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Mantra for Process Excellence
Dakshinamoorthi GSenior ManagerCognizant Technology Solutions Limited
PROCESS WAY OF LIFE
MANTRA OF PROCESS EXCELLENCE
PMI India National Conference -2014
AbstractMantra for Process Excellence ‘Process- way of Life’- Bring in process culture and make it engrained in
everyday activity. This paper helps to understand how ‘Process – way of Life’ is being implemented in the
organization and how it strengthens the project management by making the processes more predictable
and repeatable. The journey starts with the enablement of people through fun based learning. Success of
Project Management lies in the kind of data being used for managing the project. This will explain you on
how the improvement in process awareness helps to bring the right data into the system. As we focus on
‘Same report for the customer and internal governance’, any issues with the data being used will flow as
the feedback to the system. Process implementation will be successful only when the need of that
reaches to the ground level people. Project Management is no more a job performed by only a group of
people. This will paper will talk about various rewards and recognitions for process evangelists to
motivate them and encourage others to involve in process improvement activities. Identification of best
practices and spreading them across the organization spreads the positive message. The benefits from
this is not only limited to the quantified efforts saved because of repeatable and predictable process but
also results in the following status - Process is not just being followed because of the push/follow up from
the Top management or to satisfy any dashboards but becomes the way of life.
Abstract.......................................................................................................................................................2
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Enablers – Process way of life......................................................................................................................4
Tools:.......................................................................................................................................................5
People and Process:.................................................................................................................................5
Project Management – Not happening in Silos...........................................................................................6
Synergizing Best Practices...........................................................................................................................7
One report for internal governance and Customer.....................................................................................8
Spreading positive vibes............................................................................................................................10
Benefits- Process way of Life.....................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................11
References.................................................................................................................................................12
Introduction
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore is not an act, but a habit” - Aristotle
‘Process- way of life’ aims at making ‘Adherence to process’ a habit and not something that happens
because of a push.The current generation knows the importance of doing exercise and to stay fit. How
many of us do that as a practice? Similarly, even if the people in an organization know about the
importance of following process, this will not be followed across the organization (by different levels of
people) unless it becomes a habit.
This paper talks about how the ‘Process- way of Life’ is being implemented as a theme in one of the
practices in our Organization. The challenges faced while implementing the themes and how they were
addressed is also explained here. How projects were managed in a better way by strengthened project
management is clearly given in this paper. The methods provided here can be repeated in any of the
organizations to get a similar result. Most of the scenarios have been explained by cartoons on‘before’
and ‘after’ status. Benefits realized out of this theme implementation have also been provided at the end
of this paper.
Enablers – Process way of life
Before
Fig. 1
Success of Project Management lies in the kind of data being used for Project Management. People,
Process and Tools are the three key factors that influence the data flowing to the system.
Tools:Tools play a major role in bringing the right data into the system. If the update in the tool takes away lot of
effort from the project teams, team will not enter the data unless otherwise they are forced to do this.
Time study was conducted to list down the high priority issues in the tools and calls were scheduled with
the tools support team to resolve these issues. Feedback from the users was received and user friendly
features were added. A sense of ownership got developed within the team as their requirements were
taken care of.Suggestions provided by the teams on improving the features, user friendliness and
performance of the tools were rewarded in various forums.
People and Process:Project Management cannot be successful if the process awareness is low among the teams. Can the process awareness be achieved by traditional methods of class room training? We thought differently and we ran it in a different way.
Capsule learning courses and an awareness campaign named ‘eQuipe’ spread the process awareness
and the need of each and every metrics being tracked by the system. Floor walkthrough sessions and
Fun based learning (learning through customized games like bow and arrow, snake and ladder,
playing cards etc.) ensured a good training coverage and an effective communication of the message.
People understood that the reporting of right metrics depends on the data entering into the system.
After
Fig.2
Project Management – Not happening in SilosBefore
Fig.3
Project Management entirely depended on the data flowing from an individual/PMO. They get the
information from the team through various sources and come out with the dashboard or reports which will
help in their Project management activities. As the data is not directly flowing from the team, no
ownership of data is there and this will also impact the integrity of the data flowing into the dashboard and
the reports.
After
Fig. 4
Process, Tool and People enablement helped the direct entry of data into the system. Every team
member logged the effort spent and activity related data in the tool. This has brought in the individual
ownership of data entered by every individual. This has also helped the flow of right data into the system
resulting in right metrics for project management.
Synergizing Best Practices
Before
Fig.5
Lot of best practices on effort saving, defect reduction and automation were happening in many of the
projects. Those project specific initiatives were happening in pockets and reinventing the wheel was
happening in many of the projects. A project facing an issue may not know that the same issue was
handled effectively by another project.
After
Fig.6
Account Level and Practice level best practices sessions were happening and the individuals or project
teams were invited to share the best practices. This motivated the teams to contribute further. Mailers on
best practices were shared across the practice. Individuals and teams were asked to write blogs on the
best practices. Best practices were awarded in common forums like town halls and quarterly connect
meetings.
One report for internal governance and Customer
Before
Fig.7
Different kinds of metrics/dashboards were used at different levels of the organization. Project
management data resided in multiple tools and one has to refer to those tools to do a Project
management review. Project level reviews may not have the same kind of metrics that is being reviewed
at a monthly status meeting or a steering committee meeting by the customer. This is because of various
dependencies like activities pending with customer and third parties, waivers/exemptions applied by PMO
(project management office) team, data quality issues etc. Customer expectation may not be met if
different metrics/dashboards were tracked at different levels.
After
Fig.8
Arriving at the common metrics and tracking the same metrics by the service provider and the customer
provide the view of complete picture to the project teams. Single project management tool was used for
getting the dashboard and project management reports. Having regular reviews of the metrics/dashboard
will help to take immediate actions and help the team to meet the customer expectations. Weekly reviews
happen directly through reviewing the project management tools and not by going through separate
reports. This provides immediate feedback to the system so that the project’s performance is improved.
Spreading positive vibes
Before
Fig.9
List of metrics submission defaulters and process compliance defaulters were published across the
practice. Things were happening by the push from the top management and the process adherence was
somehow maintained.
After
Fig.10
Process champions who lead the team in getting the right data into the system were awarded. Best
managed projects and accounts were selected based on the metrics and they were awarded. ‘Best
practices’ sharing was encouraged by awarding the most reused best practice. This has spread the
positive vibes across the practice and motivated the people to adhere to the process and contributed in
making this a habit.
Our Practice head mentioned a famous quote by Henry Ford during the awards function and that was apt
for that occasion.
“Quality means doing it RIGHT when No one is looking.”
Benefits- Process way of Life
‘Process-way of life’ helped to bring the right data into the system and this helped the project
management to make a repeatable and predictable process.
Reviewing the right metrics from right data helped the teams to take appropriate actions to
improve their current levels
One of the projects has achieved a backlog of 4 tickets /week from 70tickets/week because of
the weekly review of right data into the system and taking corrective actions appropriately. Similar
benefits were visualized in other projects as well
Improvement in other key metrics like onsite/offshore resolution rate and ticket productivity is also
evidenced in the projects
Best practices sharing motivated the teams to bring in more number of small improvement
programs resulting in huge dollar benefits
Effort and Metrics submission are happening without any reminders or push from the
Management
Practice is a consistent top performer in the Organization Dashboard on Delivery and Maturity
Parameters
Conclusion
By implementing ‘Process- way of life’, every single person in the organization, from the top management
to developers, not only understands the process, but implements and uses it on a daily basis. Positive
vibes spread across the organization bring in improvements in various metrics reported to the
customer.The implementation done in one of the practices is now being shared with other parts of the
organization to bring in this culture across the organization. This can be implemented in any type of
organization.
References
Not applicable