Project Management for Performance Improvement Teams

William S. Ruggles, H. James Harrington

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351643962
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Project Management for Performance Improvement Teams (or, PM4PITs, for short) provides practical guidance based on innovative concepts for project teams -- especially Performance Improvement Teams (PITs)—and their Project Managers on how to successfully complete individual projects and programs using an ingenious and scalable framework based on an innovative foundation fusing together elements of Project Management, Innovation Management, and Continual Improvement. This book lays out how Project and Program Managers and their teams can "do those right projects the right way," one project at a time.

It details what continual improvement, change, and innovation are, why they are so important, and how they apply to performance improvement—both incremental and transformative. The authors examine the four types of work and workforce management in organizations, Strategic, Operations, Projects, and Crises, using four common comparative variables: Proactive/Preventive versus Reactive/Corrective, Temporary/Unique versus Ongoing/Repetitive, Innovative versus Maintaining the Status Quo, and Schedule Focus: Fiscal Year versus Short Term versus Long Term. These comparisons set the stage for the uniqueness of the third type: Projects (and Programs) that are fundamentally change-driven.

1

The Traditional Frameworks for Project Management and Continual Improvement

INTRODUCTION

“I have been assigned to manage a series of projects over the past few years, each of which has had a set of expectations—‘good, fast, and cheap’—that when combined, I believe to be both unreasonable and impractical. When it first happened, I tried hard to get my project teams to achieve all three expectations, but I soon learned that there was never enough time or money to do all the work right the first time. So, we’ve usually resorted to doing the best we could with what we had, and failing; then, we ended up making the time and finding the money to fix it…seemingly forever! That’s not what I call ‘successful’!”

We’ve heard this “rant” over and over and, when we don’t hear it, someone is usually thinking it, but doesn’t want to say it out loud. Yet, a new project—especially a performance improvement project—can be the lifeblood of an organization. Without a series of successful project outcomes, such an organization lacks a secure future. Fortunately, there’s a better way to manage a project in the 21st century and we’ll share it with you in Chapters 2 through 11.

But first, let’s make sure you’re familiar with the existing, “traditional” frameworks for Project Management and Continual Improvement and, most importantly, their shortcomings.

TRADITIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

Since 1996, the “traditional” or “mainstream” framework for project management, especially in North America, has been defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI)—a global, professional association for project, program, and portfolio management based in the USA—via its publication called The Project Management Body of Knowledge (aka the PMBOK^® Guide).¹

What is a project? PMI’s current definition of a “project” is: “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”² We believe this traditional definition falls short in one respect in that it does NOT also include the modification or improvement of an existing product, service, system, or process as the deliverable. While this traditional PM subsection does include as an example of a deliverable “an enhancement or correction to an item,” it is not an integral part of the definition of a project, itself. Hence, you will read in Chapter 2 that our contemporary definition of a “project” is: “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create or modify a unique product, service, system or result.” (Authors’ note: By “unique,” we mean that there is at least ONE variable that differs from project to project (e.g., different customer, different requirements, different team members, different venue, different acceptance criteria, etc.).

Now, having clarified the definition of a “project,” what is Project Management? The latest version of the traditional framework for project management defines it as “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements” and that it should be “accomplished through the appropriate application and integration of the project management processes identified for the project.”³

Our definition of Project Management differs slightly: “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to balance competing constraints for a new or modified product, service, system, or result in order to meet project requirements and, when applicable, project portfolio priorities. The six primary, competing constraints are scope, quality, schedule, cost, resources, and risk.” More on this in Chapter 2.

The latest version of the traditional project management framework contains three parts: a set of 13 chapters and References (Part 1); the Standard for Project Management (Part 2); and a set of six Appendices, a Glossary, and an Index (Part 3).

The first three chapters of Part 1—“Chapter 1: Introduction,” “Chapter 2: The Environment in Which Projects Operate,” and “Chapter 3: The Role of the Project Manager”—provide a conceptual and operational context and a theoretical foundation for projects. Then, Chapters 4 through 13 provide detailed descriptions of the following 10 Project Management Knowledge Areas: Integration, Scope, Schedule, Cost, Quality, Resources, Communications, Risk, Procurement, and Stakeholder Management, and each of its respective processes of which there are a total of 49.⁴

The “Standard for Project Management” presented in Part 2 of the current edition of the traditional framework includes an Introduction plus those same 49 processes presented in a different fashion: via their inclusion in one of five “Project Management Process Groups” (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring/Controlling, and Closing).⁵

Finally, even though they don’t appear in the latest edition of the PMBOK^® Guide, there are two other popular (but outdated) concepts that have pervaded the traditional project management training and education curricula the past 25 years. They are known as the “Triple Constraint” or the “Iron Triangle.”⁶ There’ll be more coverage of these two anachronistic concepts in the next section of this chapter.

What’s Wrong with the Traditional Framework for Project Management?

While there’s a lot to like in the latest version of the traditional framework for project management, we believe that there are at least three major shortcomings in the sixth edition.⁷ As such, we believe it falls short of providing Senior Leadership, the PMO Director, and, most importantly, the Project Manager and his/her Project Team with the latest in conceptual and practical underpinnings to address the challenges and opportunities of 21st-century projects. These three shortcomings are the following:

1. The outdated “Triple Constraint” and “Iron Triangle” concepts
2. The two missing Project Management Knowledge Areas (Project Change and Project Technology Management) and their 12 combined processes
3. The ambiguous interrelationships among and interactions between the five Project Management Process Groups

Here’s how we view these three shortcomings.

Shortcoming #1: The Outdated “Triple Constraint” and the “Iron Triangle” Concepts

These two concepts presume that each project has three constraints—Scope, Time, and Cost—that, together, form a three-sided object—a triangle—whose rigid shape, according to its proponents, must be maintained at all times in accordance with Stakeholder expectations or in order to deliver Quality. Hence, during the project’s life cycle, if one of these constraints changes (e.g., increased Scope) so, too, must at least ONE of the other two constraints (e.g., either more Time or higher Cost) change to maintain or balance its rigid triangular shape (Figure 1.1).⁸

Unfortunately, we believe strongly that these two concepts have become anachronistic or outdated, at best, and no longer applicable, at worst. They need to be updated or replaced! We also believe that any new conceptual models should reflect the contents of the latest edition of the PMBOK^® Guide, which actually identifies a total of SIX project constraints, NOT three, which have to be balanced on each project.⁹ Yet, none of the hundreds of PM Training Vendors, including the PMI^® Registered Education Providers (R. E. P.s), seem to have noticed and updated their curricular materials to reflect this overdue update. Hopefully, that has been officially changed with the publication of this book.

FIGURE 1.1
Triple Constraint/Iron Triangles.

Shortcoming #2: Two Missing Project Management Knowledge Areas and 12 Processes

Chapters 4 through 13 of the current edition of the PMBOK^® Guide provide detailed descriptions of the 10 Project Management Knowledge Areas: Integration, Scope, Schedule, Cost, Quality, Resources, Communications, Risk, Procurement, and Stakeholders (in that order) (Figure 1.2).

FIGURE 1.2
Ten PM Knowledge Areas.

While we are satisfied with the 10 traditional Project Management Knowledge Areas, we believe that there are still two missing—Project Change Management and Project Technology Management—each of which has six processes. We believe that these two Knowledge Areas (we call them “Performance Domains” in our contemporary framework) and 12 processes should be added to the traditional ones and we do so with our Contemporary Framework in the next chapter.

For example, when it comes to change, on the one hand, the traditional framework for project management’s focus is on the impact of internal and external forces that cause change ON or TO the project. On the other hand, our contemporary framework’s focus also includes the opposite direction as well: the impact of the project that causes change ON or TO the Requesting (Receiving) organization. Hence, without our Project Change Management Knowledge Area (Performance Domain) an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Traditional Frameworks for Project Management and Continual Improvement
• Chapter 2 A Contemporary Framework for Applying Project Management and Continual Improvement for Performance Improvement Teams
• Chapter 3 Project Change Management (PCM)
• Chapter 4 Project Technology Management (PTechM)
• Chapter 5 Stage #1: Align the Project
• Chapter 6 Stage #2: Plan the Project
• Chapter 7 Stage #3: Execute the Project Work
• Chapter 8 Stage #4: Check/Act on the Latest Performance Data
• Chapter 9 Stage #5: Confirm the Results (Iterate?)
• Chapter 10 Sustaining the Gains and Realizing the Benefits
• Chapter 11 Connecting with the Organization’s PMO
• Epilogue
• Glossary of Terms
• Index