NOTE: See also the “Downloads” section of the website for the Project Plan template.

The Project Plan Contents

Revision History Table

Like any important and constantly changing document the Project Plan should contain a “Revision History” table (see Exhibit 1). The purpose of the table is to record version number, version date, name of the person making the change and a short revision description.

Why should we keep a record of all the changes made to the document? First, one can expect to make up to several dozen revisions to a project plan during the planning and execution stages. Stakeholder feedback, customer-initiated updates and technical project team inspections act as a source of updates and modification to the document. By the same token, during the execution stage change requests, various risks and other events may have an impact on various aspects of the project. Committing all of this information to the memory of the project manager is probably not the most efficient use of his brainpower.

Secondly, people have the tendency to save the files they receive via e-mails to their computer hard drives. As a result they continue referring to the older versions of the document while the newer, “fresher” versions have already been posted in the project documentation repositories. Therefore, “what version of the document are you looking at?” is one of the most frequently asked questions in conversations between the project manager and the project stakeholders.

Exhibit 1

The Burj Al Arab (The Arab Tower) hotel was built in 1999 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This project was conceived at the very top of the UAE government as a venture that would assist in transforming the country and the state from the exclusively oil-based economy to the trade and tourism-based market.

The ruling family of Dubai gambled – and by all accounts won – that the conversion into international hub of trade and tourism should start with a “wow-type” project that would demonstrate to the rest of the world that the Gulf country can:

• Undertake ambitious projects and see them to completion
• Has a rich cultural and historic heritage
• Has the supply of and the demand for luxury hotel accommodations

The project that lasted for five years – from 1994 to 1999 – delivered a 321 m (1,053 ft) structure that is now the fourth tallest hotel in the world. Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island 280 m (920 ft) from Jumeirah beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. The shape of the structure is designed to mimic the dhow’s (type of local boat) sail. It is very frequently referred to as the world’s only seven-star hotel; although the company managing it refuses to even acknowledge the fact that they were the ones who started using this epithet.

Burj Al Arab is one of the most photographed buildings in the world and definitely played an integral role in putting both Dubai and the United Arab Emirates on the world map.

The purpose of this case study is to attempt to take this enigmatic and grandiose product and try to reverse engineer the requirement elicitation process from the few high-level business requirements to general features to detailed technical requirements. Let us start with what the business requirements for this project may have looked like (see Table 1):

Table 1

Yet another one of my project portfolio management presentations. This time at the British Columbia Technology Industry Association.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Executive Summary

• The “Virgin Lands” fiasco
• Some tough questions from today’s executives
• Do companies need help?
  • Some industry statistics
• How to deliver good projects?
  • The “typewriter example”
  • The “final exam gone very wrong example”
  • The “Caribbean house example”
• Detailed view of project and portfolio management
• What do companies need to deliver exceptional project results?
• Exercises
   

Download the PDF version of the presentation here.

Introduction

Nowadays many organizations are seriously overwhelmed with project portfolios that have dramatically grown in size, sophistication and the number of resources involved. Just to illustrate this point, recently a CEO of a large financial institution mentioned in a private conversation with me, “It seems only yesterday we had a couple of fifty-thousand dollar projects in our portfolio and today we have ten ongoing endeavors ranging in size from $5 to $20 million. We were not prepared for this".

How should these organizations adjust their business models? Many companies are attempting deployments of their own project management frameworks to address the issues above. This article is aimed to provide senior executives of such organizations with the key lessons learned by the author stemming from numerous previous projects of similar nature.

Implementing Project Management

How Are We Doing?

Before we venture into the discussion of the finer points of project management implementation, let us analyze the current situation in the industry and assess our ability to handle projects.

According to researchers 19% of the project undertaken in 2008 were complete failures (i.e. cancelled because of significant cost overruns or being late). Forty six percent represented troubled projects (i.e. significantly over budget and/or late but completed nonetheless). And only 35% of projects undertaken were delivered on time and on budget (give or take a couple of percent here and there).

I don't think anyone would argue that these figures demonstrate that we are a long way from perfection when it comes to selecting, planning and executing our projects.

The Key Steps

Here are some of the lessons learned derived from several successful implementations of project management frameworks performed by Thinktank Consulting at various organizations in Canada, US, Asia and Middle East.

Lesson # 1: Customize Methodology - Never try to impose an "off-the-shelf" project management methodology onto any organization. Instead:

The Phone Call

About six months ago I was contacted by a senior manager of a large company who proceeded to tell me: "Listen, we know that you have a project management course and we are interested in it … But would you be able to come in and just assess what it is that we are doing wrong with projects and maybe customize your course according to the findings?" Obviously I agreed to get together with him and we arranged for a meeting.

Course Overview

This course is about skills, tools, techniques and economic principles that transcend various company structures, environments and project management philosophies. It is about essential “hands-on” tools and techniques needed by contemporary project managers. The focus of this workshop is on the practitioner's rather than the academic view of project management including tricks, tips, soft skills and “guerilla warfare” tactics and the economics of project management in particular and strategic business decision-making in general.

Why You Should Attend?

Recent studies indicate that only 32% of our projects can be considered successful, while 44% are challenged (i.e. grossly over the budget and/or late) and 24% are outright failures (i.e. cancelled by the customers before they are even completed). Further research shows that the lion’s share of this lack of success can be attributed to poor requirements elicitation, insufficient planning and inadequate project control.

This course will demonstrate to the participants how to perform these tasks properly and efficiently by teaching them skills, tools, techniques and economic principles that transcend various company structures, environments and project management philosophies.

Yet another interview I gave to the AEC Business in 2013

About the Author

Jamal Moustafaev, MBA, PMP – president and founder of Thinktank Consulting is an internationally acclaimed expert and speaker in the areas of project/portfolio management, scope definition, process improvement and corporate training. Jamal Moustafaev has done work for private-sector companies and government organizations in Canada, US, Asia, Europe and Middle East.  Read Jamal’s Blog @ www.thinktankconsulting.ca

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Jamal is an author of two very popular books: Delivering Exceptional Project Results: A Practical Guide to Project Selection, Scoping, Estimation and Management and Project Scope Management: A Practical Guide to Requirements for Engineering, Product, Construction, IT and Enterprise Projects.

PM Podcast Interview

There is an old PM saying that goes like this: Projects don’t fail at the end... they fail at the beginning. But when exactly is “the beginning”? Is it scope definition? The kick off meeting? The creation of the charter? For me it is even earlier than that. Listen to the interview I gave to my friend Cornelius Fichtner on his website "PM Podcast".

Interview Transcript

Female voice: The Project Management Podcast’s feature Interview: Today with Jamal Moustafaev, author, speaker and portfolio management expert.

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello Jamal, welcome back to The Project Management Podcast™.

Jamal Moustafaev: Hi, Cornelius! How are you doing?

Cornelius Fichtner: Very well, thank you! So we want to talk about your book: “Delivering Exceptional Project Results – A Practical Guide to Project Selection, Scoping, Estimation and Management.” But before we even go to that, what do you love about portfolio management? What made you write the book?

Jamal Moustafaev: Well, I don’t know if this is the love thing. But I can share some of the information that I share on the pages right at the beginning pages of my book, some statistical data that was gathered by researchers and scientists in the field of project and portfolio management. With your permission, I’ll share it with you and your listeners.

Well, it looks like most of the companies if you look at the companies, if you look at the strategic level, project portfolio management level which is the selection of the best projects for the company. Statistics looks something like this: 84% of companies either do not conduct business cases for their projects or perform them on selected key projects; 89% of companies rely solely on the financial data which is notoriously unreliable; 84% of companies cannot adjust their projects with their business needs which cost something because of the changing environment.

Khrushchev, always an energetic and vigorous party leader, came up with what appeared to be a very creative solution to the grain shortage problem. He proposed to open up millions of acres of "virgin" land in the steppes of Kazakhstan north and east of the Aral Sea.

The overall aim of the "Virgin Lands Project" was to produce 20 million tons of grain by 1956. The project has begun with an army of 300,000 volunteers travelling by special trains to Northern Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia and erecting hundreds of tent cities. Another group of several hundred thousand students, soldiers and agricultural professionals joined them on a temporary basis until the first year's harvest. In addition, 50,000 tractors and more than 6,000 trucks were moved to the area to assist the "project team" in preparing and ploughing the vast areas of land. As a result of these preparations in the first year of the programme, 190,000 km² were ploughed; in 1955, an extra 140,000 km² were ploughed.

The 1956 was a year of great success for the "Virgin Lands"; the original target of 20 million tons of wheat was more than tripled. Mr. Khrushchev and the rest of the country rejoiced. The original idea of investing billions of roubles into the steppes of Kazakhstan looked like a stroke of genius. Thick books were written and large canvases were painted describing the heroic efforts of the people. The project was a great success.

The major problem that both armies had to deal with was a heavy fog that covered the entire battlefield thus making any kind of monitoring or communications with their units somewhat problematic.

Medieval battles have never been known for their orderliness and organization; however because of the heavy fog, the confusion that existed on the field on that particular day dwarfed anything that was seen in military campaigns before and since that memorable day. In this mayhem at one point of time John de Vere's forces ended up behind their allies, a part of Lancastrian force led by Warwick's younger brother John Neville. Neville's regiments for reasons to be explained a bit later mistook their comrades-in-arms for enemies - Edward's reserve forces - and unleashed a volley of arrows on them. De Vere, in his turn quite logically assumed treachery and attacked Neville's troops ... The cries of treason quickly spread throughout the entire battlefield and as the fog started to dissipate, Edward saw the Lancastrian centre in disarray and sent in his reserves, hastening its collapse. One by one, first John Neville, then de Vere and finally Warwick were killed by Yorkists.

Some historians claim that as many as 6,500 Lancastrians perished in that engagement - a mind-boggling number of casualties by the 15^th century standards. As for Edward, he retained his crown and ruled England for the next twelve years.