Rami Al Yousef

Project Management Health Check

2011-11-22T18:49:00.001+03:00

Working in a different environments makes me believe of the importance of Project Management Health Check; a process where independent reviewers “consultants” is hired to review the status of the project or Program within the organizations to avoid major problems. The projects reviews and their documentation are a useful part of the project management process that starts with the Project Proposal and its formal approval up to the closing.

Each project have a life cycle, during this life cycle there should be a formal decision to move to the next stage and release the necessary finance. As part of that decision it is useful to have a health check performed to validate the scope and plans are still valid and the project is on track, some call this process (Phase Exist).

The health check should be carried out at regular intervals especially at major decision points to ensure no loss of expertise and progress in addressing areas of weakness.

while conducting a health check a consultant offer an independent, impartial assessment of a project's risks and readiness at a point in time (during the project life cycle). This view is based upon information gathered from key project team members/stakeholders during structured interviews and from the examination of project documentation.

Benefits

Can serve as an initiation for the optimization of future project work/resources
Transparency - Fast and compact vision in the project and its weaknesses
An independent view (3rd party) on the project offers a neutral judgment on the true state of the project
Derivation of concrete measures for improvement and quick wins from the assessment results
Improving the quality of the delivered outcomes
Early warning and advice on how to recover a developing situation as well a threat of bad investments can be avoided or mitigated considerably if a Project Health Check carried out on time and then the corrective measures will be implemented resolved
Reducing the risk of your project failing to deliver desired outcomes
Assess the readiness of the organisation to accept and support project outcomes

Key findings of a Project Health Check

Independent and objective advice on the state of the organization projects status
Objective overview on the project status with a summary assessment
Project history as background information
The future strengths and weaknesses of the project and an assessment of the respective influence on project success or failure
Qualified and prioritized recommendations for solving the issues to get the project back on track

PMLC & SDLC in one Methodology

2011-04-05T19:29:00.004+03:00

We spent four months until now in developing a Project Management Methodology for one of our clients.

After completing the OPM3 assessment we found that our client maturity in project management was not that high at the time the client has to manage set of IT project (some are software development and some is not) as per their strategic plans.

It was a great challenge for us to build a PMO within the borders of the IT department of a large size organization, therefor we find that the best practice will be to mix both PMLC (Project Management Life Cycle) as per PMBok and SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), the result for such a decision greeted with our client satisfactions; however it becomes more challenging when we start to implement our new developed methodology at IT research project which does not need the SDLC methodology which had been identified within the execution phase as the expected deliverables was not more than an evaluation for current situation and studies.

There for the question bump in my head was "Is mixing the both methodologies a good deal to manage more than just IT software development projects?".

What I have found until now is that the similarities are many in both of these methodologies as PMLC methodology recommends breaking down the project into process groups with chunks of activities to be completed within project duration at the time SDLC recommends the phases as Analysis, Design, Code and Test, Deploy as a full pack.

SDLC supports only development of software systems “As per most of the SDLC definitions”; an IT project usually involves more than just developing software; it could include client/vendor interaction, business studies and marketing studies so having a PMLC mixed with SDLC is a good full package.

So it makes more sense to mix the PMLC and SDLC methodologies based on increasing experiences in managing projects adding to it the organization culture and come up with different approaches that handle "who", "how", "when", "why" of "what" needs to be done in the context of IT Project Management and to be more specific of a Software Development Project.

Whoever if we are managing different type of IT projects within the same mixed methodology then we have to come up with (continuous improvement) for our approaches and make sure that such approaches could help the organization in managing the project and deliver the product as pre the quality and standards and within the developed methodology.

Project Management Methodologies

2011-04-04T20:36:00.007+03:00

Pointing out this topic as a start came from my personal experience in developing a Project Management Methodology for one of my company clients.

Let’s start by identifying what a Project Management Methodology means and then go to the different types of Methodologies which professionals use.

Project Management Methodology is a collection of processes, methods and tools “Road map” for accomplishing the Project Objectives. It is providing a checklist of key deliverables and activities to avoid missing key deliverables and tasks during the Project’s Life Cycle. It also ensures that Project Team Members are well fitted with the project needs and requirements as well as guiding them to collaborate when dealing with projects.

I strongly believe that the Project Team impacted by the Project Management Methodology; however, the Project Manager is the owner and typically the one that is mostly impacted.

After understanding what the Project Management Methodology is; which one should we use? There are countless choices; however, there are some that immediately cross our minds as strong candidates:

1- The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) which is considered as one of the lead Project Management Methodologies due to the popularity of the PMI and PMP as well as to the Identified Project Life Cycle which are enclosed with 5 Process Groups (Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and controlling as well Closing) .

I would like to point out here that there are different opinions regarding whether PMBoK is a project methodology or not, it is certainly used as the basis for many developed project management methodologies. It is defined as project management’s ‘Best Practices’ and it could to be applicable to any project.

2- The PRINCE2 is a project management methodology originally developed in 1989 for the UK government. It has been adopted as a standard IT project management methodology in nongovernmental organizations.

PRINCE2 is structured into eight high level processes (Directing a Project, Planning, Starting up a Project, Initiating a Project, Controlling a Stage, Managing Product Delivery, Managing Stage Boundaries, and Closing a Project). Typically users of PRINCE2 do minor changes and modifications on the methodology to fit with their specific environment which simplifies the process and introduces some organization specific processes and templates.

3- Many consulting firms (same as the one I’m working for) and vendors provide their own project management methodologies or support other clients to develop their own project management methodology which could be forced in in-house Projects as well as out-house Projects. These methodologies are based on the firm's experience.

Project management methodologies can significantly improve the success rate of your projects, if introduced and used effectively, this is where good training and many training sessions are needed.