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The Project Management Top Ten

by Martin Powell
Too often performance improvement in businesses gets into the hands of the tool-heads
and the focus is on getting people to use the
tool set of the methodology or approach, rather
than tackling the fundamental thinking that
maintains poor results. This usually leads to average or less than average results from improvement initiatives and savings that never
seem to come through to the bottom line.
As we come up to the Olympics, we can say
that this approach to performance improvement
through a set of tools, with incremental improvement - is rather like the early history of the
high jump. Over the years we saw a progressive
increment in the heights recorded at the Olympics for the gold medal. Until 1968!

the things that are counter intuitive. This means

we have to examine our current thinking and be
open to new thinking. We need to tackle with
fresh minds the complexity, the uncertainty and
the disharmony (conflicts) that are at the root of
our problems.

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOP TEN!

In 1968, there was a fundamental change in the

thinking a paradigm shift. Prior to this year,
there were some changes made to technique
the scissors; the western roll and the straddle but these were just more effective uses of
the basic approach. In 1968, Dick Fosburys
coach came up to him and said something like
Dick, I want you to suspend all your beliefs and
do the thing that is counter intuitive. I want you
to dive over the bar head first, not feet first. The
result was a gold medal for Dick Fosbury and a
new thinking, a step change, if you will pardon
the pun.
So how do we get a step change in our businesses? We have to do the same as Dick Fosbury suspend our current paradigms and do

Over a series of articles, we will examine the

Erroneous Paradigms of a number of different
subjects. If Project Management is important or
interesting to you, your colleagues and your
business then you will want to explore the first,
which is the Top 10 Erroneous Paradigms in
Project Management.

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The Top 10 Erroneous Paradigms of Project
Management

1. Culture and behaviours are the cause of

poor project management results and
must be fixed first

2. The sooner we start the sooner we will

finish

a. Start projects as soon as they

are awarded/assigned

b. Tasks - when you are missing

one of several inputs for a task,

the best course of action is to
proceed as far as you can immediately

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The sooner we start the sooner
we will finish
This is valid if and only if there is no other work
to do. If I can dedicate my time to solely one
thing then of course the sooner I start the
sooner I will finish it. This is not valid when there
are multiple projects for resources to work on,
or multiple tasks for a resource to do in a project. Having too much work being done in parallel just extends the lead time to complete everything! There are various exercises that demonstrate this easily the paper tearing exercise,
the bead game, the A 1 - ..B 2 exercise, etc.

3. Multitasking is the most efficient use of

This paradigm drives a rule / policy fostered by

senior management which is:

4. People can determine the right priorities

Start projects as soon as they are awarded/

assigned

resources

for a project from their local view

5. The more detailed and the precise the

project plan the easier it is to control

6. Including safety at a task level is the

best way to protect a project

7. We are not allowed enough safety to

cover for all the uncertainties

8. % complete is the best estimate of the

progress of a task [task content and task

duration are equivalents]

9. The most effective way to synchronise

execution is through many meetings

10. Sponsorship of change is the main thing

that we need from senior management

Culture and behaviours are the cause of

poor project management results and must
be fixed first
The reason this is not valid is that culture and
behaviours are effects or outcomes; they cannot be addressed directly. The underlying
causes are the system rules and related measurements both formal and informal. If you
change the rules (see below) and the measurements then the behaviour will change quickly, so
will the culture and so will the results.

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOP TEN!

Of course we can understand that getting to the

point of launching a project whether internally
or for a client is a challenging process which
in itself is subject to delays in decision making
and selling. Once the go-ahead is given, there
is huge pressure to start and show some progress. Any suggestion that we should delay further seems unacceptable and so the project is
launched causing bad multi-tasking with already
launched projects. The spiral is never ending
and the lead time actually lost is huge and the
capacity wasted significant.
The counter intuitive thing to do is to lower the
load and then only release projects into the system at the rate that they are being completed.
The first step towards this is to temporarily
freeze work on some projects which means
that the non-frozen ones move faster and over a
short period of time ALL projects are finished
earlier than they would have been by not controlling release.
Tasks - when you are missing one of several
inputs for a task, the best course of action is to
proceed as far as you can immediately
The same pressure to show progress forces the
above behaviour on the resources where they
all know that due to the many changes that occur in the uncertain world of projects, there is a
high chance of rework being necessary. In the
manufacture of physical products the same

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phenomenon exists. This is solved there and
can be in projects by adopting a full kit policy
where no significant task is to be started unless its full kit of inputs is available. This avoids
wasted effort, increasing the effective capacity
of the resources and accelerating projects.
Multitasking is the most ecient use of resources
We have to be careful here to draw a distinction
between multitasking and bad multitasking.
We all intuitively understand that with the pressures on people cost it is rare and really undesirable to have a dedicated team in most project
environments. It is expected that people will
multitask and this leads to the assumption /
paradigm that multitasking is efficient. This is
valid if and only if there is no bad multitasking
which we define as switching to another task
from the one currently being worked on even
when the current one could have been finished. This practice just delays completion of
most tasks and hence projects. The rule should
be once started a task should be completed, if
that is technically possible, without switching to
other tasks. This will again accelerate the flow
of all projects.
People can determine the right priorities
for a project from their local view
Whether in a single project situation or a multiproject environment (one where there is considerable sharing of common resources) allowing
resources or even their managers to determine
a priority is a little like Russian roulette. One in
six may choose the valid task. The essence
here is that people behave in line with the way
they are measured be it formal or informal
measures. This means that their local action has
a high chance of not being aligned with the
global system needs. First they may not have
any visibility of the global priorities and second
they are measured by some local efficiency
style of performance review. Often he who
shouts loudest or he who has position power
wins out over other project and senior managers.
What is needed is a mechanism to provide a
single robust priority system such as the buffer
management priorities of Critical Chain Project
Management.

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOP TEN!

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The more detailed and the precise the project plan the easier it is to control
Ask most managers how they can gain more
control and more predictability over a system
and they will tell you we break the system
down into smaller parts and give each part a
local target and if we still get surprises then
we break it down further, etc. In an attempt to
tackle the uncertainty and complexity they actually make the management of the system more
complex and react to every variation creating
even more noise than exists normally and fuelling disharmony between owners of the parts.
This is evident in all types of business environment from Governments to a single project.
In a project plan, the tendency is to break the
tasks down into many hundreds or even thousands of tasks, detailing every possible dependency on the assumption that we can actually plan the way reality will turn out. In some
cases, even to the extent of planning for every
possible eventuality and recording this in the
project plan. Planning in hundreds of tasks
even for a project such as building a North Sea
oil rig is overkill and does little to aid the actual
execution. It draws resources into having to
constantly re-plan to reflect reality. When this
becomes too onerous then it is no longer done
properly and in fact the project is out of control.
It is often about trying to build the whole of the
work content into the project plan, when really
the project plan should be the basis for managing the flow of the project. Answering the questions are we going to finish on time? and is
corrective action needed?
Critical Chain project plans are built at a level
and in enough detail to adequately monitor the
flow of the project and to minimise re-planning.
As such they provide much greater control to
the project manager.
Including safety at a task level is the best
way to protect a project
When each task owner includes safety in their
estimated durations they are in fact hurting the
project and setting it up to fail. We understand
why people do this because they want to be
reliable, they want to meet their local milestone

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dates. In order to be reliable I must include
some safety because as well as doing the actual work I have to account for all the interruptions and other ways the system causes me to
waste time. So including safety at the task level
is the best way to protect myself in a chaotic
system. However, the system also causes me to
engage in behaviours that waste the safety that
I have included such as student syndrome
and Parkinsons law which are responses to
the nature of the system. The best way to protect the project is to provide the safety or buffer
at the project level and remove the local milestone dates that drive the crazy behaviours. If a
task needs more time, then it can draw on the
project buffer if it can finish early it does and
gets passed on immediately. This is how Critical
Chain Project Management (CCPM) operates
and delivers projects on time within budget and
to specification much more reliably than other
methods, whilst also creating more harmony
within the environments.
We are not allowed enough safety to cover
for all the uncertainties
This is a typical paradigm of project managers
in many organisations. They often feel that they
have all the responsibility but with little or no
authority as the resources are owned by someone else. If they do try to include some safety
during planning, then often senior management
will arbitrarily force them to cut all times to meet
a required planned due date. Any safety that
does exist and is well hidden is down at the
task level and owned by the resource managers.
However, if we use the CCPM, then we change
the way resources are measured; we remove
the local safety from the task level and we aggregate it at the project level. This safety is then
owned by the PM in the same way as an insurance fund is operated and just as in such a fund
the principle (or law) of aggregation applies. The
amount of fund needed overall is far less than is
needed if held by each participant. In fact under
CCPM the project buffer only needs to be at
50% of the local safeties.
In execution, any resources needing to make a
claim on the buffer can do so easily the important aspect being that the project manager
has full visibility of this and its impact on his

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOP TEN!

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fund. This way there is enough safety to cover
for most uncertainties.
% complete is the best estimate of the
progress of a task [task content and task
duration are equivalents]
Why is it that very often when we ask someone
who is working on a task - that had say an
original estimated duration of 10 days and we
are asking them on day 11 what is your %
completion; and they tell us 90% - and it then
takes them another 5 days to finish? The answer must be that everyone is equating the
content with the duration which is obviously not
valid.
The most important thing for us to know, in relation to the managing the flow of the project is
the most current estimate of the remaining duration to complete the task. This has no relation
to the original estimate or the work completed
so far. The estimated remaining duration is a
professional estimate based on all currently
known data. This is the best estimate we can
get and is how we report on CCPM project
tasks.
The most eective way to synchronise
execution is through many meetings
In many companies that have what are thought
of as large projects or organisations that have
many medium sized projects another approach
to dealing with the inherent uncertainty and
complexity that seems to constantly exist is to
hold frequent alignment or synchronisation
meetings. They might not be called by these
names but this is their intent. This involves hundreds of hours of management time which in
itself is a scarce resource. The meetings seek to
deal with the variation and the resultant priorities. Often these meetings do help but many
times they cause additional confusion and shifting of focus to every small variation that is happening. They often have to spend time on what
has been done on previously discussed issues.
In a prestigious car company we saw this first
hand in their daily meetings. The trivia was impressive. Often the issues needed senior management to get involved to sort out conflicting
needs. None of this really helps the critical flows
of the project.

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What is really needed is management by exception only drawing attention when the system cannot guide the alignment. Under CCPM,
the use of the buffer priorities the single robust
priority system provides most of the day-today alignment needed. Weekly reviews using
the buffers and looking forward takes minimal
time and significantly releases management capacity to deal with other issues not the nitty
gritty.
Sponsorship of change is the main thing
that we need from senior management
When a project management environment is not
functioning well and poor results are being
achieved, it is obvious that senior management
has to sponsor change. What usually happens
is that some new approach is decided upon
and then implementation is delegated to middle
management. This can even happen with
CCPM. Those involved in the implementation
have the support of senior management but
often this is passive and nominal.

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the first people to change and they drive the
implementation themselves proactively. They get
involved in ensuring that the new rules are followed and actively provide support for difficult
situations. They help in the initial stages to
check the new behaviours are happening and if
not take action to redress the situation. Sponsorship is necessary but not sufficient to
achieve systemic change.
Conclusion
If when you read the top ten you thought that
makes sense to me then you better think
again. If you can understand how these assumptions and paradigms are possibly erroneous then you should explore more how they
impact your organisation. Test them out by asking other people dont do them all together
do them one at a time.
CCPM tackles all these paradigms in that way
it is simple; even common sense. Unfortunately
common sense is rarely common practice!

Any really successful CCPM implementation has

the characteristic that senior management are

Martin Powell.

The Top 10 Project Management Tools

http://www.TOC-Goldratt.com/Top-10-PM-Tools

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOP TEN!

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