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At CELTEM, when we were creating our first integrated project management training and certification program for a 5000-people IT client, I had created this module – QPM – with a very specific purpose of explaining the importance of numbers. My experience was that people were shy of using numbers for various reasons a) They thought statistics was difficult and esoteric and it could beat numbers into saying whatever one wanted to hear, so what’s the point in trying to use numbers. Any serious statistical output or use of numbers could only be derived by experts by using complex formulas and number crunching  b) Secondly they had, perhaps never seriously collected any meaningful project statistics themselves in the past, so it was not intuitive to them that the numbers could actually be of use to a Project Manager.

Mostly, whenever PMs had used any numbers, it was under compulsion by organization’s senior management or the quality department.

To quote a cliché ‘Project Managers had often used numbers and statistics like a drunkard uses a lamp-post, more for support than for illumination’.

Yet, numbers can be very revealing and  illuminating! Quantitative methods can become incredible planning and tracking tool for a PM. Above all QPM as a ‘predicting’ device (CMM Level 4) can be source on competitive advantage.

Can you confidently sign a bonus-penalty SLA with your client aware that there is a reasonable risk-reward involved and that you can not only show confidence to your client but also consistently earn financial rewards for your project.

I can assure you, your client will be more than happy to part with some extra money in exchange for assurance that you can deliver the goods in time, within cost and promised quality. The question is ‘Are you and your organization ready?’

My objective during the QPM workshop is to make PMs become friends with numbers and metrics, and not something that has to be done because your organization is some CMMI level 4 certified.

The objective is to demystify QMP and capability maturity model. What does it mean to be a more mature organization? How do organization implement processes that translate into CMMI Level-4 activities? What does it mean to a project manager? Does it really help a project manager do her job better i.e. meet and exceed the clients expectation while balancing the project triple constrains?

In this series of blogs I will post samples of my workshop exercises and what they illustrate? This will benefit both young and experienced Project Managers. Young PMs will appreciate why organizations insist on collecting metrics and how it can be used. Senior managers would benefit from these learning to help develop and implement better metrics definition and collection implementation within their organization thereby providing the leadership expected from them.

Hopefully these blogs will also become a hot spot for debate and collaboration between project managers. Please do post your questions and I or other PMs would try to answer them.

Next Post: Understanding QPM as PM activity as well as CMMi Level-4 activity.