The Cole Pages, NEXPO '99, June 13, 1999

June 13, 1999
NEXPO '99 specials

Putting positive publicity on projects

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Apparently, projects work better if the participants communicate.

Despite this overly simplistic sounding advice, three project management specialists told a crowd of 150 at the NEXPO '99 "bonus" workshop, held here this afternoon, that the biggest problem in project management is communication.

As Bob Robinson, project management director at the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, put it, "Poor communications -- across, up and down -- requires addressing."

The session lead off with a 90-minute presentation by Kevin English of KPMG LLP of McLean, Va. English is the project manager for the NAA's Newspaper Information Communication Center (NICC -- see NewsInc., Aug. 31, 1998) project, though he spoke only in general terms about project management.

English's presentation walked through a history of project management ("It's a practice that's younger than most of the people in this room," he said, indicating that it came into its own in the late 1950s and early 1960s) and defined a large number of terms -- not the least of which was "project management" ("The active management and integration of resources, tasks and activities necessary to achieve a project's goals.").

The functions of project management, English said, were to plan, organize, direct (and motive) the team, control and assess and budget. He said that project management has "changed significantly" in recent years, because of unpredictable environments, intrusion of environmental forces, the increasingly complex "socio-technical systems" and the management of the boundaries of the project and the transition of the project from project to process (as in the difference between installing a payroll system and running a payroll system).

He said that the methodology of project management were more important than the tools of project management. English listed the components he believed that would lead to a good project management system:

Work Breakdown Structure. This process divides the project into manageable components and results in a project structure diagram. Each component should be examined to make certain that it is the smallest task possible. English said that if a subtask were longer than a couple of weeks, it should probably be broken into multiple subtasks. Further, it provides a basis for project resource allocation and a network diagram.

Organization structure, according to English, allows for integration of people and functions within the project.

Project scheduling using computer applications for determining timing and resource allocations.

Budgets rely on the Work Breakdown Structure to allocate all appropriate costs, including direct, indirect, subcontractor, organizational allocations and equipment costs. Further, budgets must be made while understanding contractual penalties and bonuses.

English emphasized status reporting and communications. "Don't shy away if you know there's an issue, raise it," he said. His fundamentals of a good status report include that they be issued often, that they describe what has happened since the last report, that they describe what's in store in the near future, that it details major events, that it lists products that have been delivered, that it defines next steps and that it provides a financial update.

Top management and line workers, English said, "are committing their professional careers to this project -- we should make them happy."

San Diego's Robinson, a certified public accountant by training, spoke not only in general terms about project management, but also explained to the audience how the UNION-TRIBUNE has developed a project management methodology and gave two examples of its use.

"We wanted to avoid building a bureaucracy," said Robinson. "We wanted to strike a balance between a five-inch-thick manual and flying by the seat of our pants."

The UNION-TRIBUNE's project management methodology consists of a (rather thin) three-ring binder that has a one-page checklist and sever pages of narrative for each check-list item. In addition, it provides a glossary and a case study of an example project.

Robinson said that the project management philosophy has been used not only in the implementation of hardware and software, but also in new venture start-ups.

The first place that the UNION-TRIBUNE used its project management philosophy on was an upgrade of the paper's private branch exchange (PBX) phone system, in the first quarter of 1997.

"We achieved positive results early on," said Robinson.

In addition to achieving a quick and easy win for the project management philosophy, the PBX upgrade also turned the project manager into a believer.

"She was initially a nay-sayer," said Robinson. But the project management philosophy "forced them to identify critical areas," that lead to the project's success. Robinson said the skeptical manager is so happy that she has now used the project management philosophy in two other projects.

The session was wrapped up by Paul Poliski, a project manager for Lockwood Greene of New York, N.Y., the newspaper architectural and engineering firm.

Poliski went through a series of steps that explained Lockwood Greene's project management philosophy that included relationships with the client, process and procedures, selection method of the architectural-engineering consultant, wrapping up with "doing the project."

Poliski cited the examples of two projects -- neither identified -- and how Lockwood Greene made them work.

-- David M. Cole