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97, “30 percent of all software projects fail outright. Of the successful projects, 70 percent are completed over budget or schedule.”
Clearly, effective project management is a difficult goal to achieve. It is critical to the successful implementation of information systems. Delivering systems on schedule and within budget has long been the major target of project management. Many organizations collect and analyze these budget and schedule me trics in an effort to improve them. Many of these same organizations have defined service level agreements that the IT organization must meet. In commercial contracts between IT
providers and companies, failure to meet project management targets can result in significant financial penalties.
Few IT professionals would argue against the concept that effective project management is mandatory. How to make it effective is the subject of much debate.
There have been, and continue to be, many project management methodologies. All of them attempt to define a controlled process that leads to consistent successes in systems delivery. The degree of success, however, is not usually rooted in the process itself. Rather, it is controlled to a substantial degree by the attitudes and culture of the people who must use it. Therefore, implementing a truly successful project management program is more of a culture change effort rather than merely installing the latest project management methodology. In fact, unless there is a culture change, the chances of the methodology being successfully used on an ongoing basis is minimal.
In the following sections, the authors describe a major culture change effort that was successfully accomplished using a project management program as the vehicle.
CASE STUDY BACKGROUND
The enterprise in this case study was part of a multi-billion dollar international manufacturing corporation, with a significant investment in IT. The enterprise prided itself on its innovative use of technology, and the internal IT organization had been recognized for excellence in influential industry publications.
Several factors within the customer organization contributed to the need for an effective project management process. The enterprise had experienced major business change, including a significant downturn in business, followed by a
divestiture of the business unit and a merger of the parent company with another major manufacturing corporation. During this time, IT funding had been significantly reduced and then restored. As the business unit pursued new opportunities, systems with current technology were required to address the market more effectively.
The IT organization was mature and centralized, and had been outsourced five years previously to a major IT services firm. A proprietary waterfall methodology developed by the customer was used throughout the 1980s, but the rigor with which it was employed had diminished with enterprise downturns (and related funding lapses) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A clause in the original outsourcing contract required the IT provider to use the customer proprietary approach unless authorized to do otherwise, because that methodology had been successfully applied in the past.
While the enterprise and technology were changing, the proprietary methodology was not being updated or adapted to the changing environment. Methods were not available to address client/server implementations, expanded project teaming situations, software package implementations, or deployment of projects in multiple small releases as needed to address rapidly changing business conditions. The environment provided an excellent opportunity to introduce a new methodology that would better fit the business needs.
THE BUSINESS NEED
Customer Drivers
Over a period of three to five years, the customer organization progressed from demanding that the IT service provider remain static in delivering services (as had been done successfully prior to the outsourcing), to demanding innovative IT
solutions and approaches from the provider. The enterprise was finding that its own customers demanded innovation, speed, and predictability in their products, and this demand had to be met by the IT service provider to enable the business to respond quickly to its own market demands.
With the change in business direction, the IT work evolved from maintenance and small enhancement tasks to more new development and major modification projects.
During this time, the customer noted that some projects were run successfully, while others failed. Often, significant investments were made in projects that eventually were determined not to be viable, or that took much longer and cost a great deal more than originally planned.
The planning and tracking for a project depended on the assigned project manager.
Those with more experience or more exposure to industry-accepted project management approaches tended to do more documentation, planning, and tracking
— and tended to be more successful. Others struggled to hit target budgets and schedules, or failed outright. Even those who were successful used different methods and work products to achieve the goals of the project. Both methods and results were unpredictable from the customer’
s perspective.
IT Service Provider Objectives
At the same time, the service provider was undertaking efforts to standardize project management tools and techniques across its own sites. Significant workforce flexibility could be achieved by using common processes at all work sites.
Consistently defined work breakdown structures and deliverables would enable employees to step into a project at any location or in any work group within a location, and immediately understand the project status and expected results.
The provider was winning new work, but suffering along with the rest of the industry in resourcing that new work. Experienced project managers were among the critical resources sought at almost every new outsourcing account. A program to define project management in a step-by-step manner, and to deliver training and tools to enable the successful rollout of the program, was considered a key objective. This program could then complement existing programs to identify and assess project managers for further career development.
Need for Predictability
Industry studies have shown that the deployment of standard processes in project management across an enterprise will result in improved consistency of results.
Budgets and schedules will be closer to reality. Over time, budgets and schedules will actually be reduced as a result of the improved consistency.
By implementing a consistent and repeatable approach to project management, both the customer and the provider saw that they could achieve increased productivity, better ability to quickly move employees to the projects where they were most needed, and greater predictability of the cost and duration of each project. It was in the interest of both parties to pursue a standard project management methodology.
APPROACH
A Three-Pronged Approach
Based on past experience, the methodology team determined that three components would be needed in the deployment plan:
§ Standard processes and procedures, defined at a detailed level
§ Tools to enable productivity in following the standards
§ Training that integrated the tools with the processes
Delivering any one piece without the others would not be successful.
A comprehensive set of techniques that could be used as a framework for the methodology was already available in the service provider’
s proprietary methodology.
What was needed was a very specific implementation of those techniques that incorporated the tools to support the process and delivery through a training class to all expected practitioners.
Standard Processes and Procedures
Definition of detailed, step-by-step procedures is by nature difficult and time –
consuming. In this case, the complexity of the procedures, combined with their interrelationships, made the task especially daunting. The methodology team was composed of experienced project managers who also had the skills to document the process. They worked both independently and as a group to write, review, integrate, and test the processes through a case study to ensure that they could be implemented in the customer environment.
The enterprise consisted of multiple functional areas, each of which operated differently and interacted with the service provider in different ways. A methodology was needed that would produce consistent results despite the differences in the ways requirements were received, and the differences in size and nature of the projects.
The processes had to be designed in such a way as to make them applicable to projects of all sizes. Any effort that was not solely intended to correct a malfunction was considered a project for the purpose of following the methodology. For that reason, the process had to be flexible in allowing a project manager (with the help of a trained methodologist) to select those steps that were pertinent to the project and avoid unnecessary steps. However, the tailoring of the path through the methodology had to be a result of conscious review and decision, rather than automatic elimination of requirements. Even small projects might be high risk or mission critical, requiring a fuller implementation of the methodology.
Tools to Support the New Process
Previous attempts at introducing new processes had failed when the implementation proved too difficult or time -consuming for the staff. While they might agree with the conceptual need to plan and document, when these tasks became overwhelming, they were tempted to move on to the more exciting challenges of technology. Often, the customer encouraged them to cut corners as well, wanting to move quickly into visible, deliverable code. This approach turned out to be shortsighted when the code delivered did not meet the customer’