January 17, 2024 • 28 mins
Could your approach to project management unlock untapped efficiencies and effectiveness within your organization? We're peeling back the layers on how the acknowledgment of diversity within project management roles and practices can revolutionize your operations. Our discussion traverses the complex roles of project owners, providers, and customers, highlighting why a one-size-fits-all mentality in project management is a myth. We address the unique challenges and perspectives across various industries and organizational departments, underscoring the value of tailored practices that align with specific project goals and cultures.
Elevate your project management skills by understanding the hierarchy, from basic task management to advanced life cycle models. We dissect the foundational level of task management, ascend through the nuances of stage and technical project management, and ultimately spotlight the comprehensive model of product delivery, which integrates the crucial pre-charter phase. As we navigate these levels, the conversation turns to the pressing need for continuous innovation and improvement in the field. This episode is a treasure trove for those ready to enhance their project management playbook, with additional insights available on our blog and YouTube channel - an enriching triad of resources for any project management aficionado.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Good day, howdy, and welcome to the 4pm podcast.
My name is Munir Ajam.
My core passion is projectmanagement in community.
I come to you with at leastclose to 35 years of experience.
My eagerness to share knowledgeand to mentor and coach groups
help organizations transform theway they manage project to a
(00:30):
higher level.
4pm's tent in this case isshortened for us for what we
call value, which means project,program, product and portfolios
, so a lot of our topics will bearound these 4pm.
Let's get going.
Welcome to the 4pm podcast.
(00:55):
This is episode 3 and in today'sepisode we will be talking
about respecting our diversity.
As an introduction to thisepisode, we always ask and at
the end of every episode we'vebeen asking a question, and so
if you listen to the lastepisode, you probably heard this
question respecting ourdiversity.
What do you think that means inthe project management context?
(01:17):
How can we respect ourdiversity?
And again, usually when we posethis question, we leave it open
for you to think about them.
So if you have not had a chanceto think about this question,
we will pause for a second andwill advise you to pause and
think about the discussion.
Okay, so to discuss respectingour diversity and what does it
(01:39):
mean in the context?
We will be dividing thisepisode into 4 parts Part 1, and
obviously each part would bevery short.
Part 1, we will discuss thedifferences between owners,
provider, customers, and part 2,we will talk about the
differences in how to manageproject.
In part 3, we will explain thelevels and in part 4, we will
(02:01):
offer some concluding comments.
So let's dive in in part 1.
Part of respecting our diversityand the idea behind this is
that we often think of projectmanagement.
You know, we are, there, areguides and standard and
sometimes we fall onto the trapof thinking that, hey, project
(02:24):
management is the same and onceyou know how to manage project
in one industry, you can manageproject anywhere.
Well, unfortunately, we don'tagree with that.
So, in order to understand,obviously sometimes we don't
even agree or we don't have acommon definition on the term
project.
I'm sure, if you ask people todefine project, money can give
(02:44):
us very good textbook answers.
However, reality is different.
The way we practice projectmanagement from one domain to
another, from one company toanother, from industry to
another, is quite different.
So, in order to understand theidea behind the concept of
respecting our diversity andwhich we translate into a
concept called the projectmanagement levels.
(03:07):
We need to understand is thedifference between something we
call owners, providers,customers.
These are terms we use.
So what do they mean?
See, a project owner is anyorganization who is launching a
project from the concept.
They have it, maybe in theirstrategic plan, and they will
(03:27):
end up being responsible for theoutput and the operation of
that.
For example, a hotel companywill come up with an idea to
launch a hotel and, at the endof the day, they will be
managing and benefiting from thehotel.
A restaurant, a hospital, thesame, a software company, right,
rook project management.
We are developing Rook platformas a software.
(03:48):
So in that case, we are projectowners.
Of course, service providers orproviders and sometimes we use
the term contractors are usuallypeople who provide the service
to a customer my partner, who isdoing the actual software
development as a provider, to meas a project owner.
(04:09):
And if you follow the conceptand the Pumbak guide, sometimes
they talk about sellers andbuyer.
Well, that's not always a gooddescription.
So it's clear we need todistinguish between owner and
provider.
Now, within an owner, there aredifferent divisions, different
(04:29):
departments and their view ofproject, and the project is
different.
It could be different.
Obviously.
Everybody cares about theultimate objective.
However, their interest and thework of a given department or
division within a project ownerorganization might be different.
So, for example, within theproject owner organization we
might have the business teams,we might have operation, we
(04:50):
might have project management,if it exists.
We might have differentdepartments that might do the
work internally or externally.
So, for example, an HRdepartment, an IT department.
They are all department andeach one of them might work on
project from a differentperspective.
So at the beginning we arebasically saying that we need to
(05:13):
understand there are things.
There are organizations thatcould be classified as project
owners, there are organizationswho will be classified as
service provider and withinproject owners there are
different type of departmentthat might have different
interests in the project and asa result of that that finally,
we need to talk about the wordcustomers and we often use the
(05:33):
word customer and automaticallywe think a customer must be
external.
Well, that's not always thecase, because in many
organizations a division withinthe company could be a customer
and another company might bedoing work for that division.
So in that case we have aninternal customers or, of course
(05:56):
, if we have an externalprovider, then the customer
could be the company that istheir client, but within that
client organization there couldbe some division that will be
classified as customer.
So, regardless of who thecustomer is, basically, whether
internal or external that just aterm we use often to refer to
the people who we are doing workfor.
(06:17):
That concludes part one of thisdiscussion.
So, owners, provider, customers.
Now, building on that, we moveto part two, and part two we'll
talk about the differences inhow to manage projects and, of
(06:38):
course, set a function of theproject Again, are we service
provider or are we owner?
So, if we understand thedifferences between managing
part of the project and managingthe whole project, now why do I
say that?
Because, obviously, if we arein a big company and we have a
(07:00):
big project and we havedifferent division, each
division might be responsiblefor a different part of the
project.
A service provider might beresponsible for a part of the
project.
An engineering company might beresponsible for the engineering
stage of a project.
A construction company would beresponsible for the
construction stage of a project.
(07:20):
A software development provideris responsible for the software
development part.
So what we are saying here, I'mdefining that.
This is the.
I'm defining that they are partof a project that could be
managed by different entitiesand usually those parts could be
part of stage or could be anentire stage.
However, if I am the projectowner, I am the customer, I am
(07:44):
the one who is going to bebenefiting from the outcome of
this project, then in that casethe project, my project, could
be thought that, you know, it'snot only a stage, it's not only
a part, it's the entire projector the entire product or asset.
You know, sometimes we use theterm product, some organization
(08:04):
might use the term asset.
So I am concerned with theentire thing, not only a piece
of it.
For example, an HR departmentmight want to launch a training
portal to its global operation.
So therefore, the HR departmentmust focus on that idea, that
(08:26):
initiative, that changeinitiative from A to Z.
What does that mean?
They need to worry.
Obviously they need to startwith thinking about the trigger
for that.
You know.
They need to find thejustification for that.
They have to define.
They might do a project briefto explain the concept behind
the project.
They are likely to do afeasibility study for the
project.
They will need to definerequirement.
(08:47):
They need to have a projectmanagement plan or project plan,
and then, of course, they willmove into the implementation
part, which is good, includesoftware and non-software, right
?
So there are many components asa result of that project.
Somebody needs to manage thatentire process and unfortunately
that's what we see today as thebiggest gap in our industry is
(09:10):
that often there might be acustomer, an internal customer
or an owner for something likethis.
They are not necessarilysetting up a project management
function or setting up orassigning project manager to
manage this project A to Z or Ato Z depending on how you like
(09:32):
to pronounce it Right.
So they may not have that,although what we think they
should and that is probably oneof the biggest gap we see in
practice today in organizationthey like to manage project but
they don't necessarily have aformal project management
process.
So what often happen in thosescenarios that the HR project,
(09:56):
for example, is often enough wedon't see project management
formalized until the projectmight get to the IT department,
who might need to work onsetting up the infrastructure
and maybe developing thesoftware and basically the Watt
portal and the software that isto support this training
initiative.
So what would happen probablyis there in that area.
(10:18):
Probably, project management ismore formalized.
However, if we notice, it'sformalized only for a part of
the project, not the entireproject.
So that's an example that helpsus understand the difference in
how we see project depend onwho are we and who is talking
and what type of organization webelong to.
(10:40):
So with that in mind, I'm almostready to close part two of this
episode, but, however, I needto define one more concept or
one more variable that couldhave significant impact on the
things we just talked about.
For example, is it projectmanagement?
You know when does projectmanagement formally start?
(11:01):
Right as an IT department orwas the HR department?
The complexity we see here andwe highlighted on that as a gap
in practice today?
Is that basically the question?
Maybe we should put it in theform of a question does the
organization have an establishedproject management process as a
(11:23):
method or not?
Now, of course, if they do, nowthe follow up question might be
do they do that for the entireproduct, delivery, from vision
to operation, or only, forexample, an IT department or
some other department?
They might be working on apiece of the project.
So the main thing to close parttwo is basically that we
(11:48):
highlighted that we need tounderstand that depend on who we
are and where we are in theorganization, the way we view
project might be different,which led us to the concept of
PM levels.
So what are the PM levels?
(12:09):
Part three of this episode.
Well, obviously, first I needto clarify an important
disclaimer what we mean by level, that doesn't mean well, that
mean one is better than theother or that is one superior to
the other.
What we're saying here, this ismore of levels, and for you
(12:31):
will understand why we use theterm level instead, for example,
using the term category ofcategory of project management.
Right, so what we see is,technically, we see six level
based on our Rookway or ourRookway of thinking.
However, today we will onlydiscuss five and briefly, we
(12:52):
will not go into detail.
We start with basically what wecall level one.
And to us, what does it mean?
In some organization, oftenenough, project management is
still not formalized.
There are no good procedures ormethod or processes or
guidelines established.
(13:13):
So often enough, projectmanagement and those situations
are just managing tasks.
You know, people can use somekind of task management tool and
identify hey, we are, andusually this is work only inside
a department, maybe within aunit or a provider.
There might be said, okay, weneed to have these.
(13:34):
You know we divide a projectinto tasks.
Basically they think of theproject.
In reality, though I'm usingthe term, they think about the
project, but most likely theyare working only on a piece of
the project, but regardless, itcould be very small, tiny
project or it could be a pieceof a bigger project.
However, often the focus in thiscase is on task management and
(13:56):
there are many tools we callthem project management software
or project management tools inthe market and reality.
Most of those are just toolsthat can help with managing
tasks or maybe assigning tasksto people and using things like
Kanban or other things.
I'm not going to get into toolsdiscussion, but basically that
might be one level.
So it's very basic level.
(14:17):
We are managing tasks.
Now what we are saying here.
Again, one level is notsuperior to another.
If your job and your company,your culture, adjust to manage
tasks, great, you know.
As long as you're good at it,that's fine.
However, obviously depend onthe nature, some organization
might need a different level.
(14:37):
The second level is what we calllevel two, which is stage
management.
In this case, maybe you are aservice provider working on a
stage only, maybe working on thesoftware development component
of a project.
In that case you are managingthe stage, so you might use
things like the PMI or the ISOprocess group.
You know, you initiate thestage, you plan the stage, you
(14:59):
execute the stage work, youcontrol and of course, you
control throughout and then youclose at the end.
So in a way, here you areslightly have a higher level
than task management, becausenow you have these five set of
processes and in each one ofthose processes there could be
many tasks.
So that is level two Again.
(15:22):
That is, if your job is tomanage a stage of the project
that might be perfectlyacceptable and good, then we
move to level three, which wecall where actually, before I
say what we call it, most peoplecall project management.
Because if you look at PimbaGuide, the PMI work and many
(15:43):
other literature on projectmanagement, we often hear that a
project start with a charterand end with a delivery of an
output.
Now, if you've noticed, beforeI continue I want to pause and
go back to level one and leveltwo before I continue with level
three.
Now why did we use the termlevel.
(16:04):
If you notice, here we use theterm level and when you see the
graphics on this on our blog oron our video, you will notice
that we use an inverted pyramid.
Basically, at the bottom istask management, where it is
very narrow.
So basically it's very focusedon managing task and therefore
(16:30):
the focus is very narrow focuson managing the task only when,
as we go up to the stagemanagement, the range get wider,
because now we are just notfocusing on task, we are
focusing on the entire stage.
So in a way, we have a broaderperspective and a broader
(16:50):
management.
When we go to level three, as wesaid, if you look at PMI Pimba
Guide or many other guide orliterature, we talk about a
project start or projectmanagement.
Focus must be from a charter toa delivery of an output.
That's what many people callproject management.
Well, we see that we call itlevel three, but actually we
(17:16):
call it technical projectmanagement.
Now the word technical justbasically what to say that we
are being?
In this case, projectmanagement is viewed as a
technical domain responsible fora delivery of an output after
the decision for the project hasbeen made.
So project management is notinvolved early in the project
(17:38):
and they're not involved laterin the project.
Their job is just to execute ina way to execute and get the
work done, deliver an output,and we're done.
So if we go back to one levelone, level two, level three we
typically see that usually theselevels are existing in service
provider organization or maybetechnical team working on a
(18:01):
piece of the project.
Now time to go to level four andlevel five.
Level four is what we callproduct delivery.
So, if you remember, we saidbetween level one, two, three
and as we go up the levels ourattention is broader.
(18:21):
So in a way, instead of zoomingin on a piece of the project
lifecycle, for example, like atask in level one, a stage in
level two, technical projectmanagement at level three, now
what it means we need to expandthat lifecycle a bit more.
So in this case, the productdelivery model, such as what we
(18:42):
came up with years ago, it needto incorporate what we call the
discovery phase of a project,which means from the time the
project and organization have anidea for a new initiative, a
new project, that mean idea,product vision of a new project,
(19:03):
that mean the project start.
So in that case they need todefine the concept, they need to
select maybe the option, theymight need to do a visibility
study.
So there is a piece of workthat is pre-charter yeah,
pre-charter, if you follow thePMI way.
Now PMI says that that stagephase exists, but, however, it
(19:24):
wasn't the concern of projectmanagement.
Here we back to disagree.
That work is real work.
That happened on the projectand historically we find last
episode we talked about projectsuccess One of the main reason
that project fail is because wedon't do a good job in that
phase.
And why?
Because traditionally we didn'tconsider that part of project
(19:48):
management area of attention andfocus.
What we're saying.
We should change our thinkingand therefore we must start with
the product vision.
We must start with thejustification, with the reason
we do the project, the objectiveof the project.
All of that should be done andshould be done in relationship
(20:10):
with project management.
So the project life cycle inthis case does not start with a
charter.
It starts with the idea or theproduct vision.
Now the focus obviously we goall the way to delivering the
product.
So there is a product.
That's why we call it productdelivery, delivery.
Level four is product delivery.
We are delivering the product,which means the output right and
(20:34):
of course, we can go throughsome formal closure procedures
and everything else.
However, the focus mostly onthe product delivery.
Now in ARUK we do a little bitmore but I will leave it to the
next level.
Finally is level four, which ispretty much is.
(20:54):
We call it value delivery andthat is the model that is the
foundation of the ARUK platformproject management element.
So, if you go to the ARUKplatform and you want to manage
project or program, the corefocus, the model, the life cycle
model we follow is the value.
That you know we call itproject life cycle.
However, it's value deliverymodel.
(21:16):
Now, why do we consider that?
Again, remember, as we go upthe level, our attention focus,
broaden, goes wider.
Our attention to the life cycleis now bigger.
So obviously in this case, likeproduct delivery, we might be
starting with the product vision, or maybe slightly before that.
(21:38):
Maybe you know, analysis forjustification, the trigger for
the project, and goes all theway beyond completion of the
project.
In this case we include what wecall the project success model,
which the four dimension ofproject success.
We will have an episode on thatlater.
We touched on that in theprevious episode is that,
(22:01):
basically, you know, we are notfocusing on delivering the
product, only we want to makesure we go through an initial
operation period.
We want to make sure that wehave basically prepared for
operation and we assess successoff the objective of the project
, which often cannot be doneuntil month or year after the
(22:24):
project is completed.
That is a value delivery model.
We will talk about this.
We, I think I believe we arededicating episode five to cover
the Oruk way or the Orukplatform value delivery model.
So, five levels each level isdepend on when you are.
(22:46):
Obviously, if you are aprovider, maybe technical
project management, level threeis good enough for you.
If you are project owner, likethe HR department we mentioned
earlier, you really need to beoperating at level five.
You know, or at least levelfour as a minimum.
Again, level four productdelivery focus as a minimum, the
(23:11):
preferred way, and it's theOruk way as you go all the way
to level five and a valuedelivery model.
Okay, time to start closing thisepisode and we shift to
basically some closing commentin part four of this episode,
(23:35):
which is back to the idea ofrespecting our diversity.
So, in conclusion, what isessential to understand, based
on what we discuss, is that howwe define projects and project
management and how we manageproject are not the same.
I think that should be clear bynow.
(23:57):
Right Again, we're not sayingone is better than the other, or
I mean, obviously there arepreferences, depend on, but
again, depend on who you are andwhat type of organization you
belong to and what kind of roleyou have.
Although we shared many conceptsand processes in project
management across the domain andindustry and that's one of the
(24:18):
reasons for example, you know,we, many of us know the process
group in all of these things isthat because there are common
processes that are availableeverywhere, regardless what type
of project you work on.
You need to have a budget, youneed to have a schedule, you
need to have scope, you need tohave quality, you need to have
risk.
These things are commoneverywhere.
Just how we define them and thelevel of effort required and
(24:42):
the methodology used is quitedifferent, and we need to have a
good understanding of that,otherwise we probably continue
to struggle in projectmanagement.
So how do you manage projects?
It depends.
We actually have a series ofvideo on the idea of it.
(25:03):
Depends, as you know, always agood answer to any PM question.
Start with the word it depends.
So, in the context of thisepisode, how you manage project.
Well, it depends on whether youare a provider or an owner.
It depends whether you aremanaging a stage or you managing
product or you managing theentire value delivery, value
(25:26):
delivery stream.
So it depends, and the levelsin this case help us understand
where and how we manage project.
In closing, we talked aboutrespecting our diversity.
We talked about the differencebetween owners and providers and
(25:48):
customers.
We talked about how we manageproject and the different
perspective for managing projectfrom one division to another or
one company to another.
And with this we are concludingthis episode.
But as a practice we've beendoing, we always close with the
question for the next episode.
(26:10):
In the previous episode wetalked about transformation and,
and today we're talking aboutin order to transform, the
reason.
This, this episode, is therebecause before we can transform,
we need to understand what arewe transforming.
We need to understand thisconcept of the different level.
(26:30):
So, if you agree to the ideathat project management need to
go through some kind of atransformation or adjustment,
whatever you, if transformationtoo strong for you, you know,
think of other word, what shouldbe our primary focus?
Now, our answer is in two partsand we will cover one part in
(26:51):
episode four and part anotherpart in episode five.
However, for time, we're notgoing to tell you about those
parts in your mind.
If we need to change projectmanagement, if we need to
improve the practice of projectmanagement, right, we ask before
, is it?
Is project management healthy?
(27:11):
And we in the in the previousepisode, we talked about the
need for transformation, right?
So if you agree with that, ifyou agree that we can do better,
where should we focus?
Final comment remember thisepisode is part of what we call
the outreach trio.
You have the blog site that isrelated, that all will include
(27:35):
some related articles, and wealso have our YouTube channel
will include some relatedarticle.
To find all of these things,the easiest way to go through is
to go to our website.
Our website is ourruchpmcom.
Ourruch is u r u k p m dot comand until then, we wish you
(27:55):
success today, tomorrow andalways you.
Good day, howdy, and welcome to the 4pm podcast.
My name is Munir Ajam.
My core passion is projectmanagement in community.
I come to you with at leastclose to 35 years of experience.
My eagerness to share knowledgeand to mentor and coach groups
help organizations transform theway they manage project to a
(00:30):
higher level.
4pm's tent in this case isshortened for us for what we
call value, which means project,program, product and portfolios
, so a lot of our topics will bearound these 4pm.
Let's get going.
Welcome to the 4pm podcast.
(00:55):
This is episode 3 and in today'sepisode we will be talking
about respecting our diversity.
As an introduction to thisepisode, we always ask and at
the end of every episode we'vebeen asking a question, and so
if you listen to the lastepisode, you probably heard this
question respecting ourdiversity.
What do you think that means inthe project management context?
(01:17):
How can we respect ourdiversity?
And again, usually when we posethis question, we leave it open
for you to think about them.
So if you have not had a chanceto think about this question,
we will pause for a second andwill advise you to pause and
think about the discussion.
Okay, so to discuss respectingour diversity and what does it
(01:39):
mean in the context?
We will be dividing thisepisode into 4 parts Part 1, and
obviously each part would bevery short.
Part 1, we will discuss thedifferences between owners,
provider, customers, and part 2,we will talk about the
differences in how to manageproject.
In part 3, we will explain thelevels and in part 4, we will
(02:01):
offer some concluding comments.
So let's dive in in part 1.
Part of respecting our diversityand the idea behind this is
that we often think of projectmanagement.
You know, we are, there, areguides and standard and
sometimes we fall onto the trapof thinking that, hey, project
(02:24):
management is the same and onceyou know how to manage project
in one industry, you can manageproject anywhere.
Well, unfortunately, we don'tagree with that.
So, in order to understand,obviously sometimes we don't
even agree or we don't have acommon definition on the term
project.
I'm sure, if you ask people todefine project, money can give
(02:44):
us very good textbook answers.
However, reality is different.
The way we practice projectmanagement from one domain to
another, from one company toanother, from industry to
another, is quite different.
So, in order to understand theidea behind the concept of
respecting our diversity andwhich we translate into a
concept called the projectmanagement levels.
(03:07):
We need to understand is thedifference between something we
call owners, providers,customers.
These are terms we use.
So what do they mean?
See, a project owner is anyorganization who is launching a
project from the concept.
They have it, maybe in theirstrategic plan, and they will
(03:27):
end up being responsible for theoutput and the operation of
that.
For example, a hotel companywill come up with an idea to
launch a hotel and, at the endof the day, they will be
managing and benefiting from thehotel.
A restaurant, a hospital, thesame, a software company, right,
rook project management.
We are developing Rook platformas a software.
(03:48):
So in that case, we are projectowners.
Of course, service providers orproviders and sometimes we use
the term contractors are usuallypeople who provide the service
to a customer my partner, who isdoing the actual software
development as a provider, to meas a project owner.
(04:09):
And if you follow the conceptand the Pumbak guide, sometimes
they talk about sellers andbuyer.
Well, that's not always a gooddescription.
So it's clear we need todistinguish between owner and
provider.
Now, within an owner, there aredifferent divisions, different
(04:29):
departments and their view ofproject, and the project is
different.
It could be different.
Obviously.
Everybody cares about theultimate objective.
However, their interest and thework of a given department or
division within a project ownerorganization might be different.
So, for example, within theproject owner organization we
might have the business teams,we might have operation, we
(04:50):
might have project management,if it exists.
We might have differentdepartments that might do the
work internally or externally.
So, for example, an HRdepartment, an IT department.
They are all department andeach one of them might work on
project from a differentperspective.
So at the beginning we arebasically saying that we need to
(05:13):
understand there are things.
There are organizations thatcould be classified as project
owners, there are organizationswho will be classified as
service provider and withinproject owners there are
different type of departmentthat might have different
interests in the project and asa result of that that finally,
we need to talk about the wordcustomers and we often use the
(05:33):
word customer and automaticallywe think a customer must be
external.
Well, that's not always thecase, because in many
organizations a division withinthe company could be a customer
and another company might bedoing work for that division.
So in that case we have aninternal customers or, of course
(05:56):
, if we have an externalprovider, then the customer
could be the company that istheir client, but within that
client organization there couldbe some division that will be
classified as customer.
So, regardless of who thecustomer is, basically, whether
internal or external that just aterm we use often to refer to
the people who we are doing workfor.
(06:17):
That concludes part one of thisdiscussion.
So, owners, provider, customers.
Now, building on that, we moveto part two, and part two we'll
talk about the differences inhow to manage projects and, of
(06:38):
course, set a function of theproject Again, are we service
provider or are we owner?
So, if we understand thedifferences between managing
part of the project and managingthe whole project, now why do I
say that?
Because, obviously, if we arein a big company and we have a
(07:00):
big project and we havedifferent division, each
division might be responsiblefor a different part of the
project.
A service provider might beresponsible for a part of the
project.
An engineering company might beresponsible for the engineering
stage of a project.
A construction company would beresponsible for the
construction stage of a project.
(07:20):
A software development provideris responsible for the software
development part.
So what we are saying here, I'mdefining that.
This is the.
I'm defining that they are partof a project that could be
managed by different entitiesand usually those parts could be
part of stage or could be anentire stage.
However, if I am the projectowner, I am the customer, I am
(07:44):
the one who is going to bebenefiting from the outcome of
this project, then in that casethe project, my project, could
be thought that, you know, it'snot only a stage, it's not only
a part, it's the entire projector the entire product or asset.
You know, sometimes we use theterm product, some organization
(08:04):
might use the term asset.
So I am concerned with theentire thing, not only a piece
of it.
For example, an HR departmentmight want to launch a training
portal to its global operation.
So therefore, the HR departmentmust focus on that idea, that
(08:26):
initiative, that changeinitiative from A to Z.
What does that mean?
They need to worry.
Obviously they need to startwith thinking about the trigger
for that.
You know.
They need to find thejustification for that.
They have to define.
They might do a project briefto explain the concept behind
the project.
They are likely to do afeasibility study for the
project.
They will need to definerequirement.
(08:47):
They need to have a projectmanagement plan or project plan,
and then, of course, they willmove into the implementation
part, which is good, includesoftware and non-software, right
?
So there are many components asa result of that project.
Somebody needs to manage thatentire process and unfortunately
that's what we see today as thebiggest gap in our industry is
(09:10):
that often there might be acustomer, an internal customer
or an owner for something likethis.
They are not necessarilysetting up a project management
function or setting up orassigning project manager to
manage this project A to Z or Ato Z depending on how you like
(09:32):
to pronounce it Right.
So they may not have that,although what we think they
should and that is probably oneof the biggest gap we see in
practice today in organizationthey like to manage project but
they don't necessarily have aformal project management
process.
So what often happen in thosescenarios that the HR project,
(09:56):
for example, is often enough wedon't see project management
formalized until the projectmight get to the IT department,
who might need to work onsetting up the infrastructure
and maybe developing thesoftware and basically the Watt
portal and the software that isto support this training
initiative.
So what would happen probablyis there in that area.
(10:18):
Probably, project management ismore formalized.
However, if we notice, it'sformalized only for a part of
the project, not the entireproject.
So that's an example that helpsus understand the difference in
how we see project depend onwho are we and who is talking
and what type of organization webelong to.
(10:40):
So with that in mind, I'm almostready to close part two of this
episode, but, however, I needto define one more concept or
one more variable that couldhave significant impact on the
things we just talked about.
For example, is it projectmanagement?
You know when does projectmanagement formally start?
(11:01):
Right as an IT department orwas the HR department?
The complexity we see here andwe highlighted on that as a gap
in practice today?
Is that basically the question?
Maybe we should put it in theform of a question does the
organization have an establishedproject management process as a
(11:23):
method or not?
Now, of course, if they do, nowthe follow up question might be
do they do that for the entireproduct, delivery, from vision
to operation, or only, forexample, an IT department or
some other department?
They might be working on apiece of the project.
So the main thing to close parttwo is basically that we
(11:48):
highlighted that we need tounderstand that depend on who we
are and where we are in theorganization, the way we view
project might be different,which led us to the concept of
PM levels.
So what are the PM levels?
(12:09):
Part three of this episode.
Well, obviously, first I needto clarify an important
disclaimer what we mean by level, that doesn't mean well, that
mean one is better than theother or that is one superior to
the other.
What we're saying here, this ismore of levels, and for you
(12:31):
will understand why we use theterm level instead, for example,
using the term category ofcategory of project management.
Right, so what we see is,technically, we see six level
based on our Rookway or ourRookway of thinking.
However, today we will onlydiscuss five and briefly, we
(12:52):
will not go into detail.
We start with basically what wecall level one.
And to us, what does it mean?
In some organization, oftenenough, project management is
still not formalized.
There are no good procedures ormethod or processes or
guidelines established.
(13:13):
So often enough, projectmanagement and those situations
are just managing tasks.
You know, people can use somekind of task management tool and
identify hey, we are, andusually this is work only inside
a department, maybe within aunit or a provider.
There might be said, okay, weneed to have these.
(13:34):
You know we divide a projectinto tasks.
Basically they think of theproject.
In reality, though I'm usingthe term, they think about the
project, but most likely theyare working only on a piece of
the project, but regardless, itcould be very small, tiny
project or it could be a pieceof a bigger project.
However, often the focus in thiscase is on task management and
(13:56):
there are many tools we callthem project management software
or project management tools inthe market and reality.
Most of those are just toolsthat can help with managing
tasks or maybe assigning tasksto people and using things like
Kanban or other things.
I'm not going to get into toolsdiscussion, but basically that
might be one level.
So it's very basic level.
(14:17):
We are managing tasks.
Now what we are saying here.
Again, one level is notsuperior to another.
If your job and your company,your culture, adjust to manage
tasks, great, you know.
As long as you're good at it,that's fine.
However, obviously depend onthe nature, some organization
might need a different level.
(14:37):
The second level is what we calllevel two, which is stage
management.
In this case, maybe you are aservice provider working on a
stage only, maybe working on thesoftware development component
of a project.
In that case you are managingthe stage, so you might use
things like the PMI or the ISOprocess group.
You know, you initiate thestage, you plan the stage, you
(14:59):
execute the stage work, youcontrol and of course, you
control throughout and then youclose at the end.
So in a way, here you areslightly have a higher level
than task management, becausenow you have these five set of
processes and in each one ofthose processes there could be
many tasks.
So that is level two Again.
(15:22):
That is, if your job is tomanage a stage of the project
that might be perfectlyacceptable and good, then we
move to level three, which wecall where actually, before I
say what we call it, most peoplecall project management.
Because if you look at PimbaGuide, the PMI work and many
(15:43):
other literature on projectmanagement, we often hear that a
project start with a charterand end with a delivery of an
output.
Now, if you've noticed, beforeI continue I want to pause and
go back to level one and leveltwo before I continue with level
three.
Now why did we use the termlevel.
(16:04):
If you notice, here we use theterm level and when you see the
graphics on this on our blog oron our video, you will notice
that we use an inverted pyramid.
Basically, at the bottom istask management, where it is
very narrow.
So basically it's very focusedon managing task and therefore
(16:30):
the focus is very narrow focuson managing the task only when,
as we go up to the stagemanagement, the range get wider,
because now we are just notfocusing on task, we are
focusing on the entire stage.
So in a way, we have a broaderperspective and a broader
(16:50):
management.
When we go to level three, as wesaid, if you look at PMI Pimba
Guide or many other guide orliterature, we talk about a
project start or projectmanagement.
Focus must be from a charter toa delivery of an output.
That's what many people callproject management.
Well, we see that we call itlevel three, but actually we
(17:16):
call it technical projectmanagement.
Now the word technical justbasically what to say that we
are being?
In this case, projectmanagement is viewed as a
technical domain responsible fora delivery of an output after
the decision for the project hasbeen made.
So project management is notinvolved early in the project
(17:38):
and they're not involved laterin the project.
Their job is just to execute ina way to execute and get the
work done, deliver an output,and we're done.
So if we go back to one levelone, level two, level three we
typically see that usually theselevels are existing in service
provider organization or maybetechnical team working on a
(18:01):
piece of the project.
Now time to go to level four andlevel five.
Level four is what we callproduct delivery.
So, if you remember, we saidbetween level one, two, three
and as we go up the levels ourattention is broader.
(18:21):
So in a way, instead of zoomingin on a piece of the project
lifecycle, for example, like atask in level one, a stage in
level two, technical projectmanagement at level three, now
what it means we need to expandthat lifecycle a bit more.
So in this case, the productdelivery model, such as what we
(18:42):
came up with years ago, it needto incorporate what we call the
discovery phase of a project,which means from the time the
project and organization have anidea for a new initiative, a
new project, that mean idea,product vision of a new project,
(19:03):
that mean the project start.
So in that case they need todefine the concept, they need to
select maybe the option, theymight need to do a visibility
study.
So there is a piece of workthat is pre-charter yeah,
pre-charter, if you follow thePMI way.
Now PMI says that that stagephase exists, but, however, it
(19:24):
wasn't the concern of projectmanagement.
Here we back to disagree.
That work is real work.
That happened on the projectand historically we find last
episode we talked about projectsuccess One of the main reason
that project fail is because wedon't do a good job in that
phase.
And why?
Because traditionally we didn'tconsider that part of project
(19:48):
management area of attention andfocus.
What we're saying.
We should change our thinkingand therefore we must start with
the product vision.
We must start with thejustification, with the reason
we do the project, the objectiveof the project.
All of that should be done andshould be done in relationship
(20:10):
with project management.
So the project life cycle inthis case does not start with a
charter.
It starts with the idea or theproduct vision.
Now the focus obviously we goall the way to delivering the
product.
So there is a product.
That's why we call it productdelivery, delivery.
Level four is product delivery.
We are delivering the product,which means the output right and
(20:34):
of course, we can go throughsome formal closure procedures
and everything else.
However, the focus mostly onthe product delivery.
Now in ARUK we do a little bitmore but I will leave it to the
next level.
Finally is level four, which ispretty much is.
(20:54):
We call it value delivery andthat is the model that is the
foundation of the ARUK platformproject management element.
So, if you go to the ARUKplatform and you want to manage
project or program, the corefocus, the model, the life cycle
model we follow is the value.
That you know we call itproject life cycle.
However, it's value deliverymodel.
(21:16):
Now, why do we consider that?
Again, remember, as we go upthe level, our attention focus,
broaden, goes wider.
Our attention to the life cycleis now bigger.
So obviously in this case, likeproduct delivery, we might be
starting with the product vision, or maybe slightly before that.
(21:38):
Maybe you know, analysis forjustification, the trigger for
the project, and goes all theway beyond completion of the
project.
In this case we include what wecall the project success model,
which the four dimension ofproject success.
We will have an episode on thatlater.
We touched on that in theprevious episode is that,
(22:01):
basically, you know, we are notfocusing on delivering the
product, only we want to makesure we go through an initial
operation period.
We want to make sure that wehave basically prepared for
operation and we assess successoff the objective of the project
, which often cannot be doneuntil month or year after the
(22:24):
project is completed.
That is a value delivery model.
We will talk about this.
We, I think I believe we arededicating episode five to cover
the Oruk way or the Orukplatform value delivery model.
So, five levels each level isdepend on when you are.
(22:46):
Obviously, if you are aprovider, maybe technical
project management, level threeis good enough for you.
If you are project owner, likethe HR department we mentioned
earlier, you really need to beoperating at level five.
You know, or at least levelfour as a minimum.
Again, level four productdelivery focus as a minimum, the
(23:11):
preferred way, and it's theOruk way as you go all the way
to level five and a valuedelivery model.
Okay, time to start closing thisepisode and we shift to
basically some closing commentin part four of this episode,
(23:35):
which is back to the idea ofrespecting our diversity.
So, in conclusion, what isessential to understand, based
on what we discuss, is that howwe define projects and project
management and how we manageproject are not the same.
I think that should be clear bynow.
(23:57):
Right Again, we're not sayingone is better than the other, or
I mean, obviously there arepreferences, depend on, but
again, depend on who you are andwhat type of organization you
belong to and what kind of roleyou have.
Although we shared many conceptsand processes in project
management across the domain andindustry and that's one of the
(24:18):
reasons for example, you know,we, many of us know the process
group in all of these things isthat because there are common
processes that are availableeverywhere, regardless what type
of project you work on.
You need to have a budget, youneed to have a schedule, you
need to have scope, you need tohave quality, you need to have
risk.
These things are commoneverywhere.
Just how we define them and thelevel of effort required and
(24:42):
the methodology used is quitedifferent, and we need to have a
good understanding of that,otherwise we probably continue
to struggle in projectmanagement.
So how do you manage projects?
It depends.
We actually have a series ofvideo on the idea of it.
(25:03):
Depends, as you know, always agood answer to any PM question.
Start with the word it depends.
So, in the context of thisepisode, how you manage project.
Well, it depends on whether youare a provider or an owner.
It depends whether you aremanaging a stage or you managing
product or you managing theentire value delivery, value
(25:26):
delivery stream.
So it depends, and the levelsin this case help us understand
where and how we manage project.
In closing, we talked aboutrespecting our diversity.
We talked about the differencebetween owners and providers and
(25:48):
customers.
We talked about how we manageproject and the different
perspective for managing projectfrom one division to another or
one company to another.
And with this we are concludingthis episode.
But as a practice we've beendoing, we always close with the
question for the next episode.
(26:10):
In the previous episode wetalked about transformation and,
and today we're talking aboutin order to transform, the
reason.
This, this episode, is therebecause before we can transform,
we need to understand what arewe transforming.
We need to understand thisconcept of the different level.
(26:30):
So, if you agree to the ideathat project management need to
go through some kind of atransformation or adjustment,
whatever you, if transformationtoo strong for you, you know,
think of other word, what shouldbe our primary focus?
Now, our answer is in two partsand we will cover one part in
(26:51):
episode four and part anotherpart in episode five.
However, for time, we're notgoing to tell you about those
parts in your mind.
If we need to change projectmanagement, if we need to
improve the practice of projectmanagement, right, we ask before
, is it?
Is project management healthy?
(27:11):
And we in the in the previousepisode, we talked about the
need for transformation, right?
So if you agree with that, ifyou agree that we can do better,
where should we focus?
Final comment remember thisepisode is part of what we call
the outreach trio.
You have the blog site that isrelated, that all will include
(27:35):
some related articles, and wealso have our YouTube channel
will include some relatedarticle.
To find all of these things,the easiest way to go through is
to go to our website.
Our website is ourruchpmcom.
Ourruch is u r u k p m dot comand until then, we wish you
(27:55):
success today, tomorrow andalways you.
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