I don't know who "invented" the phrase "It's good for horses, but it doesn't eat grass"; the person who invented this phrase is thought to be a master of project management. Why? Because the essence of project management is to "keep the horses good, and keep the horses from grazing."
A successful project usually has three elements:
The element of time - the time to finish should be "fast".
The element of cost - the cost of completion should be "cheap".
Elements of Effect - "Good" performance when done.
These three mutually exclusive elements are like the three sides of an equilateral triangle. If one side is missing, or any side is shorter than the other two sides, we can no longer call the triangle an equilateral triangle.
In my experience, if one of these three elements is to be fulfilled, this kind of project is easy to do, and more than 80% to 90% of the project managers can be competent and happy. If you want to do two of the three elements, it is not the ability of the average project manager. In terms of ratio, I think that the project managers who can achieve any two of the above three elements will probably not exceed 50%. Among the 100 project managers, there are at most less than 10 experts who can meet the three main requirements of the project.
Some people may be unconvinced to hear me say this, thinking that I am here to alarm people and scare people. They don't understand my intentions. My intention is only two points:
First, the elements of the project's success are the relationship between fish and bear's paw.
Second, the difficulty to be taken into account is to increase according to the geometric progression rather than the arithmetic progression.
How can we solve such a triangular problem? I think we should start from two aspects.
First, if I am a project manager, I must ask: · What is "good"?
· What is "fast"?
· What is "cheap"?
The word "good" used by the Chinese people is truly ever-changing and amazing. Sometimes used as an adverb, like saying: This color is "good" and beautiful. Sometimes used as a verb; it's not a compliment to say the guy is "nice". The word "good" is used just right, and it has become synonymous with another meaning. Others ask: "How is this girl?" You say; "She is very good", which means she is not very beautiful. Others ask: "How is this person?", you answer: "He is very good", the implication is that he is not very capable. At the same time, one person thinks it is good, and the other does not think it is good. This is a problem that we often encounter in our daily life.
In project management, good is good, bad is bad, there is no subjective or objective difference, and there is no explicit or implicit problem. When it comes to the definition of "good" in project management, the first condition is to see if it is useful. "Useful" and "useable" are two different things. Many "usable" things are not necessarily "useful", which involves the question of objective value. One day, on the streets of Taipei, I saw a young man driving a German-made sports car with an air pressure plate on the rear. I thought to myself, in a situation like Taipei, where traffic is jammed and it's impossible to move an inch, driving this sports car is really a long swim in shallow water, and heroes are useless. Is this sports car a good car? Of course. But under the objective environment of the streets of Taipei, is it still a good car? Of course not.
I used to have a famous Swiss watch, one of the expensive, many imitations. Because it needs to be moved, it will only go up the practice. If it is not moved, it will stop after a while. Later, I was so troubled that I changed to a Japanese-made quartz watch. The price was only a tenth of the price of the Swiss watch. Not only did I not need to refine it, but I also had two hours, which allowed me to know at the same time without any brains. Taiwan and California time. It wakes me up at six in the morning, and I don't even bother to take it off when I play ball or take a shower, and it's nighttime. Would you say which of the two watches is better? I can tell you frankly because the latter is more useful and the latter is better. Therefore, in project management, the definition of "good" is "useful" rather than "useful".
The second condition of "good" depends on whether it can achieve the original purpose. If the purpose is to travel, a car is better than a bicycle; if the purpose is to exercise, a bicycle is better than a car. In daily life, someone asks you to buy apples, but you buy oranges and come back. Although apples and oranges are not the same, they may be able to get through. In project management, if you ask for apples, but when you deliver them, they turn into oranges, and this is not a successful project. In order to avoid this kind of error, the project manager must first clarify the specification of the project result in the project design. Word of mouth is useless, everything you want must be written down. On delivery, if I give you what it says on the spec, then I'll give you a "good" one.
No matter what the outcome of the project is, maybe a software system, or a new machine, or a newly built railway... Anything good must be easy to use. When the VCR first came out, knowing how to use it to record TV programs was really a university question. Most of my friends don't use it, especially wives, nine out of ten don't use it. Many of the people who don't know how to use it or don't dare to use it have a Ph.D. Why? Because it is designed too complicated, too easy to use. Later, two Chinese engineers came up with a way to ask each TV station to replace each program with a different number. At that time, anyone only needs to input the code name of the program he wants to record into the video controller. When the time is up, the recording starts, so that everyone will use the VCR. From the definition of "good" project management, simple and easy-to-use things are "good" things.
A project's product, in addition to being useful and easy to use, must also be malleable and extensible. The former indicates its function and can be changed if necessary. The latter means that it is not only durable and scalable over time. America's superhighways, the virtues of Eisenhower's administration, were designed to allow jet fighters to take off and land when necessary. Scalability is more important than plasticity. If the design of a set of practical computer software cannot meet the new needs of the company's business soon after the development is completed, is the project of designing this system still qualified as a good project? Of course, the needs of the future may not be foreseeable at present, and it is certainly not right to sacrifice the needs of the present for the unpredictable future, but in any case, a good project, the product it designs must have the ability to be easily modified, expandable, and not Flexibility that will fail immediately. A product that lacks this flexibility is not a good product. A project that produces inflexible products is not a good project.
But what does the so-called good project actually mean? In other words, how do you know if this project is a successful project or a failed project? You only have to ask:
Will the results of the project increase the company's revenue?
Will the results of the project lead to a reduction in the company's spending?
Will the results of the project enhance the company's services?
If these three goals can be achieved, it is a good project.
Next, let's talk about what is "fast"? In our daily life, "fast" and "good" are often subjective rather than objective. Sometimes it's a matter of feeling rather than reason. When I was a child writing essays, I often used "time is like an arrow" to solve problems. When I do something I don't like to do, I always like to describe it as "living like a year". When it comes to project management, time is absolute, not by feel - to be completed within six months is three months faster than within nine months. But is it fast that the project can be completed in half a year? Who said that? We project management people often tell a joke: "If you ask your boss when he wants this project to be completed, he will answer: Yesterday."
Therefore, one of the most common mistakes project managers make is to try to be as optimistic as possible in order to please their bosses in predicting the completion date. At the same time, I always use historical data or other people's experience to influence my predictions, but I don't know that the objective conditions and external environment of each project are different. When project managers are making completion forecasts, there is a lesson to remember: your boss or client won't remember you telling them how fast they can finish, because they'll be too slow, but if you tell them it's time to finish Worker, then you are in big trouble. So when making estimates, be bold and take a longer time.
There is one more important point: of course, bosses don’t like to hear bad news, but they don’t like to hear unexpected bad news. Therefore, if there is a problem with the forecast of completion, they must not hide it, and they must let the boss know. .
To meet the expected completion requirements, the project manager must know how to divide a large-scale and long-term project into different stages to complete. In each stage, the completion forecast should be made according to the different priorities of each stage. The finer the project is, the more accurate the forecast will be. This is common sense, but difficult to do because it requires careful planning and analysis. Planning and analysis require brains that not everyone can do. After talking for a long time, there is one point about the fast words. If everything is according to the plan, it is in line with the principle of fast, otherwise it is unhappy. It's fast when it's done, and slow otherwise.
As for what is "cheap"? I thought saving money was not the most important purpose in project management. How much a project should cost should be figured out early. Generally speaking, if the difference between the actual cost and the estimated cost is about 30%, it should be within the acceptable range; if it exceeds 30%, it means that the budget is not done thoroughly.
In project management, the most difficult thing to estimate is not the completion time, but the project budget. The pressure on project managers in this regard is greater than anything else. Therefore, when making budgets, they must face the reality and neither deliberately pour water nor deliberately overly optimistic.
A smart executive should focus on the value of the product, not just the price. Project managers who don't know how to use their brains on value and only know how to plan on price are not optimistic about the future. But there are two kinds of value: tangible value and intangible value. In project management, emphasizing intangible value is fatal. Frankly speaking, if a project has no tangible value in the background, its existence is of limited value. In the purpose of the three projects I just mentioned, the increase in revenue and the reduction in expenditure are tangible values, and the enhancement of services is intangible value. A project with high tangible value is a "cheap" project. Otherwise, it's not a cheap item.
After the project manager understands the definition of the project management triangle, at least he will not be too confused about the goals pursued by the project. But this does not guarantee that the world will be peaceful from now on. Any project manager wants to manage his project quickly, well, and cheaply, but in fact, not every project can reach this state, and sometimes, it is not necessary to reach this state.
An experienced project manager must know how to do "trade-off analysis" ︵ Trade-off Analysis︶; If we use the "fast, good, and cheap" I mentioned as a criterion, sometimes we can choose only one or only two of the three, which is what we call "trade-off analysis".
Now, let me give a few examples to illustrate, my view on this:
Generally speaking, for research and development projects, especially research and development related to medicines, money and time are flexible, but there is no flexibility in the quality of project products. In other words, in the triangle of fast, good, and cheap, the "good" side is more important than anything else. On the other hand, in general heavy industrial machinery or housing construction and other related projects, "fast" is the most important factor, because only after the project is finished and delivered, can the payment be collected to continue the future project.
Looking at the development project of manufacturing environmental protection control machines, because its pricing and effects have been stipulated by law, it can no longer have much flexibility, but in terms of delivery time, fast or not is not so important. On the contrary, all consulting projects have little flexibility in terms of time and price, but in terms of the quality of the finished product, there is a lot of room for adjustment.
Some projects do not have the kind of "abandoning the car and keeping the handsome". In the early 1960s, the United States was stimulated by the Soviet launch of the Sputnik Sputnik, and President Kennedy ordered that people be put on the moon and brought back safely by the end of the 1960s. This huge project has to be completed quickly in time and before the Soviet Union; better, there must be no mistakes; and there is a budget limit, because the budget comes from the taxes paid by the common people and must be passed by Congress. As a result, the United States really took the lead in sending humans to the moon and brought them back safely. In history, the only thing comparable to this project is the Manhattan Project, which built the atomic bomb.
When I mentioned the concept of "abandoning the car to protect the handsome", I did not want domestic project managers to give up their ideals and not pursue the perfection of the project triangle. I just want to emphasize one point: when there is no solution to this triangular problem, we must understand the overall situation and take the lesser of two evils. Many times, "trade-off analysis" is unavoidable due to external and internal pressures. To do a good trade-off analysis, a project manager needs to know at least six things:
First, have a clear understanding of the underlying causes of project conflict.
Second, reaffirm the purpose of the project.
Third, understand the current environment and current situation of the project.
Fourth, seek other feasible methods.
Fifth, choose the best alternative.
Sixth, re-plan the project plan.
The purpose of the project is nothing more than to increase the company's income, save the company's expenses and improve the company's service level. The success of the project depends on whether the project is completed quickly, well and cheaply. Although this triangular relationship is difficult to solve, it is not unsolvable. The use of the wonderful, with one heart. Some of the techniques I talked about in this article are a bit like savage exposure, and I hope there is some reference value.