The data-driven project manager
A statistical battle against project obstacles
Project Management (PM) has been part of my professional life ever since my research period when I was working on a PhD. Today, my focus not only lies on research and academic papers, but much more on teaching at business schools and companies. My audience consists not only of university students, but much more of professionals active in the PM field. These professionals are often responsible for huge projects, and need to take decisions along the life of the project to maximise the likelihood of project success. For them, relying on data is key for making good decisions! And that is what the book is all about.
The book is about a fictitious company called “GlobalConstruct” that is responsible for a tennis stadium construction project in Australia. The book tells the story of Emily Reed and her colleagues who are in charge of the management of a new tennis stadium project. The CEO of the company, Jacob Mitchell, is planning to install a new data-driven project management methodology as a decision support tool for all upcoming projects. He challenges Emily and her team to start a journey in exploring project data to fight against unexpected project obstacles.
Before you dive into the book and start reading the story about GlobalConstruct’s tennis stadium construction project, here is a short summary of the reasons why this book could be relevant to you. I will also give a brief overview of each of the chapters such that you know what to expect. So, if you are a PM professional, and you are wondering whether this book will be worth a read, please read the next sections and then decide.
Why should you read this book? This book is written for both students and professionals. It’s written for all project managers with an affinity for data and with not much time to dive into the expert literature. It’s written for professionals with or without expertise in data-driven project management, but with an eagerness to learn more about the use of data-driven methodologies for their projects.
After several scientific books on project management, it thought is was time for something else! It’s not that I don’t like the scientific content of my previous books, but I noticed that scientific books are written for… well… scientific people. Professionals hardly have any interest in the details of these books, as they contain too many technical details, mathematical formulas and computer algorithms that are only relevant for academics and researchers. But this time, with my new book, I think it’s a bit different!
My book is written primarily for professionals with in interest in projects and data, and it is used for my lectures given to people with practical experience. As a matter of fact, my professional teaching lectures were my main inspiration while writing this book. One of the main challenges in training professionals is the translation of the scientific insights into practical relevance. You need to build up a story with practical examples, case studies, references to new methodologies and practical tips and hints how to implement the new tools. No advanced scientific material only, but primarily practical knowledge ready to be used by the professionals that are willing to learn. And that’s why I decided to write this book a bit different: Not too mathematics, no algorithms or references to the literature, but instead, a story written as a technical novel. It has been a challenge to keep things as easy as possible, and I believe, to the best of my knowledge, that no-one has written such an integrative novel about scheduling, risk and control before.
Why a data-driven approach? A data-driven project management methodology allows project managers to plan, monitor, and control projects while delivering them on time and within budget. It is well known that data can help professionals to make better decisions. For example, data analysis is necessary for risk analysis, and for understanding how actions can be taken when uncertainty endangers the project. It’s about the clever use of data to support better decisions. As said by Edward Deming: “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion”. Data-driven project management aims at combining best of both worlds:
Mix facts (data) with experience (opinions) and make better decisions along the life of your projects!
Why the integration between schedule, risk and control? The main focus of the book lies on the integration of three crucial aspects: baseline scheduling, schedule risk analysis, and project control. A baseline schedule is a project plan that acts as a point of reference for analysing the project’s risk and controlling it’s performance when it is in progress. The integrative character of this book is a crucial aspect of this book, as it shows that the proper use of data in each of the three parts (schedule, risk and control) allows the project manager to make timely decisions when projects are in danger. This integration is based on my previous (scientific) books and is called “dynamic scheduling” in the literature.
Why a technical novel? The use of a story allows me to imitate the discussions I often have when teaching to a group of people in a company. Teaching is about discussing new ways of managing projects, and about having different views on different methodologies. There’s no right or wrong answer, only ways for improvements. It’s about discussing and sharing different views to come to an collective agreement and an improved systems that can be used by everyone in the company!
What is the lesson to learn? The main lesson to learn is that data can help making better decisions when managing projects. Data cannot replace human intuition, but can certainly support human decision making when used in a correct way. The story shows that the correct use of data for managing projects leads to improved results, not only measured by the quality of the decisions (i.e. the impact of the decisions on the project objective) but also by the effort the manager has to spend before the data can be properly used.
You will learn how to become an efficient project manager, i.e. one that uses project data and implements new technologies with the lowest possible effort while obtaining the highest possible quality.
This so-called “control efficiency” concept is the core lesson-to-learn in the book. Based on research, and practice.
How to implement the lessons-learned? The book gives examples on how to implement the different methodologies into a spreadsheet, and displays some easy examples of how the company (GlobalConstruct) has done it. No rocket science or advanced tools, but rather simple and easy-to-implement tools and project dashboards. An example dashboard integrating scheduling, risk and control is given in the figure below.
What is the book’s content? Written as a technical novel, this book demonstrates the highly interactive discussions among the main characters of a team responsible for a challenging project. It allows the reader to participate and consider options — as a project manager would — at each stage of a project. The main characters of this story and the company they work for are briefly introduced in Chapter 1.
Chapters 2 through 7 tell the story of Emily Reed and her colleagues, who are in charge of the management of a new tennis stadium construction project. Most of these chapters can be used in any data-driven project management lecture for university students, MBA students, and professional project managers. Each chapter contains two parts. The first part of each chapter always ends with an “action list summary” in a section entitled “Assignment.” The text of each chapter, up to and including this assignment, can be used as a case study to be solved and discussed by anyone with an interest in data-driven project management. I use these case studies in my project management lectures at several universities and business schools, as well as in company trainings. But as a reader of this book, you can also use each chapter’s assignment as a challenging exercise to test whether you understand the relevance of data-driven methodologies for your own projects. The second part of each chapter contains the solution to each assignment. I use this as a general framework for my feedback sessions to kickstart a discussion about the case study. For you, dear reader, it can be a tool to check whether you have solved each chapter’s assignment correctly.
In Chapter 8, I have provided references to academic papers and technical books that were my main inspiration for writing this book. I have tried to keep the technical details out of the story as much as possible. So, this book is not only a story about data and projects; it’s intended to be a reference tool for applying the newly presented concepts in practice and also (if desired) for diving more deeply into the advanced material presented in the afterword.
What is the book used for? The book is used at different schools for students with a different background. As a matter of fact, many of the chapters were initially a loose collection of exercises and case-study drafts before they were brought together into a book. The first part of each chapter has been tested, revised, sometimes completely rewritten, and finally fine-tuned in various project management lectures at Ghent University (Belgium), Vlerick Business School (Belgium), and the UCL School of Management (UK). The valuable feedback that we’ve received from students and project managers has been carefully taken into account and has contributed to the final version of this book. In 2020, the book content has been awarded by the International Project Management Association in the Outstanding Research Contribution category. Two years later, the College of Performance Management recognises the book content for teaching and gave me the Professor of the Year award.
If you have a passion for project management, an appetite for decision-making, and an affinity with numbers, then I invite you to read this book.
If you use this article, please cite: Vanhoucke, M. (2018). The data-driven project manager: A statistical battle against project obstacles. Apress.
