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.

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

• Please follow me on Twitter: 
• Like our page on Facebook: 
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: 
• Subscribe to my RSS feed: 

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.

Let us conduct a psychological experiment. Which formula do you think will yield a more precise and accurate result:

or

I guarantee that the majority of the readers will select the second formula as the one that would provide the best result. Unfortunately nothing can be further from the truth because any formula is as good as the data going into it. Some of you may have heard the following expression used by statisticians:

Garbage in, garbage out

It basically means that, no matter how complicated the formula is, if you “infuse” it with inaccurate data, the model will produce an inaccurate answer. Having said that take a closer look at the formulas above: the first model only has two ingredients, while the second one has multiple variables. Hence with a larger number of variables we end up with more room for estimation errors.

Why did I start this article with such a strange example? I have recently taught a project portfolio management course in London, UK and the following conversation took place between a Portfolio Manager of a large utility company and your humble servant:

PM: Oh, our executives will never sign up for PPM. We tried it before and it didn’t work

Me: Why didn’t it work?

PM: Well take a look here … (proceeds to show me a very complicated spreadsheet that incorporates not one, not two, but three scoring models for different types of projects at the same company. In order to assess the project proposal one has to answer several dozen questions by selecting appropriate choices from the dropdown menus. Once the choices are made, the spreadsheet “tells” you which scoring model to use. The models are also far from simple; close to a dozen scoring categories with five different potential scores for each variable …)

Me: So, did you use that model?

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

• Please follow me on Twitter: 
• Like our page on Facebook: 
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: 
• Subscribe to my RSS feed: 

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.

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

• Please follow me on Twitter: 
• Like our page on Facebook: 
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: 
• Subscribe to my RSS feed: 

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.

Very proud to have participated on this project as a project management consultant!

Background

Shah Deniz (The King of the Sea) gas field is the largest natural gas field in Azerbaijan. It is situated in the South Caspian Sea, off the coast of Azerbaijan, approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) southeast of Baku, at a depth of 600 metres (2,000 ft). The field covers approximately 860 square kilometres (330 sq mi). The Shah Deniz gas and condensate field was discovered in 1999. Stretching out over 140 square kilometres, the reservoir is similar in size and shape to Manhattan Island.

Shah Deniz 1

Stage One development of the Shah Deniz gas field started production in 2006, with a capacity of 9bcma of gas and roughly 55,000 daily barrels of condensate. The capital expenditure on Shah Deniz 1 to date is estimated to be $6bn. As of 2013, the field has produced 47.3 billion standard cubic metres (1,671 billion standard cubic feet) of gas and 99.5 million barrels of condensate.

Shah Deniz 2

Shah Deniz-2 discussions started in 2008 with the main discussion topic being the selection of transportation routes for additional gas volumes. Five-year-long intense negotiations finalized with signing of Final Investment Decision (FID) on 17 December 2013 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Nine companies agreed to sign a gas sales agreement (GSA) with the consortium:

• Axpo Trading AG
• Bulgargaz EAD (Bulgaria)
• DEPA Public Gas Corporation of Greece S.A. (Greece)
• Enel Trade SpA (Italy)
• E.ON Global Commodities SE (Germany)
• Gas Natural Aprovisionamientos SDG SA (Spain)
• GDF SUEZ S.A. (France)
• Hera Trading srl (Italy)
• Shell Energy Europe Limited (UK)

Out of total 10 bcm intended for Europe, 1 bcm will go to Bulgaria and Greece and the rest will go to buyers in other countries, mainly Italy.

Some interesting facts:

On Target        

• 89% of projects at high-performing organizations meet original goals and business intent
• 34% of projects at low-performing organizations meet original goals and business intent

Building Blocks

• 71% of projects meet original goals and business intent at organizations that recognize the importance of project management
• Unfortunately only 38% of organizations place a high priority on creating a project management culture

Down the Drain

• US$122 million lost for every US$1 billion invested in projects due to poor performance
• That is a 12% increase from 2015

PMO

• Only 49% of organizations have EPMO
• Of those only 44% are highly aligned with their company strategies (22% of all organizations)
  • They complete 27% more projects successfully
  • 42% fewer projects have scope creep

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

Very frequently when teaching my Project Portfolio Management Masterclass I get asked the following question:

One of our major challenges is assessing the size of our resource pool.  No matter how meticulous our calculations are, we constantly end up with way more projects than we can handle! Sometimes we are talking orders-of-magnitude errors in estimation!

So, here is an example of a "back of the envelope" calculation of total project resources bucket at a company that has proven to be extremely robust.

Imagine that there are 250 employees working at the head office. It has been estimated via survey or questionnaires that approximately 30% of their time is spent on project work and 70% on business as usual, i.e. normal daily non-project tasks. Based on that information we can assess the size of the total project resource bucket at the company:

Total number of people at the head office = 250 people

Total number of working months in a year = 10  minus two months for vacation, holidays and sick days)

Percentage of time spent on projects = 30% (estimated based on surveys)

Thus:

Total Project Resource Pool = 250 people X 10 months X 0.30 = 750 person-months

Therefore the total project human resources available for the entire portfolio are 750 person-months. Using this figure and knowing that there are 12 months in a year we can calculate the approximate resource pipeline throughput at the company as follows:

Project Pipeline Capacity = Total Project Resources/Number of Months in a Year = 750 person-months/12 months = 62.5 person-months/month

 

In other words the total project resource requirements at the organization should not exceed 62.5 person-months in any given month.

So, here is my traditional multiple-choice question for you:

How do you measure your portfolio resource pool?

Travelling to London, UK for my traditional Spring Project Portfolio Management Masterclass via Marcus Evans.

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

• Please follow me on Twitter: 
• Like our page on Facebook: 
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: 
• Subscribe to my RSS feed: 

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.

This is my 100^th post on LinkedIn, so to celebrate this event I decided to do something funny and light-hearted, but yet still relevant to the domain of project  management. The problem is that by the time I became a father, I have already been a fairly established PM professional, so I couldn't help but to look at this fatherhood thing through the proverbial “project management glasses”.

So, without further ado, here are the top 10 things I learned in the past four years:

Lesson #1 – Scope Creep (#projectscopemanagement)

No matter how much time you spend eliciting, analyzing and baselining your road-trip requirements, you scope of work can be instantaneously shattered by your rascal meditatively grabbing his behind followed by a simple, “Dad, I have to go. Number two. NOW!”

Lesson #2 – Buffer Time (#projecttimemanagement)

Remember, buffer time added to your estimates is your friend! The rule of thumb is fairly simple: however long it took you to accomplish the task before you had your kid, multiply that number by four (e.g. 15 minutes = 1 hour)

Lesson #3 – Critical Path Will Change All the Time (#projecttimemanagement)

Let us assume that you are planning two parallel tasks:

• Task A – Comb your child’s hair (performed by you) and
• Task B – Prepare a sandwich for the picnic in the park (your spouse)

You estimate:

• Task A – 15 seconds
• Task B – 7-10 minutes

Therefore task B is on the critical path, while task A has at least 6 minutes and 45 seconds of slack, right? Wrong!!! As soon as your fearless “Captain America” sees you with a hair brush in your hands, he throws a tantrum so bad, it causes his mother to run up the stairs screaming, “WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. TO HIM?”

As a result you have to join your efforts, thus making tasks A and B sequential rather than parallel.