Toyota is not just a car maker. Are you just a project manager?

Toyota is the home of Lean Manufacturing. In the 50's, Toyota developed the Toyota Production System, which became Lean Manufacturing. All world-class manufacturing today uses Lean.

There's a classic article by Charles Fishman in Fast Company, published in 2006. It analyses continuous improvement at Toyota’s factory in Georgetown, USA.

Lean means Continuous Improvement

The author argues that Toyota is not just a car maker.

Here's the key quote

Toyota’s Georgetown factory only looks like a car factory. It’s really a big brain–a kind of laboratory focused on a single mission: not how to make cars, but how to make cars better.
The work is threefold: making cars, making cars better, and teaching everyone how to make cars better.
At its best, Toyota adds one more level: It is always looking to improve the process by which it improves all the other processes.

Project Management needs Continuous Improvement, too

Are you just a project manager?
Or are you a Lean Project Manager with a focus on Continuous Improvement
To qualify as a Lean Project Manager, your work would be threefold

1. Running projects
2. Improving your project management process
3. Teaching everyone how to improve your project management process

And are you at your best - do you add one more level? Are you always looking to improve the process by which you improve your project management process?

From Lean Manufacturing to Lean3 Project Management

Toyota makes it appear easy, by building continuous improvement into their culture. Read the Fast Company article to find out how they do it.
You can do the same for your projects. You can build continuous improvement into your Project Management. Read my new book Lean3 Project Management to find out how you can do it.

Brexit joins the hall of infamy of Programme Management

Brexit: a case study of MSP worst practice

A year ago, I wrote that Brexit was heading for failure. I compared the Brexit programme to a rudderless ship, lost at sea.

Brexit is a huge programme run by the UK government. The UK government is the home of "best practice" methods like Prince2 and MSP. So it's appropriate to judge Brexit using the MSP method for programme management.

A year ago, I said Brexit breaks all the rules for MSP Programme Management. The Brexit Programme uses worst practice, not best practice. It's not driven by a strategy, there's no attempt to create a common vision and there's no blueprint. It was clear a year ago that the Programme was like a rudderless ship. Now, one year later, the ship is heading onto the rocks.

Brexit is entering into new waters

This week, Brexit has moved to a new phase. In MSP terms, it's now in transition. For MSP, the transition should only start when everything is ready. When all the new capabilities are ready, and it's time to go live. MSP says that transition is not driven by a date, it's driven by readiness. It's supposed to be a well-prepared transition from the old (the current state) to the new (the future state). The future state is described in a blueprint.

Ships heading into the unknown

Brexit has entered transition. On the 29th March, the UK leaves the UK. But from this week, in mid February, the transition starts. Any ship leaving a UK port today, heading to a distant port may not arrive until after the 29th March. When the ship arrives at its destination port, it might be facing new rules (the future state). Scotch Whisky going to South Korea might face a 20% tariff if the ship carrying it arrives after 29th March. Who knows?

So the transition has started, and it's unplanned and unprepared. The future state is unknown.

So Brexit has entered its transition, and all the MSP best practice, has been ignored:    
    •    the future state blueprint is not defined (deal? or no-deal?)    
    •    the capabilities are not in place. For example, 11 new laws are still missing (they are very slowly going through the UK parliament). And only 7 trade deals have been secured out of the 69 new trade deals needed.    
    •    there is no transition plan (plan for a deal? plan for no-deal?)    
    •    the go-live date is not determined by readiness, but is an arbitrary date fixed by the UK Government

A special place for Brexit

Brexit has now earned its place in the pantheon of bad practice. It joins other infamous programmes, in the hall of infamy of Programme Management. It joins the Bradley Fighting Vehicle programme, immortalised in the splendid film The Pentagon Wars. And the 2004 Greek Olympics, immortalised by abandoned sports venues and an abandoned airport.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, warned of "a special place in hell" for "those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan". There is a special place reserved for Brexit in the hall of infamy of Programme Management. Brexit is on the podium, it’s number one. It's a perfect case study of programme failure. Pure hell.

Brexit is failing to apply the basics of MSP programme management

Brexit is failing to apply the basics of MSP programme management

Brexit is heading for failure. This major programme is dominating British political and economic life and will continue to do so the several years. The British government gave us MSP (Managing Successful Programmes) but it is failing to apply MSP basics to the Brexit programme. As a programme, Brexit is failing.

Brexit is a major transformation programme. Some early estimates said there were over 500 government projects working on Brexit. One academic argues that the Brexit programme is more complex than the US moon landing programme in the 1960s.

Brexit is clearly a programme. And it's clearly transformational. It will have a huge impact on British law, trade, immigration, culture and much, much more. MSP is designed for such major transformation programmes. But the British government is not using own toolkit. Their failure to use their own proven method is driving Brexit towards failure.

No clear strategy

The first problem for this programme is the lack of strategy. MSP insists that a programme can and should support one or more high-level strategic objectives.

The problem here is that Brexit is not part of any strategy. The referendum was called for tactical reasons (to silence critics in and around the ruling Conservative Party). The decision to leave Europe was not part of any strategy; and since the referendum, the government has not developed any visible strategy. Is the strategy to stay close to the EU? Or to go for worldwide trade deals? Or deals with the British Commonwealth? No-one knows.

No shared vision

The second problem for this programme is the lack of vision.

MSP recognises that it may be hard to create a shared vision but underlines the importance of building a shared vision. The vision explains the destination of the programme. This provides a cornerstone of a successful programme, on which so much is built.

Again, the government has not developed any shared vision - each minister has their own vision. One vision is to be like Norway, another vision is to be like Canada. Others mention Switzerland or Singapore. There is no attempt to create any shared vision. This has crippled the Brexit programme.

No blueprint

The third problem of this program is the lack of a future state blueprint.

MSP says you should model the future state, which is the situation in place at the end of the programme. This model is called the "blueprint" in MSP. The difference between the current state and the future state is called the "gap". You fill the gap with project work.

Until recently, we all believed that the government had 50 impact assessments, sector by sector. We are told these existed in "excruciating detail". This seemed to be a sort of gap analysis. This suggested there was indeed a final blueprint. But the 50 impact assessments have proved to be a fiction. They don't exist. There is no blueprint, there is no gap analysis.

The most glaring omission concerns Northern Ireland where Brexit generates multiple constraints. A blueprint for Northern Ireland which resolves those constraints is possible, but is not part of Government thinking. MSP provides the tools, but the government doesn't use them. Without a blueprint, the contradictions rest unresolved.

Until you have a future state blueprint, you don't know the gap, and you don't know what projects to run. Because there's no Brexit blueprint, those 500 projects don't know what they have to achieve. A project with unclear goals cannot succeed.

Heading for failure

The Brexit programme is like a rudderless ship. The strategy is unclear, there is no vision, the programme is lost at sea. Work has started on 500 projects, but to do what?

In most organisations, such drift would not be tolerated. The programme would be cancelled. Brexit needs to be rescued or cancelled. Sadly for Britain, neither option seems likely today.

PM2 : Government isn't a community

PM2: Government isn't a community

In January, the European Commission published PM2. This is yet another Project Management framework created by yet another government body. This is the wrong initiative, done in the wrong way.

The world doesn't need another top-down government-inspired initiative. More so-called "best practice". We already have the PMI from the US, Prince2 from the UK, and several others. PM2 adds nothing new, it just reassembles the existing pieces in a different way.

A new set of rules

Government-driven methods attempt to codify "best practice" in a book. This "bible" is a static set of rules which is defined to be "best practice". It becomes the basis for compliance and creates an ever-growing training and certification industry. Henceforth, every CV must include certification. Everyone who wants funding must follow the rules.

PM2 follows this pattern. It is driven by a set of rules, not a community of practice. Maybe it's called Open PM2, but there are no clear feedback mechanisms to ensure that "best practice" does actually work. There is a network around PM2 (PSN), but the focus is implementing the method, and especially on training and certification. This will surely become a community of compliance rather than a community of practice.

Need a new approach

Agile has shown the way. There is a real, innovative community around Scrum, sharing good practice. Good practice evolves, bottom-up, driven by community feedback. SAFE explicitly promotes communities of practice (SAFE is a scaled approach to Scrum).

Beyond Agile, the wider Project Management world also needs to move to communities of practice. We don't need yet another top-down method like PM2. We need a bottom-up approach, based on  communities of practice. Each community will identify good practice, proven in day-by-day use. Ideas will be shared using modern social networking techniques.

This is the forward-looking approach proposed by Lean3. Sadly, PM2 is not forward-looking, it's just a rehash of old ideas, just another set of rules.

Why I stopped blogging (and why I'm starting again)

I stopped writing this blog in May 2015 

I stopped because it was time to be less evangelical about Prince2. It was time to start facing up to the truth.

My blogs were "explaining" Best Practice, as defined by Prince2. They were broadly uncritical. I assumed that Prince2 was "Best Practice", and explained how to get it to work.

For example, I explained how to analyse risk. I knew that,  until you simplify the Prince2 risk approach, it's not usable. I knew that no-one uses the Prince2 "Best Practice".

Same with communications. I wrote a blog on communications. Prince2 has an unusable "Communications Strategy". No-one uses the four strategies in Prince2. Again, I was blogging to explain how to convert  so-called "Best Practice" into real workable practice.

This incessant need for simplification told me that Prince2 is not "Best Practice"...  It was time to wake up.

In 2015, I faced up to the facts: the term "Best Practice" is now meaningless. So I stopped writing this blog.

Since then, things have got worse

Prince2-Agile was a car crash

In June 2015, Axelos launched Prince2-Agile, a new companion guide to Prince2. This guide purports to explain how to combine Prince2 with Agile.

But it was a car crash. All of Prince2 meets all of Agile in a mammoth mash-up. The premise of the book is to use Prince2 in its entirety (all 7 processes and all 7 themes), then to add Agile. The resulting behemoth (P2 + P2A = 700 pages and 2kg of paper) is hard to explain, let alone to defend.

 Even the most evangelical supporters of Prince2 struggle with this. This is not "Best Practice". No one introduces Agile into projects like this. I know how people blend Prince2 and Agile, and it's not like this.

Prince2 needed a diet, got a sugar rush

In 2017, Axelos updated Prince2. Prince2 was aging. It was fat and bloated, full of junk that no-one uses. Put instead of sending Prince2 to a health farm, to lose weight, Axelos added more fat. More bloat.  Prince2 grew to over 400 pages.
The new book now wants the Project Manager to become a methods expert, and to tailor Prince2 for each project. That's not Best Practice. In most well-organised companies using Prince2, the corporate PMO downsizes Prince2 massively. Once.

I'm starting blogging again

I'm starting to blog again. I'm starting to blog about Lean3, a new approach to Project Management.
I've not given up on Prince2. It's a tool we can still use, but it's fossilised and we need to plan for the future. Prince2 is our past.

Lean3 rejects the idea of frozen "Best Practice", written by a guru and published in an expensive book. Lean3 will have strong feedback from the community, using social media techniques.

Lean3 argues that each community of practice should define its own good practice. Good practice which is used and proven in practice.

Read more about Lean3 at www.lean3.com

Ignore the fashionistas: you still need Prince2 in an Agile world

Fashions come and fashions go. For fashionistas, yesterday’s fashions are history. 

In the world of project management, Agile is the current fashion, particularly the Scrum variant of Agile. If you browse many project management websites, you'd think Scrum has become the only way to run projects.  Some Agile fashionistas even suggest that everybody is moving to Scrum, and that “traditional” methods like Prince2 are history.

What should project managers do? Should you follow the current fashions? Or is there still life in older methods like Prince2?

A success story…

There’s a good reason why Scrum is fashionable - for many teams, it's a success story. But if we pause to understand the roots of that success, then we will find that not everyone can go with the crowd and follow the latest fashion.
The popularity of methods like Scrum is driven by two waves of innovation

❑  the rapid, unrelenting growth of the Internet
❑  the increasing incorporation of software in products

For project teams working in one of these areas, Scrum can boost project success rates.

Using Scrum, a dedicated, motivated, self-organising team can work in “discovery” mode,. They don’t start with a detailed specification (or with any specification at all, in some cases). The team works iteratively, in discovery mode, converging to a solution. Using sprints, they manage their time constraints - each sprint delivers on time.  For many software development teams, Scrum is a good choice.

… with limitations

However, success using Scrum is based on two key assumptions

❑ the project can use discovery methods, starting with little or no specifications
❑ a dedicated, self-organising team can be put into place

In many companies and in many projects, these assumptions are simply not valid.

If you look at the context of your project, you may find that it is very different from the world that the Scrum fashionistas inhabit

SPECIFICATION DRIVEN: Your project may need to start with specifications, for one or more  reasons, for example:
- a detailed design is highly desirable (e.g. for a construction project or an IT infrastructure project)
- a specification of the final solution is needed in order to get budget approval
- a specification must be created as the basis for a contract with one of the project’s suppliers

SILO BASED ORGANISATION: Your project may not have a dedicated team, for example:
- some team members perform both project work and day-to-day support work
- some team members work on multiple projects
- your silo culture is stronger than your project culture (so each team member reports to their line manager not to your project)

As a project manager, you need to understand your project constraints. Your project method must align to your constraints. If you use Scrum in the wrong context, you will have a square peg in a round hole, and your project will suffer.

So how to run your project in these cases? The traditional methods such as Prince2 are still there to help you. They are not history, Prince2 remains valid

    ❑    Prince2 is a general purpose method (not just for software projects or internet projects)
    ❑    Prince2 can create well-structured specifications using product based planning and product descriptions
    ❑    Prince2 uses a team based approach, able to cope with the traditional silo organisation and with non-dedicated teams.
   
Additionally, Prince2 is a full-strength project management method, covering essentials such as budgets, business case, risk management; most of which is absent from Scrum, which is a delivery team approach rather than a project framework.

It’s not always a binary choice for every project. It’s not simply Prince2 or Scrum. If necessary, you can blend the two. Inside a Prince2 project, you can have teams using Scrum; or you could run one project stage as a timebox. For example, inside a product development project using Prince2, you may have a dedicated team working on the software, using Scrum to ensure on-time delivery of a high quality software solution. (There”s a recently launched Prince2 add-on called Prince2-Agile which explains how to blend the two)

So be careful with your next project. Don't simply go with the crowd, don't be a blind follower of fashion. To ensure project success, you need to understand your project constraints rather than listen to the fashionistas.

No news is good news: Management by Exception

Are you fed up with boring Project Management meetings? Are you in an interminable cycle of weekly meetings? Are you overdosed by tedious Powerpoints?

It could be that you are suffering from “management by meeting”. If the only way that your company can manage a project is to hold weekly meetings with everyone round the table, then they are doing management by meeting.  Another day, another meeting.

There is an alternative. There is a way to reduce the number of boring meetings. It’s called Management by Exception.

Management by Exception is based on constrained delegation. Delegation with limits. When the delegation is in place, then you apply the old saying “no news is good news”. If there’s nothing exceptional going on, then you probably won’t have a meeting.

Here’s how it works:
    •    you propose a plan with some defined constraints
    •    when the plan is agreed, your manager delegates
    •    during the period of the plan, the delegation is in place…
    •    … unless something “exceptional” happens, notably if you exceed any defined constraint

So you only need a meeting if something exceptional happens. You don’t need management by meeting!

Let’s look at an example. Let’s imagine a project to install some packaged software.
    1.    You divide the project into stages. Let’s say that one of them is the software selection stage
    2.    You write a short document with your criteria for software selection; you create a work-plan for the software selection stage, with two constraints
    ⁃    The software is supposed to cost 30k€, plus or minus a tolerance of 10k€
    ⁃    The stage is supposed to take 2 months, plus or minus 2 weeks tolerance
    3.    This plan, including the constraints, is approved by your project board, so you start work. They know what you are doing, and when you plan to do it, so delegation is in place. Limited delegation - you can’t exceed your tolerances!
    4.    You send a regular weekly report to the board, showing your progress.

Let’s now see why it’s called Management by Exception, by looking at two scenarios, the best case scenarios and the worst case scenario.

Best case: For this stage of the project, you are broadly on time and on budget. Nothing exceptional takes place. You find the software and finish this stage of the project. No weekly meetings are required during the stage.

Worst case:  For this stage of the project, things are difficult. Let’s imagine some possible exceptional events
    1.    You can’t find suitable software
    2.    You can’t find anything under 50k€
    3.    You will need 3 months to evaluate and select the software
If any one of these exceptions occurs, then you need to get back ASAP to your board. You are outside of the delegation limits, so you do need a meeting.

So we only have meetings when they are useful. That’s why Management by Exception has big benefits
    •    It saves management time - it limits the time wasted in meetings
    •    It lets the PM manage, and helps avoids micro-management by top managers

Let’s be clear, Management by Exception doesn’t means laxity and absence of control. It is a practical approach, it is is not an idealistic “zero meetings” dream.

Some meetings are needed - for example:  
    •    at the start of the stage to agree the plan
    •    at the end of the stage to review the stage, and to plan the next stage
    •    if anything exceptional happens

It’s a best practice approach. It’s a cornerstone of the Prince2 family of methods. Prince2, the Project Management method uses management by exception. It is also used in MSP (Programme Management), MoP (Management of Portfolios) and P3O (Project, Programme and Portfolio Offices).

So if you are fed up with boring Project Management meetings, then bring in a best practice alternative. Stop wasting time, week after week after week. Move to Management by Exception.