A lot of energy has been spent investigating the "value" of project management. My question is: value to whom? Doesn't it all boil down to what the projects' decision-makers do with their project management information?
Imagine a project manager who pays a very small amount for a very advanced cost and schedule control system, and the system reliably produces accurate information in a timely manner. If that project manager ignores that output, and instead acts out of impulse, then the value of the project management information system is zero.
And, to be blunt, no amount of eat-your-peas hectoring from our side of the debate will lead such a project manager to have an epiphany and turn away from his or her nefarious ways. Conversely, a project manager who pays a great deal for a system that barely reports projected costs at completion and forecasts completion dates, but uses that information to avoid a massive overrun or delay, has an extremely valuable system.
Not to abrogate the debate, but, in my opinion, the value of project management is like the macro-economists say: It's what somebody's willing to pay for it.
Imagine a project manager who pays a very small amount for a very advanced cost and schedule control system, and the system reliably produces accurate information in a timely manner. If that project manager ignores that output, and instead acts out of impulse, then the value of the project management information system is zero.
And, to be blunt, no amount of eat-your-peas hectoring from our side of the debate will lead such a project manager to have an epiphany and turn away from his or her nefarious ways. Conversely, a project manager who pays a great deal for a system that barely reports projected costs at completion and forecasts completion dates, but uses that information to avoid a massive overrun or delay, has an extremely valuable system.
Not to abrogate the debate, but, in my opinion, the value of project management is like the macro-economists say: It's what somebody's willing to pay for it.
To answer the questions you pose at the beginning of your post, the value to whom does matter and it does boil down to what they do with the information.
Value = the desirability or worth of a thing. Given this simplest definition of value it is not a matter of what somebody is willing to pay, it is a matter of who is willing to pay.
When folks ask me how to prove the value of any of the processes I evangelize, I tell them their very first step must be to determine how value is defined by whomever is paying for the process. It is only then that they will have any chance of knowing:
- if the process value can be determined using the given definition of value
- if the process has the potential to deliver this value
- if the process, once implemented, is delivering the value
As long as an enterprise can define what value means to them, it is possible to establish the governance to determine the value of any process, project management or otherwise.
I say "possible" because the severe lack of sound governance in many enterprises makes this valuation elusive, resulting in the scenarios you describe in your post.
Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist
http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/