| I spent some time recently with one of my | | | | delivered against the plano some of the senior |
| colleagues. He was running a 3 day project | | | | managers did not know the role and purpose of |
| management event for a client based on their | | | | project boards they sat ono stories abound of senior |
| in-house project management system. | | | | managers who are never available to discuss |
| We came to governance (monitoring and control) of | | | | resource requirements, risk issues, change |
| projects. My colleague mentioned something which | | | | management issues nor to receive an update of |
| stayed with me. He said, "Managers seem to spend | | | | project progresso several people suggested that |
| more time monitoring business as usual than | | | | senior managers put unrealistic deadlines on projects |
| projects". There was general nodding from course | | | | teams without the resources to deliver them. |
| delegates. | | | | Because they are not available to discuss this, the |
| I decided to test this out with some of the | | | | project becomes really difficult to manage and |
| participants on project management training courses I | | | | delivero very few senior managers have been trained |
| was running. Most of the course participants agreed | | | | on their role as a sponsor or project board member. |
| with my colleague's statement (around 80%). | | | | One I two I spoke to had been to half day overview |
| I wondered why and after asking participants on | | | | sessions but is this enough? |
| courses and some senior managers I concluded that | | | | Now before senior managers tell me that they |
| managers do not understand the project governance | | | | allocate projects based on competence I do need to |
| process. What makes me say this?o from comments | | | | say that many people would benefit from project |
| it appeared as though there is little or no formal | | | | management training! However, if senior managers |
| monitoring of projects. When I asked what | | | | could carry out their governance role more |
| processes or structures they used to monitor and | | | | effectively then maybe, just maybe projects will |
| control projects there was much bluster and few | | | | have a better chance of being delivered on time to |
| concrete things in place (other than the supply of an | | | | budget and with the right results. |
| intermittent status report) to ensure projects | | | | If not.......it's a project risk! |