Additionally, if you say you are going to deliver the product by a specified date, budget, and quality, then do it. Consistently. Estimating a launch and then consistently missing the deadline is a sure way to make upper management believe you are full of it. Sometimes this goes with Point #9; the project manager points the finger at the stakeholders and says “well, it wouldn’t be so late if they wouldn’t have changed their requirements.” It’s your job to fully understand the requirements early on, so step up to that responsibility and stop the finger pointing. If you took the effort to better understand what they wanted, perhaps you could have provided more reasonable estimates. No excuses.
Hold Systems Accountable
If you do not have a common and well-defined company methodology for project management, you must be expecting every project manager to be perfect. The lessons learned from other projects and project managers must be transmitted through osmosis or psychically, I suppose. That project manager “should have known” how to do proper risk planning. If you lecture the project managers, they should automatically be motivate to do a better job right? After all, it was their fault for not being omnipotent in the first place, right?
A better approach might be to have a set of guidelines, tools, and techniques within well defined processes so that a project manager does not have to also be a mind reader. If projects are constantly failing at your organization, it is not because you have a set of lousy project managers (more than likely), it’s because you have no system in place to manage projects.
Deming's 14 Points
- Commitment from the Top to Continuous Improvement as a Way of Life
- Adopt a Philosophy of Cooperation Where Everyone Wins and Teach it to Everyone
- Inspection is a Tool for Improvement, Not a Whip
- Consider Costs and Benefits of the Entire System and Deliverable Lifetime
- Continuous Improvement
- Job/Task-Related Training
- Teach and Institute Leadership
- Drive Out Fear and Create Trust
- Break Down Departmental Barriers in Pursuit of a Common Goal
- No Slogans or Disingenuous Pep Talks
- Attribute Results to Processes
- Enable Pride of Workmanship
- Training Not Related to Job/Task
- Total Participation Starting From the Top
References and Resources
Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence
Deming and Goldratt
Out of the Crisis
The Deming Management Method
The New Economics
Four Days with Dr. Deming
Deming Route to Quality and Productivity
Deming The Way We Knew Him
Josh Nankivel is the Vice Chair of Special Projects for the Students of Project Management SIG of PMI, and a project management student/enthusiast. His website is http://www.pmstudent.com.
