Page 261 - Global Project Management Handbook

12-22 COMPETENCY FACTORS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Contractor Failures
Contractor failures occur, and you must be ready to backfill the failed contractor’s
role. In Iraq, one contractor exited early before doing any construction work, and the
contractor hired to manage the entire program, the PCOC, mobilized late and was
unable to fulfill its entire roll. In both cases, enterprising, energized people were able
to implement alternatives to keep the program moving on schedule.

Paperless
The capabilities of networked computers and the ability of white-collar workers to
operate the desktop computers have reached the point were paperless program and
project management reporting is possible. Some related points here are as follows:
● Paper reports generally limited reports to black and white. On the other hand, all
computer monitors today have color capability. Color can be used to enhance
reporting effectiveness. For example, using red, yellow, and green stoplight codes
in program reporting facilitated the ability to review 100 projects with management
in one hour.
● Digital photos and e-mail have greatly enhanced the ability to manage projects remotely.

Program Management

A few well-known paradigms of program management were reinforced.
● The cardinal error in program management is to start all the projects and then not
finish many of the projects because budget runs out before project completion. Best
practice, of course, is to only start projects that you can finish. For example, it is
better to finish 70 projects than it is to start 100 projects and only complete about
40, which is what happened in the RIO program.
● Stakeholder management is important. In this case, the program was not set up to reg-

ularly communicate with several key stakeholders, such as mayors, governors, and
military officers within the MNFs. It was necessary to create a regional program to
support this effort.
● You get what you measure, and what you measure needs to change with time. For PCO,
there were four distinct project phases, and in each phase the key measurement changed.
In phase 1, the key measures were the number of projects defined, approved by the Iraqi
minister, and documented in a written task order. In phase 2, the key measures were how
much money had been apportioned and how much had been obligated to projects. In
phase 3, the key measure was projects started. And finally, in phase 4, the key measure-
ments were classic project progress measures such as earned value, schedule variance,
and budget variance.
● Adaptability is important. On day one of any program, you quickly realize that some of
the assumptions used in the program design are inappropriate and that the project plan
must be adapted to the current real-world situation. Some examples of necessary pro-
gram modifications that were made are as follows: the creation of the Accelerated Iraqi
Reconstruction Program (AIRP) to implement community-based projects, the imple-
mentation of a regional program to better communicate with key stakeholders, changing