I work in the project management space in the finserv industry. I have worked with PMs from US, Canada and various parts of Europe. It strikes me odd at how much indigestion they feel about building and maintaining project schedules. All very smart and capable. All understand and preach the importance of capturing the who and what of tasks and interdependencies, all understand the relevance of being transparent to program leadership. All start out with the best of intentions. And without fail, 3 weeks into a schedule, and there are red flags.

What goes wrong? It’s not the PMP. Let me say, the PMP baselines an understanding of fundamentals in project management. It is a methodology and should be leveraged as a tool.  Agilistas will argue that a burn down chart is enough…and I would agree, but I have yet to witness that work on a large scale in FinServ.

Here’s what I know. PM’s are the champions for project teams. In the first 3 weeks, they have worked hard to get the team nice long timelines and a budget to match. They have, of course, consulted with the SME who is a FTE and will be going on vacation next week for about a month. The PM has no committed people to his team, so he place holders them with generic titles.

In week 2, the schedules for all of the PMs in the program are baselined and presented to the ‘program steering committee’. Where every PM begins to discover constraints…environments, people, dependencies.  Umm, ok. So, off goes the PM to fix that up, but no problem. We have nice long lead times. Still good, no need to change dates, maybe just raise a risk or two in my own offline risk excel spreadsheet.  In week 3, the PMO books a meeting and wants a laundry list of required documentation from the PM for their project of responsibility.  Umm, ok…my BA is still waiting for their credentials and laptop but we’ll get that to you as soon as possible.  Yea, let me add that milestone to my schedule and let me open a issue on my offline issues spreadsheet not just for the BA but for the FTE that hasn’t been backfilled by his reporting manager.

Week 4 comes and the reporting cycle demands that I present the progress of my project in a pre-determined template, that the PM gets the night before, because the PMO was retrofitting the template to be appropriate for the program. Umm, okay…the PM fills in the template and off it goes.

Week 5, the FTE comes back from vacation and while he was away it dawned on him that there was a key dependency that popped into his head while he was fishing. It should be no big deal, since they do it all the time, but the PM should know. Umm, ok..let me put that in my offline to-verify list.

So, now the PM has at least 3 offline lists and a program reporting template that is presented every week. Why do I need a project schedule?  First, its a pain in neck. I set a date and the schedule doesn’t calculate properly. I know we can do work on the weekend but setting the weekend to working days will impact the rest of my plan. As soon as I add a person to the task, my durations get messed up. To print the Gantt view is a waste. I just don’t have time.

As a PM , I’m covered. What’s the big deal? Here’s the rub…at a program level, to find out what the real story becomes a painful exercise of reconciling data. Pulling every PM into many meetings. Just to come out the other side with static data.

Plan management is a useful function. Augment your team.