Distinction between «project management» and «operation management» is essential for the role of a “project manager” to be recognized as a profession by society.
Every project should be managed professionally, the project result should be transitioned to operations, and most importantly, be closed. While a project is on execution, the project professional makes decisions to optimize value delivery, which usually materializes during the operational stage, well after the project has been closed.
In agile projects, due to management based on continuous interactions with stakeholders who validate increments toward the final result, ensuring value delivery is not usually a problem.
In predictive projects, however, it is possible for value to occur and the project to be a failure, or vice versa: the project might be a success but ultimately not deliver value.
Value Driven in Predictive Projects
Let’s set an example: A project to rebuild a house. The construction company should complete the project on time, on budget, according to the design, with the expected quality, etc.
Besides these project management technical goals, we should consider the goal of delivering the value: the family that will live in that house will be satisfied with the outcome, enjoy their living experience there, invite friends to stay for a few days, have barbecues in the backyard, swim in the pool, etc.
What if the project finishes on time and within budget, but the value doesn’t materialize in the end? The family can’t afford the maintenance costs, the marriage ends in divorce, the children move away, a barbecue causes a fire, someone drowns… The project was a success, but the operation is a failure.
The project was a success, but the operation is a failure.
What if the project takes twice as long and costs twice as much, but delivers much greater value than expected? The house becomes the envy of the town, wins awards, gets featured in magazines… The operation is a success, but the project was a failure.
The operation is a success, but the project was a failure.
It is common for people to forget management failures in projects. A recent example is the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which experienced a cost overrun of 8 billion dollars and a delay of 12 years. It came close to being canceled by the U.S. Congress in 2011. Fortunately, the Webb is sending amazing images since July 7, 2022. Astronomers say it’s like seeing the universe with new eyes. It will continue operation until 2030.
When projects are transitioned to operations, and everybody can see the results and the value delivered, people tend to forget the management failures of the project phase. This is natural. This is like the mother who forgets how bad her pregnancy was when she sees her baby’s face. Conversely, project professionals have to learn from mistakes to not make them again.
As project professionals, we have to learn from mistakes to not make them again.
Value Driven with PMPeople
With PMPeople, project professionals can edit and share information about the project charter and the business case. Each project has a number to express its value, meaning its relative comparison against the other components of the program, portfolio, or business unit. At project review meetings –and especially at phase gates reviews– project professionals can check if the project is still aligned to value delivery.
Most PMOs are seen as internal cost centers adding bureaucracy to projects. PMPeople helps people collaborate on project management professionally, in the cloud, using different roles. PMOs can distribute many management activities, having more time for anticipating problems and delivering value. With PMPeople, the PMO can grow from being a cost center to leading the company in the Project Economy.
Projectized organizations usually run over 100-200 projects in parallel, all of them committed to finish on time, on budget, business goals and value delivery. Being prone to all kinds of problems and threats, demanding the best possible team’s performance, projects are controversial since they change many people’s lives. However, when projects succeed, not much recognition is given to the PMO, despite their clear value contribution.
The PMO Director cannot ensure an acceptable level of project success just by implementing processes or tools, no matter how big the PMO team is. Project teams would not improve performance just because they use some tools, follow some processes, or produce some documents. Neither business managers would improve decision making just because they read all project reports. PMOs which only enforce compliance cannot avoid being labeled as cost centers by the board of directors. When crises arrive, those PMOs are downsized, outsourced, or directly removed.
PMOs must deliver value. The only way for a PMO to get much more effective keeping the same resources is by distributing the management load to the project teams, applying the recognized agile value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
People can collaborate professionally and effectively on projects if they interact to check results on 8 performance domains and they talk a common basic professional language. If project teams get into the habit of reporting status periodically, true evidence of project work will be available not just for the PMO, but also for any stakeholder who may submit feedback, comments, or change requests.
Technology available right now allows stakeholders to access projects directly with their mobile phones. They can easily submit comments, feedback, or change requests on the whole project or a single work package. On the other hand, the project manager, or the project manager assistant, can publish performance evidence regularly by themselves, without much effort. No need for the PMO team to keep doing those inefficient, bureaucratic activities wasting time of the project manager, team members, stakeholders, etc. Nowadays, technology is good enough to distribute the management load effectively, so that the PMO can focus on strategy and value contribution.
In PMPeople we think technology should be intensively applied to professional project management. Business managers should know, just checking their mobile phones, if a single project has issues, before it is too late. PMPeople helps people collaborate on projects proactively, using different roles, only the necessary time, saving many meetings, reports, and paper documents nobody will read. PMPeople helps people collaborate on project management professionally, in the cloud, using different roles. PMOs can distribute many management activities, having more time for anticipating problems and delivering value.
PMPeople is the tool for the Project Economy. All types of organizations manage projects, programs, and portfolios to turn ideas into reality. Organizations are getting “projectified” and need project professionals to ensure predictability, accountability, and final success of each project.
PMPeople is a technology for project professionals to collaborate using roles. Launched in April 2018 for PMOs and project professionals using 12 collaborative roles to work in teams professionally, in the cloud, collaborating on projects, programs and portfolios.
PMPeople goes beyond simply following workflows, chains of supervision, processes, or document templates: it promotes people interact as individuals. Project Managers can manage projects at many organizations using predictive and agile frameworks. Stakeholders can supervise many projects and give feedback with their mobile application. Team members can know their teammates and job descriptions, submit comments, timesheets, expenses, etc.
PMPeople is aimed to unify professional project management by these differential points:
- Designed by and for professional project managers, following professional project management standards.
- Online productivity –less meetings, less documents, less workflows– through distributed collaboration among 12 specialized roles: Organization Owner, 6 roles on demand management and 5 roles on supply management.
- Freemium product –unlimited time, unlimited users– usable via web and mobile application.
Start using PMPeople for free, for unlimited time and for any number of users. In premium organizations, only managers have a cost. Several roles –stakeholders, team members, sponsors, and resource managers– are always free. You can increase or decrease your premium seats according to the organization’s actual needs. Premium organizations have access to our online interactive support. Our servers are located in the EU. This software can also be hosted on customer premises.
