How to balance project opportunities with time, capability, and
budget for overall profitability
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Strategy, methods, IT tools, and cultural challenges
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CONTEST RESULTS
Contest Details & Prize List |
Horror Stories |
Survey Results
Sample comments and
questions
Below
is a sampling of anecdotes, comments and questions that were
submitted to the Management Roundtable by contest participants.
The highlighted questions at the bottom will be posed to the
conference faculty - click the corresponding link to view any
current responses (more will be added over time). The
situations will be discussed as well – please feel free to contact
us at Management Roundtable
([email protected]) if you would like to respond
to anything you see here .
Horror
Stories
| 1. |
#1
Bottleneck -- Lack of a Process / System to Rank Order the
"Candidate" projects, and then to Allocate EXISTING Human and
Capital Resources to this PRIORTIZED List until such time as the
AVAILABLE Resources are EXHAUSTED. Most Leadership Teams "Don't
have a Clue" as to WHEN they must SAY NO to a "New" Opportunity.
[Responses] |
| 2. |
When the "resources
available" date came, staff resources were still tied up on
previous project and so were not made available. Marketing
nevertheless insisted that R&D meet the "committed" end date for
the product. R&D missed the date, and were severely criticized,
despite providing somewhat later a superb new product. |
| 3. |
A
project that I was a part of was progressing through development
and was nearing the phase of integration testing when the entire
team was asked to attend AN EMERGENCY meeting during the lunch
hour. We all proceeded to the conference room where the meeting
was to occur and were, needless to say, very curious as to what
was going on. The Director of the project informed us short and
sweet that the project has been CANCELLED immediately! Some
personnel were laid off and the remaining staff were reallocated
to other projects. The rationale of the cancellation was "not
having a clear direction as to why the customer requested the
project." Root causes were: A complete and thorough business
case was NOT performed and the project was NOT aligned with the
overall strategy of the corporation. |
| 4. |
Turf is more
important than priorities. |
| 5. |
Never never agree to a joint venture between two companies
competing for the same piece of business. Distance, conflicting
cultures, and suspect motives quickly led to a resource
management nightmare as both companies tried to share both
management and design responsibility equally.
Editor’s Note: this is an excerpt from a much longer, complex
situation which will be examined in greater detail either at the
conference or in a future newsletter article. |
| 6. |
How to get senior
managers to manage what they are in charge of and not ignore the
harrowing conditions they create for their staff. |
| 7. |
Reliability, maintainability, and safety personnel on average
have about 25 -30 years of experience [in my company]. Over 25%
of my staff will likely be retiring in the next 3-5 years. It
appears as though there have not been many people going into
this field and as a result there are few, if any, people in the
field with 3-7 years of experience. One concern is the transfer
of this engineering "art" to a younger generation and the second
is how do we get new grads interested in pursuing a career in
this field, when many are migrating to computer science, digital
design, etc. I believe that this is an industry wide problem. |
| 8. |
I am quite familiar
with a project where: a) Budget is fixed (but can go down, which
happens as the client decides, more or less on a whim, whether
to pay, how much to pay, and when to pay. Giant corporation vs.
small company without leverage). b) Calendar is fixed (the end
date never moves, no matter what. Of course, requirements change
and grow during the project.) c) Resources are fixed (but can go
down, as people can't be replaced after attrition or
downsizing). Basically, small company's success with large
company is killing small company |
| 9. |
This contract puts major responsibilities on the Product
Developers, but the Development Groups were not consulted on the
Terms and conditions of then agreement, nor were they informed
of the implications of the contract after signing. |
| 10. |
Our huge bottleneck
in our very large client engagement has been IT department's
systems, management policies, resources etc. The main problem
comes from the growth rate of the company. |
| 11. |
Our biggest challenge deals with excess material being return
from job sites in an untimely fashion. |
| 12. |
Typical dot.com
management: No experience and doesn’t know it |
Questions
|
1. |
In a
matrix environment often the team member has more allegiance
back to their function than to the actual project they are
working on.
How have companies addressed this issue successfully? |
|
2. |
What, in your experience, is the best technique to engage upper
management's involvement/enthusiasm for an IT project? |
|
3. |
When projects cross multiple categories as well as regions, how
can you influence senior management to prioritize the ones that
are must-do's so other projects are sacrificed if resources are
needed elsewhere - and that list is well known? |
|
4. |
Where do you start when you have nothing?
No time tracking, no historical records kept, baselines
frequently changed Plus too much in pipe so that very little
comes out the end! |
|
5. |
Time to
deliver arrives, the owning manager waffles, the project manager
goes to the organization's VP. The VP waffles, the project
fails, the customer relationship is totally destroyed and the
project manager quits, having had enough! Question:
Are there resource management tools and/or strategies that can
help an organization deal with senior management incompetence? |
We encourage your feedback!
Send your thoughts to
[email protected]
Contest Details & Prize List |
Horror Stories |
Survey Results |
