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A Project Needs a Vision
July 9, 2007 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices
A Project Needs a Vision
By Johanna Rothman
When I teach project management, I ask the participants to create a project charter (See my templates page for one I use to start). I recently encountered a battered project manager who does not have a project charter for a project with 6 or 7 sub-projects.
This PM is smart, but has never managed a project with multiple sub-projects before. (I would call this project a program.) All sub-projects are located in one large building (which is helpful). All are using the same language, configuration management system, and the same defect-tracking system. But the sub-projects are not all connected in the configuration management system. And, there is no overall schedule of deliverables, to connect and integrate the sub-projects together. And, there’s a separate integration team who will integrate the sub-projects together. And, a couple of the sub-project teams think it’s fine to change the agree-upon interfaces. Yes, it’s a mess.
Here’s what I suggested this PM do:
- Create a vision statement, so each sub-project team understands how their piece fits into the overall product deliverable.
- Create a schedule of deliverables. It doesn’t matter what lifecycle each sub-project is using–it matters that each sub-project deliver completed code into a common code base at the defined milestones.
- Start integrating now. Move all sub-projects to the same configuration management system. If necessary, give them each a branch and slowly integrate their pieces to the main.
- I suggested the PM bring the sub-project technical leads together on a weekly basis to discuss necessary changes to the interface, to make those changes more transparent.
Even if the PM had started with a vision of the product as a deliverable, it’s not clear the sub-project teams would be aligned. But there’s nothing to bring this program together. I don’t know if my suggestions for the project are reasonable, but without more information, they seem reasonable to me.
People are smart. People want to do a good job. And when sub-project teams move in different directions, it’s because they think that’s the best way to accomplish that team’s work. Without a project (or program) vision, people have no way to make decisions. A vision is the first decision a project manager makes. It’s certainly not the last.
Johanna Rothman consults, speaks, and writes on managing high-technology product development. Johanna is the author of Manage It!’Your Guide to Modern Pragmatic Project Management’. She is the coauthor of the pragmatic Behind Closed Doors, Secrets of Great Management, and author of the highly acclaimed Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People. And, Johanna is a host and session leader at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness (AYE) conference (http://www.ayeconference.com). You can see Johanna’s other writings at http://www.jrothman.com.
Article originally published at: http://www.jrothman.com/weblog/2006/06/project-needs-vision.html
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