Cagle R.B. - Blueprint for Project Recovery[c] A Project Management Guide (2003)(en)

Within each of these reviews there must be monitoring points or metrics that indicate that an event is in tolerance or out-of-tolerance.

If schedule is critical, the Purchase Order should include an incentive or liquidated damages clause that is invoked in the event the delivery time is not kept.

6d Vendors are performing properly.

Vendors are performing properly when all monitored events are being performed on schedule, within budget, and in a technically competent way. The method you use in determining this status is to conduct regular and frequent reviews at strategic points in the process to ensure that performance is proper. Such monitored events typically are:

It should be apparent whether or not each person is competent to perform the tasks to which he or she is assigned. It is not usual to have job descriptions for project positions, so the personnel must learn what is expected of them in other ways. The best way is through team training, where each individual is apprised of the expectations of his position and the input the individual needs from others.

Knowing what is expected is one thing. Competency is quite another. The best way to establish competency is to interview each person before assigning individuals to the project. In a small company, you can usually rely on reputation and personal contact. In a large company, you may need to interview the individuals and read their background re´sume´s. When the project is running, you judge competency by your observation, by MBWA (Management By Walking Around), and by asking questions of other team members.

Competency (a long-term characteristic) is not the same as reaction (a shortterm characteristic). In other words, don’t characterize a person based on a

single sample of work or on his or her response on one day (the person may be having a bad day). Conversely, don’t expect the ‘‘leopard to change its spots’’ based on a single day of responses.

Refer to Cause Description 7a (NO) for recovery.

7b Each person is available when needed.

If each person is available when needed, it will be self-evident. As project manager you will constantly be scanning the personnel and you can tell if anyone is missing. Watch the wording here carefully. As project manager, you must control the personnel. If you operate in a matrix organization, you must have an understanding with the functional manager that, once assigned, the personnel report to you. You must be a party to any planned absences.

No matter if you operate in a matrix or a projectized organization, you must keep up with your people and what they are doing from day to day.

7c Salaries/wages are equal to or less than those bid.

It should be clear by simply looking at the details supporting your budget that the individual salaries are equal to or less than those that were bid. You must use your judgment in this case. Use the bottom line of the budget as the guide—it is easier to achieve the bottom line than to achieve each and every line item. It may be to your benefit to have an individual of higher pay in a certain position and several of lower pay in other positions. You must make that judgment.

Take care if your program is longer than a few months and you use the matrix form of management. You may find that salaries fit the bid profile at the start of the program but some of your people get raises during the conduct of the program. People should be rewarded for good work and should have raises when they are due. Just make sure those raises are built into your budget.

7d Interpersonal conflicts do not exist.

Interpersonal conflicts do not exist when there is mutual respect between the members of the team.

If you have no interpersonal conflicts at all, one of two things is happening: You are the luckiest project manager alive, or you are not very close to the people part of your project. Even if you answered YES to this assertion, it might

be a good idea to look at the Recovery association in Chapter 4, Cause Description 7d (NO) just to give the question a little more depth.

8 TRAINING

8a All personnel have been adequately trained.

All personnel have been adequately trained when they know their basic jobs thoroughly, when they know the mission of the team, when they know the product(s) to be produced, and when they know what part they play on the team and in developing the product(s).

It is advantageous to the project and the team and frequently to the individual that they be cross-trained. If it is not in your plan, it should be—unless it is against union rules or against some other rule over which you have no control.

8b The training program is economical.

The training program is economical when the dollar cost of the training program is equal to or less than the value derived from the training program. Further, in order to be economical, the value imparted to the individuals attending the training class must be worth the time employed in attending the program, for every person in attendance.

9 DATA MANAGEMENT

9a The proper amount of data is being delivered on time.

The proper amount of data is being delivered on time when the data deliveries match the data required in the Data Plan, and the Data Plan matches the requirements. Some documents are delivered once (i.e., System Test Results), and some require multiple deliveries (i.e., Monthly Status Reports).

Each line item of deliverable documentation in the requirement should contain a delivery date or schedule of dates, a format, a content requirement, and the name of the person responsible for generating the data. If it does not, you should create these requirements. All requirements are then included in the Data Plan.

Your deliveries may be formalized as they are in a government contract. In this case, you will have a Contract Data Requirements List (CDRL) that spells

Design Reviews or milestone reviews signed by customer

All In-Process Documentation completed

All Deliverable Documentation delivered

All In-Process Tests accepted by the customer

The final System Test accepted by the customer

Product shipped to the point of delivery and in deliverable condition

11b Third-party or drop shipping is not involved.

Third-party or drop shipping is not involved whenever the product is shipped directly from your facilities to the customer’s facilities.

If drop shipping is involved, you must have absolute control over shipping and receiving of the product. See 11b (NO).

Notes

1.Usually not for an FFP contract.

2.Unless the product is a commercially available commodity (i.e., a catalog item).

Starting at 51a, read each assertion in the table. If you can answer YES to the assertion, check it off and proceed to the next one. If you need an explanation of the assertion, go to the page number listed under the ‘‘Explain’’ column for that assertion.

3.3Technical Explanations

Each assertion listed in the Technical Performance Checklist is supported by a Cause Description. In the case of the performance checklist, the support is to broaden and deepen the understanding of the assertion. Following are explanations of the assertions found in the Technical Performance Checklist.

51 ARCHITECTURE

51a All Critical Success Factors (CSFs) such as Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF), etc., have been documented and understood.

All Critical Success Factors (CSFs) such as MTTR, MTBF, etc., must have been documented and fully understood as the same by both parties. When those CSFs are incorporated into the design, a clear trail must exist from each CSF to its incorporation into the design.

51b All modules/subsystems are well defined.

All modules/subsystems are well defined whenever all parameters that go into making up the module or subsystem are understood. While this statement can be somewhat subjective, it must be answered in objective terms. If there are parameters that are not understood, they must be defined. Look carefully at the old saw: ‘‘We know what we know and we know what we don’t know, but our problems are evidenced when issues arise that we don’t know we don’t know.’’ There is another old saw that states: ‘‘You certainly have a keen grasp of the obvious.’’ The point is that all issues and considerations must be ‘‘thought through’’ in order to discover possibilities that are not mentioned. Whenever one of these possibilities is uncovered, it should be investigated and documented.