The role of project management is to successfully deliver projects on time, on budget and on specification. We focus on delivering measured value through our Earned Value and Earned Schedule processes in conjunction with Deliverables Based Planning.
Performance Management
Our project Performance Management process integrates Earned Value and Technical Performance Management. The result provides our clients with the ability to:
- Forecast future programmatic performance by integrating project cost, schedule and technical performance.
- Connect product requirements and their quality through an integrated master plan that establishes the baseline measures of technical performance.
- Measure objective progress through physical deliverables using indicators of product quality with cost and schedule performance.
Risk Management
Managing programmatic and technical risk involves more than making lists and checking them twice. It means actively mitigating risks with the same project management processes used to deliver the project.
Risk management involves four categories:
- Variation – by simulating scenarios of timing, duration and cost variance, the project manager can identify buffers that isolate completion dates and budget caps from these naturally occurring variances.
- Foreseen risks – requires alternative paths through the project plan with supporting budget and intervention strategies.
- Unforeseen risks – constantly probing for emerging risk enables the project management team to react quickly with alternative plans.
- Chaos – a fundamental change to the project cannot be handled by an alternative plan. It requires a complete redefinition of the project. An “Options” based analysis approach must be applied.
Because all four of these risk types can coexist on an enterprise IT project, the Lewis & Fowler Risk Management approach provides specific tools to address each type. These tools include Monte Carlo simulation, Real Options Theory, Decision Trees and continuous verification of the original project hypothesis.
Technical Performance Management
Technical Performance Management (TPM) is a concept absent in most project management processes, yet it is critical to the business success of any IT project. Cost growth and schedule slippage often occur when unrealistic technical performance goals are required. Managing the technical performance of IT projects is part of both programmatic and technical Risk Management.
Our approach to TPM starts with establishing performance measures during the planning phase of the project, which will then guide the project management processes along the path. Achievement of TPM, at specific times in the project, is an indication of increasing maturity of the project deliverables.
Enterprise Project Management
We understand that managing enterprise class projects involves more than just planning and executing the project's plan. It also involves defining the project's incremental value delivery points, business value and technical performance.
Deliverables Based Planning (DBP)SM
The Lewis & Fowler Deliverables Based Planning process is defined by the successful completion of a project and its deliverables. The project plan describes the executable strategy that will produce the desired deliverables. DBP begins with the team defining the desired outcomes (deliverables), the business value of those outcomes and the effort required to realize this business value.
The Work Breakdown Structure and the resulting Work Packages produce the deliverables developed by the technical, programmatic and business participants. Once the Plan is in place, a schedule to produce the deliverables is required. When developing the schedule, we first assess the deliverable(s), not the work effort, in units of measure. Then, we define precise evidence indicating the deliverable is complete, not what effort it takes to produce the deliverable. Finally, we define the sequence of deliverables in order to maximize the business value, while minimizing risk, cost and activity durations.
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