Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success, part 1

When projects fail, it can often be tracked back to an inadequate definition and agreement of the scope. In my experience, scope is left vague, because

1) specifics often lead to disagreements disagreements.
2) like prepping a room to paint, scoping a project is often hurried to get to the “real” work.

Both your points really represent a risk averse approach that kicks the likelihood of project failure right off.

Fear of disagreement is an unhealthy organization that has no diversity – if we can't talk about alternatives or perspectives with an eye towards creativity and innovation, poof there goes the project.

Prepping a room for paint is a great analogy. The finished product is only as good as the scraping, sanding, smoothing, primer, cutting in, brush, and paint – but too many let those details get that in the way of saying we painted the room. What can't be said is painting it and painting it well are 2 different things.

Thanks for your comments John and your posts at your site Management Leverage.

As John indicates, up-front planning is a far more efficient way to spend resources than with ad-hoc execution. I'm all in favor of creating early warning indicators so that deviations from plan (such as increases in scope) are caught early or, better yet, before they happen. The Department of Defense mandates the use of an Earned Value Management System (EVMS) to catch such things. While their implementation can be onerous, any usage that complies with the ANSI standard for EVMS should help to prevent things from spinning out of control

Here's a link to the DoD EVMS site at Defense Acquisition University, which contains even more links to other resources: https://acc.dau.mil/evm

Earned Value Management (EVM) is a clear, concise, and understandable way to know when and where your project is off-track, by budget, schedule or both.

EVM desperately relies on an accurate work breakdown during the scope stage. Work breakdowns rely on the subject matter expert who is charged with delivery – as the worker, in the field, not as the lord of the manor.

It is great you mention the DOD's use of EVM. It is unfortunate that the DOD, in a recent study of the brilliant, but unfortunately toothless, Government Accountability Office (GAO) found, in a 2008 report [click to download .pdf] that on 95 systems the average unforeseen schedule delay was 21 months and the total cost of these delays hit $295 B-I-L-L-I-O-N (billion).

The trends GAO looked at were disturbing, in 2000 compared to 2008, the cost of delays, in absolute terms, increased 702%. The average delay in 2000 was 16 months and 2007 21 months.

The cost of requirements changes of projects underway was a sobering, to tax payers at least 72%. 72% increase in costs [click to download .pdf].

EVM as a tool is brilliant. It seems the cobblers children has no shoes.

Thanks for taking the time to read and write – I appreciate your perspective.

Now THIS is good stuff. Thanks for the link to the GAO report. I found that to be terrific.

I did not see a condemnation of EVMS as a tool, however, and I think we'd agree that it is a powerful method. EVMS is not a determinant of program outcomes, however, only a set of indicators. If those indicators are ignored (due to a host of systemic deficiencies) the, clearly, we can see the outcome.

To your point regarding scope creep, this statment in the GAO report would seem to support your remarks: “GAO found that 63 percent of the programs had
changed requirements once system development began.”

Spot on. If (always a dangerous word, but nonetheless) if it is done by the book, EVMS will provide the indicators necessary to depict a situation where things will soon fall apart. Unfortunately, internal politics within the contractor's organization, relationships between contractors and government entitites, as well as those within government bodies themselves will often result in a misinterpretion, or misrepresentation, of what the metrics predict.

The root cause, unfortunately, appears to be the same here as we see almost everywhere, regardless of the industry or the level of the people involved: If you are afraid to tell your boss there's a problem, you will soon have a much bigger problem, no matter the tool used.

Thanks for the additional GAO info, and a very thought-provoking post.

GAO reports are just incredible sources of information across transformation, change management, IT integration.

The GAO or Government Accountability Office as their site says: is known as “the investigative arm of Congress” and “the congressional watchdog.” GAO supports the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and helps improve the performance and accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people.

Nice, but who's watching the watchdogs?

As disappointing as the fact that the GAO rarely get listened to other than cursory white papers, any project I started with for the Federal Government I first went to the GAO to do research. Did they have studies or proposals in their archives, what had they written about?

Their research always had a list of recommended steps for improvement. It was easy for me to start the conversation with, “so, what have you been able to accomplish since this GAO report…”

Even if you are not working in public sector the GAO offers great human capital or transformation/change management-style tips.

Thanks, as always, for your comments David.