Definition of Project Success

I have recently read an article from CIO about project management, I strongly agreed to Tom Klein's comment: "Projects don't fail, the expectations do". Yes, unless something is purely digital (only "1" or "0"), otherwise, most of our measurements are "relative" basis and "the expectation" does play an important role of defining "success" or "failure".

So how do we define a project success?
I used to work in a company when it ran with a series of death-march network infrastructure projects (high risk, under resources, tight timelines.....). All of them were finally completed (actually, there was no chance for even a failure because of the nature of the projects were related to the fundamental IT system infrastructure of the company affecting the entire business operation [the bread & butter]). But I would not say those projects were successful indeed.

The hidden failure in a project success
Because the "death-march" project nature, those projects had to be executed using the "dotcom mode" (the mode of business development/operation during the dotcom era around 1996-2000) where everything proceeded in ad-hoc and agile basis without thorough planning, well-defined process, completed documentation, sufficient testing, and etc.
Eventually, those projects were completed, but affiliated with lots of negative side results: several production incidences during the project implementation stage affecting the business operations, demolishing the company's well established project management process,  damaging staff morale, high HR turnover and dismantled trust among teams (conflicts and politics in resources/priorities arrangement against other well planned projects).

In theory, the successful criteria of a project should be measured by its deliverable against original project objective in terms of time, scope, quality and realized business benefits. However, within a business entity, a project's success should also be measured in a holistic (program management) view where the indirect, intangible benefits (or loss) from the project should also be counted.

True Lies - Project Estimation

According to the latest results of the famous study by The Standish Group about the failures of projects (Chaos Report), "44% of projects were challenged which are late, over budget, and/or with less than the required features and functions and 24% failed which are cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used".

True Lies, copyright by 20th Century Fox Universal Pictures

But based on my wild guess (a very personal view), there are other "intended" reasons for the challenges/failures and I called these as "True Lies":

1. The project manger do knows the actual cost (at least, he/she knows the reliable estimate) of the project. But just because if he/she provides the actual estimate, he/she will never get the project approved (or he/she will be out of the job immediately). The only way is, therefore, provides an "acceptable" estimate (acceptable means the figures closed to the management expectation, no matter it is reasonable or not).
2. No matter what kind of project planning methodologies such as COCOMO, Function Points Analysis, Delphi techniques, and etc, all such methods are ballpark figures only (similar to sales forecast). The larger and the more complex the project, the higher the uncertainty (i.e. the degree of deviation). An estimate can only be accurate when the project is completed (or if there is same past project portfolios for reference). In reality, the project manager has only very limited resources to conduct proper planning (in terms of sufficient time, adequate resources and relevant past project portfolio reference). As a result, the degree of deviation (the error rate) should be inevitably higher.
3. For service providers, if they (salespersons, of course) quote the "true and realistic" estimates of project such as "half-year project timeline vs. the customer expectation of two months" for a tender, they won't have a chance to get the contract. In this case, other than the "budget" part (which affect the sales bonus/commission), the salesperson would only provide the "true lies" estimates (scope, quality, schedule and etc.) according to the customer's expectation, no matter they are achievable or not. The goal is to "get it first, fix it later", a kind of undesirable but inevitable ideology generated by the so-called "open market".

So when a project is kicked-off based on "true lies" estimates, it is another topic (or another big topic for a textbook) of the way of handling/managing it.

Euro Walk, Feb 2010

It was my first time visiting Europe (Rothenburg, Germany) in winter this Feb. Though, the weather was indeed freezing with snow, the place was so beautiful and peaceful (only a few tourists in the low season) and it was an enjoyable experience.

 

  

  

  

 

Besides, it was also my first time using digital heavy gear (my Lumix G1) for the travel shooting. The performance was good (using both the native Lumix 14-45mm zoom lens and the old Nikon AIs lens). But since there are so much more functions/features in digital photography compared with my analog day (especially when I am using full manual FM2), further practicing would be required (such as auto focus feature/constraint, WB characteristics, usage combination of ISO, shutter speed & aperture, etc.) in order to maximize the camera's capability for make good shots (actually, not to make lousy shots).

  

 

Digitization

After years of staying in the "analog" age, I have finally stepped into the "digital" era recently.

For my coming travel journey, my FM2 has a new company: Lumix G1, my first digital SLR camera (not including DC, of course).

Though G1 is not the best DSLR camera (actually, it is not DSLR, but micro 4/3 format), I found it suitable for my transformation (from analog to digital) where I can use my old Nikon lenses with it (kind of resource fully utilization for environmental protection) with image quality comparable to DSLR.

Let see how it performs! (My FM2 will definitely be with me in the journey)

Environmental Protection

From my understanding, the so called "environmental protection" we heard about from the mass media or the mass market is actually misleading. As long as there is "human civilization", anything we did would only cause "damage" to the earth (the environment). Unless homo sapien can re-define our living ideology (consumption/production based economic growth, materialistic based improvement of living standard, unlimited modernization etc.), what we can do now at this moment is only to reduce the rate of damage to the environment.

Frankly, living in the "civilized" society such as Hong Kong, almost all my daily life activities are causing damages to the environment inevitably. But I found I have changed my living style in the recent years (doing less harm to the environment): buy what I really need (if possible, buy 2nd-hand products) and reuse what I don't need (give/sell them out). This can not only save the money from my pocket, but hopefully, this can also contribute a tiny effort to "reduce the rate of damage to the environment".

Mission Accomplished!

There were quite a lot of personal milestones completed this month, particularly, after a long journey of the application process, I finally passed the PgMP exam yesterday.

So the last step of the credential process is the multi-rater assessment (MRA), hopefully, I can go through the MRA successfully for the certification (though I still don't know the professional advantage with this title). Cheers!

Brand New Year

What a long time before my last post! It was a fruitful & challenging year during my 2008 in the new endeavor.

In the coming new year (2009 & Year of the Ox in Chinese), would like to take another challenge on my self-advancement: PgMP certification!

Brand New Day

It was such a long time I haven't update my blog because of piling up with the personal project works over the past few months: Becoming an experienced driver - to learn driving, to get the driving license, to buy my first car (2nd hand), to drive everyday.....

Now, I have finished my endeavor in the current stop after four years time and will start a new page at the telecommunication industry tomorrow.

See if I can post further sharing on management/project management of what I had experienced in the past four years.

Nasty Angels & Nice Demons

Internal projects within an organization always face one common challenge: struggling of resources. Project Managers have to fight for resources from functional groups to form project teams. But in this fierce reality, key people in the organization are frequently shared among different projects.

The project manager, in this case, usually approaches those "helpful" colleagues to negotiate/beg for higher portion of participation/dedication to his/her projects. Those helpful colleagues, based on their goodwill (not capability), usually provide positive feedback to the project manager like "no problem, I will try my best to help". In fact, those people are just "nice demons" doing something harmful to the project.

Such positive but no commitment feedback such as "try my best" only posts a false hope to the project manager. Unless those people can commit a measurable input/effort to the project, there is no true commitment and the project is usually doomed to failure because of lack of dedicated resources. The project manager will finally suffer from those helpful and nice "demons".

In reality, resource is limited and there is no superman in the world. If any colleague (resource) can doubtlessly spare his/her substantial effort/time to provide additional assistance to others without hesitation (evaluation), I will first question his/her capability (see my previous article about "the busiest people") instead of simply believing the uncommitted commitment.

In such situation, responsible colleagues should first evaluate the situation (the scope of request, the capability, the resources....) before making any commitment. If they realize that they are not able to help, they should turn down the requests politely and I call them "nice angels". (How to say "No" nicely is another topic; there are lot of books about self-improvement teaching how to say "No". To name one is the classic from Dale Carnegie - "How to Win Friends & Influence People"). I summarize my view about "Angels & Demons" in the following matrix:

Angel & Demon Matrix (by Gavin Lam, 2007)

Personally, I am not a nice guy. But at least, I still belong to the "Angel" category upholding my professional ethics, albeit at the nasty side.

Picking the Busiest People

"A Right Project Team" is one of the key success factors to an IT project. This is what many project management textbooks claim. The maxim is well-understood without ambiguity, but this does not mean it can be realized easily.

Several days ago when I talked to my friends about the challenges of managing projects, we all agreed that the maxim is in fact a delusion. In most cases, a project manager has not much choice in selecting his/her project team-members: There is no "superstar", no one from his/her previous projects, but a group of unrecognized colleagues within the organization for your selection. So before the project manager can build a right project team, first of all, he/she has to choose the "right" candidates.

Apart from reviewing appraisal reports or curriculum vitae of the colleagues, one simple and effective criterion can be adopted for the selection: Take the busiest people as the project team members.

I learned this from a book about six sigma (I forget the name of the book) five or six years ago when I was undertaking my MBA degree. The rationale behind the criterion is very straightforward. In many organizations (especially large enterprises where firing a staff is unusual unless the staff is extraordinary incapable over a long period of time), supervisors or managers tend to avoid assigning tasks to less capable staffs. Instead, they are willing to assign tasks to more capable staffs (capable with regard to productivity, reliability, and obedience). Eventually, those capable staffs will become the busiest colleagues in the organization and they are the best choice to be the project team-members.

Having the right project team-members, of course, does not mean a right project team. There is still a long way to go (the usual HR works of team building like forming, storming, norming and performing...).

Therefore, if you find yourself being treated unfairly (with lots of work compared with your colleagues), you may be the one!

Japanese Green

I made this shot couple days ago at the street side when I was on the way to learn driving. The bright sunlight was shining on the plants creating a very good view with freshly composition of "green". However, I knew that I was not able to capture such rich color correctly and so I changed my DC's color setting to "F-Chrome" (a special color mode in this particular Japanese brand of DC providing a rich color effect simulating the characteristic of a color positive film) before making the shot. Though the result was still a bit different from what I could see, the green color captured was very vivid and rich compared with conventional color mode (without the need of further photo retouching).

This photograph recalled my days when I was working for Japanese photographers. Japanese photographers are very serious about every shots they made. They are very attention to detail including picture composition, object fine positioning, subtle lighting and even minor color difference.

Did you notice that couple of years ago when Japan was still the leader in offset printing in terms of techniques/qualities. You would find that photographs on most Japanese calendars were much more beautiful than that of others. This was especially true for nature scenery shots where the green color found on every pictures were extraordinary clean and fresh. The reason was not just because of good creative and photographic skills, but also due to Japanese's attention to "detail". This was also the such minor attention creating the difference between "good" and "better" (or even "the best").

Conventional four color printing (CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black) can never achieve a good green color. Therefore, Japanese utilize "spot color" (green) on top of the four colors to achieve such brilliant results.

Such "spot" color technique is now widely adopted in color inkjet printers where you can find six or even seven colors inkjet printers with two to three special colors inks to achieve extraordinary color rendition output.