Deliverables based planning

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Breaking the Project Failure Cycle with Deliverables
Based Planning
“Enterprise projects are not just larger small projects. They are completely different beasts”
– Radical Project Management, Rob Thomsett
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Performance–Based Project Management®, Copyright © Glen B. Alleman, 2002 - 2016

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Projects and Their Plans
 The integrity of any project starts with a
Credible Plan:
 The Plan defines the strategy for the successful
completion of the project
 The Plan is tool for communicating between the
project team participants and the stakeholder
about “done”
 The Plan evolves as decisions and strategies
evolve from project’s contact with “reality”
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Building project
success around a
credible plan is a good
start.
Executing that plan
comes next.
But the plan can not
guide the execution if
it is not credible.
It’s the combination of
a credible plan and a
competent execution
team that gives a
fighting chance of
being successful

+ Without a Plan, Root Causes of
Project Failure Start to Appear
 Unrealistic deadlines
 Communication deficits
 Uncontrolled scope changes
 Unmitigated resource competition
 Uncertain dependencies
 Failure to manage risk
 Insufficient delivery skills
 Lack of accountability for the outcomes
 Disengaged customers or stakeholders
 Lack of business vision and goals
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+ Project success is based on 4
Processes
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Identify Needed
Business
Capabilities
Establish a
Performance
Measurement
Baseline
Execute the
Performance
Measurement
Baseline
Capabilities
Based Plan
Business Value
Stream
Technical
Performance
Measures
Earned Value
Performance
Technical
Performance
Measures
Business Value
Stream
Technical
Requirements
Establish a
Requirements
Baseline
4 core processes
must to be in place
to break the project
failure cycle.
All are important.
All are mandatory.
All must be delivered
with the highest
quality.
None guarantee
success.
There is no such
thing as guaranteed
success, just
increased probability
of success.

+ The Four Processes Work Together
To Break The Project Failure Cycle
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Process Outcomes Supporting Project Success
Identify the
Business Needs
 A clear and concise description of the needed business capabilities
 A description of the value stream these business capabilities provide.
 This value stream connects the Business, the Technical Requirements to the
project’s Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB).
Establish a
Requirements
Baseline
 A Work Breakdown structure derived from the requirements.
 Identification of the Work Packages that produce the deliverables that create the
business value.
 The measures of success for each requirements stated in a “testable” manner.
Establish a
Performance
Measurement
Baseline
 Balance the Budgeted Cost for each work package to match available resources
 Balance the Budgeted Cost for the entire project
 Identify how Physical Percent Complete will be measured for each Work Package
 Establish a single point of accountability for he success of each Work Package
Execute the
Performance
Measurement
Baseline
 Capture the Actual Cost of Work Performed and Physical Percent Complete
 Define the measure of progress by the delivered value for each Work Package
 Make management decisions for the project using this delivered value

+ Core Questions that should be
asked daily of any Project Manager
 How much will this project cost?
 When will it be done?
 What is the risk we won’t reach the end within
our budget and schedule?
 What are we doing about these risks and how
much will that cost?
 What do we get when we’re done?
 Does the customer agree that these
deliverables are meaningful?
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Deliverables
Based Planning®
is the foundation
of a successful
project
management
process.
The deliverables
define what Done
looks like.
They are the
measure of
progress
They must be
meaningful to the
customer.

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Deliverables Based Planning® Can Answer These
Questions
Customers measure progress in terms of business value – the currency of this business value are the
project deliverables, not the passage of time or consumption of money.
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+ The 4 steps of Deliverables Based
Planning
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Define the business capabilities in terms of beneficial outcomes rather than features and
functions. What would you do with an IT system if it existed? What business processes
would be improved, enhanced, reduced? How would you recognize these improvements.
What capabilities do we need to address emerging IT based business processes?
Identify Needed
Business
Capabilities
Define the technical and operational requirements that must be in place for the business
capabilities to be fulfilled. Define these requirements in terms isolated from any
implementation.
What technical and operational requirements are need to fulfill the capabilities?
Establish the
Requirements
Baseline
Build a time–phased network of schedule activities describing the work to be performed,
the budgeted cost for this work, the organizational elements that produce the deliverables,
and the performance measures showing this work is proceeding according to plan.
A baselined schedule whose delivers create the services that meet the requirements
Establish the
Performance
Measurement
Baseline
Execute work packages, while assuring all performance assessment are 0%/100%
complete before proceeding. No rework, no forward transfer of activities to the future.
Assure every requirement is traceable to work and all work is traceable to requirements.
Weekly, bi–monthly, or Monthly measures of physical percent complete
Execute the
Performance
Measurement
Baseline

+ The 4 Steps for Identifying the
Needed Business Capabilities
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 Partition capabilities into classes of service within operational scenarios
 Connect capabilities to business strategy using Balanced Scorecard
 Define measures of Effectiveness and Measures of Performance at the strategy level
Define
Operational
Concepts
 Define scenarios for each capability
 Connect these scenarios into a Business Process Value Stream Map
 Assess value flow through the map for each needed capability
 Identify capabilities mismatches
Define
Capabilities
Need To
Implement
Concepts
 Assign costs to a need using a business model
 Assure risk, probabilistic cost and benefit performance attributes are defined
 The future behaviors must include increased variance on cost and benefits
Assess Needs
and Costs
Simultaneously
 Make tradeoffs that connect cost, schedule and technical performance
 Measures of Effectiveness and Measures of Performance are the raw materials for
these tradeoffs
Explicit,
Balanced, and
Feasible
Alternatives

+ The 5 steps for Establishing the
Requirements Baseline †
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 Overall statement of the problem context
 Overall objectives of the target system
 Boundaries and interfaces of the target system
Fact Finding
 Required capabilities, functional, nonfunctional, environment, and design constraints.
 Build a Top Down Capabilities and Functional decomposition of the requirements in a
Requirements Management System.
Gathering and
Classification
 Answer the question “why do I need this?” in terms of business benefits.
 Build a cost benefit / model using probabilistic assessment
 For technical requirements perform a risk assessment to cost and schedule.
Evaluation and
Rationalization
 Determine criticality for the functions for the business mission.
 For technical items prioritize on cost and dependency.
Prioritization
 Address completeness by removing all “TBD” requirements.
 Validate requirements agree with business capabilities, goals, and mission.
 Resolve any requirements inconsistencies and conflicts
Integration and
Validation
† “Issues in Requirements Elicitation,” Michael G. Christel and Kyo C. Kang, CMU/SEI–92–TR–012. IBIS is Issue–Based Information System, is a
structuring method which allows the rationale underlying requirements to be organized and tracked.

+ The 6 steps for Establishing the
Performance Measurement Baseline
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Decompose the Project Scope into a product based Work Breakdown Structure (WBS),
then into Work Packages describing the production of all deliverables
Decompose
Scope
Assign Responsibility to Work Packages (the groupings of deliverables) for the
owners accountable for the management of resource allocation and cost baseline
Assign
Responsibility
Arrange the Work Packages into a well formed network with defined deliverables,
milestones, internal and external dependencies
Arrange Work
Packages
Develop Time–Phased Budgeted Cost for Work Scheduled (BCWS) from labor and
material costs in each Work Package and the Project as a whole
Develop BCWS
Assign Objective Performance Measures for each Work Package and summarize
these for the Project as a whole
Assign
Performance
Measures
Establish a Performance Measurement Baseline used to forecast Work Package and
Project ongoing and completion cost and schedule metrics
Set
Performance
Baseline

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The 5 steps for Executing the
Performance Measurement Baseline
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 Build the Responsibility, Accountability, Consult, and Inform matrix.
 Each Work Package has a single Accountable person for its successful delivery
Define RACI
 Release work in the proper sequence through Work Packages with 0%/100% criteria
 “Late Starts” almost always mean “Late Finish”
 Have a plan to get back on schedule at all times – “Getting to Green” is the mantra
Sequence the
Authorized
Work
 The passage of time and consumption of resources is not a measure of progress.
 Pre–Defined Physical Percent Complete is part of the Work Package description
 Use probabilistic forecasting from past performance to adjust plans for the future
Progress
Equals Physical
% Complete
 Each deliverable in the time–line of the project, has an expected level of maturity
 Measure and adjust performance by the compliance to the expected level
 Discount progress by non–compliance – rework, unfinished work, off spec work
Define Product
or Service
Maturity
 “How long are you willing to wait before you find out you are late?”
 Ask and answer this question at ½ the interval you are willing to wait
 Establish a continuous assessment of physical percent complete, a “get to green” plan
 Maintain a risk adjusted master schedule for all deliverables
Periodically
Report Physical
Progress

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Putting Deliverables Based Planning® to Work
Managing projects requires a definition of done, how to recognize done, the
attributes of done and the units of measure of those attributes
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A Sobering Statistic
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A Study of 400 enterprise class projects revealed
that project performance does not tend to improve
once the project has passed the 15% completion
point. It often gets even worse!

+ Goal of any Project Management
Process must be to …
 Produce no surprises for the customer or the supplier
 Build trust with free and frank discussions about
 Risk, resources, planned effort, capabilities, commitment
 Performance – financial, technical, personnel, maturity
 Fully engage with customer’s strategies
 Communication of needs to solution providers
 Requirements traceable to business benefits
 Understand risk management is how adults manage
projects
 Identify, analyze, plan, and mitigate
 Risk informed management processes
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Breaking the Project Failure Cycle
 Define “done” in terms of measurable business value
 These units of measure must be agreed to by the business
 Measure progress to plan only in these units
 Deliverables produced for invested cost
 Do not use passage of time or consumption of resources as
the primary metric. These are interesting to cost accounts,
but not project managers
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If we’re going to avoid project failure, then we have to start out
on the right foot.
Describe what done looks like. Only perform work that
produces “done.”

+ Project Failure Root Causes and
Some Tools Based Approaches
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Project Failure Cycle Root Causes Approaches to a Solution
Unrealistic deadlines Identify the capacity for work using resource planning, past performance
measurement and required deliverables to define credible deadlines
Communication deficits Deploy all communication channels including dashboard, cost and
schedule forecasts, defect tracking, business case measurements, data
repositories and project portals
Uncontrolled scope changes Use formal requirements management processes, with document
change control and tracking, sign offs, web access
Unmitigated resource competition Use resource planning services
Uncertain dependencies Identify and confirm conflicts and dependencies across the portfolio of
projects
Failure to manage risk Identify, mitigate and manage risk with “risk buy down” activities
embedded in all schedules
Insufficient delivery skills Provide skills inventory in the resource planning process
Lack of accountability for the
outcomes
Identify single accountabilities, provide reporting and visibility for all
deliverables
Disengaged customers or
stakeholders
Provide easy access to project documents, progress, change
management and deliverables
Lack of business vision and goals Identify business value, connections to strategy and the performance
attributes of the project through web portal

+ Risk Management is How Adults
Manage Projects
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Planning Identification Analysis Handling
Communication
and
Tracking
 Build the process for managing risk
 Allocate responsibilities at the project level
 Determine What is to be Risk–Managed
 Do a comparative analysis of the risks
 Assign risk attributes
 Assign risk ownership
 Evaluate the impact of each risk
 “A” Risk
 “All” Risks
 Prepare risk decision–packages
 Define the Decision–Making Process
 Iterate the analysis to select mitigation
 Keep everyone aware of decisions made
 Track progress
 Evaluate effectiveness of the risk management processes
“Risk Analysis Techniques, Schedule, Cost and Other Aspects, INCOSE Heartland Chapter
October 24, 2001, Futon Corporation

+ Connecting Cost, Schedule, and
Technical Performance into a Credible
Plan for Success
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Cost, Schedule, Technical Model†
WBS
Task 100
Task 101
Task 102
Task 103
Task 104
Task 105
Task 106
† This is a Key concept. This is the part of the process that
integrates the cost and schedule risk impacts to provide the
basis of a credible schedule.
Probability
Density
Function
 Research the Project
 Find Analogies
 Ask Endless Questions
 Analyze the Results
 What can go wrong?
 How likely is it to go wrong?
 What is the cause?
 What is the consequence?
Monte Carlo Simulation
Tool is Mandatory
1.0
.8
.6
.4
.2
0
Days, Facilities, Parts, People
Cumulative Distribution Function
Days, Facilities,
Parts and People

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Just a Reminder
 Tools are necessary,
 Process are necessary,
 Putting tools and
process together is
necessary,
 But more is needed:
 Skill
 Experience
 Innovation
 A bit of Luck
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Initiating
Closing
MonitoringandControlling
Executing
Planning
Integration
Scope
Time
Cost
Quality
Human Resources
Communications
Risk
Procurement
Process Groups
KnowledgeAreas

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Breaking the Project Failure Cycle
 As a project manager, when your project
makes you feel like this, it’s time to
reconsider your approach …
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 Define the deliverables
 Measure progress by
measuring the
deliverables
 Make measurement
meaningful to the
business

Deliverables based planning

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