Transcript No Slide Title

"Neue" Lessons Learned aus IT-Projekten
- PMI Munich Chaptertreffen am 12.02.2004 Jessy Magerl, PMP
NCR Teradata EMEA Program Management Office
Lessons Learned Process
Lessons Learned Process:
Objectives
• Determine what went unusually well and what went wrong
>
>
>
>
In Presales
With regard to project management
Technically
With regard to damaged relationships
• Capture what can be learned from both successes and failures
• Dessiminate these learning so that the lessons need not be
learned again
Lessons Learned Approach
• Involve the whole project team to ensure that the complete
picture is taken into account
• Establish the sequence of events
> Define the timeline, milestones, critical events, etc.
> What were turning points in the project and why?
• Capture the learning in the following form:
> What was the experience?
> What does the team recommend for the future?
Lessons Learned Approach
• Review a Lessons Learned Checklist to ensure that diverse
aspects are covered:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Proposal Development
Project Estimating, Planning or
Administration
Project Scoping
Data Quality
Functional or Technical
Performance
Acceptance Testing
Organizing the Project Team
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Project Communications
Contract Management
Managing Contractors
Managing Risk
Managing Change Control
Selling Follow-on Business
Tools Used to Support the Project
Innovations to Raise Project
Profitability
•
Customer Satisfaction Survey /
Questionnaire
Approach to Damaged Relationships
• Address the open issues
• Usually, one or more fundamental misunderstandings are at
the heart of bad relationships
> Unexpressed and unmet expectations
> Unclear responsibilities
> The impression that one person does not (want to?) understand
the other
• Start a conversation with the following assumptions:
> Each person gave the best they could at that moment, given
their perspective of the situation
> Nobody ever tries to harm the project/the other person on
purpose
Approach to Damaged Relationships
• Determine if both parties want to resolve their differences
• Uncover common ground between the persons, i.e.
>
>
>
>
Commitment to the project
Commitment to quality
Commitment to a specific approach
...
• Discover something you can acknowledge the other person for
(without giving up your position)
• Define the fundamental misunderstanding that caused the
relationship to derail.
Some recent general Lessons Learned
Competition
• Competition has increased dramatically and the rules of the
game have changed
> Aggressive pricing:
Management is prepared to „give away the shop“ to win business
> Even in accounts where you have excellent relationships based
on previous business, you may have to engage in competitive
bidding processes
> Decisions take longer to make than they used to
> You may have to experiment with international labor sources /
outsourcing
Confusion / Lack of Direction
• The Speed of Change has increased dramatically
>
>
>
>
You can no longer expect to have a smooth project
Quick reaction to change is more important than Earned Value
Projects are getting more and more messy
Reduce the size and duration of your projects
• Project owners are at the mercy of political pressures and
organizational changes
> The customer organization is changing at a rapid pace
- the people you dealt with yesterday may be gone tomorrow > Decisions are harder to get (everybody is „avoiding mistakes“!)
> Decisions are revised quickly
> It is not useful to insist on „doing it right“.
Personell Aspects
• There is no longer time to train somebody to do a specific job
> YOU have to keep expanding your knowledge and skills (and be
willing to invest your own time and money!)
> You are expendable, especially if you don't perform!
> When working on smaller projects, being the PM is not enough:
you have to provide added value through
• Technical expertise
• Business consulting skills
• Selling follow-on business
Personell Aspects
• Social Skills are essential
> Being a "team player" is a prerequisite but not enough
• It is insufficient to just do your best; the team must succeed and you have to
meaningfully contribute to the team
• You have to support the team's development, display tolerance to other
people's weaknesses, and intervene in case of people problems.
• Increasing your level of responsibility increases your value to
your employer
> Resisting change is not the answer!
• Learn to feel at ease in situations you cannot control
• Learn to work as a team – even with your customer (create „win/win“scenarios)
Lessons Learned Dissemination
• My question to you:
"How can Lessons Learned be organized so that they are
really useful for the next projects?"
• The problem: how can a project manager, under high
pressure to get his next project started, retrieve pertinent
Lessons Learned?