Contingent Project Management - A Definition

In the context of IT systems, project management quota ("CPM") is the ability to select an appropriate methodology to be applied and successfully deliver a project, developed the method with the progress of the project. 'Contingent leadership style' is similar. Wikipedia (Fiedler), provides an explanation of contingent leadership.

Yes, a project manager's leadership style can have a quota, but may not have a contingent project management approach.

We see a series of processes of project management framework:

Waterfall (collect requirements, design, implementation, test, deliver, train) - the 'traditional' way of building systems. This worked well for systems where the rate of business and technological innovations has been poor, having grown up in engineering and construction. It still works well in a construction (civil engineering) context, where typically, the rate of technological change is low. Requirements of a building can change during construction, but the scope creep rate is still low compared to many IT projects. Under the right circumstances, but may work well with IT projects.

Agile methods (collecting and priorities of requirements, design a test, a prototype, deliver, re-cycle - design, build, test, deliver, train and go to live). On the scale of low risk / low complexity to high risk / high complexity of some of the methods would be: XP, Scrum, DSDM ®, RUP ®. Note that the risk and the complexity is not always equivalent - some systems low complexity can have a profound organizational risk associated with them.

Prince ® can be used in one of these contexts for the governance of the project on a larger scale organizational, or locally on a smaller scale. In fact, the advent of the Prince2 methodology moved into a larger non-IT specific context.

Agile methodologies are more appropriate, such as where the requirements are clear from the outset, and / or technology is new or being stretched, and / or a new business model is adopted (to name just a few reasons) . The range of agile methods also refer to the size scale of the project team.

Sophisticated organizations may have their own methodology of 'pet', perhaps after having invested a lot of (financial, managerial and political) to develop their way of doing things, 'brand' of the methodology. After all these investments, they will want to 'sweat the asset'. Projects must fit in the bodice that impose - this can cause strangulation extreme, building a high probability of failure in a project, even before it started.

After all, the Prince ® was developed in the UK public sector (and the British government still has huge problems that provide projects). At the upper end of projects, the prince is often seen as bureaucratic excessivley, but should not be so. CPM must ensure that the processes are selected for a project and they are applied judiciously so that the project is not strangled by bureaucracy and administration.

This stifling of projects by the heavy methods was observed by the author in an investment bank. The project is running a large number of small projects were not able to meet the needs of centralized reporting project imposed on them, resulting in frustration of managers, the program office in frustration, and frustration in and with the 'police methods' . The recommended solution has been to

- Giving priority to projects based on risk (measured on different dimensions), Report on the status of the project based on an 'exceptions', and tune the frequency of reporting to project risk.

This leveling of the workload of project managers, and the need for centralized risk control and comfort.

So, what project management quota?

It 's clear that a significant degree of experience is necessary to be able to select the appropriate method for a project, program, and the card is not always best placed to decide, for reasons mentioned above - and the political capital investments such as .

A project manager must

- The wisdom and experience to select the correct tool for the job based on his perception of the risk profile, the ability to persuade the card program or sponsor of the relevance of the methodology and basis for selection, has worked with a number of experiment with methodologies that allow the application touch 'heavy' or 'light' of a methodology, an innate sense of the risks and their relative importance, which means that attention is developed and maintained on the things that count, and finally, the dynamically adjust the methodology for the case, without loss of control (finances, time and quality), as 'things that matter' change

Dynamic regulation is to apply the instrument of judgment - some projects may require very high levels of stakeholder communication, others will have to be very focused on technology / performance, and proof of concept, others may have problems of political governance, business models or new immature, and so on. Some projects, of course, all these risks will be present and beyond. This list and the balance of risks will significantly change during the life cycle of the project. In addition to the revision of the risk involved, CPM requires ongoing review process and change.

How is it possible that more than 30% of projects fail? And 'because projects in the absence of continuing along the same old, with no project management quota for distribution and management does not respond adequately to changes in risk.

Project Management quota is very straightfoward in principle: adapt and survive - that is, Darwinism. For a successful implementation requires a great experience and flexibility .......