Project Management: Outsourcing, Control, and Global Strategies
CH-12) Outsourcing: Partnering Factors
Partnering Factors: Common goals, high cost of adversarial approach, shared benefit.
Advantages: Cost reduction, faster completion, high-level expertise, flexibility.
Disadvantages: Coordination breakdown, loss of control, conflict, security issues, political concerns.
Partnering Approach
Mutual trust, shared goals, joint project team, open communication, long-term commitment, objective critique, access to all resources, total company involvement, integration of administration, risk is shared jointly.
Traditional Approach
Limited objective, limited involvement, structured procedures, risk is transferred, suspicion and distrust, similar goals and objectives, single project, structured communication.
Best Practices
- Well-defined requirements and procedures: upfront planning, common procedures, integrated management system.
- Extensive training: partnering charter, training, people issues are important, communicating with outsourcers – recognize cultural differences, choose the right words, confirm requirements, set deadlines.
- Selecting a partner: voluntary, experienced, willing, committed top management.
Why Project Partnering Fails: Senior management fails to address issues, lack of incentive.
Advantages of Long-Term Relationships: Reduced administration costs, improved communication, innovation, performance, resource management.
Negotiation
Everyone on the same side, work together, bound by success. Principles of Negotiation: Separate people from the problem, focus on interests, invent options for mutual gain, use objective criteria. Dealing: Don’t push back, use silence, BATNA.
CS: Evaluation of project, work in teams, think as a team.
CH 13) Project Control Process
Setting baseline, measuring progress and performance, comparing plan against actual, taking action.
Formulas: EV=BCWP, CV=BCWP-ACWP, ETC=(BAC-EV)/CPI, ETCf=ETC+AC, PCBI=EV/BAC.
CHA-14) Major Tasks of Project Closure
Evaluate, assess, identify changes.
Project Monitoring Activities
Review of project, reassessment of organizational priorities, check on organizational culture, check on external factors, how well the project team is functioning.
Types of Project Closure
Normal, premature, perpetual, failing, changed priority.
Final Report
Executive summary, review and analysis, appendix, lessons learned, recommendations.
Functional Matrix
Individual area managers.
Balanced Matrix
Project manager and area manager jointly evaluate.
Project Matrix
Project manager is responsible.
Retrospectives
Lessons learned (analysis to capture positive and negative learning). Goals: To reuse learned solutions, stop repetitive mistakes. Barriers: Lack of post-project review, lessons become blame, organizational culture does not recognize value. Conducting Retrospective Analysis: Initiating and staffing, data collection and analysis, reporting.
Cha 15) Types of International Projects
Domestic, overseas, foreign, global.
Issues Managing Projects
Environmental factors, global expansion, challenges working in foreign cultures, selection and training of foreign managers.
Positives of International Assignments
Increased income, increased responsibility, career opportunity, foreign travel, new lifetime friends.
Negatives
Absence from home, family, personal security risk, missed career opportunities, difficulty with foreign language, culture, and laws.
Environmental Factors
- Legal/political (government laws, corruption, political stability).
- Security (terrorism, risk management, crime).
- Geography (climate, natural obstacles).
- Economic (GDP, currency exchange rate, inflation rate).
- Infrastructure (telecom network, transport, power distribution grid, educational system).
- Culture (customs and social standards, values, language, multicultural environments).
Culture: A system of shared norms, beliefs, values, and customs that binds people together and creates a unique identity.
Cultural Differences
Geographic region, ethnic group, language, economic status.
Ethnocentric Perspective
Tendency to believe that one’s culture and values are superior to others (ignores the people factor in other cultures by putting work ahead).
Adjustments Required
Relativity of time, cultural-related ethical differences, personal and professional relationships, attitudes toward work and life.
Cross-Cultural Orientation
Relation to nature, time orientation, activity orientation, basic nature of people, relationships among people.
Hofstede Cultural Dimensions Framework
Individualism vs. collectivism (identifies whether a culture holds each member’s welfare), power distance (degrees to which a culture accepts power and status among others), uncertainty avoidance, masculinity (degrees to which a culture emphasizes competitive and achievement-oriented behavior).
Working in Different Cultures
Relying on local intermediaries: translators, social connections, expediters, cultural advisors, and guides.
Cultural Shock: Natural psychological disorientation that people suffer when they move into different cultures.
Working in Different Cultures
Create stability zones, modify expectations and behavior, redefine priorities, focus on the most important tasks, use project work as a bridge, engage in a regular physical program.
Selection Factors for International Projects
Work experience, previous travel, good health, knowledge of different languages, recent immigration background, ability to adapt.
Learning Approaches
Information-giving approach, affective approach, behavioral approach.
CS AMAX: Thomas did not adapt to Hungarian culture, work style, ethics, laws, and rules. Applied managerial rules with an American style by laying off half of the staff.
CH-16) Oversight
Stakeholders are highly active people in oversight. Oversight (OS): A set of principles and processes to guide and improve managerial processes.
OS Purpose
Ensure the project meets the organization’s needs for standards, procedures, etc., to support the project manager.
OS Activities at the Organizational Level
Project selection, portfolio management, improve how projects are managed over time, assessing and evaluating the maturity level of projects, using a balanced scorecard.
At the Project Level
Review objectives, decide on issues, track and assist projects to resolve bottlenecks, audit and review lessons learned, authorize major deviations, cancel the scope.
Importance of OS/OS Functions
Provide support and help to managers, determine the environment, influence performance measures, provide an OS group to managers for predetermined phases.
Outcomes of the 21st Century
Increase in scope for PM, increasing discipline.
Portfolio Project Management
Centralized management of projects to ensure the allocation of resources to projects.
Project Office
The unit responsible for the continued support of consistent application for selection criteria, standards, and procedures.
Phase Gate Review Process
A structured process to review, evaluate, and document outcomes in each phase.
Decisions
Required deliverables, gate criteria, and specified outputs, a clear yes/no decision.
Capability Maturity Model
Focusing on guiding and assessing organizations in implementing concrete best practices for software development projects.
Organizational Project Maturity Model
Divided into growth levels: initial, repeatable, defined, managed, optimized.
Balanced Scorecard Model
Assumes people will take action, reviews projects over a long time, has a more macro perspective, measures performance results for four areas: customer, internal, financial, innovation, and learning.
CS What Should We Do?: Enhance training in project management like project maturity modeling, outsourcing, portfolio management, stage gate or phase gate, align the technology, shorten project duration, use agile techniques.
CH-17) Traditional Approach
Designed upfront, fixed scope, deliverables, freeze design as soon as possible, low uncertainty, avoid change, low customer interaction, conventional project team.
Agile Techniques
Continuous design, flexible, features/requirements, freeze design as late as possible, high uncertainty, embrace change, high customer interaction, self-organized project teams. Agile PM is related to rolling wave planning and scheduling project methods. Uses iterations to develop a workable product. Stakeholders and customers progress and reevaluate priorities to ensure alignment with customer needs. Adjustments are made, and a different iterative cycle begins.
Advantages of Agile PM
Useful in critical breakthroughs, continuous integration, verification, validation of the product, early detection of defects, frequent demonstration of progress.
Agile Principles
Focus on customer value, iterative and incremental delivery, experimentation and adaptation, self-organization, continuous improvement.
Methods
Scrum, programming, agile modeling, rapid product development, crystal clear, RUP, DSDM, Lean.
Scrum
A holistic approach used by cross-functional teams, defines product features as deliverables, reevaluates priorities after each iteration, has four phases: analysis, design, phase, gate. Roles: Product Owner (acts on behalf of the customer), Deliverable Team (5-8 people responsible for delivering the product), Scrum Master (facilitates the Scrum process, resolves issues, and acts as a buffer).
Agile for Large Projects
Scaling: Using several teams working on different features of a large-scale project at the same time. Staging: Requires significant upfront planning, involves developing protocols and defining roles.
Limitations of Agile PM
Requires active customer involvement and cooperation, best for small projects, incompatible with corporate cultures, does not satisfy top management’s need for budget, scope, and schedule control.
Cha 18) Mentors
A superior person, requires loyalty and superior performance, uses networking.
Success in Projects
Pick quality projects over scope, keep a diary of lessons learned, avoid run-of-the-mill projects, seek high-profile projects with risk, consider a different company and industry that provides more managerial opportunities.