November 6: Winning Strategies

November 6: Winning Strategies

One prays for miracles but works for results ~ Saint Augustine

There is an old saying that good intentions don't move mountains, budd-dozers do.

Strategies are the bulldozers. They convert what you want to do into accomplishment.
They also tell what you need to have by way of resources and people to get the results.

Everyone feels virtuous once planning is done. Untill it becomes actual work, nothing is done.

Strategies are action-focused.

Strategies are not something you hope for; strategies are something you work for.

Action Point: Have a strategy in place.

November 5: The Future Budget

November 5: The Future Budget
The budget for the future remains stable throughout good times and bad.

In most enterprises there is only one budget, and it is adjusted to the business cycle. In good times expenditures are increases across the board. In bad times expenditures are cut across the board.

The change leader's first budget is an operating budget that shows operating and capital outlays to maintain the present business.

What is the minimum we need to keep the operations going? In poor times it should, indeed, be adjusted downward.

The change leader has a second, separate budget for the future. The approach is 'What is the maximum funding these new activities require to produce optimal results." That amount should be maintained in good times or bad - unless times are so catastrophic that maintaining expenditures threatens the survival of the enterprise.

Action Plan: Prepare a 'development budget' that contains funds to exploit opportunities.
Make sure the budget provides stability of funding in good times and bad.

November 4: The Test of Intelligence Information

November 4: The Test of Intelligence Information

The ultimate test of information system is that there are no surprises




Action Plan: Identify key variables in your environment. Make sure you have intelligence information about each of these variables to minimize surprises.

November 3: Gathering and Using Intelligence

November 3: Gathering and Using Intelligence

Information has to be organized to test a company's assumptions about its theory of its business.



Action Point: Do you have information you need to challenge your company's strategy and assumptions?

November 2: Business Intelligence Systems

November 2: Business Intelligence Systems

Half of the new technologies that transform an industry come from outside the industry, and information about these new technologies is available.

Action Point: Identify three technologies / business areas that are transforming your business that have come from outside of your industry. Setup an intelligence system to gather information about these and other emerging technologies and capitalize on them before your competitors do.

Thought:
Banks like hospitals
Technology service providers like doctors
Focus from General to specialty treatments

November 1: Organizational Agility

November 1: Organizational Agility

Fleas can jump many times their own height, but not elephants.

The law of organization is concentration.

Modern organization, indeed must be capable of initiating change, that is innovation.

Move scarce and expensive resources of knowledge from areas of low productivity and non-results to opportunities for achievement and contribution.

Stop doing what wastes resources.

Action Point: What the small number of tasks that your large organization is doing? Are they the right ones? If not, discontinue them and focus on others.

Project Management Framework

Definition of A Project:

• Temporary endeavor with a beginning and an end
• Creates a unique product, service or result
• Is progressively elaborated - distinguishing characteristics of each unique project will be progressively detailed as the project is better understood

Operational Work: Attempt to manage an ongoing work like manufacturing is not a project.

Project Management:

1. Professional and Social Responsibility
2. Knowledge Areas (9)
   
3. Process Groups (5)
   

Knowledge Areas:

1. Integration
2. Scope
3. Time
4. Cost
5. Quality
6. Human Resources
7. Communications
8. Risk
9. Procurement
   

Process Groups:

1. Initiating
2. Planning
3. Executing
4. Monitoring and Controlling
5. Closing
   

Definition of a Program: A program is a group of projects.

Their management is coordinated because
they may use the same resources,
the results of one project feed into another, or
they are parts of a larger "project" that has been broken down to smaller projects.

This coordination provides
decreased risk,
economies of scale and
improved management
that could not be achieved if the projects were not managed as part of a program.

Project Management Office (PMO or Program Office)

• Providing the policies, methodologies and templates for managing projects within the organization
• Providing support and guidance to others in the organization on how to manage projects, training others in project management or project management software and assisting with specific project management tools
• Providing project managers for different projects, and being responsible for the results of those projects.

Objectives

• Project Objectives are contained in the preliminary project scope statement and project scope statement
• The reason for quality is to make sure the project meets the objectives
• The reason for risk process group is to enhance opportunities and reduce threats to the project objectives
• Projects often requires tradeoffs between project requirements and project objectives
• Projects objectives are determined in the initiating process group and redefined in the planning process group.

MBO (Management By Objectives):

• Establish unambiguous and realistic objectives
• Periodically evaluate objectives are being met
• Implement corrective action

Constraints or Triple Constraints:

• Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Risk, Customer Satisfaction
  

OPM3: Organization's Project Management Maturity Model


Stakeholder: A stakeholder is someone whose interests may be positively or negatively impacted by the project.

Stakeholder analysis is done through out the project.

• Identify all stakeholders
• Determine all their requirements
• Determine their expectations
• Communicate with them
• Manage their influence

Differences in requirements or other interests of the stakeholders should generally be resolved in favor of the customer - the individual or organization that will use the product.

Organizational Structure:

Trick of Trade: In the PMP exam, if nothing is mentioned about what form of organization you are in, assume that you are in a MATRIX organization.


Functional Organization:

• Functional Manager has the power
• When functional form of organization think 'silo'
• Team members complete project work in addition to normal work
• Communications stay within the project
  

Projectized Organization:

• Project Manager has the power
• There is 'no home' for the project team members after the project is completed
• Team members complete only project work
• Communications occur only within the project

Matrix:

• Matrix organization has "two bosses"
• Communications go from team members to both bosses

1. Strong Matrix: Power is with Project Manager
2. Weak Matrix: Power is with Functional Manager. Project manager is more a project expediter or project coordinator.
3. Balanced Matrix: Power is shared between project manager and functional manager

• Weak Matrix:

1. Project Expediter: is primarily staff assistant and communications coordinator. The expediter cannot personally make or enforce decisions.
2. Project Coordinator: is similar to expediter, except has some power to make decisions, some authority, and reports to a higher-level management.
   

Tight Matrix: has nothing to do with matrix organization. It simply refers to location the offices for the project team in the same room.


Life Cycle:

Product Life Cycle: The product life cycle lasts from conception of a new product through growth, maturity, decline and withdrawal of the product. A product can require or spawn many projects over its life.

Project Life Cycle: Two methodologies to complete a project.

1. Project Life cycle for what you need to do to do the work. Depending on the industry. For instance a Software Development Life Cycle will be Requirements gathering, Design (High level, detailed), Development or Coding, Testing (SIT and UAT), and Implementation to Production.
   
2. project management methodology or project management process for managing the project. These are initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling and closing of the project.
   

Points to Ponder from Question and Answers

• Advantages of the matrix type of organizations for projects is Improved Project Manger control over resources.
  
  
• In a weak matrix organization the project manager is a Project Expediter and cannot make decisions.
  
  
• In a projectized organization the project team will not always have a 'home'.
  
  
• A project manager has little authority to properly assign resources in a Functional organization.
  
  
• In a matrix organization communications will be complex
  
  
• In a functional organization, the power to give direction to the team member is with the Functional Manager
  

• In a projectized organizations the project manager has the MOST power.
  
  
• The characteristics of a project are it is Temporary, has a definite begining and end, has interrelated activities
  
  
• Stakeholders' management efforts include identifying stakeholders, determining stakeholders' needs and managing stakeholders' expectations
  
  
• Obtain historical records and guidance from PMO
  
  
• The project life cycle differs from product life cycle, in that project life cycle is different for each industry
  
  
• Stakeholders can be identified in Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing process groups.
  
  
• Management by objectives works only if it is supported by management.