Adding Project Management Value

I heard yesterday about an excellent manager who has fallen victim to the public sector cuts. I'm sure he won't be the only one, and anyone who thinks the cuts are an opportunity merely to discard the deadwood is sadly mistaken.

Don't think for a minute it couldn't happen to you.

Now more than ever it's essential for project and programme managers to demonstrate that they add value for organisations.

It's not enough to merely maintain marvellous governance documentation. Documentation and methodologies are only enablers to help deliver programmes and projects effectively.

Project professionals need to be able to show their worth by bringing projects in on time - or sooner - and on budget - or below it! They should also always be looking for ways to cut project spend without compromising quality. In austere times especially, organisations often want to see "Good enough" for purpose, not all-singing, all dancing deliverables that cost the Earth.

Striving to identify ways in which your project can reduce your customer's operational costs is also something good project professionals do as a matter of course.

There will always be sceptics out there who believe project management is an unnecessary overhead. We know they're wrong, but we have to demonstrate it in our behaviours.

My contract at IBM is in a highly competitive market and there is always tremendous pressure to drive down costs without compromising quality for the end client.

Similarly, I'm currently helping with the next edition of the APM's BoK as well as being an assessor for the new project professional standard, due to launch in March 2011. I'm sure the quest for value for money will loom large in both activities.

Make sure that your customers recognise that you add value to their organisations to strengthen your position in these difficult times.

A good start to 2011

IBM has just asked me to manage a second programme for them at Legal & General and offered me a six-months extension to my contract with a rate increase.

All of this is really good. There are some really professional people at IBM, not least many of those who transferred over from L&G back in October, and there are some interesting challenges ahead, both in terms of the programmes I'm looking after and in helping to integrate transferred staff into IBM.

It's a new world for me because I'm far more involved in infrastructure than I ever have been before, and it's a long while since I worked at an insurance company, so it's all good personal development stuff as well.

Between this and the work I'm doing for the APM on the professional standard I ought to have a satisfying time in 2011.

APM Awards Ceremony

I've a hectic day's work for IBM today before heading off to the APM Award Ceremony in Central London this evening.

The award is for the new Project Professionals' Standard, hopefully to soon be chartered status.

Awards will be going to founder members of the Association's new Professional Standard Register and to those people who qualified as assessors for the standard.

I qualify on both counts I'm pleased to say!

The new standard will boost the professionalism of Portfolio, Programme and Project Management and reassure potential employers that they are engaging someone who is judged by his/her peers to be knowledgeable, experienced and professional.

I was delighted to be selected as a Fellow of the APM to help with the pilot process. It gave me the opportunity to put something back into the profession and to help create a meaningful standard.

It will be good to meet up again with all the other people who worked on the pilot. I'm really looking forward to the official launch next year!

IBM Assignment

I'm currently a month into my latest assignment at IBM, the end client being a major insurance company, with my attention being focussed specifically on a Solvency II programme and an online protection service improvement programme.

It's an interesting place to be.

I started before the contract start date, so I was there to witness all the TUPE process, on-boarding etc.

It took me back to my days with EDS, where my assignment started before they signed the contract with Lloyds TSB; both assignments were for American companies, both were right at the start of the contract and both involved a lot of very professional people, so all in all, work is pretty stimulating.

Most of the people I have spoken to who have transferred over to IBM as part of the TUPE process seem genuinely excited abot the move, and see it as enhancing their career prospects, so they are good to work with too.

Solvency II is interesting to be involved in because it has far-reaching implications for all insurance companies, and work will need to be well underway in every company by early 2011.

Online protection is also very interesting, being complementary to my eCommerce work at Camelot last year.

Looks like being a good run up to Christmas and the New Year for me!

Green Shoots of Recovery?

Maybe the jobs market really is beginning to look up. I'm at least finding more appropriate contracts to apply for this month.

I'm waiting for the result of an interview I had yesterday, and expect to hear today if I have been selected for interview for a second role.

Both opportunities are roles I would relish.

Having said that, I'm not easing up on my search for an assignment; competition is too tough out there to take anything for granted.

When I'm not job hunting I'm now busy working on the Stakeholder Management section of the APM's next edition of the Body of Knowledge (BoK), so at least I'm keeping my brain ticking over.

Four Ways Social Networking Can Help Build a Business

Four Ways Social Networking Can Help Build a Business:

http://www.bnet.com/2403-13070_23-219914.html

Good Day

Yesterday felt like a really productive day, helping the APM.

I collaborated with some very professional people, and it's good to feel that we are giving something back to programme and project management.

The work is fairly hush-hush at the moment, and I'm frustrated that I can't say more, but when the news is made public it will be very exciting.

For now, I'm back to the mundane, looking for a new programme management assignment, but at least I'm out tonight with wife, son and his girlfriend so I'm looking forward to that.

Stuttering Job Market

I'm seeing some improvements in the job market for interims.

The financial services sector has been busy for some time and now other areas of the economy are waking up to the fact that they cannot stagnate because times are hard.

I expect to see some areas of the public sector become more buoyant as the extent of Government intentions becomes clearer, whilst other areas, of course, will retrench.

One area that will come on strong will be online gaming

PWC recently forecast that annual gambling revenue will top US$155 billion by 2012 and a survey conducted by TNS and Gamesindustry.com estimated that there are 13.3 million Britons playing on various games portals, spending £280m on online games and £170m on mobile games last year.

I believe that more and more of that will be generated by online gaming as governments, strapped for cash, realise that, by softening their stance to online gambling they can generate massive new tax revenues.

This will inevitably benefit interims and freelancers as companies scale up their development operations. Bring on those better times!

PMOs

I was recently asked why so many programme and project managers regard PMOs as an unnecessary overhead.

Too many PMO staff, in my experience, seem to think that the main purpose of a programme/project is to produce management artefacts, e.g. Risk Logs, reports etc.

They lose sight of the fact that the PMO is there to help the project achieve success via efficient and effective governance processes.

I worked on one assignment recently where the PMO person allocated to the programme had no concept of what the programme was delivering - despite my best efforts to explain it and have her read the Business Case, Vision etc. - and was simply hell-bent on having the Risk Register updated on a fortnightly basis. It wouldn't have been so bad if she insisted that the risks were actually managed, but it was only the documentation she was interested in!

Once she was removed from the programme we delivered on time and to budget, and our governance satisfied successive OGC Gateway Reviews with no-one from the PMO assigned to the programme.

I've managed other programmes where PMO staff understand that they are there to add value and to help achieve the end-goal, and in those cases they have been a tremendous aid to the programme. It's all about people understanding why good governance matters.

Lessons from the recession

I was approached today by a senior manager I worked with some years ago, asking my advice about freelancing.


I suggested that now was not the best time to leave the comparative safety of a permanent job. A combination of the recession and the impending - and somewhat unpredictable - General Election makes an assured monthly pay cheque something that should not be abandoned lightly.
But I did advise him to increase his networking activity and his web presence.


One thing I have become firmly convinced of over the last fifteen months or so is that the interim market will never be the same again. In my experience, freelancers fall into one of two categories; they either select a handful of reputable agencies and rely on them to come up with suitable contracts, or they spray their CV around like confetti, forging no lasting relationship with any agent and being content to take work from anyone who can deliver it.


Both models, I would suggest, are now fatally flawed.


If the hard times brought on by the recession have taught us one thing, it is the value of networking. Of course, recruitment agencies will always be major players in the interim/freelance market, but when times are hard the pressure increases to get appointments right first time, and the value of personal recommendations comes to the fore.


I've always tapped into my personal network to learn of potential assignments for myself or to pass on potential assignments to others. Now, even that is not enough, and the interims who survive are those who up their networking game and build solid business relationships.


I've dabbled with various networking groups over the last nine months, in a bid to find one that is right for me. Some were dominated by small, local businesses, so I felt they were not the best place for me to commit time and money. Others seemed more like money-generating schemes for their originators. Not scams - that would be too harsh by far - but perhaps a little opportunistic.


I've now settled on two where I feel I can forge the most promising business networks - the Institute of Directors and the Interim Managers' Association. I've yet to attend an IMA networking event, but the IoD ones have started to yeild results, with people I have met really "getting"networking.


I've also, with the help of a handful of like-minded colleagues, started a micro-consultancy - The Freelance Network, www.freelancenetwork.org.uk which is designed to be in part a networking community but, more importantly, it affords each of us the opportunity to add more value for our clients because of the collaborative nature of the organisation and the good blend of skills and experience within the membership.


I firmly believe that the business relationships forged now, while the going is tough, will be the ones to endure, and as the economy revives more and more interim assignments will be carried out by people introduced through personal recommendation.