PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACH TO PRODUCTIVITY MAXIMIZATION..

Operations keeps the lights on, strategy provides a light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.   Joy Gumz

One of the most under-rated and under-stressed aspects of the management of an organization is the importance of managing its projects successfully.

There-in lies the secret of great organizations that have taken great strides and overwhelmed their followers and investors with their sheer ability to pull off large projects successfully.

Reliance Industries Ltd., one of the largest private organizations emerging out of independent India, has built its organization from the scratch with its amazing ability to commission large scale projects of world class that have given it economies of scale to become global leader in the manufacturing of a number of petrochemical, textile and plastic products.

Why is efficient project management, the most important aspect for any organization?

When a business unit is started or an expansion undertaken or the conversion of an idea into a product or service is put in action, the first step to execution is the creation of a project proposal and a business plan.

The business plan underlines the investments to be undertaken and the milestones to be achieved in various stages.

All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically.  The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result.” — Stephen Covey

Successful execution of the projects planned will have a favourable impact on the cash flows reducing capital related interest expenses and operational expenses  This will lead to higher profitability and increased interest levels in the investors who  not only help raise more resources for growth required in the future, but also will repose their faith in funding more projects of the organization.

Similarly, delay in execution projects if not rectified can snowball into big losses for the company and sometimes lead to bankruptcy if the project is too big and important.

Lets examine the case of a spectacular project failure to understand the essential aspects to be taken care while executing a project:

Spectacular failure at UK's 20 Billion Pound IT project of NHS ( National Health Scheme):

£20bn NHS computer system 'doomed to fail'12:01AM GMT13Feb 2007 http://goo.gl/CVGT3

Labour's multi-billion- pound project to create the NHS's first ever national computer system "isn't working and isn't going to work", a senior insider has warned.


The damning verdict on the ambitious £20 billion plans to store patients' records, and allow people to book hospital appointments, on a central computer network has been delivered by a top executive at one of the system's main suppliers.


Andrew Rollerson, the health-care consultancy practice lead at the computer giant Fujitsu, warned that there was a risk that firms involved in the project would end up delivering "a camel and not the racehorse that we might try to produce".
'£12bn NHS computer system is scrapped... and it's all YOUR money that Labour poured down the drain' UPDATED: 17:08 GMT, 22 September 2011 http://goo.gl/QOTTE 
Sum would pay 60,000 nurses' salaries for a decade Scheme replaced with cheaper regional alternatives Decision comes after report said IT system was not fit for the NHS
The reasons analysed for the failure of the project were given as follows:
a) No clear vision envisaged for the massive project on how the health service can make best use of new technology.
No matter how good the team or how efficient the methodology, if we’re not solving the right problem, the project fails.” –- Woody Williams
b) Users were not consulted while drawing up the complex project,
c) Too many incompatible vendors working together with frequent fights among themselves,
d) No visionary leadership that would integrate all the aspects of the project together and lead the project to a logical end
The project manager is expected to integrate all aspects of the project, ensure that the proper knowledge and resources are available when and where needed, and above all, ensure that the expected results are produced in a timely, cost- effective manner.” -– Meredith and Mantel
e) Lack of proper accountability for public money,
f) Lack of adequate competency that would help execute such a large project.
g) Lack of periodic reviews and adequate information flow that help monitor the project of such a large scale and keep it on track for successful completion.
“The project manager must be able to develop a fully integrated information and control system to plan, instruct, monitor and control large amounts of data, quickly and accurately to facilitate the problem-solving and decision- making process.” –- Rory Burke
and above all,
f) Despite adequate warnings from various quarters, no turnaround could be attempted over a 5 year period, which is astonishing. This also indicates a complete breakdown of communications between various executing parties and lack of review mechanisms that would put the project on the right track.
I have witnessed boards that continued to waste money on doomed projects because no one was prepared to admit they were failures, take the blame and switch course. Smaller outfits are more willing to admit mistakes and dump bad ideas. ..Luke Johnson 


From such failures, we can outline some of the important steps required to run successful projects:
Step 1:
Outline clear objectives and deliverables for the project:


The single best payoff in terms of project success comes from having good project definition early..  RAND CORPORATION


 i) Key success indicators of the project should be clearly determined. They could be, the deadline goals, increase in key rations, increase in market shares, reduction in turnaround times and any such qualitative & quantitative factors.
ii) Care should be taken that the organization does not over-commit and under-deliver. The negotiations should be transparent and clarity should be established to avoid any misunderstandings leading to breakdown in the future.


Step 2:  Plan for the 4 aspects of the project namely Performance, Cost, Time-lines and Scope very clearly.

Project management is like juggling three balls – time, cost and quality. Program management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling-three balls and swapping balls from time to time.” — G. Reiss

i) Project launch & release criteria should be clearly determined. What makes the product ready for the final release should be clearly identified and agreed upon between the constituents.
ii) There should be perfect clarity between the project sponsor, client and the organization managing the project regarding the budget for the project, qualitative aspects of the project meant to be achieved, deadlines to be met and delivery schedule to be adhered,
iii) The scope of the project and the exclusions also should be clear.

Step 3: Plan for all the likely risks along with the corresponding backup plans and risk mitigation strategies to ensure that unforeseen events do not sinks the project easily and there is adequate safe-gaurd that will allow the system to respond to minimise deviation or loss.

Step 4:

Breakdown the project into a series of steps, some running one after the another and some running concurrently to come out with an accurate schedule and also understand the constraints affecting the project within which the project team must deliver.

 Running a project without a WBS is like going to a strange land without a roadmap. J. Phillips

The steps should form constituents of stages of the project along with corresponding time-lines that must be met. Care should be taken that each step should have strict deadlines and also a reasonable buffer at the overall level to make-up for any delays in anyone of the steps.

Step 5:

Assemble the right team with appropriate competencies, complementing each other. The team leader has to have clear vision about the project's progress and expectations with the end clearly in the mind.

• “Project managers function as bandleaders who pull together their players each a specialist with individual score and internal rhythm. Under the leader’s direction, they all respond to the same beat.”— L.R. Sayles

Step 6:

 Create a set of guiding practices in line with the guiding vision for the project and ensure that the team sticks to the same.

Step 7:

Organize clear communication channels among the team members and across levels to enable excellent coordination and also periodic review to update and monitor progress. Daily updates, weekly progress reports, deviation reports and action taken reports and any course corrections required should be clearly discussed in the meetings. This will enable the project to stay on rails throughout the execution stage.

Step 8: 

Incorporate a right mix of control mechanism and self guiding principles to be adhered to by the team members individually and as a team to ensure, not only an objective monitoring of the project but also a urge on the part of al the members of the team to be motivated to take initiative and deliver on the deadlines on their own will.


Quality assurance rather than quality control is more useful in optimising the project functioning as prevention is better than cure. At every stage, there should be adequate checks and balances to ensure that the deviations from the desirable results should be analysed and action taken to correct the same so that they do not exaggerate at the end when it is too late to rectify the situation. 
At any time, if there is any shortage of expertise, necessary expertise should be brought in immediately or the project personnel trained to handle the situation instead of trying to fix the situation with available team members.

Step 9:

Close the Project once completed and the desired objectives are met. Sometimes, a decision is taken to extend the project to give more time for completion or a next phase is launched taking advantage of the success, to milk for more benefits. Some time, prudence results in scrapping the project and limiting the losses if it is not found viable to continue further.

As and when the project is completed, the results and the execution should completely be documented and analysed. Communication with all the stakeholders should be recorded and the project closed. The satisfaction levels of the project beneficiaries should be well documented and also lessons learnt from them should be carried forward to enable better execution of future projects.

Transparency between the project sponsors, team members, clients and all the stake holders will ensure that the deviations are minimised and  the project is always ahead of the expectations leading to successful execution.

A number of times, the projects do not go as planned due to a number of internal and external factors. Dispassionate analysis and decision making to ensure good money is not thrown after bad money frees up valuable resources that could be deployed elsewhere profitably and losses are minimised.

Successful companies follow the Project Management Methodologies rigorously and ensure that their money is put to good use and ROI maximised.