Management - ITM Platform | Projects Programs Portfolio

Too much innovation can be bad

Innovation is dangerous. Despite the many benefits of marketing new products and services, it is important for any private organization not to underestimate the complications of practicing innovation on a day to day basis. In short, for a private organization with limited resources, too much innovation without sufficient control, can quickly lead to disaster.

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Innovative ideas are, by definition, very risky. When you launch an innovative project, the future, the success and acceptance in the market, and often the technical difficulties for its development are unknown.

Solution: portfolio management of innovative projects

Over time, some innovative projects will fail, while others will succeed, they will come to market and may even become established.

This means that, in order to achieve successful innovation, it is imperative to fail, close defective projects, expose oneself to risk and, ultimately, lose financial resources that will not produce results.

So that the risk of innovation does not overwhelm your organization, it is essential to treat innovative projects as a portfolio that is managed according to unified criteria. Therefore the team that manages the portfolio has the important task of monitoring the organization's innovative projects.

Responsibilities include the following:

Demand a clear business argument about the commercial feasibility of the development and its relationship with the needs of customers.
When there are no spontaneous candidates for innovation, it is essential to request new proposals in the strategic directions and areas that have been identified.
Establish evaluation criteria for proposals.
Evaluate the proposals, discarding those that are too risky or do not promise sufficient benefits.
Decide investment limits for innovative projects, as well as total risk capacity.
Compose a balanced portfolio.
Coordinate the management of projects that make up the portfolio, especially in the case of shared resources.

How to monitor a portfolio of innovative projects?

When composing the portfolio and with a view of monitoring innovation, it is important to:

Have an appropriate balance between different types of projects, such as small technical innovations that improve an existing product or totally new products and services; and types and levels of risk.
In addition, it is essential that innovative projects are not linked to each other and can fail or continue independently. Otherwise, if projects share risks and have dependencies, failure in a component could have an impact on the whole portfolio. The fundamental idea of a balanced portfolio is diversification and experimentation: that each project has its own life.
Achieve a number of projects low enough to be feasible with available resources (which will often be shared) and high enough to allow the introduction of new products and an interesting flow of projects for the portfolio's half-yearly and annual evaluations.

Evaluation of innovative projects

As we indicated above, in order to evaluate innovative projects and decide whether to keep them in the organization’s portfolio, it is important to define a series of benchmarks. Although it will depend on the sector and the characteristics of each entity, some typical criteria are:

Estimated cost
Development time
Critical resource consumption
Alignment with the strategic factors of the organization
Innovative and differential character
Technical success probabilities
Commercial success probabilities
Ease of imitation by competitors

Once the criteria are selected, it is important that they be assigned a weighting that allows final estimates to be made. The relative weight of each factor is usually a measure of the organization's situation. For example, in consulting firms that rely on networks of collaborators, the consumption of critical resources will be of little importance, whereas the limitation of development time may have more weight than in other more stable organizations, where innovative projects can be developed with stability over the years.

The score is a good estimate of the value of the project. However, the viability of an innovative portfolio depends on special attention to the composition of its risks. Therefore, beyond that final score reached by the projects based on the selected criteria, it is recommended that the composition of the portfolio of innovative projects make use of an assessment matrix.

The assessment matrix of innovative projects

Many of our readers are already familiar with the ITM Platform risk assessment matrix. The evaluation of innovative projects allows a completely analogous technique to be used.

In the assessment matrix of innovative projects two variables appear:

Expected commercial return of the project
Risk level

Ideally, all projects will be placed in the upper left quadrant of the matrix, they may be scarce and there may be many projects in the balanced quadrants marked in blue (where returns are proportional to risks).

Bearing in mind that it is good practice to include projects of different types with different levels of risk and knowing that, no matter what we do, some of the innovations will not be successful, a good result is the allocation of the project budget with Percentages that follow a proportion like that of the illustration.

From the location of innovative projects in the matrix and their combination with the punctuation according to the criteria listed above, it should be much easier to make the final decision about which proposals to accept and which to discard.

Innovation will remain risky; but well-organized monitoring will increase the organization's chances of success and learning, with the potential to turn unsuccessful projects into better, more ambitious proposals in line with the pulse of the market.

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Many technology initiatives designed to bring about change within organizations do not work properly when you compare the performance obtained with the performance expected.

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In most cases, this failure occurs because, despite new project management systems having been implemented, it has not been possible to truly change the operational fabric of the company.

The premise mistakenly assumes "our team will use new methods, new technologies, processes and work systems, as they are designed or told to use them."

The reality is very different, the fact that the corporate structures decide to adopt a new methodology of work does not mean that they are implemented automatically in the practical terrain of each day. In order for the application to be carried out correctly, there must be a teaching process and control systems that guarantee this.

Without this, the result is that despite acting according to the new methodologies, in the background they are still acting according to the old systems, using the new methodologies as a patch to save appearances. In this way, duplications are generated that not only do not increase productivity, but can even reduce it.

In addition, in these situations where the users of the new tool are not used to defining exactly the linkage between talent and technology, it is usual to allow for the practice known as IT shadowing. When an employee or team faces a challenge in their work for which there is no technological solution, they will seek solutions in the market and will try to adopt them spontaneously. In large organizations, this leads to a clear erosion in workflows and a lack of visibility over the corporate technology portfolio.

Therefore, when evaluating the results obtained by the company after the application of the new working methodologies, it is possible that the results originally expected will not be obtained. However, it is not necessarily because the new technologies or working methods are not efficient, but that they have not been properly implemented. Often this implies a lack of attention to the specific needs of employees; to their ways of using technology; and a lack of interest in identifying the causes of friction.

Organizational change management: the missing piece of the puzzle

Organizational change management is the missing piece that allows for change management to be properly implemented in a company. It is responsible for managing the changes in the structure of a company, both at the role distribution level and in the most cultural and personal aspect, to successfully implement a new working methodology.

Expressed in another way, organizational change management takes care of the more personal and human facet of change, which is usually implemented in a practical way through internal projects.

With all of this, it aims to focus on what has been proven to be the main cause of failure in the implementation of new methodologies. These are not technological problems or software failures, but the human factor: motivation, expectations, alignment between the needs of the organization and needs of daily performance, training, and so on.

However, at present most of the companies that intend to implement change in their work routines continue to focus their attention on other aspects and assuming some myths such as those set out below.

Myth 1: The more technology, the better

Undoubtedly, technology has revolutionized our lives, as well as the world of business. However, more technological sophistication does not necessarily imply greater productivity or efficiency at work.

Properly implemented, new technologies can make an infinite number of resources available to workers that allow them to be more productive, both in person and remotely. It also improves communication and coordination of working groups.

However, if they are not implemented properly it can lead to a decrease in productivity. Constantly checking e-mail and other communication systems, both business and private (such as social networks), make you lose concentration, interrupt tasks and artificially lengthen working times.

On the other hand, technological changes require a period of adaptation and learning in which productivity will inevitably be less, temporarily, as workers learn to use the new tools at their disposal. The more sophisticated the new technology is to be implemented, the greater the learning curve and therefore the adaptation period will last longer and more resources are needed for teaching.

Therefore, the aim is not to seek technological development at all costs, but to do so at a pace and in a way that is acceptable to the workers and maximizes their productivity.

Myth 2: Change management is based only on good communication and practice

Of course, good communication is essential for the successful implementation of change. In general, good communication is essential for the smooth functioning of any facet of the company.

In the same way, acquiring training, practice, rehearsing ... are essential aspects that help to improve in the execution of any job or task.

However, change management is somewhat more complex and requires the interaction of other strategic and tactical factors if you want to achieve the desired success.

For example, it is convenient to transform employees into internal customers and consider what the factors are that will lead them to buy the technology that is offered to them. From there, you can perform classic market research techniques, such as surveys, focus groups, or usability studies.

It is essential that all these techniques be applied early in the process, so that the information collected serves to structure a profile with functional requirements about what type of technological support is needed. If the focus group is based on an already established tool, it can be used to determine why there are adoption problems - but a very high opportunity cost would be generated that could have been avoided by using the same feedback to choose the type of tool Optimal for users.

Myth 3: Change management specialists will be able to make the change themselves

Change management specialists are crucial in achieving this. After all, they have a broad understanding of the techniques and systems that allow change management to be carried out efficiently. However, in order for a company to successfully implement new working methodologies, it is necessary that there be a willingness to change on the part of all levels of the company itself.

Company managers can not rely on soliciting the services of a change management specialist and then disengaging themselves. In order for the change to be implemented efficiently, it is necessary to involve all the company's personnel, starting with the managers and addressing all the workers.

Myth 4: The tool is intuitive, so you learn on your own

Even the simplest program has many levels of complexity. Think of a text editor, with all the advanced options for setting paragraph styles and titles, indexing or even creating macros. To truly empower the user, it is necessary to go beyond the most immediate functionality, teach what solutions exist in the software and provide documentation to be able to navigate those solutions independently.

That is why many companies, including ITM Platform, are obliged to hire an advisory and initial training service to ensure that the new tool will not be shunned during implementation.

Although they have a higher initial cost, implementation training services vastly increase the ROI of corporate software. Of course, measuring the ROI of these actions is, in itself, very costly. However, specialized agencies such as the American Association for Learning Development have shown in repeated studies that investing in talent training is one of the most successful business results.

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Our guest author, Albert Garriga, the man behindrecursosenprojectmanagement.com, covers in detail two of the most powerful methodologies for multiproject situations: critical chain and earned value.

A common situation in many companies is the existence of several projects running in parallel, which share and compete for the resources of the departments. This is what is known as a multiproject environment, and requires criteria and tools to prioritize the allocation of these resources and maximize the overall result of the organization.

In this article, we are going to discuss two methods to be able to manage multiproject organizations; which are based on two well-known project management methodologies: Critical Chain and Earned Value.

Start calculating the earned value of your ITM Platform projects

Critical Chain Prioritization

If projects are planned using the Critical Chain method, the protections of the different projects allow for an objective criterion for the decision making process, at least in relation to the schedule; as this shows the actual status of the project and the risk of not complying with the delivery date.

Imagine that we have six projects, each with its protection related to the tasks in its critical chain and its degree of progress. From this data, we can place them in a graph that shows the percentage completed on the horizontal axis and the percentage of protection consumption on the vertical axis.

The graph would be as follows and allows to distinguish three areas:

Green area. The consumption of protection is low in relation to the progress of the task, implying that the project is performing better than expected, and therefore the confidence interval to meet the schedule has increased. This would be the case for projects D and E.
Yellow area. The consumption of protection is close to the estimated, so we expect the project to meet the schedule. This would be the case for projects A and C.
Pink area. These projects have consumed more protection than estimated for their degree of progress, so they will not meet the schedule if their performance does not improve or countermeasures are implemented. This would be the case for projects B and F.

This graph allows us to objectively compare the state of the different projects from the point of view of the schedule, and thus determine which of them need additional action to meet the objectives and which are less of a priority. Obviously, from the point of view of the organization, the objective is that all the projects fulfill their objective, which implies that all are in the green and yellow areas.

Based on this, it would be reasonable to pass resources from the green area projects to those in the pink area, and prioritize the latter in case of conflict. In a way, we are "damaging" the projects that are better to "favor" those which are worse, with the aim of all going as expected.

Another important point when it comes to prioritizing projects according to this chart is to view their progress, since a more advanced project will cost more to change their situation than one that is just starting:

In the pink area, means that a more advanced project will have higher priority when it comes to receiving resources than one that is less advanced.
In the green area, the opposite is true: the more advanced projects are the least priority, since the reduction of resources will have a lower impact on the final result (less time to act).

Prioritization with Earned Value

In projects managed with Earned Value, it is also possible to objectively prioritize and compare their status’, with the advantage being that in this case we can make time and cost comparisons simultaneously through different parameters:

Cost variation (CV), which is calculated as a percentage CV = (EV-AC) / EV, where EV is the earned value and AC is the actual cost, which is used with the following criteria:

CV> 0: project is saving money
CV = 0: the project is following the planned cost line
CV <0: the project presents extra costs.

Schedule variation (SV), which is calculated as SV = (EV - PV) / PV, where EV is the earned value and PV is the planned value, and is used with the following criteria:

SV> 0: the project is ahead of schedule.
SV = 0: the project is on schedule.
SV <0: the project is behind schedule.

Imagine that we have six projects managed with Earned Value, which allows them to be shown together in a chart according to their SV and CV; distinguishing four areas:

The pink area (3) shows the projects that are not meeting either the costs or deadlines (projects A and E); which then become the highest priority.
The two yellow areas (1 and 4) show the projects that are not meeting one of either cost (project C) or schedule (project B).
The green area (2) means that the project is better than planned in relation to cost and time (project F), or is progressing just as planned in point 0.0 (project D)

According to this criterion, the goal of the organization would be to have all projects in the green area. Therefore, the criterion in prioritizing resources would be as follows:

Prioritize the use of the most economical resources for projects in areas 3 and 4, which can be done even if it implies a delay in the projects of area 4, since these have more time in terms of schedule.
Increase resources for projects in areas 1 and 3 so that they can be completed quicker, even at the expense of higher costs in area 1 projects, taking advantage of having savings on them.
This prioritization can be done "at the expense" of the projects in area 2, since these have the margin to delay or assume higher costs. Except the projects in 0,0 which would be better left alone, as they are perfectly on track.

The most complex situation occurs in the projects located in area 3, since these must improve simultaneously both cost and time. This implies that we must avoid improving one variable by lessening the other.

Final considerations on prioritization

So far, the prioritization between projects has been treated objectively and based on quantifiable variables, which is correct but insufficient. In reality, there is another aspect to take into account: the political or commercial interests of the organization.

If we think beyond the time or cost of executing the projects, we see that not all of them are just as important for the organization. In some cases, we will have projects that can generate new orders or have high visibility, which gives them priority. Therefore, the person in charge of managing the portfolio of projects must know these political and commercial aspects, and know how to balance them with the objective criteria.

Albert Garriga

Recursos en project management

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Download our comparison of MS Project versus ITM Platform

Industy standards that consolidate at certain historical moments are often more strongly influenced by the human tendency to conservatism than by the value they bring.

It may seem like a bold statement, but there is a plethora of literature on it. It will be clearer with an example: the QWERTY keyboard came from a salesman trick: agents who sold typewriters demonstrated the amazing ease of use by typing the word "typewriter" using only keys in the upper row of the keyboard.

However, many people still believe that the QWERTY keyboard was created after extensive studies on the relationships between English vocabulary letters and, therefore, is optimized for English speakers.

This is the case of MS Project, which appeared in the era of the personal computer and propelled the digital consolidation of project management methodologies in hundreds of thousands of organizations. Just as QWERTY has never been replaced by an alternative keyboard due to the resistance of the typographers (first) and the millions of users (after) who were already accustomed to a certain configuration, the continuity in using MS Project is not due to a rational comparison between alternatives evaluated on an equal footing, but the enormous power of continuity.

What both products have in common is the combinatorial use to generate a superior result to its parts. The integration of characters and components creates a coordinated meaning. In this situation, replacing all functions with different access modes in an alternative generates major issues in the transition.

But there is the difference between the two examples. While QWERTY has captured 100% of users, Microsoft Project only has 67% of the market share in project management, and 15% in portfolio management, according to Statista.

This rate will go down for one simple reason: MS Project is a product anchored in the past. There are many reasons to dismiss it in favor of a solution based on a contemporary digital paradigm, that is: collaborative, distributed and connected.

So, what are the main reasons for leaving behind MS Project?

The question could also be formulated in the opposite direction: What reason is there to continue using MS Project? It is fundamentally a desktop program and is for personal use? Is it that it’s comfortable? Or a false perception of the balance between advantages and disadvantages?

Let's review the motivations for replacing MS Project with a SaaS solution like ITM Platform:

MS Project is single user (ITM Platform is multi-user)

In MS Project, the working model is a project manager who creates the project plan, saves it to a file on a local hard drive ... and makes changes manually.

"In ITM Platform, your team can be an army permanently connected."

Overcoming the native limitations of MS Project as a desktop solution is very costly even for small teams. While ITM Platform is worth $ 1,000 USD per year to support teams of up to 7 people, that same amount can only serve 1.5 people with the most affordable version of MS Project online.

In addition, since MS Project does not have project approval mechanisms and state changes, anyone can make changes to .mpp files on a shared server without prior discussion, without approval flows or notifications to the parties involved.

On the contrary, ITM Platform works from a network model, so users do not work on files, but in environments: shared project ecosystems common to each organization. This model has important implications:

Users have differentiated access profiles, so they make modifications exclusively in their area of responsibility;
No action by other users goes unnoticed: the system generates notifications about changes made to projects and tasks, as well as allowing contextual communications.
In short, thanks to the ability of team members to report hours and progress, the distance between planning and execution is much shorter and more efficient than MS Project.

ITM Platform is designed for strategic planning - MS Project is not

MS Project focuses on improving its timeline; ITM Platform in alignment with business objectives

When considering this aspect, the history of project management as a discipline is of particular importance. With its expansion beyond the fields of engineering to assert itself as an organization management model, the demands on the priority aspects with which software must comply have changed.

MS Project has not responded to those needs, having preferred to concentrate on the complexity of planning aspects.

In contrast, ITM Platform allows you to introduce business objectives, study different scenarios and make decisions based on actual data for which projects to execute.

MS Project requires expensive installations - ITM Platform is cloud based

"ITM Platform is a tool for organizations; MS Project is software for the personal use of project managers."

This distinction has nuances: MS Project Server is the version for organizations that Microsoft offer. However, the process of moving from the personal to the organizational version can cost between $ 10,000 and $ 20,000. In addition, the on premises installation requires MS, SQL and Sharepoint servers as a starting point, as well as advanced technical expertise in those fields.

On the other hand, the deployment of ITM Platform in an organization is much more agile, since it does not require any type of installation (clarification: we offer on-premises installation for the organizations that demand it, but it is a marginal option among our customers). Including all parameterization and initial training, our customers begin to use ITM Platform in terms of between two days and two weeks.

Build a PMO in a week ... or in an eternity

"ITM Platform is an ideal tool to create a project management office."

For adoption facilities and portfolio management capabilities, ITM Platform is an ideal tool for organizations that already manage projects from the initiative of individual project managers and that are about to create a project management office. While MS Project Server requires a remarkable economic and human effort to simply deploy the tool, ITM Platform is a catalyst for centralized management, thanks to the ability to focus on the methodological aspects that really matter.

MS Project does not offer control over basic integration components

The management of basic components of project integration - such as costs and billing of projects - are done outside of MS Project, so anyone who only accesses the .mpp file has no visibility to these modifications.

On the other hand, ITM Platform's solution includes cost management, making it an excellent candidate for integrations with ERP systems. Another example of the holistic ITM Platform approach is risk.

MS Project has a closed philosophy - ITM Platform an open philosophy

In the era of online business productivity, where most players integrate solutions through API to achieve more ambitious automation flows, Microsoft maintains a closed philosophy that only allows to connect their own solutions with each other: Excel, Access, and so on. Even so, the possibilities to connect MS Project are deficient. It is impossible, for example, to receive custom notifications in Outlook when modifications are made to projects.

On the contrary, ITM Platform strives to coexist with the systems of all our clients: we don’t want to bring about traumatic changes.

Not only do we have a complete API for developers from any organization to connect their ERP, accounting or CRM systems; there are also integrations with JIRA and Slack, as well as an upcoming presence in Zapier.

MS Project is rigid - ITM Platform is flexible

According to Mark Corker, president of Seradex Web Services, software complexity and the repercussions of preprogrammed options to readjust dates in dependency tasks have the counterproductive result that 99% of MS Project projects have no reliable dates.

On the contrary, ITM Platform is based on a flexible software model: resilient adaptation goes from the technology to the user, and not the other way around. That's the reason why ITM Platform is enjoyed not just by project managers, but also by CFOs, CEOs, CIOs, IT Analysts, and a long etcetera.

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An area of knowledge is, according to PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge), "an identified area of project management defined by its knowledge requirements and described in terms of its processes, practices, initial data, results, tools and techniques that compose them. " In fact, all project management processes contained in the PMBOK are divided into 10 areas.

Start integrating the components of your projects with ITM Platform and keep control over activities, resources, costs, suppliers, customers, risks and much more.

In addition to the famous 6 phases of project management, the PMBOK contains 10 areas of knowledge:

Project integration
Project scope management
Project time management
Project cost management
Project quality management
Project Human Resource Management
Project Communication Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Project Stakeholder Management

In this article, we review the first area of knowledge: Project integration.

The management of PMBOK project integration brings together the processes and activities necessary for the project to exist beyond its parts. Without integration, the project is nothing more than a value proposition with a goal; Once the components are identified and defined to integrate them around the scope to be produced, the project is sufficiently defined to be accepted.

Integration, however, should not be confused with initiation: in fact, it is a beginner's mistake to integrate the components only when defining the project: integration must be maintained throughout the project life cycle, along with the six management processes in this area of knowledge.

The 4 keys to improvement in this area of knowledge are:

Gain acceptance

Create an attack plan

Be willing to make concessions and rectifications

Learn from mistakes and successes in project closure

Obtain acceptance

Integration management will be effective if we gain the support of all team members and, above all, stakeholders. Getting acceptance from the start of the project ensures that we have the support and funding to succeed. To do this, we start by creating a Project Plan and a Preliminary Reach Statement.

The Project Plan marks the beginning of the project and includes the necessary approvals and corrections. In addition, it authorizes the project manager to direct and organize the resources, which will be reflected in this letter, being well defined in their roles and responsibilities.

In the Preliminary Scope Statement we indicate the scope of the project, we define the reasons for undertaking this initiative, the objectives, the possible limitations, the possible solutions and identify the important stakeholders affected by this project. This document defines the project itself, as well as the strategy that must be followed for the change control process.

With these two documents we will be able to guarantee that the resources are coordinated and programmed in the form and time that are needed.

Create an attack plan

We begin by identifying the activities that will be necessary to effectively execute, manage and monitor the project. It will be necessary to have a project management software that allows for planning and supervision of the project at any time and from anywhere.

With a Gantt, we can visualize the project tasks and the assigned resources. In addition, we will get daily status updates, necessary to effectively manage the project.

As the project progresses, so that reporting and monitoring among all team members is more accurate and timely, we should emphasize that everyone updates the completion status of their tasks. Otherwise, its use is very easy and intuitive.

Be willing to make concessions

One of the biggest challenges that we will face in implementing the project is the management of people. The interests and opinions may be overlapping between managers of different departments and on multiple occasions they may ask to make changes in the planning of our project.

For us to be effective we must be willing to make concessions, although we may not always be able to give them what they ask of us. Above all is the project, which must meet the objectives and requirements set out in the Project Plan.

We must ensure that the team is doing its part of the project correctly and make sure that the work is completed according to the requirements in the Preliminary Reach Statement. We must monitor and control project work by measuring and balancing project progress; and carrying out corrective or preventative actions, to ensure compliance with all objectives.

It is important that we follow the established process for change control as defined in the Preliminary Reach Statement, and when a change request is made, make sure it goes through the appropriate channels before it becomes part of the plan.

Each change request must be evaluated individually and we would only implement validated and approved changes that will help us to achieve the project objectives.

Learning from mistakes and also successes

At the beginning of the project we clearly defined all the activities, and at the end of the project all we have to do is verify that the activities are all completed and that the final product or service meets the expectations of the client and the interested parties. It is desirable that we obtain written approval of the completion of the project.

Once the project is finished, it is about learning from any mistakes and successes. We organize a formal meeting with the team members and have a brainstorming session, listing one by one all the errors observed during the project. We also make a list of things that went well.

The weaknesses that we have encountered, the threats of the environment suffered, the strengths that we have detected as a team and the opportunities that we have known or did not take advantage of, everything learned in this experience, will serve us for the next project in which we will be more effective.