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?

Sign #1: Project and resource managers often fight over resources.

Example: The head of the Finance department asked IT services to install a new accounts payables system. When approached by the project manager, requesting to assign two financial analysts to formulate the requirements of the system, the Director replies with unequivocal, "Are you nuts? There are too busy!"

Sign#2: Priorities of projects frequently change, with resources reassigned from one project to another.

Example: At the beginning of the year the CEO of your company announces that project A is the most important endeavor and will have the highest priority when it comes to resources - both financial and human. Sometime in March you suddenly discover the project manager of project A aimlessly wondering the hallways of your office. When you inquire about the status of her project, she lethargically replies, "Oh, the strategic priorities have shifted ... All resources have been reassigned to project B! And by the way, my deadline and scope remain unchanged."

Sign#3: Senior managers have authority to unilaterally approve and release projects.

Example: Your recent project got initiated simply because the CEO of your company walked into the conference room and uttered something to the effect of, "Wouldn't it be really cool if we could do this!" No feasibility study, no conversation with your technical or marketing experts. Nothing.

Sign#4: Projects are started as soon as approved by senior managers, irrespective of the resource availability.

Example: Project C has been approved by the executive committee and the project manager has been assigned to run the new initiative. Unfortunately, right at the Initiation stage, he hears the following from the PMO Manager, "I hope this project does not require too many resources. We simply don't have any ... People are too busy working on other tasks. Just be creative and deliver this!"

On March 11 2010, the new Tokyo-Ibaraki Airport (IBR) opened. The first flight to arrive was an Asiana Airlines‘ Airbus A321 from Incheon International Airport in South Korea. This was the first and the last flight for that day.

Let us examine this case study from the very “beginning”.  The airfield was first developed in 1937, under the orders of Emperor Hirohito. and for the next several decades served as a Japanese Air Force base. Several years after the start of the 21^st century the local government decided to convert the military installation into a civil airport.

According to different sources the cost of the construction project was somewhere between $220 and $230 million.  Also, according to multiple publications, the project was completed on time and on budget with all the requested features delivered. Therefore one could come to a conclusion that from a project management point of view this project was a complete success.

However, at the time of the project inception both of the two major Japanese airlines – All Nippon Airways and Japanese Airlines – notified the local government that they did not intend to use the airport after its completion. These airlines’  decision implied that 90% of the air traffic in Japan would be absent from the airport.

Another issue that was known right from the beginning of the venture is the problematic location of the airport. It was located 96 miles (155km) from the Shinjuku district of Tokyo.  Another problem at the time the airport opened was there were no plans to offer any type of public transportation from or to the airport. It was estimated that the passengers trying to get to the center of Tokyo would have to spend more than three and a half hours to reach their intended destination.

Furthermore, the facilities at Ibaraki Airport were minimal. While the provincial government marketed the airport as a low cost airline hub, the facilities at the airport were totally insufficient to meet the needed requirements.

In these two-part video series Jamal will talk about how to prioritize the projects in your portfolio. Topics include:

• Straightforward simple method without strategic alignment
• A more complicated methodology that includes strategic alignment

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.

In the this two-part video series Jamal will talk about the definition and the potential impacts of optimism bias as well as three theories attempting to explain this phenomenon: Topics include:

• Definition and potential impacts of the optimism bias phenomenon
• The Standard Economic Theory, the "Mass Delusion" Theory and the "Machiavelli Factor" Theory

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

Introduction

Recently the Canadian media reported that the government of British Columbia has launched a "thoughtful reset" (whatever the heck that means) of its Information Technology projects due to major delays, cost overruns and failure to deliver the scope promised.

According to the Vancouver Sun newspaper:

• Of eight high-profile IT projects recently undertaken by government — with a total price tag of $2.5 billion — several have faced serious difficulties and collectively they’ve overshot their budgets by a combined $350 million and counting.
• The two large-scale health projects that have faltered are a national infectious disease system that has cost B.C. 420 per cent of the budgeted amount, and a massive computer transformation project in Vancouver Coastal Health that’s beset by firings and delays while still in the design phase.
• Panorama, the error-prone infectious disease outbreak software, was budgeted at $27 million in B.C., but cost $113 million. To add insult to injury it was riddled with more than 11,000 defects and errors.

As a result of that, the Deputy Health Minister Stephen Brown, Health Minister Terry Lake, Liberal MLA Ralph Sultan, and an NDP critic Adrian Dix (please, please tag them in this post if you are connected with them!) had asked a whole bunch of very interesting and thoughtful questions (see below) that I intend to answer in my today's article:

Questions and "Oh, So Inconvenient" Answers

Question# 1:

How to get realistic about budgets, timelines and expectations? How do you make sure the aspirations at the beginning are grounded enough you’ve got some assurance you are going to deliver?

Answer #1:

Here are some of the usual suspects you may want to look at:

In this video Jamal will talk about the definition of the project success. What constitutes a successful project? Does it have to be on-time? On-budget? Deliver the full scope? Provide business value? 

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.

In the this video Jamal will talk about the importance of including your company resources in project portfolio management calculations. 

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.

In these three-part video series Jamal will talk about how project portfolio management helps in assessment of multiple project proposals, how to nurture project-friendly environment and about the “Gut Feel” projects and “joker” concept. Topics include:

• How to assess, evaluate and rank the new ideas before they become projects
• How to create a nurturing culture for new products and services?
• What to do about the "Gut Feel" projects? The "Joker Project" concept explained.

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

In this three-part video series Jamal will explain how to develop a project scoring matrix for your organization, including the variable selection process, the "Halo Effect" and imposing measurability on the matrix parameters. Topics include:

• What are the rules for developing a project scoring matrix?
• What is the "Halo Effect" and how to avoid it?
• How to make the parameters measurable?

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