Delivery manager minimizes project team's deviation

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

At the beginning of my career in IT consulting many years ago, I worked for a service bureau that was dealing with many projects in trouble: there were overruns and project managers were "raising the flag" too late, making project problems more difficult to correct.

Those problems were compounded by the fact that there were as many formats for status reporting as there were project managers. I was part of a group formed to help resolve some of the problems by implementing project management standards. A project management methodology was designed. The method provided our project managers with a common way of managing their projects. We prepared standard key deliverables and gave templates and examples for each. We defined a series of key project performance indicators and explained to the project managers how to calculate and report on them.

Two years later, we did an assessment of the project management situation and found out, unfortunately, that there were still too many projects in overrun situations. In too many cases, the project management methodology was ignored. Our project managers became very creative at finding reasons for not using it. Another area where project managers became creative was in the adaptation of the "standard" project indicators. Here again, they explained at length why their way of calculating indicators was so much better than the standard way. Unfortunately, this also meant that service bureau management could not tell from the indicators how healthy the projects were. What we concluded was that it doesn't matter how much method, tools, techniques and training you give your project managers. For those project management aids to be useful, you still need the commitment and the discipline from the project managers to use them.

In my current company, we have implemented a delivery management function to ensure that our project managers follow the standards established. We use the "trust but verify" approach that Ronald Reagan made so popular during his negotiations with Russia in the early eighties. The idea is not to micro-manage our project managers but to ensure that they follow the established methodology and that if they decide to deviate from the standards, they understand the impacts of such deviations.

The role of the delivery manager in my company is very similar to the role of a project office in non-consulting organizations. The delivery manager gets involved before the project starts to ensure that projects are initiated properly and that the estimating and risk management processes have been followed correctly. Then, during the project planning stage, the delivery manager ensures that the project manager understands the project management methodology and is committed to follow it. At that point, the project management deliverables that may be ignored or adapted are discussed and agreed upon. During the project, the delivery manager ensures that the appropriate progress reporting is prepared and that the performance indicators are calculated and analyzed properly. The delivery manager is also the "sounding board" for the project manager to review and analyze options when difficult situations, issues and problems occur.

It's important for the project manager to see the delivery manager as his/her partner in the project and not as an auditor who questions every move he/she makes. Experience has shown that the implementation of a delivery management or project office function in an organization is the best complement to project management methodologies, training and tools.

Jean Labelle, PMP, is the director of the Project Management Core Competency Centrefor DMR Consulting group Inc. in Montreal. Jean can be reached at 613-228-- 6832 or [email protected].

Copyright Plesman Publications Ltd. Dec 2000
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