Archive for the ‘Program initiation’ Category

Governance Frameworks for Public Project Development and Estimation (Klakegg et al., 2008)

Montag, November 3rd, 2008

 Governance Frameworks for Public Project Development and Estimation (Klakegg et al., 2008)

Klakegg, Ole Jonny; Williams, Terry; Magnussen, Ole Morten; Glasspool, Helene: Governance Frameworks for Public Project Development and Estimation; in: Project Management Journal, Vol. 39 (2008), Supplement, pp. S27–S42.
DOI: 10.1002/pmj.20058

Klakegg et al. compare different public governance frameworks, particularly the UK’s Ministry of Defense, UK’s Office of Government Commerce, and Norway’s framework. The authors find that „the frameworks have to be politically and administratively
well anchored. A case study particularly looking into cost and time illustrates how the framework influences the project through scrutiny. The analysis shows the governance frameworks are important in securing transparency and control and clarifies the role of sponsor“ (p. S27)

Their analysis starts with the question of „Who are governance relevant stakeholders?„. The authors show two different general approaches to public governance stakeholders – Shareholder Value Systems and Communitarian Systems. The Shareholder Value System is based on the principle that only shareholders are legitimate stakeholders – a system which is used in the US, UK, and Canada. On the other hand the Communitarian System is based on the idea that all impacted communities and persons are relevant stakeholders – a system typically found in Norway, Germany, and numerous other countries. A secondary line of thought is the difference between Western and Asian stakeholder ideas, whereas the Asian idea is underlining the concept of family and the Western idea is underlining the relationship concept.

To pin down the idea of public project governance the authors draw parallels to corporate governance with it’s chain of management ↔ board ↔ shareholder ↔ stakeholder. The APM defines project governance as the corporate governance that is related to projects with the aim that sustainable alternatives are choosen and delivered efficiently. Thus the authors define a governance framework as an organised structure, authoritive in organisation with processes and rules established to ensure the project meets its purpose.

The reviewed governance frameworks show interesting differences – for example in the control basis, reviewer roles, report formats, supporting organisation, and mode of initiation. The principles they are based on range from management of expectations, to establishing hurdles to cross, to making recommendations. Focus of the reviews can be the business case, outputs, inputs, or used methods.

A comprehensive model for selecting information system project under fuzzy environment (Chen & Cheng, in press)

Dienstag, Oktober 7th, 2008

A comprehensive model for selecting information system project under fuzzy environment (Chen & Cheng, in press)Chen, Chen-Tung; Cheng, Hui-Ling: A comprehensive model for selecting information system project under fuzzy environment; in: International Journal of Project Management, in press.doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.04.001Update: this article has been published in:  International Journal of Project Management Vol. 27 (2009), No. 4, pp. 389–399.Upfront management is an ever growing body of research and currently develops into it’s own profession. In this article Chen & Cheng propose a model for the optimal IT project portfolio selection. They outline a seven step process from the IT/IS/ITC project proposal to the enterprise success

  1. IS/IT/ITC project proposal
  2. Project type classification
  3. Individual project analysis
  4. Optimal portfolio selection
  5. Portfolio adjustment
  6. Successfully selection
  7. Enterprise success

Behind the process are three different types of selection methods and tools – (1) crisp selection, (2) strategy development, and (3) fuzzy selection.The crisp selection is the first step in the project evaluation activities. It consists of different factual financial analyses, e.g. analysis of discounted cash flow, cost-benefits, total investment, payback period, and the return on investment.Strategy development is the step after the crisp selection, whilst it also impacts the first selection step by setting guidelines on how to evaluate the project crisply. Strategy development consists of a project strategic status analysis. According to Chen & Cheng’s framework a project falls in one of four categories – strategic, turnaround, factory, or support.The last step is the fuzzy selection. In this step typical qualitative characteristics of a project are evaluated, e.g., risk, feasibility, suitability, and productivity improvements. In this step lies the novelty of Chen & Cheng’s approach. They let the evaluators assign a linguistic variable for rating, e.g., from good to poor. Then each variable is translated into a numerical value, e.g., poor = 0, good = 10. As such, every evaluator produces a vector of ratings for each project, e.g., (0;5;7;2) – vector length depends on the number of characteristics evaluated. These vectors are then aggregated and normalised.[The article also covers an in-depth numerical example for this proposed method.]

Change program initiation: Defining and managing the program–organization boundary (Lehtonen & Martinsuo, 2008)

Freitag, Juli 11th, 2008

Program initiation boundaries

Lehtonen, Päivi; Martinsuo, Miia: Change program initiation – Defining and managing the program–organization boundary; in: International Journal of Project Managment, Vol. 26 (2008), pp. 21-29.

Lehtonen & Martinsuo analyse change programs from a social perspective. Therefore programs are characterised as complex temporary organisations in an uncertain, dynamic context. The authors study the boundaries of change programs and identify boundary spanning activities and actors. Their research results show the need of each program to run through several iterative cycles of integration with and isolation from the parent organization during the project initiation phase. Actors (i.e. people) on the project define and shape the boundary, while also representing and legitimising the program. In further interactions with the parent company these actors scout for information, negotiate, ensure continuity, and guard & isolate themselves. Such interaction happens on an inidivdual level rather than on a team level. The organisation’s middle managers and the project’s central managers are the key interaction partners.

Development of the SMART(TM) Project Planning framework (Hartman 2004)

Freitag, Juli 11th, 2008

Smart Project

Hartman, Francis; Ashrafi, Rafi: Development of the SMARTTM Project Planning framework, in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 22 (2004), pp. 499-510.

Hartman & Ashrafi present a new trademarked framework for Project Planning. The idea behind this framework is to ensure that the project is SMART. Strategically Managed, Aligned with corporate strategy as well as stakeholder needs, Regenerative [sustainable] for the project team, and Transitional, which stands for smooth execution of changes to the project.

What is new? Four tools are presented by the authors (1) the SMART Breakdown Structure (SBS), (2) the priority triangle, (3) key questions, and (4) RACI+.

The SBS is basically a new take on the work break down structure. On the top-level is the project mission which is then broken down into the key stakeholders‘ expectations on the first level of decomposition. The next levels of decompositions break the expectations down to tangible deliverables. Furthermore they add a parking lot and an explicit list of exclusions.
The priority triangle extends the ABC-priority to 6 permutation of pairs of 2 priorities, e.g., Time (1st) and Cost (2nd); or Quality (1st) and Time (2nd).
The 3 key questions are (1) What is the final deliverable?, (2) What is everyone this project praising for?, and (3) Who decides the first two questions?
Finally the RACI+ chart (derived from the classical RACI „Responsibility, Accountability, Consult, Inform“-Matrix) clarifies the roles of each letter, R=responsible, A=action (does the work), C=consults (=has input, needs to be asked), I=informs (=reviews the output) and adds a new letter S=sanction (=signs-off acceptance).

A comprehensive framework for the assessment of eGovernment projects (Esteves & Joseph, 2008)

Mittwoch, Juli 9th, 2008

eGov Assessment

Esteves, José; Joseph, Rhoda C.: A comprehensive framework for the assessment of eGovernment projects; in: Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 25 (2008), No. 1, pp. 118-132.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2007.04.009

I clearly expected more noteworthy things to write down in my summary sketch. Esteves & Rhoda built a framework on 3 dimensions. (1) Assessment Dimensions for the project, (2) Stakeholders, and (3) eGovernment Maturity Level. For the first dimension, the assessment of the project itself, they describe 6 more dimensions to look into. These are the technology implemented, the strategy behind it, organisational fit, economic viability, operational efficiency and effectiveness, and the services offered.