White Papers | Project Value Delivery Updates

What to Look at When Conducting a Schedule Statistical Analysis

Sep 22, 2013PVD admin2 CommentsWhite Papers

We have observed that Schedule Statistical Analysis, when implemented, is often interpreted wrongly or does not bring the expected value. Beyond the obvious results (finish date) however, such an analysis can bring troves of useful information, through a deeper understanding of the project schedule’s drivers. In particular, Schedule Statistical Analysis can be used to identify improvements that can significantly enhance the robustness of a project schedule. In our new White Paper 2013-10 we explain what you should really look at when conducting a Schedule Statistical Analysis (SSA) – and how such an analysis should be conducted.

Like any model of reality, SSA has a lot of limitations and its results should absolutely not be taken as granted. A lot of real-life effects are not modeled in the simulation.

We believe that the most important result is to understand how robust the critical path of the deterministic schedule really is. The White Paper gives key tips in how to improve the resilience of the project schedule based on the SSA result.

A very large proportion of our clients do not use Schedule Statistical Analysis (SSA) properly, and do not look at the right results. This tends to diminish the value of SSA in the eye of decision-makers.

This latest White Paper 2013-10 shows in detail what is the right approach for SSA and what are the types of results that can be – and cannot be – expected. As with any tool, SSA is a very powerful tool if its limitations are properly understood as well as what type of understanding it can really bring.

Crude Estimates of Possible Project Overrun

Sep 1, 2013PVD adminWhite Papers

Project planning is systemically always optimistic. It supposes that tasks are handed over between contributors without any inefficiency, that resources are fully available when they are needed, and even sometimes are not resources loaded so that they are quite unrealistic! What should then be a rule of thumb when it comes to project delays?

In our new White Paper 2013-09 Crude Estimates of Possible Project Overrun we discuss this issue and the fact that we consider that the basic delay that can be expected is generally, on the order of 15 to 20% of the initial project duration.

The White Paper discusses the factors that are favorable and unfavorable for recovery for a particular project.

Unless the project industry makes some efforts to ban competition on the basis of overly optimistic schedules, Owners and Contractors alike must expect significant schedule and cost overruns from their complex projects. The paper gives indications as to what could be done to improve the reliability of project schedules. At Project Value Delivery, we work to explain to Owners and Contractors alike how implementing those good practices at an early stage could avoid so much disappointment and conflicts later. Read our new White Paper 2013-09 Crude Estimates of Possible Project Overrun and join us in this movement seeking to establish less optimistic schedules for large, complex projects!

Is Your Project Going to Be Late? Well, it Will Be Much Later than you Forecast!

Aug 4, 2013PVD adminWhite Papers

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the famous author of “Black Swan”, makes a strong point in his book about the fallibility of planning when it comes to projects in a complex world. He shows how the probability of the duration of a complex project is nothing but a long tail curve with astonishing practical consequences for the project leader: the more your project is late, the more late you can expect it to be beyond what you think!

Out latest White Paper 2013-08 explains the mathematical background of a surprising truth:

If your project is forecast to be late, it will be finally around twice as late as you expect today!

Indeed, for complex projects, our “intuition” that if we are late, things should sort themselves out and converge is wrong. It will get worse!

You might not believe it. Try it, it works – and it is supported by actual mathematical theories on complex systems.

In complex systems, intuition is not necessarily a good counsel and it is better to expect the worst when a project starts deviating significantly from its expected duration or cost. Cutting losses by stopping before it is too late – or alternatively benefiting from a great contract protection – might be the only way to save your company in these cases.

Read our ground breaking new White Paper 2013-08 ‘Black Swan Schedule Management: Is Your Project Going to Be Late? Well, it Will Be Even Later than you Forecast!’

How Changing Mindset is the Prerequisite of Any Organizational Change

Jul 7, 2013PVD adminWhite Papers

A constant feedback from organizational change initiatives that are deployed in project organizations is how much the success of the change depends on changing the organization mindset first. What is the mindset that is needed for Large, Complex Projects? What is the best way to introduce this mindset change?

There are the key issues developed in our new White Paper “How Changing Mindset is the Prerequisite of Any Organizational Change” (2013-06).

Too often, organizational change projects are launched without considering that the current mindset of the organization is inappropriate to the new situation. There are several ways to change an organization’s mindset, depending on the context. Both behavioral changes, and processes and systems changes, are needed.

Real organizational change is tough, because it is emotionally tough. Organizational change requires focus, personal investment and a lot of emotional work to achieve the expected transformation.

This is why so many executives and organizations pay lip service to it, choosing to implement some cosmetic changes in processes and systems and hoping that it will create real change. They do not want to see, or they fear to realize that it requires emotional investment. It does not work that way. Organizational change requires focus, personal investment and a lot of emotional work to achieve the expected transformation. It requires considering the organization not as a machine but as a team of individuals that work together to a common purpose.
Assess whether you are really ready to do the emotional work by answering the four questions:

Are you crystal clear on the expected behaviours, can you write them down?
Are you ready to let go of performing people that do not behave as expected?
Are you ready to make these decisions publicly known and communicated?
Are you ready to commit full-time a key member of the executive team to the change?

Understand what it takes to bring change in an organization by reading our new White Paper “How Changing Mindset is the Prerequisite of Any Organizational Change” (2013-06).

How to Implement Due Diligence for Project-Driven Organizations

Jun 2, 2013PVD adminWhite Papers

Due diligence to appreciate the value of an organization (before an acquisition, for example) is a specialty generally driven by finance specialists. However in the case of project-driven organizations, conventional financial analysis cannot easily reflect the actual situation of the organization and what can be expected to happen. Project Value Delivery’s unique expertise and experience is shared in the new White Paper 2013-07 which includes practices and tools to improve the reliability of these due diligence.

We recommend a five step approach:

Check the adequateness of the Cost Control approach
Check the quality of the Project Controls processes
Check the actual project performance and extrapolate the possible outcome
Evaluate actual expected cash flow of current projects
Add-on the treatment of assets

Because of the fact that projects are one-off endeavors, usual approaches used for manufacturing companies cannot be used for due diligence of project organizations. The insights of experienced specialists in project management and project controls are needed to give the right understanding of the opportunities and risks of the organization being analysed, which often can be extremely significant both ways, changing fundamentally the perceived and actual value of the organization under scrutiny.

Proper due diligence of project-driven organizations should not be underestimated. There are many examples of poor decision-making in the area of project-driven organizations’ acquisitions conducted without a proper understanding of the issues at stake – and the actual final valuation can be quite different from the rosy picture shown by conventional accounting!

Read our latest White Paper 2013-07 to understand what it takes to do successfully the due diligence of project-driven organization!

Improve Communication and Synergy between Disciplines to Reach Project Excellence

May 19, 2013PVD adminWhite Papers

In several of our consulting assignments we have found that project organizations were too focused on discipline and specialty excellence and did not put enough emphasis on the inter-discipline communication for project delivery – albeit obviously the most effective improvement would have been found there. This new White Paper 2013-05 “Improving Communication and Synergy between Disciplines: the Way to Project Delivery Excellence” explores the topic from the perspective of where the emphasis needs to be in terms of organizational development.

The result of non-communicating disciplines

Organizations often tend to focus on improving each discipline with the hope of getting each discipline to deliver more reliably. It does not work, or at best produces only marginal improvements. In particular for complex projects, the key is not in improving each step of the process. It is in improving the communication between all the steps. Even if each discipline is super-efficient, but they don’t communicate, the overall effectiveness will be very limited!

Investing to improve single disciplines is easy. Specialists will know what to do to improve the efficiency of their discipline. Improving all disciplines to the point where they follow the world-class processes of their discipline will be expensive as there are many disciplines involved – but it can be done.
Investing to improve communication between disciplines during project execution is hard. It takes creativity to find the right way, and it requires customized tools and changes to the arrangement of office space and behaviors.
What should you invest in? If your project-oriented organization is executing complex projects and is plagued by a lack of communication, invest in communication first. For the same effort and cost the result will be incomparably more effective, bringing your organization to the next level in terms of project success.

Read our new White Paper 2013-05 “Improving Communication and Synergy between Disciplines: the Way to Project Delivery Excellence” to understand better this key insight into the workings of project organizations.

How Proper Project Risk Management Goes Against Common Management Thinking

May 5, 2013PVD admin1 CommentWhite Papers

Low probability, high consequence risks happen more often than we usually think and they are the ones that ultimately, shape a company or even an industry. Because they do not happen often, their prevention is easily overlooked and left to the next project. Yet, high risk industries like the nuclear or the aeronautics industry can teach us basic techniques and mindsets we can use to easily diminish the probability and the impact these risk. The project organizations that will implement these simple techniques will gain significantly in consistency of delivery and protect themselves against catastrophic events.

Our new White Paper 2013-04 “Project Risk Management Reloaded: How Proper Risk Management in Project Organizations Goes Against Common Management Thinking” tackles this important issue.

It is a basic property of complex systems to make high consequence events happen much more often than we would normally expect. High risk industries implement comprehensive frameworks that develop prevention principles into strict guidelines. They are developed in the White Paper.

In project organizations, the worst that can happen is an organizational common cause of failure. The biggest challenge organizations face is how to effectively diversify their ways of doing things to avoid common causes of process failures. This goes against the tendency to seek maximum efficiency through standardization of tools and processes.

The point is that in today’s world in general, and even more in project organizations, efficiency of repeated production is not the key to success. Resilience to chaos or adaptation capability are the keys to success. If that goes with some loss of efficiency, so be it.
The biggest challenge organizations face is how to effectively diversify their ways of doing things to avoid common causes of process failures. This means, letting individual projects experiment with new ways of doing things, within certain limits; accept small failures to avoid a larger one that would wipe out the organization; and accept small failures to find better ways of doing things. Are you ready for that?

Read our White Paper 2013-04 “Project Risk Management Reloaded: How Proper Risk Management in Project Organizations Goes Against Common Management Thinking” why you need to change your approach to risk management today!

New Expert’s Corner Paper: Time at Large and Extension of Time

Apr 21, 2013PVD adminCompany updates, Experts' Corner papers, Website Updates, White Papers

If you come often to visit Project Value Delivery’s website you might have noticed our new ‘Experts’ Corner’. In alignment with our mission to make Large, Complex Projects’ execution more reliable, we make freely available cutting edge knowledge from world-class experts.

This new section has been opened by a detailed paper on Time at Large and Extension of Time Principles, by Thierry Linares. This excellent paper exposes very clearly the benefits of the new standard forms of contract and why the issue is to important to project execution practitioners. Treatment of time in the contract is an issue for both the Employer and the Contractor and both need to be careful otherwise difficult situations may arise.

This paper has been written by a contract expert and is very readable for all project practitioners of large, complex projects. Don’t miss Time at Large and Extension of Time Principles, by Thierry Linares!

We encourage experts and practitioners to submit a paper for PVD’s Experts’ Corner, to enhance the knowledge in our community. You’ll find the submission instructions here. If you ever wanted to publish but were apprehensive to do so, you will benefit from our help and support to edit your paper and improve its readability to match our quality criteria (of course, papers must be specifically applicable to large, complex projects execution).

How to Develop the Leaders you Need for your Large, Complex Projects

Apr 14, 2013PVD adminWhite Papers

Throughout the industry, talents are lacking for leading Large, Complex Projects, even more so as a generation of project leaders is retiring. Developing the leaders you need for the upcoming wave of Large, Complex Projects is a necessity. And at the same time we need to give them a structured education to increase the success probability of those projects. How can we develop these talents? What education do they really need? Is your current project manager development program adequate?

These are the essential issues addressed in our new White Paper 2013-03 “How to Develop the Leaders you Need for your Large, Complex Project”.

Project management classroom training is not sufficient to develop your future project leaders!

Growing voluntarily a new generation of effective project leadership talent is unavoidable and the most advanced project-oriented organizations have started creating specific development programs.

For Large, Complex Projects, classical project management educational programs are not effective. Successful project leaders’ development programs must involve Education first – and Training second. We are firm believers that it is first important to develop the soft skills, self-awareness and in general, the mindset of the upcoming project leaders (as it is the key to facing successfully the inevitable issues of project execution). On the other hand, process-related knowledge or even technical-related knowledge is relatively easy to learn, in particular by people that have the right mindset, discipline, humility and self-esteem.

Developing your future project leaders for large, complex projects is not easy. It does not take just one week of training here and there. It needs to be a comprehensive, long term approach focused on developing the person’s character and behaviour in facing those types of unexpected events that are part and parcel of project leadership.

Read our new White Paper 2013-03 “How to Develop the Leaders you Need for your Large, Complex Project” for the detail of our recommendations on the content of development programs for your future project leaders for Large, Complex projects.

Stop Taking Change as an Exception: The Need for Agile Project Planning

Mar 31, 2013PVD admin2 CommentsWhite Papers

In project delivery, in particular for complex projects, change is not an exception. It is rather the rule. Most of the project management effort is actually spent in managing deviations and change to the initial plan. How come, then, that project delivery processes are usually designed to manage change as an exception? Would it not be more effective and powerful to design project delivery processes around change and agility as a core component?

Our White Paper 2013-02 “Stop Taking Change as an Exception: The Need for Agile Project Planning” covers this astonishing problem in detail.

What makes the difference when it comes to project success is often more how agile the organization was to account for changes and review its project execution strategy and tactics; and not whether it forcefully managed to bring the situation back to the baseline plan.

In fact, isn’t the main scope of project management is actually to manage change and deviations to the plan? Why not, then, design the project delivery process around agility rather than around trying to stick by all means to a set baseline?

Stop moaning about changes to the plan! All experienced project practitioners know that it is the thrill of finding solutions to the most unexpected and intricate situations that make the thrill of the profession – and why they have chosen it. Change is part and parcel of the fun of project leadership. Let us recognize it as such, as the daily challenge of any project practitioner, and build our processes around it.

Read White Paper 2013-02 “Stop Taking Change as an Exception: The Need for Agile Project Planning” to better understand this change of viewpoint on change during project execution!