Archive for the ‘Project Management’ Category
A visit from the methodology police – a PMO satire
They came for me at 11:00 am.
I was just settling down to finishing that damned business case when I heard the rat-a-tat-tat on my office door. “Come in,” I said, with a touch of irritation in my voice.
The door opened and there they were. They looked at me as though I was something that had crawled out from under a rock. “Mr. Hersey, I presume,” said the taller, uglier one.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Joe Hersey?” He asked, wanting to make sure before unloading on me.
“Yes, the one and only,” I said, forcing a smile. I had a deep sense of foreboding now: they looked like trouble; I knew they couldn’t be enquiring after my welfare.
“You need to come with us,” said the shorter one. I did imply he was handsomer of the two, but I should clarify that it was a rather close call.
“I have better things to do than follow impolite summons from people I don’t know. I think you should talk to my manager. In fact, I will take you to him,” I replied, rising from my chair. “He won’t be happy that you’ve interrupted my business case. He wants it done by lunchtime,” I added, a tad smugly.
“We’ve already seen him. He knows. I would advise you to come with us. It would make life easier for everyone concerned,” I forget which one of the two said this.
“What is going on?” I asked, toning down my irritation. To be honest, I had no clue what they were on about.
“We’re the methodology police,” they said in unison. I guess they’d had a fair bit of practice scaring the crap out of hapless project managers. “We’re from the PMO,” they added unnecessarily – I mean, where else could they be from.
“Holy s**t,” I said to myself. I was in big trouble.
—
“Well, Hersey,” said the short one, “I think you owe the PMO an explanation.” Ah, I loved his use of the third person– not “us” but “the PMO.”
We were seated at a table in a meeting room deep in the bowels of the PMO: windowless, with low wattage lighting sponsored by one of those new-fangled, energy-saving, greenie bulbs . The three chairs were arranged in interrogation mode , with the two goons on one side and me – Joseph M. Hersey, Project Manager Extraordinaire – on the other.
I was in trouble alright, but I have this perverse streak in me, “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, feeling a bit like a hero from a Raymond Chandler novel. I knew what I had done, of course. But I also knew that I was one of the good guys. The clowns sitting opposite me were the forces of evil…such thoughts, though perverse, lifted my spirits.
I must have smiled because the tall one said, “You think this is funny, do you? We have a direct line to the board and we could make life really unpleasant for you if you continue this uncooperative attitude.”
That was bad. I did not want to be hauled up in front of the big cheese. If I was branded a troublemaker at that level, there would be no future for me in the company. And to be absolutely honest, I actually enjoyed working here – visits from the methodology police excepted, of course.
“OK, tell me what you want to know,” I said resignedly.
“No, you tell us, Hersey. We want to hear the whole story of your subversion of process in your own words. We’ll stop you if we need any clarification.” Again, I forget which one of the two said this. Understandable, I think – I was pretty stressed by then.
—
Anyway, there is no sense in boring you with all the PMO and process stuff. Suffice to say, I told them how I partitioned my big project into five little ones, so that each mini project would fall below the threshold criteria for major projects and thus be exempt from following the excruciating methodology that our PMO had instituted.
Process thus subverted, I ran each of the mini projects separately, with deliverables from one feeding into the next. I’d got away with it; with no onerous procedures to follow I was free to devise my own methodology, involving nothing more complicated than a spreadsheet updated daily following informal conversations with team members and stakeholders. All this held together – and, sorry, this is going to sound corny – by trust.
The methodology cops’ ears perked up when they heard that word, “Trust!” they exclaimed, “What do you mean by trust?”
“That’s when you believe people will do as they say they will,” I said. Then added, “A concept that may be foreign to you.” I regretted that snide aside as soon as I said it.
“Look, “ said the uglier guy, “I suggest you save the wisecracks for an audience that may appreciate them. “You are beginning to annoy me and a report to the board is looking like a distinct possibility if you continue in this vein.”
I have to say, if this guy had a lot of patience if he was only just “beginning to get annoyed.” I was aware that I had been baiting him for a while. Yes, I do know when I do that. My wife keeps telling me it will get me into trouble one day. May be today’s the day.
“…I do know what trust is,” the man continued, “but I also know that you cannot run a project on warm and fuzzy notions such as trust, sincerity, commitment etc. The only thing I will trust are written signed off project documents.”
Ah, the folly, the folly. “Tell me this, what would you prefer – project documentation as per the requirements of your methodology or a successful project.”
“The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, methodology improves the chance of success.”
“No it doesn’t,” I retorted.
“It does,” he lobbed back.
Jeez, this was beginning to sound like recess in the local kindergarten. “Prove it,” I said, staking my claim to the title of King of Kindergarten Debates.
“There are several studies that prove the methodologies efficacy,” said the short one, “but that is not the point.”
“All those studies are sponsored by the Institute,” I said, referring to the August Body that maintains the standard. “so there is a small matter of vested interest….anyway, you say that isn’t the point. So what is your point then?.”
“The methodology is an internal requirement, so you have to follow It regardless. We could have a lot of fun debating it, but that is neither here no there. Compliance is mandatory, you have no choice.”
“I did comply,” I said, “none of my projects were over the threshold, so I did not need to follow the methodology.”
“That was subterfuge – it was one project that you deliberately divided into five so that you could bypass our processes.”
I was getting tired and it was close to my lunchtime. “OK, fair point“ I said, “I should not have done that. I will not do it again. Can I go now?”
“Hmm,” they said in unison. I don’t think either of them believed me. “That’s not good enough.”
I sighed. “What do you want then?” I asked, weary of this pointless drama.
“You will read and sign this form,” said the short one, “declaring you have been trained in the PMO processes – which you were last year, as you well know – and that you will follow the processes henceforth. I particularly urge you to read and digest the bit about the consequences of non-compliance.” He flicked the form in my direction.
I was not surprised to see that the form was a multi-page affair, written in 8pt bureaucratese, utterly incomprehensible to mere mortals such as I. I knew I would continue to bypass or subvert processes that made no sense to me, but I also knew that they needed me to sign that form – their boss would be very unhappy with them if I didn’t. Besides, I didn’t want to stay in that room a second longer than necessary.
“OK, where do I sign,” I said, picking up a pen that lay on the table.
“Don’t you want to read it.”
“Nah,” I said, “I have a pretty fair idea of what it’s about.”
I signed.
“We’re done, Hersey. You can go back to your business case now. But you can be sure that you are on our radar now. We are watching you.”
“Well Gents, enjoy the show. I promise, to lead a faultless life henceforth. I will be a model project manager,” I said as I rose to leave.
“We’re counting on it Hersey. One more violation and you are in deep trouble.”
I refrained from responding with a wisecrack as I exited, leaving them to the paperwork that is their raison d’etre.
Sherlock Holmes and the case of the terminated PMO
“Tch, tch,” clucked Holmes, shaking his head. “What a tragedy, Watson,” he continued, “yet another project management office cut down in its prime.”
Watson said nothing; he knew his friend did not like interruptions when he was surveying a crime scene.
Holmes walked around as he always did, in apparently random fashion, his sharp eyes darting from here to there taking in the details – the process flowcharts on a wall, project schedules displayed over on the other side, the printed portfolio reports that lay on the table and the many other artefacts that are part and parcel of a PMO.
After watching his friend for what seemed like an eternity, Watson could hold his curiosity no longer: “What’s your guess, Holmes?” he asked.
“I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty.” He looked up sharply, “You should know better than to ask Watson….”
“I know, Holmes, but my curiosity gets the better of me. What do you think happened?”
“Ah yes, what I think. What I think is not important, Watson,” he said, wagging his index finger in his friend’s direction. “We must focus on what we know – the facts.”
“So, what are the facts?” asked Watson wearily. His friend could be an insufferable pedant.
“You know my methods, Watson. Look around you. What do you see?”
Oh, they were going to play that game again. Shaking his head in exasperation, Watson said, “Why don’t you save time and tell me, Holmes. You are the genius, not I.”
“Ah Watson, sarcasm does not become you. Anyway, I take no offence and will offer you some hints so that you may begin to discern the real reason for the failure of this PMO.”
He walked over to the flowcharts on the wall and asked,” Tell me Watson, What are these and what do they tell you?”
Watson walked over to the charts, looked at them intently and said, “I think we can safely say these describe project management processes.” Then, jabbing his finger at a chart, he continued, “This one describes the process of authorisation. It seems sensible enough – a need is identified, a business case drawn up and submitted to the project governance board, it is evaluated against certain criteria and then a decision is made on whether the project should be authorised or not. And look at this one, ‘tis a work of art….”
“Do you know, Watson,” interrupted Holmes, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these attractive flowcharts, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which they may be subverted.”
“Huh?” blurted Watson, not knowing quite what to make of this.
“I see you are perplexed, Watson. Let me put it another way, a PMO may require that project managers comply with certain process, but it cannot enforce compliance.”
“So you think the PMO failed because it could not get project managers to follow processes?”
“Yes, Watson. But experience tells me that although that may be a visible symptom, it is not the cause. You’re a doctor so I don’t need to tell you that identifying symptoms is necessary but, to cure the disease, one must find the cause. It is all too easy to label the symptom as the cause – many consultants have done so, and have thus made recommendations that are worse than useless.”
“Worse than useless? I don’t understand, Holmes.”
“Yes, worse than useless. If organisations focus on curing symptoms rather than causes, they will end up exacerbating the underlying dysfunctions. For example, if a consultant mistakenly labels the fact that project managers did not follow processes as the cause, the organisation may put in place procedures that forces managers to comply with processes. That, as you will no doubt appreciate, is doing exactly the wrong thing – it will only make things worse.”
“Why is it the wrong thing? Surely if they are forced to comply, they will and the processes will then be followed as they should be.”
“Ah, Watson,” said Holmes, shaking his head in exasperation, “that’s the army man in you talking.” He continuted sharply, “This is not the military, Sir! This is the messy world of organisation-land where people are autonomous agents even though management orthodoxy would have us believe otherwise.”
“’Tis a matter of discipline, Holmes. Surely you do not advocate letting project managers behave as they would want – as, how do you say it…autonomous agents.”
“ You know Watson, may be you are right,” said Holmes. “Perhaps when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.”
“Indeed, I think you are over-complicating matters my dear Holmes. This is an open and shut case – a failure of enforcement and compliance.” said Watson.
“Possibly, Watson. However, the truth is not to be found here in the PMO. It lies elsewhere, in the hallowed heights of the executive floor… Anyway there is a more immediate matter that needs our attention: it is late and the sun sinks rapidly. We must make our way to that fine establishment I noticed at the end of the street – I could do with a pint or three.”
“Well said, Holmes!”
The two made their way towards the exit.
———
“Come, friend Watson, the curtain rings up for the last act,” murmured Holmes, as the two of them entered the elevator. They had come to the head office to meet the executive director.
The two found their way to the meeting room on the executive floor and entered.
“Hello Holmes, it is good to see you again,” boomed the executive director, “and I see you have brought Dr. Watson with you. Good to see you too, sir. Do come in and meet my management team.”.
After the mandatory round of introductions and business card exchanges, the director continued,”I take it you have something for us, Holmes.”
“Yes sir, I have a number of questions.“
“Questions? I don’t understand, Holmes. We hired you to find us some answers about the failure of our PMO, and you tell me have a few questions. I take it you have some answers too. The CIO expects answers not questions,” he said with a nervous chuckle.
“No,I have no answers…but a hypothesis that I hope to validate soon.”
“I do not understand the need for this drama,” said the director.
“Watson here will tell you that I can never resist a touch of the dramatic.”
“OK, Holmes, you had better get to it then,” said the director shortly.
“I’ll get right to it sir,” he said, and turned to face the seated managers. “Ladies and gentlemen, pray what was the objective of your PMO?”
There was a stunned silence. Finally, one of the managers spoke up, “Surely that is obvious Mr, Holmes.”
“Thank you. I do realise my question may seem a little simple minded to you, but I beg that you answer it in a way that you would to someone who knows nothing about PMOs.” He turned to the executive director for confirmation.
“Yes, yes, answer his question,” said the executive director impatiently.
“OK, if you insist. The basic objective of the PMO can be summarised in a line. It was to ensure that all our strategic projects are delivered on time, within the agreed budget and to the required standards of quality. Needless to say, the PMO failed to deliver: as I recall, out of the 12 strategic projects we have, 8 or 9 are in serious trouble – over budget and/or time by more than 50%,” said the manager. “That is all the relevant detail… I trust it is not too much for you, Mr Holmes,” he added.
“”I am glad of all details, whether they seem to you to be relevant or not,” retorted Holmes. Then, in a gentler tone, he asked, “How exactly was the PMO expected to achieve these objectives?”
The managers looked at each other, nonplussed at the question.
Finally, one of them asked, “Mr. Holmes, what do you mean by “how”? I do not understand your question…and I think I speak for my colleagues too. We followed the advice of Lord Gartner and Baron McKinsey in setting up our PMO. Among many other things, we are fully aware of the importance of giving a PMO complete authority to oversee and control IT projects across the organisation. I am sure you are aware that our PMO had implemented a set of proven best practice project and portfolio management standards to ensure control and oversight.”
“Yes, we have seen the process charts…they are impressive indeed,” piped up Watson. Holmes gave him The Look.
“That is so, and the fact that some projects have succeeded shows that the processes do work,” said another manager.
“My dear sir, results without causes are impressive but assuming a causal link between them, sans proof, is not,” said Holmes. “Let me ask you a simple question, sir. Would you say your organisation is unique – one of a kind?”
“Of course it is,” said the manager. “We have just been voted a ‘best employer’ and we won several industry awards in previous years. Indeed we are unique.”
“…and yet you implement standardised processes?”
“What is your point, Mr. Holmes?”
“Let me spell it out: your organisation is unique, as are your people. Right?”
“Yes,” said the manager. Others around the room were nodding their assent.
“In view of your uniqueness, don’t you think you ought to develop – rather evolve – your own unique processes in collaboration with your project managers rather than impose one-size-fits-all “best practice” standards on them?”
“But…why should we do that…and how ?” Asked the executive director.
“Sir, I’ve already answered the “why.” I will leave the “how” for you and your team to figure out. Whatever else you do, I cannot overemphasise the importance of including your frontline managers and employees in the discussions about how your PMO should function, and also in selecting and designing appropriate processes.”
“I see…,” said the director thoughtfully.
“Sir, your PMO failed because it attempted to transplant practices that allegedly worked elsewhere into your unique –dare I say, special – organisation. As was inevitable, the transplant was roundly rejected: your people found the processes strange, even arbitrary, and resented them. Consequently, they found ways to work around them instead of with them. Failure of your PMO was preordained because of your focus on processes rather than intentions.
The executive director nodded thoughtfully, as the penny dropped. “Thank you Holmes,” he said, “I see your point….finally.”
“Thank you sir…and thank you all,” said Holmes nodding at each of the seated managers in turn. “There is much work for you all to do now, so Dr. Watson and I will show ourselves out.”
The two gathered their papers and left, shutting the door behind them gently.
“Never underestimate the power of a question to illuminate the truth,” said Holmes sententiously as he and Watson entered the elevator.
Watson rolled his eyes; his friend was brilliant, but he could also be a pompous ass.
——–
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Arati Apte and Paul Culmsee for encouragement and feedback on earlier drafts of this story.
Notes:
- Spot the quote (for Sherlock Holmes trainspotters): there are eight quotes from various Sherlock Holmes adventures in this post; most are verbatim, but a couple of the longer ones have been adapted to fit the narrative.
- If you enjoyed this piece, you might want to have a look at the other business fables on this blog.
Some perspectives on quality
Introduction
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post entitled, A project manager’s ruminations on quality, in which I discussed meaning of the term quality as it pertains to project work. In that article I focused on how the standard project management definition of quality differs from the usual (dictionary) meaning of the term. Below, I expand on that post by presenting some alternate perspectives on quality.
Quality in mainstream project management
Let’s begin with a couple of dictionary definitions of quality to see how useful they are from a project management perspective:
- An essential or distinctive characteristic, property, or attribute.
- High grade; superiority; excellence
Clearly, these aren’t much help because they don’t tell us how to measure quality. Moreover, the second definition confuses quality and grade – two terms that the PMBOK assures us are as different as chalk and cheese.
So what is a good definition of quality from the perspective of a project manager? The PMBOK, quoting from the American Society for Quality (ASQ), defines quality as, “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfil requirements.” This is clearly a much more practical definition for a project manager, as it links the notion of quality to what the end-user expects from deliverables. PRINCE2, similarly, keeps the end-user firmly in focus when it defines quality, rather informally, as, fitness for purpose.”
Project managers steeped in PRINCE and other methodologies would probably find the above unexceptional. The end-goal in project management is to deliver what’s agreed to, whilst working within the imposed constraints of resources and time. It is therefore no surprise that the definition of quality focuses on the characteristics of the deliverables, as they are specified in the project requirements.
Quality as an essential characteristic
The foregoing project management definitions beg the question:
Is “fitness of purpose” or the “degree to which product characteristics fulfils requirements” really a measure of quality?
The problem with these definitions is that they conflate quality with fulfilling requirements. But surely there is more to it than that. An easy way to see this is that one can have a high quality product that does not satisfy user requirements or meet cost and schedule targets. For example, many people would agree that WordPress blogging software is of a high quality, yet it does not meet the requirement of, say, “a tool to manage projects.”
Indeed, Robert Glass states this plainly in his book, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering. Fact 47 in the book goes as follows:
Quality is not user satisfaction, meeting requirements, meeting cost and schedule targets or reliability.
So what is quality, then?
According to Glass quality is a set of (product) attributes, including things such as:
- Reliability – does the product work as it should?
- Useability – is it easy to use?
- Modifiability – can it be modified (maintained) easily?
- Understandability – is it easy to understand how it works?
- Efficiency – does it make efficient use of resources (including storage, computing power and time)?
- Testability – can it be tested easily?
- Portability – can it be ported to other platforms? This isn’t an issue for all products – some programs need run only on one operating system.
Note that the above listing is not in order of importance. For some products useability maybe more important than efficiency, in others it could be the opposite – the order depends very much on the product and its applications.
Glass notes that these attributes are highly technical. Consequently, they are best dealt with by people who are directly involved in creating the product, not their managers, not even the customers. In this view, the responsibility for quality lies not with project managers, but with those who do the work. To quote from the book:
…quality is one of the most deeply technical issues in the software field. Management’s job, far from taking responsibility for achieving quality, is to facilitate and enable technical people and the get out of their way.
Another point to note is that the above characteristics are indeed measurable (if only in a qualitative sense), which addresses the objection I noted at in the previous section.
Quality as a means to an end
In our book, The Heretic’s Guide to Best Practices, Paul Culmsee and I discuss a couple of perspectives on quality which I summarise in this and the following section.
Our first contention is that quality cannot be an end in itself. This is a subtle point so I’ll illustrate with an example. Consider the two “ends-focused” definitions of quality mentioned earlier: quality as “fitness for purpose” and quality as a set of objective attributes. Chances are that different project stakeholders will have differing views on which definition is “right”. The problem, as we have seen in the earlier sections, is that the two definitions are not the same. Hence quality cannot be an end in itself.
Instead, we believe that a better definition comes from asking the question: “What difference would quality make to this project?” The answer determines an appropriate definition of quality for a particular project. Implicit here is the notion of quality as an enabler to achieve the desired project objective. In other words, quality here is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Quality and time
Typically, project deliverables – be they software or buildings or anything else – have lifetimes that are much longer than the duration of the project itself. There are a couple of important implications of this:
- Deliverables may be used in ways that were not considered when the project was implemented.
- They may have side effects that were not foreseen.
Rarely, if ever, do project teams worry about the long term consequences of their creations. Their time horizons are limited to the duration of their projects. This myopic view is perpetuated by the so called iron triangle which tells us that quality is a function of cost, scope and time (i.e. duration) of a project.
The best way to see the short-sightedness of this view is through an example. Consider the Sydney Opera House as an example of a project output. As we state in our book:
It is a global icon and there are people who come to Sydney just to see it. In term of economic significance to Sydney, it is priceless andi rreplaceable. The architect who designed it, Jørn Utzon, was awarded the Pritzker Prize (architecture’s highest honour) for it in 2003.
But the million dollar question is . . . “Was it a successful project?” If one was to ask one of the two million annual tourists who visit the place, we suspect that the answer would be an emphatic “Yes.” Yet, when we judge the project through the lens of the “iron triangle,” the view changes significantly. To understand why, consider these fun filled facts about the Sydney Opera House.
- The Opera House was formally completed in 1973, having cost $102 million
- The original cost estimate in 1957 was $7 million
- The original completion date set by the government was 1963
- Thus, the project was completed ten years late and over-budget by more than a factor of fourteen
If that wasn’t bad enough, Utzon, the designer of the opera house, never lived to set foot in it. He left Australia in disgust, swearing never to come back after his abilities had been called into question and payments suspended. When the Opera House was opened in 1973 by Queen Elizabeth II, Utzon was not invited to the ceremony, nor was his name mentioned…
Judged by the criteria of the iron triangle, the project was an abject failure. However, judged by through the lens of time, the project is an epic success! Quality must therefore also be viewed in terms of the legacy that the project leaves – how the deliverables will be viewed by future generations and what it will mean to them.
Wrapping up
As we have seen, the issue of quality is a vexed one because how one understands it depends on which school of thought one subscribes to. We have seen that quality can refer to one of the following:
- The “fitness for purpose” of a product or its ability to “meet requirements.” (Source: PRINCE2 and PMBOK)
- An essential attribute of a product. This is based on the standard, dictionary definition of the term.
- A means of achieving a particular end. Here quality is viewed as a process rather than a project output.
Moreover, none of the above perspectives considers the legacy bequeathed by a project; how the deliverables will perceived by future generations.
So where does that leave us?
Perhaps it is best to leave definitions of quality to pedants, for as someone wise once said, “What is good and what is not good, need we have anyone tell us these things?”
Eight to Late 