pm_singles

Getting things done on time and on budget

Core skills needed to manage global projects

Clever technology to crack complex problemsP03 P08 P13

11/09/14#0273

RACONTEUR.NET /COMPANY/RACONTEUR-MEDIA/RACONTEUR.NET@RACONTEUR

1

i

f

t

PROJECTMANAGEMENT

S M T W T F S

83%9:04 AM

REMOTEACCESS

REGISTER FREE ONLINE TODAY www.projchallenge.com

DON’T MISS! The UK’s largest

event for Project Management

14–15 October 2014, Olympia, London

• Discover the latest products and services• Meet leading project suppliers• Choose from 40 FREE inspiring seminars

P03RACONTEUR.NET /COMPANY/RACONTEUR-MEDIA/RACONTEUR.NET@RACONTEUR

1

i

f

t

PROJECT MANAGEMENT ONLINE: WWW.RACONTEUR.NET/PROJECT-MANAGEMENT

Overview

Britain is awash with big in-frastructure projects either under construction or re-

cently completed. They range from High Speed 2, Crossrail and the new Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport to the London Gateway container port and the Thames Tideway Tunnel, a new “super sewer” to keep the capital clean.

All these are examples of pro-ject management – on a grand scale. However, project management does not only apply to big infrastructure schemes. The recent relocation of all News UK businesses in London, in-cluding The Times and the Sun, to the “Baby Shard” at London Bridge is but another example of project manage-ment in action.

As Dr Martin Barnes, president of Association for Project Management (APM) from 2003 to 2012, observes: “At its most fundamental, project man-agement is about people getting things done.” APM was set up in 1972 to im-prove the professionalism of project management, with a vision of ensuring that every project succeeds, and is de-livered on time and on budget.

“Project management is a set of pro-cesses and techniques which, if they are applied properly and logically, there is no reason why a project should fail,” says Dayner Proudfoot, a spokesman for APM.

While the Olympic Park for the Lon-don 2012 Games has become the poster child for the project management sec-tor, because it was delivered ahead of schedule and under budget, not every project is as successful.

A global PwC survey of chief exec-utives found that the typical project management approaches employed by organisations result in the schedule and budget for the project being missed in about a third of cases. The survey also found that poor estimation in the planning phase was the biggest contrib-utor to project failures.

Learning the lessons from past fail-ures is also crucial to modern project management. When British Airways moved into Terminal 5 in March 2008, the airline aimed to operate a full schedule of flights on day one. Howev-er, a baggage system failure resulted in chaos for thousands of passengers and dozens of flight cancellations. In con-trast, when Heathrow’s new £2.5-bil-lion Terminal 2 opened in June this year, things ran like clockwork because numerous test runs had been carried out and it was running at just 10 per cent capacity with only 34 flights car-rying 6,000 passengers.

It is examples like these that help to reinforce Mark Thurston’s argu-ment that project management has matured significantly as a discipline

in recent years and is now much better understood and recognised in academ-ic spheres.

The regional managing director for Europe of CH2M Hill, the employ-ee-owned consulting, design and op-erations firm that is involved in Cross-rail and worked on the 2012 Olympics, says: “Government in particular have recognised the need to take this stuff seriously. The private sector had got ahead, but the public sector is catch-ing up and attracting some of the best people because they have found ways of paying those people market rates.”

VOCABULARY FOR SUCCESS

The big projects of the past two dec-ades, such as railways, roads and the Olympics, have also helped to create a vocabulary for understanding concepts, including cost, time and schedule, that allow projects to succeed much more readily, Mr Thurston contends. “As a country, Britain has become a lot more project savvy and project aware in the last ten years,” he says.

While Britain now has a consider-able talent pool capable of delivering big infrastructure projects for both the public and private sectors, there are question marks over whether the coun-try has the capability for the next wave, such as the ambitious programme of building new nuclear power stations. “There’s a technical understanding and

depth to nuclear which is of a different ilk to roads or railways or stadiums,” Mr Thurston cautions.

There are a plethora of software packages available for project manag-ers, but there is a danger that chasing a technology rainbow can detract from the end-goal. Many in the sector say there is a balance to be struck to match the right competencies, leadership skills and experience with the right tools and systems.

No matter how sophisticated the systems being used on a project, man-agers will inevitably have to cope with unexpected events during the course of delivery. Whereas admitting that not everything is going to plan might once have been regarded as a sign of weakness or failure, changing tack or even pulling the plug entirely are now both valid options.

As Mr Thurston adds: “It takes a cer-tain level of courage on the leadership of a big project to say, ‘Let’s get that out on the table’ – bad news doesn’t get bet-ter with time.”

The ability to go back to the drawing board is a further sign of the maturity of project management in Britain to-day – and of the future prosperity of the discipline.

Put simply, project management is about people solving unexpected problems and getting things done, as Chris Johnston explains

Publishing ManagerDavid Kells

Managing EditorPeter Archer

Production ManagerNatalia Rosek

Commissioning EditorChris Johnston

Design, Infographics & IllustrationThe Design Surgery www.thedesignsurgery.co.uk

Although this publication is funded through advertising and sponsorship, all editorial is without bias and sponsored features are clearly labelled. For an upcoming schedule, partnership inquiries or feedback, please call +44 (0)20 3428 5230 or e-mail [email protected]

Raconteur Media is a leading European publisher of special interest content and research. It covers a wide range of topics, including business, finance, sustainability, lifestyle and the arts. Its special reports are exclusively published within The Times, The Sunday Times and The Week. www.raconteur.net

The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources the Proprietors believe to be correct. However, no legal liability can be accepted for any errors. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior consent of the Publisher.© Raconteur Media

Contributors

Distributed in

In association with

Project management is a set of processes and techniques which, if they are applied properly and logically, there is no reason why

a project should fail

AMY HATTON

Freelance journalist, she is editor of Project Manager Today, a leading independent UK project management publication.

CHRIS JOHNSTON

A former business news editor of The Times, he is now a freelance journalist writing on a wide range of business subjects.

NICK MARTINDALE

Award-winning freelance journalist and editor, he contributes regularly to national business media and trade press, specialising in HR and workplace issues.

DAN MATTHEWS

Journalist and author of The New Rules of Business, he writes for national newspapers, magazines and websites on a wide range of business issues.

JIM McCLELLAND

Sustainable futurist, speaker, writer and social-media commentator, his specialisms include built environment, corporate social responsibility and ecosystem services.

GETTING THINGS DONEON TIME AND ON BUDGET

Image: Getty Images

P04 RACONTEUR.NET /COMPANY/RACONTEUR-MEDIA/RACONTEUR.NET@RACONTEUR

1

i

f

t

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 11/09/14EDITION #0273

Infrastructure

It’s the stuff that makes the country work, creates employment and promotes growth; without renewed infrastructure Britain would gradually grind to a halt, writes Jim McClelland

A culture of blame, claim and shame persists in some sections

Infrastructure is big business: a world of megaprojects and trillion-dollar spend, histor-

ic success and eye-watering failure. Performance is on a grand scale and world stage.

According to forecasts from PwC, around $1.5 trillion of the $78-trillion global investment pot to 2025 is des-tined for the UK, where annual spend-ing on capital projects and infrastruc-ture is set to rise by 51 per cent, even with the £50-billion HS2 high-speed rail project still on the drawing board. Headline numbers are huge.

Dubbed by government a “blueprint for Britain”, the National Infrastruc-ture Plan has laid foundations for a pipeline of public investment worth £100 billion over the next Parliament.

However, big-money projects attract big media attention. So when things go wrong, as happened with the Wembley Stadium own goal and never-ending story of the British Library, the fallout is bad news for investor confidence in the construction sector as a whole. By contrast, the universally recognised success of the 2012 Olympics has seen UK project management and infra-structure delivery stock rise strongly in global markets.

Professor Andrew Davies, chair in the management of projects, at The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Envi-ronment, University College London (UCL), cites two key organisational innovations as having transformed how we design and deliver infra-structure megaprojects in the UK, for the better.

“First, the T5 Agreement developed for Heathrow is now recognised world-wide as a major innovation in how to deliver megaprojects. The client, BAA/Ferrovial, decided to bear the risk and worked with suppliers in highly collab-orative integrated teams to promote in-novation to deal with uncertainties and respond to opportunities to improve performance,” he says.

This approach to risk, collaboration and innovation can clearly be seen to have influenced subsequent projects, including the London Olympics. The supply chain is also the focus of the second exemplar flagged by Professor Davies, Crossrail.

SUPPLY CHAIN INNOVATION

“Crossrail has pioneered a new ap-proach to promote innovation within the project supply chain”, he continues. “In collaboration with Imperial College London and UCL, Crossrail has devel-oped a strategy to identify, support, finance and reward innovation. All or-ganisations involved are encouraged to bring forward novel ideas, practices and new technologies.”

Recognising the importance of supplier activity downstream, Na-tional Grid has just become the first infrastructure client to join the Supply Chain Sustainability School as a part-ner, collaborating with 22 other major players to help develop more than 6,000 member companies. Chairman of the school Shaun McCarthy experienced first-hand the critical role of supply chains in megaprojects, in his previous capacity as chairman of the Commis-sion for a Sustainable London 2012.

“Infrastructure projects are never delivered by one organisation; most have long and complex supply chains and competence is critical to success. Very large projects, such as Heathrow Terminal 5, London 2012 and Crossrail, have the scale to develop supply chains

to meet their needs, smaller projects do not,” he says.

His concern is that, despite the respected recommendations of the 1994 Latham and 1998 Egan advisory reports, the construction industry as a whole remains stubbornly entrenched for smaller, lower-profile projects and a culture of “blame, claim and shame” persists in some sections.

“We are evolving a two-tier indus-try,” he says, “where the same people move from one megaproject to another and perpetrate the good practice that has been developed, but very little fil-ters down to smaller projects.”

PEOPLE AND PERFORMANCE

The global talent pool for major projects is already small relative to ris-ing demand. If any development pro-gramme is arguably only as good as the people engaged in delivery, how smart are major infrastructure projects at attracting and retaining the necessary calibre of human resources?

Answering this question is key to business growth, divisional director at Mott MacDonald, Martin Perks, explains: “Maturing your talent ac-quisition and management is the hot topic in construction and consulting. With potential for the market to ex-pand, getting people involved in your business and keeping them is the num-ber-one focus.”

The solution is not simply trans-fer-market headhunting, but adopting a more systemic approach, he argues.

“Building relationships with new talent from leaving schools through to trade and professional qualifications is becoming essential. This isn’t just about cash investment, but creating academic and industry partnerships, supporting the growth of rounded professionals with the right behav-iours and soft relationship skills, not just technically competent people,” he says.

According to Professor Peter Head, executive chairman of The Ecological Sequestration Trust, it is also people who are central to industry growth and change, albeit from a different, end-us-er perspective. In his analysis, as a civil and structural engineer previously responsible for megaprojects such as the Second Severn Crossing, ongoing failure of the infrastructure sector to place people at the heart of project de-cision-making and design intention is the big lesson on holistic thinking going unheeded.

“We are not learning,” he counsels, “because we are still not designing and financing infrastructure to deliver so-cial, environmental and economic out-comes. Too often we fall back into de-signing the ‘thing’ not the performance. For example, a railway to connect cities with faster journey time, instead of im-proving human wellbeing more widely through mobility.”

Performance for wellbeing takes the delivery debate beyond issues of investor confidence, long-term politi-cal vision and a stable planning frame-work; it accelerates progress past the cutting edge of digital technology and intelligent infrastructure management or IIM.

Infrastructure created by the people, for the people, sounds like revolution – a revolution to be project managed.

MEGAPROJECTS

REVOLUTION

global spending on capital projects and infrastructure to 2025

£78TRN

rise in overall UK spending on capital projects and infrastructure to 2025

Source: PwC

of major UK projects are scheduled to be completed in the 2020s or 2030s

51%

24%

£100BNpipeline of UK public investment in infrastructure to 2020

Source: HM Treasury

Source: MPA

Image: Getty Images

Case Study

GATEWAY TO REGENERATION

While Ferry Cross the Mersey might still work for Gerry and the Pacemakers, 50 years on, the prospect of a new six-lane toll bridge is perhaps more likely to have residents singing in Runcorn and Widnes.Work started on the Mersey Gateway Bridge in May, following appointment of preferred bidder Merseylink Con-sortium. The vision is for a landmark structure, 2,130 metres long, with a 1,000-metre river span. The unique reinforced-concrete design, with steel cable stays, is similar to the Second Severn Crossing, but with three towers, the tallest standing 125 metres high.Opening of the transformational new crossing in autumn 2017 will bring about much-needed traffic relief for the existing, congested, ageing Silver Jubilee Bridge, which is operating at ten times design capacity, conveying 80,000 vehicles every weekday.Development will act as a catalyst for regeneration of the local Borough of Halton, plus support economic growth in Liverpool City region, Cheshire and the wider North West. Both bridges will be tolled, but free for Halton residents to cross.Employment arising from major infra-structure is a key development benefit. The new bridge will create 470 jobs on site during construction and 4,640 in total, including agglomeration impacts of operation, regeneration and inward investment. In economic terms, this

equates to £61.9 million a year in gross value added by 2030.In a privately financed public-private partnership arrangement, Halton Borough Council and Merseylink Consortium together cut the lifetime project cost by £250 million through savings made in procurement. Total project costs over 30 years will be around £1.86 billion, with 70 per cent of funding coming from tolls paid by road users. UK government provides the £212 million remainder, in £86 million development cost grant, plus long-term revenue support up to £126 million over 12 years. Construction and land assembly costs amount to around £600 million.Large-scale, high-profile projects carry potential to build – or damage – investor confidence in the infrastructure sector as a whole. On the Mersey Gateway, the success story has already been written in part thanks to procurement savings secured.Looking ahead, the aim is to share this experience and best practice externally, says project director Steve Nicholson. “The Mersey Gateway success was built over several years, where a dedicated client team worked alongside govern-ment civil servants focused on clear objectives,” he says. “Performance in tackling procurement is now being reviewed in a lessons-learnt exercise, and it is intended that findings will be shared across government and the industry.”

Image: Merseylink



1

i

f

t


Commercial Feature

PROJECT MANAGEMENT11/09/14EDITION #0000

RACONTEUR.NET /COMPANY/RACONTEUR-MEDIA/RACONTEURMEDIA@RACONTEUR

1

i

f

t

P13

Commercial Feature

New professionals for new infrastructure projectsAs the demands on project professionals grow and employers have to work harder to recruit and retain talent, more companies are seeing the benefits of Association for Project Management corporate accreditation

“Issues such as effective, compe-tence-based recruitment, continuing professional development and reten-tion are key when it comes to growing this pool of talent,” says Mr Bragg. In particular, he argues, more structured career development is needed for the next generation of project profession-als who will run mega-projects, such as Crossrail and the building of the nuclear power stations which are be-ing discussed by government.

“New regulations and new technol-ogy are constantly being introduced, adding new challenges. The majority of entry-level project management qualifications are knowledge based whereas, in order to create a more rounded project professional, we need to raise the bar and ensure these professionals engage with ca-reer-long professional development that continually builds on their expe-rience and competence.”

This is why an increasing number of companies are realising the benefits of embedding APM qualifications into their own learning and development activity by becoming an APM-accred-ited organisation. These companies align themselves closely with APM’s Five Dimensions of Professionalism.

These principles help project pro-fessionals to develop their careers and include breadth and depth of knowl-edge, achievement of APM and other qualifications, which are recognised across the profession, a commitment to continuing professional develop-ment and accountability to APM’s Code of Professional Conduct.

“Organisations are also making a visible investment in staff by seek-ing APM corporate accreditation,” says Mr Bragg. “They find that this enhances the external recognition of their project management capability and provides assurance to key stake-holders allowing them to attract and

With the economy picking up and Britain’s population continuing to grow, ever-increasing numbers of building and infrastructure projects are taking place. Crossrail is nearing completion and there is discussion about a major new rail system to link the great cities of the North.

Earlier this year the government announced £36 billion planned in-vestment into infrastructure for 2014 to 2015, a sum that could support more than 150,000 construction jobs. Meanwhile, with tighter time-lines, more stringent environmental considerations, new technology and more regulation, there are greater ex-pectations about what these projects can achieve.

Adding to these challenges is the limited pool of specialised project pro-fessionals available to meet this grow-ing demand. Employers in a variety of sectors have to work harder than ever to recruit, retain and develop talent as they face growing competition for the best project professionals.

“Employers need to grow this workforce by investing in staff and im-proving training, knowledge and com-petence,” says Andrew Bragg, chief executive of Association for Project Management (APM), which with more than 21,150 individual and 550 cor-porate members is the largest profes-sional body of its kind in Europe, and works to raise awareness and stand-ards in the profession.

Andrew Bragg Chief executive Association for Project Management 21,150

550

individual members, making it the largest professional body of its kind in Europe

corporate members and continually growing

FCO Services, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, provides security services, such as installing and enabling secure communications and designing, building and managing secure facil-ities for the UK public sector and in challenging environments abroad.In 2010, FCO Services took the decision to realign its project management framework with that of APM, stipulating both APM’s Body of Knowledge as the stand-ard reference and APM’s suite of qualifications, investing in and de-veloping staff to undertake formal project management development to this standard.

“Understanding the level of compe-tency for each individual has a num-ber of benefits, both for the business and the individual,” says Peter Bramley, resource development manager, programme and project management at FCO Services. “Competency can be collectively reviewed against an agreed frame-work, which enables a greater degree of objectivity, while focused formal and experiential training can be identified in order to pro-vide the individual with the best development opportunities. It also allows the organisation to allocate the best resource to each project, subject to developmental needs.”

ALIGNING PROJECT MANAGEMENTFRAMEWORK WITH APM

We need to raise the bar and ensure these professionals engage with career-long professional

development that continually builds on their experience and competence

Association for Project Management in numbers

retain the best project management talent in the country.”

These companies realise that align-ing with APM’s suite of qualifications provides staff with a career-long devel-opment path as well as providing the organisations themselves with a struc-tured framework to shape their internal learning and development activity.

Later this year, APM will publish a piece of research called Conditions for Project Success, which identifies and explores the factors which lead to the successful delivery of projects, creating a benchmark against which to assess the key ingredients for a suc-cessful project over time.

The findings, APM believes, will help organisations build a convincing busi-ness case for effective investment in project management and for maximis-ing the return on that investment.

APM is also working hard to ex-plode some of the myths around project management. Its Myth Bust-ing-themed conference next year will bring together speakers from within the profession and thought leaders from outside to address what has long been believed, but never said – that project management in theory is rarely project management in practice.

As demand continues to increase for highly competent and well-rounded project professionals, who are able to meet the challenges of the 21st cen-tury, the role of APM is more important than ever.

For more information, please visit www.apm.org.uk


1

i

f

t

Human Resources

Recruiting, nurturing and retaining talent is central to ensuring quality project management, as Hazel Davis reports

It can be very easy to fall into the trap of believing that pro-cess is everything in project

management. But the role of project manager is – and hopefully always will be – fulfilled by humans.

Steve McGuckin, global property managing director for consultancy Turner & Townsend, says today’s pro-ject manager is a different proposition to those of previous years. For one, a project manager now knows how to handle big data. “They are consult-ants and they earn their keep by giving expert advice and studying trends,” he says. “A lot of our project manag-ers’ USP [unique selling proposition] comes from their ability to read and use data.”

The biggest change Mr McGuckin has seen in recent years is that “project managers used to be subject-matter experts who became generalists – now people learn the more generic skills first”, he says.

Gill Hancock, interim director, pro-fessional standards and knowledge, at the Association for Project Manage-ment, agrees: “Project management has increasingly become a career of first choice and this is highlighted by the introduction of the higher appren-ticeship in project management being launched in 2012, which provides a route into the profession from a young-er age. This differs from recent history, where people would train in a specific discipline first, such as construction or

engineering, and enter project manage-ment much later in their careers.”

The Arras People Project Manage-ment Benchmark Report 2014 found that MBAs are increasing remuner-ation for project managers, while a Master’s degree in project manage-ment has questionable benefit. The re-port suggests that the rise in modern apprenticeships in project portfolio management (PPM) might muddy the landscape further. It also highlights the ageing of the PPM community as a result of the lack of new entry-level opportunities during the recession.

Naturally, with the advent of re-mote working and digital project management tools, the way project managers work has changed. Ian May, programme director at Reading-based digital agency Creative Jar, says: “The project manager of 2014 needs to be an even better communicator than before because there are now so many ways of communicating that picking the right one for the circumstances and using it effectively is a skill in its own right.”

Paul Naybour, director of Parallel Project Training, believes that the project manager of 2014 spends more time with stakeholders and less time planning. “There is a growing recogni-tion that the people leadership skills of project managers are the most impor-tant,” he says.

RECRUITMENT

So how do we find this special new breed of project manager? Researchers for the Arras report spoke to recruiters of PPM practitioners and found that, while recruitment agencies came out on top, the use of networks, both per-sonal and LinkedIn, is still growing, es-pecially as organisations are reducing their spending on recruitment. The re-port cites the phenomenon of “missing

Being an effective project

manager isn’t really about fame and glory

talent”, that there is a misalignment in the recruitment process within many organisations which impacts their abil-ity to identify and secure the services of the best practitioners.

“Recruiting for project managers has always been challenging so for us it’s a case of always being on the look-out. It can be a little too easy to rely on the likes of LinkedIn and forget that other forms of proactive recruitment exist,” says Mr May.

“But in the world of digital project management, at least, there’s now quite a significant online communi-ty which increasingly spills over into offline meet-ups. These have evolved from events which previously tended to focus on designers and developers. It’s about finding the right balance between online activity and good old-fashioned networking, but still it’s great to be able to get advice from your network about how a new recruit might fit into your organisation.”

Recruitment of seniors is difficult whether the market is strong or weak, says Mr McGuckin. “The number of people out there with in-depth capa-bilities reduces so, if you can promote from within that really helps. And the

most important skill is judgment. Sad-ly, you can’t do a Masters in judgment.”

The gender balance is also changing, albeit slightly, with the latest Arras re-port showing a small increase in female practitioners moving towards a 70:30 ratio compared with 75:25 in 2008.

RETENTION

So how do we keep the good ones? Retention is always a tricky one, says Mr May. “Keeping staff enthusiastic as one project ends and another begins isn’t always easy, but we do try and en-sure that we recognise the value built up in client relationships in previous projects when planning resourcing for future work,” he says.

Mr May believes that the fast-paced nature of a digitally focused business means no two projects are too similar and so this helps keep people engaged. But businesses could look harder at the closure phase of a project. “That’s the best opportunity to move into a new phase of work, especially if the project has exceeded expectations. Companies could also do more to recognise the val-ue of project management as a func-tion. There’s sometimes a perception that it’s not a glamorous role – although being an effective project manager isn’t really about fame and glory – and that can be limiting,” he says.

Mr Naybour believes the answer lies solely in retention strategies. “Most project managers live for success. They thrive on seeing projects delivered and appreciated by the customers, users and the public. They get disillusioned when they are not supported or given the resources, or suffer from frequent changes or lack of strategy,” he says.

“It’s crucial to establish simple, but effective, governance structures, and provide the resources and tools to get the job done.”

When to pull the plug

Page 11

INVESTINGIN PEOPLE

47% of UK students hoping for a career in project portfolio management want to be a project manager

33%are looking for graduate schemes

62%of project management practitioners say they understand the training they need to prepare for a new challenge

72% of contractors managed to get more than six months’ work in 2013

Source: Arras 2014

Image: Alamy



1

i

f

t


Top Tips

CORE SKILLS

Managing projects on a global scale requires high levels of skill in five core areas. Nick Martindale has what you need to know and what you should avoid

Risk management needs to be seen as an integral part of project management, rath-er than treated as a bolt-on, warns Dennis Sheehan, senior training consultant at ILX Group. He urges companies to bench-mark their current practices and map that with what they may require in the future. “Current best practice is to treat risk as an uncertainty that could either be a positive opportunity or a negative threat,” he says.

Project managers need to anticipate is-sues which can cause projects to slip, says Hazel Greatbatch, head of delivery for The Forum Corporation in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “Timelines get pushed back, deadlines get missed, priorities over-lap and communications breakdown,” she says. “Execute a project on a global scale and the process becomes even harder. Mul-tiple stakeholders clash; time, cultural and language differences emerge; and global teams, with their own conflicting priorities, have to be met.”

It’s important, too, to take the time to work out the scope of projects ahead of getting started. “Don’t be tempted to rush a project out,” she warns. “Planning is the key, especially when rolling out an initiative on a global scale, as it can help identify po-tential problems and put in place solutions before implementation, reducing the risk of any delays that cost time and money.”

Checking that progress and spend levels of any project do not slip, or if they do ensur-ing designs can be modified accordingly, is vital.

Julie Wood, director and leader of pro-gramme and project management at Arup, says those with overall responsibility for delivering projects need to monitor all costs and what steps have been taken pro-actively, even if this is ostensibly the job of third-party employees.

“Some project elements will have long lead-in times, so establishing that orders have been placed and allocated to the pro-ject is key,” she says. “Visits to suppliers of such elements can provide further comfort that materials have been allocated to the project.”

Picking the right team to manage day-to-day delivery will make a big difference in ensuring projects remain on-track, says Matthew McWha, technology practice man-ager at global advisory company CEB. “Ex-plicitly test for the ability to collaborate with others during the hiring process and centre on-boarding around ensuring that new hires, who are joining distributed project teams, understand the broader organisa-tional culture and behavioural qualities that will enable effective collaboration,” he says.

Mr McWha also advises assigning in-dividuals mentors based elsewhere in the business, who can ensure new recruits are equipped to manage complex projects across multiple geographies.

Technology has a vital role to play in help-ing organisations ensure they remain in control of budgets, staffing, timelines and customer requirements. “It’s critical that you are able to monitor activity and capture data across all business areas and teams to measure progress accurately, and this in-formation must be in real-time,” says Jim Byrnes, president and chief executive of Changepoint.

Project management tools are now able to centralise management information through cloud-based platforms, says James Cockroft, director of Coeus Consulting. “These tools look to centralise management information into a single controllable space from which both project managers and sen-ior managers can track progress,” he says. “In addition, tools are becoming more col-laborative to allow disparate teams to work more effectively, providing project reposi-tories and version controls.”

New technologies are also emerging which make it possible for people to com-municate from almost anywhere, including while out on-site, says Alex Reeves, profes-sional services solutions divisional director (customers) at Access Group. “Improve-ments in mobile technology mean workers have the chance to become increasingly field-based, with paper documents becom-ing a thing of the past,” he says.

The remote nature of many projects can pose particular challenges from a commu-nication perspective. “The challenge is to achieve one meaning of remote – ‘operat-ing effectively at a distance’ – rather than the other – ‘distant and unapproachable’,” says Jo Manton, principal consultant at ASK Europe. Wherever possible, leaders should look to have face-to-face or telephone con-versations with team members, she says.

“E-mails, especially written in haste, can give either no sense of tone or a misleading one, so when e-mailing you should scan for potential ambiguities or misunderstand-ings. Where nuance is critical, use the phone wherever possible,” she says.

Social media also has a role to play, though, by enabling team members to share information and build relationships with each other. “Everyone has an opportunity to speak and be heard, and to share successes, failures, knowledge and concerns,” she says. Organisations need to develop boundaries around what can and can’t be discussed, she adds, but warns against “over-policing”.

Sometimes having different teams work-ing across time zones can be advantageous, says Edward Truch, professor of man-agement science at Lancaster University Management School. He gives the example of Hewlett-Packard, which dramatically re-duced the time taken from design to launch for new printers by “following the sun”, having different teams on shift around the world during daylight hours.

Working across company, geographic and cultural boundaries, often with disjointed reporting lines and teams made up of con-tractors as well as employees of other or-ganisations, creates particular challenges when it comes to building and managing teams effectively, says Pam Jones, director of Ashridge Business School’s Performance Through People programme and author of Managing for Performance.

“A key problem can be that some people work in lots of different teams, so you need to be sure of what they can do because they may be reporting to more than one boss,” she says. “Be clear on the amount of time people can give to a project and about commitments.”

Project leaders need to take the time to build trust with team members, she adds. “Some team leaders develop chatty news-letters, others make a point of spending conference-call time celebrating team suc-cesses and special occasions. Listen to the subtext in conversations, pick up on nuanc-es in tone and inflexion, and recognise when there are issues that need to be discussed.”

Sue Binks, senior consultant at Roffey Park, stresses the importance of making sure people understand and continue to buy into the wider goals of the project. “Connecting the team with the why, as well as the how and the what, will help to draw them together and give a sense of meaning to the hard work they will be putting in,” she says.

MANAGING TEAMS

COMMUNICATION AND REMOTE WORKING

TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION SHARING

MONITORING CHECKPOINTS AND WORKFORCE

CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND RISK MITIGATION


1

i

f

t

Top Tips

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE OVERVIEWCONTRIBUTORS TO PROJECT DELAYSKEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR A PROJECT IMPLEMENTING THE TYPICAL

ORGANISATION'S APPROACH TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT

C-suite and employees C-suite General employees

Many projects overrun (time or budget) and/or don't deliver the outcomes expected

24% 30% 23%

7% 10% 6%

7% 8% 7%

40% 38% 40%

8% 8% 8%

6% 4% 6%

Mostly yes - outcomes have been achieved for long and short-term change projects

Mostly yes - for short-term projects only

Mostly yes - for longer-running projects only

There is a mix of projects that deliver successfully and those that don't

Projects generally deliver change, but business benefits are limited

IS CHANGE ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL? OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS, HAVE CHANGE ACTIVITIES DELIVERED THE ORGANISATIONAL BENEFITS EXPECTED?

Source: PwC 2014

Source: PwC 2014Source: PwC

Ineffective procurement/supplier

Lack of executive sponsorship

Insufficient resources

Change(s) in scope mid-project

Change in strategyWeak project planning

Lack of change-control management

Poor estimates in the planning phase

Change in environment

Met or exceeded organisation's quality standards

Failed to meet organisation's quality standards

91%

5%

Successfully deliver scope

Failed to deliver scope

91%

6%

Delivered or exceeded projected business benefits

Failed to deliver projected business benefits

88%

10%

On or under budget

Over budget

69%

28%

Delivered on time or early

Delivered late

62%

31%

41% 8%21%

15%39% 6%

6%15%30%

A COMPARISON OF SECTORS THAT REPORT CONSISTENT DELIVERY ON TIME, ON BUDGET AND OF STATED DELIVERABLESSource: Deloitte

Telecommunications Professional services Manufacturing Information

technologyHealth and

community services Government Financial services Engineering and construction Energy and utilities Consumer

products

££

5% 7% 5% 15% 5.8% 24% 5% 6.5% 2.5% 10%

7% 6.5% 3.8% 20% 9% 20% 0.5% 6.5% 8.5% 4%

6% 4% 4% 20% 9.5% 16% 12% 9% 2.5% 5.8%

PROJECTS DELIVERED

ON TIME

PROJECTS DELIVERED ON

BUDGET

PROJECTS DELIVERED ON STATED

DELIVERABLES



1

i

f

t


Commercial Feature

PROJECT MANAGEMENT11/09/14EDITION #0000


1

i

f

t

P00

Commercial Feature

Making change easier and more effectiveA major new survey by PwC has identified five key themes to boost the success rate of change management programmes

prepare for and manage the change that accompanies these initiatives.”

The survey outlined five key themes where organisations could think differently about programme delivery, making a real difference to the chance of success of change management programmes.

OPTIMISE PORTFOLIOS TO MAXIMISE RETURNS

Chief executives recognise the need to be more agile in planning, but all too often don’t have the time to stop and reflect on earlier decisions, the survey found. Furthermore, there is often confusion over who is real-ly driving strategy, with less than a third of executives agreeing that all change activities were driven from the strategy by leadership.

To counter this, organisations need to make decisions supported by ob-jective criteria and quality data to ensure alignment with organisational priorities. Using a clear methodology removes “gaming” from the prioriti-sation process and ensures the right changes are commissioned in the first place. It also drives better sponsorship as there’s no ambiguity that the pro-grammes are strategically important.

BE FLEXIBLE, CHANGE FASTER

A theme which came up throughout the survey was that change needs to happen faster, yet programmes fail to embrace this in terms of the pace of their own delivery. Poor planning and changes to the scope of projects have consistently featured in the top three reasons why initiatives have been de-layed over the past ten years, meaning both executives and project managers need to get better at planning and

managing the scope of projects. Project managers need to be able

to adapt quicker to the challenges that will inevitably occur during change programmes. Being better informed of both the project itself and the wider business situation will give managers the ability to respond quickly to new developments or information, but they have to be prepared to make brave de-cisions so as to react more quickly.

ENABLE PEOPLE TO DELIVER SUCCESS

Organisations are very often ill-equipped to deliver the kinds of pro-gramme required and individuals of-ten do this “off the side of their desk”, according to the survey. Only a minor-ity of chief executives believe they are well prepared for change programmes across most business functions, while 55 per cent thought their organisation did not provide enough programme management training.

The success or failure of any project will ultimately depend on the people who run it. Providing the right tools, training and environment in which people can develop and flourish will enable them to deliver the change that is required.

CONNECT THE EXECUTIVE TEAM

The PwC survey clearly demon-strates a disconnect between what the executive team and project man-agement community think around how change is delivered, with 75 per cent of executives saying business outcomes are clearly defined and understood, but only 61 per cent of general managers agreeing. Both executives and project teams need to work together to develop better

Organisations need to develop new and more effective ways of deliv-ering strategic transformation pro-grammes if they want to keep up with the rapid pace of change, according to PwC’s Global Portfolio and Pro-gramme Management (PPM) Survey.

The survey asked whether the peo-ple who commission change get what they want. For the majority the answer is no and the survey concludes that organisations need to think differently about programme delivery.

“With the world moving at an ev-er-faster pace, driven by innovation and collaboration, CEOs told us that to keep up with the world they will need to change – and fast,” says Sandie Grimshaw, global PPM leader at PwC. “While most CEOs recognise the need for change, many concede that their or-ganisations need to be far more agile when executing their strategies in an environment facing dramatic change shaped by demographic shifts, tech-nological advancement, regulatory landscape and economic uncertainty.

“Great execution depends on many factors, but often boils down to get-ting the basics right,” she adds. “But is also where things often go wrong, as demonstrated in many of the sur-vey findings.”

The fourth study of its kind – con-ducted in association with the Project Management Institute (PMI) – sur-veyed more than 3,000 executives, employees and project managers from around the globe, working across a wide range of different sec-tors, to identify the implications of the rapid pace of change in the world of business for those tasked with man-aging projects.

Mark A. Langley, president and chief executive at PMI, asks: “Why does one organisation survive and the other slide into irrelevance? Why does another organisation not only survive, but thrive? The answer, again and again, can be linked directly to how they implement their projects — the place where strategy lives and breathes. And the answer always seems to conclude with how they

42%

55%

of organisations use an agile approach to managing programmes

of assessed programmes have established or mature planning processes in place and manage change effectively

PwC has conducted maturity assessments on over 350

programmes around the world, with budgets ranging from £50,000 to £1.5 billion

working relationships that will give projects more chance of success.

Executives should engage with programme delivery teams early and then regularly, to ensure projects re-main on course to deliver the objec-tives. Building closer understanding and working arrangements will avoid gaps emerging between expected and actual results.

ADDRESS THE HARSH FACTS

As well as not being clear about initial objectives, organisations are also failing to measure progress to-wards desired benefits, the survey found. Almost 40 per cent of project managers said there were no clear accountabilities within programmes to enable delivery and nearly a third had no integrated schedules at both a project and programme level to ensure alignment with timelines.

Organisations need to demonstrate a greater willingness to tackle the big issues head on, ensuring those in charge of managing projects are able to spot potential problems and risks before they become issues. Doing

so will allow organisations to monitor these and react accordingly, changing course where necessary.

In addition to the survey, PwC has conducted maturity assessments on over 350 programmes around the world, with budgets ranging from £50,000 to £1.5 billion, giving it a rich source of data with which to benchmark organisations’ performance, validate the survey results and analyse the true state of project management today.

This can help individual organi-sations pinpoint how their project management processes compare to best practice across a range of in-itiatives, from specific HR processes to complex business-wide transfor-mation programmes, and how they can be performed more efficiently, giving programmes a greater chance of success.

For more information on how PwC can help your business, visit pwc.co.uk or call +44 (0) 20 7213 1768

TOP THREE REASONS FOR PROJECT FAILURE

THERE IS A COHERENT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PROGRAMME’S OBJECTIVES AND BENEFITS AND THE ORGANISATIONAL STRATEGY AND VISION

Agree 49%

23%Strongly agree

14%Neither agree or disagree

8%Disagree

4%Strongly disagree

2%Don’t know

2007 2012 2014

Bad estimates/missed deadlines

Lack of executive sponsorship

Poor estimates in planning phase

Poor estimates in planning phase

Poorly defined goals/objectives

Scope changes Change(s) in scope mid-project




1

i

f

t

Project Failure

Knowing when a project is going wrong, seeing the early warning signs of failure, is a valuable skill when mitigating risk and losses, as Amy Hatton reports

In recent years, project man-agement has permeated sec-tor after sector, embedding

itself in the business vernacular as a synonym for commercial success. But look beyond the big statements and you’ll uncover a landscape that is far from beyond reproach.

KPMG, IBM et al have all published data in the past couple of years con-firming ongoing project failure rates of up to 70 per cent. McKinsey & Compa-ny has uncovered evidence that 17 per cent of large IT projects veer so wildly off track that they threaten the very existence of the company running the project. Whichever way you look at it, the reality of project failure is a stub-born one.

Yet modern project management is probably one of the most educat-ed, structured and skilled disciplines in business today. An abundance of frameworks, methodologies, training options and qualifications can be found in the space, offering the canny project manager ample opportunity to hone their skill sets and outperform their peers. So why, then, are we still failing to crack the failure nut? Could the an-swer be simpler than we might think?

One of project management’s most prominent advances in recent years is the seismic shift from the individual project to the holistic project portfo-lio. The rise and rise of project portfolio management (PPM) is now widely ad-vocated as essential in ensuring that we don’t just “do” projects. What is more vital, enthusiasts claim, is that we do the right projects at the right time.

Like so many project related frame-works, PPM offers a rather grandiose term for what is actually a relatively simple concept: choose the projects with the strongest business case, mon-itor and adapt them according to the ongoing evidence, and you’re less like-ly to be explaining failure to the board later on.

For C-level executives and board leaders to make these decisions cor-rectly, what is needed is visibility and coherence from the outset. Tradition-ally, the enemy of streamlined project delivery has been the prevalence of

data silos, especially in major projects that cross global, cultural, financial and industrial boundaries. Faced with those silos, decision-makers do not have the information they need both to select sound projects, and to meas-ure their ongoing performance accu-rately and make updated decisions accordingly.

Suppliers have, of course, jumped on this particular bandwagon with their usual gusto, developing all manner of data monitoring and reporting tools designed to provide the busy chief ex-ecutive with touch-of-a-button access to real-time information. The rapid onset of the cloud and device tech-nology brings them ever closer to the project baseline, facilitating portfolio strategies that are faster, more intelli-gent and better informed. Yet still the failure rates persist.

AGILE AND MICRO-FAILURE

Based on the principle of learning incremental lessons from phased de-livery and review, agile project man-agement appears to some to be a rela-tively new kid on the block. In fact the framework has been around for almost 20 years, but in the context of such per-sistent failure rates, agile is now com-ing into its own.

Not everybody is a fan, but there’s no denying the logic in the principle. Given the sheer scale of many major projects, it is feasible to assume that even if the portfolio decisions made at the outset are well judged, things can and do change. Those decisions should therefore be revisited frequently. It is just as important, according to agile principles, to consider what is not working and to rip off the plaster in those circumstances, equipping the project team to adapt. What’s more, the earlier you test the approach, the less investment you risk.

This concept of learning through mi-cro-fail can avoid massive catastrophes by spotting smaller disasters sooner and faster. By taking that approach we can avoid further investment into pro-jects that are simply not panning out as they should, and divert resources into

other areas that might prove more profitable and productive.

That still doesn’t make it easy to pull the plug. Not only does the de-cision involve a necessary sacrifice of investments already made, it also goes against our inherent profession-al instincts. But an early admission of failure can also be a sign of commer-cial strength.

If we are to eliminate or at least drastically reduce project failure in the future, we have to know when to quit and these days we have the tools available to us to make those decisions. Spotting and cancelling the weak pro-ject demands strong portfolio man-agement, informed by comprehensive and up-to-date information. It then de-mands the techniques to flex rapidly to an evolving environment to stay com-petitive and this is where agile might become the facilitator.

But it also demands a cultural change. The era of the project hero piloting in to save the dying project is past. Today, we must consider that if all the data from our project reporting indicates failure, then a failure we will certainly have. If we can hone the tech-nique of using accurate data to pull the plug at the right time and complement that with flexible frameworks that equip us to redeploy resources, then we will face a much happier future in the world of projects.

It is just as important to consider what is not working and to rip off the plaster in those circumstances, equipping the project team to adapt

WHEN SHOULDYOU PULL THE PLUG?

1. Lack of senior-management involvement

Poor requirements2.3. Unrealistic expectations

Scope creep4.Lack of user involvement5.Inexperienced project managers6.

7. Lack of resources

TOP SEVEN REASONS FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT FAILURE

Image: iStock by Getty Images



1

i

f

t


Commercial Feature

MID-MARKET COMPANIES16/07/14EDITION #0268


1

i

f

t

P00

Commercial Feature

Evolution of a growing careerFaced with a recovering economy and a highly competitive business landscape driven by new technologies, project managers are quickly adapting to � ll more challenging and strategic roles, says the Project Management Institute

ers are now among the fi rst of a new generation who are being required to do more than just “manage projects”. Ten years ago, project managers were expected to focus on the details of individual projects, their associated budgets and delivering them with maximum return on investment (ROI). With limited resources availa-ble for change initiatives, every dollar counts. Organisations no longer have the capacity to absorb the short or long-term fi nancial ramifi cations of poor management and planning, which is why project managers are now required to be strategists as well as tacticians.

Project managers need to truly un-derstand the business, understand how their project portfolios fi t into their organisations’ overall vision and strate-gy, and effectively convey this informa-tion to stakeholders. It’s more impor-tant than ever for these practitioners to have a deep, balanced skill set that incorporates all facets of the Talent Tri-angle: technical project management skills, business and strategic manage-ment skills, and leadership skills.

“Against the backdrop of constant change, increasing complexity and technology advances, organisations are demanding leadership, strategic management and technical skill from their project managers – essentially turning them into project leaders,” says Mark A. Langley, president and chief executive of the Project Man-agement Institute (PMI). “With these expectations comes an urgent need to gain advanced skills that are neces-sary to meet the challenges of today’s competitive business environment.”

Business leaders have learnt that using project management lowers risk, brings profi t, increases ROI and improves quality. Project managers are expected to do more with less, us-ing fewer resources while getting pro-jects done with improved organisation and planning. They are also under in-creasing pressure to deliver products and services more quickly to keep up with rapid market changes and more stringent customer expectations.

The availability of new tools and technologies, along with near-con-stant upgrades of existing technol-ogies, are big catalysts for change. Project managers, particularly in IT and other technology sectors, must continually improve their skill sets in order to maintain their abilities to bring projects to completion effi ciently and effectively. In addition, new technolo-gies, combined with evolving business needs, have given rise to new imple-mentation approaches. For example, there has been explosive growth in ag-ile methodology, spearheaded by the IT community. PMI has been an active participant as agile approaches have been incorporated into the skill sets of project managers in many industries and has expanded coverage of itera-tive approaches into the latest edition of the PMBOK® Guide.

Globalisation is also a key catalyst for change in project management. Resource-strained organisations now require project managers to handle several projects and project teams across varied geographic regions. Project managers must therefore be skilled at managing remote or virtual teams, overcoming challenges related to time zones, and navigating cultural and political sensitivities. As a result, these professionals have become more valuable and versatile by devel-oping new skill sets and gaining experi-ence which falls outside the traditional project role.

Recognised as the gold standard in project management certifi cation, the PMP® (Project Management Pro-fessional certifi cation) is sought after

Mark A. Langley, president and chief executive, Project Management Institute

Project managers are expected to do more with less, using fewer

resources while getting projects done with improved organisation and planning

The role of project managers is continually evolving, as are the business and technology needs of organisations. New tools and tech-nologies automatically introduce variables into a project that can impact scope management and lifecycle, particularly in dynamic, fast-paced sectors like IT, comput-ing and telecommunications.

These dynamic conditions require that project managers maintain a certain level of ongoing training and education in order to maintain their abilities to bring projects to comple-tion effi ciently and effectively. As a result, today’s project managers are more likely to be key drivers at the fore-front of their organisations’ strategic technology efforts and are more likely to be valued as high-level, strategic re-sources than project managers were in the past.

More signifi cantly, project manag-

by organisations around the world to ensure the quality of projects and pro-ject teams. Unlike other project man-agement credentials, the PMP® is a universally recognised certifi ca-tion which has a pre-requisite of at least three years of PM experience for practitioners.

“PMP® credential hold-ers are uniquely posi-tioned to lead project teams that are work-ing on emerging project challeng-es,” says PMI’s Mr Langley.

“These professionals have demon-strated solid skills and real-world expe-rience in attaining the credential and are continuously updating those skills to keep pace with the rapidly chang-ing environment that defines the modern business landscape.” Project managers can leverage these newer skills and responsibilities to align with high-level strategy and effectively im-plement the initiatives which drive that strategy into action.

As the project management profes-sion grows and changes, a new gener-ation of project professionals will be called on to take action. Introducing project management skills to students at younger ages, and actively work-ing with colleges and universities on standards, curriculum and accredited programmes will allow budding project practitioners to build stronger skills earlier in their careers, and enter the workforce better prepared than their predecessors.

At the organisational level, com-panies will be well served to create dedicated project training and career

tracks to nurture new talent that will grow

and thrive as the business does.

Leaders are recognis -

ing this

necessary shift in their internal train-ing programmes. In PwC’s 4th Global Portfolio and Programme Manage-ment Survey, 64 per cent of chief executives said that enhancing their skilled workforce is a priority over the next three years.

The evolution of the project man-agement role is already well under-way. Technology will continue to drive new skill sets and levels of knowledge. More signifi cantly, however, the com-ing months and years will see project managers delivering more value and having a more direct link to strategy, knowledge, influence and ROI. Or-ganisations are ready for this – they’ll welcome it.

To fi nd out more please visitwww.pmi.org.uk

by organisations around the world to ensure the quality of projects and pro-ject teams. Unlike other project man-agement credentials, the PMP® is a universally recognised certifi ca-tion which has a pre-requisite of at least three years of PM experience for practitioners.

“PMP® credential hold-ers are uniquely posi-tioned to lead project teams that are work-ing on emerging project challeng-es,” says PMI’s Mr Langley.

tracks to nurture new talent that will grow

and thrive as the business does.

Leaders are recognis -

ing this


1

i

f

t

Software

developed]. It allows other members of the team to raise support tickets and assign them to the relevant team, with built-in prioritisation. Having a cloud-based system is a real game-changer as we can see features and bugs being worked on, tested and deployed wher-ever we are. Our senior developers can check on progress if they’re out and about, without having to pester their team for an update.”

Downsides to Jira? Mr Fell says: “It is a massive task to get set up. It’s not plug-and-play like a lot of cloud soft-ware. It requires some time to imple-ment and fit around your processes. Once you invest the time though and get it working well, it’s worth it.”

As a footnote, it is worth noting that Jira is used alongside other packages at Crunch: Zendesk to handle client accounting queries; Smartsheet gives employees an overview of departmen-tal projects; and Slack is used for com-munication and collaboration. Follow-ing considerable experimentation with other products, Mr Fell says this set-up works seriously well.

CLEVER WIDGETS

While scouting for clever widgets, you ought to consider a “thinking tool” such as MindManager’s Mindjet. The layout will be familiar to anyone who has used Tony Buzan’s mind-mapping technique. A sprawl of interlinked ideas is used to throw up connections and themes in a fluid, non-linear way. Before you write it off as crackpot, con-sider that Con Edison, a major energy firm, uses MindManager to streamline internal processes, claiming savings of 15 per cent of its operations budget in so doing.

Other products worth a name-check are Mediaocean, the planner used by swathes of the advertising industry; Changepoint, which offers a seemingly endless feature set; and Cubic Interac-tive’s Rapport3, which has been adopt-ed by the construction and architecture trade.

Oh, and those ancient tools we all secretly use aren’t obsolete either. Michael Kanz, operations director at project management consultancy T-exec, says: “The reality is that many IT projects, even quite large ones, are managed through Excel sheets, e-mail, conference calls and SharePoint.”

FTSE 100 firms rely on Skype and Twitter. Even old-fashioned landline calls are used from time to time by some incorrigible diehards.

You can be sure that, no matter what you are trying to do, there’s a brilliant bit of software to make your life a hundred times easier

There are dozens of fabulous software packages for project management, but which one is right for you? Charles Orton-Jones offers a guide

Future work trends

Page 14

CLEVERTECH TOCRACKCOMPLEXPROJECTS

one was actually talking anymore.” Mr Kirby prefers to use AtTask, another web-based project management plat-form, which aims to improve organ-isation and collaboration across the enterprise.

BLOCKBUSTER PACKAGES

For complex projects there are some real blockbuster packages out there. Primavera is a blue-chip name, now known as Oracle Primavera following a buyout in 2009. It is used exten-sively in the oil and gas, telecoms and manufacturing industries. CA Clarity PPM [project portfolio management] and Microsoft Project are well known and well used. Shell is currently im-plementing 8over8’s ProCon platform for managing risk in large-scale capital intensive projects.

One hugely popular package worth investigating is Jira, made by Austral-ian firm Atlassian. Since its debut in 2002, Jira has become the standard for one tricky area of project management – issue tracking for software develop-ment. It comes in both cloud and server flavours, and costs $10 for ten users a month. Clients include Facebook, Nasa and the UK’s fastest-growing account-ancy firm Crunch.

Founder of Crunch Darren Fell says: “This tool is perfect for development tasks, especially with teams working in sprints [two-week periods where a pre-decided set of new features are

One of the truths of the mod-ern age is: “There’s an app for that.” Whether you are

ordering a take-away curry or trying to identify a song on the radio, there’s a clever bit of software which will make your life a lot easier.

When it comes to project manage-ment you can be sure that, no matter what you are trying to do, there’s a bril-liant bit of software to make your life a hundred times easier. But there are so many. What should you be using?

To help you make sense of the mar-ket, here are some of the wonderful ap-plications which could be the perfect fit for your project management needs.

The tool of the moment is Base-camp. As a free online tool, Basecamp is wildly popular with small firms – more than 5,000 firms globally are signing up each week. Users log into a dashboard reminiscent of a Facebook feed. Depending on privileges, they can update calendars, view documents, communicate and use task lists. It is so simple to use, the basic induction takes half an hour.

And does it work? Jamie Gee, boss of Jam Public Relations, says: “We use it to manage our clients’ work and our own. It is invaluable and so cheap.” The free model is limited to one project. For $20 a month this rises to ten projects; you pay $150 for unlimited projects.

There are doubters. Dan Kirby, chief executive of IT consultancy Techdept, says: “It divides opinion. Easy-in-easy-out platforms like Basecamp don’t have enough control or the feedback loops we need when testing a website. Or they can’t give us the management data like tracking how time is being spent on jobs.

“We even know of organisations that moved from e-mail conversations to using Basecamp, but then moved back again because with Basecamp no



1

i

f

t


There is a revolution underway in project management. It isn’t about changing what is done, but how it is done, says Stephen Cavanagh, who is a vice president of the Management Consultancies Association

Opinion

Revolutionary changes in pro-ject management are leading to massive improvements in

communications and effectiveness – all driven by the cloud.

Cloud is just one area of digital where members of the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) act as advisers to both business and gov-ernment. But as success in consultan-cy is the sum of accomplished projects, how is the cloud changing the delivery of project management?

Historically, project management tasks have been performed using a range of tools, the selection of which varies from business to business and often from team to team. Cloud-based project management is not a new way of doing things, but a simple and effec-tive way of starting everybody off on the same page and keeping them on it. The same platform is available to any-body with a laptop or smart device and is managed by a third party, leaving the business to focus on its projects.

Project managers, team members, business leaders, clients and suppliers can share the same workspace, ena-bling greater interaction and collabo-ration. This provides visibility of the progress of all stakeholders, allowing the project manager to slice through real-time project information to un-precedented levels.

Platforms are also emerging that extend beyond tools of project man-agement and into project implemen-tation. Team members can select from a range of apps designed for their roles or create their own tailored solutions and share them.

The success of data sharing plat-forms has demonstrated the potential of hosted environments as key enablers for businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to launch into global markets. Such platforms al-low projects and project management teams to span international borders, which can create a step-change in the standards employed in other parts of the world, particularly more remote regions and developing nations.

However, when it comes to cloud project management solutions, there is still a reluctance to place mission-crit-ical systems into the hands of another, as there is a reliance on the cloud ser-vice provider and local infrastructure. For instance, cloud may not be an op-tion for projects with stakeholders in say sub-Saharan Africa or parts of Lat-in America, where data access is more difficult and there are restrictions on storing it locally or even moving the data across international borders.

Global engineering consultants Mott MacDonald have interviewed UK businesses to see where they are on the path to cloud service adoption. Trends suggest that large businesses have concerns for data security and are therefore reluctant to sacrifice their investments in proven legacy in-house systems for a jump into “the unknown”. However, significant invest-ment is not required from the outset, and a company has the opportunity to dip its toe into the water and test the temperature.

Increased investment in global in-frastructure and regulation combined with cloud-based project management has the potential to bring a new era of collaboration from one-man-bands to large corporations, from the City of London to Machu Picchu. Cloud-based project management platforms can al-low project stakeholders to share the same environment, even if the view out of the window is a little different.

CLEAR VISION

Cloud-based project management is not a new way of doing things, but a simple and effective way of starting everybody off on the same page and keeping them on it

THROUGH CLOUD


1

i

f

t

Future Work Trends

Project-based assignments, employing temporary specialist staff, are becoming increasingly widespread and offer opportunities as well as challenges, writes Dan Matthews

Since 2008, the UK’s approach to work has changed. An un-dulating economy, new com-

munications and a general warming to flexible working are all factors that have either encouraged or shoved sal-aried staff into working for themselves.

Official data published in August shows that self-employment rates are higher than at any point in the last 40 years. The rise in UK employment levels since 2008 has been driven by a mass migration to self-employment, including a doubling of those over the age of 65.

Some are running shops, software companies and cafés, but the vast ma-jority are consultants doing the job they did before, only now as a gun for hire. They are nimble, experienced and hungry for work, and employers are happy to hire them because of the flexibility and cost savings they bring.

For project managers, this develop-ment is good and bad. On the plus side there is a growing body of talented individuals who can perform a job for the life of a project, then happily walk away when the work is done. The talent pool for one-off contracts is bigger than ever before.

On the minus side is the complex-ity of herding such a disparate group of workers. Are they loyal? Will they approach a piece of work with the same vigour, diligence and dedication as someone who wants to retain em-ployment when the project is done? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Lisa Cohen, an associate professor of organisational behaviour at the Desau-tels Faculty of Management in Mon-treal, says commitment to the cause, or lack of it, is a potential stumbling block for project managers taking on contractors for a job.

Another is loyalty. Can it be guaran-

teed? If not, why would an organisation load someone up with sensitive, com-petitive information and then send them on their merry way? “The risk remains that the contractor knows everything about your project and could move directly to a competitor,” she says.

To protect themselves, project managers need to adopt a grown-up approach to recruiting contractors, making them jump through the sort of hoops that common-or-garden full-timers do before they get hired. Taking on contractors shouldn’t nec-essarily be a quick fix or an easy option.

“For a project that requires exper-tise you don’t already have in the or-ganisation, contractors can be great, but if you need long-term confidential-ly and commitment, then it might not work,” says Ms Cohen. “Project man-agers need to be better recruitment managers, and should learn more about the legal and HR issues that surround contracting.”

Questions to address include how contractors’ work is assessed, in what ways they are bound to the organisa-tion during the contract and after it fin-ishes, whether they qualify for bonuses and the rights they enjoy in relation to their full-time brethren.

The challenges of organising con-tractors differ from profession to pro-fession. The legal sector, like others, is juggling the opportunities and threats

of flexible workers and forming a best-practice approach to hiring tem-porary staff.

Alison Bond is head of Vario at law-yers Pinsent Masons. Vario is a firm of freelance legal professionals who work for clients on a flexible basis, giv-ing them greater control over how they commission legal expertise.

She says: “As projects are typically short term, often around three months, organisations need to be able to on-board a new freelancer effectively and efficiently outside what can sometimes be a lengthy induction process.”

One solution to the problem is to treat a contractor like one of your own, according to Richard Selby, co-found-er of Pro Steel Engineering, which provides professional project manage-ment and construction services in the steel industry.

Mr Selby says the growth of project work motivates managers to look after their talented workers to avoid losing them to competitors. “We have even put contractors through accredited training courses to grow and develop their skills. This improves staff loyalty and helps us form a team we can de-pend upon,” he says.

One solution to the problem is to

treat a contractor like one of your own

GUNS FOR HIRE PRESENTPROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Image: Getty Images


pm_singles

Documents