It seems I’m presented almost weekly with fresh industry statistics that tell me that project management success rates continue to be low – as measured by projects that are delivered on-time, within budget and to the satisfaction of the business customer.
Our prospects put a voice to those numbers, with complaints such as “I’ve invested so much money and time in project management training, different software tools, and sophisticated measurement techniques. I’m still not delivering on time consistently – or viewed as successful by my management. And my project managers are frustrated too.”
Indeed, it’s a constant battle. The good news is that we’re starting to see a way out of this frustrating pattern. This is partly due to new advancements in software tools that better support the project lifecycle, but also due to a growing recognition by senior IT executives that improving project outcomes starts at the top.
Core to this effort is learning how to optimize your resource utilization across all of IT – which ultimately will give you the planning flexibility you need to keep the right people on the right projects. Additionally, when faced with the all-too-common unplanned change request, you will know exactly what your trade-offs are and what choices you can offer your business customers. Making such informed choices will reduce the number of projects in jeopardy.
A focus on achieving this type of strategic agility requires a shift from two predominant resource management approaches that have thus far impeded project management success rates:
1. Maintaining a narrow focus on time-tracking systems. Capturing time is a key component of resource management, but when it is not implemented with a parallel top-down resource planning process, the quality and value of the data is greatly limited. No question, capturing end-user time will allow you to perform after-the-fact trend analyses – but it can’t help with up-front planning or determining how an unplanned change is going to affect critical projects mid-stream.This puts IT in a perpetually reactive mode. You also run the risk of end-users ultimately abandoning the time tracking effort if they do not see how their data is being used to improve overall project outcomes. Simply put, time tracking is necessary for effective resource management, but it is not sufficient without support for high-level planning processes that bridge planning with reality.
Read the rest at Project Manager Planet.