PDM Project Management
New improved format: More Knowledge in Less Time!
2PLM NewsletterJohn Stark Associates October 26, 2009 - Vol12 #16 |
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Welcome to the 2PLM e-zine This issue includes :
NEW!
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2PLM Sponsorship opportunity: your banner or logo here
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PDM Project Management: A New Approach by Roger Tempest |
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| While the ideas for a PDM meeting are still simmering, let's continue the theme of "working on PDM".
Moving PDM forward requires project management, on a large scale and with hundreds of inter-relationships. It is not just a matter of scaling 'project management' up to become 'programme management' - there are complexities to PDM that almost need a brand new discipline. Conventional project management is based around setting logical milestones, achieving them, and then being ready to move towards the next. There should be "stages" and "gates" and review panels and project boards and checklists. The aim is to make everything as clear and well-defined as possible. For PDM, this is a remarkably inefficient way of working. There are so many technical issues that depend on each other, in many different areas, that to wait for each area to complete before all its dependents can start builds up a massive time delay. With this conventional approach, two things are possible. You either take shortcuts to produce "finished" documentation early (which means glossing over some significant issues "until later" - which usually means "until never"). Or you accept the inevitable over-run. What PDM really needs is a kind of "project soup", which cooks all of its ingredients together in draft form for as long as possible, maturing them in synergy, until it is ready to be served and the true finished documentation can be produced. The problem with an integrated, synergistic, practical approach to such as this is that it is counter-intuitive. Its working material stays in rough format (diagrams, notes, flip chart pages and draft documents) for a very long time. |
This makes it difficult for those who are monitoring the project, such as a steering committee, to understand what progress is being made. It also makes it difficult for people within the project team to understand what they should do next.
A large PDM project will include many people who are involved part-time, or in a particular technical or geographic area. If they sit and wait until they are given a clearly-defined specification of what they should do next, their part of the project will stall. They need to be given guidance and motivation to start those parts of their sub-project that can be done with the information they know. They need to get used to working with "ugly" documentation until the later stages of the project; and the project team in turn needs a draft documentation framework that makes the ugly documentation as informative and integrated as possible. The need for this kind of project management methodology is very real if PDM projects are to run efficiently, and everyone within and above the project is to understand what is happening. A PDM Project Management approach needs to be formalised that minimises the inherent problems, and captures best practices that have been learned in the field. The PLMIG will cover this in more detail in the next issue of the PLM Journal which is due for publication in the next fortnight.
Roger Tempest is co-founder of the PLMIG. You can send your comments or input via pdm_management@plmig.com Top |
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| More on Efficiency by Scott Cleveland |
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On a lighter note .... In a meeting today, someone shared some business advice. They said there were 4 steps to success. I will share them with you:
My Thoughts.... When I look to improve a business process, I go through these 5 steps.
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Doing this analysis identifies the Stuff that you are doing.
To improve the process you will stop doing the Stuff that doesn't work. You will eliminate non-value added tasks and you could outright eliminate some activities. To improve the process you will do more of the Stuff that does work like automating some activities and redesigning some activities. All resulting in decreased costs and improve productivity. You could build a sustainable competitive advantage by increasing productivity and finding ways to deliver new value to your customers .. Your Thoughts.... Is your company still doing Stuff that doesn't work? Scott Cleveland is VP Sales & Marketing, Ingenuus Software. Top |
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