PoddarCo

A new white paper titled, “A Project Manager’s Perspective: The Importance of Early and Thorough Requirements Capture” has been uploaded to PMI and PoddarCo.

To download the paper, please click the White Papers link on the top right corner of the screen.  If you are a PMI member, you can also find the white paper under Resources – Knowledge Shelf – Requirements Management.

Brief synopsis of the white paper:
The aim of this paper is to share a project managerial perspective on requirements capture. This paper proposes a requirements life cycle (framework) for better requirements ownership and management throughout a project. It highlights the iterative nature of requirements, calls out some of the basic misconceptions and suggests areas for risk identification (as related to requirements).

The key takeaways are driven home through a simple yet effective pasta salad illustration. The paper also includes some effective tools you can use instantly: 7 criteria for a high quality requirement, checklist of 7 potential sources of risk within requirements, a sample requirements traceability matrix and 7 simple lessons for better requirements capture and management.

Hope you find this material helpful and practical.  I would love to hear your feedback.  So please feel free to reach out to me via comments on this blog or via email at varunpoddar@poddarco.com

Regards
-V

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A buzz word in the PMO’s mission statement (j/k, let’s take a deeper look)

gov⋅ern⋅ance [guhv-er-nuh ns] –noun
1. government; exercise of authority; control.
2. a method or system of government or management

gov⋅ern [guhv-ern] –verb
1. to rule over by right of authority: to govern a nation.
2. to exercise a directing or restraining influence over; guide: the motives governing a decision.
3. to hold in check; control: to govern one’s temper.
4. to serve as or constitute a law for: the principles governing a case.

Almost all the definitions above instantly validate what you and I think project governance is about.  Still, are you confused wondering how it applies to your PMO?  What are some practical, actionable steps to create better governance?  Let’s see what the heck is under the hood.

Project governance comprises of “efforts to work with executives and senior managers to solicit and implement their guidance regarding oversight and control of project performance and project management activities” (Chapter 5: Project Governance. The Complete Project Management Office Handbook, Second Edition).  Mostly everyone realizes this.  However, many PMO’s limit governance to establishing project management guidelines, reviewing some performance metrics and checking progress against the triple constraints.  They miss out on the first half of the description above – efforts to work with executives and senior managers to solicit and implement their guidance.

Without executive involvement, the effectiveness of project governance gets limited, especially when a PMO is striving to establish itself within the organization.  Project governance is the catalyst that the PMO needs to become a viable, effective project management capability.  So, stretch the application of governance beyond setting policies and reviewing performance to using it as a relationship building strategy.  Described below is my interpretation of the project governance framework described in great detail in The Complete Project Management Office Handbook, Second Edition.  This framework efficiently breaks governance into a few practical and actionable steps.

Simple steps to better governance

Most PMOs I have come across had great project charters, policies and authority guidelines.  Some had fairly established project classification guidelines.  Hardly any had an executive control board or a formal committee ensuring business and technical alignment.  How many times have you observed project governance diminishing after the initial funding stage?  Some form of continued executive participation ensures that executives are involved not only in project selection and approval, but also in project execution and delivery.

To that end project governance is more than a buzz word.  It is critical to the PMO’s maturity, adoption and respect within the organization.  Chances are you are already doing many things that fall under governance.  As you try to further streamline your governance efforts, if any particular step leads to heart burn, let me know and I’ll research the cure.  I try to keep blog posts brief, so for more details on this read Chapter-5 from the book referenced below or e-mail your questions to me.  My email address is varunpoddar@poddarco.com.

References:
Hill, Gerard M.  The Complete Project Management Office Handbook, Second Edition. Auerbach Publications. © 2008

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Getting to the common vision can be fun!

A common vision, a shared approach, mass adoption – IMO, convey very similar aspirations.  Books are written about how you can adapt your leadership style, management technique or change management strategies to accomplish these goals.  But, I found greater application and value in one simple exercise.  It’s called Design-the-box. 

Jim Highsmith and Bill Shackelford developed the Design-the-box exercise (Reference: Highsmith, Jim.  Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products.  Addison-Wesley, 2004) as a very effective practice to develop a common product vision.

For this exercise, assign people to several teams (team size is dependent on total participants but generally I have found 3 to 6 to be a good size).  Each team should be given a box, and be asked to prepare the front and back covers to sell the product which could be an application, a building, a restaurant (or just the menu) – basically any product or service.

Though once you get there the alignment creates positive energy

Each team should be directed to work amongst themselves to come up with a name, a graphic (logo) and a few key points for the front cover.  For the back cover, each team must record detailed features and operating requirements.  Once all teams have their individual boxes designed, all teams should work collectively as one unit to consolidate ideas from all boxes onto one box.  This one box represents the team’s common vision.

Just like in any other undertaking of this nature, in this too, participation is the key to success.  Some times to encourage participation, I try to make a small competition out of this exercise.  Criteria I have used to judge teams for their recommendations (boxes) are:  feasibility / practicality, applicability, attainability and creativity. 

Next time you want to lead your crew towards a common vision or goal, try this exercise.  If you need help tweaking it to your environment or industry, just holler – you know where to find me.  Btw, when you conduct this exercise if you want some inspiration or reference material, just pull out a few software boxes, DVD covers or books.

References:
Highsmith, Jim.  Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products.  Addison-Wesley, 2004

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