Back ‘PMO’ as part of the action
| The Project Manager’s Office is now part of good corporate governance, explains this player.. |
“And rather than solving just IT problems for the business, there seems to be a fair focus on how a business problem can be solved.”
Sury Balasubramanian
D. Murali
Project management, as a discipline, has been around for decades. So, what has been changing in it? The core of project management (PM) principles is still being practised today in almost every industry, explains Sury Balasubramanian, Founder and CTO, Gaea Global Technologies, Chennai ( www.gaeaglobal.com). “The difference is that a lot of companies are adopting PM tools to make their life easier.”
Elaborates Sury, that while it was cumbersome to do ‘earned value management’ previously, organisations are now taking a proactive approach in establishing a separate PM office and managing their projects more efficiently, so as to offer better and more visibility in terms of schedule, scope and resources to their executives.
Interesting trends are emerging, he says, with PMOs being part of good corporate governance, and better change management processes, and incorporating flexibility in projects. The abbreviation, as you’d appreciate, is not a reference to the Prime Minister’s Office, but that of the project manager.
Well, how current is the knowledge about project management as imparted in our colleges, I ask Sury? PM as a concept should be more mainstream in colleges at the UG (undergraduate) level, he feels. “Concepts such as portfolio planning, earned value management, resource planning and levelling should be introduced with appropriate case studies to help the student ease into live projects when stepping out of school.”
He pauses briefly, and I can hear a lot of steps around. It is about 7.30 a.m. and we are at the ‘Chess Square’ in Nageswara Rao Park, Mylapore, with joggers and walkers doing their last few laps for the day fast, before getting to work. And my conversation with Sury gathers pace, too.
Excerpts from the interview:
How does it help to integrate software solutions for project management with those for product lifecycle management? Any recent examples from your work?
Organisations tend to allocate their budgets to ‘projects’ and every major unit of work performed or undertaken is driven by project schedules. A product release (or the lifecycle management of a product) is typically associated with a project or a program and the schedule for the ‘release’ from design to production is managed inside a project.
For example, pharmaceutical companies have very elaborate phases and gates that dictate the movement of a ‘new’ product to move through these phases, and gates of the project to release of the product to the general public. Aerospace or automobile companies manage the release of sub-components (e.g. wing, engine of an aircraft) in separate schedules (projects), which might tie in with a larger programme. Our solution, generally available today, ties the best of product lifecycle software (Oracle Agile) with the best of project and portfolio management software (Oracle Primavera).
Who do you see as the newer adopters of project management practices using software?
Healthcare, IT/ITeS (enterprise no-nonsense project management), financial services and education will start focussing on serious PM initiatives to become more profitable and transparent to their customers and stakeholders.
Where are the major supply chain advantages that are waiting to be tapped by enterprises?
One of the advantages that is very apparent starts from the top of the supply chain: demand forecasting. Forecasting accuracy will let you assess how good a demand you have, where you will have to make trade-offs in terms of cost and service.
Organisations that follow best practices in demand forecasting, perfect-order fulfilment, managing supply chain costs, and managing cash-to-cash cycle will see advantages in a leaner and efficient supply chain, which would then extremely benefit an organisation’s balance sheet.
Would you like to talk about the key challenges in supply chain planning and execution?
One of the key challenges organisations face is the lack of consistent demand planning and forecasting processes.
The importance of accurate and timely forecasting of demand numbers, with inputs from various sources such as direct sales, PoS (point of sale) data, channel sales, and other shipments, should be used for coming up with a consensus-based demand forecast within the sales/marketing organisations.
S&OP (sales and operations planning) involves a review of these forecast numbers with operations, and can include possible trade and promotions planning so that everyone is on the same page in terms product sales, inventory and demand numbers.
This becomes the input for downstream supply planning and inventory optimisation or postponement decisions.
For instance, we worked on a solution that offers executives a nice set of dashboards showing the effects of demand forecasting on various sales inputs and displaying KPIs (key performance indicators) pertinent to every function of the organisation.
On the execution side, one of the common problems we have found in implementations is the ‘reactive’ role played by warehouse managers and operation managers when releasing and picking orders in a warehouse.
A warehouse’s primary function is to fulfil orders for its customers (be it a manufacturing facility or an end customer). Warehouse managers bunch orders in ‘waves’ and release them to the warehouse floor where they are picked, dropped and shipped. Warehouse managers have a limited visibility on the impact of releasing a particular wave in terms of labour (whether more picking hands are needed), or inventory (do we need more stock of a particular product to fulfil these orders), or other criteria.
Here is where it helps to provide a simulation of wave release to allow warehouse managers to easily view the impact of releasing a particular wave to the warehouse.
Warehouse managers can then make intelligent decisions on either adding more orders or removing orders to the wave or reorder the orders in the wave to meet or exceed the warehouse’s customer service levels.
A glimpse of success stories from among your recent supply chain projects.
We have done some interesting work since we started in the supply chain planning and supply chain execution ends of the supply chain for a variety of customers.
On the planning side, for a Fortune 100 customer, we were instrumental in rolling out a new demand management business process; we set up a sophisticated forecasting model incorporating causal factors that enabled them to have a collaborative platform for effective S&OP using Oracle Demantra.
On the execution side, we were brought in to streamline the logistics operations of two companies that had recently merged. We had 60 days to do this… The merged companies had two different warehousing systems, different business processes in their warehouses and logistics operations. We successfully re-engineered their business processes and implemented Oracle WMS (we did not let them miss a shipment!).
Do you find that the interactions between the shop floor executives and the software solution providers are increasingly productive, rather than antagonistic?
Yes. There seems to be a healthy crossover of pure-IT professionals to be more domain-oriented (manufacturing, financial services etc).
And rather than solving just IT problems for the business, there seems to be a fair focus on how a business problem can be solved. Shop-floor executives seem more to be attuned to IT (its quirks and challenges), and seem more considerate towards suggestions from IT as well.
Your take on the absorption of the latest software tools by the public sector enterprises.
Public sector enterprises (PSEs) should adopt more software tools to ensure transparency of their work to the common citizen as long as the nation’s security is not compromised. Every citizen would like to know how each of PSEs is doing not only in terms of financials but also in terms of concrete, measurable indicators at a more granular level.
For example, the NHAI or the TN Department of Highways should use tools that will make their projects more transparent. Details about pertinent project schedules (at a high level), budgets, estimated date of completion, and executive sponsors for the project would be really good to see at every major road or bridge work done in the state. (We are currently trying a pilot at a major transportation agency in the US by locating their projects on a Google map, which the public can access without individual logins using our Terra6 product). The Health Ministry can likewise show the areas where the incidence of swine flu is the most. The PSEs have been relatively good in showing high-level summaries of their performance, but it will be great if more information can be reported out to the public.
Is ‘agile’ finding traction in India?
Definitely, yes. Agile software development in India has caught on with chapters in every major city. The chatter on the public forums, conferences and symposiums has increased the visibility, and the Agile movement is no longer ‘nascent’. Thanks to some key individuals and organisations, these software development techniques are a ‘hot’ topic among developers, project managers and executives.
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