Volume 4, No.3
“Helping You Accelerate Your High-Tech Development Projects”
Welcome to the ANGOTTI PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT e-mail newsletter!
The goal of this monthly newsletter is to help you accelerate your development projects by sharing many of the tips, techniques, and strategies we’ve honed during two decades of providing high-tech consulting services.
This issue focuses on developing a method to locate and stop the “slow creep” of schedule that often plagues projects in the current work environment.
SLOW SCHEDULE “CREEP”
Lately, I have been noticing a phenomenon in projects. This subject has also been being discussed at Project Management group meetings. It involves the continuous, slow, creep of the schedule during a project, especially at critical milestone points. These slow slips tend to create delays in the critical path of the project, and hence cause delays in the final product introduction.
MULTIPLE PROJECT OVERLOAD
The effect appears to come from what I will refer to as the common problem of “multi-project” overload so prevalent today. The source of the problem is projects being given to fewer project managers with smaller engineering staffs. Almost every manager is in pure firefighting mode, as are most of the PMs and engineers. They jump from project to project, with the “squeaky wheel” getting attention from day to day.
WHERE IS THE PROJECT SPONSOR?
Very often, there doesn’t appear to be a strong enough business case for each of the projects underway. Management doesn’t specifically have a sense of what will pay off, so they tend to reduce or change focus without having a specific, stable, set of priorities. This multi-project overload makes portfolio management of the projects very difficult. If the project sponsor doesn’t strongly emphasize the business case for each product, or clarify necessary use of resources, often high tech projects slip introduction dates and become profit losers in production.
NATURAL TECH PROJECT SLIP
In the popular book, “The Critical Chain” by Eliyahu Goldratt, there is a description of the deleterious effects of “multiplexing” from
task to task for the project resources. (See Amazon.com for book particulars) This is especially true if the multiplexing is done in small time increments, say parts of days, days, or even weeks. The result is a constant increase in inefficiency in getting even simple tasks completed. This effect is plainly in evidence in the current PM situation. This inefficiency can be observed in any general project.
Tech projects suffer from an even greater factor: lack of focus on milestone deliveries added to task multiplexing. The lack of focus creates extra available time that is used to try to make the product “better” from an engineering point of view, as more knowledge of the product and market become available. Each “improvement” results in further slip. “Just a little more time and it will be so much better”, or “That is a simple change” is often heard at review meetings.
This tends to show up as a dangerous effect – the longer a project goes on, the more the completion time is extended. Unfortunately, the slip created is non-linear. The major culprit is unforeseen consequences as “improvements” are made resulting in still more changes.
HOW IS THIS STOPPED?
The effect is stopped short if management begins to focus on the source of the problem. The three foundations of PM – Scope, Time, and Cost – need to be kept in control. No solid project end date causes interminable slips. Management must fix the market introduction date. Then the PM must lock in the scope via scope related documentation that represents the true final product and no more. Now, the normal tradeoffs between features available at introduction and overall cost can be made. This results in a more controllable completion date.