Special: My Organization's Product Development Process Episode: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2325)

Back in July, my friend Cornelius Fichtner from The Project Management Podcast, and I swapped podcast interviews.  Today’s special podcast episode is a part of that interview, brought to you by the Project Management Podcast, where Cornelius and I discuss how the company in which I am employed as a Program Manager is organized, what processes it uses to develop products, and where I see opportunities for improvement.

In my role as a program manager in my organization, I have five project managers that report to me and I help to plan, execute, and monitor/control the roadmap for the audio and accessory products that my project managers are responsible for.  I work in a Weak Matrix Organization, where team members directly report to a functional manager and indirectly report to one or more project managers.  This works fairly well, allowing project managers to focus on completing the project goals and the functional managers focused on insuring the product performance and fulfilling the project’s resource needs.  I feel that I am fortunate that I work in an organization with a strong project management and development process.  Having a well-documented development process that loosely follows the methodology found in the PMBOK allows recently hired project managers get up to speed quickly at my organization.

Our development is based on a phase-gated process, which I believe allows closer project monitoring and controlling, as well as giving the management the clear ability to kill or redirect a project at key “kill-points” for those projects not meeting its deliverables.  My company also uses a Project Review Board which tracks the planned milestones of a project through a weekly status report.  If the project milestones are missed by more than 2 weeks, it triggers the team to hold an interim phase review with the Project Review Board.  The Project Review board is composed of both program management representation and functional managers that can help to make decisions and clear roadblocks to get the team back on schedule/budget/scope.  This requires some discipline on the part of the project team to closely monitor and report their status on a weekly basis, but since instituting weekly status reporting and the Project Review Board teams have done a better job meeting their planned schedules, budget, and product requirements.

My organization is always looking for ways of improving its processes.  One area that we are looking at is in developing a Project Management Office (PMO).  Product Development, the division in which I work, is only one area that my company utilizes project management.  My company also manages projects within its Operations, Facility Management, and Information System (IS) departments.  However, currently each of these areas really has its own project process and organizational assets - some more defined than others.  By developing a corporate-wide PMO, I believe that we will be able to better meet the needs of all areas of project management within our organization through common methodology, project tracking tools, and coordination.

Another area that my company is investigating is using Critical Chain Project Management to help better utilize and focus resources assigned to various projects.  Focusing solely on the project Critical Path has not always provided successful product launches for us.  This is especially true for those projects with resources that were assigned on many other teams.

One of the biggest challenges that I face as a Program Manager within my organization is keeping the sanctity of the triple-constraint.  Too often teams are asked to bring in dates without being allowed to change the project scope or project cost.  Often the thought is that teams should learn to “work smarter, not harder”.  What is interesting is that we are learning to work smarter - through better enforcement of the triple-constraint and better scope management.  This is done through the use of Project Change Requests being required for any proposed scope change.  The Project Change Request, or PCR, weighs the cost/benefit of any change and requires approval from the Project Review Board prior to accepting the change and its associated costs.

During the episode, Cornelius also talks about the 20 Minute IT Manager, which is a tool that provides video instruction on Project management, IT management, Leadership, People management, Personal development.

What things is your organization doing well and what things could it do better?  Leave us a comment or voice message at (206) 984-3665 and let us know!

 Get the pm411.org Project Management Podcast delivered by email for free!  - Your email address and personal information are confidential and will never be sold or rented.