Productivity improvement through right governance

Productivity Improvement through Right Governance

Chandan Lal Patary

PMP Development Manager ABB

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Contents

Abstract ...................................................................................................................... 3

1.0 Introduction: ...................................................................................................... 4

2.0 Governance and productivity: ........................................................................... 7

2.1 Productivity improvement steps: ................................................................. 11

2.2 Project Classification ................................................................................... 12

2.3 KAIZEN for effective Governance: .............................................................. 12

2.4 Data manipulation and Data authentication: ............................................... 13

2.5 Change Management .................................................................................. 18

2.6 Requirement Management: ......................................................................... 19

2.7 Benefit Realization: ..................................................................................... 21

3.0 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 22

About the author ....................................................................................................... 24

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Abstract

This paper describe about the productivity improvement through Metrics driven

approach and by effective project governance. Every organization is looking for

maximizing the productivity year on year through various mechanisms. In Project

governance we ensure the program or project benefit and build the knowledge

assets for better productivity. Metrics based Governance activity if driven efficiently

will satisfy stakeholders as information will be transparent about the business

progress, which will minimize the failure risks with efficient decision making process.

Metrics collection, Analysis, taking action and put it into continuous practice will

improve productivity significantly.

This paper will explain below

a) What are the parameters relevant to productivity that need to be tracked for

effective Governance

b) How can an organization demonstrate customer satisfaction and effective value

for money with metrics driven approach

c) Effective change management and risk management to minimize down time and

increase productivity.

d) How effective requirement management, capturing effective requirements,

tracking requirements till completion, asking effective questions to create better

requirement is the way to maximize the productivity at the later period of time in

execution cycle.

e) How can we do the benefit realization and achieving results and link the same for

knowledge building and productivity.

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1.0 Introduction:

Organizations are becoming more and more competitive to survive in the market.

Investors are becoming more and more cautious about the investment. Stakeholders

expect to realize the value for their investments as early as possible. What

organization can do in this situation? Execution speed might be the correct answer.

All investors expect innovative solution with minimal time frame. The moment

organization increases the speed, the chances for failure also increase if there is an

absence of data driven decision making. To maximize the customer satisfaction

organization needs to share the project or product or business data which satisfies

the customer’s curiosity about the project progress and output vs money invested.

The data should talk timeline, quality and how the budget has been utilized and other

vital parameters of the projects and its progress .Project governance will provide a

guideline considering all the factors which will drive the customer

satisfaction.Governanance data will change based on the product, domain, and

business which organizations are dealing with. Stakeholder needs to provide

feedback wherever correction required based on the data received. All

communication with stakeholders should base on quantifiable data as subjective

discussion creates confusion.

Figure 1: Cockpit Dashboard 1

The Figure 1: shows the cockpit dashboard for an aircraft. This picture

demonstrates the importance of the data for decision making. The display is

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continuously sensing and feeding the guiding information to the pilot to take

corrective steps with speed and accuracy. In critical system decision making has to

be very fast based on the dashboard display information. Pilot has complete

information about each and every part of the aircraft from this cockpit display. How

can organization apply the same concept for each and every area inside the

organization?

Same applies to the hospital when patient is in ICU(Intensive Care Unit) ,doctor uses

PMS(patient Monitoring System) which is an embedded device and the device

continuously display the vital parameters of a patient to the doctors so that they can

take effective decision at the right time to save the patient’s life.

Figure 2: Display of the Patient Monitoring System used in ICU, demonstrating the

data driven decision making. This system extracts all the vital parameters from a

patient and displays the same to the doctor.

Figure 2: ICU Dashboard 1

Governance will produce dashboard data which can be a guiding force for the

decision making process. Organization should have the ability to take decision based

on the dashboard data show at the right time so that damage can be minimized.

Metrics based measurement and productivity has a tight link.

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According to the definition of Productivity = Output/Input.

Productivity definition is very simple. Inputs are the resources to generate the

expected ouput. Resources are not abundant so everyone needs to be careful to

utilize the resources and maximize the output.

Though the definition is very simple but the real productivity has little to do with how

hard the staff works, how many hours they put in, or even how much output they

produce. Real productivity is measured by the business value that their work

generates for the organization.

Various questions appear when we look into the resource usages.

a) How can stakeholders know how efficiently resource utilization is happening?

b) How can stakeholders ensure optimum usage of the resources so that

productivity goes up?

c) How can stakeholders take decision to control the ambient factors which

influence the output?

Centralize Dashboard with critical data, accessible by all at any time, plays a

significant role for decision making.

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2.0 Governance and productivity:

What does "Governance" mean: the process of decision-making and the process

by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented)?

Governance is a framework which enables management teams to make better

decisions about securing their critical information and Information Technology

infrastructure and protecting their intellectual capital.

Governance helps organizations to define who is responsible for what and how

Information Technology decisions are made. It enables Information Technology to

adhere to business objectives and maximize value from the investments. It can

protect against failures that result from the misalignment of Information Technology

and business strategies.

Project governance ensures that complex Information Technology projects deliver

the value expected of them, rather than an expensive and embarrassing failure. An

appropriate governance framework helps save money by ensuring that all

expenditure is appropriate for the risks being tackled. It also enables business

analysts to better understand and compare the way in which public companies

manage their technology investments.

Good governance is about both achieving desired results and achieving them in the

right way. Since the "right way" is largely shaped by the cultural norms and values of

the organization, there can be no universal template for good governance. Each

organization must tailor its own definition of good governance to suit its needs and

values

Effective Governance starts with a standard way to define the process. Every

business is unique, customer expectations are different. To start the right

governance team members need to discuss, communicate and list down the

expected flow to the governance.

� Projects need to identify what should be the measurements parameters?

� What are the goals and objectives?

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� What frequency all the artifacts data has to be collected?

� Who will be the responsible team members to collect the data and who will be for

analyzing the data?

� Who are the stakeholders and what level of information they should get and what

timeline?

Project team will get better results when project metrics are in balance.

For example, having only a metrics for speed or only a metric for accuracy would not

help the project very much. If measure only speed, project deliverable might work

poorly.

If projects measure only accuracy, projects may never finish. Metrics for both used

together, though, may create tension, provide the balance for the project needs to

deal with trade-offs and best achieve for project goals.

Measurement drives behavior, so organization can use positive data to recognize

and reward accomplishments. Negative information that project report (or threaten to

report) can be a powerful aid in helping to control the project.

Through data driven approach we can analyze the issue to achieve excellent

productivity.

Few questions appear when we talk about productivity

a) How can we ensure that what we produce is the right output at first time?

b) Can we do the frequent review with the stakeholders, change frequently based

on the input and quickly adapt with the new model?

c) Stabilizing the input, process and output criteria based on the discussion?

Everything is possible when we have right data to analyze. Diagnostic data in

dashboard should continuously display the current status and through that input

stakeholder should understand the health and can able to predict the future.

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Every department in an organization should have dashboard to

Assurance, Development team, Architect team, testing team, supports team,

procurement team etc. so that organization can fine tune whenever and wherever

require.

Governance should align with the strategic plan of the organization. The gro

organization is expecting will fulfill when process output is same as expected

strategic output of the organization.

Figure 3: Data flow Diagram 1

Figure 3: Demonstrates the cycle of data flow which

effective decision making.

Looking again into the productivity dimension

Productivity is a derived metric:

Input is easy to measure (e.g., activity

Output and environm


Every department in an organization should have dashboard to



Governance should align with the strategic plan of the organization. The gro


strategic output of the organization.

: Demonstrates the cycle of data flow which organization can execute for

Looking again into the productivity dimension,

Productivity is a derived metric: function (output, input, environment)

is easy to measure (e.g., activity-based controlling)

environment are difficult to describe and measure.

Every department in an organization should have dashboard to display. Quality



Governance should align with the strategic plan of the organization. The growth what


organization can execute for

function (output, input, environment)

are difficult to describe and measure.

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Requirement management is one more area for the productivity improvement. As

requirements directly improve output, organizations need to look into the quantifiable

measurement of the output like product demo, code shipping rate, rate of bugs

closed in a cycle etc.

Benefit realization is the key to the productivity improvement. Every organization by

executing project acquires knowledge, produce reusable components which can be

reuse directly and save effort which will directly contribute into the productivity

improvement.

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2.1 Productivity improvement steps:

Figure 4: Productivity improvement points

Understanding software productivity for a large system development requires

complex set of qualitative and quantitative data from multiple sources for analysis.

Effective Governance process starts with a vision. Organizations take actions to

effectively utilize the Governance framework and produce value through that.

Work culture, people, ambient

Automate wherever possible

Rapid Prototype, Demo, Update

Waste reduction

Knowledge Management

Drive for rework reduction

Reduce over production, over wait,

over preparation

Deploy Process and continuous

mature the process

Generate more reuse components

Improve Productivity

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Figure 4: Demonstrates the various factors which influence the productivity

improvement. Organization need to put special focus on all these aspects to

effectively collect the data on all those area and regularly monitoring for all the

collected data. Does it guarantee the improvement? Not really but it should be the

starting point for the improvement journey.

2.2 Project Classification

To start with effective Governance team needs to start with project classification.

In Information Technology projects, there are several types of tasks an organization

executes, Fresh Development projects, Minor enhancement, Maintenance project,

Support projects, Hardware and software involvement and many other categories.

� Budget, number of resources play significant role in project classification.

� Projects are locally or globally distributed?

� Timeline of the project? One year/two year or multiyear project?

� Which Technology the project is going to use? Open source? Propriety technology

� Architectural maturity for the product?

� Team Process maturity?

Several other factors need to consider for classification of the project.

All the above factors provide inputs for the categorization of a project.

Based on the project categories, measurement criteria changes and effective

monitoring and control mechanism differ. Organization needs to look into the

category of the project to identify right measurement parameters. Montior those

parameters for demonstrating quality output and continuous improvement.

2.3 KAIZEN for effective Governance:

Once governance process steps are identified, team need to demonstrate the

improvement with the defined process. Stable process provides good productivity.

Regular brainstorming with the team members and upper management involvement

to come up with different idea is essential. Team needs to identify which areas are

working well and where team needs changes to see what can be improved.

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Dashboard has to be displayed in centralized area for every individual to see how

effectively each team is performing. Upper management should visit team members

to encourage and discuss as a surprise visit.

2.4 Data manipulation and Data authentication:

In metrics and measurement data is the key for effective decision making. If team is

working on manipulated data or not with the actual data consequence will be high

which will resultant into loss in business in multiple areas. Rework is the major loss

for the organization. When metrics are used to find fault and punish, people provide

them only grudgingly, and do whatever they can to provide results that demonstrate

no problems—whether that’s true or not. Gathering valid, useful information starts

with a meaningful commitment on your part to use the measures for process

improvement, good decision making, and project problem solving. If there is even a

suspicion that data gathered will be used to criticize, punish, or even embarrass

people, those responsible for reporting them will find a way to game the measures

and disguise what is going on.

Below figures explain different dimensions of the projects status through dashboard

irrespective of the project size. Any project has to break to manage efficiently,

manage through quantifiable measurement and metrics based management

philosophy. All these sample data may change based on the project, product,

domain or business. These sample dashboard data extracted from a software

project.

Figure 5: is a dashboard data which is located in centralized location for global team

to view. It demonstrates the health of the each scrum project and how they should

take corrective actions if required. The dashboard data is showing different

dimensions of the scrum projects and how each area is performing. There are more

to measure but team has chosen these are the basic parameters which ensure

project progress and guide them whenever there is any fault.

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Figure 5: SCRUM project Dashboard

Figure 6: this picture demonstrates about the areas where team can focus to

improve the productivity. All these areas if not taken care properly can lead into

execution efficiency bottleneck. It will increase the waste or rework. All these areas

are the checkpoint for the productivity improvement journey.


Figure 5: SCRUM project Dashboard

icture demonstrates about the areas where team can focus to



productivity improvement journey.

icture demonstrates about the areas where team can focus to



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Figure 6: Dashboard contents

Figure 7: and Figure 8: is a typical dashboard for Quality Assurance team where

every granular information has been displayed to take corrective steps wherever

required. The pictures are sh

are the bottlenecks.


: is a typical dashboard for Quality Assurance team where


required. The pictures are showing how testing activities are performing and where

: is a typical dashboard for Quality Assurance team where


owing how testing activities are performing and where

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Figure 7: Dashboard for Quality Assurance


Figure 7: Dashboard for Quality Assurance

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Figure 8: Dashboard for Quality Assurance 2

Figure 9: Questionnaire can be used for Dashboard preparation. Effective and

efficient questions based on the product, domain, business, organizational vision will

help to prepare correct dashboard data. Every team should have data to assess

themselves every decided frequency level


Figure 8: Dashboard for Quality Assurance 2

: Questionnaire can be used for Dashboard preparation. Effective and

uestions based on the product, domain, business, organizational vision will


themselves every decided frequency level

: Questionnaire can be used for Dashboard preparation. Effective and

uestions based on the product, domain, business, organizational vision will


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Figure 9: Checklist for Dashboard

2.5 Change Management

Productivity is severely affected when there are many frequent change requests

coming at the middle of the project execution cycle. Based on the priority team need

to take up the change request and do the impact analysis. Teams need to measure

the change trend and on increasing of the trend proper investigation and corrective

steps are required.


Figure 9: Checklist for Dashboard

Change Management




rend and on increasing of the trend proper investigation and corrective




rend and on increasing of the trend proper investigation and corrective

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Figure 10: Change management Dashboard

Figure 10: is the change management tracking dashboard. It will provide information

to all the stakeholders how many times

should be done and scope change need to take care so that it does not affect

productivity. Change is an essential part efficient project execution but same has to

handle efficiently. Change process should be well

tool. Changes improve the product but decrease motivation level in team. Frequent

changes increase reworks and increase wastages if not manage with well thoughts

and good process.

2.6 Requirement Management:

The major consequence of requirement related problems are rework

something again that team thought was already done. Rework can consume 30 to 50

percent of team’s total development cost (Boehm and Papaccio 1988) and

requirements errors account for 70 to 85 percent of

1997).

Track requirements status, stakeholders need to know the requirement status to

predict the project progress. Review comments, review process, capturing the

comments have to be through tool and process so that effort mi

organizations are not losing any data in process. Version history has to track so that

any given time any version of the document can be reproduce. The following quote

from Fredrick Brooks illustrates why requirements are so important:


Figure 10: Change management Dashboard

: is the change management tracking dashboard. It will provide information

to all the stakeholders how many times change has been requested. Impact analysis



handle efficiently. Change process should be well documented and tracked through



Requirement Management:

ence of requirement related problems are rework



requirements errors account for 70 to 85 percent of the rework cost (Leffingwell



comments have to be through tool and process so that effort mi



from Fredrick Brooks illustrates why requirements are so important:

: is the change management tracking dashboard. It will provide information

change has been requested. Impact analysis



documented and tracked through



ence of requirement related problems are rework—doing



the rework cost (Leffingwell



comments have to be through tool and process so that effort minimizes and



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“The hardest part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.

No other part of the conceptual work is as difficult as establishing the detailed

technical requirements, including all of the interfaces to people, to machines, and to

other software systems. No other part of the work so cripples the resulting system if

done wrong. No other part is more difficult to rectify later” (Brooks 1995). To quote

Karl Wiegers (2004), “If you don’t get the requirements right, it doesn’t matter how

well you do anything else.”

Figure 11: Requirement Management Dashboard

Figure 11: Dashboard provides information to all the employees about the quality of

the requirements and raise alarms if any change require for a requirement.


rdest part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.



tware systems. No other part of the work so cripples the resulting system if



Figure 11: Requirement Management Dashboard

: Dashboard provides information to all the employees about the quality of


rdest part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.



tware systems. No other part of the work so cripples the resulting system if



: Dashboard provides information to all the employees about the quality of


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2.7 Benefit Realization:

Figure 12: Benefit Measurement Mind map

Any project execution should have Benefit Management and Measurement process

against Benefits. Organization need to measure the learning’s which should be

reused in next similar or related projects, as knowledge brin

improvement and execution speed. Upper management support requires realizing

the benefit effectively and capturing information for future. Resource availability and

dependent project realization has to handle efficiently. Knowledge manageme

should connect with benefit realization data. Leaders need to encourage team

members for contributing and achieve the knowledge management related

organizational goal.

Figure 12: is the sample flow for Benefit measurement. Individual Program can

come up with their own process flow for collecting the Benefit Management data and

share with other team.


Benefit Realization:

Figure 12: Benefit Measurement Mind map



reused in next similar or related projects, as knowledge brings productivity



dependent project realization has to handle efficiently. Knowledge manageme



: is the sample flow for Benefit measurement. Individual Program can

me up with their own process flow for collecting the Benefit Management data and



gs productivity



dependent project realization has to handle efficiently. Knowledge management data



: is the sample flow for Benefit measurement. Individual Program can

me up with their own process flow for collecting the Benefit Management data and

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3.0 Conclusion

Organizations need to create a culture where all team members would be eager to

contribute for the organizational growth. Leaders have to communicate the

organizational vision to all team members and build healthy, productive teams and

the same team members will contribute for excellent stakeholder value generation.

Leaders have to mentor, coach, communicate and build that culture into the blood of

the system.

At any given point of time any stakeholders wherever they involve should be able to

know through metrics what is going on? How it is going on? Why it is like that? What

steps are currently taken by whom? Expectation is: Total transparent system.

Organization need time to reach that stage but continuous drive has to exist from all

level and from all members.

Every team members have to own the organizational vision, mission and culture and

work for maximizing the productivity through innovation and maintain the speed of

execution excellence.

PMI has provided many guidelines for better project Governance. Effective

governance plan and execution of the same for achieving the excellent result with

continuous process improvement should be a part of organizational culture and

same resultant into a great productivity improvement. Data driven decision making

culture will help to minimize the waste reduction and improve productivity. Through

systematic knowledge management organization can maximize productivity and

measure improvement and demonstrate the same to stakeholders for excellent

customer satisfaction. When each and every team member makes these practices as

a habit and data driven decision making, data driven demonstration will be a part of

communication agenda than only organization will demonstrate value to

stakeholders. Organization can minimize several overheads and maximize the cost

benefit if organization has dashboard with data for different dimensions for all the

projects, products, units, divisions wherever applicable. Customer satisfaction will

increase when we identify, collect, share the data on continuous basis and improve

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the process and output by collecting feedback from various stakeholders.

Organization has to look for data through governance framework for overproduction,

waiting time, non-value added processing, under-utilized people, excess movement,

over preparation etc. to take action and measure the productivity improvement

journey.

Finally by doing all the above mentioned metrics and measurement if organization

can reduce execution cycle time with expected quality output by 20-30% it will

create immense satisfaction to the investors.

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About the author

Mr. Chandan Lal Patary Currently working as Development

Manager at ABB.

applications across various domains and has successfully

executed many Projects. Chandan has worked on domain like

Healthcare, Aerospace, Building automation, Power automation

under real time mission critical

development. Chandan has 14 years of IT experience. He is certified PMP from

2008 and he is a Green Belt certified holder. Chandan is an agile practioner and

Certified Scrum Master. Chandan holds a Bachelor’s

Technology (NIT-Agartala) in Electrical Engineering. He has completed one year

Executive General Management program from IIM



Manager at ABB. He has deep experience in developing Software




under real time mission critical product development to large scale application



Certified Scrum Master. Chandan holds a Bachelor’s from National Institute of

Agartala) in Electrical Engineering. He has completed one year

Executive General Management program from IIM-Bangalore in 2007.


He has deep experience in developing Software




product development to large scale application



from National Institute of

Agartala) in Electrical Engineering. He has completed one year

Bangalore in 2007.

Business

Productivity improvement through right governance