Every (Failed) Project Has ‘Success' Story To Tell

#SridharPeddisetty #LessonsLearned #Management #Project #BestPractices #Agile #ProjectManagement 

A 24 year old boy seeing out from the train’s window shouted…
“Dad, look the trees are going behind!”
Dad smiled and a young couple sitting nearby, looked at the 24 year old’s childish behavior with pity,
suddenly he again exclaimed…
“Dad, look the clouds are running with us!”
The couple couldn’t resist and said to the old man…
“Why don’t you take your son to a good doctor?”
The old man smiled and said…
“I did and we are just coming from the hospital, my son was blind from birth, he just got his eyes today.

We should not judge too soon before knowing all facts as at times the truth might surprise you. Every single person on the planet is unique and has a story to share. Similarly, every project is unique and has a ‘success’ story to tell even if it failed to meet its objectives in the eyes of stakeholders. By definition, project is a temporary unique endeavor having start-end timelines with a defined scope & resources with planned set of interrelated tasks executed to accomplish goal(s). 

There are many means to measure the success and failure of a project but there is no strict line dividing between the two. For instance, a ‘successful' project could have exceeded the planned budget or went over scheduled delivery date or could even not have provided all the planned functionalities upon completion. Whereas a ‘failed’ project could have a release with all planned features but missed the critical market launch or could not align with the direction of new leadership team. Brian K Willard in his Project Success and Failures article has shared examples, which strengthens the point that success or failure of a project are subjective. 

In my earlier post, Why Sharing Lessons Learned Is Key For Matured PMO, I discussed why sharing 'lessons learned' across teams is one of the key aspects of a matured PMO in an Organization. A well organized exercise to document 'Lessons learned’ would include identifying the ‘success’ factors of a project and understand how to repurpose it for future or existing projects. Success factors that could be salvaged from a ‘failed’ project could be

• An improvement to internal process(s) 
• An improvement in technical skill(s) of the resource(s) 
• An improvement to service(s) for the end customer 
• An improvement to save cost in utilizing key resource(s)

The exploitation of knowledge and experience gained from completed projects is very critical for a matured organization and application of the same for continuous improvements.  

Summary

To summarize, do not judge a ‘failed' project too soon without getting specific facts for learning lessons. It's important to identify and share the ‘success’ value of a project even if it failed to meet its main strategic goals.

Remember not to throw the baby out with the bathwater!

Previous posts you might be interested in:

• Why Sharing Lessons Learned Is Key For Matured PMO
• Top 20 Tips for Project Managers
• Are You Providing 'Right' Status To Stakeholders?

Why Sharing Lessons Learned Is Key For Matured PMO

#SridharPeddisetty #Agile #PMO #LessonsLearned #AgilePMO #ProjectManagementOffice #Project #PMI #BestPractices 

A farmer grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.
“How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.
“Why sir,” said the farmer, “didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

Farmer is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves. So it is with our lives. Those who choose to succeed must help others to succeed. Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all. If we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn. Call it mutualism. Call it a principle of success. Call it a law of life. The fact is, none of us truly win until we all win.

Albert Einstein famously said, "The only source of knowledge is experience" and what better way to gain wisdom from the lessons that we learn while executing projects, programs, portfolios or managing operations. Sharing 'lessons learned' across teams is one of the key aspects of a matured PMO in an Organization. Many of us have not personally experienced the pain of slipping, by stepping on a banana peel, but have learned those lessons through someone elses experiences. 

This is applicable for a matured Organization to have a functional PMO and create an environment of sharing lessons learned across projects, programs or portfolios. Note that 'lessons learned' is not only for documenting failures but also the success stories. The more knowledge shared, the more we gain and lessons learned from successes or failures helps an Organization to leverage on the successes and not repeat failures. For a matured PMO, its an important aspect to share 'lessons learned' on what went well and what did not go well so that an Organization does not repeat past mistakes while following patterns that are proved successful in the past. One template of documenting 'lessons learned' include

• Document the pre-condition(s) and condition(s) in which the negative (issue) or positive event (best practice) occurred 
• Describe how the issue arose and define the problem or positive event encountered, and
• Provide concrete, practical solutions or recommendations based on this experience.

and can be then tagged under 'Lessons Learned Knowledge Base’, which could be managed by PMO. 

"Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.” -Brian Tracy

Why Sharing Lessons Learned Is Key For Matured PMO was originally posted under Prokarma Blog on Oct 5th 2015

Lessons Inspired By Chanakya

Lessons Inspired By Chanakya was originally published as an article in LinkedIn

It amazes me how much culturally rich India is and how much we can learn from our glorious history. Chanakya was a renowned Indian scholar, who served as a teacher, philosopher and royal advisor. Other day I was fortunate enough to watch a youtube video of TV serial Chanakya, which used to be telecast on national television in India during early 1990's. In this episode, there is an interesting Q&A session which takes place in the court of king DhanaNanda (last ruler of Nanda dynasty) involving his court priest and Chanakya's student from Takshashila University. Q&A session goes like this

Court Priest: Who is greatest enemy
Chanakya's student: Pride

Court Priest: What is wealth of the poor 
Chanakya's student: Knowledge

Court Priest: Who is a honorable man
Chanakya's student: One who is benevolent

Court Priest: A woman's virtue
Chanakya's student: Her modesty

Court Priest: Who is the most heroic man 
Chanakya's student: A generous person

Court Priest: Against whom we should protect wealth
Chanakya's student: From thieves and state officials

Court Priest: What is the root of happiness
Chanakya's student: Religion

Court Priest: What is the basis of religion 
Chanakya's student: Economy

Court Priest: What is the basis of economy
Chanakya's student: State

Court Priest: What is the basis of state
Chanakya's student: Conquering the senses

Court Priest: What is the basis of conquering the senses 
Chanakya's student: Humility

Court Priest: What is the basis of humility
Chanakya's student: Serving the weak

Court Priest: Where does the King's welfare lie
Chanakya's student: In the welfare of his subjects

Listening to this Q&A session, it makes me feel that answers given by the student are so righteous and relevant even today. So what lessons did I learn from this

#1. Always be humble in life. John Wooden quoted "Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."

#2. Be respectful to one and all. One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what others have to say.

#3. Your team's success is your success and their failure is your responsibility. 

#4. Somebody can steal your money but nobody can steal your knowledge. So share your knowledge as the more you share, the more you gain. 

#5. Integrity is the most important quality. Samuel Johnson quoted "Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."

#6. Happiness is in thoughts and not in things. Charles Spurgeon quoted "It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness." 

#7. Serve others. John Holmes quoted “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.”

What are your thoughts? Please share your comments.

My Lessons Learned for (PfMP)® Exam

This post is for sharing my lessons learned while successfully obtaining Project Management Institute (PMI)’s most recent and coveted Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP)® credential.

Journey To Obtain PfMP® Credential 

#1. Submitted PfMP® application on 06/16 and got a mail next day from PMI stating that my (PfMP)® application has been accepted and asked me to proceed to make the payment

---Will be sharing tips on filling PfMP application in a later post---

                                 

#2. Made the payment same day and immediately was notified that my application was selected for auditing

   

                                     

 #3. Got the audit package endorsed by one of my portfolio sponsor & supervisor (COO) and Fedex'ed it to PMI on 06/19. Package reached PMI on 06/24 and same day got the mail stating that i have cleared the audit process and moved to first evaluation, the Panel review

                               

#4. In the handbook it is stated that Panel review takes 10 working days and I was getting impatient as the days passed because it actually took more than 10 working days when finally got the mail on 07/11 stating that I have passed the first Panel review evaluation

                               

#5. Referred my PfMP notes, below reference materials and sample exam references and scheduled for taking the exam on 07/16 (exactly one month after applying), obtaining PfMP® credential. 

                               

Exam Tips
#1. Exam is 4 1/2 hours long so make sure you are mentally preparing yourself to sit for that long and devoting with full concentration. Even though this seems very obvious but professionals who have been managing portfolios would have empathy that in our professional daily life, which is packed with meetings, presentations, submitting/reviewing proposals, training & mentoring resources, one seldom gets an opportunity to sit in front of system for that long and not to mention answering bunch (read 170) of questions while concentrating on which answer(s) to eliminate as more often than not, more than one answer can be applicable. 

#2. One can answer some questions based on their practical Portfolio experience but since not all Portfolios are managed ideally the way it is described in the The Standard for Portfolio Management, its important to think from what is described in the The Standard for Portfolio Management while answering the questions in the exam  

#3. Its important to understand all process groups, knowledge areas, processes & their respective ITTOs (Input, Tools & Techniques and Outputs). Expect some direct questions and some indirect questions on ITTOs. 
---Will be sharing my Study Aid on ITTOs in a separate post---

#4. Expect few questions that are related to analyzing which Portfolio component to select or not to select (NPV, IRR, Weighted Ranking & Scoring, etc.) 

#5. Personally I did not get many questions from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) or The Standard for Program Management but understand from other's experiences that folks did see questions referred from the two standards. 

#6. As stated in #1 there are few questions for which more than one answer could be applicable so key is to eliminate the least applicable (or select the most applicable). In my case, answering first few questions made me feel uncomfortable as I was not 100% sure of which is most applicable answer so 'marked' the questions. After marking initial questions, I got into the mode and was able to answer subsequent questions with more ease. Having said that, I did continue marking questions and would have marked ~35% (~60) of my questions.  

#7. Personally I always recommend taking a break to rejuvenate, so after finishing answering 170 questions while marking ~60 of them, I took a break. It took me little less than 2 hours to finish answering 170 questions so i could afford a break. After the break, I went through all 'marked' questions and now could think more clearly. It helped me to change answers to almost ~10 questions and feeling more confident on the answers. This time I took more time to go over 'marked' questions and finally finished my exam in 3 hours time. 

#8. To keep things simple for me, I always rely on notes and tend to joggle down points so that I do not need to strain myself while trying to remember. So in the first 10 minutes, while tutorial was running, used scribbling pad provided to me in prometric center to joggle down all ITTOs mapped with processes & respective KA's

#9.  Its important to understand the difference between Strategic Plan, Portfolio Charter, Portfolio Roadmap, Portfolio Management Plan, Portfolio and Portfolio Process Assets. In practical we do use in our Portfolios all of them in some form but sometimes there are overlaps, so its important to understand how The Standard for Portfolio Management clearly segregates their respective inputs, contents and timing of updates. 

#10. My personal experience about PfMP® exam was that I found it easier than any of my previous exam. This was maybe because I now have a sense of understanding of what PMI recommends in terms of standards and how the layout of questions would be. 

Reference Materials
1. Pfmp® Handbook
2. The Standard for Portfolio Management, Third Edition
3. The Standard for Program Management, Third Edition
4. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Fifth Edition
5. PfMP Examination Content Outline
6. PfMP® Exam Practice Tests and Study Guide 
7. Managing Change In Organizations
8. Business Driven Project Portfolio Management: Conquering the Top 10 Risks
9. Mastering Project Portfolio Management
10. Managing Change in Organizations (PMI Article)
11. Portfolio Risk Management (PMI Article)
12. Agile Processes A Unifying Approach for the Future of Projects (PMI Article)
13. Do's and Don'ts for Portfolio Managers (PMI Article)
14. The Power of Portfolio Management (PMI Article) 
15. Strategic Portfolio Management Governance Financial Discipline
16. Unified Portfolio Management Model Paper
17. Use PfM to maximize IT spending
18. PfM keeps IT aligned with business strategy
19. Portfolio Kanban
20. Priority Systems Glossary 
21. Efficient Frontier 
22. Using project portfolio management to improve business value (IBM Article)
23. Project Selection and Portfolio Management
24. Enterprise Risk Management
25. Project Portfolio Risk Management 

Sample Exam References 
1. PfMP® Exam Practice Tests and Study Guide
2. http://www.pmoadvisory.com/live/pfmp_training/
3. http://www.cheat-test.com/Samples/PfMP-Exam.html