Project Management Value Initiative

The project management initiative program is a six step process which is designed to bring about a measurement team from the introduction to the project management-focused measurements through the design, the development and the implementation of the project management value measurement program. The value initiative program focuses on educating the measurement team on the project management value measurement program. This helps the team to understand the program and enables them to clearly recognise the program's goals and objectives. The organisational construct which will affect the project management value measurement program are the stakeholders, the organisational mission and strategies, the organisational structure, the key business process, the project management maturity, the prior project management improvement initiatives, the present measurement systems and the data availability.

There are six steps in the project initiative program which are as follows:

1.  Measurement readiness planning - In this the measurement initiative is clearly understood and aligned to support the organisation's strategy which is an essential element to support the sustained success of the initiative. The primary  project management, business unit and organisational goals influence the developmental measures of project management. The organisational goals and objectives include the reduced costs, the improved quality, the improved timing and the improved productivity. The project management aims and objectives include more predictable project performance and more repeatable project performance.

2.  Initiative  Planning  -  In  this,  the  team  will  align  itself  around  the measurement program's objectives, the scope, the   development approach, the timeline, the deliverables and the implementation strategy. It will develop the project management initiative plan and the project management initiative schedule.

3.  Measures  development  -  In  this,  the  team  develops  and  also prioritises the initial list of the measures for the scorecard. It is the initial pass at recognising and measuring with the primary activity. A comprehensive list of measure is created keeping in mind that they will have to be logically linked to the aims. The measurement will also have to meet the criteria for the good measures. This would mean that the measures chosen should provide the meaningful information. It should be supported by valid data which is cost effective to capture. It should be accepted by the stakeholders, repeatable and also actionable.

4.  Scorecard development - In this, the team will review the prioritised measures information created to date and develop the measure packages and the consistent project management value scorecard. The team will first engage in the measures review, prioritise the validation, and measure the package definition. The information is then used to construct the scorecard for review and also be accepted by the measurement team in the preparation for implementation. The measure package will include:

• Measure (What) - The data which has to be collected has to be clearly recognised
• Objective (Why) - The measures objective must be clearly defined
• Data capture (How) - The mechanism for collecting the data should be recognised
• Timing (When) - The timing of the data collected should be defined

5. Measurement program Implementation Planning - In this, the framework around the measurement processes and the data collection will be used to support the ongoing measures program implementation. The main activities will include the development of the implementation strategy and the process. The project value measurement program process describes the systematic approach to the project management performance measures, collecting, analysing, and reviewing using the performance  data. This  data can  be  used to drive  the  performance improvement.

6.  Measurement program implementation - Here, there will an ongoing effort to execute the program as it is documented in the implementation plan. The measure packages can be used to reinforce the data requirements, the collection timing and also the data contact responsibilities.