Ithuta JV

Source: TenStep Article by Tom Mochal

The exact argument to use for convincing executives of the value of common project management practices is going to be different from company to company because every company has a unique culture and unique problems they face. But some common benefits should be achieved in all organizations.

Better Estimating, Planning and Project Definition
How many times have you heard about or been involved in a project that failed miserably? Or perhaps it just was not as successful as it needed to be. Did you ever spend time looking back to see what caused the project to go wrong? If you did, chances are that you said, "You know, we should have spent more time planning."
Project management focuses first on planning the work. This is a vital discipline, and allows the project team and the client to have common perceptions of what the project is going to deliver, when it will be complete, what it will cost, who will do the work and how the work will be done. This includes -

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• Understanding and gaining agreement on project objectives, deliverables, scope, risk, cost, approach, etc.
• Determining if the original business case is still valid. For instance, a project that requires 10,000 effort hours might make business sense. If the planning process determines that the effort is really 20,000 hours, the project may not make sense any more.
• Making sure the resources you need are available when you need them.
• Providing a high-level baseline from which progress can be compared and measured.
• Working with your client ahead of time on the processes used to manage the project.
Value statement: Utilizing a common definition and planning process sets realistic expectations, establishes the path to success and makes sure that only the right work gets done. It can also result in the cancellation of projects without a viable business case.

Reuse of Processes and Templates
People intuitively understand that it is faster and cheaper to reuse something that already exists rather than to build something similar from scratch. If your organization creates a set of project management processes and templates that are used consistently from project to project, each instance represents a savings of time that would otherwise have been spent on building the processes from scratch.
Value statement: Utilizing common project management processes and templates will result in cost and time savings associated with having to otherwise develop them from scratch on each project.

Proactive Project Management Processes
People who complain that project management is a lot of 'overhead' forget the point. Your project is going to face issues. The question is whether you will proactively resolve them or figure them out as you go. Your project will face potential risks. Will you try to resolve them before they happen, or wait until the problems arise? Are you going to communicate proactively or deal with misunderstandings caused by lack of project information? The characteristics of the project are not all going to change whether you use a formal project management process or not. What changes is how the events are dealt with when the project is in progress. Are they dealt with haphazardly and reactively, or proactively with a smoothly running process?
Value statement: Having proactive and consistent processes in place will allow you to anticipate what will happen on the project. Anticipation will ultimately help projects run faster, cheaper and at a higher quality level.

More Effective Communication
Properly communicating on a project is a critical success factor for managing the expectations of the client and the stakeholders. If these people are not kept well informed of the project progress, there is a much greater chance of problems and difficulties due to differing levels of expectations. In fact, in many cases where conflicts arise, it is not because of the actual problem, but because the client or manager was surprised.
Value statement: Proactive communication allows you to better manage expectations and avoid misunderstandings and conflict, and it provides better information for decision-making.

Building a Higher Quality Product the First Time
Quality management is about putting processes in place to ensure that your work is of high quality the first time through. By practicing some simple quality management processes, you can deliver a higher level of quality and avoid the expense and time of having to fix things after the fact. Many project teams think they are in great shape until they get toward the end and start seeing problems in their deliverables. Then they realize that they have a lot of rework to do, and suddenly the schedule is shot.
Value statement: Quality management helps you build your deliverables correctly the first time and saves overall costs by discovering problems as early in the project as possible.

Other Value Points
There are other aspects of project management that provide value, including managing scope more effectively, defining and collecting metrics, managing workplans proactively, etc. However, the points above give you a sense for how the value argument would be framed.

Summary
It is not possible to give an exact set of arguments that will convince executives at every company. The arguments you use for one company might fall completely flat at another company. However, regardless of your situation today, the basic value points above probably hold true in every company. The place to start with “selling” project management to your executives is to see what type of pain your organization is facing today. Then, look at the various components of project management and see how they would have a positive impact on your environment. Ultimately, you are not usually going to be able to sell project management using hard metrics. Implementing project management is a culture change initiative, and for the most part all initiatives of this type are going to have to rely on some soft numbers. Also, make sure that you tie this project benefit to the overall ability of the organization to achieve its business goals today and to build the capability to better meet business challenges and to drive the business toward its future vision.