Archive for the ‘PPP’ Category

Flexibility at Different Stages in the Life Cycle of Projects: An Empirical Illustration of the “Freedom o Maneuver“ (Olsson & Magnussen, 2007)

Dienstag, August 12th, 2008

Flexibility and Funding in Projects

Olsson, Nils O. E.; Magnussen, Ole M.: Flexibility at Different Stages in the Life Cycle of Projects: An Empirical Illustration of the “Freedom o Maneuver“; in: Journal of Project Management, Vol. 38 (2007), No. 4, pp. 25-32.

The conceptual model, that uncertainty and degrees of freedom decrease during the life cycle of a project whilst the actual costs increase, is nothing new. New is the empirical proof. Olsson & Magnussen are the first to measure the degrees of freedom. They use the governmentally required reduction lists as a measure for the degrees of freedom in public projects.

Moreover they recommend a funding system which gives the project manager control over the basic budget and the expected additional costs (e.g. the value of the risk register). On top of this funding go the reserves or contingencies, which typically are about 8% of the total budget and which are managed by the agencies. Then comes the reduction list, which usually is 5.9% of the budget in the beginning of the project and reduces to 0.8% at half time. The authors argue that such a funding system has 85% probability of being kept.

Best Project Management and Systems Engineering Practices in the Preacquisition Phase for Federal Intelligence and Defense Agencies (Meier, 2008)

Dienstag, August 12th, 2008

 Best Project Management and SE Practices

Meier, Steven R.: Best Project Management and Systems Engineering Practices in the Preacquisition Phase for Federal Intelligence and Defense Agencies; in Project Management Journal, Vol. 39 (2008), No. 1, pp. 59-71.

Scope Creep! Uncontrolled growth in programs, especially public acquisitions is nothing new. [I highly suspect that we only look down on public projects because private companies are much better in hiding their failures.] Meier analyses the root causes for scope creep in intelligence and defense projects and proposes counter actions to be taken.

The root causes for creeping scope are

  • overzealous advocacy
  • immature technology
  • lack of corporate technology road maps
  • requirements instability
  • ineffective acquisition strategies, i.e. no incentives to stick to the budget
  • unrealistic baselines and a high reliance on contractor baselines
  • inadequate systems engineering, e.g. no concept of operations, system requirements document, statement of work, request for proposal, contact data requirements list
  • workforce issues, e.g. high staff turnover, no PMO

Meier’s remedies for this predicament are quite obvious. Have a devil’s inquisitor or a third party review to get rid of the optimism bias. Wait until technology maturity is achieved or factor in higher contingencies. Set investment priorities. Put incentives into the contracts. Estimate own costs prior to RfP. Follow systems engineering standards, e.g. INCOSE’s. Manage your workforce.

Public-Private Partnership – Elements for a Project-Based Management Typology (Mazouz et al., 2008)

Dienstag, August 12th, 2008

 PPP Typology

Mazouz, Bachir; Facal, Joseph; Viola, Jean-Michel: Public-Private Partnership – Elements for a Project-Based Management Typology; in: Journal of Project Management, Vol. 39 (2008), No. 2, pp. 98-110.

In this article Mazouz et al. develop a typology for public-private-partnerships. They span a matrix along the two dimensions of proximity of target and capacity to generate projects. The proximity „refers to the position of the public organisation in relation to its target clientèle“.

  1. Situational Partnership (close distant, high capacity)
  2. Symbiotic Partnership (close distant, low capacity)
  3. Elementary Partnership (high distance, high capacity)
  4. Forward-looking Partnership (high distance, low capacity)

As the authors further point out a forward-looking partnership is most difficult to manage. This type is characterized by the public company being far away from my usual client base and a low capacity to generate future projects out of this PPP.
To manage these challenges Mazouz et al. recommend two distinct types of PPPs – contractual and relational PPP. A contractual PPP is best suited for well defined, measurable projects, based on management systems; whereas a relational PPP is best when tasks are continuously re-defined, the outcome is ambiguous, and the project is based on individuals.