Project Management - is it?

Management - The organisation and coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve desired objectives. - BusinessDirectory.com

Project Management - ...the planning, delegating, monitoring and control of all aspects of the project, and the motivation of those involved to achieve the project objectives within the expected performance targets for time, cost, quality, scope, benefits and risks. - Prince2

It seem the definitions of "management" and "project management" are not all that far apart. The "activities" mentioned in the management definition is really a catch all for, " ...objectives within the expected performance targets for time, cost, quality, scope, benefits and risks". So if this is the case, then there is a certain logic to say that project management is merely a more targeted version of management, and that (most) competent managers should be able to manage projects.

Here is the rub. They can't. The demands of projects today see a requirement for a greater skills set for project managers than ever before, which is why the standard of project management generally waxes between ok and rubbish. Why?

Management is all about organising resources, people, technology, materials, time and money. Project management is the same, with the added complication of having to manage all these things within a defined period and usually with additional scrutiny. While poor management has for a long time been caused at least in part by appointing people not qualified, interested or capable into management positions, given the exponential growth in the number of projects being run in all organisations it is no surprise that these are also major factors in poor project management performance.

In 25 years of working in and on projects across many industries and in differing areas (change, transformation, cost reduction, business improvement, IT, supply chain, to name a few), the words I have seldom heard are, "The project was delivered on time and on budget". Projects are often ill conceived, poorly planned, badly managed, ineffectively led (there's a difference), and poorly executed. The basics of project management are all too often ignored.

That this should be the case with the plethora of project management methodologies available to us today is somewhat inexplicable. We have PMP, Prince2, Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma (!), together with any number of in house PM methodologies to help, guide and inform the project manager, and yet still many organisations struggle with projects. It is interesting that when I started working in project management 25 years ago none of these methodologies existed. Sure, there was critical path analysis and PERT (handy if you're building a nuclear submarine), but projects were managed by spending time clearly understanding the client or organisation requirement, conducting analysis of project need, carefully selecting personnel, and stepping carefully through and signing off each phase before moving on. Let's face it, whatever methodology you use, a project is set up, analysis is conducted, the project is initiated and then executed, and finally closed. All the wonderous methodologies provide mere variations to this.

So what's missing?

Firstly, a truism is that (most) projects that fail, fail at the beginning. They are ill conceived, poorly scoped, and inadequately resourced. Result? Failure before you even begin.

Second, there is a really only small gene pool of people who can effectively manage even mildly complex projects. The reality is that it is not their fault; most project managers do the best they can. An outstanding Under 16 cricketer will struggle and most probably fail if he/she is parachuted into the Test team because "we need someone now and they have potential". Project management can be trained, and we must train those entrusted to do so, and also those who may need to be project managers. If you want projects to succeed, they must be crewed by people that understand project management.

Finally, projects, like every venture need leadership, someone who can guide, coach and mentor the project team, who can problem solve and make critical decisions, and who can manage the vagaries of clients, the team and the business management. Again, leadership is a skill, and this can be taught. Can you make a great leader? Probably not. But you can absolutely train extremely competent leaders, and we must take it on to do so. Our businesses, our workforce, our country need more and better leaders; we need to be far more proactive in developing them.

To run effective projects, we need to use methodologies "for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools", and apply logic, common sense and fact based decision making. When a project requirement is raised, it must be analysed and dissected to ensure that the project objectives are what the business really needs, and that it is resourced for success. Once this happens, the project setup must be comprehensive and thorough, with built in reviews and checks from the outset. We all know that the best laid plan only ever survives the first shot of battle, and this is true of projects. But while it is impossible to guarantee perfect execution, it is possible to achieve perfect preparation, and this is what we must strive for to mitigate the risk of project failure. We can be as best prepared as possible so that we can deal with the left field occurrence as best when they happen.

Projects are how work is done today. We need to be better in doing them . Our companies need us to be better in delivering them. And industry needs better project management across the board. Who's up for the challenge?