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Project Management Assessment
Overview
Goals
The goals of the assessment are to:
00Provide a self assessment of your company skills in nine areas of project
management (e.g. Risk Management, Scope Management, Cost Management,
etc.)
00Within each of these nine areas, focus on 3 to 6 sub areas (e.g. Risk Identification,
Risk Quantification, Risk Response etc.)
00Develop a benchmark as to where you stand today so that activities to improve your
skills can be measured
00Provide guidance as to what areas need to be addressed as a priority to lift your
overall performance by quantifying each sub areas
00Complete the assessment quickly and at little cost and disruption to the organisation
Their Approach
Many consulting organisations will bring in a team of consultants to interview project
managers, and produce voluminous reports. Recommendations tend to lead to further
consulting work. Results are usually qualitative and you have no idea after another 12
months of investment if you have made progress in fixing the problem. You rarely see
where the quick wins are. The report is usually filled with anecdotal trivia that hides the
real problems.
On another level, a project manger being interviewed by a consultant is hardly likely to
confess the mistakes he or she made in their last project. They will talk about what they
would do next time rather than what the organisation typically does. Other project
managers may yet to learn the same lessons.
In the end, you will probably receive a nicely bound document that will take up lots of
meeting time to discuss, before gradually being forgotten.
Our Approach
We take a different approach. We understand you have limited resources. You want to
focus on where you can put those limited resources to get the best results. Where are
the"low hanging fruit?"
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We believe you need a painless review process that quickly identifies where you need to
focus your efforts. We know you are quite capable to sit down and create a list of 100
things that could be done to improve project management in your organisation. Your
issue is that you can only do 10 of the 100 activities. Which 10 should you choose?
Any process should be fast, cheap, and disrupt your life as little as possible. You don't
need the solutions detailed. You need the problems identified. If you have a significant
problem with how you carry out risk assessments, there is all manner of information and
people available to fix the problem. You just need to know that risk assessment is to be
one of your targets for improvement in the next 12 months.
The Process
Our process is as follows.
00You provide us with a list of people who have participated in a significant way in a
project in the last 6 to 12 months. This could include project managers, business
staff and technical staff.
00We email them a survey form which has around 150 questions. The respondents
rate the questions 1 to 6. Typically we find the survey takes 20 to 30 minutes to
complete. A key component of the survey approach is that we assure everyone
the responses will remain anonymous to the company. We compile results and do
not pass the individual responses back to the company.
00The respondents email the survey back to us.
00We usually give them around 10 days to complete the survey. After that we ask
you to chase non-respondents and will wait another 7 days before compiling the
information.
00The information is compiled and we provide a report back to you with the ratings
for each area.
The Survey Categories
We have aligned with the Project Management Institute (PMI) nine areas of project
management:
00Scope Management
00Time Management
00Cost Management
00Human Resource Management
00Risk Management
00Communication Management
00Procurement Management
00Quality Management
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00Integration Management
We provide a rating for each area as well as sub areas within each category. For example
for Risk Management, we provide rating for:
00Risk Planning
00Risk Identification
00Qualitative Risk Analysis
00Quantitative Risk Analysis
00Risk Response Development
00Risk Response Control
The Rationale behind the Questions
Sampling Technique
The thinking behind the questions started from our experience carrying out interview type
assessments in a number of organisations. What became evident was that generally
speaking, if in a particular sub area, certain activities were well performed, most activities
were well performed in that area. The converse was also true. If some activities were
performed poorly, most activities in that area were performed poorly.
For example, in Risk Planning if a plan is produced as to how risks will be managed, and
all stakeholders are involved in the plan, and assessments are completed over the life of
the project, we can generally say that risk planning is well managed. Further questioning
is unlikely to come up with major problems. In other words, three questions will give an
indicative rating that is unlikely to change if we were to ask another 10 or 20 questions.
Whilst improvements may be possible, they are not likely to deliver substantial
improvements. Improvements are likely to be of an incremental nature. A weaker
performing area will yield better results for the same effort.
On the other hand, if the rating is low, there are probably all sorts of risk planning
activities that are also neglected. The response to a poor performance in this area might
include:
00Development of a process for risk planning
00Development of templates for risk planning
00Training in risk planning
00Establishment of a risk planning expert who could be assigned to projects to assist
with risk planning
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The questions in this area on the survey form are:
Risk
Management
Risk Planning
A plan is produced identifying how risks will be
managed
All Stakeholders are involved in the plan
Risk assessment are repeated over the life of the
project
Ratings are between 1 for "Does not happen" to 6 for "Always happens"
Independent
A second aspect of the survey approach is that we are an independent organisation and
people are more likely to be honest with us - particularly as we stress the results are
anonymous. It is unlikely that an internal survey would yield such frank responses.
Broad Audience
We not only talk to project managers. We also include people who had a significant
involvement in projects. In this way we not only see it from a project manager's
perspective, but also from a participant's perspective. For example, the project manger
may think they included all stakeholders in the risk planning above, but other people in
the team may feel that some key stakeholders were not involved.
We do however provide the facility to leave a question blank, or rate a zero if the person
does not believe they can sensibly answer a particular question.
Weighting
When we prepared the questions, we worked with a market research organisation to
ensure the questions fulfilled professional market research standards for construction.
We also worked through a panel of highly experienced project managers to weight each
question. Each question was weighted as to the importance of the question in relation to
the sub area. The sub area is weighted as to how important it is to the complete area.
Survey Results
The results of the survey are provided as numbers and graphical representation in an
Excel format. They can be cut and pasted into Word or PowerPoint. An example is
included at the end of this document. The particular organisation surveyed did not
perform well in this area.
We also provide the average responses for each question.
Risk Planning
40.0%
A formal risk identification exercise is carried out
36.7%
Risks are documented
41.2%
There is a mechanism to formally log issues
38.9%
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Confidentially
The report is only delivered to the person who commissions the report. Copies are not
made available to anyone else in the organisation. If, for example, a CIO would like to
do a confidential health check on his project management capability, this is an extremely
efficient tool. In a few weeks we can deliver a quantitative assessment of your abilities in
the area of project management.
Supplementary Report
If required we can also provide a supplementary report that goes beyond the statistical
findings. This can identify areas in which work may need to be undertaken. For example
in the example above, it is clear that only a third of projects carry out a formal risk
identification exercise. We would obviously recommend that a process is put in place to
carry out a risk identification process.
In order to save you money, we would not recommend we produce such a report until
after you have reviewed the statistical results. Most of the solutions are self evident.
Timing
Typical timing to undertake such a study is set out below.
Provide a list of participants and email addresses
1 week
Send out emails (typically we ask the company to send out an email
announcing the survey a day before we send out the survey)
3 days
Receive responses
10 days
Chase non respondents
1 week
Prepare statistics and deliver to the Company
1 week
TOTAL TIME
5 weeks
Cost
The cost is dependant on the number of participants. Indicative costs are in the range of
A$7,500 to A$12,000 (US5,800 to US$9,500 at May 2005 exchange rates). If a report is
required, there would be an additional charge. Quotes can be provided for individual
organisations.
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Testimonial
Perhaps the final comment should go to one of our clients:
Highly responsive, customer focused company that fulfilled our needs in a timely and
very professional manner. The survey, analysis, and report were delivered as expected
and provided us with insights into where our organization can benefit from additional
project management training. I highly recommend them!
John A. Thich, Ph.D.
Vice President and Global Business Director-Driveline Manager-Business Services
RohMax USA Inc.
Further Information
For further information visit our web site at:
www.projectperfect.com.au
Or email us at
sales@projectperfect.com.au
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Risk Management
Score
Project Risk Management includes the processes
concerned with identifying, analysing, and
responding to project risk. It includes maximizing
the results of positive envents, and minimizing the
consequences of adverse events.
Perceived Importance
62%
Total Risk Management Rating
39%
Risk Management Planning. Deciding
how to approach and plan the project's
risk management activities.
40%
Risk Identification. Determining which
risks are likely to affect the project and
documenting the characteristics of each.
39%
Qualitative Risk Analysis. Analyzing
conditions and risks qualitatively to
determine and prioritize their impact on
project objectives.
43%
Quantitative Risk Analysis.
Determining the probability and
consequences of risks and estimating
their impact on objectives.
34%
Risk Response Planning. Determining
how to enhance opportunities and
minimize threats to objectives.
36%
Risk Monitoring & Control. Executing
risk response plans, monitoring risks,
identifying new risks and evaluating the
effectiveness of responses.
41%
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