Every journey begins with a destination, or it should, because without a predetermined destination you would not know that you have arrived. We are all on a journey through life and those who plan their journeys with milestones of accomplishments (goals and objectives) are typically those who are most successful in completing each leg of their journey. World-class industry leaders are made up of organizations that set high goals and objectives and develop plans to achieve them.

Having limited resources (people and money) is an aspect of business common to every organization. The challenge most of them share is distributing those resources effectively to achieve the highest return on their investment. You would think that identifying organizational goals and objectives would be an obvious requirement, however that is not the case for many organizations. In many cases, if it is being done, it is not done very well. There are many reasons why this effort is ignored or done poorly.

• There is no formal process to define corporate goals and objectives.

• Firefighting diverts attention from long-range planning.

• Stated goals and objectives are not quantified or quantifiable.

• The development of corporate goals and objects stops at the top.

• There is no formal measurement process to validate status.

• Accountability to achieve goals does not exist.

• There is no personal reward for achieving them or penalty for failing to achieve them.

• It fails to produce desired results.

Defining company goals must start at the top and cascade down through the organization structure to the individual department manager’s goals and objectives. The goals and objectives at each level of the organization should support the corporate goals and objectives as well as the goals and objectives of the level it reports to. Establishing goals and objectives is a forecasting activity that requires significant planning and training to achieve the results intended. A formalized process must be documented that identifies the steps taken, roles and responsibilities defined, and the training provided at all levels of the organization.

Companies of all sizes use many methods and techniques with varying degrees of success. There is, however, a simple but effective method used by the Donnelly Corporation, a leading automotive supplier of interior and exterior mirrors with headquarters in Holland, Michigan. Dwane Baumgardner, chairman and CEO, of Donnelly Corporation, wrote a paper entitled “A Constant State of Becoming: Management by Planning at Donnelly Corporation,” published by GOAL/QPC in 1998;. This paper discusses the process, developed by Donnelly, called Management by Planning (MBP). Mr. Baumgardner presents the purpose and value of the MBP process in the paper’s introduction.

“We are all in a constant state of becoming, which will happen either by design or by default. I believe that terms and management fads like change management, or corporate renewal, or reengineering often misdirect thinking and action on a principle reality of life - all life is change, and we are in a constant state of becoming. The reason I believe these management fads are misdirecting is that many of them present change as an event, a single project or series of discreet projects each with its own finish line. On the contrary, I have found change to be a highly systemic and never ending process. The good news is that we have the advantage today of being able to manage our becoming. Pity the dinosaurs who were victims of changes; and I’m not just talking about T-Rex. How about Studabaker, Packard, canal builders, railroads, and the A&P grocery stores? We now have a much greater opportunity to control our own futures, to be actors not victims, to become by design not default. This article is about how our company thinks and acts on our commitment to continuous growth and performance, and a most effective process for managing our becoming, what we call Management by Planning (MBP)."

Baumgardner goes on by stating that “the company’s operating philosophy is based on a partnership among five constituents: customers, owners, employees, suppliers, and the community they live in. The MBP process is designed to identify goals and objectives to achieve improvements in each of the five areas, which in turn result in helping the company become a world-class leader in its industry.”  

Project management has the greatest impact on a customer’s recognition of an organization as a world-in-class leader in time-to-market, cost-to-market, and quality-to-market within in their respective list of suppliers. Meeting and exceeding customer expectations by completing projects successfully on a consistent basis is the basis for receiving excellence awards from most customers. This is the goal of every successful organization. If projects are an integral part of the business, it stands to reason that there should be a clear understanding of what is and isn’t a project, and what is required to complete them to the customer’s satisfaction.

Organizations that sell products or services should recognize that their business livelihood is dependent upon completing projects that directly affects their bottom line. They also should realize that completing projects successfully on a consistent basis requires the application of specific knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques.

If executives and functional managers recognize that managing projects has a significant impact on an organization’s bottom line and the ability to successfully manage projects is dependent upon the proper application of specific knowledge, skill, tools, and techniques. Doesn’t it make sense that such an important business function be established at the executive management level of the organization? How else can a company ensure that projects are managed successfully across the organization, and that strategic mission critical projects are given the best opportunity to succeed from the very start?

Positioning of the project management function in a hierarchical organization structure establishes the degree of authority, acceptance, adoption, and autonomy and thus “ownership” of the responsibility for establishing, distributing, supporting, and managing the application of project management best practices within the company.

Enterprise-wide adoption of project management best practices calls for single ownership of the function. Establishing common practices across an organization at all levels is very difficult, if not impossible, without a sole ownership being clearly established. Ownership must be recognized as an independent business function at the highest level of the organization to enable the authority, acceptance, adoption, and autonomy that is required to establish, monitor, and control the distribution of the disciplines required to achieve enterprise-wide project management best practice capabilities.

Establishing the PMCoE organization structure is a significant undertaking and it will meet with resistance at various levels of the organizations for many different reasons. One of the major reasons is the most obvious, but is seldom given sufficient consideration. People generally resist changes in life because they do not understand why the changes are necessary or how the changes will impact them. The typical reaction is “Don’t rock the boat!” Most prefer the status quo to doing something new, especially when it involves how they perform their work. Department managers sometimes referred to, as “the frozen middle” will resist organizational changes, because they may loose their most valued employees, their project managers, if they are moved into a PMCoE/PMO/PSO as part of the restructuring process, and people = power in most companies. Communicating the benefits for establishing project management as a business function to all levels of the organization is a critical step in making it happen. .

A project management methodology should add value to the process of managing projects rather than only providing administrative functions. It isn’t practical or necessary to require all projects, regardless of size, complexity, duration, etc. to the use all 39 core and facilitating processes identified in the PMBOK® Guide, a publication of the Project Management Institute. Use of project management processes should be “scaled” to fit the need for ensuring adequate controls are in place.

In some cases, it may make sense to modify certain process requirements and / or tools. For example, the scope statement or capital authorization request (CAR) may be adjusted for specific projects to ensure that requirements are scaled to add value and not unnecessary paperwork. These decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis. A classification system should establish guidelines to help define the minimum requirements for projects that meet different criteria and to ensure that the scaling of requirements is done on a consistent basis.

The table above shows a system created for an information technology center of excellence that classifies all projects into one of five levels based on three primary factors: project budget, project duration, and project boundaries. The first and third factors have more weight in determining classification than the project duration. These factors will be used as general classification guidelines; however, other factors like the project’s importance (strategic status) to the organization may influence a project’s assignment to a higher classification level.

The Project Classification Matrix table (above) illustrates how some simple factors that can be used to determine the minimum requirements for projects in the five classifications.

Take small steps at the beginning and don’t expect everyone to understand or appreciate the value of this new approach to managing projects. This is especially true if a formalized approach to managing projects is nonexistent. In this case, it is very important to focus on introducing minimum requirements at the start; otherwise efforts to get people to embrace the methodology will be viewed as unnecessary administrative tasks adding more management controls that increase an already overwhelming workload. I do not suggest that the methodology contents be reduced, but rather initial requirements be limited until it is determined that the organization is ready to begin using more of the processes.

The integration of four process groups is a basic requirement to institutionalize project management as a core competency and achieve the highest level of project management maturity: management of product processes, management of project processes, management of environment processes, and management of change processes.

The management of products involves six key elements that directly impact how effectively project management processes are embraced by the organization. These product management elements exist to some degree in every organization, but they are often not formally recognized and documented. If project management is to become more than a systemic approach to managing single projects involving products / services these product management elements must be clearly defined and formally documented with project management processes being an integral aspect. The six product management process groups are:

 Leadership – organization vision, mission, goals and objectives

 Work process – workflow at all levels of the organization

 Work authorization – strategic, tactical, and operational levels

 Decision making – roles, responsibility, accountability, and authority

 Planning – forecasting, estimating, and resource management

 Life cycles – product / service life from inception to retirement

Product management process must integrate with the nine project management process groups:

 Integration – life cycle and environmental variances

 Scope – expectations, feasibility requirements

 Time – objectives, restraints

 Cost – funding, budget constraints

 Quality – requirements, standards, regulations

 Risk – internal and external probabilities and impact

 Human Resources – availability, productivity, capability

 Communications – ideas, directives, data exchange accuracy, technology

 Procurement – Availability, capability, capacity, quality

The management of environment process group contains eight key components that affect project management processes as they interface with the product management process that guide the development of products and services.

 Product life cycles – program, project, process, integration with functional operating units

 Decision making – roles responsibility, accountability, authority

 Culture – empowerment, open door, team work

 Work – develop and improve core competencies, skills, and workflow

 Business systems – integration of disparate systems and methodologies

 Reward – performance based compensation and incentives

 People development – core competency career development

 Structure – hierarchical, teams

These environment components are often missing or incomplete and seldom formally documented in those organizations struggling to implement effective project management. The greatest number of disconnects and misalignments are usually found between the management of projects and the management of products, as they are both heavily influenced by the eight components contained within the management of environment. These disconnects produce the greatest impediment to an effective implementation of project management in most organizations.

The most significant changes are typically required in the environment components, which impact everyone in the organization at all levels. These changes will therefore present the greatest challenge and require the most rigors for managing change in the management of organizational change affecting the organizations’:

 Executives – strategic level

 Managers – tactical level

 Staff – operational level

Whenever changes of this magnitude are discussed some level of resistance occurs at all three functional levels of the organization. Whenever changes affecting someone’s area of responsibility are implemented there is a natural tendency to resist that change. The first step in managing change is to recognize resistance is a natural response. Most resistance can be effectively reduced or eliminated with frequent clear communications and also by directly involving those who are affected most in the process of developing and implementing the change. Personal involvement provides them with an opportunity to affect how the change is implemented and thereby have some ownership of the change.

The speed at which the integration of the four process groups is able to move will depend largely on the degree of executive support that is behind the effort and the level of commitment they give in the form of resources (budget and staff) dedicated to the effort. The time it will take to show positive progress and demonstrate improvements will also depend on the initial project management maturity level of the organization, which may require adding project management professionals from outside the organization as permanent or temporary staff if experienced talent is not available inside to complete the work required. This is a significant undertaking that will take time to accomplish, because progress can only move as fast as the organization’s ability to adopt these new concepts.

An example of a generic project management methodology can be found in my book Building Project Management Centers of Excellence, which contains a CD ROM that includes the methodology and all of the associated tools and templates.

Efficiency, proficiency, continuous improvement, and best in class, are goals, which are in a large part depend on a consistent application of procedures. These procedures, whose actions are guided by a regimen, are commonly referred to as standards.  Standards are documented processes that, when universally adhered to, generally result in the successful achievement of goals.

The importance of establishing and following standards is not always clearly understood at all levels of an organization.  However, the ability to achieve goals on a consistent basis lies in the unvarying adherence to the use of standards by everyone.  There has been a shift in recent years in the area of nontechnical business processes away from the use of standards documentation that describes the rules and procedures to be followed in infinite detail toward guidelines, which allow more flexibility in how they are applied and contain less detail.  This is particularly true of project management methodologies.  The trend in the past was to create multiple volumes of documentation describing project management procedures in excruciating detail with the thought that the standards would be used as training documents as well as standards to direct the management of projects. The only thing this approach to project management standards documentation did effectively was to gather dust.

The goal is establishing modern project management knowledge and skills as a core competency requirement throughout the organization.  Successful achievement of this aggressive goal requires a well-designed and implemented set of project management methodology guidelines.

What are the key ingredients of a useful project management methodology? The American Heritage Dictionary of The English Language defines Methodology as "a body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline."

Many of the project management methodologies attempt, (but fail) to make strong connections to the Project Management Institute's (PMIâ)  A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK^â Guide).  These guidelines are universally recognized and accepted as the project management methodology standard, providing guiding principles for managing projects.  This failure is due, in part to a mistaken perspective, held by more than a few, that the PMBOK^â Guide is it self a methodology for managing projects.  The PMBOK^â Guide is not a methodology, but a set of guidelines that identify specific practices, principles, techniques, and tools for managing projects of all sizes and types, regardless of the industry.  The difficulty companies' encounter lies in their inability to translate of the PMBOK^â Guide into an effective methodology to help project managers and teams apply the PMBOK^â Guide..  The focus is typically on product development processes rather than project management processes to manage the work to make the deliverables required to create the products.  These guidelines typically address critical milestones to develop new products with the emphasis on engineering requirements, customer requirements, industry and governmental regulations.

There is a misconception by some in the profession that the PMBOK^â Guide needs to be expanded to become more relevant to various industries.  There is common agreement that methodologies are needed to guide the development of products and services, and there is no argument that project management methodologies are necessary to ensure that new product development projects are properly managed.  The simple answer lies in translating the PMBOK^â Guide into a methodology that addresses the needs of the environment in which it will be used.  The PMBOK^â Guide is designed to be very general in its content, whereas a Methodology is more industry specific, since the application of project management practices is focused on the project or the industry where it is applied.

An effective general purpose Project Management Methodology Guideline (PMMG) contains an introduction that includes:

• q Vision Statement - inspiration it is trying to impart
• q Purpose Statement - how will it enable the organization
• q Implementation Plan - what will it enable
• q Key Definitions - clarification of common terms
• q Methodology Overview - layout of the contents
• q Core Process Integration - Initiation, Planning Execution, Control and Closing
• q Process Group Definitions - Initiation, Planning Execution, Control and Closing
• q Project Levels - scaling requirements to projects
• q Project Classifications - creating categories for requirements
• q Controlling Processes - key process that vary by project
• q Core Process / Classification Matrix - tools and templates by classification

The remaining sections would include processes for:

• q Project Authorization Process -project portfolio management
• q Project initiation Processes - project start-up
• q Project Planning Processes - project planning & ‘readiness'
• q Project Execution Processes - status reporting, monitoring and controlling
• q Project Closing Processes - project wrap-up
• q Education and Training Program - knowledge and skills requirements
• q Glossary of Terms
• q Appendix - project tools and templates

An example of a generic project management methodology can be found in my book Building Project Management Centers of Excellence, which contains a CD ROM that includes the methodology and all of the associated tools and templates.