Robert J. Morgan, PMP

 

Eight Principles for Project Success 

 

Lawrence P. Leach, PMP may be familiar to some of you since he is a practitioner of Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM), a Project Management System I have written about in the past. If anyone is unfamiliar with CCPM, I invite you to read my column in the November 2008 issue of this newsletter. Mr. Leach has spent 30 years in the study and practice of Project Management and has earned Masters’ Degrees in Engineering as well as in Business.  Lawrence is a Certified ‘Jonah’ in the practice of CCPM.

 

In the book, “Lean Project Management: Eight Principles for Success”, Author Leach writes about project success in terms of utilizing 8 principles that lead to successful project results. These 8 Principles are:

 

In this series of Two Minute Project Manager columns, we will investigate these 8 Principles, each month, one principle at a time.  

 

Principle One: The Project System

 

“It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone… The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system”

 

                                    W. Edwards Deming (1900—1993)

 

Leach writes that successful project delivery requires leading the system comprised of people, process, and product. The project manager must define an effective system for your environment and projects. Lean thinking enhances conventional project delivery systems in the areas of portfolio and individual project planning, execution, and control to eliminate waste and deliver successful project results “in half the time, all the time”  

  

As the saying goes, you’ve got to have a system. In this diagram all 8 principles relate to each other. Not in just the way the arrows demonstrate, but specifically in principles 3 through 8, relationships connect all of the entities in BOTH directions.

 

A system, or any Project Management system for that matter, consists of the people, process, and the product, as well as the relationships between them. Some of the basics of project management are actually essential to all projects, but few are necessary for every project.  The Project Manager must sort out what matters most for the project at hand. With regard to the practice of CCPM, any project worth doing is worth doing fast. With a system such as CCPM, you have all the tools you need to accomplish your project in half the time, all the time.

 

Therefore, you do not need to finish all tasks on time to finish a project on time.

Sometimes you can finish sooner by actually staring later

Adding buffers reduces total project duration and cost.

Your project system must include a process of ongoing improvement.

Once the system is in place, the other principles follow. Next, the second principle will examine Leading People.