Product Development & Design Project Management Consulting

Maintain the Scope While Hitting the Release date

Product development, design and engineering organizations share a common problem; they have clear instructions on design completion dates, but often, the precise definition of the finished product (design) is not known. In some instances, the organization is given some basic parameters of functionality, but nothing else. This lack of definition creates an enormous amount of uncertainty in the project: uncertainty about the technology, the scope, testing requirements, and more. However, they are not given the choice of waiting until all uncertainty has been eliminated, the release dates are often much closer than the organization would like. In most cases, the dates cannot change, so the scope is modified and subsequent releases in later product versions are the result, not to mention the increase in development costs.

For product development and design organizations, having a project management process that completes designs in as short a time as possible is imperative.

Managing Uncertainty – The Key to Robust Project Management

The problem with the conventional approach to managing project and design uncertainty has its roots in planning, but also has ramifications in execution. In planning, most managers in a project try to protect every task completion against uncertainty by adding time to estimated durations. The ratio of work content wait time (task contingency) is typically 1 to 4. This means that almost every project plan will be shown to be longer than it actually takes. The greater the uncertainty or perceived risk, the greater the task duration estimate.

However, since there are release dates to contend with, these schedules are not allowed to stand and are arbitrarily shortened. This leaves the design team faced with the task of delivering the seemingly impossible in an impossibly short time.

In project execution, whatever buffer time remains in the plan is lost.

When a task is delayed, team members know they can catch up, so there is little effort to recover the delay. However, there is some sense of knowing that not all tasks can be delayed, so in some cases, the project managers will attempt to aggressively manage task completion dates, attempting to recover delays at every task. The result in most projects is that the managers oscillate between tight control and loose control of the project depending on how much pressure they are feeling.

This is compounded by procrastination by resources, who know the task estimates contain plenty of padding. However, when they do start a task, problems are frequently found, delaying the task, wasting the padding. These delays create pressure on subsequent resources by compressing their time, resulting in higher costs and / or further schedule compromise. Thus, tasks very rarely finish early and that additional time for uncertainly is lost.

This makes for a very unpleasant project environment; project managers are constantly fighting for additional resources, while resource managers complain that project managers don’t use the resources properly. For the resource manager, it is difficult to decide which project should receive additional resources. All the project managers are demanding more. The lack of visibility frustrates everyone.

Of course, this tension is heightened by the technical uncertainty and surprises that are natural occurrences in product development.

A Solution for Product Development Projects

To manage projects well, we must recognize, first of all, that not everything can be known about any project and deal with that uncertainty in a rational way. The Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) approach is to first of all, recognize that uncertainty exists, but only matters in the context of the project rather than in each task. Therefore, we should aggregate a part of each of these individual time buffers and place it strategically where it can best protect the entire project from an overrun, creating a project buffer. This project buffer acts as a shock absorber to soak up the delays from individual task delays and minimize disruption to the schedule and completion date.

The amount of the buffer remaining provides something that is missing from conventional project plans: a quantified statement of schedule risk at any time of the life of the project. The project team knows at any time what the danger of missing the completion date is and can, therefore, take reasoned action before the customer is affected. It is like learning that you are going to get a headache and are able to take an aspirin before you actually get it. The project team can work collaboratively to proactively solve potential problems before they become reality, eliminating technical problems and increasing the likelihood of completing with a full feature set.

The real solution is dealing with the behavioral response to uncertainty. We provide a framework and process to identify and eliminate the ineffective behavior and processes and substitute them for behaviors and processes that work. We help you eliminate the expediting and rework. Using our project transformation process employing the well proven Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) methodology, you’ll be able to strengthen your team and achieve the results you’re looking for in less than 6 months.

To learn more about our approach, contact us or call 972-899-1734.