Five Immutable Principles of Project Success
Glen Alleman MSSM
Veteran, Applying Systems Engineering Principles, Processes & Practices to Increase the Probability of Program Success for Complex Systems in Aerospace & Defense, Enterprise IT, and Process and Safety Industries
All projects are disappointments. That’s why they call it a project. All projects push the boundaries of schedule, cost, and technical performance, otherwise, it would be called production.
We need to face up to this. We need to acknowledge that projects are managed in the presence of uncertainty. Uncertainty drives risk. Risk drives cost, schedule, and technical performance.
We must manage in the presence of uncertainties that create risk.
This starts with having NO, I mean NO surprises. Is something goes wrong that was a surprise, a REAL surprise, then someone didn’t do their job. A risk was ignored. A risk was overlooked. A risk was hiding in plain sight.
Risk management is the primary role of project management. And By The Way, agile is not a risk management process unless it has a risk register, a probabilistic assessment for those risk and the impact of those risks, and a monetized outcome for the handling strategy for each risk in the Risk Register.
Risk is an Uncertainty that Matters. Risk is any uncertainty that if it occurs will affect the achievement of objectives.
The role of risk management is to reduce or eliminate the surprise of being over budget, behind schedule, and not having your thing work. Risk management means knowing bad things are going to happen soon enough to do something about them.
领英推荐
The other four principles of success are in support of risk management.
The five immutable principles of project success are:
1. Know where you are going by defining “done” at some point in the future. This point may be far in the future – months or years from now. Or closer in the future, days or weeks from now.
2. Have some kind of plan to get to where you are going. This plan can be simple or it can be complex. The fidelity of the plan depends on the tolerance for risk by the users of the plan.
3. Understand the resources needed to execute the plan. How much time and money is needed to reach the destination? This can be fixed or variable.
4. Identify the impediments to progress along the way to the destination. Have some means of removing, avoiding, or ignoring these impediments.
5. Have some way to measure your planned progress, not just your progress. Progress to Plan must be measured in units of physical percent complete. In units meaningful to the decision makers.
Especialista en Gestión del Conocimiento de Seguridad
2 年In this short article, you have explained these concepts way better than a lot of project management handbooks and courses. Great job!
Great article Glen - although we don't view 'all' projects as disappointments - many are, but all are certainly challenges. You have correctly identified the key elements to better outcomes. It 'starts' with the end in mind - that sustainable start-up or production - and the degree of planning with that in mind. As commissioning specialists, the earlier the engagement (even pre-FEED), the comprehensiveness of the system-based planning and turnover, and the sequencing of turnovers are very important. The only elements I'd add would be transparency and communication - both critical to addressing the risks that plague current delivery modes. Change is a constant factor and the ability to manage and structure is very important in assigning the proper resources. Thanks for this article.