Project delivery need not be left to the artisans of project management; instead, it can be treated like a science, with transparent cause-and-effect relationships between practices and outcomes. It doesn’t have to be provisional or impromptu; it can be taught. Visualizing a project is the catalyst that improves your project’s performance, leading to consistent and predictable results. Visual project management provides a structure to systematically and successfully deliver projects on time and within budget.
Visual project management has three elements:
- A simplified, visual project plan tailored to the level of the team managing its delivery. It’s not too detailed but streamlined, typically with only the stage gates (points of management decision) and handoffs from one functional team to another. The plan is then made visual, with a visual project board (VPB) showing the work streams, decision points, and handoffs with each work package progressing through the project.
- A structured delivery process that uses the VPB with a set of rules and procedures to ensure effective collaboration among the delivery team, especially those with cross-functional responsibilities. The delivery process establishes formal collaboration processes, assigns accountability for action, resolves conflict, and resolves risk during the project delivery (realization) process.
- A performance management system (PMS) to keep the project constantly moving forward. The PMS is a system of accountability and process measurements that shows the project’s health, identifies risks early, and shows the team where to focus to accelerate the project’s completion.
Why Visual Project Management? Because you want to deliver on time.
With all the advancements in project management tools, project schedules are almost always delayed, and budget expectations are seldom met.
An executive who managed a portfolio of projects worth over $2 billion once said to me, “I do not know where we are or if we are in trouble or not.” Unintentionally, she’d hit the nail on the head and identified the first major problem in project execution: visibility. Portfolio managers are turning so many different wheels with so many different cogs that it’s difficult to see into the projects.
By “see[ing] into projects,” I mean knowing, with certainty, how much risk is present in each project and what specific actions should be taken to reduce that risk. Project owners and portfolio managers often struggle to translate the day-to-day work of delivering projects into a measure of risk, effectively guaranteeing an unspecified level of uncertainty in successful project delivery. Managers usually mistakenly attribute this uncertainty to poor communication. Nine out of ten executives and project managers worldwide agree that poor communication significantly contributes to project failure.[1]
But what does “poor communication” mean?
Communicating poorly as a cause of project failure is just stating the absence of a solution for project success. However, this generalization doesn’t help find the root cause of project failure because it doesn’t include the content, the parties, or the communication intent. Communication aims to promote action, and merely sending information can only promote action indirectly. Good communication facilitates appropriate action on the right problem at the right time. Good communication directly fosters action. In the context of the project, action is what moves the project towards completion.
In failing projects, each member’s obligations to the project may make sense to them; they don’t know how what they’re working on specifically contributes to the success of the grand plan or how their participation ties in with any other team members. They can’t see the path to the project’s goal, and you, as the project or portfolio manager, cannot support them correctly to ensure they’re helping to get there.
Planning, estimating, and control are essential to project success, but project teams need more guidance during execution. A solid project delivery process keeps a project on time and within budget, identifying and resolving risk throughout the project’s life. That is the purpose of visual project management.
[1] (FD | Forbes Insights, 2014), Strategic Initiatives Study, Adapting Corporate Strategy to the Changing Economy
A Simplified Project Plan
The ViewPoint Visual Project Management methodology starts with clearly defining the project completion process (what does ‘done’ look like) and developing a practical plan that aligns with the organization’s capacity to manage it effectively. Complex project plans are condensed down to a level of detail that improves their utility for managers in the day-to-day operations during project delivery. For example, senior managers would have a summarized plan with very little task detail but would emphasize decision points, acceptance criteria, significant milestones, critical deliverables, or pay points. In the same project, an engineering team would focus on task completions, deliverables, testing, or handoff to other teams.
Tailoring the plan to the right level of detail provides a shared basis for organizing tasks and resources in all project plans. This normalizing of project plans enables managers to forecast process requirements and behaviors across all projects reliably. At the same time, the organization benefits from standardized processes that promote cost-effectiveness and reliable delivery performance.[1]
[1] My free eBook, Simplify Your Project Delivery, teaches you more about simplifying your project plan.
Presenting information visually is the shortest route from understanding to action.
The foundation of ViewPoint Visual Project Management is expressing the project plan visually with a Visual Project Board (VPB).
Presenting the project as a graphic highlights critical information in ways that can’t be ignored. After a Colorado (US) software company introduced a VPB, an executive responded, “As simple as [a VPB] sounds, to actually see that come to life is a real clarifying moment for the entire organization. Everyone knows exactly where we are every day.”
Brain research shows that we decipher visual information simultaneously to seeing it. In contrast, humans process language and text sequentially.[1] A visual aid drastically reduces the time needed to understand information, promoting rapid understanding of any situation.
[1] Parkinson, Mike, The Power of Visual Communication, http://www.billiondollargraphics.com/infographics.html
Presenters who use visual aids are 43 percent more effective in persuading audience members to act. Mike Parkinson, author of Do-It-Yourself Billion Dollar Graphics, says:
“Graphics do what text alone cannot … [graphics] affect us both cognitively and emotionally:
- Cognitively: Graphics expedite and increase our level of communication. They increase comprehension, recollection, and retention … increasing the likelihood that the audience will remember.
- Emotionally: Pictures enhance or affect emotions and attitudes. Graphics engage our imagination and heighten our creative thinking by stimulating other brain areas (which in turn leads to a more profound and accurate understanding of the … material).”
Visualizing your project objectively and non-threateningly exposes project risks to the team. During project delivery, a Visual Project (or Portfolio) Board provides tangible feedback everyone can see and understand without information overload. The VPB removes the most significant obstacles to collaboration: agreement on the situation and who is accountable for the work. If there’s a bottleneck or a gap on the board, team members don’t waste time arguing about it because the board makes it obvious there’s a delay. They know where they are. Rather than reacting to problems, team members can monitor the project and proactively take the right action to move the project quickly to completion.
A Formal Structure for Delivering Projects
To deliver successful projects, you need more than a plan. You must deal with the reality of projects: missed time and cost estimates, unforeseen complications, rework, and everything else that makes a project a project. There is no such thing as a perfect plan, so for successful delivery, you must have a process that compensates for the uncertainties of project life, one that uses the map but is not a slave to it, a process that sees and resolves risk during the project’s life. Think of the visual project board as a map for project delivery. The VPB catalyzes the plan with action at the right time to deliver your project successfully.
ViewPoint uses The Project Execution Maturity Model (PEMM) as the structure of the project delivery process. The PEMM lays out the behaviors and processes needed to deliver your project in a straightforward progression from simple to sophisticated ones. It has three levels of execution capability: Basic Collaboration, Improved Coordination, and Integrated Planning and Execution.
Each level of maturity reflects the organization’s ability to manage activity and time, extending from the “on-hand” and “now” through the “coming up” and “long-term”. In improving execution maturity, an organization will increase its productivity and effectiveness. Each level leverages the VPB to drive an increased rate of completion, improved productivity, and reduced risk to deliver projects faster and at lower costs.
Basic Collaboration Delivers Informed Cooperation to Reduce Project Duration
Basic Collaboration is the foundational element of execution maturity, focusing on task completion velocity or flow. It extends to a local workgroup or portfolio, and the timeframe managed extends to completing the tasks presently in progress. The central questions to answer at the Basic Collaboration level are:
- Can we finish our work?
- Can we get it done quickly?
- “Can we complete work in the agreed-upon time?”
Basic Collaboration addresses short-term goals: eliminating task waiting time and increasing productivity. Achieving this level of execution maturity enables the team to shift their focus from reporting on what happened to identifying actions to move the project forward.
The processes at the Basic Collaboration level use the VPB to systematically identify obstacles, risks, and bottlenecks in the workflow. It enables the team to concentrate on the goal of project completion while dismantling organizational silos that hinder prompt action. Conflicts related to priority resources and tasks are addressed constructively without finger-pointing and blame. In essence, the VPB promotes transparency in execution, allowing the team to collaborate intelligently.
Moving from ad hoc execution methods to Basic Collaboration significantly improves financial performance. It typically increases productivity by more than 20%, boosts task completion rates, reduces project duration, and substantially improves on-time delivery performance. Mastering this level of maturity creates a new reality for your project teams and sets the stage for further improvements in project delivery performance.
Improved Coordination Focuses on Reliable Delivery
Once the teams master the Basic Collaboration processes, they can move on to Improved Coordination, which emphasizes meeting deadlines and milestone dates. The Improved Coordination processes extend the Basic Collaboration behaviors instituted to remote work groups. The VPB shows the team where the bottlenecks are located, and schedule risk can be shown for each deliverable. The team can quickly identify which tasks jeopardize the project’s delivery commitment, enabling them to work fast and deliver on time.
Together, they’ll focus not only on tasks currently in progress but on those that need to be completed soon, matching that future work with resources, testing availability, and delivery risk. They will go beyond the work directly in front of them and start managing the upcoming work, systematically getting in front of their projects, anticipating and resolving risk before it affects the schedule.
Integrated Planning and Execution Closes the Loop Between Planning and Delivery.
Now that they can forecast and deliver project work in the medium term, the team can focus on optimizing the process using advanced probabilistic plans and delivery processes, moving on to the most sophisticated level of project delivery processes, Integrated Planning and Execution. Here, the focus is on managing risk in future work across the portfolio. The team takes what they have learned about risk management and delivery processes and turns to your subcontractors and suppliers to reduce delivery risk.
The PEMM guides the organization from local, ad hoc execution behavior to integrated, repeatable processes that systematically deliver the superior results desired by team members, project managers, and clients. It is not an aspiration to excellence; it’s a proven process tested in multiple industries and organizations. Independent research and experience indicate that as organizations mature in execution capabilities, they achieve significant rewards, both in financial performance and in the success of their strategic initiatives[1].
[1] Developing Strategies for the Effective Delivery Of Capital Projects (Accenture, 2012)
Performance Management That Promotes Constant Progress
Visualizing the project and setting up processes must include the final component of VPM, management. The project manager’s main task is overcoming organizational boundary friction[1] to move the project constantly toward completion. The performance management system supports that goal, governing project delivery using empirical information.
Performance management systems do two things: They align purpose and provide empirical information to make good organizational decisions. They try to align and encourage actions with that objective, i.e., rowing together.
1 Organizational friction results from the misalignment of goals and expectations within the organization. The fewer individuals and teams are aligned to consistent goals and objectives, and the more they are given autonomy, the greater the opportunity for organizational friction.
The performance management system has three parts:
- Accountability for action and decision-making
- Scoreboard of critical processes and outcomes (KPIs)
- Conflict resolution processes
Defining Accountability and Decision Rights
Defining behaviors involves establishing the rules for managing your project. Well-defined behaviors and outcomes set expectations and enable you to identify issues before they delay the project. The definitions allow you to see delivery risks early and ensure that you meet your customer’s expectations. The Viewpoint methodology lays out accountability through specific, measurable actions and the scope of decision-making. For example, project managers are responsible for identifying opportunities for improvement, but the direction of process improvements is the responsibility of executive leaders. Task managers are accountable for eliminating risk, not project managers. Defining the roles and decision rights helps the team work cohesively and the project sponsors identify where they may need to intervene.
These accountabilities are then posted to the VPB, showing what is to be done and who is accountable for accomplishing the work. There is never any question about who will deliver the work. The image is a sample work package card.
Measuring Performance – Diagnostics and Outcomes
Performance measurements provide empirical information to decision-makers. Typically, the project manager and the sponsor want to know the health of the projects in the portfolio, identify and quantify risk to inform customers, shape decisions, and identify intervention needs. VPM provides information, primarily on schedule risk, but can also measure budget risk. Measuring work package (card) activity also provides insight into the project management process, suggesting how to improve schedule performance and productivity.
The ViewPoint visual project management method outlines metrics based on the defined accountabilities and behaviors. The metrics that support the performance management system are typically posted near the visual project board in a graphic to facilitate quick responses to issues. In the example below, the number of cards moved tells us how many work packages were completed at each stage gate over time, providing trend data.
Conflict Resolution
Conflicts often hinder progress, whether they involve resources, priorities, functionality, or technology. These conflicts are commonplace in every project, making conflict management and resolution an integral part of performance management.
During project delivery, scope and technical changes are commonplace. To keep the project on schedule, it’s essential to define how changes will be managed during execution. When changes are necessary, they should be handled as routine tasks rather than emergencies. If a task runs into resource or priority conflicts, an escalation process is in place to push the resolution to the appropriate management level.
The VPB displays any additional changes or conflicts as new cards or risks, visible to the entire team to avoid surprises.
Summary
Boost your project’s success by making effective execution practices the cornerstone for achieving its goals. Visual Project Management brings clarity to your project., accelerating the completion rate, boosting productivity, and delivering your projects on time.
ViewPoint Visual Project Management:
- Delivers substantial results quickly, in a matter of weeks.
- Is not complicated and has few obstacles to implementation.
- Is adaptable to different organizational cultures, regardless of current practice and project management process maturity.
- Works with and complements existing methodologies and software.
The crux of ViewPoint Visual Project Management lies in addressing three fundamental challenges in project delivery: visibility, uncertainty, and capacity. By tackling these obstacles head-on, teams can navigate through projects with unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness.
ViewPoint isn’t just about aspiration but tangible, proven results. By embracing Visual Project Management, organizations can unlock a new level of project delivery excellence, consistently exceeding expectations and driving sustainable success.
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