Volume IX - Issue VIII - August 2007
Featured Papers
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Churchill’s Choices of What to Do (designs a solution) By Mark Kozak-Holland Most people are very familiar with Winston Churchill but may not be familiar with his “agile” approach to project management and his skills as a PM in the summer of 1940. Part 11 looked at how Churchill set up a Governance Framework to transform the U.K. This article discusses the tactical choices he made to meet the short term objectives of his project, and the initial designs of the solution. In 1940 emerging technology had mechanized warfare (Part 4) and agility was the new mode of operation for the military where armies could move very rapidly. With a successful combination of highly coordinated forces on sea, land, and air the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940 perfectly demonstrated agility in action. Mobile troops quickly traversed roads that were thought impossible. The Battle of Flanders in May 1940 saw armored columns cover 40 to 50 miles per day. In the air aircraft flew multiple sorties striking 4 to 5 times a day, and it was not single dogfights anymore but squadron fought squadron. Fighters protected large fleets of bombers. Blitzkrieg came as a surprise to the British military who in May 1940 had fought in France with a First World War mind set. They still relied on immovable trenches, and fortified defenses that were rapidly overrun and surrounded by mobile forces. In today’s world the term agility has become extremely important in business projects and organizations. Agility in operation or organization can include the ability:
Today organizations through agile thinking, leadership, and projects can introduce this kind of agility only with a flexible infrastructure.
Read earlier papers in this series.
Introducing the Project Complexity Model - (Editor’s note: this paper prepared exclusively for PM World Today, submitted by Trade Press Services.) The Project Complexity Model is a new model for evaluating project size, complexity and risk, determining the project’s specific dimensions of complexity and then applying complexity management strategies accordingly. Part 1 of this article addressed the diagnosis of projects according to profile and complexity dimensions, as well as Step 1 of the application of complexity thinking to manage projects – the selection of the appropriate project cycle to use based on the project profile. Part 2 of the article discusses Steps 2 and 3 of the application of complexity thinking to manage projects. In Step 2, the project team selects appropriate management techniques based on the complexity dimensions, and in Step 3, the project team assigns project managers and business analysts based on the project profile. Read complete paper in English
Competencies Changing Corporation Fortunes By Professor A. Jaafari, ME, MSc, PhD, CPEng, FIEA The United States Department of Health and Human Services defines competency as: “a set of behaviors that encompass skills, knowledge, abilities, and personal attributes that, taken together, are critical to successful work accomplishment.” This definition implies that competency is a personal quality and a set of behavioural characteristic individual to the person not part of an organisational inventory. Competencies manifest themselves in the context of performing tasks otherwise they are invisible and difficult to assess and improve. Of course exhibited performance on a specific task is a function of the relevant persons’ competencies, context, information resources and other organisational factors. The need to shift to a competency-based management is self evident. According to McKinsey “the rate at which companies lose their leadership positions doubled from the mid-'70s to the mid-'90s” [The McKinsey Quarterly, 25 January 2005, members’ edition] There is thus evidence that sluggish organisations managed along the traditional norms can stagnate or even disappear from the market scene unless they turn themselves into dynamic well performing businesses which requires professionalisation of their managerial rank and file. According to Lyle Spencer (1997) the economic value associated with competency development of key managers is very convincing. Turning a sluggish poor performing organisation into a dynamic organisation is not an easy task; it requires adopting an appropriate global role family model, assessing and locating competency gaps of the respective managers (from senior managers down to middle managers, line managers, project managers and junior managers). Depending on the role played now or earmarked for the future (when junior managers are groomed for assuming greater responsibility), each manager needs to possess an appropriate blend of competencies. In most cases this can only be achieved if the manager is put through a tailored program of learning and development that specially addresses the missing competencies. This takes time, effort and considerable perseverance on the part of the candidate to bear fruit. Read complete paper in English
Project Management Challenges and Best Practices By Kunal Verma, PMP Abstract The paper is intended to help the project managers and program managers understand the project management challenges around enterprise packaged applications (EPA) and the best practices adopted to ensure the successful implementation. Worldwide IT spending is expected to reach $1,244 billion in 2007 of which the Packaged Software spending is $262.5 Billion (Source: IDC’s Worldwide Black Book Query Tool). With organizations putting more and more stakes on their IT spending, focus on successful project implementations has increased tremendously. More than 50% of the IT implementation projects fail to achieve the objectives for which the project had started and the poor project management is a major cause for project failure. The organizations which have a higher project’s success rate also follow good project management processes. (Source: KPMG Global IT Project Management Survey 2005, 2006 Forrester Research and CHAOS report 2004). Project failures directly impact the customers by lowering the customer satisfaction and the competitors get the competitive advantage. A collective and systematic project management approach is required to substantially increase the project’s success rate and help to minimize the loss of benefits. (Source: KPMG Global IT Project Management Survey 2005)
Read complete paper in English
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