Project Planning and Project Success: The 25% Solution

228 Pages·2014·18.059 MB·English

by  Pedro Serrador

Project Planning
and Project Success
The 25% Solution
Best Practices and Advances
in Program Management Series
Series Editor
Ginger Levin
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Project Planning
and Project Success
The 25% Solution
Pedro Serrador, PhD
CRC Press
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Contents
Introduction ...........................................................................................ix
Chapter 1 Spectacular Project Failures ..............................................1
Mars Climate Orbiter ..................................................................1
FoxMeyer Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Program ........2
Canada’s Long-Gun Registration System ................................3
Homeland Security’s Virtual Fence ..........................................3
Proper Planning ...........................................................................4
Chapter 2 Academic History of Planning ..........................................5
The Study of Project Planning ...................................................5
History of the Study of Planning in General Management .......6
Project Planning in Academic Literature ................................7
Modern Views on Planning .......................................................8
Analysis .........................................................................................9
Project Planning Practice .........................................................10
Chapter 3 Reasons Not to Plan .........................................................13
Value in Planning? ....................................................................13
Errors in Planning .....................................................................14
Planning and Business Success................................................15
Planning and Avoiding Failure ...............................................15

Planning and Delays .................................................................19
Chapter 4 Project Success and Planning: What Are They? ............21
The Triple Constraint ................................................................21
Project Time Frames .................................................................22
Broader Success..........................................................................23
Efficiency and Success ...............................................................24
Chapter 5 Efficiency versus Success .................................................27
Project Efficiency versus Project Success ..............................30
Practical Applications ...............................................................32
v
vi • Contents
Chapter 6 Planning Variation by Industry ......................................33
Approaches in Different Industries ........................................35
Chapter 7 Geography and Industry and Success .............................37
New Research .............................................................................37
Industry ......................................................................................37
Geography ..................................................................................39
Chapter 8 Planning in the Construction Industry ..........................43
Research in Construction ........................................................43
PDRI ............................................................................................45
Chapter 9 Planning in Information Technology .............................49
Research in IT ............................................................................49
Critical Success Factors ............................................................51
Empirical IT Research ..............................................................52
How Much to Plan .....................................................................53
Chapter 10 Practical Planning Impacts on Success: A Software
Development Case Study .................................................55
Estimating Faults ......................................................................56
Replanning Mishaps .................................................................57
Solutions .....................................................................................57
Estimate Right the First Time! ............................................57

Tracking Changes .................................................................59
Chapter 11 Planning and Success in General Project Management .....61
Impact of Planning from a Conceptual Standpoint .............61
Critical Success Factors ............................................................63
Planning Tools’ Effect on Project Success ..............................65
Planning Phase Component Completeness/Quality
and Project Success ...................................................................65
Planning Phase Completeness and Project Success..............69
Planning Phase Effort and Project Success ............................70
Conclusion ..................................................................................71
Contents • vii
Chapter 12 Consensus on Planning and Success ..............................73
Literature Summary ..................................................................73
Empirical Results .......................................................................75
Chapter 13 Planning Deliverable Quality and Success .....................79
Original Research ......................................................................79
Quality of Planning and Success ............................................80
Planning and Efficiency ............................................................82
Chapter 14 How Much to Plan ............................................................85
How Much to Plan in IT ...........................................................85
Other Industries .......................................................................86
Conclusion .................................................................................88
Chapter 15 Planning Phase Effort and Success .................................89
Planning Effort versus Success ................................................89
Nonlinear Relationships ...........................................................91
Impact of Moderators ...............................................................92
The Final Model .........................................................................95
Chapter 16 What Is the Optimum Planning Phase Time? ...............97
Optimal Planning Effort ..........................................................97
Maximums for Subsets ..........................................................100
Further Analysis ......................................................................101
Conclusion ................................................................................102
Chapter 17 Planning Budgets and Success ......................................105
New Research on Planning Budgets .....................................105
Optimal Planning Budgets .....................................................108
Chapter 18 Planning and Agile/Iterative Methods ..........................111
Agile ..........................................................................................111
Up-Front Planning in Agile/Iterative ...................................113
Planning in Agile .....................................................................115
Agile versus Traditional..........................................................119
viii • Contents
Chapter 19 Agile Methods and Success ...........................................121
Overview of Agile Methodology and Success Rates ...........121
Agile Usage around the World .............................................126
Agile Usage by Industry ........................................................126
Agile Usage Analyzed Using Moderators ...........................126
Conclusion ................................................................................130
Chapter 20 Planning’s Importance to Manager Success .................133
Manager Planning Time .........................................................133
Planning Strategies of Successful Managers .......................134
Conclusion ................................................................................140
Chapter 21 New Research: Planning and Manager’s Success .........141
Personal Planning Habits .......................................................141
Planning and Job Function ....................................................142
Additional Analysis .................................................................144
Manager’s Project Planning Time .........................................145
Experience and Project Success .............................................147
Conclusion ................................................................................149
Chapter 22 Conclusions ....................................................................151
Abbreviations ......................................................................................153
Checklists ............................................................................................155
Appendix A: The Original Research ................................................. 161

Appendix B: Details of the Statistical Analysis ................................173
Appendix C: Details of the Survey ....................................................185
Appendix D: Final Model Sensitivity Analysis ................................197
References. ...........................................................................................201
Index .................................................................................................... 211
Introduction
If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up some place else.
Yogi Berra
As someone who has been managing and consulting on projects for
25 years, the aspects of what make a successful project have been of obvi-
ous interest. After all, delivering successful projects is how I made my
living. Other project managers no doubt feel the same.
When I took my life in a more academic direction, I was, of course,
interested in the question of what maximized success. I thought, “In the
projects I had managed, how could I have avoided the problems?” I won-
dered whether planning and analysis were the basis of project success.
This became the topic of my PhD thesis. This book grew out of the studies
and research I did for my thesis.
For many years, I organized canoe trips to Canadian provincial parks
such as Algonquin Park. I started this before I became a project manager
and I think I learned a great deal from the experience. I would take a
group of 8–18 people, most of them strangers, and lead them on a 3- or
4-day trip. Canoe trips into the backcountry, as it is called, are not easy
to organize. You spend 5 hours or more canoeing into a lake. If you
forget the matches or the salt for dinner, you can’t drive to the corner
store; you have to canoe 5 hours to get to the store and then canoe back.
Unless you are lucky enough to meet other campers who are willing to

share, you’re out of luck.
For example, I found that for a typical group, 2.5–3 servings of bread
per person per day was enough, on average, to cover lunches and break-
fast. This was important as too much and you would have to find a place
to store all this food. Worst of all, you end up “portaging” (i.e., carrying
overland past waterfalls, etc.) extra food that would end up being thrown
away. Too little and then you had hungry people to deal with. I remember
on one trip while we were hiking up a hill we ran into a dad taking his kids
canoeing. He was asking everyone he met if they had extra food. He was
obviously not an experienced canoeist and did not pack enough food.
We only had snacks with us on the hike but we gave him what we had.
ix
x • Introduction
Lots of things can go wrong on canoe trips. It rains and you don’t have
a raincoat or rain gear. You forget those matches and can’t start a fire to
cook your dinner or get warm. You plan a trip that is too long or with too
much portaging and you can’t make it to camp before nightfall. You forget
the map and get lost. All of these will lead to problem trips and unhappy
campers!
Here are some things I learned:
• Plan ahead. Something as challenging as a backcountry trip can’t
be successful if you just wing it. Running out of food and rationing
people to a quarter sandwich and one-eighth of an apple for lunch
is not fun!
• Find a method that works and stick to it. Tweaks are OK; trying
something completely new is risky.
• People are the biggest variable. You never know how they will react
in a given situation. You can never anticipate reactions, only deal
with them in a reasonable way.
• Be flexible. Unexpected challenges and opportunities will arise.
If you paddle past that perfect beach, better stop and go for a swim.
You might not see another one.
Two of the things I learned were about careful planning, two were about
flexibility.
And this is what I found in my research. Planning ahead is clearly and
demonstrably important for project success. And being flexible (or agile)
during execution will also lift the success of your project.
The rest of the book gets into the details of why those areas are impor-
tant to managing critical projects. As well as to leading canoe trips.