Weak PM Has Perils (Ron Goforth Commentary)

If project management is inadequate, so what? Perhaps the result becomes a fiasco, a disaster, an embarrassment, an imbroglio, a fiscal nightmare, or all of the above.

Everyone “knows” that software projects are always late, over-budget, and the product buggy — or so they are frequently damned notwithstanding their so-called management. It does not take a strike by a killer asteroid for such problems to occur. When a software (or any other) project is poorly specified, when unmanaged specification change is allowed, or when delay is casually permitted, negative consequences become almost inevitable.

Such ill consequences of inadequate project management are probably tolerated because of miserable precedents. Appalling project results are certainly familiar in our collective awareness — resulting from, among other things, a remarkably long history of notable cost overruns. In fact, one of the first projects that was “managed,” in a modern sense, was the Liverpool & Manchester Railway crossing of the Chat Moss bog in the 1830s. (The Chat Moss is a vast peat bog lying northwest of Manchester, England, and all the earlier surveys of proposed railway routes between Liverpool and Manchester had made detours to avoid it.) That project was years late and more than 40 percent over budget.

At the time, there were critics of the bog-crossing Liverpool & Manchester Railway scheme. One Thomas Harrison criticized the whole thing thusly: “It is ignorance almost inconceivable. It is perfect madness.” (Sounds like he would have been right at home speaking at a Fayetteville City Council meeting.)

We do not have to go so far back in time nor cross an ocean to see some unfortunate results of less-than-optimal project management (notice how delicately put that is). Think about what has happened in recent weeks with the cost inflation and delays of Fayetteville’s west-side wastewater treatment plant and Springdale’s U.S. Highway 412 bypass.

Admittedly, public projects can be quite complicated, but that is no excuse because many private-sector projects are also enormously complicated. There are a couple of differentiating characteristics, at least in degree, between public and private sector projects. Public sector projects may suffer:

• Waffling in response to interminable public input, the vagaries of shifting opinions and power structures, and coping with NIMBY;

• Lax financial management with a short-term outlook that often seems to be coupled with election cycles;

• Amateurism in management and, most importantly, low accountability for poor performance.

Dear Project Planner/Manager: You cannot please everyone, so follow the specs and get on with it. Time is money – polishing the apple excessively and studying to death every nuance should not be used to avoid making decisions expeditiously. (Of course, who gets faulted for non-decisions when there are low expectations for accountability and it is diffuse anyway?) Distinguish between appropriate accommodations and acquiescence and act professionally. Know that changes to approved projects require justification, including due consideration for the cost impacts of delays, reworks, and the like. Thanks, R.

Now, looking forward, there is a growing sense that light rail system transit for Northwest Arkansas merits additional immediate consideration. Fortunately, we do not have a real Chat Moss bog with which to contend. Unfortunately, the bog we must cross is one of convention and old mindsets.

Consideration of a light rail system needs to move forward. One clear and urgent driving factor is dramatic escalation in costs for rights-of-way acquisition (think again of the Highway 412 bypass). There is a short-term opportunity to be proactive and forward-thinking, a chance to avoid a future where we are forced to react — yet again — in crisis mode. Good project management concepts should be brought into play in a sequence of events commencing with a comprehensive feasibility study and moving expeditiously into specifications development and early planning.

When project management, including forward planning, is inadequate, what do you do? Know the players and expect — no, demand accountability.

(R. R. (Ron) Goforth, Ph.D., is the President of Beta-Rubicon Inc. in Fayetteville, a firm that specializes in independent technology assessment / management and due diligence services for investors, private-sector enterprises and public agencies. Beta-Rubicon may be contacted through its Web site at www.beta-rubicon.com.)