Schlagwort-Archive: Project

The adequate quantity – the phantom of planning

Imagine somebody is planning a trip from Hannover to Madrid and is trying to fill his VW Golf with 100 liters gasoline. Without a petrol canister more than 50 liters would leak immediately on the floor of the filling station, since the tank can not absorb this quantity. Even if this sounds unreal, this craziness happens every day in all companies. The managers demand results from the employees, which go far beyond realistic expectations. External support gets purchased, although there is not sufficient internal capacity to support the measures. Objectives are simply not aligned with the available capabilities. In the absence of meaningful parameters, practical experiences and realistic conditions, the adequate quantity spooks through the entire planning process like a phantom.

This phantom generates at least one of the following three effects.

  • If more does not offer anything more
    Goodwill is not enough, if one reaches the limits of the capacity. The furnishing with the necessary resources does not lead to any advantages, if the workload can no longer be stemmed by the existing workforce. If external support is planned in areas, where collaboration with internal people is required, but they do not have time, then it is as if the tank is full and still being filled. A lack of an overview of the workload, incorrect estimates of the required person days and ignoring the basic conditions of an initiative lead to wasting the tight budget. In this case more does not offer anything more.
  • If too little offers nothing at all
    The smarter approach seems to be the use of less than necessary from the outset. This is the case when sufficient capacities are available internally, but in the procurement of external support money is spared. The task can not be controlled with the available internal know-how. Nevertheless, insufficient support is provided – perhaps in the hope that one gets more than one pays. This is as if you want to drive far away, but the tank is not filled the way that one can drive with an economical driving style so that there would be at least a chance to arrive. Without having any idea of the required quantity, with the hope that the outcomes will be produced by themselves and with distrust of the external service providers, this prevents the desired results. In this case, too little is not only correspondingly less, but it leads to a total failure of the task.
  • When the right amount draws the line
    The appropriate approach is based on clear objectives, anticipatory costs and the transfer of estimates to existing resources. Not only the available times of the individual employees are taken into account, but also their personal knowledge and experience as well as an estimation of the set-up times. In addition, the expenses of the external parties must be assessed and assigned to the individual tasks. In sum, one comes to an estimate, which must be mercilessly integrated into the timeframe. Trivialization, gossip, or veiling in order to whitewash the planning may create the impression that the planning is good. Practically, it is only a matter of time before the hidden difficulties arise and the initiative fails. Two thirds of the projects fail due to poor planning. Ambitious targets, cost pressure and the lack of employees put the planners under pressure. With all the effort, however, there is nothing to be done but to fit into the situation, to adjust the objectives to the available capacities and financial resources. In the end, the right amount determines the limit of the achievable.

Bottom line: For almost all, it is comprehensible that one can drive less far, the less one puts gas into the tank. However, this seems not to apply to the planning of projects. On the one hand, resources are wasted, because they do not fit into the internal realization possibilities. On the other hand, means are greedily spared, in the hope of reaching far enough – maybe the initiative fails anyway and one can make this failure more cost-efficient. The right amount can not perform magic, but make the goals reachable. As long as a corresponding feel for the adequate quantity is missing, all have to look for the phantom of the adequate quantity.

Project leaders – the nameless heroes

In the course of history amazing constructions were built in different regions of the world. Even with our current capabilities, we are overwhelmed by the Egyptian pyramids, the Forbidden city in Beijing or the Taj Mahal.

All these huge achievements have in common that they were made by people with the technical possibilities of their time. Is it not amazing that we know only few of the responsible leaders? Does anyone remember at least one historic project manager? Only few are known by name;

  • Hemiunu, responsible for Egyptian pyramids,
  • Kuai Xiang, architect of the Forbidden city in Beijing, and
  • Ahmad Lahori and Abu Fazel, construction supervisors of the Taj Mahal.

Projektleiter01

What kind of activities they did is not handed down. Probably they realized their ideas holistically, including the planning, controlling and monitoring of the tasks, people, materials, logistics, finances etc. Until today the project managers are celebrated less than the initiators and project sponsors – especially on the successful third.

The methods used today were developed only in the last one hundred years: the Gantt chart, the Critical path, Work breakdown structure, PMBOK, PRINCE, Agile Manifesto, or ISO21500. Since the Sixties more and more books were published about project management (PM) – see http://ow.ly/LbQHe . Within the last twenty years specialists have taken shape, who are doing nothing else than steering temporary endeavors – the project managers.

  • They organize the building blocks of the project,
  • coordinate the stakeholders,
  • lead and motivate the team,
  • plan, steer and supervise execution and the results,
  • take responsibility for interim and final results, and
  • maintain the contact to internal and external parties.

People such as Tom DeMarco or Frederick P. Brooks described the issues of steering projects with memorable stories. Who does not know the hint from The Mythical Man-Month* that „ … it takes a woman nine months to have a baby. But you Americans think, if you get nine women pregnant, you can have a baby in a month. “

Despite the standardization of the experiences that contains and link all important PM elements with one another, still two thirds of the projects miss their planned targets (seehttp://ow.ly/zy5hB). The complexity and susceptibility increases, what lets small disturbances become large problems. Only a few, outstanding examples are available, since large-scale projects rather announce their successes than their difficulties. Famous examples are the new City-Airport Berlin and the California high-speed rail between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

In enterprises it does not work differently. Successful projects strengthen the reputation of the Top-management. The project managers and external advisers do not become visible, except, if something goes wrong. This still leads to a higher reputation of the hierarchical line responsibility than the dynamic, uncertain work in projects. Project leadership has the following disadvantages:

  • The task is limited in time, but difficult to oversee.
  • Project managers do not only have to satisfy their own superiors, but also other high-ranking hierarchs involved.
  • They are in competition with disciplinary superiors concerning the availability of employees and other resources.
  • The project business is more dynamic and characterized by more Ad-Hoc tasks.
  • The probability to pull an advantage from the task is not very high due to the temporary constellation of powers.
  • The largest disadvantage is the personal cut-off from the developments in the home department. A project manager is not on the radar of the superiors during a long period. In the „musical game“, the distribution of the tasks and job positions, the “absent” project leaders are mostly forgotten.

With the missing consideration and appreciation of the project managers, the enterprise loses an important opportunity for increasing the employee satisfaction. The public acknowledgment of the achievements of project managers and their teams would encourage the staff to take actively part in the change of the enterprise. With the Intranet and the many, internal meetings there are sufficient channels for public appreciation available. The Top management only has to take care of it. Special achievements could be used even for external marketing, i.e. for improving the corporate image.

Bottom line: The projects are the crucial hubs for change in an enterprise. Where are the PM heroes? Who knows their names? Why the project managers are so poorly appreciated? As long as they remain the nameless heroes, who pay the price for the advancement of the company, nobody should expect substantial improvements.

* The Mythical Man-Month, Frederick P. Brooks, Addison-Wesley 1995 ISBN 020183595