|
|
|
|
Each month, Tom Mochal presents a set of project management tips and techniques for handling various aspects of planning and managing a project. Tom has over 23 years of IT experience. He has developed a comprehensive, scalable project management process called TenStep (www.TenStep.com). He has also developed PMOStep (www.PMOStep.com), which is focused on building, implementing and supporting project management methodology through a Project Management Office. Tom also has a comprehensive application support methodology called SupportStep (www.SupportStep.com).
For the most part, the days of the hundred million dollar project are over. Very large projects are simply too difficult to manage and execute successfully. There are a number of problems with very large projects.
The work is less clear the farther out in the future it is. Large projects are usually always long projects as well, and that makes them very difficult to plan successfully.
Since the future work is less clear, it is harder to make accurate estimates for effort, duration and cost.
Business and technical conditions change over time, making planning assumptions in the future very uncertain. The business and technical certainties of today can change dramatically over time.
You risk losing organization support if there is a long delay before delivering tangible results. It is very difficult to maintain organizational enthusiasm and support over long periods of time.
It is very difficult to predict resource requirements and availability far into the future. Again, this gets at the difficulty of estimating accurately as you get further out in the future.
In general, very large efforts are much too difficult and complex to manage as a single project. The better technique is to break the work down into more manageable chunks, each of which is considered its own project, with its own Project Definition and workplan.
For instance, a long IT development effort can be broken into separate sequential projects based on the life cycle. A project is set up for the analysis work. Toward the end of that project a second project is established, based on what you know then, to do the design work. Then a construct/test project is initiated, and finally a project for implementation. Other large initiatives might be broken up into smaller projects that might run in parallel. Some large initiatives can have a combination of smaller projects - some of which must be done sequentially, but others that can be done in parallel. Each team will work to complete its smaller project, but all the work would be coordinated so that the entire effort is successful.
Set up a Program to Coordinate a Set of Related Projects
If you break down a large effort into a number of related projects, there may still be a need to maintain overall management and coordination. This is the purpose of setting up a 'program'. A program is the umbrella structure established to manage a series of related projects. Each project has a full-time or part-time project manager. The program is lead by a program manager. The program does not produce any project deliverables itself. The project teams produce them all. The purpose of the program is to:
Provide overall direction, guidance and leadership for the projects.
Make sure the related projects are communicating effectively.
Provide a central point of contact and focus for the client and the project teams.
Determine how individual projects should be defined to ensure all the work gets completed successfully.
Would you like to receive project management tips every week? Sign up for the weekly TenStep Project Management Tip of the Week at www.TenStep.com.
