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A project is formally approved because of a business-level impact. That impact should be verified as the project nears closeout.
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Quick reference
Verify Objectives are Met
A project is formally approved because of a business-level impact. That impact should be verified as the project nears closeout.
When to use
Normally near the end of the project, attributes of the project result are measured in order to infer if the objectives will be met. In many organizations, portfolio managers and senior management will be monitoring business metrics for several months after project completion to determine the impact of the project.
Instructions
Project success is tied to a business benefit. This means that a metric at the business level is needed to determine if the project is delivering on its promise. This is different from task-level accountability which is a measurement for each task. This is often a more comprehensive business or system metrics. The goal or objective that relates to the business benefit is normally documented in the project Charter. As has been mentioned in other lessons, this objective can be described using the SMART principles – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
The business-level project objectives are normally measured with one of four methods.
- Project Team Testing – the project team includes activities and tasks in the project plan where they test the project results
- Independent Team Testing – the customers, stakeholders and/or project team enlist the services of an outside organization to independently test the project results
- Analysis – the project team gathers data that is analyzed by them or a third party and used to infer the performance of the project results when faced with real-world situations
- Observation – some project results create a new entity or capability whose existence is new and the observation of the new result is the verification
Long-term benefits are difficult to measure for the project team since the results will not be known until the project is finished, sometimes it will be months or years before the impact can be determined. A challenge for any business and project is that there are many other effects that can also occur during the time between when the project work is finished and the results become evident. During that time, many other events may have occurred whose effect is to either greatly magnify or constrain the impact from the project. Where possible leading indicators should be used to project the impact of the project.
Since the project team will have been disbanded before the business impact is fully known or understood, the appropriate portfolio manager or other members of the senior management team should be tracking the project results. Based on the results, these individuals should modify their selection criteria for future projects and project boundaries.
Hints & tips
- You can use a small pilot project result to act as a surrogate for the larger business impact. Make that pilot project the last phase of your project.
- Independent testing and analysis are generally preferred since there is less “ownership bias.”
- 00:04 Hi, this is Ray Sheen again.
- 00:05 Now we've looked at the completion of project work at the task level.
- 00:08 Well now let's move up to the project level.
- 00:11 >> The stakeholders concern is the business benefits.
- 00:14 They want to have confidence that the benefits will be realized.
- 00:18 So in their mind project success occurs when the business benefits begin to
- 00:22 roll in.
- 00:23 They had originally agreed to this project based upon the belief
- 00:26 that it would further some business purpose or goal that
- 00:29 could have been an internal operational goal or an external market goal.
- 00:34 When the goal is achieved, there will be benefits for the business.
- 00:37 Normally these are financial benefits, but some projects are meant to deliver other
- 00:42 benefits such as goodwill in the community or a positive impact on the environment.
- 00:47 At the time the project was initiated, a business case was normally created.
- 00:51 This business case was used to show the cost and
- 00:54 benefit impact of doing the project or not doing it.
- 00:57 Also, based upon this business case,
- 00:59 critical project metrics would have been established.
- 01:02 As we discussed back in the project Framework Program,
- 01:05 these elements of project goal benefits business case and
- 01:08 critical metrics are normally captured on the project charter.
- 01:12 The project is approved based upon the information on the charter and
- 01:16 the stakeholders believe the project will deliver the results listed in the charter.
- 01:21 You may recall that the project charter or template spelled out all of these terms.
- 01:26 You may further recall that we discussed the need for
- 01:29 project objectives to have smart components.
- 01:32 That means that they were Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and
- 01:36 time bound.
- 01:37 The measurement of the achievement of these project objectives is
- 01:40 what we are discussing.
- 01:42 Let's look at how we verify that the project objectives have been or
- 01:46 will be met.
- 01:47 The final phase or sprint of a project should include activities to support
- 01:51 the decision of whether the objectives have been verified.
- 01:54 We can't expect stakeholders to sign off on the project completion without
- 01:58 an indication that the objectives have been or will be met.
- 02:02 There are several methods that could have been used for verification.
- 02:06 One approach is testing by the project team.
- 02:09 The advantage of this is that the project team is in charge of everything.
- 02:12 So planning is under their control, but
- 02:14 the disadvantage with this approach is the team's potential bias.
- 02:18 After all, the project is their baby and
- 02:21 everyone believes that their baby is beautiful.
- 02:24 Another approach is to have an independent agency or organization test
- 02:28 the project results to determine that they are meeting the objectives.
- 02:32 In this case,
- 02:33 you're more likely to get a real world test environment from the potential users,
- 02:36 but the difficulty is that they're not a direct part of the project.
- 02:40 They may delay this testing because of things that they deem are of a higher
- 02:44 priority, and they may not be properly trained or
- 02:46 experienced to test the project results correctly.
- 02:50 The third approach is through analysis.
- 02:52 In this case, the results of the project are analyzed,
- 02:55 and the analysis is used to predict the project results in real world environment.
- 02:59 This approach is often used when there are many possible test scenarios and
- 03:03 it would take too much time and possibly too much money to check them all.
- 03:08 It's also used if the testing is in itself dangerous.
- 03:12 This activity is predictable within the project plan and
- 03:15 a robust analysis can be very useful.
- 03:17 However, an error in the analytic approach can mean that a critical flaw was
- 03:22 missed, and
- 03:23 that flaw may not be discovered until the project results are in an operational use.
- 03:28 The final type of verification that is commonly used is direct observation.
- 03:32 In many cases, the project deliverable is not testable.
- 03:36 For instance, a project to open up the sales and marketing initiative in a new
- 03:40 part of the world is not something that is tested, but the results can be observed.
- 03:45 The stakeholders can see the result of the project activity and
- 03:47 they can iterate on it until it meets their satisfaction.
- 03:50 Of course the difficulty is when elements of what's being observed are fragile.
- 03:54 When the business operation takes control,
- 03:57 the results cannot hold up to the expectations.
- 04:00 But all of these are still looking at the work while project is underway.
- 04:03 What about the long term benefit?
- 04:06 Long term benefits are those that will not be realized until the project is over,
- 04:10 sometimes years later.
- 04:12 Things like grow market share in Asia by 5% in the next three years, this is a time
- 04:17 when portfolio management or product line management can play an important role.
- 04:22 They can follow the organizational metrics to see if the desired impact is occurring.
- 04:27 Where possible, they should be using leading indicators that are predictors of
- 04:32 performance rather than lagging indicators that take a backward look and
- 04:36 don't provide meaningful information until well past the event in question.
- 04:40 And uncertainty that will impact long term benefit measurements is the inherent
- 04:45 uncertainty within the marketplace in the business environment.
- 04:49 This could be external effects such as regulatory issues,
- 04:53 competitor moves or even totally unpredictable things like a pandemic.
- 04:58 There may also be internal issues such as reorganizations or
- 05:01 change in business systems and strategy.
- 05:04 So the project results may be perfect for the old conditions and
- 05:08 only marginally effective for the new conditions or vice versa.
- 05:13 So what do we do with this measurement?
- 05:14 If the project was completed months ago,
- 05:17 a measurement now can have no effect on the project.
- 05:20 That's true from a singular project perspective, but
- 05:22 not from a portfolio perspective.
- 05:25 Senior management and PMO should be reviewing the results in order to do
- 05:29 a better job of project selection and setting project boundaries for
- 05:32 future projects.
- 05:34 >> Verifying project results can be done from both a short term and
- 05:37 a long term perspective.
- 05:40 Both are valuable and both should be part of your project control and oversight.
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