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Improving the Project Life Cycle Management Process

August 6, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Lifecycle Phases

Improving the Project Life Cycle Management Process
By Dr.Russell Archibald

Once the life cycles have been designed and documented for each category or subcategory of projects, it is then possible to define and document the project life cycle management system for each. Only when such documentation exists can the system be improved in a systematic, integrated manner. To establish a total quality management (TQM) approach to an organization’s project management capabilities and to avoid sub-optimal improvements being introduced on a disjointed, piece-meal basis, the following approach is recommended:

1. Document the integrated life cycle process model.
2. Document and describe the resulting Project Life Cycle Management System (PLCMS) for each project category within the organization.
3. Re-engineer the integrated process to apply appropriate re-engineering methods to each category’s PLCMS to:
   1. Identify system constraints, gaps and weaknesses.
   2. Identify ‘speed bumps’ that inadvertently slow the process down and potential ‘accelerators’ that can speed it up (Githens 2002).
   3. Relate the undesirable project results and possible causes to the PLCMS wherever possible.
   4. Redesign the PLCMS beginning with the most obvious constraints, gaps and weaknesses and document the results.
4. Implement the Improvements.
   1. Obtain needed agreements and conduct appropriate tests or analyses to prove out the validity and feasibility of the proposed system revisions.
   2. Plan, approve and execute the improvement project to implement the revised PLCMS.
5. Repeat the steps as required until an optimum achievable PLCMS has been implemented.

The PLCMS improvement team must include experienced practitioners from within the organization who are familiar with the existing PM practices.

Dr. Russell D. Archibald, PhD (Hon), MSc, Fellow PMI and APM/IPMA, PMP, is one of the six founding members of the Project Management Institute. Now semi-retired, he has many years of management experience in engineering and operations with a variety of major US corporations in Europe and South America as well as the US. He has made major contributions to the understanding of project management, is author of the best selling 2003 book “Managing High-Technology Programs and Projects” (published also in Russian, Chinese, and Italian), has trained more than a thousand program and project managers and project specialists around the world, and has consulted in project management to clients in 14 countries on 4 continents. E-mail: russell_archibald@yahoo.com. Website: www.russarchibald.com.

Related Articles

• Documenting a Project Life Cycle Management Process
• Improving Project Management Failure
• The Project Life Cycle
• Purposes of Project Life Cycle Process Models
• Supporting Frameworks for Successful Program Management - Life Cycle Cost Analysis

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