Published: December 09 2009, 09:22 PM | no comments
by Steve Romero

Do you have enough resources to get the work done?

In my last post I described a list of Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) problems plaguing organizations today. I noted that I developed the list at the beginning of my tenure as an IT Governance Evangelist and how it has gone unchanged for the past three years.

At the top of the list is a problem that besets every organization I have encountered in the 30+ years I've been working in IT. It is a statement I hear again and again: "We don't have enough resources to get the work done."

Even though I get the affirming head-nods when I mention this problem, I ask folks in my audiences if they have enough resources to get the work done. Out of thousands of people, only one has raised their hand. It was a PMO Director attending my PPM presentation at a Houston PMI Conference. I gave her my business card and asked her to contact me but I never heard from her. I would have loved to listen to her story.

So that leaves the rest of us, doing our best to address the assault of work with insufficient staff. We tell anyone who will listen that we don't have enough resources to get the work done. And it always seems to fall on deaf ears. I am convinced when people encounter this claim all they hear is, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Now you might think I have chosen sides here, when in fact, I can't fault those who don't heed our pleas for resources. Consider the assertion we are making, "We don't have enough resources to get the work done." It is a general statement that is easily questioned if not outright rejected. If someone pays any attention at all you might get this age-old piece of advice, "Don't work harder, work smarter." (For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it is code for "Update your resume.")

So even though truer words have never been spoken, I assert the declaration should never come from our mouths again. Instead of this easily dismissed contention, we should say the following three things:

• "This is the Demand Pipeline and Forecast. It includes unplanned demand in addition to planned demand because we have tracked resource utilization trends over time and we can anticipate demand that doesn't show up on a schedule."
• "Here is our resource capacity data (it includes our resource capability within that capacity) and our resource availability."
• "Finally, here is the gap between our Resource Demand and our Resource Capacity/Availability."

This detailed reporting replaces the general statement. The truth it provides cannot be easily ignored or dismissed. It enables us to engage in an objective, mathematical conversation. But the reason we don't take this fact-based approach is because we seldom have the data. The real truth is that few organizations have the Demand and Resource Management processes in place to provide this essential information. And this has a devastating effect on Project and Portfolio Management (PPM).

There are two dimensions to "choosing the right things." First, organizations must determine if a project or program should be done. If the investment promises appropriate value the next determination is, can it be done? The can-it-be-done-question can only be answered with the data born of sound Demand and Resource Management processes, and the Demand and Resource Portfolios that enable them.

Sadly, few organizations have these processes and portfolios in place. In the absence of the essential data they provide, leadership is left to piling on the straws until the camel's back is broken. The alternative is stopping the flow of work and doing nothing and I have yet to encounter such an approach.

So if you are an Executive, please champion Demand and Resource Management processes. In addition to providing the vision, you and members of your leadership team need to define the business objectives of these crucial processes.

If you are part of the rank-and-file, you and your team members have the challenge of advocating and fostering these processes because they are indispensable to your success. I can't think of a better way for an organization to survive the onslaught of projects and programs and defend itself against irrational or unreasonable workloads. And I recommend this "bottoms-up" approach to PPM every chance I get. The people doing the work can have a huge effect on investment decision-making when they provide accurate demand and resource data. Providing this information to leadership can sow the seeds of PPM by showing the power and promise of fact-based decisions in regard to our management of project and programs while keeping the lights on.

Do you have enough resources to get the work done? If the answer is no, prove it. Proof that only Demand and Resource Management Portfolios can provide.

Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist

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Published: December 02 2009, 06:46 AM | 2 Comment(s)
by Steve Romero

I am heading back East to deliver my PPM presentation in Philadelphia and then in Boston. I am doing a special version in Boston, as a precursor to 3 PPM User Presentations.  The point of my talk will be to underscore the strategic and critical nature of the discipline. I hope to establish some enthusiasm for the Practitioners who will be sharing their PPM challenges and experiences with the audience.

As I modified my PPM presentation I found myself reflecting on my very first slide. The slide is titled, "Sound Familiar?" It is a list of first-person statements I use to kick off my PPM and PMO presentations. The idea behind the slide is to establish a sense of fraternity and connection with the audience by listing complaints to which they can relate. It also sets the stage for my following slide describing the problems to be solved with good PPM processes and PMO practices.

I won't be using the slide in my condensed version, but as I noticed something as I hit the delete key. I have not ever altered the slide. I started using this list of complaints almost three years ago and I use the exact same list today.

I use the same slide because it still serves its purpose. These issues continue to plague organizations around the world. The list continues to elicit affirming head-nods from the audience. I experienced these problems first-hand in my career, and I continually encounter folks who say these statements are true in their organizations:

• We don't have enough resources to get the work done.
• In our organization, there is no real portfolio planning.
• We don't prioritize our projects, or every project is a #1 priority, or our priorities are constantly changing with no explanation.
• Everyone is doing end-runs around the approval process.
• Funding tends to be very political.
• We can't kill a project. If we do kill a project, it always seems to show up again.
• We never have any objective measurements to overcome the politics in decision-making.
• We get funding to build duplicate systems for different business units and the end result is an ever-growing set of unsupportable redundant applications.

What do you think of the list? Are these statements true in your organization? Have you solved any of these problems? If you did solve them, how did you do it?

I would love to hear from those of you who no longer live with these issues. It is heartbreaking to know so many folks continue to deal with these circumstances. I am very much looking forward to the day when these problems are a thing-of-the-past. In the meantime, I expect more nodding heads.

Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist

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