PM World Today Letters To The Editor
Letters to the Editor are comments on the Editorials, Viewpoints column or other project management notices that appear in issues of the Project Management World Today.
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Open Letter to Debbie O'Bray, PMI Chair Board of Directors
Open Letter to Debbie O'Bray, PMI Chair
Critical Issues For 2004
Open Letter to:
Debbie O'Bray, PMI Chair
The PMI Board of Directors, and
Greg Ballistero, PMI Executive Director
From Russ Archibald, PMI Fellow, PMP
Critical Issues for 2004
Here are eight critical issues that must be addressed in 2004 if PMI is to achieve its often stated goal of being a global organization representing the project management profession throughout the world:
1.Equalization of dues and the cost of certification: These must be properly linked to salary scales and monetary exchange rates in each country to enable practitioners, educators, and students to be able reasonably to afford the membership benefits of PMI.
2. Payment of PMI dues: Local chapters must be allowed to collect dues payments locally and then remit the amounts due to PMI Headquarters, rather than sending the entire payments to PMI and then receiving moneys due them from the USA. This results in expensive, time-consuming, complicated international transactions with central bank controls that are totally unnecessary.
3. Forced sale and distribution of PMI publications in English: Members must be allowed to select which English publications they will subscribe to with attendant reduction in annual PMI dues. It is ridiculous to waste the money to print and mail English publications to members who have no capability or interest in reading these publications, while forcing those members to pay for these useless (to them) publications. Longer term, PMI must financially encourage translations of its monthly and quarterly publications into other languages.
4. Forcing United States of America incorporation laws and regulations on PMI chapters in other countries: Ways must be found to accommodate the laws and regulations within each country for the formation of PMI components without incurring, unnecessarily, the high cost of international incorporation.
5. Regional and/or national coordination: Other countries must be allowed to have regional or country-wide PMI coordinating arrangements along the lines that I understand are in operation in New Zealand.
6. Cost of translation of the PMP examination: PMI should underwrite the cost of such translations, rather than charge local chapters several thousands of dollars, as was the case in Russia in 2003. PMI should be supporting and encouraging the spread of its certification process rather than treating it only as a profit making activity. The Russian chapters (Moscow and St. Petersburg) should be reimbursed for their payments for the rights to translate the PMP examination, since PMI will be paid each time a candidate takes this examination. (These chapters and the individuals who provided the cash should also be reimbursed for the US$7,000, I believe it is, which they paid for translating the PMI PMBOK Guide.)
7. Formation of new chapters: Major re-engineering is required of the process for recognizing, incubating, and chartering potential new chapters, in light of the unfortunate recent experiences in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakstan.
8. Selling the products of PMI volunteer members: Many PMI members do not understand why it is necessary for PMI to sell, at high US dollar prices, the products that have been produced primarily from the volunteer expertise and labor of its members. The PMI OPM3 product is a case in point. I am not aware of any rational explanation of why this product must be priced at US$295 to members. Perhaps someone on the PMI staff can provide such an explanation, which would be welcomed by all PMI members and especially those residing in countries where $295 exceeds their monthly income. This would help to overcome the widespread impression that PMI is excessively concerned with making a profit at the expense of its members.
I realize that the resolution of these issues will require concentrated and intelligent effort on the part of the PMI Board of Directors, other PMI volunteers, and the paid PMI staff. It also requires the active involvement of members with direct experience with the problems involved in each issue. But if the Board accepts its responsibilities for these matters I am sure that equitable and just results will be achieved that will bring important benefits to the future of PMI as an organization, and to the future of the profession of project management around the world.
Russell D. Archibald, PMP, Fellow PMI and APM/IPMA
Consultant and Educator in Project Management
http://www.russarchibald.com
Critical Issues For 2004
Open Letter to:
Debbie O'Bray, PMI Chair
The PMI Board of Directors, and
Greg Ballistero, PMI Executive Director
From Russ Archibald, PMI Fellow, PMP
Critical Issues for 2004
Here are eight critical issues that must be addressed in 2004 if PMI is to achieve its often stated goal of being a global organization representing the project management profession throughout the world:
1.Equalization of dues and the cost of certification: These must be properly linked to salary scales and monetary exchange rates in each country to enable practitioners, educators, and students to be able reasonably to afford the membership benefits of PMI.
2. Payment of PMI dues: Local chapters must be allowed to collect dues payments locally and then remit the amounts due to PMI Headquarters, rather than sending the entire payments to PMI and then receiving moneys due them from the USA. This results in expensive, time-consuming, complicated international transactions with central bank controls that are totally unnecessary.
3. Forced sale and distribution of PMI publications in English: Members must be allowed to select which English publications they will subscribe to with attendant reduction in annual PMI dues. It is ridiculous to waste the money to print and mail English publications to members who have no capability or interest in reading these publications, while forcing those members to pay for these useless (to them) publications. Longer term, PMI must financially encourage translations of its monthly and quarterly publications into other languages.
4. Forcing United States of America incorporation laws and regulations on PMI chapters in other countries: Ways must be found to accommodate the laws and regulations within each country for the formation of PMI components without incurring, unnecessarily, the high cost of international incorporation.
5. Regional and/or national coordination: Other countries must be allowed to have regional or country-wide PMI coordinating arrangements along the lines that I understand are in operation in New Zealand.
6. Cost of translation of the PMP examination: PMI should underwrite the cost of such translations, rather than charge local chapters several thousands of dollars, as was the case in Russia in 2003. PMI should be supporting and encouraging the spread of its certification process rather than treating it only as a profit making activity. The Russian chapters (Moscow and St. Petersburg) should be reimbursed for their payments for the rights to translate the PMP examination, since PMI will be paid each time a candidate takes this examination. (These chapters and the individuals who provided the cash should also be reimbursed for the US$7,000, I believe it is, which they paid for translating the PMI PMBOK Guide.)
7. Formation of new chapters: Major re-engineering is required of the process for recognizing, incubating, and chartering potential new chapters, in light of the unfortunate recent experiences in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakstan.
8. Selling the products of PMI volunteer members: Many PMI members do not understand why it is necessary for PMI to sell, at high US dollar prices, the products that have been produced primarily from the volunteer expertise and labor of its members. The PMI OPM3 product is a case in point. I am not aware of any rational explanation of why this product must be priced at US$295 to members. Perhaps someone on the PMI staff can provide such an explanation, which would be welcomed by all PMI members and especially those residing in countries where $295 exceeds their monthly income. This would help to overcome the widespread impression that PMI is excessively concerned with making a profit at the expense of its members.
I realize that the resolution of these issues will require concentrated and intelligent effort on the part of the PMI Board of Directors, other PMI volunteers, and the paid PMI staff. It also requires the active involvement of members with direct experience with the problems involved in each issue. But if the Board accepts its responsibilities for these matters I am sure that equitable and just results will be achieved that will bring important benefits to the future of PMI as an organization, and to the future of the profession of project management around the world.
Russell D. Archibald, PMP, Fellow PMI and APM/IPMA
Consultant and Educator in Project Management
http://www.russarchibald.com
Friday, December 26, 2003
Glen Alleman's - Real Options Reading List - Decisions in the Presence of Uncertainty
Glen Alleman's - Real Options Reading List - Decisions In the Presence of Uncertainty
In the review of Devaux�s TPC book and DIPP I mentioned a better way to look at decisions in the presence of uncertainty is �real options� here�s a reading list from which to gain some background
http://www.niwotridge.com/Resources/PM-SWEResources/SWEngringLinks.htm#OptionsSWE
Glen B. Alleman
glen.alleman@niwotridge.com
In the review of Devaux�s TPC book and DIPP I mentioned a better way to look at decisions in the presence of uncertainty is �real options� here�s a reading list from which to gain some background
http://www.niwotridge.com/Resources/PM-SWEResources/SWEngringLinks.htm#OptionsSWE
Glen B. Alleman
glen.alleman@niwotridge.com
Monday, December 22, 2003
Glen Alleman Comments on the Kevin Aguanno Comment on his DIPP Metric - Viewpoints Column
Glen Alleman Reply to Kevin Aguanno on the Steve Devaux DIPP Metric
Kevin,
David Curling (Editor PM World Today) forwarded a message you had sent regarding the DIPP metric of Total Project Management. You indicated you'd read "some" of the book and had concerns that the criticism was unfounded. I'd like to probe a bit further regarding the usefulness if DIPP.
Having read the book cover-to-cover several times, my comments on PMForum come from a larger essay at http://www.niwotridge.com/PDFs/An%20Assessment%20of%20Steve%20Devaux.pdf.
Much of my issue with the book comes from the poor copy editing - certainly not Devaux's fault. The book is sprinkled with errors, ranging from misstatements ("At the start of the project, the ETC is the project budget. Pg. 34. ETC is a statistical estimator, budget is provided by the funding authority. EAI 748A is a good starting point for this definition) to mathematical errors (DIPP get s divide by zero error on the last day of the project).
My major concern thought is that DIPP does not consider the sunk costs in evaluating the estimated value of the project on a completion date.
On the same page 34, "As implementation proceeds and work gets done, the ETC should decrease, and the accrued cost become sunk costs, unrecoverable expenditures, which being unaltered should have little impact on the analysis of future actions."
First ETC may or may not decrease; this is dependent on the project dynamics. In many instances the ETC and the budget are separate items. In our DOE contracting world the budget is set by the US Congress through the Secretary’s office. Our ETC for any project within this budget is calculated on a monthly basis – even for projects that have not started yet.
Second and this is critical - ignoring of sunk costs as an estimator of the future is simply poor analysis technique. If the proposed indicator (DIPP) does not consider past performance then what is the basis for estimating the cost to complete the work in the future (ETC)?
They may be disagreement on the details of how to estimate the value of a project at completion, but there are well researched and academically sound approaches to constructing the statistical estimators for such an indicator. "Real Option" (and I don't know why RO is always in quotes) theory is one of those. Some resources on using "real options" in software project management can be found at
http://niwotridge.com/Resources/PM-SWEResources/SWEngringLinks.htm#OptionsSWE
This is one of several approaches - but all approaches I'm aware of take past performance as the basis of forecasting future performance. DIPP ignores past performance ("... have(ing) little impact on the analysis of future actions.") which to me is a fatal flaw in using DIPP in any meaningful way for managing projects.
Other opinions may differ but to suggest "unfair criticism" seems a bit out of touch with the free exchange of ideas in the critically important domain of project management. If we as professionals don't make critical assessments of the ideas, then PM as a profession simply becomes a "mutual admiration society."
Glen B. Alleman
VP, Program Management Office
CH2M HILL
9191 Jamaica Street
Mountain View
Englewood, Colorado 80112
Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site
303.966.5865 Office
303.994.0874 Nextel/Page
glen.alleman@rfets.gov
glen.alleman@ch2m.com
Kevin,
David Curling (Editor PM World Today) forwarded a message you had sent regarding the DIPP metric of Total Project Management. You indicated you'd read "some" of the book and had concerns that the criticism was unfounded. I'd like to probe a bit further regarding the usefulness if DIPP.
Having read the book cover-to-cover several times, my comments on PMForum come from a larger essay at http://www.niwotridge.com/PDFs/An%20Assessment%20of%20Steve%20Devaux.pdf.
Much of my issue with the book comes from the poor copy editing - certainly not Devaux's fault. The book is sprinkled with errors, ranging from misstatements ("At the start of the project, the ETC is the project budget. Pg. 34. ETC is a statistical estimator, budget is provided by the funding authority. EAI 748A is a good starting point for this definition) to mathematical errors (DIPP get s divide by zero error on the last day of the project).
My major concern thought is that DIPP does not consider the sunk costs in evaluating the estimated value of the project on a completion date.
On the same page 34, "As implementation proceeds and work gets done, the ETC should decrease, and the accrued cost become sunk costs, unrecoverable expenditures, which being unaltered should have little impact on the analysis of future actions."
First ETC may or may not decrease; this is dependent on the project dynamics. In many instances the ETC and the budget are separate items. In our DOE contracting world the budget is set by the US Congress through the Secretary’s office. Our ETC for any project within this budget is calculated on a monthly basis – even for projects that have not started yet.
Second and this is critical - ignoring of sunk costs as an estimator of the future is simply poor analysis technique. If the proposed indicator (DIPP) does not consider past performance then what is the basis for estimating the cost to complete the work in the future (ETC)?
They may be disagreement on the details of how to estimate the value of a project at completion, but there are well researched and academically sound approaches to constructing the statistical estimators for such an indicator. "Real Option" (and I don't know why RO is always in quotes) theory is one of those. Some resources on using "real options" in software project management can be found at
http://niwotridge.com/Resources/PM-SWEResources/SWEngringLinks.htm#OptionsSWE
This is one of several approaches - but all approaches I'm aware of take past performance as the basis of forecasting future performance. DIPP ignores past performance ("... have(ing) little impact on the analysis of future actions.") which to me is a fatal flaw in using DIPP in any meaningful way for managing projects.
Other opinions may differ but to suggest "unfair criticism" seems a bit out of touch with the free exchange of ideas in the critically important domain of project management. If we as professionals don't make critical assessments of the ideas, then PM as a profession simply becomes a "mutual admiration society."
Glen B. Alleman
VP, Program Management Office
CH2M HILL
9191 Jamaica Street
Mountain View
Englewood, Colorado 80112
Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site
303.966.5865 Office
303.994.0874 Nextel/Page
glen.alleman@rfets.gov
glen.alleman@ch2m.com
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