There are a number of things that can and do go wrong on a project.  You are probably familiar with many of the most common project management nonconformances or failures.

Common Project Management Nonconformances include:

• Errors, omissions or just plain poor assumptions
• Delays which affect the project schedule or the originator’s ability to meet project deadlines
• Late submissions
• Rework
• Unauthorized changes to projects, schedules, plans, etc.
• Non-compliance with established policies, procedures, specifications or project specific Quality Assurance Plans
• Cost overruns (which result from all other failures)

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Project Execution, Project Monitoring & Control, and Project Review & Close

The first phase in any project management process is Project Initiation.  The second phase is Project Planning.  Together the first two phases represent the seven “Ps” of planning:

Proper Prior Planning Prevents a Pretty Poor Program.

But you are not preparing planning for planning’s sake, you need the deliverables.  The next phase – Project Execution – is the area most people spend most of their time.

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You have identified a problem, and you have made an immediate correction to fix it for now.  How do you make sure the same problem doesn’t happen again?

That is the role of corrective action in continual improvement of an organization.  In a reactive organization, we constantly react to problems in a corrective mode.  We make the short term fixes – over and over and over again. 

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We know that it is important to collect information and feedback from external and internal sources in order to identify problems and non-conformances.  But once you have found a problem, what steps do you take to resolve it?

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If your goal is ISO certification, the best method is to create a compliant QMS in stages.

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Last week we identified another common process maturity level in many organizations, Phase Two — Documentation.  Frequently, this is where organizations get stuck, and are not able to advance in their management system maturity.  We also covered Phase three – Process Stability.  This week we will describe the next two levels in our process maturity model that we use to describe the phases of an improving effective management system.  We call the third level Corrective Action Phase and the fourth level Preventive Action Phase, and we will see why they are so difficult to reach.

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Last week we identified the most common process maturity level in many organizations, phase one — Reactive.  Few organizations are able to advance much farther up in management system maturity.  This week we will look at the next two levels in our process maturity model that describe the phases in which an effective management system comes to life.  The Documentation and Stability Phases.

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We are experiencing an avalanche in our financial system. Major financial institutions are failing to the shock of investors and depositors, and there is such a high level of uncertainty in the financial system that availability of credit has been shut off even to the most highly rated borrowers.

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Is it an art or a science? In business that question is frequently, and aptly, applied to Sales and Marketing. Good marketing and sales people know how to work the “magic” that creates leads and closes sales. If you ask them how they do it, however, they may not be able to explain it. Many sales and marketing veterans operate through an intuitive feel they have created through observation and experience, but it is not something very easily defined or described.

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Part 2 of a 3 part series

Last week we talked about using Pareto analysis for organizing, simplifying, and prioritizing problem solving. This week, we’re going to introduce two simple tools which can be used together to improve the performance of business systems. In improving any process,

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