Project Success
Project success means delivering on baseline performance metrics. Successful delivery usually means optimizing three constraint areas; cost, schedule, and quality. Projects must be delivered on-time, with accurate cost estimates and actual costs within an approved budget. Cost and schedule success depends on project scope management. Project teams are also accountable for ensuring the quality of project and product deliverables. Teams need early identification and proactive management of project issues and risks. The perception of their value can be determined by effective communication with clients and stakeholders.
How do you create project success?
Establish a progressive center of excellence, a PMO that enables Project Managers to apply their project management skills. A PMO centralizes capabilities for efficiency, and assures consistent application of best practices. Capabilities include tools, standards, templates, and processes. A PMO is also a functional home, providing mentoring, resource assignment support, career and performance management, rewards and recognition, training, and certification
Consistently apply industry best practices including the Perot Systems Corporation Project Management Methodology (PMM). PMM is our guideline for managing the project lifecycle. PMM is scalable so that small projects incur less process rigor than complex projects.
Establish and maintain performance metrics including cycle time to measure how long it takes to start a project, and on-time completions. Measure level of engagement and competency by measuring Project Manager certification, and the degree to which Project Manager skill levels match project complexity. Track resource performance with discretionary hour delivery, and direct project utilization. And measure the contribution of quality maturity, the number certified project plans, and PMM lifecycle compliance reviews.
Portfolio and Resource Management are essential
Resource Management includes resource capacity planning that aligns with the pipeline of project resource requirements. A good resource management plan incorporates resource forecasting to communicate when resources will be available for assignment. It identifies the need to hire or shift resources across projects by monitoring forecasted workload that enables us to determine skill types that are required for current and future projects.
Implement portfolio management to achieve high business value by a) linking projects to business strategy, b) identifying the strategic value of each project, and c) determining interdependencies. That enables us to identify projects that can be deferred, b) quantify the value of projects that have ambiguous business benefits, c) eliminate projects that don’t fit, and d) define projects that are impacted by the outcome of others. Portfolio management analyzes projects relative to each other, their position within a portfolio, and their contribution to achieving business strategies.
The point of projects is to deliver business benefits
First, meet Perot Systems Corporation financial goals for project revenue and operating expense to allow the PMO to continue to exist so that it can deliver client business value.
Establish a process for benefits tracking for cost justified projects. Benefit tracking is a matter of quantifying benefits in business cases as a prerequisite for project authorization. Then follow-up with business owners to measure actual benefit realized.
Enabling a client to exceed expected business benefits improves customer satisfaction, and improves the likelihood that Perot Systems Corporation will be the service provider of choice.