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Fatalistic Project Management and Cheap Shoes!

April 6, 2015 By Kenneth Sousa

At the early stages of my career, I never understood the value of buying a high-quality pair of shoes for business attire.  Figuring that “low cost alternative” was the best value.

Then, I read the opinion article from ComputerWorld (May, 19, 2014) titled “A Project Staffing Worst Practice” and had a time warp.  Government at its worst also discussed in an earlier article on Information Week Government.

It appears that the new Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) procurement approach implemented by the US DoD.  Their process for evaluating RFPs for various IT projects using this new approach.  It seems that competence and experience is not a valid attribute to determine the evaluation of the project’s merits to be awarded.

Here is what the article thinks are the flaws:

  • Murky minimum technical requirements.
  • Hiring the cheapest people, not the best team.
  • No room for creativity.
  • Expensive overruns.
  • Disappearing suppliers.

I know that governments at every level are expected to select with the least cost scenario or alternative. Some of that is our fault as citizens pressuring our governmental leaders to do so. But it happens in business to … recently, a national retailer selected the lowest proposal for technology security services then later was involved in a major hacking event.

The importance is to consider the concept of the project management triple constraint. The selection of an alternative must balance and analyze time, cost and scope. However, the new “quintuple” constraint must also consider quality and risk. It becomes the counterbalance of the original project management triple constraint.

At the same time, I realize the pressures of leading an initiative to compress lead times and project costs. But, excuse the pun, at what cost?

It seems that governments in particular lead (and I use that term loosely) by LPTA and then gamble on finishing the ‘half finished’ project at the additional cost to a) eliminate the sunk cost of a project with no earned value and/or b) risk the embarrassment of a failed uncompleted project.

Can you hear the spin … “We have to finish what we started to fully realize the goals of the project and move forward with this important initiative.”

The best way to avoid this is simple …

  • Compile all the information necessary to analyze all perspectives of the situation without paralyzing its completion.
  • Analyze and balance each of the five constraints discussed above.
  • If the risk is too high and/or the quality not sufficient … consider either reducing the scope of the project.  If that lowers risk AND increases quality, then “sell” the reduced scope.
  • Doesn’t work?  Then the choice is pretty clear.  Lead!
    • Recommend that the project be cancelled.
    • Or increase the time/cost to gain an acceptable risk and quality threshold.

Most important point.  Lead!  Otherwise, buying the cheapest shoes that cannot be re-souled increases your total footwear cost.  Not to mention the wasted effort by shopping too many times.  It becomes the “pay me now or pay me later and with more money later” approach.

I now buy quality dress shoes.  Now, which approach will you take for your organization?

Filed Under: Strategic Uses, Systems Acquisition, Systems Planning/Development, Textbook Information Tagged With: cost, initiatives, organizational, plan, project management, strategy

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