February 22nd, 2014
You can’t manage what you can’t control.
You can’t control what you can’t measure.
You can’t measure what you can’t define.
This is one of the key principles of ‘management’ captured in three short sentences, and if you pause for a minute and give some thought to it, you will recognize it is a principle that can be applied to many different aspects of work (and life).
I would like to take this opportunity to illustrate how this principle is applied in the field of project management using the project I am currently managing (CREST) as an example. Before I jump into it, I want to make clear project management by definition does not mean ‘IT’ related projects. In fact, ‘project’ is defined by Project Management Institute (PMI – pmi.org) as a temporary endeavor that has a defined beginning and an end, undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. Therefore, any endeavor that fits in the definition is a project.
If you have given some thought to these sentences, you will recognize to apply them, you will have to think of the sentences backwards. You will see what the principle is telling us is to define the variables you can measure, how the measures provide us the ability to gage our control over the variables, and how the controls over the variables can be managed collectively within the context of the project undertaken. Fortunately, PMI has already defined the variables and related measures for us through their years of research and study in the project management discipline, and these variables (along with their measures) are:
Scope – The sum of the products, services, and results to be provided as a project. With CREST, this is measured by 6,800 business requirements that need to be delivered.
Quality – The degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements. With CREST, this is measured by the ratio of how many of the 6,800 requirements will be met along with number of defects to be uncovered throughout testing phases.
Schedule – The planned dates for performing scheduled activities and the planned dates for meeting scheduled milestones. With CREST, this is measured by time available/allowed to perform planned phases and activities.
Budget – The approved estimate of finances for the project and/or various defined activities within. Within CREST, this is measured by dollars projected as cost for various phases and components of the project.
Resources – Number of skilled human resources (specific disciplines either individually or in teams). With CREST, this is measured by the number of positions based on subject matter expertise that forms the project team.
Risk – An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a degree of positive or negative effect on a project’s objectives. With CREST, this is a more subjective measure based on the experience, project history, team dynamics, culture, analysis, and sometimes plain old gut feelings of the project manager and/or the team members. But this is a variable that warrants the most attention in any project.
I am sure you heard of the phrase triple constraints (time, cost, quality), which represents how changing one variable impacts another. For instance, if you like to spend more time on an activity, the quality of the output from the activity will increase; however so will the cost as a result of the time delay. In project management, there are the above six variables that form the competing constraints. Now with all the controlling variables and how they are measured and defined, you can see each of the variables as a ‘dial’ that you can turn (control) and use the measures to see how controlling them positively or negatively impacts the other variables. In a nutshell, this concept of ‘balancing’ competing constraints serves as the foundation of how project managers think and make decisions throughout the project life-cycle.