The sink-or-swim school of project management training is leading
to a growing pile of costly failures. Isn't it time to splash out
on a bit of skills development? asks leading interim IT director
Colin Beveridge.
It's not every day of the week that one of your own project
managers informs the world and his wife that you are a serious risk
to his project. But such a report dropped unceremoniously onto my
desk recently.
As I read it my first instinct was to tear this guy limb from limb.
Ten years ago I would have done, but age has mellowed me slightly
and I take a more circumspect view. But there it was for all to
see, a new project risk: "lack of support from the project
sponsor". A potentially serious problem for our most
business-critical project. It might do my reputation some harm too,
if it were true.
I wandered around to the project office for a friendly little chat
with the author. Surprise is always a good way of getting to the
bottom of things quickly and it is difficult to prevaricate when
someone is sitting on the corner of your desk, expecting an instant
answer.
Was the risk real? My project manager felt my sponsorship of his
project was at risk because I hadn't responded to a couple of
important e-mails from him earlier in the week. His frustration had
led him to include me as a risk in his monthly report. Fair enough,
I knew that his project had already exhausted the contingency time
in the plan so he was bound to be sensitive to any perceived lack
of interest on my part.
But I pointed out that I had been off-site for the week so far. My
absence, rather than indifference, explained the lack of response
and a quick call would have made that clear.
 | | "We now have project management
tools and methodologies that the pyramid builders, or even
Victorian engineers, would have died for." | | | | | |
| | Colin Beveridge | | |
|
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He had failed to follow through.
Maybe this seems pretty small beer but it is symptomatic of a much
bigger problem that affects most of us - the poor quality of IT
project management.
Twenty years ago, we all had "project leaders" - a title that I
haven't encountered for years, yet another victim of the inexorable
trend towards impressive job-titles not always underpinned by
justifiable merit. Everybody wants to be a "manager"! Meanwhile we
all moan about the lack of leadership. There must be some
connection there between these two.
The ratio of major IT project failures is steadily rising, which
means that fewer and fewer of our projects are being successfully
managed. But shouldn't our collective project management skills be
improving, not deteriorating? Especially now that we have project
management tools and methodologies that the pyramid builders, or
even Victorian engineers, would have died for.
Sadly it seems that many of our project managers are doing little
more with these "management" tools than recording historical,
forensic data for the inevitable project autopsies.
Of course, there are some people who still believe that a good
project planning tool and methodology are critical success factors
in their own right. Sure they can help, but only if properly
applied. Good tools can never compensate for an untrained operator.
A poorly-defined IT project plan can do more harm to a business
than probably any other commercial activity; often with a fairly
quick impact on the bottom line. Likewise a well-defined plan that
is poorly managed will be severely felt.
Many observers attribute the growing number of high-profile project
failures to poor management. Obviously that must be the case. But
the solutions offered generally focus on improving the quality of
individual leadership, in the hope that a good leader will prevent
a project going bad. This approach only deals with the symptoms,
not the root cause, of the trouble.
Many projects fail because companies do not train their project
managers properly in the first place and fail to provide adequate
support for the manager until it is too late. All too often,
important projects are entrusted to people who have had no formal
induction into project management. This inevitably introduces an
element of additional risk because the quality of project
management is, at best variable and, at worst random.
We are back to the "professionalism thing" again. Most of our IT
project managers earn their spurs by being thrown in at the deep
end so it is a case of sink or swim. I am glad other professions
don't take this approach to developing their senior members.
Imagine if surgeons were trained in the same way as IT project
managers - "I'm sorry Mrs Smith but this was Dr Johnson's first
major operation. He had all the right tools and equipment but
things got a bit out of hand. Of course, we will waive the autopsy
fee".
Extreme? Maybe, but not inappropriate. Every other profession has a
structured approach to professional development, insisting on
proper supervision and assessment for advancement; while the IT
sector persists with good old trial and error.
But how can our project managers gain experience without doing it
for real? In fact, Catch 22 need not apply here. With a bit of
effort, and investment, we could easily create opportunities for
skills development, but we have optimised these out of our
organisation to minimise cost.
When did you last see a project that had a "deputy", an "assistant"
or a "trainee" project manager? I haven't seen one for years.
Perhaps it's time that we did. Maybe it's time that we gave our
project managers a bit more personal support, through access to the
know-how of experienced mentors.
Maybe it's time that we accepted input from the wrinklies, the ones
who have been there, done that and got the battle scars - never
mind the fact that I have just celebrated yet another birthday!
Maybe it's time to realise that the corporate "lessons-learned"
register is not a "write-only" document.
Leadership is important but worthless without adequate planning and
back up. We need to get back to basics and take a more disciplined
approach to project management. Until we do, things will only get
worse and the successful IT project will become such an exceptional
event that everyone will want to find out how such a miracle came
to pass.
Has Colin touched a nerve?
Or is he just looking on
the dark side? What's your view of the state of IT project
management?>
Let us know with an e-mail.Colin Beveridge is an interim executive who has held
top-level roles in IT strategy, development, services and support.
His travels along the blue-chip highway have taken him to a clutch
of leading corporations, such as Shell, British Petroleum, ICI, DHL
and Powergen.