Atlantic Canada's Small Business Blog

I just passed the PMP® exam last week - and as with any project closure one needs to file away lessons learned. But first some comments on project management and the PMP® certification exam. Having gone through the exam, I now more firmly believe that project management is common sense.Read the PMBOK again. It takes a few readings for the PMBOK contents to sink in. I did not read it three times- though I would have liked to review it at least twice. I managed to go over it just once.

Now that you have your business objectives that are measurable as defined by your strategy you need to look at the initiatives (programs) you need to undertake. Simply put, a program is a series of related or unrelated projects that further a certain goal. Just to drive home the point, the program is a portfolio of projects designed to achieve your organizational goal (strategy). Having a good program management also ensures your resources are prioritized and aligned.

The decision to undertake a project must be taken only after:
1. You are clear about the project objectives; the objectives must further the strategic objectives of the business.
2. You develop a business case for undertaking the project; i.e. the benefits must outweigh the costs
3. You are clear on the project deliverables, and
4. You have stakeholder buy-in

There seems to be an aura around “project management” and “project managers” - at least in Atlantic Canada. Some people tend to think of project management as an exotic discipline. They think they need to slave away and chip at its various layers for a long period of time before they can be considered a project manager. Well, it does not help that one of the requirements for a PMP is a minimum three year (4,500 hours) experience to take the exam.

Times have changed. We no longer live in an isolated world. Our competition is not only the guy down the street. The competition is in China, in India, in Europe … all over the globe. For all the new theory, new management principles, there is only one fundamental way to survive in the business world:

Business analyst writes requirement in detail. Architect and Developer review requirements. Many clarifications later, Developer codes module. Module goes to QA. QA find three bugs and the module sent back to developer. Developer fixes bugs and resends Module back to QA. (Developer coding time lost) QA finds the earlier bugs fixed - but now finds the fix introduced five new bugs. Fast forward three months into development cycle and the bug tracking system is crawling with bugs. Quality - whose responsibility is it anyway?

I can’t help but be amused at project job descriptions that begin with: “Our client is in need of Business Analyst/Project Manager”
One person for two roles? They must need a Superman! Does your project manager analyze businesses or vice versa? If you have answered yes to either scenario, then you may need to rethink your project staffing. Your project may be in jeopardy!

Where you have a team of Business Analysts working on a project, all the links on the requirements chain must be strong. Any weak link will cause the project to fail. This means all the business analysts in the entire chain must be competent and on the same boat, working towards the same objective.

The road to business analysis can take a number of forms. The most common (and I suspect the often) road traveled is the IT path. You start your career as a developer and code, code and code. You work your way on from there. The other path traveled is the Business route and that’s the path I took. This path requires you to analyze the organization: its environment - both internal and external, processes, trends, industry best practices, formulate and implement strategies.

If you have been a part of a project you know the detailed planning that goes into it. Right from business analysis to scoping to resource allocation and testing and deployment - you are aware of the work that goes into making a project successful. So if you can do that for a project, why would you not do that for your small business?