making fixed price software projects profitable through management training
DESCRIPTION
Software service industry faces problems in deriving profits from their fixed price projects. We faced such challenge in Wipro Technologies also and turned the situation around to make fixed price projects profitable through a project management training program. Over 1000 project managers were trained, assessed and found to deliver with much less overruns and defect rates. A summary of these results were presented at Asia Pacific Software Engineering Conference conducted by the IEEE.TRANSCRIPT
Case study
Profitability of fixed price software projects
- Results of a project management training program in Wipro Technologies presented in APSEC ‘06
Present co-ordinates of the author:Chief consultant, [email protected]
G. Nagaraja
General Manager,
Talent Transformation,
Wipro Technologies
Path FinderPath Finder- A software project - A software project
management competency management competency development initiativedevelopment initiative
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Overview
Need for a S/W project management training initiative
Challenges
The initiative– Courses
– Best practices
Results– Account interventions and industry publications
Current status
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Need for a SPM training initiative
Fixed price projects were running into effort and schedule overruns leading to losses
Root cause analysis showed PM Competency as a key concern area
PMI initiative was launched to improve the project management capability of project managers– PMI initiative was successful; at one point of time, Wipro had the largest
number of certified PMPs in India and was among top 15 globally
– Feedback from PMPs was that PMBOK provides a general perspective on project management and something more applied was needed to manage software project.
Hence a need for training on software project management was felt
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Challenges
Software engineering and project management courses are generally considered to be boring and monotonous– Participants have a “We already know this” tendency
Most of these subjects are perceived to as “Good in theory but doesn’t work in practice”– Establishing the relevance of the teaching in the course is a
significant challenge
Project manager’s time– Project managers would find it extremely difficult to spare 8
days for training.
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Overview of the Path Finder series
ScopeScope
QualityQuality
CommunicationCommunication
TimeTime
Human Resources
Human Resources
ProcurementProcurement
RiskRisk
CostCost
IntegrationManagement
EstimationMethodologies
RequirementGathering
RequirementModeling
RequirementChange
Management
Advanced Project
Scheduling
EffectiveProject Planning
And tracking
Advanced RiskManagement
Highlights• International Videos • Wipro Case studies and examples
• Home grown innovative solutions• Publication in industry forums
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Best practices followed in the curriculum
To make the subjects relevant – – Many case studies, role plays and live examples were included
– Applicability was so stressed that while preparing each course, we followed a two-step procedure – reviewing the content-readiness and then reviewing the applicability readiness.
– We included results of our own research within the organization.
To make the subjects interesting– We formatted the courses in such a way that
• Each course had sufficient visual, auditory and kinesthetic reinforcements.
• A balance between left-brain inputs and right-brain inputs could be achieved
To make it easy for project managers to participate – – We followed a “Rain Model”
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Results…
Participant feedback has been overwhelming– Sample qualitative feedback
• The Path Finder program has definitely equipped me to become a more effective PM … a senior Project Manager
• I have gained wonderful experience by completing Path Finder series….Onsite Manager
– Nominations were always full– Covered than 2500 traineesh
Management response– Courses were made
mandatory to all practicing PMs
– Assessments were introduced
Comparing performance before and after This Practice training
Box plot indicating that the scores of those who have undergone training are
significantly higher than the ones who have not undergone the training
Av
era
ge
pe
rce
nta
ge
sco
re
Trained EmployeesUntrained employees
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
Boxplot of untrained employees Vs trained employees
Employees in band C1 and above trained in Path Finder
1558
361 334
44218
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
BDC CDC HDC KDC PDC (blank)
Location
Total
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…Results…
Internal consulting following training well received– A $ 10 m deal won with the help of our team for estimation
– Helped in achieving clarity and completeness of requirements in many instances
Hi <Faculty1> and <Faculty2>, We have delivered the SRS to the customer and obtained the sign off also. Your guidance in the following helped us to prepare the detailed SRS.1. Requirement Gathering Techniques2. Documentation with Visual Controls(like Site Map, Domain Classes and Process Flow, ER diagram)3. Detailed Review of SRS and various suggestions on the presentation Thank you so much for the support and we look forward the same in our next phases . Regards<<Project Manager name>>
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…Results
Correlation between assessment performance and project performance has been established– Observed over a sample of 36 projects, those scoring > 60% in
the assessment have an average effort under-run of 10%– Observed over a sample of > 100 projects, those scoring < 40%
in assessments had an average over run > 3%
Research has been published in industry forums• Nagaraja Gundappa, “MVC Points – a new estimation
methodology for web applications”, PML 2005, May 2005.• Nagaraja Gundappa, “Trends in Estimation methodologies”, SPM
ICON 2005, May 2005.
The initiative is now institutionalized with the establishment of a project management academy
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Current status and future
A PM Academy has been established that stream lines project management trainings – both soft skills as well as process skills– Future project managers are identified and go through a series
of soft skill trainings called “Future Manager Program (FMP)”– FMP will be followed by a set of project management trainings– The PM trainings consist of two sets with 6-9 months of gap in
between; the trainees will be mentored during this period– Trainees will be qualified through assessment at the end
Future– Only those qualified to manage projects will be assigned to the
role of project manager– Focus on creating programs for and training senior project
managers enabling them to handle large projects
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Thank you