Project Management "Methodologies" - Agile?

james.miller said:
This is why i cant stand project managers. They all think they know what's best.
Click to expand...
Rule 1 of being a manager (of any kind) - Don't use buzzwords!!!
Method - What you do, especially in a study.
Methodology - Why you do this method as opposed to that one.

Methodology is the study of methods used in study, not the methods themselves or the account/standards documentation of them.
Too many "managers" misuse works like that...
 
james.miller said:
This is why i cant stand project managers. They all think they know what's best.
Click to expand...

One should learn the fine art of upwards delegation. Dump some pointless but important sounding task on the PM by way of a query or request for help and they'll be too busy to get in the way of the real work :D

I've never done this obviously. Just heard about it.
 
If you want to be one of those PMs that everyone detests, make sure you aren't open to the idea of anyone else possibly knowing any better, or even just different ways of doing things.

Seriously though, that can get you a long way, I've worked with plenty of this type that have had long and succesful careers. You have to make up for the fact everyone in your team loathes you by cravenly brown-nosing the upper management though :D

If you're a good enough brown-noser it doesn't matter if you never deliver on time or budget either, win win.
 
For non IT project management then through the APM is a good route and has industry recognised member/chartered status.

They offer training and exams if you don't have exempting experience and qualifications to get there. https://www.apm.org.uk

PRINCE² is still recognised and accepted in most industries and also supports the above professional qualifications.
 
Dis86 said:
Except I've worked in project management for 5 years. Managing individual jobs worth over £60,000,000. Every single one I've worked on has been delivered on time, under budget and with 0 LTI's. I'd call that pretty successful.
Click to expand...

Deliver a £350m IT project for the DWP then come back in here and say the project management techniques mentioned here (Prince2, Agile etc - which are all slanted towards IT btw) are useless.
 
amigafan2003 said:
FRAIMS.
Click to expand...

This one?

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240084700/DWP-loses-cash-on-benefit-fraud-detection-systems

"but this has been delayed and full roll out is now not expected until March 2008"?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/09/fraim_downtime/

"The question came about first because I have sources who have informed me that HP, which manages the (Fraims) system, is performing quite badly and the DWP is trying to cover it up," Cousins told GC News.

Cousins said in asking the question about the £65m system he was hoping to shed light on both the system's failure and the DWP's attempted "cover-up"

http://www.itpro.co.uk/616087/id-cards-and-the-worst-of-public-sector-it-failures

Really doesn't sound great. Although that may be the DWP rather than the IT side. Although cost seems very different to the £360M you mentioned?
 
That's the one.

The first article fails to mention deployment was delayed (and mutually agreed) because the DWP failed to complete their staff training on time.

The second article details system outages TWO years after the system was deployed - that's nothing to do with a successful project and besides, FRAIMS has ALWAYS met it's SLA's - 9 hours outage in a year on a system that is available 18 hours a day for 9000.

Also, I'm dubious on the sources - as one states that it was a £65m system - which isn't close. I seem to recall the £65m figure was IBM's cut - HP was involved in the architecture/hosting/hardware/deployment/support.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
2 state it. A few others online state £65M too. It really doesn't seem to receive glowing reports anywhere. As you (and I) stated though...that may be DWP related.

Problems after can be related to the product not being fit for purpose. Basically a failure of quality. That is PM related.
 
Dis86 said:
Got any links to it? All the DWP projects I can find mention significant end user problems and massive cost over-runs.
Click to expand...

EDS as it was or now 'HP Enterprise Services' doesn't exactly have a good track record for these things - they've had rather large and quite public failures on projects relating to the Inland Revenue, the CSA, the MOD - armed forces JPA system etc..
 
dowie said:
EDS as it was or now 'HP Enterprise Services' doesn't exactly have a good track record for these things - they've had rather large and quite public failures on projects relating to the Inland Revenue, the CSA, the MOD - armed forces JPA system etc..
Click to expand...

Basically any public sector IT project I can find reference to online seems it went badly.

So those methodologies touted really don't seem to work too well!
 
Methodologies provide you with a basic set of guidelines to work to. If the project doesn't have the necessary sponsorship, backing and skilled resources then whether you use Prince, Agile or whatever the projects going to struggle.

People are too quick to blame project failure on the methodology, sure agile might not be the right framework for an enormous, complex project, but in reality it's PM's/business stakeholders inability to commit to a project fully and provide the right resources to succeed that often causes a project to fail.

Absolutely worth getting clued up on agile, and Prince is still seen as worth having on your CV as it proves you have a basis of knowledge in how to take a structured approach to project management.
 
Dis86 said:
Basically any public sector IT project I can find reference to online seems it went badly.

So those methodologies touted really don't seem to work too well!
Click to expand...

The common sense conclusion from that would be the way the Public Sector operates as opposed to which 'methodology' was used surely? Unless in every article you've read about the project stated the methodology (if any) and who the PM was, what teams were delivering etc. Public sector projects fail for a multitude of reasons, scope creep is the killer usually. Yes the PM may be accountable, but I wouldn't say they were responsible 100% of the time.

I'd love a walk-through of your day/week. What is it you do day-to-do that makes these projects so successful? How would you ensure that these projects were completed when across the board every other PM has failed? I'm genuinely curious, because I assure you common sense only gets you so far. All these 'highly complex' elements you talked about are someone's problem...you just manage the expectation not the delivery.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom