Trends and Emerging Practices

Question 1

Identify trends and emerging practices in Project Integration Management.

Answer 1

The Project Integration Management Knowledge Area requires combining the results from all other Knowledge Areas. Evolving trends in integration processes include but are not limited to:

• Use of automated tools. The volume of data and information that project managers need to integrate makes it necessary to use a project management information system (PMIS) and automated tools to collect, analyze, and use information to meet project objectives and realize project benefits.
• Use of visual management tools. Some project teams use visual management tools, rather than written plans and other documents, to capture and oversee critical project elements. Making key project elements visible to the entire team provides a real-time overview of the project status, facilitates knowledge transfer, and empowers team members and other stakeholders to help identify and solve issues.
• Project knowledge management. The increasingly mobile and transitory work force requires a more rigorous process of identifying knowledge throughout the project life cycle and transferring it to the target audience so that the knowledge is not lost.
• Expanding the project manager’s responsibilities. Project managers are being called on to initiate and finalize the project, such as project business case development and benefits management. Historically, these activities have been the responsibility of management and the project management office, but project managers are more frequently collaborating with them to better meet project objectives and deliver benefits. Project managers are also engaging in more comprehensive identification and engagement of stakeholders. This includes managing the interfaces with various functional and operational departments and senior management personnel.
• Hybrid methodolgies. Some project management methodologies are evolving to incoporate successfully applied new practices. Examples include the use of agile and other iterative practices; business analysis techniques for requirements management; tools for identifying complex elemtns in projects; and organizational change management methods to prepare for transitioning the project outputs into the organization.

PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, 4 - Project Integration Management, p. 73

Question 2

Identify trends and emerging practices for Project Scope Management.

Answer 2

Requirements have always been a concern in project management and have continued to gain more attention in the profession. As the global environment becomes more complex, organizations are starting to recognize how to use business analysis to their competitive advantage by defining, managing, and controlling requirements activities. Activities of business analysis may start before a project is initiated and a project manager is assigned. According to Requirements Management: A Practice Guide, the requirements management process starts with a needs assessment, which may being in portfolio planning, in program planning, or within a discrete project.

Eliciting, documenting, and managing stakeholder requirements takes place within the Project Scope Management processes. Trend and emerging practives for Project Scope Management include but are not limited to a focus on collaborating with business analysis professionals to:

• Determine problems and identify business needs;
• Identify and recommend viable solutions for meeting those needs;
• Elicit, document, and manage stakeholder requirements in oder to meet business and project objectives; and
• Facilitate the successful implementation of the product, service, or end result of the program or project.

The process ends with the requirements closure, which transitions the product, service, or result to the recipient in order to measure, monitor, realize, and sustain benefits over time.

The role with responsibility to conduct business analysis should be assigned to resources with sufficient business analysis skills and expertise. If a business analyst is assigned to a project, requirement-related activities are the responsibility of that role. The project manager is responsible for ensuring that requirements-related work is accounted for in the project management plan and that requirements-related activities are performed on time and within budget and deliver value.

The relationship between a project manageer and a business analyst should be a collaborative partnership. A project will have a higher likelihood of being successful if project manager and business analysts full understand each other’s roles and responsibilities to successfully achieve project objectives.

PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, 5 - Project Scope Management, p. 132

Question 3

Identify trends and emerging practices for Project Schedule Management.

Answer 3

With high levels of uncertainty and unpredictability in a fast-paced, highly competitive global marketplace where long term scope is difficult to define, it is becoming even more important to have a contextual framework for effective adoption and tailoring of development practices to respond to the changing needs of the environment. Adaptive planning defines a plan but acknolwedges that once work starts, the priorities may change and the plan needs to reflect this new knowledge.

Some of the emerging practices for project schedule methods include but are not limited to:

• Iterative scheduling with a backlog. This is a form of rolling wave planning based on adaptive life cycles, such as the agile approach for product development. The requirements are documented in user stories that are then prioritized and refined just prior to construction, and the product features are developed using time-boxed periods of work. This approach is often used to deliver incremental value to the customer or when multiple teams can concurrently develop a large number of features that have few interconnected dependencies. This scheduling method is appropriate for many projects as indicated by the widespread and growing use of adaptive life cycles for product development. The benefit of this approach is that it welcomes changes throughout the development life cycle.
• On-demand scheduling. This approach, typically used in a Kanban system, is based on the theory-of-constraints and pull-based scheduling concepts from lean manufacturing to limit a team’s work in progress in order to balance demand against the team’s delivery throughput. On-demand scheduling does not rely on a schedule that was developed previously for the development of the product or product increments, but rather pulls work from a backlog or intermediate queue of work to be done immediately as resources become available. On-demand scheduling is often used for projects that evolve the product incrementally in operational or sustainment environments, and where tasks may be made relatively similar in size and scope or can be bundled by size and scope.

PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, 6 - Project Schedule Management, p. 177

Question 4

Identify trends and emerging practices for Project Cost Management.

Answer 4

Within the practice of Project Cost Management, trends include the expansion of earned value management (EVM) to include the concept of earned schedule (ES).

ES is an extension to the theory and practive of EVM. Earned schedule theory replaces the schedule variance measures used in traditional EVM (earned value - planned value) with ES and actual time (AT). Using the alternate equation for calculating schedule variance ES - AT, if the amount of earned schedule is greater than 0, then the project is considered ahead of schedule. In other words, the project earned more than planned at a given point in time. The schedule performed index (SPI) using earned schedule metrics is ES/AT. This indicate the efficiency with which work is being accomplished. Earned schedule theory also provides formulas for forecasting the project completion date, using earned schedule, actual time, and estimated duration.

PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, 7 - Project Cost Management, p. 233

Question 5

Identify trends and emerging practices for Project Quality Management.

Answer 5

Modern quality management approaches seek to minimize variation and to deliver results that meet defined stakeholder requirements. Trends in Project Quality Management include but are not limited to:

• Customer satisfaction. Understand, evaluate, define, and manage requirements so that customer expectations are met. This requires a combination of conformance to requirements (to ensure the project produces what it was created to produce) and fitness for use (the product or service needs to satisfy the real needs). In agile environments, stakeholder engagement with the team ensures customer satisfaction is maintained throughout the project.
• Continual improvement. The plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle is the basis for quality improvement as defined by Shewhart and modified by Deming. In addition, quality improvement initiatives such as total quality management (TQM), Six Sigma, and Lean Six Sigma may improve both the quality of project management, as well as the quality of the end product, service, or result.
• Management responsibility. Success requires the participation of all members of the project team. Management retains, within its responsibility for quality, a related responsibility to provide suitable resources at adequate capacities.
• Mutually beneficial partnership with suppliers. An organization and its suppliers are interdependent. Relationships based on partnership and cooperation with the supplier are more beneficial to the organization and to the suppliers than traditional supplier management. The organization should prefer long-term relationships over short-term gains. A mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability for both the organization and the suppliers to create value for each other, enhances the joint responses to customer needs and expectations, and optimizes costs and resources.

PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, 8 - Project Quality Management, p. 275

Question 6

Identify trends and emerging practices for Project Resource Management.

Answer 6

Project management styles are shifting away from a command and control strucure for managing projects and toward a more collaborative and supportive management approach that empowers teams by delegating decision making to the team members. In addition, modern project resource management approaches seek to optimize resource utilization. Trends and emerging practices for Project Resource Management include but are not limited to:

• Resource management methods. Due to the scarce nature of critical resources, in some industries, several trends have become popular in the past several years. There is extensive literature about lean management, just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing, Kaizen, total productive maintenance (TPM), theory of constraints (TOC), and other methods. A project manager should determine if the performing organization has adopted one or more resource management tools and adapt the project accordingly.
• Emotional intelligence (EI). The project manager should invest in personal EI by improving inbound (e.g. self-management and self-awareness) and outbound (e.g. relationship management) competencies. Research suggests that project teams that succeed in developing team EI or become an emotionally competent group are more effective. Additionally, there is a reduction in staff turnover.
• Self-organizing teams. The increase in using agile approaches mainly for the execution of IT projects has given rise to the self-organizing team, where the team functions with an absence of centralized control. In projects that have self-organizing teams, the project manager (who may not be called a project manager) role provides the team with the environment and support needed and trusts the team to get the job done. Successful self-organizing team usually consist of generalized specialists, instead of subject matter experts, who continuously adapt to the changing environment and embrace constructive feedback.
• Virtual teams/distributed teams. The globalization of projects has promoted the need for virtual teams that work on the same project, but are not colocated at the same site. The availability of communication technology such as email, audio conferencing, social media, web-based meetings, and video conferencing has made virtual teams feasible. Managing virtual teams has unique advantages, such as being able to use special expertise on a project team even when the expert is not in the same geographic area, incorporating employees who work from home offices, and including people with mobility limitations or disabilities. The challenges of managing virutal teams are mainly in the communication domain, including a possible feeling of isolation, gaps in sharing knowledge and experience between team members, and difficulties in tracking progress and productivity, possible time zone difference and cultural differences.

PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, 9 - Project Resource Management, pp. 310 - 311

Question 7

Identify trends and emerging practices in Project Communications Management.

Answer 7

Along with a focus on stakeholders and recognition of the value of projects and organizations of effective stakeholder engagement comes the recognition that developing and implementing appropriate communication strategies is vital to maintaining effective relationships with stakeholders. Trends and emerging practices for Project Communications Management include but are not limited to:

• Inclusion of stakeholders in project reviews. The stakeholder community of each project includes individuals, groups, and organizations that the project team has identified as essential to the successful delivery of project objectives and organizational outcomes. An effective communication strategy requires regular and timely reviews of the stakeholder community and updates to manage changes in its membership and attitudes.
• Inclusion of stakeholders in project meetings. Project meetings should include stakeholders from outside the project and even the organization, where appropriate. Practices inherent in the agile approaches can be applied to all types of projects. Practices often inclue short, daily standup meetings, where the achievements and issues of the previous day, and plans for the current day’s work, are discussed with the project team and key stakeholders.
• Increased use of social computing. Social computing in the form of infrastructure, social media services, and personal devices has changed how organizations and their people communicate and do business. Social computing incorporates different approaches to collaboration supported by public IT infrastructure. Social networking refers to how users build networks of relationships to explore their interests and activities with others. Social media tools can not only support information exchange, but also build relationships accompanied by deeper levels of trust and community.
• Multifacted approaches to communication. The standard communication strategy for project stakeholder communications embraces and selects from all technologies and respects cultural, practical, and personal preferences for language, media, content, and delivery. When appropriate, social media and other advanced computing technologies may be included. Multifaceted approaches such as these are more effective for communicating to stakeholders from different generations and cultures.

PMBOK Guide, Sixth Guide, 10 - Project Communications Management, p. 364

Question 8

Identify trends and emerging practices for Project Risk Management.

Answer 8

The focus of project risk management is broadening to ensure that all types of risk are considered, and that poject risks are understood in a wider context. Trends and emerging practices for Project Risk Management include and not limited to:

• Non-event risks. Most projects focus only on risks that are uncertain future events that may or may not occur. Examples of event-based risks include: a key seller may go out of business during the project, the customer may change the requirement after design is complete, or a subcontractor may propose enhancements to the standard operating processes.

There is an increasing recognition that non-event risks need to be identified and managed. There are two main types of non-event risks:

• Variability risk. Uncertainty exists about some key characteristics of a planned event or activity or decision. Examples of variability risks include: productivity may be above or below target, the number of errors found during testing may be higher or lower than expected, or unseasonable weather conditions may occur during the construction phase.
• Ambiguity risk. Uncertainty exists about what might happen in the future. Areas of the project where imperfect knowledge might affect the project’s ability to achieve its objectives include: elements of the requirement or technical solution, future developments in regulatory frameworks, or inherent systemic complexity in the project.

Variability risks can be addressed using Monte Carlo analysis, with the range of variation reflected in probability distributions, followed by actions to reduce the spread of possible outcomes. Ambiguity risks are managed by defining those areas where there is a deficit of knowledge or understanding, then filling in the gap by obtaining expert external input or benchmarking against best practices. Ambiguity is also addressed through incremental development, prototyping, or simulation.

• Project resilience. The existence of emergent risk is becoming clear, with a growing awareness of so-called unknowable-unknowns. These are risks that can only be recognized after they have occured. Emergent risks can be tackled though developing project resilience. This requires each project to have:
  
  • Right level of budget and schedule contingency for emergent risks, in addition to a specific risk budget for known risks;
  • Flexible project processes that can cope with emergent risk while maintaining overall direction toward project goals, including strong change management;
  • Empowered project team that has clear objectives and that is trusted to get the job done within agreed-upon limits;
  • Frequent review of early warning signs to identify emergent risks as early as possible; and
  • Clear input from stakeholders to clarify areas where the project scope or strategy can be adjusted in response to emergent risks.
• Integrated risk management. Projects exist in an organizational context, and they may form part of a program or portfolio. Risk exists at each of these levels, and risks should be owned and managed at the appropriate level. Some risks identified at higher levels will be delegated to the project team for management, and some project risks may be escalated to higher levels will be delegated to higher levels if they are best managed outside the project. A coordinated approach to enterprise-wide risk management ensures alignment and coherence in the way risk is managed across all levels. This builds risk efficiency into the structure of programs and portfolios, providing the greatest overall value for a given level of risk exposure.

PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, 11 - Project Risk Management, pp. 398-399

Question 9

Identify trends and emerging practices for Project Procurement Management.

Answer 9

There are a number of major trends in software tools, risk, processes, logistics, and technology with different industries that can affect the success rate of projects. Trends and emerging practices for Project Procurement Management include but are not limited to:

• Advances in tools. There has been significant improvement in the development of tools to manage the procurement and implementation phases of a project. Online tools for procurement now give the buyers a single point where procurement can be advertised and provide sellers with a single source to find procurement documents and complete them directly online. In the construction/engineering/infrastructure field, the increasing use of building information model (BIM) in software tools has shown to save significant amounts of time and money on projects using it. This approach can substantially reduce construction claims, thereby reducing both costs and schedule. Major companies and governments worldwide are beginning to mandate the use of BIM on large projects.
• More advanced risk management. An increasing trend in risk management is to write contracts that accurately allocate specific risks to those entities most capable of managing them. No contractor is capable of managing all the possible major risks on a project. The buyer will be required to accept the risks that the contractors do not have control over, such as changing corporate policies in the buying organization, changing regulatory requirements, and other risks from outside the project. Contracts may specify that risk management be performed as part of the contract.
• Changing contracting processes. There has been a significant growth in megaprojects in the past several years, particularly in the areas of infrastructure development and engineering projects. Multibillion-dollar projects are now common. A large proportion of these involve international contracts with multiple contractors from many countries and are inherently more risky than projects including only local contractors. Increasingly, the contractor works closely with the client in the procurement process to take advantage of discounts through quantity purchases or other special considerations. For these projects, the use of internationally recognized standard contract forms is increasing in order to reduce problems and claims during execution.
• Logistics and supply chain management. Because so many large engineering, construction[, and] infrastructure projects are done through multiple international contractors, the management of the flow of materials becomes critical to successful completion. For long-lead items, both the manufacture of the items and their transportation to the project site become schedule-drivers. In the IT field, a long-lead item may require ordering 1 to 2 years in advance or longer. For these projects, long-lead items may be produced in advance of other procurement contracts to meet the planned project completion date. It is possible to begin contracting for these long-lead materials, supplies, or equipment before the final design of the end product itself is completed based on the known requirements identified in the top-level design. The management of the supply chain is an area of increasing emphasis by the contractor’s project team. Not only are primary sources of supplies identified early in the project, but secondar, back-up sources are also generally identified. Many countries around the world require international contractors to purchase certain minimum percentages of material and supplies from local vendors.
• Technology and stakeholder relations. Publicly funded projects are under increasing scrutiny. A trend in infrastructure and commercial construction projects is the use of technology including web cameras (webcams) to improve stakeholder communications and relations. During construction, one or more webcams are installed on the site, with periodic updates to a publicly available website. The progress on the project can be viewed on the Internet by all stakeholders. Video data can also be stored, allowing analysis if a claim arises. Some projects have discovered that the use of webcams minimizes disputes relating to the construction work on site, as the webcam has recorded the events, so there should be no disagreement about the facts of the matter.
• Trial engagements. Not every seller is well suited for an organization’s environment. Therefore, some projects will engage several candidate sellers for initial deliverables and work products on a paid basis before making the full commitment to a larger portion of the project scope. This accelerates momentum by allowing the buyer to evaluate potential partners, while simultaneously making progress on project work.

PMBOK Giude, Sixth Edition, 12 - Project Procurement Management, pp. 463-464

Question 10

Identify trends and emerging practices for Project Stakeholder Management.

Answer 10

Broader definitions of stakeholders are being developed that expand the traditional categories of employees, suppliers, and shareholders to include groups such as regulators, lobby groups, environmentalists, financial organizations, the media, and those who simply believe they are stakeholders - they perceive that they will be affected by the work or outcomes of the project.

Trends and emerging practices for Project Stakeholder Management include but are not limited to:

• Identifying all stakeholders, not just a limited set;
• Ensuring that all team members are involved in stakeholder management activities;
• Reviewing the stakeholder community regularly, often in parallel with reviews of individual project risks;
• Consulting with stakeholders who are most affected by the work or outcomes of the project through the concept of co-creation. Co-creation places greater emphasis on including affected stakeholders in the team as partners; and
• Capturing the value of effective stakeholder engagement, both positive and negative. Positive value can be based on the consideration of benefits derived from higher levels of active support from stakeholders, particularly powerful stakeholders. Negative value can be derived by measuring the true costs of not engaging stakeholders effectively, leading to product recalls or loss of organizational or project reputation.

PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, 13 - Project Stakeholder Management, p. 505