Category: Project Management

blog post, certifications, Earned value, Earned Value Management, Integrated project monitoring and control, PMBOK, PMP certification, Project Management

Why PMP certified professionals earn 16% more than their counterparts?

Critical Success factors for project success

Projects are considered as successful, if they are completed on time, within budget, met the scope and achieved the business objectives of the project. How do we really achieve Poject sucess?

Initiation

  • Right Project Selection – If the project does not have a strong business case, it will fail eventually

Planning

  • Right project execution strategy (Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid) – A wrong project execution strategy can fail a project. For example, projects where scope is not clear, techno;ogy is new calls for agile / iterative development, till there is clarity. Once clarity is established, the rest of the project can follow waterfall or hybrid.
  • Right tools & techniques (Scheduling, Estimation, Project Management Information Systems) – On many occassions projects fail becuase the right tools are not used effectively.
  • Developing the subsidiary plans – Generally speaking, nothing good happens in projects without proper planning. For project success, one need to plan the following;
    • Quality management plan
    • Communications management plan
    • Procurement management plan
    • Resource management plan
    • Risk management plan
    • Schedule management plan
    • Stakeholder management plan
    • Change management plan
    • Configuration management plan
  • Developing the integrated project plan – For monitoring and controlling at a project level, all the subsidiary plans and the various other lower level plans must be integrated into a cohesive integrated project plan.

Execution

  • Executing the project as per the plan
  • Corrective and preventive actions

Monitoring & Controlling

  • Lag indicators
    • Schedule variance
    • Schedule performance index
    • Cost variance
    • Cost performance index
    • Scope variance
    • Quality issues
    • Risks occured
  • Lead indicators
    • Estmated date of completion (work package, milestone, project)
    • Estimated cost at completion
    • Anticipated risks

Closing

  • Closing phase
  • Closing project

A quick look at the PMP certification

  • Project Management Professional (PMP) is the most popular project management certification in the world. Right now, there are more than 1400000 PMP certfied professionals across the World. According to PMI Survey, PMP certified project professionals earn 16% more than their counterparts who are not PMP Certified.
  • The PMP certification is based on the Project Management Body Of Knowledge (PMBOK) by Project Management Institute (PMI,USA) . The PMBOK covers;
    • Predictive Project Management (Waterfall)
    • Agile Project Management (Adaptive)
    • Hybrid Project Management
  • Before applying for the PMP Certification, it is mandatory to attend 35 hours of formal project management training based on PMBOK.

Eligibility

OR

Exam content

People (42%)

  • Manage conflict
  • Lead a team
  • Support team performance
  • Empower team members and stakeholders
  • Build a team
  • Address and remove impediments
  • Negotiate
  • Collaborate with stakeholders
  • Build shared understanding
  • Engage and support virtual teams
  • Define team ground rules
  • Mentor relevant stakeholders
  • Application of emotional intelligence to improve team performance

Process (50%)

  • Execute project with the urgency required to deliver business value
  • Manage communications
  • Assess and manage project risks
  • Engage stakeholders
  • Plan and manage budget and resources
  • Plan and manage schedule
  • Plan and manage quality
  • Plan and manage scope
  • Integrate project planning activities
  • Manage project changes
  • Plan and manage procurements
  • Manage project artifacts
  • Determine appropriate project methodology
  • Establisg project governance structure
  • Manage project issues
  • Ensure knowledge transfer
  • Plan and manage project/phase closure or transitions

Business environment (8%)

  • Plan and manage project compliance (EHS)
  • Evaluate and deliver project benefits and value
  • Evaluate and address external business environment changes for impact on scope
  • Support organizational change

Why do PMP certified professionals earn 16% more than their counterparts?

  • They understand the critical parameters that must be monitored and controlled for project success
  • They understand the building blocks and their inter-relationships for monitoring and controlling the lead and lag indicators
  • They understand the need for Project Management Information Systems
  • They understand the globally accepted project management vocabulary, hence can communicate better
  • PMP certification is an endorsement for minimum viable professional project management knowledge to be effective in larger projects

Preperation for PMP with a right balance of theory and practice will tremendously crash the learning curve to master professional project management based on a globally recognized standard (PMBOK).

To learn more about the PMdistilled PMP Preperation Program, Click here

certifications, PMBOK, PMP certification, Project Management, Training

Ways to earn 35 PDU PMP training certificate prior to PMP Certification

Is it mandatory to attend courses from Authorised Training Providers (ATP) of PMI to qualify for PMP certification?

The good news is ‘No’. One can attend any instructor led course or self paced course covering the course content recommended by PMI with an end of the course formal assessment. That means, one can attend;

  • Training programs conducted by Universities
  • Training programs conducted by independent training organizations
  • Training programs offered by PMI Chapters
  • Self paced training programs offered by online education providers like coursera etc

In a nutshell, any course which satisfies the following criteria will qualify;

  • Must be of or above 35 hours duration
  • Must be formal
  • Must be supervised by a supervisor / mentor
  • Must cover the PMP syllabus
  • Must have an end of the course formal assessment with certificate

Here is the snapshot of our chat with PMI to verify which substantiates this;

blog post, Case Study, Mentoring, Project Management

Professional Project Management as a core competency for all managers

Recently I had the opportunity to train a group of young and dynamic MBA final year students who elected project management as their elective. The syllabus comprised of Predictive, Agile and Hybrid Project Management. Contrary to the earlier batches, the students with engineering background in this batch was less. That prompted me to think about the relevance of professional project management to all managers or would be managers, irrespective of their educational background. What is the core skill that is required to be successful as a manager?. What differentiates a manager from an individual contributor. It is definitely the ability to get things as per specifications (requirements) on time and within budget through a team. This is the skill every successful manager should posses. That realisation helped the whole team, including me to attribute a bigger and relevant cause to the program. The realization of the relevance of professional project management as a core skill for all managers / would be managers, to succeed in todays challenging professional environments bonded us together for almost 30 hours spread across 30 days, and hopefully the mentoring will continue.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the program

  • Proactive stakeholder management is key to success
  • Everything starts with defining the deliverables using a product breakdown structure
  • Without a work breakdown structure, accurate estimates are impossible. Even project strategy can be flawed
  • A well defined work breakdown structure will help to negotiate better for resources and cost. Without a WBS, one will never be able to defend their estimates.
  • Projects do not fail at the end. Projects fail at the beginning, due to incomplete scope definition, improper scope management. The failure will get revealed towards the end.
  • Without the knowledge of critical path, it is impossible to control the schedule
  • Relying on lead indicators (forecasts) help managers to be pro-active than reactive
  • These days projects are neither completely agile or predictive. Most of the projects rely on hybrid approaches
  • The co-location of teams is no more practical. Majority of the projects have distributed / work from home (wfh) teams, hence collaboration tools like Jira (Agile), SmartProject (Predictive Project Management / Digital PMO) is important
  • In a nutshell, all managers (rather all professionals) will benefit phenomenally by applying relevant project management practices for goal achievement on time, within budget and with stakeholder satisfaction / delight

About the blogger

Abrachan Pudusserry is an highly qualified and experienced professional with in-depth understanding about professional project management (Agile, Predictive, Hybrid). He is one of the founding members of Project Management Research Institute. He is also heading Wrench Academy, the education of division of Wrench Solutions, the makers of SmartProject Digital PMO. He is also a visiting faculty at XIME.

blog post, Methods, New product development, Project Management, Project management tools, Quality

80/20 Principle – The principle with ever increasing use cases

With the innumerable opportunities to get diverted from what is relevant, I have seen many successful and not that successful organizations, teams and individuals working very hard on the irrevelant and getting buried there. The 80/20 principle or the Pareto Principle is for those who are willing to pause a while before jumping into action. Though many have written about Pareto principle and analysis before, I thought of writing this blog post for the benefit of many who plunge into action on irrelevant projects, indicators than on the relevant ones. There is time for everything, if we can prioritize, eliminate, delegate and decide on the mosr relevant work we ahould be doing.

Pareto Principle or the 80/20 Principle

The 80/20 principle or the Pareto Principle by Vilfredo Pareto in the year 1896 is the one which is always heard in all walks of life, time and again even after a century of its discovery. Last week I heard it in our senior management review when one of the senior managers used 80/20 to highlight the need to focus on the 20% of the customers contributing to 80% of the revenues. The use cases of 80:20 or the pareto principle is innumerable. Here are some;

  • By eliminating 20% of the root causes we can eliminate 80% of the defects in a product
  • 20% of the customers contribute to 80% of the revenue. It makes sense to focus on this 20% of the customers.
  • 80% of the customers uses 20% of the features of the products. The remaining 80% of the features are used only by 20% of the customers.
  • By focusing on 20% of the project health indicators proactively, 80% of the problems can be eliminated / prevented.
  • 20% of unhealthy practices contribute to 80% of the productivity loss. By controlling this 20% percentage of unhealthy practices, productivity can be improved phenominally.
  • 20% of the workforce does 80% of the work. Remaining 80% does only 20% of the work
  • 20% of the work we do produces 80% of the results. The remaining 80% of the work produces only 20% of the results.
  • During 20% of our worktime, we complete 80% of our work. During the remaining 80% of our work time, we complete only 20% of work.
  • Only 20% of the projects yield the desired results, 80% of the projects do not yield desired results.

Pareto analysis

Here are the steps involved in performing Pareto Analysis;

  • Identify the probable rootcauses – The best ways to do this is to brainstorm with the team to identify potential rootcauses leading to the situation. Ishikawa diagram or the Fishbone diagram can help to do structured brainstorming to arrive at the potential root causes.
  • Frequency of occurrence – With the help of data, identify how many times each rootcause occurred, resulting in the outcome.
  • Order on frequency – List the root causes based on the frequency of their occurrenece (in the descending order)
  • Prioritize and take action – Identify the 20% of root causes contributing to the 80% of occurrences. By controlling these 20% of the root causes, 80% of the problems can be eliminated.

80/20 at a personal level

Can be effectively used at a personal level to;

  • Eliminate unproductive activities
  • Focus on strengths
  • Finding time to work on Important and not urgent projects

blog post, Project Management, Risk management

Managing the Owner’s risk

Today Mr. Renjith invited me for an informal discussion across a cup of garam chai. The first restaurant we planned was under renovation, as if they are gearing up for the post pandemic era. On the way to the next restaurant in Kochi city, we spotted many closed shops which could not survive the impact of the pandemic. It resembled a graveyard of small businesses. For a moment I thought about the owners. As an unpleasant coincidence, Renjith who attended my project management workshop (PMP) around ten years back wanted to discuss about a project to convert his property into a residential villa project. A property development company approached him and proposed a professional association with him to start this project. He wants to know the key risks of such a project and ways of managing them?.

High level risks to the land owner of the real estate development project

  1. There is a possibility of real estate prices shooting up in another 2 to 3 years time because there is a major road expansion project happening nearby. Budgets are already approved by the central government. This is a very positive risk. If the owner can leverage it, he can maximize the profits from the project.
  2. The revenue from the project or the benefits to Renjith must be much higher than the land cost before development. After taking the risk of starting this project, if the returns are not substantially higher than the land cost, then it is better not to do the project.
  3. If there are delays in getting approvals, the project can get delayed. That means, in reality there is a possibility of the projects real start date getting postponed resulting in a longer project duration than anticipated.
  4. If the project do not complete on time, the responsibility of answering the buyers concerns may get transferred to Renjith, the owner.
  5. Actual demand can be lower than the anticipated demand. On the contrary, the actual demand can be much higher than the anticipated demand as well.
  6. Exit criteria from the project in the unlikely event of either party unable to continue with the project is not clear
  7. The last but not least question is ‘How will you invest the money obtained from the project in the best possible way, which will provide better returns than holding the property for some more time.

These are just high level risks to the land owner of the real estate development project.

The key aspect of risk management to the land owner lies in the contract type selection. The possible types of contracts in this scenario are;

  • Outright sale of the land to the builder : In this case, the risk to the land owner is the least, provided he has another project ready to invest the money out of this project than just depositing it in the bank. The positive risk of land prices appreciating cannot be factored into this.
  • Variable pricing of the land : This is a good choice. Since this is not a standard practice, the modus operandi must be worked out in this case.
  • Per unit pricing : This is also a good option where the builder and land owner shares the revenue from the sale of each housing unit in the project. Again the details must be worked out.
  • Joint venture : This is applicable only if the land owner is willing to enter into the project as a full fledged partner of the project.

Choosing the right contract type is key here. Other actions to mitigate the risks are;

  • Credibility check of the developers and marketers
  • Appointing a consultant for project approvals to speed up the project initiation
  • Alternatives analysis
  • Value assessment
  • Learn lessons from past similar projects
  • Request for proposals, RFI so that the owner can learn from them
  • Adoption of agile project based cadence till the actual start with all approvals and drawings in place.

In a nutshell aggressive risk management during the pre-project phases, till the contract is inked with the contractors is important to maximize value to the owner in construction projects.

blog post, Mentoring, Project Management

Inspiring Careers – Dr. Kalirajan, Deputy Dean at L&T Institute of Project Management

About Dr. Kalirajan

As a visionary leader and a Project Management specialist, He brings with him over 33 years of progressive experience in managing challenging mega projects in power and infrastructure sector. His complete ownership for ROI accountability and passion for developing people make him an asset for any organization. A Doctorate in Concrete Technology with MBA and PMP Certified professional, he possess sound ability to lead and ramp up projects and ensure their timely completion within defined budget and quality guidelines while institutionalizing budgetary controls. He holds the distinction of turning around projects in crisis and ensuing their successful completion and acceptance. Adept at managing all facets of engineering project management, including construction management, site survey & execution, design engineering, tendering & contract administration and people management. He is presently into corporate training and development in the areas of project management, leadership and team building, strategy development etc. Linkedin profile