Re: Deming Applied to Project Management?

[Paul Hollingworth <Paul@4gm.com>]

GeckManSer@aol.com writes
>making the connection (namely 
>application of Deming's philosophy, beyond PDSA, to Project Management


My personal experience is that it is the project planning process which
lets most projects down rather than the management of the project 'in-
flight'. Even the Challenger launch disaster could be attributed to
inadequate planning rather poor decision making on the day. 
This failing is partly due to over ambitious customer expectations
(which the PM must learn to influence using data) but also due to an
inability to apply PDSA to the planning process. Each project is seen as
a finite entity and each  project is perceived as 'unique'. And yet
typically, the assumptions and resources used are the same on different
projects. 

How to learn from success and failure? As Patrick Dolan points out, you
don't learn to ride a bike by falling off.

Like any other budget, project resource utilisation will vary. The issue
for the PM is By How Much? One method I have used is a deviation from
nominal chart. This is simple. At each project milestone use a XmR chart
to plot the difference between planned and actual duration (days late is
+ve, days early is -ve). One may then ask appropriate questions about
special cause points (starting with: was the special cause in the plan
or the actual?). Building review of this type into the PM process will
result in better planning. Of course there is a whole bunch of other
stuff related to SoPK which applies, not least of which is the
organisation's ability to react rationally to what the PDSA review is
telling them.

Goldratt has also been puzzled by this issue. His book 'Critical Chain'
is about application of Theory of Constraints to Project Management -
but it has several other insights such as 'student syndrome' (why is
homework left to the last minute?). Worth a read IMHO.

Good luck with it
Paul

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Paul Hollingworth       
email: PH@4GM.com                        T E T R A   -   M A I N   
http://www.tetramain.co.uk               shaping future thinking
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