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By Steven H. Jones Every organization faces the daunting task of executing projects that meet or exceed the expectations of its customers. That makes project management a key component of most enterprises, regardless of the business sector. Yet project management is not always met with organization-wide satisfaction. One major reason is that many project management offices (PMOs) are replicated and not designed. Inevitably many PMO processes are little more than copies of what other companies have implemented. They lack a root-level connection to the company they support.
o What will the data say to provide a picture of success? PMO scope o What should the PMO be doing and not be doing? o Where should and should not the PMO operate? Project plan o How long and when will the PMO operate? o What are the key milestones in its development and measurement? PMO team o Who are the players on this project? o Who will manage the daily activities? o Who will participate in establishing the PMO?
The secret in the definition of metrics is that customers value services differently. This is where the QFD tool pays off. This tool quantifiably identifies the priorities of the customer's needs. The QFD tool helps develop the services a PMO will need to satisfy the customer's needs. Once the services are identified, metrics can be developed to measure them. Properly developed metrics will be closely tied to PMO services that are: Essential to the customer's core needs: Services and metrics must address needs important to the customer and not the company. Quantifiable: A company cannot show excellence if it cannot measure what it has done. Comprehendible: The PMO services will not be utilized if customers do not understand them. Figure 1: House of Quality Template
Here is a high-level overview of the QFD house of quality process. 1. Customer needs (VOC) - For each critical customer segment, capture customer feedback and VOC input consisting of customer "needs." - Prioritize each need on a scale from 1 to 9. 2. Critical customer requirements (CCRs) - The top row of the house contains the CCRs. - How will meeting customer requirements be measured? - Translate customer's terms into process or feature terms. - Identify ways to deliver on customer needs. 3. Interrelationship matrix - Evaluate relationships between customer needs (whats) and critical customer requirements (hows). - Determine relative importance of each critical customer requirement. 4. Customer rating of competitors - Who is the competition? - How do customers perceive the competition's ability to meet the requirements? - What do competitors do that the company's customers value? 5. Correlation matrix - Compare CCRs (hows) to identify conflict, influence or no effect on each other. 6. Process targets - Determine minimum and desired performance specifications for each CCR. 7. Analyze and diagnose - Evaluate the house of quality process. The output of the QFD should provide a ranked set of mission critical deliverables that need to be both implemented into the company PMO and measured on a continual basis. These key deliverables should become the company's your key performance metrics.
opportunity for great innovation. The objective is to identify innovative ways to provide what the customer's need. Here again, the QFD is used, but in this iteration the tool is used to conduct a functional analysis. The functional analysis dissects each service into specific features or tasks that must be accomplished to provide the service. Once these have been identified, the company has the ground work to begin developing the model for its PMO. Remember to ensure that all of the functions in the PMO model are measurable. Therefore this is the perfect time to build a system to measure the PMO's services. This system must measure each project key metrics and aggregate their sums.
One key component that should not be overlooked in the technology plan is the implementation of an automated monitoring/tracking tool. This tool should provide the PMO with a single-pane-of-glass view of key metrics for the entire project portfolio.
About the Author: Steven H. Jones is a process engineer who earned his certification as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt while employed at Xerox Global Services. His career began with the 3M Corporation, an early adopter of the Lean Six Sigma methodology, and he has worked in quality improvement of telecommunications and IT arenas since 1993. Since then, he has provided quality improvement and process engineering services to customers in North America and Europe, including Baxter Healthcare, BP Canada, Convergys and Microsoft. He is currently a senior process engineer with Siemens Business Services. Mr. Jones can be reached at steven.jones@sbs.siemens.com. Copyright 2000-2006 iSixSigma LLC All Rights Reserved