Being thrown in at the deep end is not the best way to practise
successful project management
Last week I saw yet another industry analyst's report saying that
the ratio of major IT project failures is steadily rising. This
means that fewer and fewer of our projects are being successfully
managed.
We must ask ourselves why are things getting worse? 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, despite our function-intensive modern software, 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
planning tool and methodology are critical success factors for a
project, in their own right. Sure they can help. But only if
properly applied. Nevertheless, my personal observation has shown
that.
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.
I have seen a lot of articles recently that have tried to address
the growing number of high-profile project failures. Most of these
tend to attribute the problem to poor management. Obviously that
must be the case. However, 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.
I think this approach only deals with the symptoms, not the root
cause, of the trouble. My conjecture is that many projects fail
because too many companies do not train their project managers
properly in the first place so 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, I'm afraid. Most
of our IT project managers earn their spurs by being thrown in at
the deep end. I am glad that other professions don't take this
cavalier approach to developing their senior members.
Imagine the scene, 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"
Every other profession has a structured approach to professional
development, insisting on proper supervision and assessment for
advancement; while the IT sector persists with "trial and
error".
You may be wondering how can our project managers get their
experience without actually doing it for real?
With a bit of effort, and investment, we could easily create
opportunities for skills development. Like many other things
though, we have optimised these out of our organisation to minimise
cost. When was the last time you saw a project that had a deputy
manager?
Maybe it's time we gave our project managers more personal support,
through access to the know-how of experienced mentors.
Leadership is important but worthless without adequate planning and
back up. We need to get back to basics and take a much more
disciplined approach to project management. Until we do this,
things will continue to get worse and the successful IT project
will become such an exceptional event that everyone will want to
find out how such a thing came to pass.
Colin Beveridge is founder of interim managers' group
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