What do you think of this statement...

[DerekM]

I know this isn't MS Project specific, but...

"Project Managers should guide, nurture, and encourage rather than try to
force project teams to follow our common practices."

 

[Dave]

I know this isn't MS Project specific, but...

"Project Managers should guide, nurture, and encourage rather than try to
force project teams to follow our common practices."

You don't say who made the statement so the 'common practices' could be
very extreme for all we can tell.

However, if I assume that it is some management philosophy, then it kind
of says that the corporate procedures and standards are not particularly
important to that organisation and that failure to follow them will be
tolerated. How much of a deviation will be allowed before the matter is
considered serious enough to warrant remedial action. And how do you
measure quality? Furthermore, having allowed deviant behaviour to
develop, how much effort do you want to expend to bring things under
control again and would it have been cheaper overall to have imposed
more control at the outset?

Is this an exam question?

 

[DerekM]

Thanks Dave for the reply.
This message was a snippet from our Director of Enginering. his basic
message before the snippet was that we want best practices and PM's should
try to improve our common practises but...

 

[Jim Aksel]

One of our clients has a procedure to follow when you deviate from the
policies and procedures. It policy requires following standard procedures
unless there is documented reason to the contrary.

If the team wants to deviate from SOP, they fill out a form giving the
procedure they want to violate, what they will do instead, and why this is a
benefit to the program.

The procedure requires this paperwork to be sent to the Program Manager and
Configuration Control Board (basically the senior managers assigned to do
work on the program). If they agree, the Program Manager approves the
request and it becomes the new procedure specifically applied to that one
program. If the PM believes the entire SOP should change for the entire
company, he has the option to forward the approved request off to "Policy and
Procedure Ivory Tower" where the same type of thing happens on a more global
scale.

Bottom line -- The PM is the boss, if he approves the deviation it is done.
Since there is a company policy on how to change the SOP, the company will
support him.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim
It''s software; it''s not allowed to win.

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