scope on time and within budget.  The practical answer is not so simple.

The traditional response is based on the purist PMI definition of a project and project manager:  a Sponsor funds a specific project (agreed-on scope, time and cost) and the PM has complete authority and autonomy to deliver the project.  In this scenario, it is proper to base the PM’s performance on those criteria.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never worked on a project like that.  So let’s look at a couple of scenarios more consistent with what I’ve experienced.  In the first, the PM is assigned to a VP or senior manager and is their agent for delivering their project.  (From the purist PMI definition, the executive is the PM, but that’s not how it’s recognized in the industry.)  In this scenario, the PM is the agent of the executive;  the executive makes the strategic and significant controlling decisions;  the PM is responsible for tactical and operational delivery on behalf of the executive and for monitoring and reporting.  The key PM skill is proactive stakeholder communications.

This PM should not be measured on the traditional criteria:  they don’t have the authority to make significant or strategic resource reallocations to meet the project objectives.  However, this PM should be measured on the quality of the plan (relative to the organization’s delivery capability), the quality of the schedule, delivery to plan and frequency, appropriateness and quality of communications.  On this last point, communications, for example, the PM should be measured on how well they keep the stakeholders (particularly the executive) informed about variances from plan, but the PM should not be assessed on the magnitude of the variations, that there are variations or the response to the variations.

Another common scenario is that the PM is assigned to a PMO or that the organization has a formal, well-defined project delivery process.  In this scenario, the organization, not the PM, takes on the responsibility for delivering scope within time and cost by specifying the process.  In this scenario, the PM should be measured on adhering to the process, the quality of the deliverables and the contribution to improving the process.

There is an important lesson in this scenario:  if the PM follows the process and the project fails, the PM was successful;  if the PM doesn’t follow the process, regardless of whether the project is a success, the PM has failed.  This may sound heretical, but is the difference between how GM and Toyota manufacture cars.  For GM, delivering a car on schedule is paramount, regardless of the process disruption.  Thus, each car becomes a one-off craftsman product with inconsistent quality (results are not in statistical control and quality is tested in).  In contrast, for Toyota the process is paramount.  If the process is not working properly, they will stop the process until the problem is corrected.  That is a true assembly line and the product quality is consistent.

If your organization has a project delivery methodology, the only way to know if it works is to apply it absolutely and allow it to succeed or fail.  If it fails, then do the appropriate root cause analysis and problem resolution to improve the process.  Thus, a PM who shortchanges the process is not benefiting the long-term quality of the organization.

The bottom line is that the PM should be evaluated based on their performance within their span of control and to the organization’s delivery objectives.  Use of any other criteria creates dissonance between what you say you want and want you are rewarding the PM for.  To paraphrase Sgt. Esterhaus, “Let’s be consistent out there.”

What experience do you have with inconsistencies between the reality of what the PM does and how the PM is measured?

© 2013 Chuck Morton.  All Rights Reserved.

The Project Manager’s Cycle – Validate the Metrics

“Okay, I’ve posted my hours now.”  “Great, thanks.  Let me check the reports…  It shows that you have four more hours to complete the task and that you’ll be done on Tuesday.  Is that correct?”

a)      “No, sorry.  It’s complete, I just forgot to update that part.”

b)      “Yes, that’s right.”

c)       “No, the mapping is more complicated than I thought.  It’ll be Friday, at least, before I’m done.”

The Project Manager’s Cycle involves taking in raw or rough data, processing, validating and acting on the data, then organizing the result into a coherent model for communicating to your stakeholders.  The initial data comes from reports by the project team members.  They report the state of their tasks relative to the plan, including progress/completion measurements for each of their assigned tasks.

The ideal source of the initial metrics is an enterprise project management tool, such as MS Project Professional with EPM, CA Clarity, or Planisware OPX2, where each team member updates the hours they worked on each task and the remaining hours to complete the task.  Without such a tool, the metrics may be percent completion values and changes to task end dates.  These are not as reliable, but they may be the best you have available.

Something that I have observed is that project team members, even veterans, have to be periodically reminded to make these updates and the expectations for reliability.  For example, the estimate to complete (ETC) must be re-estimated each week, not just reduced by hours worked, for it to be meaningful.  Alternately, percent complete values also need to be re-evaluated, not just incremented.

The project manager receives these metrics and is initially concerned with determining that they are within the expected norms.  That is, that the team member worked the planned number of hours for that week and that the remaining work is as planned.  Note that if the PM only focuses on hours worked (or percent complete), a major early warning indicator is lost.  Hours worked and hours remaining (percent complete and completion date) are a check-and-balance that the team member is progressing according to plan.

The first important validation is that team members are posting their hours accurately.  That is, that all hours worked on this project are posted to the appropriate tasks and only hours worked on this project are posted.  Otherwise, team members may under-report hours if they are experiencing difficulties or over-report hours to obscure time spent inappropriately on other efforts.

With accurate hours reported, any significant deviation, either positive or negative, needs to be flagged for follow up.  For example, if the resource is not contributing as many hours as planned, the PM should coordinate with the resource manager and the team member to determine why and how to limit impact to the project.  On the other hand, if they are working more hours, does that mean they are getting ahead or that they are having difficulties?

It is also appropriate to determine if team members have identified work that needs to be done that was not identified in the plan.  In other words, they need to report hours worked (or will need to report hours in a future period) and have no task to report those hours to.  Of course, as PM you will need to determine whether this work is new (maybe it’s included in the scope of another task), if it is new, whether it is in the project scope, and whether this needs to be addressed through change control or just not done.

Finally, confirm with team members which tasks are completed so they can be closed in the schedule.

Having an accurate and reliable schedule each week requires having accurate and reliable inputs from each team member.  Have you had success getting these from your project team members?