Contingent Project Management: A Definition
In an IT systems context, contingent project management (“CPM”) is the ability to select an appropriate methodology to successfully implement and deliver a project, adjusting the method as the project progresses. The ‘contingent leadership style’ is analogous. Wikipedia (Fiedler) provides an explanation of contingent leadership.
Yes, a project manager may have a contingent leadership style, but may not have a contingent project management approach.
Let’s look at a variety of project management framework processes:
Waterfall (gather requirements, design, build, test, deliver, train): the ‘traditional’ way of building systems. This worked well for systems where the rate of business and technology change was low, having emerged from engineering and construction. It still works well in a construction (civil engineering) context, where the rate of technology change is generally low. The requirements of a building may change during construction, but the scope progress rate remains low compared to many IT projects. Under the right circumstances, it can still work well with IT projects.
Agile methods (gather and prioritize requirements, prototype, test, deliver, recycle: design, build, test, deliver, train, go live). On the scale from low risk/low complexity to high risk/high complexity, some of the methodologies would be: XP, Scrum, DSDM ®, RUP ®. Note that risk and complexity are not always equivalent: some low-complexity systems may have deep organizational risk associated with them.
Prince ® could be used in any of these contexts for project governance on a larger organizational scale, or locally on a smaller scale. In fact, the arrival of Prince2 moved the methodology into a broader non-IT specific context.
Agile methodologies are more appropriate, for example, when the requirements are not clear from the start, and/or the technology is new or being scaled, and/or a new business model is being adopted (to name just a few reasons). . The range of agile methods is also related to the scale of the project and the size of the team.
Sophisticated organizations may have their own ‘pet’ methodology, perhaps having invested heavily (financially, administratively and politically) in developing their way of doing things, even ‘branding’ the methodology. After all this investment, they will want to ‘sweat this asset’. The projects will have to fit into the corset they impose; this can cause extreme throttling, creating a high probability of failure for a project, even before it starts.
After all, Prince ® was developed in the UK public sector (and the UK government still has massive problems delivering projects). At the higher end of projects, Prince is often seen as overly bureaucratic, but he shouldn’t be. CPM must ensure that the appropriate processes for a project are selected and judiciously applied so that the project is not strangled by management and bureaucracy.
This throttling of projects by heavy methods was observed by the author at an investment bank. Project managers executing a large number of smaller projects were unable to meet the centralized project reporting requirements imposed on them, leading to manager frustration, program office frustration, and frustration in and with the ‘ methodological police’. The recommended solution was
– Prioritize projects according to risk (measured across multiple dimensions), report project status based on ‘exceptions’, and adjust reporting frequency to project risk.
This leveled the project managers’ workload and the centralized need for convenience and risk control.
So what about managing contingent projects?
It is clear that a significant degree of experience is needed to be able to select the right methodology for a project, and the program board is not always in the best position to decide for the reasons mentioned above, eg investment and political capital.
An effective project manager will have
– the wisdom and experience to select the right tool for the job based on your perceived risk profile; the ability to persuade the sponsor or program board of the relevance of the methodology and basis for selection; worked with a range of experience in methodologies that allowed the application of a ‘heavy’ or ‘light’ touch of a methodology; an innate sense of risks and their relative relevance, which means developing and maintaining a focus on the things that matter; finally, the ability to dynamically adjust methodology to circumstances without loss of control (financials, schedule and quality), as the ‘things that matter’ change
Dynamic tuning means applying the tool wisely: some projects may require very high levels of communication with stakeholders, others will need to focus heavily on technology/performance and proof of concept, others may have political governance issues, business models new or immature, etc. us. Some projects, of course, will exhibit all of these risks and beyond. This list and balance of risks will change significantly during the project life cycle. In addition to ongoing risk review, CPM requires ongoing process review and change.
How is it that more than 30% of projects fail? It’s because failed projects continue along the same old lines, with no contingent project management in place and management not responding appropriately to changes in risk.
Contingent project management is really simple in principle: adapt and survive, that is, Darwinism. To apply it successfully requires a lot of experience and flexibility.