Holiday Season Warning: It's Not About The Tools (revisited)

Revisiting a gem from the past, updated with some current tidbits. Happy Holidays! This is an extract from the 2nd Edition of Delivery Effectiveness.

“The Stone Age was marked by man’s clever use of crude tools; the information age, to date, has been marked by man’s crude use of clever tools.” –Source Unknown

Is your organization challenged by portfolio management? If so, why? Do you understand the real impediments to driving a structured approach? What is in the way? Are your teams over reliant on a sophisticated tool that is barely useful as a time tracking application? Is there a lack of process to enable good decision making? Is there even a framework for standardized, repeatable, and scalable decision making in support of the portfolio? Or are there just sunk costs, annual licensing, and on-going support fees for a big tool?

I’m not a fan of project and portfolio management tools. I’m a tool bigot. But don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with leveraging tools. My bigotry is born of the way tools are typically selected and implemented before processes are defined. In my experience, it is about what comes first: process, knowhow, or tool.

I love metaphors and I use them throughout Delivery Effectiveness. One image I like is that of the handyman. Pretend you want to improve your ‘handyman’ capabilities. I’m always amazed that Do It Yourself types have great tools. Now that you are ready to become a full-fledged DIY’er, you’ve got to get some tools. You rush out to the local hardware chain and rack up $10,000 in all the best tools. Brilliant! Right? Well, you’ve never used a table saw, you don’t have the skills to use a nail gun, and as far as electrical work, your lack of skills is shocking. All the greatest tools will not make you a skilled craftsman. The same is true with project and portfolio management. I’ve seen too many companies invest in a heavy project management tool without sufficient design, process, or the know-how to use them in their environment.

For organizations that I’ve helped to develop strong portfolio management processes, I did not start with an investment in an expensive and sophisticated tool. The best opportunity is to develop processes that allow the right initiatives to be nurtured, developed, executed, or shut down. Get the process right first. Then consider automation. Automating a good process is very Six Sigma: automating a bad process, well, that’s just a bad idea and a waste of money.

If, as processes mature, there is an opportunity to apply a tool to improve efficiency or to make the practices more effective, that is a tool implementation I can support. I believe that wherever well thought out process development precedes tool selection, the odds for successful implementation increases significantly. If you want to be more well positioned with expertise to help advance your portfolio management capabilities, please check out the book, or reach out via LinkedIn. I love to network, meet new people, and talk shop about effective delivery.