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Improving Project Management for Small Projects

Article · February 2013

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by Claude Y. Laporte, Frédéric Chevalier and Jean-Claude Maurice new entity, it had no efficient tools or
project management processes suited to
A consulting firm, which is also one of Canada’s largest engineer- managing small-scale projects. The strong
growth of the division in recent years
ing companies, has implemented an improvement programme which made management aware of the need to
consists in defining and implementing new management processes improve its methods in order to remain
for small-scale projects. This company provides a variety of engi- competitive. For this reason, most of the
projects managed by this division include
neering services to industrial and business companies, major institu-
project plans and cost-time estimates. In
tions and municipalities. It is subdivided into five “ divisions ” or most cases, these projects involve updating
special business units. or improving existing infrastructures.
Hence the challenge of handling multiple
Efficient project monitoring small-scale, fast-moving projects allowing
little room for unwieldy management
processes, but still requiring an efficient
and straightforward
The programme’s objective was to avoid The ISO Methodology monitoring process.
cost overruns and project delays, standardize
was also used to
practices to facilitate the integration of new
managers, increase the level of customer calculate the economic Managing projects
satisfaction and reduce risk-related plan- benefits of implementing of varying scale
ning deviations. ISO/IEC 29110. Projects in this division are classified
T he ne w se r i e s of st a nd a rds, creat
ISO/IEC 29110, Software engineering – ed a
Lifecycle profiles for Very Small Entities deca
(VSEs), was used to document the Small-scale de Medium-scale Large-scale
company’s small- and medium-scaled projects ago projects projects
project manage- ment processes, while the andFrom 2 to 8 months
Project duration Less than 2 months Over 8 months
ISO Methodology was used to calculate the now
economic benefits of implementing Team size Up to 4 people From 4 to 8 people More than 6 people
boas
ISO/IEC 29110. Number of engineering ts One or more disciplines More than one
One discipline
The project management process disciplines involved arou discipline
improve- ment programme was targeted at Between CAD 5 000 and nd Between CAD 50 000
Engineering fees Over CAD 350 000
one division of the company, which was 70 000 500and 350 000
5 © ISO Focus+, www.iso.org/isofocus+ ISO Focus+ February 201
employees across into three categories according to duration, a
10 offices throughout Canada. As a Table 1 : Classification of the division’s projects (CAD = Canadian dollar).
relatively
S tandards in Action

Canada

Improving project management

for small projects
size, number of disciplines involved and
engineering fees. It was decided to sub- Identification
number Description
divide the projects into three categories :
small-, medium- and large-scale projects O-1 Facilitate the integration of the new project managers.
(see Table 1). O-2 Achieve a global customer satisfaction level of 80 %.
For this improvement programme, the
Meet the deadlines and costs planned for the projects, within a fluctuating margin of
company developed and implemented O-3
5 % of all projects.
pro- ject management processes for small-
O-4 Reduce resource overload by 10 %.
and medium-scale projects.
As a consequence of poorly managed risks, reduce time delays to one week and cost overruns to
The goal-problem approach developed O-5
5 % of the initial budget.
by Potter and Sakry 1) was used to set the
O-6 Reduce corrective work during the quality control phase by 10 %.
improvement programme’s priorities and to
ensure that the goals set by the O-7 Reduce non-chargeable time for resources by 10 %.
programme addressed tangible problems
Table 2 : Division’s business goals.
that the company wished to solve. This
approach includes the following steps :
• The company’s management knows organizations, departments and projects
• Identifying the business goals (see the benchmark of up to 25 people, it is perfectly suitable
Table 2) and the problems that the
• The benchmark is recognized by the for this company.
company wishes to solve
company’s customers
• Grouping goals and problems
• Tools are available to facilitate the use Management process
• Prioritizing problems of the benchmark
The simplest profile of the ISO/IEC
• Developing an action plan • The benchmark may easily be used and 29110 series – the entry profile – was used
integrated into the existing processes as the basis for developing the small-scale
Then, the managers grouped the problems
relative to the different goals. Finally, • A recognition mechanism through project management process. The basic
they evaluated the goal priorities and cost accreditation for the company is profile was used to develop the medium-
for each improvement in order to available scale project management process or for
prioritize goals and establish • Benchmark documents are readily basic project management.
implementation phases for each one. available The project management practices used
Moreover, a risk management plan was by the company’s managers were assessed
Before analysing the selected bench- against the ISO standard’s basic profile.
developed in order to prevent – i.e.,
marks, each criterion was weighted by Figure 1 shows the results obtained. It
reduce the probability and minimize the
its importance according to the project displays the percentage of the tasks per-
impact of – certain events on the project
sponsors’ perception. ISO/IEC 29110 was formed for each of the following activities
process.
the standard selected for the improvement of the ISO/IEC 29110 management and
project. Even if the company’s division engineering guide :
Benchmark selection comprises more than 500 employees, a
• Project planning (15 tasks)
There are several documents describing significant number of small-scale pro-
jects are carried out by separate teams • Project plan execution (6 tasks)
recognized practices for project
management, among which guides such as A focusing on one customer only. Since the • Project assessment and control (3 tasks)
Guide to the Project Management Body of ISO/IEC 29110 series applies to enterprises, • Project closure (2 tasks)
Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) published by
the Project Management Institute,
maturity models such as the Capability
Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) for
Development of the Software Engineering
Institute, and standards such as the new
ISO/IEC 29110 series for very small
entities.
A meeting with the improvement pro-
gramme project sponsors helped define a
selection of criteria with a view to determin-
ing the most suitable project management
benchmark for the company. The following
criteria were selected :
• The benchmark is suitable for the
management of small-scale projects
(small team and limited means) Project planning

1) Potter, N., Sakry, M., Making Process

Improvement Work. Addison-Wesley – Pearson
Education, 2002.
Project plan execution
5 © ISO Focus+, www.iso.org/isofocus+ ISO Focus+ February 201

% of tasks performed
Project assessment and control
 Project closure

Figure 1 : Performance assessment of

activities and tasks of the basic profile.
0 %10 %20 %30 %40 %50 %60 %
 a

Standards in Action

management. It was therefore decided that

Performance checklists might provide a useful tool for
Value driver Description indicators Importance
project managers for the following reasons :
Quality of the design Quality in terms of Time spent on corrective Very important (company • They are a good way to explain or
process execution time, costs and engineering work. Cost viability) [1] *
briefly summarize the tasks to be per-
quality of deliverables overruns related to quality
control. formed by the project manager
Guarantee of the company’s
• They help identify quickly the forms
long-term viability. and templates available to perform the
project management tasks
Efficiency vs costs Ability to complete the Meeting budgets allocated Very important (company • They provide quick links to additional
work at minimum cost to each sub- project. viability) [1] * references
Meeting overall project
budget.
• The provide guidance to the project
manager for storing the project man-
Project management capacity Capacity to manage Cost performance indicator Very important
projects according to (completing projects is
agement documents
plans the company’s core • They provide an easy means of assess-
activity) [1] * ing the implementation of processes
Technical expertise Ability to solve complex Schedule performance Important [2] *
problems indicator Within the scope of this programme to
Geographic positioning Geographic proximity of Resource usage time Average importance [3] * improve project management practices, the
customers (additional time) following five checklists were developed :
Partnership Capacity to initiate Number of partnerships Average importance [3] * • Small-project management process
partnerships with other and recurring customers • Medium-project management process
companies
• Major-project management process
Flexibility Capacity to adapt to Number of services Important [2] *
different customer needs provided and type of • Drafting of service proposals
service compared with • Detailed project planning
competitors
* [Number] shows the degree of importance and the prioritization of each value driver (1 representing the highest importance). Pilot projects were carried out to test
Table 3 : Table of value drivers. the solutions thus developed. Checking
the solutions in the context of a real-life
We note that a low level of The three project management processes project helped verify that the proposed
implementation of ISO/IEC 29110 are as follows : solutions were consistent, achievable and
activities was achieved within the comprehensive. It was noted that project
• Small-project management process managers would appreciate examples of
company at the beginning of the
improvement programme. Also, during • Medium-project management process how to implement the tools.
the interview with managers, we noted they • Major-project management process
were not performed systematically. In Development
addition, the assessment revealed that of a deployment strategy
practices varied from project manager to ISO/IEC 29110 was
Once the final adjustments to the
project manager, and that no guidelines selected for the project management processes and tools
had been defined for some of the tasks. A improvement project. had been made, a deployment strategy for
similar assessment against the entry profile
the solu- tions was developed, covering the
was also carried out.
Discussions with project managers of the following three aspects :
organization revealed that they were often • Communication aimed at informing
Development of processes
burdened with technical tasks in addition to project managers in order to dispel any
The development of processes and tools managing the project. This situation often concerns they may have and mitigate
such as checklists and evaluation forms affected their ability to perform management the negative impacts that may be gen-
was the central element of the solution to tasks despite their level of expertise in erated by unknown situations during a
the problems identified. These documents project
were published on the division’s Intranet.

Prioritization Performance
Functions Activities Impact number Impact Description [1-high, 3-low] indicator
Production All activities P-1 Better internal The use of 2 Meeting budgets
information transfer standardized allocated to each sub-
documents and project. Meeting
specifications enables overall project budget.
a more efficient
Cost performance
internal information
indicators.
transfer.

Table 4 : Example of impacts of ISO/IEC 29110.

5 © ISO Focus+, www.iso.org/isofocus+ ISO Focus+ February 201

 change programme. Different commu-
nication methods were used to inform
all employees
• Training of project managers
• Dissemination of accepted solutions to
the managers working in the company’s
various offices throughout Canada. The
medium used to circulate the solutions
was the corporate Intranet
ISO/IEC 29110 was
used to document the
company’s project
management processes.
Support of the ISO Methodology
ISO has developed “ The ISO Methodol-
ogy to assess and communicate the
economic benefits of standards ” ; its key
objectives are to provide :
• A set of methods that measure the
impact of standards on organizational
value creation
• Decision makers with clear and
manageable criteria to assess the value
associated with using standards
• Guidance on developing studies to
assess the benefits of standards within
a particular industry sector
The approach used by the company
comprises four steps :
• Understanding the company’s value chain
• Analysing the value drivers
• Identifying the impacts of standards
• Assessing and consolidating results
After discussion with the members of
the company’s governance board, the ele-
ments shown in Table 3 were identified as
the main value drivers for an engineering
consulting firm.
The most significant impacts of the
improvement programme on the company
were then selected based on the Standards
Impact Map of the ISO Methodology.
Table 4 provides an example of such
impacts. The link between the impacts of
standards used and the performance indica-
tors identified during the previous step are
also shown in this table.
An estimate of anticipated costs and
benefits over a period of three years was
made by the improvement programme
project sponsors. Table 5 shows the
results for the first three years.
Description of the management
process
The ISO/IEC 29110 management and engineering guide describes a project management process
and an implementation process. The purpose of the project management process is to
establish and carry out in a systematic way the tasks of the project in order to meet the
objectives in the expected quality, time and costs.
During the project planning activity, the project plan is developed. Then, the process
assessment and control tasks are used to assess the project’s progress against the
project plan. Action is then taken, if needed, to eliminate deviations from the project plan or
to incorporate changes to the plan. The project closure activity groups together the
deliverables produced by the implementation process, such as the software or the user
manual, and gets the customer’s written acceptance to finalize the project. A physical
and digital repository is established to save the work products and to control their versions
during the project.
A successful programme integrate the knowledge required to execute
the processes.
The new ISO/IEC 29110 series ena- For the first time, the company has
bled the engineering consulting firm to documented management processes for
develop project management processes small-scale projects. Besides, some project
that offered a structured approach to its managers have joined forces to promote
project managers. The actions required project management practices within this
by such processes are restricted to the engineering firm’s division.
most essential ones, in order to limit the The improvement programme was so
management effort per project. successful that managers of the
The tools developed to support the project company’s other divisions have shown an
management processes proved very useful interest in learning this approach in order
and helped the project managers rapidly to imple- ment it within their respective
divisions. 
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total
Implementation and
CAD 59 600 CAD 50 100 CAD 50 100 CAD 159 800
maintenance costs
Net gain CAD 255 500 CAD 265 000 CAD 265 000 CAD 785 500
Table 5 : Anticipated costs and gains from the improvement programme
(CAD = Canadian dollar).
About the authors
Dr. Claude Y. Laporte Frédéric Chevalier Jean-Claude Maurice
is a Professor of Soft- is an electrical engineer is an engineer and en-
ware Engineering at the and project leader. He is trepreneur with 25 years
École de technologie the change agent of the of experience. A Senior
supérieure, Montréal, intervention programme Manager in the energy
Canada (www.etsmtl.ca/ which consists in defining sector, he has managed
Professeurs/claporte/). and implementing a pro- a significant number of
He is Project Editor of cedure to improve project multidisciplinary pro-
ISO/IEC 29110. management practices for jects. He is one of the
the engineering company. project sponsors of the
programme to improve
project management prac-
tices for the engineering
company.