February 2008

PM Network

The professional magazine of the Project Management Institute
www.pmi.org

The Powerful Role Project Management Plays In Organisations
Sudesh Gambhir, Energy Northwest’s vice-president, technical services explains how his 50 year old organisation harnesses the power of project management to assist with the identification and development of new energy generating resources, through:

1. Investment
EN has been investing in project management principles, processes and training for over 25 years and believes this is essential to the successful execution of projects.

2. Lessons Learned
The level of expectation for sharing operating experience and lessons learned within the nuclear industry is very high. Lessons learned are categorised by project phases so they can be applied across projects on the fly.

3. Risk Management
Whilst EN try to minimize fast-tracked projects; if they are mission critical to the organization a much higher level of scrutiny is applied with regard to process and risk management. According to Keith Goffin, PhD professor of innovation and new product development at Cranfield School of Management, England, best-in-class organisations should balance risk within their portfolios, as well as regularly revisiting the original risk-assessment of each project. As projects evolve, the risks they face evolve too and the sooner these risks are properly assessed, the quicker an organization can decide to kill off projects which don’t meet their risk criteria and free up resources for other projects.

Focusing on Lessons Learned by Susan Ladika
Organisations must integrate past experience into their current and future projects.

Sandra Rowe, author of Project Management for Small Projects uses the following steps to facilitate the Lessons Learned process:

1. Identify
Project Managers should always be prepared to recognise a lessons learned moment when it happens mid project, through comments at meetings, complaints etc.

Once the project is completed, ask each participant to complete a project evaluation answering questions such as:

? Were the project objectives, requirements, assumptions and constraints clear?
? Were the schedule and client expectations realistic?
? Were communications effective?
? Did you understand the project status?

During this process it is important to focus on the positive and never criticise project team members, just the processes.

2. Document & Share
A summary of findings should be prepared for the organisation’s leadership, possibly in the form of a Lessons Learned Report along with a detailed report disseminated to other stakeholders.

3. Analyse & Organise
Where possible a team should be appointed to analyse the results, identify best practices and incorporate them into existing processes or creating new ones.

4. Store
All the information gathered from the above processes should be stored in a repository where anyone can retrieve them. The information should follow consistent procedures and forms, so it is easier to identify reoccurring issues and allow a search via keywords. This database must be maintained and updated regularly.

The ultimate goal is that “certain things will become second nature, and some lessons learned will become best practices.”rses