Aside from Agile, the most commonly used form of project planning in my experience is the standard waterfall model. Each stage of the project follows in sequence – as one completes, the next commences.
Having worked in operations for most of my life, along with the odd sojourn into the project management space, it’s safe to say that it appears almost impossible to operate a linear strategy to project management beyond the very high level work package structures.
At least this is certainly the case when you are reliant on operational resources to participate in projects as most organisations are.
On paper, within a work package, an operational resource might be mapped in the plan to do their “bit” in the following form;
But in reality, an operational person is usually working that more closely resembles;
- Plan for the day: “Project time for the day as agreed with my manager”
- Reality of the day: “It’s breaking, we need you now, you’ll just have to leave the project work til later.
Expected time on project work: 8 hours. Actual time on project work: 3.5 hours.
Result : Stressed out operational person, delayed project plan, frustrated P.M.
This is not through any fault of the engineer.
- The fault lies with the operational manager for over-estimating the available time to that engineer
or
- The project manager who pushed the operational manager so hard to give an estimate that fitted the timelines of the project.
Operational work effort is business as usual for an operational team and not project work. In order for a resource to be given the correct amount of time required, realistic availability needs to be put forward to the project manager.
If the timelines available do not work for the project then backfill needs to be found for the operational resource in question and this needs to be factored into the project costs. Ignoring the issue will end up simply causing problems for the project during implementation.
By organising operational resources correctly within the context of a project timeline, you can get closer to a linear delivery. Just don’t look to closely at the operational resources day though – that’ll never resemble linear!
Photo: Raiderslight
