For those interested about this subject, there is a healthy discussion following the publication of our White Paper “The Fallacies of All-Encompassing Enterprise Management Systems (ERPs) for Project Companies” on the ‘#ProjectControls – Global Network for Project Controls Professionals‘ Group on LinkedIn.
Click here to access the discussion. Please do not hesitate to join in!
It is a trend to invest in all-encompassing project management systems (Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems). It helps gain efficiency, allows real time dashboards to be available, and avoids manual handling of data, a common source of error and delay.
ERP system: is it the right solution?
ERP systems have been developed mainly for a manufacturing-type environment. Even if they start to have project management modules, should you rely on them to control your projects?
Our answer is no, if you want to keep fully intact the integrity of your company’s project control systems. ERP force you to work according to manufacturing-designed workflows. You might even lose control over large, complex projects. Find out why in our new White Paper “The Fallacies of All-Encompassing Enterprise Management Systems (ERPs) for Project Companies“.
It is easy to fall victim of the ERP proponents advertisement and believe that implementing such a system will dramatically enhance productivity and control of the organization. It is just not true for project organizations.
Instead of the huge investment done on massive ERPs, project companies could more wisely spend less money and effort while increasing significantly their level of control on the project outcome. In the sequel 2012-08 “How to Invest in the Right Systems to Execute Your Large, Complex Project”, we will examine what exactly should be done.
For more details, read our new White Paper “The Fallacies of All-Encompassing Enterprise Management Systems (ERPs) for Project Companies“.
Project Value Delivery sponsors Jeremie Averous’s new book, ‘Project Soft Power’, which will now be published very soon (the final production process has started). In this blog post as well as in 6 weekly sequels leading to the book’s publication, we will share with you what is Project Soft Power and why it is important to the world of project management for large, complex projects.
We don’t have today a consistent framework that allows a reliable project delivery, in particular when it comes to complex projects (those projects that involve many inter-related contributors that all have different aims and interests).
Project Management failure statistics from Cranfield University
Although much progress has been done in the past decades to formalize specific tools around project management, the percentage of projects that fail outright or that does not deliver the expected value is staggering (depending on the sources, between 60 to 80% of projects). And research shows that it does not significantly improve through the careful use of processes described in thick manuals, and the increasing number of certified professionals in the use of these processes.
What is then the difference that makes project delivery a more reliable endeavour? Based on our experience and research, we believe it is ‘Project Soft Power’, or the application of personal and inter-personal skills to project management. Project Soft Power is deeply rooted in emotional work.
First of all, the “project manager” should not manage; she should lead. An unknown situation cannot be managed; we can only lead through it. Thus we have have decided from now on to use ‘Project Leader’ instead of ‘Project Manager’. In the Collaborative Age, the manager, a concept from the Industrial Age, will be obsolete anyway.
Still wondering who are these Project Soft Power characters?
We have identified 5 main Project Soft Power skills that correspond to the following roles:
In the next weeks we will publish on a weekly basis a description of each of these roles. Get ready for a mind-changing description of success factors in project leadership!
Nothing is worse on a project than not to have an accurate, up-to-date view of the current costs. The key to rigorous cost control of current costs on a project lies into the management of commitments. Our White Paper 2012-05 looks into the reasons, what it entails, and how to successfully record and manage commitments.
The worst nightmare for cost control: stacks of invoices without commitments!
Controlling commitments is not a standard accounting practice, yet it is indispensable in projects, because projects are not processes where the future can be inferred from the past. Because there are delays in receiving invoices, poor following up commitments lead to significant offsets in the project’s forecast.
The paper goes on to explain how to effectively control commitments, how to enforce discipline on the matter, and how it all ties up with accounting.
Controlling commitments is the first key to effective Project Controls. As a sequel, a second White Paper (2012-06 “No Surprises: the Recipe for Consistent Project Controls”), addresses the issue of accurate forecasting of future cost.
Read White Paper 2012-05, “How to Be On Top of Your Costs: the Art of Mastering Commitments“.
During a talk given on 6 March, more than 80 members of the Singapore project management community discovered our concept of Project Soft Power™!
Project Soft Power presentation in action
This talk sponsored by the Singapore Chapter of the Project Management Institute was very well received. And more over we all had fun! See here the summary report on SPMI website.
Do you want to know more about Project Soft Power ™? Project Soft Power is about the skills you need to be reliably successful as a Project Leader, in particular for Large, Complex Projects. Having the right processes and systems is one thing, but without Project Soft Power you won’t be able to release the potential of the team and obtain consistently reliable results.
Want to know even more? The Project Soft Power book is in the last stages of production for a publication in May of this year. Click here to access the Project Soft Power slides on slideshare. Or, you can also ask us for a keynote speech. In any case, stay tuned!
Project Soft Power presentation in action - having fun!
Passed the hurdle of having an accurate view of current costs (see the White Paper 2012-05, “How to Be On Top of Your Costs: the Art of Mastering Commitments“), the next issue facing the project team is to have a firm grasp on the forecast to the project completion.
What Project Controls needs to avoid absolutely: surprised by the bill!
The objective for the project leader is to make sure that the current knowledge of the situation is appropriately reflected in the cost forecast, so that there are “no surprises” due to uncontrolled areas that would have been overseen. While that sounds simple, the practice is a bit more complicated… Discover how to achieve this objective in our new White Paper, White Paper 2012-06.
After discussing what “no surprises” really means, we discuss how the project forecast needs to be updated to take into account all relevant new knowledge. In the process we discuss some common failures we observe in this area, mainly due to lack of communication and understanding between the different functions of the project.
We also discuss whether and how to dampen small variances between reporting periods, and overall what is the recipe for project controls success.
Read White Paper (2012-06 “No Surprises: the Recipe for Consistent Project Controls”).
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about Project Soft Power, the differentiator of GREAT Project Leaders!
Jeremie in action during a public speech
The public talk by Jeremie Averous, Project Value Delivery’s Senior Managing Partner, will be held on 6 March 2012 at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business in Singapore at 7:30pm.
This talk is hosted by SPMI, the Singapore Chapter of the Project Management Institute. More information on this event and how to attend on the website of the SPMI.
Still wondering who are these Project Soft Power characters?
“The most successful project leaders rely not only on their technical and analytical skills, but also on strong personal and interpersonal practices. This speech will allow participants to understand the 5 practices of Project Soft Power, and how everybody can learn and practice them.”
PMI's Singapore Chapter
There is a way to overcome the limitations of conventional scheduling when applied to large, complex projects. This is the topic of White Paper 2012-04.
project convergence
At the end of the day, what is important in a project is that all the deliverables converge toward the final expected outcome: a project is always a set of tasks that ultimately converge.
Convergence management is a process that involves planning, monitoring and action taking. It is a simple supplement to conventional scheduling. Applied with discipline, it can greatly improve the reliability of the delivery of large, complex projects.
Discover more about convergence management in White Paper 2012-04, “Convergence Management: the Key to Large, Complex Projects Success“.
Conventional scheduling is needed. But it is not sufficient to effectively manage large, complex projects. Relying too much on conventional scheduling entails the risk of overseeing those critical items that might stall the project. In the White Paper 2012-03 we explain why that is the case specifically for complex projects and what we can do about it.
conventional scheduling
Conventional scheduling (Gantt charts etc) was developed primarily for manufacturing, at the onset of the 20th century. It does not address critical areas for project management: resource constraints and management, natural variation in the contributions timeliness, and the convergence toward the end product.
While conventional scheduling is needed, it needs to be supplemented by tools that focus on resource constraints, allow control of the natural variation in the duration of tasks, and allow to anticipate convergence points that might be failing. There also needs to be a change of mindset from project management as to the usage of scheduling.
How To Build Quickly and Cheaply the System Infrastructure You Need to Execute a Large, Complex Project
Standard ERPs or integrated project management software are not the right solution for executing large, complex projects. Instead, Project Value Delivery supports a consistent implementation of different specialized software, linked together through a common Breakdown Structure.
How difficult is it to setup the systems infrastructure for your project?
It is a cheaper, more effective solution that can draw on pre-existing systems. In addition, a large, complex project is always a particular case; the flexibility given by this approach will save many headaches while increasing the level of control and understanding of the project status. Our new White Paper “How To Build Quickly and Cheaply the System Infrastructure You Need to Execute a Large, Complex Project” explains how to do it.
In this White Paper, we list what are the systems that are really needed, how to take into account issues like geographical spread. The key to success is to implement and maintain a shared breakdown structure that is shared between systems. And, if you build on the existing using off-the-shelf software, the systems setup can end up being quite cheap!
Read our new White Paper “How To Build Quickly and Cheaply the System Infrastructure You Need to Execute a Large, Complex Project“.