The Project Workout

The Ultimate Guide to Directing and Managing Business-Led Projects

Robert Buttrick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138744493
• eBook ISBN: 9781351761000
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Projects are an important strategic management tool and a way of life in every business. But how do you get started and ensure you realize the benefits you need? Now in its 5th edition, the Project Workout is the definitive book on business-led project management. It is a valuable companion for every executive and project manager as well as a comprehensive resource for students of project management.

Projects are a way of life in every business and an important strategic management tool. But how do you ensure a project realizes the benefits you need? The Project Workout provides practical advice and techniques to direct and manage a project. Aimed at both project sponsors and project managers, it works through the life cycle of a project from initial idea to successful result. The practical approach is enhanced throughout with a series of "Workouts": exercises, techniques and checklists to help you put the book's advice into practice. The Workouts are supported by an on-line resource of tools, including MS project views, project logs and templates. This expanded edition contains a wealth of new information, including how to work with standards and methods, such as ISO 21500, BS6079 and PRINCE2 and PMBoK.

The companion to this book, The Programme and Portfolio Workout, deals with directing and managing whole portfolios of projects, making sure everyone in your organization is working towards the same goals; together these books give you what you need to ensure all your projects succeed.

Part I
Challenges to Be Faced

“Minds are like parachutes; they only work when open”

LORD DEWAR

In this part of the book I set out the challenges many organizations face in driving through the changes they need to make in pursuit of their strategic objectives. This is followed by a review of good practice used by some of the world’s leading companies.

How to use Part I

Part I is for you to read and learn from. When first reading it, you should forget about your own situation and the problems in your organization. Open your mind to what others are saying and doing. If you find yourself saying “but we don’t do it like that, we are different!” pull yourself back. You are different. So is everyone else. But other people’s experience, even from other industries or sectors, may give you a clue to dealing with the issues confronting you.

The workouts in Part I are designed to help you think about your “project” and to prompt action or discussion on the parts you feel will benefit you.

You can share your own experience with the author on projectworkout.com

1
Challenges we need to face

1. Problems, more problems
2. Initiatives fail, are cancelled, or never get started - why?

In our new world of the twenty-first century no organization is immune from “shut down” if it fails to perform.

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored”

ALDOUS HUXLEY

Problems, more problems

All organizations have problems with the way they undertake their work and tackle change. Problems may be related to any aspect, be it technology, people, processes, systems, or structure. There is always something, somewhere that needs to be created, dropped, or improved. Over the past few decades, a variety of techniques and offerings have been available to business leaders to enable them to do this, including:

• Management by Objectives
• Added Value Analysis
• Total Quality Management
• Business Process Reengineering
• LEAN and Agile
• Six Sigma
• Value Management.

All these, and many more, have contributed greatly to the performance of a significant number of organizations but it is a sad fact that many organizations have failed (and continue to fail) to secure the enduring benefits initially promised. Something has gone wrong. It would seem that we are not all as good as we should be at managing and controlling change in order to achieve sustained benefits from such initiatives.

“Grand” initiatives of the kind just mentioned are not the only ones that can fail; organizations must continually strive to solve particular problems or achieve specific objectives. For example:

• new products and services are developed, old ones are enhanced or withdrawn;
• supply chains are changed;
• manufacturing processes are altered to take account of new methods and technologies;
• sales channels are developed;
• new plant and offices are opened, old ones are closed;
• key business functions are out sourced;
• businesses are disposed of;
• acquisitions are integrated into the mainstream business;
• information systems are built to give greater efficiency and add to the overall effectiveness of the operation.

Again, many of these initiatives fail. Either they:

• cost too much;
• take too long;
• are inadequately scoped and specified;
• don’t work as needed;
• or simply don’t realize the expected benefits.

This amounts to failure on a scale which costs billions every year and for some organizations results in their demise. It happens in the private, public and charitable sectors, small undertakings, and major multinational enterprises. In our new world of the twenty-first century no organization is immune from “shut down” if it fails to perform.

It would seem that we are not all as good as we should be at managing and controlling change in order to achieve sustained benefits from such initiatives.

Initiatives fail, are cancelled or never get started – why?

A review of a representative cross-section of large companies reveals a common pattern of cause and effect. Figure 1.1 shows the fundamental reasons are twofold:

• Organizations don’t know HOW to control change. There is no “organization-wide” way of undertaking business change initiatives and so management and team members act to different and even conflicting rules and norms of behaviour.
• Organizations don’t know WHAT they should be doing. There is no clear strategy driving requirements and decision making and consequently an organization may waste money on the wrong projects.

This book concentrates on how to solve the first of these root causes (how to do it) but, as Figure 1.1 shows, successful projects also rely heavily on the latter (what to do) being in place. You will, therefore, see frequent references to business strategy throughout the book.

Notice how most of the issues in Figure 1.1 can’t be solved by the project manager; they require a change in the way the organization, as a whole, is directed and managed. Some organizations are so poor at providing the right enterprise-wide support, they are condemning their project managers to inevitable failure and only the rare “heroic” project manager will succeed and only then despite of the organization, not because of it.

A review of a representative cross-section of large companies reveals a common pattern of cause and effect.

If any of the problems identified in this chapter or drawn out from Figure 1.1 are familiar to you and recognizable in your organization, there is clearly scope for improving your performance:

Figure 1.1 Problem analysis
A cause and effect analysis of the reasons for the failure of business change projects shows two fundamental reasons: (i) a lack of clear strategy, (ii) a lack of a rational way of managing the required changes. If your projects fail, then ultimately so will your business. Note how many of the problems can’t be solved by a project manager but require a shift in how the organization, as a whole, is managed.

• The solution to issues relating to single initiatives in isolation, I refer to as project management; this is covered in this book, The Project Workout.
• The solution to issues relating to groups of closely connected projects, I refer to as programme management; this is covered in The Programme and Portfolio Workout.
• The solution to issues relating to the undertaking of a large number of programmes and projects, I refer to as business portfolio management; this is also covered in The Programme and Portfolio Workout.

If an organization is to reap the full benefits, it must be competent at all three management approaches. Further, those management approaches must be implemented in a mutually consistent way if the organization’s people are to work together effectively and efficiently.

Workout 1.1 – Self-diagnosis

This workout is best done by a project sponsor with the project manager and key team members.

1. Use the following questions as prompts to help establish the areas of competence you may need to address.
   • Can you establish a clear link between your organization’s business strategy and your project?
   • Is it clear why you are undertaking this project?
   • Do you find upper and middle management communicate and pass on instructions accurately?
   • Do you find it easy to get decisions made?
   • Does your organization have any documented criteria against which decisions on whether or not to undertake initiatives are tested?
   • If so, are they applied to your project?
   • Is there a disciplined method or way of managing initiatives and projects across your organization?
   • Is there always enough time to do those things which must be done?
   • Do your managers and employees commit themselves to and meet the targets set for them?
2. Do you really KNOW, and can you prove:
   • Who benefits from your project?
   • Who is the project sponsor?
   • Who makes the decisions on your project?
   • Who is the project manager?
   • Who will be adversely impacted by your project?
   • The cost and benefits of your project to date?
   • The total costs and benefits when it’s finished?
   • What activities your resources are committed to?
   • When your resources have free or slack time?
3. Build a cause and effect diagram similar to Figure 1.1 for your organization. Start with “Projects fail, are terminated, late, or never started” written on a Post-it Note at the bottom of a flip chart. Ask yourself why this happens. Write each possible reason on a Post-It Note and place these on the flip chart. Again, for each Post-It Note, ask the reason why, writing these on more Post-It Notes. Eventually, if you are honest, you will discover a core reason(s), picking up many symptoms on the way.

2
Advice the best organizations give us

1. The study
2. The lessons and their implications
3. But we're different!: organization context
4. Using a staged project framework increases the likelihood of success

The advice in this chapter is based on a benchmarking exercise undertaken by the author, coupled with his own experience of working within a number of major organizations.

"Example moves the world more than doctrine”

HENRY MILLER

The study

The problems outlined in the previous chapter are significant and far-reaching. Finding solutions you can trust and have confidence in is difficult. The advice in this chapter is based on a study undertaken by the author, coupled with his own experience of working within several major organizations across a number of industries.

In a business context, a project is a project, regardless of whether it is technology based, for cultural change, complex change, or whatever.

The study questions were not explicitly related to project management, and so avoided preconceptions on the part of those involved on what a “project” is. Rather, the questions related to “product development” as the development and launching of products or services touches almost every part of every organization. This field is an excellent medium for learning about complex, cross-functional projects and how organizations address them. If an organization cannot develop their products and services efficiently, it is probable that it cannot tackle any other form of cross-functional project effectively either. In a business context, a project is a project, regardless of whether it is technology-based, for cultural change, complex change, or whatever. The study had the following characteristics:

• The survey was undertaken through face-to-face interviews, thereby ensuring both the questions and answers were properly understood.
• It was predominantly qualitative with only a few quantitative questions added to obtain such “hard data” as were available. It was considered more important to find out how people worked rather than collect statistics w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of project workouts
• Foreword by Robert Heller
• Acknowledgements
• About the author
• Preface to the Fifth Edition
• Introduction
• Part I Challenges to be Faced
• Part II A Walk through the Project Life cycle
• Part III The Essentials You Need to Know
• Part IV Making Project Management Work for You
• Appendix A Glossary
• Appendix B Document outlines
• Appendix C Method and standards commentary
• Appendix D Good meetings
• Appendix E Brainstorming
• Index