In working a project to produce a Balanced Scorecard for a public agency built around ITIL V3 I've come to an understanding I did not possess before. In executing this project, we apply our Deliverables Based Planning® project management method. In this approach (DBP®) there are five process areas:
- Define the needed capabilities in terms of scenarios and their Use Cases
- Define the technical and operational requirements that implement the needed capabilities.
- Define the Performance Measurement Baseline to guides the development activities to implement the requirements (Deliverables, Schedule, Cost, Resource Assignments, Budget controls, ...).
- Execute this Performance Measurement Baseline (Cost, Schedule, Earned Value, Technical Performance Measures, Measures of Effectiveness, Measures of Performance, Resource Management).
- Perform Continuous Risk Management (CRM) using a formal method.
These activities are arranged like this.
The connection to the PMBOK® Knowledge Areas - the assumed knowledge required to manage a project looks like this:
So Here's My Epiphany
Most of the activities in PMBOK® are actually Level of Effort. As we say in the space flight business you're doing things that don't fly to orbit. PMBOK produces lots of documents. Documents are fine, that's not the point. But documents don't fly, so what ever document you produce had better be only one level removed from flying machines or what ever your project calls DONE, a hole in the ground (construction), a screen to log on to, or a vehicle your can drive away in.
The success of a project management method, any method, MUST be that it produces a defined set of deliverables, on or near the planned time, and at or near the planned cost, and more or less compliant with the needed capabilities, technical and operational requirements.
THIS IS THE CHALLENGE OF PMBOK®
PMBOK doesn't say HOW to do this. How to produce the deliverables. It's not supposed to say how. It's not designed to say how. But without some guidance on How, the readers are left to their own devises to figure out How.
Prince2® says how, ITIL® Foundation V3 says how, DoD IMP/IMS Development and Use Guide says how, DOE O413 series says how, even the DoD version of PMBOK says how.
Without HOW it's hard to know if what you doing is actually going to work. If you have answers the five immutable principles of Project Management.
