The NAVAIR (Naval Aviation) Earned Value Management handbook has an interesting table showing project success and failure modes. (This link will ask for a confirmation of the certificate).
These modes are effective or ineffective:
- Planning
- Cost estimating
- Measurements
- Milestone tracking
- Quality control
- Change management
- Development processes
- Communications
- Project managers
- Technical personnel
- Specialist rather than generalist
- Reuse of technical materials
What happens in failed or failing projects is the unanticipated impact of correlated uncertainties. For example:
- Technical uncertainties induce cost growth in other components of the system.
- Schedule slippages due to one WBS elements impact other WBS elements.
- Hardware problems discovered late in the project must be circumvented with expensive workarounds.
These correlations can be discovered through analysis. Tools like Design Structure Matrix (DSM) can show dependencies where it was not obvious. Other approaches of interdependency assessment can be used.
In the end though, one concept is always in place for all projects, no matter the problem domain:
Without this knowledge of "Done," the notion of emergence becomes the operative concept.
What this really means is "we'll recognize done, when we run out of money and run out of time."
Otherwise there are no bounds on either, and the project becomes a Level of Effort exercise is spending other peoples money and time.
This is course is a restatement of the obvious, but so often overlooked in the search for lean, agile, and easy solutions to the management of complex projects.
