DISCONNECTED PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Garth G. F. Ward B.Sc., A.C.G.I., C.Eng., F.I.Mech.E., F.A.P.M., M.B.I.M. Consultant Lecturer, Cranfield School of Management Abstract: This paper demonstrates that, unless the issues identified are addressed effectively, Project Management will not be accepted as the universal discipline beyond 2000. If the problems of Project Management are not recognised and conquered, then business and industry sectors will continue to reinvent the discipline under different names and in different formats. The issues raised require new skills to integrate Business Management and Project Management, and to correct the deficiencies in current practice. Introduction It is not the intention of this paper to re-invent Project Management but to determine areas where the subject needs enhancement. There are fundamental disconnects between theory and reality in the implementation of the Project Management process. These disconnects must be conquered if Project Management is to become a general and universal management discipline in the year 2000 and beyond. The fundamental issue which is examined in some detail is the disconnect between artist and scientist. Other disconnects are examined under the following broad groupings: Processes. Culture & Behaviour. Communication &Terminology. Project Management does not always work. Data often quoted by the Industrial Society indicates that 77% of projects in the UK fail. In the US this figure is worse at 83%. For specific sectors the statistics are horrific: only 7 per cent of business process redesign projects and 3 per cent of IT projects succeed. Further, 80% of companies that failed had no Project Management infrastructure. The Industrial Society quotes the following reasons for project failure: Inadequate definition. Poor or no planning. Wrong leader. Scope not defined. Inappropriate team. Ineffective controls. Poor communication. Unrealistic timescale.

These are similar, but different, issues to many other lists. For example, The Business Round Table in the US states that the poor definition of project scope is the primary cause of cost over-runs followed by the loss of control during design and execution. By contrast, W.Belassi and O.I.Tukel quote seven lists of critical success factors from the following books: Sales and Chandler Martin Cleveland and King Baker, Murphy and Fisher 1971 1976 1983 1983 Locke Morris and Hough Pinto and Slevin 1984 1987 1989

Space does not permit providing details of these lists but, broadly, they are the positive/ opposites of the causes of failure. The interesting feature of the lists is that there is almost no commonality of issues. Out of a total of 61 issues only 3 appeared in four of the lists and only one was mentioned specifically 5 times. Allowing for the different terminology, this issue - project controls, could be said to have 10 mentions (but despite this did not appear in all of the lists). The authors own primary prerequisite for project success namely: Alignment of Objectives is only mentioned three times in a variety of forms as: definition of clear goals and objectives. Anyone who has played any version of The Prisoners Dilemma will know how important the alignment part is, and that personal objectives will always carry more weight because of the fact that they are in the control of the Paper Presented at the IPMA 15th World Congress on Project Management London, May2000.

Disconnected Project Management individual. Thus, whilst the literature has identified the causes of project success or failure, it has not satisfactorily explained the reasons behind these causes to help us find ways of dealing with the issues. Surely this is enough proof to demonstrate that we need to understand better why Project Management does not always work - apart from the fact that we always know more in the future and are, therefore, more often than not perceived to have failed. It is also interesting to note that there is no commonality in the definition of Project Management. The author has researched a dozen leading Project Management textbooks and they all provide a different definition. The authors preferred definition (source unknown) is: Project Management is the interdisciplinary process of achieving a satisfactory end result.

Processes It is the project process which needs to be better understood if projects are to have a better success rate and Project Management is to succeed in becoming a universal management discipline. The front end processes are the creative artistic processes and the execution phase is the application of scientific techniques. The first is seen as value adding and the second as a project cost. This division results in the perception that Project Management does not encompass business management. Consequently, Project Management is not seen as the fundamental integrative discipline that it is, or can be. Whether performing capital investment projects or projects to improve the efficiency of the organisation General Management must make reasonably accurate predictions of, among other things, the size of the market, the future availability and costs of goods and services, future selling prices, variations in exchange rates, as well as the actions of competitors. Given the vast uncertainties inherent in any major business decision it is essential that the project which a Business Manager has commissioned does not add unnecessarily to those uncertainties. The job of the Project Manager, then, is to bring some focus and certainty into the shifting sands of the business. To do this the Project Manager needs to proceed on the basis of information whose firmness and accuracy is the opposite to the Business Managers usual experience. The requirement for a new facility may be based on no more than rough predictions. However, the Project Manager has to take these guesses and build upon them a structure of great detail and accuracy. It is not surprising, perhaps, that the Business Manager knowing the uncertainties in his figures finds it hard to understand the Project Managers demands for a precise and detailed definition of what may be no more than an educated guess. In any case, the Business Manager and his Users do not have the technical language to define their requirements in precise terms. The Project Manager needs this definition to be able to deliver what was specified, on time and at the right cost. It is clear, therefore , that there can be a gulf of misunderstanding between the managers of the business and the Project Manager responsible for the projects they initiate. Further, originators of projects are over optimistic and massage their business case to ensure that the project goes ahead. Too often this stage is not perceived as part of the project process. More often than not the project does not start until the business case has been approved and a Project Manager appointed. This allows the two flaws (optimism & massaging) to remain unchallenged. It is difficult for Clients / Sponsors to visualise what they want to achieve until the project process is well established. During the feasibility stage, when the business concepts are turned into the project brief, a further disconnect occurs. There is a mis-match between the Sponsors budget expectations and the costs developed for the project. This immediately results in a cost reduction exercise. The project personnel keen to have their fun with the new project collude with this process and fail to emphasise that it is, in reality, a scope or specification reduction exercise. General managements budget requirements are satisfied. However, the Users, who were not party to this process, have other priorities, and have no financial responsibility to the project, then provide the driving force behind changes and scope growth in order to reinstate their needs. Further, the original financial model is likely to be based on a balance of corporate resources meeting the outgoings of the project. But, once scope growth and changes occur, there is no longer a balance in the funds flow financial equation. Consequently, there is a disconnect between the business objectives and the project objectives. Even if the managers of the business have the foresight to correctly identify a business opportunity it will usually benefit them only if others do not. This either provides the urgency (mentioned twice in the above lists as a cause 2 Paper Presented at the IPMA 15th World Congress on Project Management London, May2000.

Disconnected Project Management of failure) to get to the market early or the business Sponsor / Client fails to realise that their competitors are developing similar analyses of the marketplace. Therefore, when the project is finally started up, and the product or service launched, the market place has been distorted by the competitors projects and the original business case is not as sound, or even valid. This results in a perceived project failure even though the Project Manager may have achieved the project objectives as against the business objectives. A contributing cause to the process failure is the associated disconnect at the business / execution interface. At the business / execution interface there is a real physical disconnection between the parties in the management process. The interface introduces a contracting process which, over time, has become confrontational and reinforced the separation of the business owners and the implementers. The concepts of Partnering / Alliancing tries to address the issue and involve the contractor in the clients business analysis. However, under difficult circumstances the parties revert to their basic cultural origins. During the life of a project the Users change. The new incoming users know little about the project and have different ideas. Consequently, they either cause changes to be made to the project or are dissatisfied with the end results of the project. Mechanisms already exist for managing the Users at the end of a project, namely: hand-over boards and user committees. What is needed is a mechanism for keeping the Users under control during the earlier stages of a project. The disconnections at the end of a project are well understood. The feedback of Project Management know-how is missing because it is rarely established as a 'discipline or group' with mechanisms for learning from each other and retaining experience. The nature of the matrix organisation and task forces is such that team members are dissipated within the organisation and there is no central retention of knowledge. Further, the post project appraisal process is not exciting, the next project is much more interesting, there is no budget for it (it has already been used up). In addition, many of the people with experience of the project have been de-manned from the project, and other priorities stop them being gathered together for a de-briefing process.

Culture & Behaviour Culture, attitude and behaviour is another primary disconnect. Unfortunately, cultural barriers and behaviours have been established over many decades from the teaching of crafts and other subjects as separate (functional) disciplines. The discovery of teams as an integrative process is new to many people. Further, the matrix organisation is still not properly understood by many Project Management professionals. This functional culture is perpetuated by universities (who teach in functional disciplines) and is well established in business. This poor start for Project Management is made worse by the fact that so few business schools recognise it as a separate integrative discipline. It is likely that these functional attitudes will be reinforced as organisations shrink back to their core expertise. They will perform less of the preparatory work needed to get projects established effectively. The project also has a poor start. The construction industrys report Constructing the Team demonstrated a lack of understanding of the Project Management process. A footnote stated -"In some projects the clients representative, the lead manager and the design leader may be the same person." This statement perpetuates the fallacy that the lead designer can be creative and project manage on the same project. From initial examination the picture appears to be an ego trip for the designer! The creative designer is in fact a divergent thinker. The divergent thinker explores and expands a problem. They develop considerable knowledge of a subject but do not necessarily get closer to a solution. During project execution a convergent approach is needed - inessentials are discarded so as to find acceptable solutions to the problems of the project. No creative designer can be creatively innovative and project manage, at the same time, on the same project. As already indicated, it is the financial, commercial and legal strategists who are seen as performing the creative value adding activities. Subsequent activities are, after all, "only the application of common sense." This is a serious disconnect in the use of language and understanding of behaviour. People do not behave in a common sense way. They like doing without planning. Whereas, General Managers like creating strategies and visions and other glamorous stuff without 'doing.' The 1999 June issue of Fortune Magazine explained that CEOs failed because they cannot 'implement.' Their cry to the organisation 'make it happen' provides the pressure to compromise the logical behaviour of project teams. Paper Presented at the IPMA 15th World Congress on Project Management London, May2000.

Disconnected Project Management The keen positive attitude essential in project personnel creates a similar self-delusion process to that already described at the front end of the project. When the detailed programme is developed the project personnel commit to (unrealistically?) tight durations as demanded by the business case. They fail to recognise the difference between the effort required to perform tasks and the time it will take them, considering the other commitments imposed upon them by the organisation. They have created their own failure mechanism, which goes unchallenged because the General Manager hears the message that their demands can be met. An analysis of the reasons for the success of a large number of project simulations carried out by MBA students indicates that those who spent most time planning their projects thoroughly, completed them on time and made the most money. However, they all reported that it was boring! Whereas, the MBA teams who had the most fun were those managing crises because of their failure to plan thoroughly. A clear demonstration of John Harvey Joness statement that people dont like to plan. Its much more fun just to do, and the nice thing about just doing, is that failure comes as a complete surprise. Whereas, if you have planned, failure is preceded by a long period of despondency and worry. Most Client / Sponsors have not been trained to think in terms of an integrative multidisciplinary process. They have been developed in functional disciplines. Consequently, one must question as to whether they spend enough time in understanding the needs of the project machine before expecting it to respond favourably to their requirements. They only think in terms of an end result. They do not recognise that they are portfolio project managers managing limited resources over a number of initiatives (projects). This means that priorities must be defined. For example, IT personnel and others in a corporate role are often responding simultaneously to very many projects in an organisation . Priorities are only sorted out when resources become an issue - usually too late. Competing pressures, and involvement at too high a level, mean that favoured projects get the resources, not the worthy ones. During twelve years of working with organisations, the author has yet to find more than a handful who have a clear and well defined project priority process.

Communication and Terminology Having also surveyed many hundreds of short course delegates over the period of twelve years, the single biggest issue facing organisations / projects is - communication (only mentioned 4 times in the above lists). Communication, as an issue, will obviously come as no surprise. However, corporate knee-jerk reactions to solving this problem through electronic means is questionable, and outside the terms of this paper. It is suggested that we should learn from the legal profession and that the solution lies within Project Management itself. Lawyers plan conversations. Without much effort one can develop a list of 20 to 30 project communication mechanisms no wonder it is a problem. The project communication processes should be planned as a sub-project in their own right. If Project Management is to become a general and universal management discipline then another primary disconnect must be addressed. This is the one of language. All disciplines and sectors: I T, Construction, Aerospace or Cultural and Organisational Change use the same Project Management terminology but apply it differently and use the words in different ways. A prime example here is the two Bodies of Knowledge. Both the APM and PMI interpret these words differently. The APM has defined What as a body of knowledge, whereas PMI have defined How the knowledge is applied.

Recommendations and Conclusions We need to address deficiencies in the practice of Project Management. Organisations need Project Managers with the right attitude of mind, not systems and procedures. Methodologies are developed / adopted or brought into organisations in an endeavour to apply an instant solution to improving performance. The flaw with methodologies is that they never quite fit the unique and changing circumstances of all the projects in the organisation. A methodology is no substitute for thinking or managing. People need to be developed to think intelligently in order to use different aspects of Project Management for all types and sizes of projects. Why not train people to acquire the appropriate Project Management skills and attitude. Surely this is what any organisation would expect of other disciplines. Paper Presented at the IPMA 15th World Congress on Project Management London, May2000.

Disconnected Project Management We need to identify where processes and techniques can be borrowed from specific industry / business sectors for the benefit of the practice of Project Management as a whole. It is not rocket science, but then none of the issues documented by the many reports, surveys and textbooks, are either. The above definition of Project Management needs to be extended backwards to become: Project Management is the interdisciplinary process, from concept of an idea, to the achievement of a satisfactory end result. Consequently, the Project Management of the business case and objectives must be improved. One way of achieving this is for Clients / Sponsors to apply Product Breakdown Structures at this earlier stage. This would help solve two problems 1) better definition of the business case and 2) better control of the individual business objectives. In addition, the Project Management should be tasked with monitoring the effect of change against the business case not just the project objectives. Project Managers must also enhance their skills and understanding of the background to the business objectives and their ability to extract information from Users. This suggests that better stake-holder analysis is required and that interviewing skills should be added to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. In a contracting environment one can address the need for skilled Project Management to be involved earlier, by borrowing the established concept of design competitions. In this way a Clients reduced resources and design capabilities can be replaced by a professional Project Team. A paid design study process (apart from addressing the first two recommendations above) will also enable the Client to choose people to work with on the basis of their behaviour - a process used very successfully by BP. The concept of Gate Keepers and the more frequent Go/ No Go decision points used in product development should be applied more rigorously in any project. This technique would control many of the process disconnects identified above and force General Management to address the issue of priorities. In the same way that there are separate safety and quality plans there should be communication plans developed for each project identifying: the individual communication mechanisms, the media to be used and the levels of communication formality. Project Management must stem the proliferation of separate methodologies and integrate the two Bodies of Knowledge to create a generic view of what Project Management is and how it can be applied.

These are only a few recommendations. Obviously, more work is required to develop and refine management processes and techniques to correct the miss-match at the disconnections identified. Case histories need to be recorded to demonstrate that they can be made to work. Acknowledgements: I am indebted to many people for allowing me to cross examine them about the problems of Project Management. There are too many to enumerate here, but they will know who they are, and I hope will accept this general message of appreciation. However, there are two people whose contributions I would particularly like to acknowledge and they are: H.W.(Sandy) Dean. - Thirty years with M.W. Kellogg , Managing Director 1978 -84 Dr. Roy Whittaker. - ICI Project Group Manager 1970 -92

Paper Presented at the IPMA 15th World Congress on Project Management London, May2000.