An Interview with Dr.Martin Barnes
Executive Director, The Major Projects Association

Leading

As the Executive Director of the Major Projects Association (MPA) , Dr. Barnes is a leading voice on the subject. The MPA is an international and inter-disciplinary organization providing a knowledge and experience-sharing forum for those involved with large and complex projects.

There are projects where failure is obvious and cannot be denied, he said. On close examination, the chances are that they will contain at least one of four main causes of failure:

Lack of clarity about what is to be achieved
Too much complexity-too many interfaces to manage
Too much technological innovation in the project
Poor relationships and using the wrong kind of contracts between those who contribute to the project

"Any one of these introduces a good chance of failure. If you have all four writ large, there is no project manager, however competent, who stands a chance of finishing the project on time and on budget and so that the finished thing works, " said Dr. Barnes.

Whatever the project and whatever the industry sector, the four failure factors can all apply. But can good project management really be a cure-all? Dr. Barnes believes it can, as long as the project manager is involved from the very beginning and can manage out the failure factors.

Right from the start, there must be clarity of objective, he stressed. Fundamental questions need to be asked and answered, such as why is this project being done and what is it expected to achieve?

Unless you have the reasons and set the right objectives you cannot win success.

Design

Design - whether for a building, an IT project or a new jet fighter plane - needs to be kept on track to ensure that the end product does the job. Building-in masses of innovation and new technology will complicate matters, risk failure and may be unnecessary.

"There is an argument that says, for example, if we want to equip the air force with planes that work we should restrict the number of new things to the absolutely essential for combat, reducing the amount of innovation and giving a better chance of the plane working properly when it is finished."

"The same applies to IT and building projects. Many designers always want to make their project technically better than the one before. Unless constantly kept in check they can build in two of the four failure causes quite unnecessarily and without anybody knowing until too late. Intense focus on the project objectives by everybody is what is needed."

Objectives

Making the business case at the start is as important for individual projects as for programs. It sets out the objectives, within a wider scheme, and provides a clear direction for all decision making.

"I believe very firmly that if a project manager is appointed to a project and has not seen the business case, they should ask for it before a start is made and, if there is not one, then help the project sponsor to work one up."

"Take a soft project, such as a merger. The drivers for emerging two businesses are usually things like to make economies of scale and to tap wider markets. It is often not until after the merger that it is discovered that these things are not happening. Statistics show that 80 per cent of substantial business mergers fail."

"Most of these projects have been managed as projects only up to the point of merger. If they had been planned and managed right up to delivery of the real objectives they would have stood a chance."

"A good project manager would say on day one ‘What is this project intended to achieve? It is not enough to know what it is, I need to know what it is for‘, "

"An experienced IT project manager, who might see thousands of lines of brand new program being worked up by the systems people should want to know which bits of system really need to be new. The PM can not decide that unless he has a very clear idea of what the system is for and how it is to be used and insists on the designers sticking to that objectives."

The larger and more complicated the project, the higher the risk of failure. said Dr. Barnes:

"Everybody’s project is somebody else’s sub-project. On a real major project of some technical complexity, you can be talking about a thousand or more different contributing organisations. They all need to be committed to producing to an appropriate quality and to doing their bit to make sure it all appears on time."

"If they have all been appointed on lowest tender and are motivated by their contract to make things even cheaper in order to improve their profit, the likelihood of the thing working when it is put together is zero. It is absolutely essential that the proper contract is being used, a modern contract designed to stimulate cooperation and a ’can do’ culture."

"A project is a project from when somebody says ’We will adopt this good idea’ until the idea has been turned into reality and the improvement hoped for is being achieved. Project management is always getting from State A to a better State B. It follows that a definition of a project manager is the person who can organise everything and manage that process. It is their job to deliver successful projects and the skills and knowledge that they bring to bear on all aspects will bring that about."

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