focus on project management

Prepared by AmCham member

How to insure
business success
Instant Reporting
There’s a “right” way to do a project and an even better way. of Project Progress

Many of the business improvement projects fall into the

The PAC Chart
PAC - Performance Against Commitments

category of top down management. There are reasons for doing

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things as they have always been done, but we would like to

# Deliverables
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suggest a better way. Performance Driven Project Management 20

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that involves building personal commitments is our answer.

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The PDPM Methodology
In the early 1990’s, one of the
most successful, profitable
companies – Intel - suddenly
found itself unable to deliver on
its most important new product.
The project had been monitored
carefully and the team had been
reporting that they were on track.
But when the time came to deliver,
it was discovered they would
need much more time to finish the
product.
The pressure to say you were on
schedule was so great that noth-
ing else mattered. People were
no longer committed to producing
a great product on time; they were
committed not to being blamed
for the product being late. Clearly,
managing projects had to be
rethought! Eventually understood
was that projects are essentially a
network of personal commitments
between and among people. No
matter how brilliant a project plan
is, if the individuals on the team
are not committed to deliver on
what the plan requires, the project
will fail.
Building Personal
Commitments
Then the question became,
how do you create a project
plan made up of personal
commitments? Then, how do
you monitor it in a way that
causes people to anticipate and
prevent problems, rather than
hiding them to stay out of trouble?
Performance-perspective focuses
on organizations as systems
and the key factors that impact
human performance. No matter
how skilled and knowledgeable
a performer is, they will fail if
they do not have crystal clear
expectations and frequent and
reliable feedback on how their
outputs are supporting the goals
of the project .
PDPM - Key Distinctions
MODERN PDPM
• Task and Activity • Deliverables / Result
• Time Estimates
• Manager Plans
• Commit Dates
• Team Involved
• Plan For Endpoint
• Track % Complete
• Horizon Plans
• Done / Not Done
• Last Minute Delays • Early Warning
• Concerns Private • Explicit Trade-offs
The Performance Driven Project
Management (PDPM) principles
have been demonstrated to
improve project speed, quality
and cost across many project
environments. Managers using
PDPM tools have learned the
key stages of any project, plus
performance driven techniques for
creating a project plan, monitoring
performance to the plan and facili-
tating effective trade-off decisions
throughout the project to keep it
on track.
New Performance
Driven Toolsets
The tools for the performance driv-
en project also look different from
conventional project management
tools. PDPM replaces the task
network diagrams and “Gantt
charts” with a Deliverables Map,
a Milestone Chart, a Deliverables
Matrix and a Performance Against
Commitment (PAC) chart. The
tools are designed to make sure
that each project team member
has clear expectations, frequent
self-monitored feedback, and con-
trol of resources required to meet
the expectations at all times.
Performance driven project
management has been applied
to companies as diverse as
a language school that was
suffering from a precipitous
drop in business, achieved an
aggressive sales goal. A furniture
retailer had similar sales success.
A medical testing lab used the
method to modernize its food-
testing lab without impacting the
grand opening of a multiyear
construction project
Populating the Deliverables Matrix
Deliver-
Owner User(s)
ables
Debra,
Project
Plan
Jake Lee, Bill,
Jenifer
Architec-
ture Doc.
Debra Bill, Jenifer
Product
Specifica- Debra Bill, Jenifer
tion
Deman
Lee Jake
Schedule
1st Proto-
Bill Jenifer
type
Test Plan Jenifer Bill
Using the PDPM Excel Spreadsheet
After conducting an inclusive
project-planning meeting (Map
Day), project plans are captured
in a “Deliverables Matrix” such as
the example below. A software
tool accepts input designed to
ensure clear expectations of
each contributor, documents who
has committed to deliver what
to whom, by when. The tool is
then used throughout the project
to document which deliverables
are “done/not done”. The tool
provides a precise status of the
project at all times.
The PDPM software automatically
creates a visual report from the
deliverables matrix as it is updat-
ed. The PAC chart tallies the total
number of deliverables due each
reporting period (see connected
dots in the PAC Chart below). As
progress is reviewed, it calculates
the actual number of deliverables
completed to-date (see the bars in
the PAC Chart below). If the bars
are meeting the circles, the project
team is doing what it said it would,
when it said it would. Because the
chart is highlighting deliverables
done and not done, rather than
percent complete, it tends to be
a more reliable indicator of actual
status.
Quality Commit
Done?
Req´s Date
The software is typically updated
Y WW10
weekly, and the charts make it
Y WW13 clear when all is not well. This is
Y WW15 one of the strengths of the PDPM
Y WW15
approach. Issues become ap-
parent as soon as, or even before
N WW18
they impact the project goals, and
Y WW17
trade off decisions can keep the
project on track. The final result is
projects completed on time, within
budget, and according to quality
standards. Using performance
driven methods, the company
is much more likely to get its
projects completed and objectives
accomplished.
Note: PDPM is adapted in part from the
book “No Surprises Project Management”
by T.J. Esque (ACT Publishing, 1999).
Steven J Kelly M.A. CPT
KNO Worldwide
Anna Čermáková, PhDr.
CPT, KNO SLOVENSKO

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september/october 2010 amcham connection