INTRODUCTION TO THE ADAPTIVE COMPLEX PROJECT FRAMEWORK

We're trying to change the habits of an awful lot of people. That won't happen overnight, but it will bloody happen.

— John Akers, former CEO, IBM

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves.

— Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States

Markets change, tastes change, so the companies and individuals who choose to compete in those markets must change.

— Dr. An Wang, Founder and CEO, Wang Laboratories

CHAPTER LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Provide readers with the knowledge or ability to:

• Discuss the critical success factors (CSFs) of project success, as they relate to the Adaptive Complex Project Framework (ACPF).

• Build a project management environment that capitalizes on the reasons for project success.

• Understand the foundations of ACPF as a competitive weapon in dealing with complexity and uncertainty.

• Discuss the Ideation, Set-up, and Execution Phases of ACPF.

• Comprehend the importance of the relationship between ACPF performance and continuous process and practice improvement.

• Start on a journey to "becoming a chef in addition to being a cook," and know why.

• Recognize the fact that the ACPF is a lean approach to project management and why this is important.

THE NEED FOR AN ADAPTIVE COMPLEX PROJECT FRAMEWORK

The genesis of this book came from a report by Samuel Palmisano, former CEO of IBM (IBM, 2010):

IBM Report

The significant finding from the 2010 report was that over half of the 1,541 executives from the 60 countries that were interviewed admitted that they were not prepared to support the complex and uncertain environment in which they were forced to do business and they didn't know what to do about it. Furthermore, they expected complexity and uncertainty to continue to increase.

If this isn't a clarion call to action, I don't know what is!

Most businesses lack the tools and staff to deal with the realities of complexity and uncertainty, and the resulting impact on market position and business growth. This book applies directly to the issues and concerns presented in the IBM report, and it spans the entire project life cycle, from ideation through solution deployment. As a companion to a book targeted to executives and those responsible for the infrastructure to support complex projects (Wysocki, 2010a), this book is a practical "how-to" publication targeted to project management consultants and practitioners.

The IBM report highlighted the efforts of a few standout organizations to manage complexity. Project management, business analysis, business process management, and systems engineering were among the enabling disciplines of the standout organizations. The IBM report provided a road map for this book.

The current business climate is one of unbridled complexity, change, and speed. Most pundits would agree that, except for the simplest of projects or projects that are repeated frequently, it is not possible to specify complete requirements at the start of the project. This situation has placed a significant challenge on organizations and their project managers in that the traditional project management tools, templates, and processes are no longer effective. Requirements are never clearly established and continue to change throughout the life of the project. These projects are called "complex." They are not simple. Cyclical, iterative, and recursive models to deal with complexity have been coming into vogue for more than 30 years. The "Agile Manifesto" (Fowler and Highsmith, 2001) formalized these models at the conceptual level and provided additional guidance for project management thought leaders.

The foundational principles of the project management paradigm are shifting, and any company that does not embrace the shift is sure to be lost in the rush. Much remains to be done as the industry has yet to find a way to favorably impact project failure rates. The ACPF, described in this book, has every promise of favorably impacting those failure rates (Standish Group, 2013). "Change or die" was never a more timely statement than in today's project management environment. To be successful in managing complex projects, you must include, in your project management portfolio of processes, an adaptive model that continuously adjusts to changing and modifying conditions, even to the point of changing project management models mid-project. The ACPF is currently the only robust tool that offers an orderly framework that does just that.

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The initial version of the ACPF was developed as part of two client engagements that date from 1994. One project involved process design; the other project involved product design. These two experiences led to the publication of the first version of the ACPF. This original version of the ACPF predates the Agile Manifesto by seven years.

The ACPF presented in this book is a second generation framework. It incorporates more than 20 years of learning and discovery from the experiences and client feedback gained from using and fine tuning the original version. The ACPF presented in this book is a matured version that is ready for prime time! It is a potent business-driven framework, which is used to define and maintain the most effective project management process for a specific project.

This current version of the ACPF embraces all known project management methodologies as special cases.

Every instantiation of the ACPF is based on the project's characteristics, and the project's internal and external environments. To expect a predefined recipe (i.e., an off-the-shelf methodology) to fulfill the needs of complex project management is not realistic and definitely not part of the ACPF. For example, despite Scrum's popularity as a powerful empirical model, an off-the-shelf version of Scrum may not be the best recipe for a specific complex project. The "feeding frenzy" around Scrum abated as managers realized that Scrum was not the "silver bullet" of agile project management practice.

The closest thing that we have to a silver bullet is access to a portfolio of vetted tools, templates, and processes from which the sponsor, client, and project team can jointly create a project management approach. This portfolio is called the "ACPF/kit" and it is a major focus of this book. This approach is realistic, and has proven to be very effective. The ACPF/kit is customized and will contain what your organization needs in order to align its approach to complex project management in the face of the complexity and uncertainty that dominates a dynamic business environment.

There is a need for vetted tools, templates, and processes like the ACPF/ kit. According to a statistic from the Standish Group's Chaos Manifesto (2013), project failure rates range upwards of 65 percent. Those rates are obviously unacceptable. The same percentage was also reported by the Project Management Institute (2013). The Standish Group Report lists the most recent prioritized CSFs for project success. They are shown, in priority order, within the following box:

See Chapter 8 for a discussion of how the ACPF directly impacts each of these CSFs.

Project failure rates are not a new problem, but little seems to be happening to bring about the change needed to improve the likelihood of project success. Project managers continue to force fit new project situations into old project management approaches, leading to a waste of time and resources.

FOUNDATIONS OF THE ADAPTIVE COMPLEX PROJECT FRAMEWORK

The range of ACPF applications that I have seen, together with my clients, has exceeded initial expectations for its robustness. For example, the ACPF has been used in drug research and development, product design, business process improvement, state government operations, and counter terrorism operations planning. It is through these and other applications that the ACPF has matured.

The journey to the current version of the ACPF has been an agile project. Although mature and ready for prime time, it has not yet reached my desired end state. I continue to learn and discover its hidden treasures; I share them with you now and will continue to do so. The ACPF creates a totally vigorous environment within which even the most complex project can be successfully managed, so as to deliver maximum business value.

If this is your first exposure to the ACPF, welcome to the first day of the rest of an effective complex project management life! As you read, please keep an open mind. The ACPF requires a new mindset and the courage to implement it. However, from the outset, if the ACPF is used properly, it works every time!

What Is in a Name?

This next generation ACPF continues with the name that was carefully chosen for its predecessor. Those who studied the original ACPF (Wysocki, 2010a), and adopted all or some of its features, will find a treasure of new and revamped ACPF tools, templates, and processes in this book. This ACPF moves project management processes and their attendant practices much closer to a robust solution for the complex project world than any other previous approach. But the journey is not over. Further refinements of ACPF will surely come, as it is an agile "work in progress." Your experiences and feedback are the fuel for those improvements.

Adaptive

From its very beginning, the ACPF was designed to continuously adapt to the changing situations of a project. No other project management life cycle (PMLC) model does this in an organized way. A change in the completeness and understanding of a solution might prompt a change in the project scope or the management approach being used. Environmental changes (both internal and external) are powerful, and will also impact change to the management approach for the project.

The ability to deliberately change the approach to the management of a project in midstream is a unique property possessed only by the ACPF. Some will find this change disruptive, but experience suggests that it is necessary. The ACPF does not come with a crystal ball. There will be surprises, but the ACPF comes with a decision process to maintain a best fit alignment. Learning and discovery in the early cycles may lead to these changes. For example, starting with an initial agile approach, you and the client may discover the complete solution after only the first few iterations. Should you continue with the agile approach, or transition to a more familiar linear or incremental approach? The decision to change your project management model is complex and not to be taken lightly. The new characteristics of the solution, and the financial impact of the change, will be the bases for deciding to change the approach. Details about deciding on an approach are given in Chapters 5 and 6.

Because nothing in the ACPF is fixed, every part of it is variable and can be modified at any time to maintain alignment to the changing characteristics of the project and its environment. The client and the complex project manager (CPM) are both involved in these modifications. The changes that can be made are not taken from a predefined list of possible changes. The changes in approach are a creative response to the changing needs of the project and the business situation.

To be successful with the ACPF, you have to "think like a chef and not like a cook!" The cook can only follow a given recipe, and if an ingredient is missing in the recipe, it is useless. The cook may be at a loss as to how to continue, if at all. A chef, on the other hand, has the skills and experience to adapt to the situation and create recipes that work within the constraints of available ingredients (the portfolio of tools, templates, and processes vetted by the enterprise).

My significant other provides an excellent example of the difference between a cook and a chef. Heather makes a pumpkin cheesecake that is to die for. Late one Sunday evening she asked if I would like her to bake a cheesecake for us. That's a no brainer for me and so I said "you bet." A few minutes later I heard some rummaging around in the cupboards followed by a moan from the kitchen. She reported that there was no vanilla extract and that was an essential ingredient of her recipe. It was too late to go to the market, so I suggested she put the batter in the fridge and we'd pick up the vanilla extract in the morning. A few minutes later I could tell she had put a cheesecake in the oven to bake. Maybe she found the vanilla extract? No she hadn't. Instead she found a container of vanilla frosting and vanilla extract was one of its main ingredients. She figured out how much vanilla frosting would equal the vanilla extract called for in the cheesecake recipe and used that instead. Once she fixates on a project she is not easily dissuaded. The cheesecake was awesome! So what does this have to do with complex project management? My point is that if all you can do is blindly follow someone else's recipe for managing a project, you won't have a chance of successfully completing a complex project. The recipe author could not have anticipated every eventuality. But if you can create or modify a recipe based on the specific characteristics and environment of the project, you will have planted the seeds for complex project success.

So, you should have concluded that adaptive is a stronger word than you might have expected. To be adaptive means to embrace scope changes, changes to project plan or execution, as well as being open to changing to a different project management model altogether. Thus, adaptation is far more than plan revision for a chosen project management model. To my knowledge, the ACPF is the only robust approach that is adaptive to this extent.

The robustness of the ACPF removes all constraints on the execution of project management.

The bottom line in every project should be to deliver the expected business value that justified doing the project in the first place. Just as projects are unique and dynamic, so also is ACPF unique and dynamic! The responsibilities placed on the shoulders of the CPM are significant.

Complex

The ACPF has demonstrated that it can deliver acceptable business value, even in the most complex and uncertain of situations. Complex projects are of three different types (Agile, Extreme, and Emertxe; further explained in Chapter 3). Their effective management calls for a creative and courageous commitment from not only the project manager, but also the sponsor, client, client team, and development team. These persons' roles in complex projects are different than their roles in traditional projects. And therein lies the challenge to the enterprise to effectively manage such projects and generate the business value expected from such ventures. An ACPF team is designed unlike any other (Wysocki, 2014a). ACPF teams and how they are organized are further discussed in Chapter 3.

Project

Projects are unique and are never repeated under the same set of circumstances. So, why isn't the approach to managing them unique as well? This book does not advocate a wholesale change in management approach, but rather a thought-out approach — one that takes into account and deals with the vagaries of the project and its environment. There are project-specific, as well as organizational and environmental characteristics to account for when choosing the best fit project management approach (see Chapter 5). Any combination of the project characteristics discussed in Chapter 5 can cause a change in how the project is managed.

For example, if the project approach requires heavy client involvement, and you know from experience with a client that this is not likely to happen on the project, then you would not choose an approach like Scrum that depends on heavy client involvement. This situation means that you have to compromise and choose a less-than- ideal approach to work around the lack of meaningful client involvement. Alternatively, you might build a workshop on client involvement into the project definition phase and, based on the results of the workshop, make a mutual decision on which project management approach to use.

Or, suppose that your organizational environment is characterized by frequent reorganization and realignment of roles and responsibilities. In such an environment, sponsorship and priorities of active projects will change, which puts the project schedule and its priority in harm's way. Your best fit project management approach should be one where deliverables are introduced in increments or short intervals, rather than all at once at the end of a long project. This new strategy will reduce the risk of wasted resources and loss of business value due to the event of early termination of the project. This discussion continues in Chapter 9.