Some would have you believe that to be a Project Manager you need to follow rigorous formulas.
We believe it is better to:
- Focus on essentials without getting lost or overwhelmed in unnecessary layers of detail by establishing what tools or steps are really necessary for the specific project. A good carpenter owns a complete set of tools but will only use the ones necessary for the job at hand.
- Control complexity, keeping it simple is not simple.It takes sure and practiced hands to stop unnecessary clutter and detail from getting in the way of successful outcomes
- Be Lean, remember the Voice of the Customer – don’t keep loading up processes and procedures, no matter what they did in the past – if it doesn’t work for your customer today, it’s not useful,
- Don’t be afraid of conflict– manage productive discussions from different views – find and solve the root causes of differences or disagreements
Early project management teaching focused on the "Triple Constraint Triangle" of Scope, Time and Resources. Add one other attribute, "Quality" to make it a "Quadrangle". The same principle applies, as with any geometric shape; if one angle or attribute is changed it affects each of the other angles or attributes.
- Scope never remains static .What is required is a simple yet effective manner of managing scope change including;
- identification
- assessment
- acceptance
- Time & Resources are commodities to be leveraged, bartered, or traded but are also often finite and can each become the single key to success or failure.
- Quality is the most ambiguous constraint as although some aspects of quality are measurable there are often elements that defy measurement until the acid test of customer acceptance. Perception can overrule measurement. The time to establish the project standards of quality and how they will be measured and what are the acceptable tolerances must be spent before scope sign off and revisited with every scope, time or resource change. Is the project intention to deliver a Smart Car or an SUV, both may satisfy the basic needs but for how much and with what capacity?