Delivery Excellence in software Product Development

In
Software Product Development

© 2015 Chandan Lal Patary
About the author:
I am doing Research on Organization Development
and Sustenance. I am a Practitioner and I am capturing
my analysis and sharing my observation through my
Writing. My focus areas are Operation Excellence,
Innovation, Strategy, Execution excellence and
correlation with People Leadership and impact of all
these into Organizational growth.
I am currently working as agile coach and Global
Program manager at ABB. I have nearly two decades
of deep experience in developing software products across various domains and has
successfully executed many Projects. I have worked on product development for
domain like Healthcare, Aerospace, Building automation, Power automation,
Industrial Automaton under real time mission critical product development to large
scale application development. I am having near to two decade of industry
experience. I am a certified PMP from 2008, Green Belt certified holder from 2005.
I am an agile practioner and Certified Scrum Master from 2011. I completed
Bachelor’s from National Institute of Technology (National Institute of Technology
–Agartala, Tripura) in Electrical Engineering-1998. I have completed one year
Executive General Management program from Indian Institute of Management-
Bangalore, Karnataka in 2007.
I was the Speaker at PMPC -2013 conference PMI-Bangalore, on “Organizational
Survival know-how in Transforming Era”
I was the Speaker at Agile in Business – Conference-2013, Bangalore, on “Effective
usages of Metrics for Agile project”, Received Star speaker recognition.
I was the Speaker at ICSE conference-2013, Bangalore, on “Software Effort
Estimation -Industrial Product development”
I was the Speaker at India Testing week -2013 Bangalore, on “Challenges with Agile
testing process and How to debug and troubleshoot these Challenges”
I was the speaker for 14th Annual International Software Testing Conference 2014
(STC 2014) scheduled for December 4th - 5th, 2014 in Bangalore.
I am sharing all my learnings and know-hows through these book.

All the published management papers I have shared in this book. I can be reachable
through email/LinkedIn: patarychandan@gmail.com

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Contents
 Chapter One:
Productivity Improvement through Right Governance
 Chapter Two:
Organizational Survival know-how in Transforming Era
 Chapter Three:
How to become an effective consultant
 Chapter Four:
Challenges with quality assurance for distributed agile
team and research based product development
 Chapter Five:
Lean software testing for increasing customer value and
reduce execution cycle time
 Chapter Six:
Process for software product development effort
estimation and benchmarking of industrial applications
 Chapter Seven:

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Rapid Product Delivery through Collaborative Release
Management
 Chapter Eight:
Cultural Transformation: Transitioning from Plan Driven
to Value Driven Delivery
 Chapter Nine:
Operational excellence through Agile Practices
 Chapter Ten:
Large Scale Software Project Execution
 Chapter Eleven:
Bringing Success through Agility in Software
Development
 Chapter Twelve:
Innovation for Survival: An inside look into the World of
Innovation Know-How
 Chapter Thirteen:
Gamifying Agile projects to Drive Employee
Engagement and Increase Performance
 Chapter Fourteen:
Contribution from an agile coach for Organizational
Transformation Journey

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 Chapter Fifteen:
Collaboration Effectiveness: A must for Program
Management Execution Excellence
 Chapter Sixteen:
Redefining Product Development: Managing project to
build right solutions in exact time, Sharing lessoned
learned

© 2015 Chandan Lal Patary Page 1 of 5
Preface:
Execution is crucial for any organization. There are several factors which influences efficient
execution process. Be it a people, process, technology or domain. This book is the collections of
various the research papers in different facet of organization growth to do excellent execution
specially software product development areas. This book is the outcome of 5 years of my research
in software product development from 2009-2014 at ABB India corporate research lab where I
have played various roles from Project manager, Resource manager, Agile coach, Global Program
manager, Scrum master to complete development ownership. I was involve to developed smart
grid products, industrial automation products. It gave me immense opportunity to look insight into
the product development challenges which I have captured and shared with all the colleagues.
This book pursues an ambitious goal: it attempts to provide answers to the questions on various
angle of execution issues and how to become excellent in software product development. It
highlights challenges organization and team members are facing. All the cases are collections from
real life situation and learning while becoming excellent in execution process under industrial
automation software product development context. All These fifteen chapters covers from
people, process, tools, strategy, and product management to leadership skills. These chapters are
extraction from the real project execution and presented in the different software conferences to
demonstrate capabilities.

This chapter highlights about the different techniques to collect the metrics and how these metrics
influence the productivity of the team members.Meaurement is the key to retrospect and
improvement in execution cycle. There should be better tool which automatically collect the
information and team can visualize the same for effective decision making. Improvement should
be the ultimate goal.
World is changing very fast and rapidly, this chapter highlights few points to track the changes.
How organization and team members should gear up for the changes. What are the different way
to assess the changes and prepare for the same. This chapter will indicates various growth
enablers and drivers for organizational business transformation. This chapter will also talk about
leadership factors influences at this transformation time.
Consultant’s journey is full with discovery and learning. How can we learn from other consultants
and gear up for consultant careers.
This chapter talks about various challenges with various research and development projects where
team members are distributed. How to ensure quality in such work environment?
This chapter talks about lean thinking and how it can stimuli the team members to think different.
Lean test engineers! How test team can change the project execution speed? Various project show
stopper which can reduce the speed. Also talks about Incremental build and release and co-
relation with cycle time. Project development flow optimization and how we should think about
it?

This chapter talks about what are the various software estimation philosophy available and how it
is attached with execution mechanism? Agile planning and how estimation helps to reduce project
risk and uncertainties.
This chapter discussed on DevOps practices and how these practices helps to develop and push
the product into the market early. This chapter highlights the cultural changes which is crucial for
collaboration. With the above mention process how teams get agility, this chapter highlights those
aspects.
This chapter talks about changing approach from too much focus on project plan, tasks, milestone,
and dependency without understanding the actual project context to value generation which is
more critical in today’s software product development. What are the good practices in
manufacturing or civil industry can not apply to knowledgeindustry. A world class project manager
spend several decade with heavy industry now become an executive manager with software
product development has to transform himself or herself to understand these approaches. This
chapter talks more from value generation then focusing on a perfect plan.
This chapter talks about how agile practices can help team to increase the agility and execution
speed.
This chapter explains characteristic of large scale software project development? Why should we
treat large project as different execution mechanism? Project Management Office and
contribution of PMO on large scale project execution.
This chapter demonstrates with a case study from two teams where it has been established what
are the various characteristics of agile team should have and how these practices helps an
organization to achieve agility.

This chapter talks about what are the different approaches available to generate ideas and
productizing those ideas. Also shares the innovation flow and framework.
This chapter discuss on employee engagement and organizational benefits from employee
engagement. How gamification helps to achieved high engagement. This capture explains how
gamification process can be deployed in agile context with real time example.
This chapter talks about what an agile coach should do to transform a team and organization.
Several analogy has been illustrated to demonstrate the coach’s responsibility. People are very
complex, and often they don’t do what we want them to do. As a coach it is a challenge to
transform such team. This chapter with fullest extend try to solve this mystery.
This chapter talks mainly on soft skills require to influences team members to get the work done
efficiently. In collaboration environment how team members should interact all these aspects has
been highlighted in this chapter. This chapter will develop various skills require for collaboration.
To succeed, grow, thrive, we must be focused on creating real value for customers. How can we
create product what exactly customer want and ready to pay the money for it.
At the end all these concepts can help any organization and team to run the software product
development much more efficient way. By applying all these practices systematically any team can
become more mature and deliver value.
 Increase speed of product development
 Align individual and corporate objectives

 Create a culture driven by performance
 Increase shareholder value creation
 Achieve stable and consistent communication of performance at all levels
 Enhance individual development and quality of life
All these steps are part of the team journey to maturing the process and it will transform an
organization which will be a natural slow process. Persistence is the key with frequent inspection
and adaptation about the progress.
All these concepts have applied into our environment and achieved benefit, same thing has to
experiment and check for the benefit in individual context.

Acknowledgements
This book has been shaped by the contributions of many people. I’d like
to wholeheartedly thank everyone who reviewed chapters, shared
stories, or provided advice. All my friends and colleagues from current
and previous organization helped me to build this book.

DELIVERY
EXCELLENCE
v Chapter One
* What are the parameters relevant to productivity that need to be
tracked for effective Governance?
* How can an organization demonstrate customer satisfaction and
effective value for money with metrics driven approach?
* Effective change management and risk management to minimize
down time and increase productivity?
* How effective requirement management, capturing effective
requirements, tracking requirements till completion, asking
effective questions to create better requirement is the way to
maximize the productivity at the later period of time in execution
cycle?
* How can we do the benefit realization and achieving results and
link the same for knowledge building and productivity?

Productivity Improvement through Right
Governance
Chandan Lal Patary
PMP
Development Manager
ABB

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Contents
Abstract...................................................................................................................... 3
1.0 Introduction:...................................................................................................... 4
2.0 Governance and productivity:........................................................................... 7
2.1 Productivity improvement steps: ................................................................. 11
2.2 Project Classification................................................................................... 12
2.3 KAIZEN for effective Governance: .............................................................. 12
2.4 Data manipulation and Data authentication: ............................................... 13
2.5 Change Management.................................................................................. 18
2.6 Requirement Management:......................................................................... 19
2.7 Benefit Realization: ..................................................................................... 21
3.0 Conclusion...................................................................................................... 22
About the author....................................................................................................... 24

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Abstract
This paper describe about the productivity improvement through Metrics driven
approach and by effective project governance. Every organization is looking for
maximizing the productivity year on year through various mechanisms. In Project
governance we ensure the program or project benefit and build the knowledge
assets for better productivity. Metrics based Governance activity if driven efficiently
will satisfy stakeholders as information will be transparent about the business
progress, which will minimize the failure risks with efficient decision making process.
Metrics collection, Analysis, taking action and put it into continuous practice will
improve productivity significantly.
This paper will explain below
a) What are the parameters relevant to productivity that need to be tracked for
effective Governance
b) How can an organization demonstrate customer satisfaction and effective value
for money with metrics driven approach
c) Effective change management and risk management to minimize down time and
increase productivity.
d) How effective requirement management, capturing effective requirements,
tracking requirements till completion, asking effective questions to create better
requirement is the way to maximize the productivity at the later period of time in
execution cycle.
e) How can we do the benefit realization and achieving results and link the same for
knowledge building and productivity.

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1.0 Introduction:
Organizations are becoming more and more competitive to survive in the market.
Investors are becoming more and more cautious about the investment. Stakeholders
expect to realize the value for their investments as early as possible. What
organization can do in this situation? Execution speed might be the correct answer.
All investors expect innovative solution with minimal time frame. The moment
organization increases the speed, the chances for failure also increase if there is an
absence of data driven decision making. To maximize the customer satisfaction
organization needs to share the project or product or business data which satisfies
the customer’s curiosity about the project progress and output vs money invested.
The data should talk timeline, quality and how the budget has been utilized and other
vital parameters of the projects and its progress .Project governance will provide a
guideline considering all the factors which will drive the customer
satisfaction.Governanance data will change based on the product, domain, and
business which organizations are dealing with. Stakeholder needs to provide
feedback wherever correction required based on the data received. All
communication with stakeholders should base on quantifiable data as subjective
discussion creates confusion.
Figure 1: Cockpit Dashboard 1
The Figure 1: shows the cockpit dashboard for an aircraft. This picture
demonstrates the importance of the data for decision making. The display is

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continuously sensing and feeding the guiding information to the pilot to take
corrective steps with speed and accuracy. In critical system decision making has to
be very fast based on the dashboard display information. Pilot has complete
information about each and every part of the aircraft from this cockpit display. How
can organization apply the same concept for each and every area inside the
organization?
Same applies to the hospital when patient is in ICU(Intensive Care Unit) ,doctor uses
PMS(patient Monitoring System) which is an embedded device and the device
continuously display the vital parameters of a patient to the doctors so that they can
take effective decision at the right time to save the patient’s life.
Figure 2: Display of the Patient Monitoring System used in ICU, demonstrating the
data driven decision making. This system extracts all the vital parameters from a
patient and displays the same to the doctor.
Figure 2: ICU Dashboard 1
Governance will produce dashboard data which can be a guiding force for the
decision making process. Organization should have the ability to take decision based
on the dashboard data show at the right time so that damage can be minimized.
Metrics based measurement and productivity has a tight link.

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According to the definition of Productivity = Output/Input.
Productivity definition is very simple. Inputs are the resources to generate the
expected ouput. Resources are not abundant so everyone needs to be careful to
utilize the resources and maximize the output.
Though the definition is very simple but the real productivity has little to do with how
hard the staff works, how many hours they put in, or even how much output they
produce. Real productivity is measured by the business value that their work
generates for the organization.
Various questions appear when we look into the resource usages.
a) How can stakeholders know how efficiently resource utilization is happening?
b) How can stakeholders ensure optimum usage of the resources so that
productivity goes up?
c) How can stakeholders take decision to control the ambient factors which
influence the output?
Centralize Dashboard with critical data, accessible by all at any time, plays a
significant role for decision making.

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2.0 Governance and productivity:
What does "Governance" mean: the process of decision-making and the process
by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented)?
Governance is a framework which enables management teams to make better
decisions about securing their critical information and Information Technology
infrastructure and protecting their intellectual capital.
Governance helps organizations to define who is responsible for what and how
Information Technology decisions are made. It enables Information Technology to
adhere to business objectives and maximize value from the investments. It can
protect against failures that result from the misalignment of Information Technology
and business strategies.
Project governance ensures that complex Information Technology projects deliver
the value expected of them, rather than an expensive and embarrassing failure. An
appropriate governance framework helps save money by ensuring that all
expenditure is appropriate for the risks being tackled. It also enables business
analysts to better understand and compare the way in which public companies
manage their technology investments.
Good governance is about both achieving desired results and achieving them in the
right way. Since the "right way" is largely shaped by the cultural norms and values of
the organization, there can be no universal template for good governance. Each
organization must tailor its own definition of good governance to suit its needs and
values
Effective Governance starts with a standard way to define the process. Every
business is unique, customer expectations are different. To start the right
governance team members need to discuss, communicate and list down the
expected flow to the governance.
Projects need to identify what should be the measurements parameters?
What are the goals and objectives?

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What frequency all the artifacts data has to be collected?
Who will be the responsible team members to collect the data and who will be for
analyzing the data?
Who are the stakeholders and what level of information they should get and what
timeline?
Project team will get better results when project metrics are in balance.
For example, having only a metrics for speed or only a metric for accuracy would not
help the project very much. If measure only speed, project deliverable might work
poorly.
If projects measure only accuracy, projects may never finish. Metrics for both used
together, though, may create tension, provide the balance for the project needs to
deal with trade-offs and best achieve for project goals.
Measurement drives behavior, so organization can use positive data to recognize
and reward accomplishments. Negative information that project report (or threaten to
report) can be a powerful aid in helping to control the project.
Through data driven approach we can analyze the issue to achieve excellent
productivity.
Few questions appear when we talk about productivity
a) How can we ensure that what we produce is the right output at first time?
b) Can we do the frequent review with the stakeholders, change frequently based
on the input and quickly adapt with the new model?
c) Stabilizing the input, process and output criteria based on the discussion?
Everything is possible when we have right data to analyze. Diagnostic data in
dashboard should continuously display the current status and through that input
stakeholder should understand the health and can able to predict the future.

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Every department in an organization should have dashboard to
Assurance, Development team, Architect team, testing team, supports team,
procurement team etc. so that organization can fine tune whenever and wherever
require.
Governance should align with the strategic plan of the organization. The gro
organization is expecting will fulfill when process output is same as expected
strategic output of the organization.
Figure 3: Data flow Diagram 1
Figure 3: Demonstrates the cycle of data flow which
effective decision making.
Looking again into the productivity dimension
Productivity is a derived metric:
Input is easy to measure (e.g., activity
Output and environm
Every department in an organization should have dashboard to
Governance should align with the strategic plan of the organization. The gro
strategic output of the organization.
: Demonstrates the cycle of data flow which organization can execute for
Looking again into the productivity dimension,
Productivity is a derived metric: function (output, input, environment)
is easy to measure (e.g., activity-based controlling)
environment are difficult to describe and measure.
Every department in an organization should have dashboard to display. Quality
Governance should align with the strategic plan of the organization. The growth what
organization can execute for
function (output, input, environment)
are difficult to describe and measure.

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Requirement management is one more area for the productivity improvement. As
requirements directly improve output, organizations need to look into the quantifiable
measurement of the output like product demo, code shipping rate, rate of bugs
closed in a cycle etc.
Benefit realization is the key to the productivity improvement. Every organization by
executing project acquires knowledge, produce reusable components which can be
reuse directly and save effort which will directly contribute into the productivity
improvement.

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2.1 Productivity improvement steps:
Figure 4: Productivity improvement points
Understanding software productivity for a large system development requires
complex set of qualitative and quantitative data from multiple sources for analysis.
Effective Governance process starts with a vision. Organizations take actions to
effectively utilize the Governance framework and produce value through that.
Work culture,
people, ambient
Automate wherever
possible
Rapid Prototype, Demo,
Update
Waste reduction
Knowledge
Management
Drive for rework
reduction
Reduce over
production, over wait,
over preparation
Deploy Process
and continuous
mature the process
Generate more
reuse components
Improve
Productivity

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Figure 4: Demonstrates the various factors which influence the productivity
improvement. Organization need to put special focus on all these aspects to
effectively collect the data on all those area and regularly monitoring for all the
collected data. Does it guarantee the improvement? Not really but it should be the
starting point for the improvement journey.
2.2 Project Classification
To start with effective Governance team needs to start with project classification.
In Information Technology projects, there are several types of tasks an organization
executes, Fresh Development projects, Minor enhancement, Maintenance project,
Support projects, Hardware and software involvement and many other categories.
Budget, number of resources play significant role in project classification.
Projects are locally or globally distributed?
Timeline of the project? One year/two year or multiyear project?
Which Technology the project is going to use? Open source? Propriety technology
Architectural maturity for the product?
Team Process maturity?
Several other factors need to consider for classification of the project.
All the above factors provide inputs for the categorization of a project.
Based on the project categories, measurement criteria changes and effective
monitoring and control mechanism differ. Organization needs to look into the
category of the project to identify right measurement parameters. Montior those
parameters for demonstrating quality output and continuous improvement.
2.3 KAIZEN for effective Governance:
Once governance process steps are identified, team need to demonstrate the
improvement with the defined process. Stable process provides good productivity.
Regular brainstorming with the team members and upper management involvement
to come up with different idea is essential. Team needs to identify which areas are
working well and where team needs changes to see what can be improved.

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Dashboard has to be displayed in centralized area for every individual to see how
effectively each team is performing. Upper management should visit team members
to encourage and discuss as a surprise visit.
2.4 Data manipulation and Data authentication:
In metrics and measurement data is the key for effective decision making. If team is
working on manipulated data or not with the actual data consequence will be high
which will resultant into loss in business in multiple areas. Rework is the major loss
for the organization. When metrics are used to find fault and punish, people provide
them only grudgingly, and do whatever they can to provide results that demonstrate
no problems—whether that’s true or not. Gathering valid, useful information starts
with a meaningful commitment on your part to use the measures for process
improvement, good decision making, and project problem solving. If there is even a
suspicion that data gathered will be used to criticize, punish, or even embarrass
people, those responsible for reporting them will find a way to game the measures
and disguise what is going on.
Below figures explain different dimensions of the projects status through dashboard
irrespective of the project size. Any project has to break to manage efficiently,
manage through quantifiable measurement and metrics based management
philosophy. All these sample data may change based on the project, product,
domain or business. These sample dashboard data extracted from a software
project.
Figure 5: is a dashboard data which is located in centralized location for global team
to view. It demonstrates the health of the each scrum project and how they should
take corrective actions if required. The dashboard data is showing different
dimensions of the scrum projects and how each area is performing. There are more
to measure but team has chosen these are the basic parameters which ensure
project progress and guide them whenever there is any fault.

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Figure 5: SCRUM project Dashboard
Figure 6: this picture demonstrates about the areas where team can focus to
improve the productivity. All these areas if not taken care properly can lead into
execution efficiency bottleneck. It will increase the waste or rework. All these areas
are the checkpoint for the productivity improvement journey.
Figure 5: SCRUM project Dashboard
icture demonstrates about the areas where team can focus to
productivity improvement journey.
icture demonstrates about the areas where team can focus to

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Figure 6: Dashboard contents
Figure 7: and Figure 8: is a typical dashboard for Quality Assurance team where
every granular information has been displayed to take corrective steps wherever
required. The pictures are sh
are the bottlenecks.
: is a typical dashboard for Quality Assurance team where
required. The pictures are showing how testing activities are performing and where
: is a typical dashboard for Quality Assurance team where
owing how testing activities are performing and where

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Figure 7: Dashboard for Quality Assurance
Figure 7: Dashboard for Quality Assurance

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Figure 8: Dashboard for Quality Assurance 2
Figure 9: Questionnaire can be used for Dashboard preparation. Effective and
efficient questions based on the product, domain, business, organizational vision will
help to prepare correct dashboard data. Every team should have data to assess
themselves every decided frequency level
Figure 8: Dashboard for Quality Assurance 2
: Questionnaire can be used for Dashboard preparation. Effective and
uestions based on the product, domain, business, organizational vision will
themselves every decided frequency level
: Questionnaire can be used for Dashboard preparation. Effective and
uestions based on the product, domain, business, organizational vision will

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Figure 9: Checklist for Dashboard
2.5 Change Management
Productivity is severely affected when there are many frequent change requests
coming at the middle of the project execution cycle. Based on the priority team need
to take up the change request and do the impact analysis. Teams need to measure
the change trend and on increasing of the trend proper investigation and corrective
steps are required.
Figure 9: Checklist for Dashboard
Change Management
rend and on increasing of the trend proper investigation and corrective
rend and on increasing of the trend proper investigation and corrective

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Figure 10: Change management Dashboard
Figure 10: is the change management tracking dashboard. It will provide information
to all the stakeholders how many times
should be done and scope change need to take care so that it does not affect
productivity. Change is an essential part efficient project execution but same has to
handle efficiently. Change process should be well
tool. Changes improve the product but decrease motivation level in team. Frequent
changes increase reworks and increase wastages if not manage with well thoughts
and good process.
2.6 Requirement Management:
The major consequence of requirement related problems are rework
something again that team thought was already done. Rework can consume 30 to 50
percent of team’s total development cost (Boehm and Papaccio 1988) and
requirements errors account for 70 to 85 percent of
1997).
Track requirements status, stakeholders need to know the requirement status to
predict the project progress. Review comments, review process, capturing the
comments have to be through tool and process so that effort mi
organizations are not losing any data in process. Version history has to track so that
any given time any version of the document can be reproduce. The following quote
from Fredrick Brooks illustrates why requirements are so important:
Figure 10: Change management Dashboard
: is the change management tracking dashboard. It will provide information
to all the stakeholders how many times change has been requested. Impact analysis
handle efficiently. Change process should be well documented and tracked through
Requirement Management:
ence of requirement related problems are rework
requirements errors account for 70 to 85 percent of the rework cost (Leffingwell
comments have to be through tool and process so that effort mi
from Fredrick Brooks illustrates why requirements are so important:
: is the change management tracking dashboard. It will provide information
change has been requested. Impact analysis
documented and tracked through
ence of requirement related problems are rework—doing
the rework cost (Leffingwell
comments have to be through tool and process so that effort minimizes and

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“The hardest part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.
No other part of the conceptual work is as difficult as establishing the detailed
technical requirements, including all of the interfaces to people, to machines, and to
other software systems. No other part of the work so cripples the resulting system if
done wrong. No other part is more difficult to rectify later” (Brooks 1995). To quote
Karl Wiegers (2004), “If you don’t get the requirements right, it doesn’t matter how
well you do anything else.”
Figure 11: Requirement Management Dashboard
Figure 11: Dashboard provides information to all the employees about the quality of
the requirements and raise alarms if any change require for a requirement.
rdest part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.
tware systems. No other part of the work so cripples the resulting system if
Figure 11: Requirement Management Dashboard
: Dashboard provides information to all the employees about the quality of
rdest part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.
tware systems. No other part of the work so cripples the resulting system if
: Dashboard provides information to all the employees about the quality of

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2.7 Benefit Realization:
Figure 12: Benefit Measurement Mind map
Any project execution should have Benefit Management and Measurement process
against Benefits. Organization need to measure the learning’s which should be
reused in next similar or related projects, as knowledge brin
improvement and execution speed. Upper management support requires realizing
the benefit effectively and capturing information for future. Resource availability and
dependent project realization has to handle efficiently. Knowledge manageme
should connect with benefit realization data. Leaders need to encourage team
members for contributing and achieve the knowledge management related
organizational goal.
Figure 12: is the sample flow for Benefit measurement. Individual Program can
come up with their own process flow for collecting the Benefit Management data and
share with other team.
Benefit Realization:
Figure 12: Benefit Measurement Mind map
reused in next similar or related projects, as knowledge brings productivity
dependent project realization has to handle efficiently. Knowledge manageme
: is the sample flow for Benefit measurement. Individual Program can
me up with their own process flow for collecting the Benefit Management data and
gs productivity
dependent project realization has to handle efficiently. Knowledge management data
: is the sample flow for Benefit measurement. Individual Program can
me up with their own process flow for collecting the Benefit Management data and

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3.0 Conclusion
Organizations need to create a culture where all team members would be eager to
contribute for the organizational growth. Leaders have to communicate the
organizational vision to all team members and build healthy, productive teams and
the same team members will contribute for excellent stakeholder value generation.
Leaders have to mentor, coach, communicate and build that culture into the blood of
the system.
At any given point of time any stakeholders wherever they involve should be able to
know through metrics what is going on? How it is going on? Why it is like that? What
steps are currently taken by whom? Expectation is: Total transparent system.
Organization need time to reach that stage but continuous drive has to exist from all
level and from all members.
Every team members have to own the organizational vision, mission and culture and
work for maximizing the productivity through innovation and maintain the speed of
execution excellence.
PMI has provided many guidelines for better project Governance. Effective
governance plan and execution of the same for achieving the excellent result with
continuous process improvement should be a part of organizational culture and
same resultant into a great productivity improvement. Data driven decision making
culture will help to minimize the waste reduction and improve productivity. Through
systematic knowledge management organization can maximize productivity and
measure improvement and demonstrate the same to stakeholders for excellent
customer satisfaction. When each and every team member makes these practices as
a habit and data driven decision making, data driven demonstration will be a part of
communication agenda than only organization will demonstrate value to
stakeholders. Organization can minimize several overheads and maximize the cost
benefit if organization has dashboard with data for different dimensions for all the
projects, products, units, divisions wherever applicable. Customer satisfaction will
increase when we identify, collect, share the data on continuous basis and improve

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the process and output by collecting feedback from various stakeholders.
Organization has to look for data through governance framework for overproduction,
waiting time, non-value added processing, under-utilized people, excess movement,
over preparation etc. to take action and measure the productivity improvement
journey.
Finally by doing all the above mentioned metrics and measurement if organization
can reduce execution cycle time with expected quality output by 20-30% it will
create immense satisfaction to the investors.

DELIVERY
EXCELLENCE
v Chapter Two
* How Socio-economic and political, regulatory, and
technological climates affect business, both today and in the
future and how same effect into the organizational
transformation?
* How can organization maximize profitability through develop
strategy by looking at the opportunities to reach the goals
through various approaches, like integration, penetration,
development, diversification, and divestiture and develop an
execution excellence model to achieve?
* How people factor like leadership, competency and innovative
culture influence organization and its profitability? Unlock
human potential?
* How efficient governance system with excellent operation
excellence improves business?
* How organizational design and cultural renovation improves
business transformation?

Organizational Survival know-how in
Transforming Era
Chandan Lal Patary
PMP, CSM, Six Sigma Green Belt
Agile Coach & Program Manager
ABB

ARCHITECTING PROJECT MANAGEMENT
for Business Transformation...
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Contents
Abstract...................................................................................................................... 3
1.0 Introduction:...................................................................................................... 4
2.0 Content............................................................................................................. 5
2.1 Strategy creation........................................................................................... 5
2.2 Competitive Advantage for the organization ................................................. 6
2.3 How people factor like leadership, competency and innovative culture
influence organization and its profitability? Unlock human potential? Use
collaborative social system?................................................................................... 7
2.4 How socio-economic and political, regulatory, and technological climates
affect business, both today and in the future and how same effect into the
organizational transformation? ............................................................................... 9
2.5 How can organization maximize profitability through develop strategy by
looking at the opportunities to reach the goals through various approaches, like
integration, penetration, development, diversification, and divestiture and develop
an execution excellence model to achieve? ......................................................... 12
2.6 How efficient governance system with excellent operation excellence
improves business?.............................................................................................. 13
2.7 How organizational design and cultural renovation improves business
transformation?..................................................................................................... 15
2.8 Intrapreneur mindset................................................................................... 17
2.9 Why Companies Fail?................................................................................. 17
2.10 Checklist item for business transformation .............................................. 23
3.0 Conclusion...................................................................................................... 24
4.0 References..................................................................................................... 25
Biography of the author............................................................................................ 26

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Abstract
We live in a global economy in which the turnaround of structural and technological
change is rapid and sometimes unpredictable. Business processes are changing
even as we speak, and traditional jobs and work settings have already become
virtual, e-driven, and mobile. Organizations must continuously evolve to keep up with
changes and remain relevant to their customers. This evolution is achieved through
Business Transformation. Being able to grow and reinvent offerings is critical to
addressing economic volatility, staying on top of the market, and remaining
competitive. Change in the environment, change inside the organization, and change
in how the organization links strategy and the organization. Change means that
organizations can never become satisfied with their accomplishments. Organization
changes its products over time, it falls behind competitors. Unless the organization
changes its own understanding of the environment, it cannot keep abreast of, much
less get ahead of, changes in customers, the industry, technology, and governmental
policies. Customers and stakeholders expect and demand dramatically improved
products with more benefits, lower costs, and fewer defects and burdens.
This paper will explain:
a. Socio-economic and political, regulatory, and technological climates affect business, both today and in the future and how same effect into
the organizational transformation?
b. How can organization maximize profitability through develop strategy by looking at the opportunities to reach the goals through various
approaches, like integration, penetration, development, diversification, and divestiture and develop an execution excellence model to achieve?
c. How people factor like leadership, competency and innovative culture influence organization and its profitability? Unlock human potential?
Use collaborative social system?
d. How efficient governance system with excellent operation excellence improves business?
e. How organizational design and cultural renovation improves business transformation?
f. How Efficient and effective Risk, Change, Value management improve business transformation?

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1.0 Introduction:
Global economic situation challenging all the organization significantly. For survival
and sustenance every individual has to contribute continuously for the growth.
Project management skills are valuable, but to triumph in today ’ s competitive arena,
manager must also be strategic , with a skill set and mind - set to handle the
challenges of an increasingly complex world. Just knowing how to build better bar
charts and the like though important, these project management tools aren’t enough
unless they are front - loaded with some sort of strategic thinking process to help
managers to design and develop the right projects. Few factors and thoughts has
been discussed which are implemented and helped our organization to transform.
Each project needs to be linked back up to the business strategy like “bottom up”
approach. All these factors apply to organization but implementation starts with small
projects. How rapidly team executes these factors influences the transformation
process.
Why and how should all Project/program managers think and contribute in business
transformation?
In today’s global competitive environment, any business, large or small, that is not thinking and acting strategically is extremely
vulnerable. Every business is exposed to the forces of a rapidly changing competitive environment and in the future small business
executives can expect even greater change and uncertainty. From sweeping political changes around the planet and rapid technological
advances to more intense competition and newly emerging global markets, the business environment has become more turbulent and
challenging for business leaders. Although the market turbulence creates many challenges for small businesses, it also creates
opportunities for those companies that have in place strategies to capitalize on them. Small companies now have access to technology,
tools, and techniques that once were available only to large companies, enabling them to achieve significant, sometimes momentous,
results.
Today’s business leaders realize that rapidity of change necessitates creating extraordinary value and achieving success for their
businesses and customers, stakeholders, supply networks, supporting entities, and shareholders at speeds greater than the underlying
rate of change in the business environment. A business organization must continuously innovate to stay ahead of the changes in the
business environment. A fundamental belief is that business organizations must make significant improvements and even radical
developments in their strategic positions, value creation, organizational capabilities, and physical resources.
Today, the forces driving the global business environment require businesses and strategic leaders to become more connected with
their customers, stakeholders, suppliers, distributors, and other partners. Connectedness in thoughts and actions is now crucial for
staying in touch with reality and understanding rapidly changing needs, wants, expectations, and mandates. In a slow-paced world,
business leaders had the time to watch events unfold, contemplate strategies, and then respond in deliberate fashion. In today’s more
turbulent times, corporations must be proactive in analyzing and understanding the business environment, market and stakeholder
expectations, and future requirements in order to be prepared for action regardless of what unfolds.
Today, enterprise-wide strategic leaders have to think outside-the-box just like the inventors, innovators, and technical specialists
involved in creativity, research and development, and strategic innovation. Strategic leaders who wish to move their organizations
from good to great must relentlessly pursue sustainable outcomes. It is critical for strategic leaders to focus on the business challenges
and opportunities within the business environment, the social world, and the natural environment in both the present and the future. It
is of little good to achieve great success during good times only to fall victim to recessions or industry downturns.
Today, like visionary companies, organization has to be terribly demanding of themselves. Organization need to invested for the
future to a greater degree than the comparison[less successful] companies . . . Organization has to translate its core ideology and its
own unique drive for progress into the fabric of the organization – into goals, strategies, tactics, policies, processes, cultural practices,
management behaviors, building layouts, pay systems, accounting systems, job design – into everything that the company does

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2.0 Content
2.1 Strategy creation
All project and Program manager also has to know other than senior level manager
regarding below models for organization to develop sustainable business strategy.
Three levels of strategy to work with.
Organizations depend upon projects that are derived from and aligned with corporate
strategy. Understanding how strategic business objectives are aligned at the project
level is critical for competitive positioning and high-performing organizations.
Andrews’ SWOT model,
Chandler’s scale–scope–speed triad,
Porter’s industrial analysis,
Barney’s resource-based view,
Hamel and Prahalad’s competence thesis,
Teece’s dynamic capability treaty,
Ansoff’s planning approach,
Mintzberg’s crafting school,
Collins and Porras’ Built to Last ,
Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy ,
Barnard’s The Functions of the Executive
Walton’s Made in America: My Story, are based on Western experience and underpinned by Western thinking.
Akio Morita’s Made in Japan and
Ikujiro Nonaka’s Knowledge-Creating Company remain lonely exceptions
A corporate-level strategy identifies the various businesses that a company will be in, and how these businesses will relate to each other.
A business-level (competitive) strategy identifies the ways a business will compete in its chosen line of products or services.
Functional strategies identify the basic courses of action that each department in the firm will pursue so that it contributes to the
attainment of the business's overall goals.

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Fig 1: Demonstrates the various growth enablers and drivers for organizational
business transformation.
2.2 Competitive Advantage for the organization
Project managers and senior managers has to work together to identify the strength
and weakness so that organization can sustain in competition.
Four factors help a company to build and sustain competitive advantage—
Each of these factors is the product of a company’s distinctive competencies.
Indeed, in a very real sense, they are “generic” distinctive competencies.
These generic competencies allow a company to
These factors can be considered generic distinctive competencies because any
company, regardless of its industry or the products or services it produces, can
Superior efficiency, excellent project management
Quality,
Innovation,
Customer responsiveness.
Differentiate its product offering, and hence offer more utility to its customers,
Lower its cost structure.

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pursue them. They are highly interrelated, and the important ways they affect each
other should be noted.
Competitive advantage leads to superior profitability. At the most basic level, how
profitable a company becomes depends on three factors:
The value customers place on a product reflects the utility they get from a product—
the happiness or satisfaction gained from consuming or owning the product. Utility
must be distinguished from price. Utility is something that customers get from a
product. It is a function of the attributes of the product, such as its performance,
design, quality, and point-of-sale and after-sale service.
Managers need to understand the dynamic relationships among utility, pricing,
demand, and costs and make decisions on the basis of that understanding to
maximize.
All of the functions of a company—such as production, marketing, product
development, service, information systems, materials management, and human
resources— have a role in lowering the cost structure and increasing the perceived
utility (value) of products through differentiation.
2.3 How people factor like leadership, competency and innovative
culture influence organization and its profitability? Unlock human
potential? Use collaborative social system?
One of the key strategic roles of both general and functional, project and Program
managers is to use all their knowledge, energy, and enthusiasm to provide strategic
leadership for their subordinates and develop a high-performing organization. There
are few identified key characteristics of good strategic leaders that do lead to high
performance:
The value customers place on the company’s products;
The price that a company charges for its products;
The costs of creating those products;

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Effective leadership depends on an ability to know when to press ahead and when to
change course, as well as the ability to show purpose and direction. This is essential
when mobilizing people, determining priorities and generating commitment.
Successful leadership is a prerequisite to profitability. People need to be motivated
and supported. This implies rewarding them fairly for their work, training and
developing them, providing a clear sense of direction and focusing on the needs of
the team, task and individual.
Fig 2: Demonstrates about the leadership parameters which improves the organizational culture and
improves the organization sustainability.
Vision, eloquence, and consistency,
Commitment,
Being well informed,
Willingness to delegate and empower,
Astute use of power, and
Emotional intelligence.

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2.4 How socio-economic and political, regulatory, and
technological climates affect business, both today and in the future
and how same effect into the organizational transformation?
Confusion and Risk: Every moment we are getting into confusion. And the
confusion is natural in today’s world. Some tasks we have to do local and some
tasks we have to do global, some tasks we have to share, some tasks will be hidden.
Some data has to be area specific and some data we have to centralize so that all
get benefit out of it. Charles Handy, a British management thinker and writer:
“Everywhere we look, paradox seems to be the companion of economic progress.”
Competitive pressures, both for individuals and organizations, are driving this need
to excel in new ways. Sometime organization will ramp up resources in some region
and somewhere else there will be lay off.
Uncertainty tunnel would allow managers to build up shared mental maps of how
value would be created for a strategic project.
How can we maximize the benefit from confusion?
Leadership capability plays a key role to clarify and set the roadmap even when risks
exist. Leaders will collect the information and simplify the confusion. Getting the
balance right between seemingly conflicting issues is what counts like a seesaw:
over time, both sides are in the air and both are on the ground, but at any one
moment only one side is up and the other is down
THE UNCERTAINTY TUNNEL MODEL
What are the precursors to the project?
What factors might amplify uncertainty?
What factors might dampen uncertainty?
What are the potential first, second and third order consequences of a shift in the project's internal or external environment?

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Fig 3: Demonstrates macroeconomic forces that affect every organization.
Competitive pressures for greater flexibility, productivity and cost control are driving
changes in the way that organizations are employing people and social and
demographic changes are affecting what people want and expect from work. To be
more productive, organizations require the right people and the right resources in
position at the right time. They must also instill a culture that encourages continuous
learning and improvement.
It has become evident that what will matter in the future are an organization’s
collective skills and knowledge and how they are managed. Organization need to
identify its strength as an asset and convert that to generate more business.

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The concept of value innovation, which builds on customer value, is fast gaining
support. In less time customer is asking more with less price tag! Organization which
has excellent execution cycle time is able to fulfill customer request. Many business
gurus have encouraged the view that delighting the customer is everything; it
appears that, despite years of tender loving care, many customers do not feel
delighted or well served.
Technological change: The most successful and effective organizations use
technology for market sensing, innovation, flexibility, learning, selling, competing for
and keeping customers, managing supply chains and improving efficiency, managing
risk, motivating, leading and empowering. Organization need to move up from just
product and service solution to total solution provider.
Effective Risk Management to minimize business risks: DISCOVERY-DRIVEN
PROCESS of transforming the uncertainty around a business venture into risk
(which can be managed) allows leaders to experiment, learn and either develop a
plausible business model or abandon the project early and at little cost. The idea is
to reduce uncertainty to the point where probability distributions can be assigned to
expected outcomes, making them plannable.
Reconfiguration of existing systems (including the organizational culture) to support knowledge
workers.
Creation of a learning organization that is constantly sensing, valuing and sharing information and
using it in a flexible way to improve efficiency, generate profitable new ideas and, overall, add value for
customers.
Productivity improvements, through training and coaching employees at all levels and through freeing
managers to manage people.
Interact with more demanding customers.

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Fig 4: Demonstrates DISCOVERY-DRIVEN PROCESS to do effective risk management.
2.5 How can organization maximize profitability through develop
strategy by looking at the opportunities to reach the goals through
various approaches, like integration, penetration, development,
diversification, and divestiture and develop an execution
excellence model to achieve?
Penetration: Growth strategies have many variations from systematic additions to
the operating base to the development of new markets and customers and
improvements to existing ones. Changing the capabilities, resources, and portfolios
of business units in the pursuit of exponential growth involves highly leveraged
incremental improvements, and ongoing developments in capabilities, resources,
products, processes, and operations. Can we build large portfolio to penetrate
different market? Expansion strategies, especially those that do not change basic
products and existing business models that simply march into new markets, require
significant assessments and periodic evaluations to assess the viability of the
approach.
Diversification Strategies: Diversification involves spreading out business
portfolios, the scope of investments, and inherent and underlying risks.
Diversification theory suggests a broader scope reduces vulnerabilities to change,
difficulties, or losses to any one business. Diversification can include extending into
disparate new business fields and/or taking on a greater variety of served product–
market segments and business activities. This generally involves leveraging existing

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capabilities and resources for new product–markets, sharing well-respected brand
names across multi-product lines that are not the same, and using a common
extended enterprise with different product categories and effective project portfolio
management.
Divestitures: Divestitures are made upon recognizing the business unit or operation
is not performing and will not do so within a reasonable investment or time frame.
Divestitures are made when assets, positions, and efforts do not fit the strategic
direction and no longer make strategic sense. Business areas that lack the proper
attractiveness given other available opportunities can also warrant divestiture.
Integration: Creating a sustainable enterprise involves integrating and linking
together the embedded corporate management system and all of the systems within
it and linking them from the origins of the raw materials and energy sources to
customer applications and end of life. This includes linking the company’s micro-
environment with its suppliers and partners to the macro-environment of customers
and stakeholders, market spaces, the business environment, and the social and
natural worlds.
2.6 How efficient governance system with excellent operation
excellence improves business?
Governments provide a company with rules and regulations that govern business
practice and maintain fair competition. In exchange, they want companies to adhere
to these rules. Governance mechanisms are mechanisms that principals put in place
to align incentives between principals and agents and monitor and control agents.
The purpose of governance mechanisms is to reduce the scope and frequency of the
agency problem—to help ensure that agents act in a manner that is consistent with
the best interests of their principals.
The purpose of strategic control systems is to
In governance terms, their purpose is to make sure that lower-level managers, as the
agents of top managers, are acting in a way that is consistent with top managers’
Establish standards and targets, against which performance can be measured,
Create systems for measuring and monitoring performance on a regular basis,
Compare actual performance against the established targets, and
Evaluate results and take corrective action if necessary.

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goals, which should be to maximize the wealth of stockholders, subject to legal and
ethical constraints.
Operational Excellence: Operation excellence can be significantly improves the
performance of the organization. Project Management best practices have to
continuously deploy to build Organization Project management maturity.
• Reducing complexity—through standardization and consolidation, thereby reducing
operational costs, freeing budget dollars to be spent on new capabilities. Developing
shared services capabilities—which can be leveraged throughout the enterprise.
• Creating a dynamic and responsive environment—accelerating deployment of new
capabilities while managing costs and reducing complexity.
• Increasing resource utilization—and improving application availability.
• Automating manual processes—to reduce operational costs and minimize operating
errors.
• Reducing downtime and improving audit reporting—to help reduce associated risk
and mitigate disruption to business.
Fig 5: Demonstrates a Delivery excellence model which can be used in the organization to improve
the execution speed. There are many more existing delivery models which can be customize and use
for organizational delivery excellence. PMO plays significant to role to successfully execute the
projects with superior execution speed.

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Fig 5.1 Efficient project management office to execute strategic projects efficiently.
2.7 How organizational design and cultural renovation improves
business transformation?
The demands for improved product quality, the pressures for cost reduction, the
intensity of global competition, the needs for dramatic innovations, the changes in
the social, economic, environmental, and technological dimensions, and the need for
greater flexibility, taken together, demanded new ways of strategic thinking. The
most important needs were for more creative strategies and more flexible
organizational structures. The focus was supposed to be on process improvements
for making operations more effective and in discovering best practices.
Organization will get excellent competitive advantage if it has unique organization
process and structure which cannot be replicate easily. Organizational capabilities—
the way a company makes decisions and manages its processes—can be a source
of competitive advantage. The effect of introducing self-managing teams is

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reportedly an increase in productivity of 30% or more and a substantial increase in
product quality. Further cost savings arise from eliminating supervisors and creating
a flatter organizational hierarchy, which also lowers the cost structure of the
company.
Employee productivity is one of the key determinants of an enterprise’s efficiency,
cost structure, and profitability. Every project managers has to take care below
factors.
Cultural changes: An organization’s culture can exert a powerful influence on the
behavior of all employees; it can strongly affect a company’s ability to shift its
strategic direction. A problem for a strong culture is that a change in mission,
objectives, strategies, or policies is not likely to be successful if it is in opposition to
the accepted culture of the company. Corporate culture has a strong tendency to
resist change because it’s very reason for existence often rests on preserving stable
relationships and patterns of behavior.
There is no best corporate culture. An optimal culture is one that best supports the
mission and strategy of the company of which it is a part. This means that, like
structure and staffing, corporate culture should follow strategy. Thus, a significant
change in strategy should be followed by a modification of the organization’s culture.
Although corporate culture can be changed, it may often take a long time and require
much effort.
Hiring Strategy: it is important to make sure that the hiring strategy of the company is consistent
with its own internal organization, culture, and strategic priorities
Employee Training: Employees are a major input into the production process. Those who are
highly skilled can perform tasks faster and more accurately and are more likely to learn the complex
tasks associated with many modern production methods than individuals with lesser skills. Training
upgrades employee skill levels, bringing the company productivity-related efficiency gains from learning
and experimentation
Self-Managing Teams: The use of self-managing teams, whose members coordinate their own
activities and make their own hiring, training, work, and reward decisions, has been spreading rapidly.
Pay for Performance: It is hardly surprising that linking pay to performance can help increase
employee productivity, but the issue is not quite so simple as just introducing incentive pay systems. It is
also important to define what kind of job performance is to be rewarded and how.

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A key job of management is therefore to evaluate
2.8 Intrapreneur mindset
Below factors are mindsets of most of the entrepreneur which all the team members
should acquire over a period of time. Organization will be able to face any
challenged when team members has these mindset.
Project managers have to run his/her own business like CEO.
Fig 6: Demonstrates few parameters of entrepreneurs which team members can refer and transform
themselves to make a dynamic and agile organization
2.9 Why Companies Fail?
When a company loses its competitive advantage, its profitability falls
Steps to Avoid Failure?
What a particular strategy change will mean to the corporate culture?
Whether or not a change in culture will be needed? and
Whether an attempt to change the culture will be worth the likely costs?

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Given that so many traps wait for companies, the question arises as to how strategic
managers can use internal analysis to find them and escape them. We now look at
several tactics that managers can use.
Focus on the building blocks of competitive advantage by focusing on all four generic
building blocks of competitive advantage—efficiency, quality, innovation, and
responsiveness to customers—and to develop distinctive competencies that
contribute to superior performance in these areas.
Institute Continuous Improvement and Learning: Today’s source of competitive
advantage may soon be rapidly imitated by capable competitors or made obsolete by
the innovations of a rival. In such a dynamic and fast-paced environment, the only
way that a company can maintain a competitive advantage over time is to continually
improve its efficiency, quality, innovation, and responsiveness to customers.
Track Best Industrial Practice and Use Benchmarking: One of the best ways to
develop distinctive competencies that contribute to superior efficiency, quality,
innovation, and responsiveness to customers is to identify and adopt best industrial
practice and practice the same in every project.
Overcome Inertia. Overcoming the internal forces that are a barrier to change within
an organization is one of the key requirements for maintaining a competitive
advantage.
Monitor competitors: When competitors are strong, it is necessary to deliver an
enhanced service or find another way of appealing to customers.
Do some analysis (five forces, value chain, relative cost and value).
Draw an industry map, showing how current players are positioned.
Choose an unoccupied position.

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Fig 7: Demonstrates various factors which can influence organization, project and team performance
Superior Innovation:
In many ways, innovation is the most important source of competitive advantage.
This is because innovation can result in new products that better satisfy customer
needs, can improve the quality (attributes) of existing products, or can reduce the
costs of making products that customers want. The ability to develop innovative new
products or processes gives a company a major competitive advantage that allows it
to
Competitors, however, attempt to imitate successful innovations and often succeed.
Therefore, maintaining a competitive advantage requires a continuing commitment to
innovation.
Differentiate its products and charge a premium price, and/or
Lower its cost

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Fig 8: Demonstrates idea productization and fitting into stage gate model
Fig 9: Demonstrates various sources for idea generation which organization can use.

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Response Time: Giving customers what they want when they want it requires speed
of response to customer demands. To gain a competitive advantage, a company
must often respond to customer demands very quickly. Organization has to design
project execution excellence framework for its product or framework alignment with
nature of business. Companies that can satisfy customer demands for rapid
response build brand loyalty, differentiate their products, and can charge higher
prices for them.
Customization: Customization is varying the features of a good or service to tailor it
to the unique needs or tastes of groups of customers or, in the extreme case,
individual customers. Although extensive customization can raise costs, the
development of flexible manufacturing technologies has made it possible to
customize products to a much greater extent than was feasible 10 to 15 years ago
without experiencing a prohibitive rise in cost structure.
Pressures for Cost Reductions: In competitive global markets, international
businesses often face pressures for cost reductions. To respond to these pressures,
a firm must try to lower the costs of value creation.
Technological Leadership: “You cannot compete with the dominant player if you
don’t offer something different,” Roger Beteille, one of Airbus’s co-founders had
famously said. Technology has been changing rapidly and organization has to
exploit all the technological advantage by investing R&D and improve the product
and service quality. How to effectively use technology like cloud, data analytics, big
data, and mobility for organizational growth? All project or product should address
these areas to get ahead in the race.

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Fig 10: Demonstrates how Strategy connected with individual projects which help to actual
implementation of the business transformation.
Organizational inertia: The inability to understand change and adapt to it is
characterized by organizational inertia. Many organizations falter because they fail to
recognize that the market has changed, with increased competition and more
organizations offering the same or similar products. It is important that there is a
clear, competitive response when:
Competing or substitute products come onto the market.
Technological changes give competitors an advantage or alter customers’ preferences.
Substitute products keep prices low and threaten to take current and potential customers.
Products mature, resulting in changes such as reduced prices, market saturation and risk to brand reputation.
Demographic changes occur, including shifts in income distribution.
Social changes take place, for example in fashion tastes.
Demand declines because of a cyclical change – it may be temporary, but it may be no less damaging for that.
Political developments result in regulatory changes, and possibly the removal of barriers to entry.
A significant new competitor arrives or emerges.
Rising costs of leaving the market result in intensifying competition, in the face of falling sales.
Product differentiation or strong cost advantages are lacking.

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2.10 Checklist item for business transformation
Various factors need to consider for organization transformation are.
Checklist items for Business Transformation
Analyze existing internal factors relating to systems, processes, technology, people, and culture to determine which factors should eliminate, create,
or change.
Organization need to modify and refine preliminary “to be” strategy based on the input received from key stakeholders.
Organization need to analyze the services and products to ensure that clients or customers are likely to purchase them because services and products
meet or exceed their needs and expectations.
Organization need to analyze the quality, cost, and availability of the products and services to ensure that they meet or exceed client and customer
requirements.
Organization need to analyze all factors impacting it’s ability to act on its value proposition to ensure, for example, that manufacturing, transportation,
and distribution costs and the price of the services and products will allow(1) it’s clients and customers to purchase them and (2) it’s organization to
realize needed profit margins.
Organization need to identify a number of likely trends emerging in the natural, societal, and task environments. These are strategic environmental
issues—those important trends that, if they happen, will determine what various industries will look like in the near future.
Assess the probability of these trends actually occurring, from lowto medium to high.
Attempt to ascertain the likely impact (from lowto high) of each of these trends on the corporation.
Howcan value-chain analysis help identify a company’s strengths and weaknesses?
In what ways can a corporation’s structure and culture be internal strengths or weaknesses?
What are the pros and cons of management’s using the experience curve to determine strategy?
Howmight a firm’s management decide whether it should continue to invest in current known technology or in new, but untested technology?
What factors might encourage or discourage such a shift?
Execution speed,Operational Excellence , PMO contribution, Organizational Project management Maturity

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3.0 Conclusion
Business will maximize profit and its’ success will last long if the above mentioned
factors apply systematically, thoroughly and religiously to all the projects executing
under the organization. All project managers, team members have to work as a
team to achieve above factors for rapid growth. Agile project managers have to
consider themselves as a business manager. Project managers has to aware of
business considerations,e.g., market share, product cost and pricing, competition,
quality, and customer satisfaction, and reflect them in project decisions. All these
factors are multi-dimensional factors for an organization which should assure
organization to transform rapidly. Every team members has to learn all these factors
and participate in the transformation process. Effective business strategy should be
a stream of strategic projects.

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4.0 References
Item Description
1
2
1. Strategic Management Theory:An Integrated Approach, Ninth Edition by Charles W. L. Hilland Gareth R. Jones, published by South-Western Cengage Learning.
2. Strategic management and organizational dynamics- The challenge of complexity to ways of thinking about organizations - Sixth Edition- by Ralph D. Stacey,
published by Pearson Education Limited
3. Leading Strategic Change - Bridging Theory and Practice-ERIC FLAMHOLTZ and YVONNE RANDLE - published by CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITYPRESS
4. Enterprise-wide Strategic Management - Achieving Sustainable Success through Leadership, Strategies, and Value Creation by David L. Rainey - published by
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITYPRESS
5. Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice by DAMONGOLSORKHI,L I NDAROULEAU,DAVIDSEIDL AND E E RO VAARA , Published by CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITYPRESS
6. High Performance Through Process Excellence - FromStrategy to Execution with Business Process Management by Dr. Mathias Kirchmer- second edition - publsihed
by Springer
7. Business Essentials - sixth Canadian edition by Ron Ebert, Ricky Griffin,Fred Starke, and George Dracopoulos, published by Pearson Prentice Hall
8. The Startup Owner’s Manual-The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf, published by Kand S Ranch Inc

DELIVERY
EXCELLENCE
 Chapter Three
* How to become a great consultant , tricks and
suggestions.

PM World Journal
Vol. IV, Issue V – May 2015
www.pmworldjournal.net
Learning from my Consultant Colleague
by Chandan Lal Patary
Commentary
© 2015Chandan Lal Patary www.pmworldlibrary.net Page 1 of 18
Learning from my consultant colleague
Chandan Patary
I have spent time with my colleague who has worked with us as an agile consultant for a
transformational project where we have deployed scaled agile (SAFe) framework. He has
worked as an agile consultant for one of the assignments where we have been trying to adapt agile
for a large division for a long time. I had the opportunity to closely work with him. I have written
down a few of my observations and the approach a consultant takes for an assignment and how
they get the work done in a certain stipulated timeline.
This has triggered certain thoughts about consulting as a profession to think about.
Can we also start our own consulting assignment? That thought triggers me to list some of the
points and I have penned a few here.
According to Wikipedia - A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert
advice in a particular area.
The Management Consultancies Association (MCA) defines management consulting as: “The
creation of value for organisations, through improved performance, achieved by providing
objective advice and implementing business solutions.”
1. Why consultant?
No one likes changes. We don’t like change because it upsets what’s known—the rules,
practices, and norms which we have gotten comfortable and familiar with. In addition, we are in
control when events are the same. When work involves the same rules, practices, and processes,
we know how to achieve our goals and be effective. But what happens when work changes in
fundamental ways that require new skills and new capabilities, and the actual jobs we are good
at are not just changed but eliminated because of trends in industry, commerce, innovation, or
business?
As Woodrow Wilson, the twenty-eighth president of the United States, put it, “If you want to make
enemies, try to change something”. Change is scary to most people; it takes them out of their
comfort zones into a strange new world where their status and expertise are potentially under
threat.
Change is all around us, and we often feel like a victim of it.
The world is changing very fast; we cannot wait and re-discover ourselves which can be done
with the help of an expert.
Many people make the mistake of assuming that we have to force the whole company to be
more agile in order to implement an agile development process. That is not necessarily the

PM World Journal
Commentary
case—a company needs to build its culture around whatever makes sense for the primary
business that the company is in.
Who will simplify to do this type of cultural change in a much smoother way? Consultant/Third
party agent?
If a company operates in an environment that requires some level of risk and/or regulatory control,
it may be necessary to adapt the agile approach to fit that environment but it’s not impossible to
do that with the right approach and tools.
Who will understand the risks? Consultant / Third party agent?
We were looking for an expert who had already implemented agile in a transformational
assignment at a large scale in multiple industries and who would not rediscover the wheel.
We were looking for a different set of knowledge, skills and attitude. He/she can influence mass
team members in various ways to change the mindset and efficiently execute the
transformational project.
Agile consultants are providing modular solution based on our need from Training to complete the
transformation journey.
2. What benefit and value a consultant can add?
A consultant is well served by a ready set of stories, examples, and metaphors to assist in
communicating techniques and approaches to make organizations more effective.
Usually, after first meeting with the client, the consultant develops a written proposal that includes
a project plan that specifies the goals of the project and the activities that must be conducted to
achieve those goals.
Consultant is hired based on client’s perception of the quality of the proposed project plan.
However, in the vast majority of successful projects, the initial project plan is changed as
consultant and client work together to address the issues in the client’s organization.
An experienced consultant learns to present the project plan as preliminary in nature and open to
change. The consultant helps the client to realize that plans often change and that change is
natural.
Consultants are hired as temporaryemployees because it was the only wayto staff a project rapidly
enough with qualified specialists. Today many companies hire contract professionals because it
makes better economic and business sense. It is far less expensive to staff up with temporaries than
to hire and train new employees. Contracting imposes virtually no obligations on the client beyond
paying the contractor for providing the contract labor.

PM World Journal
Commentary
E
H
3. ssential requirements to operate?
These are the things that a consultant must have as a minimum to start the operation. Some people
call them ‘must want’. If we do not get an essential want from a client, then we would do better
not to proceed with the project.
Essentials vary from situation to situation; here are some examples:
 Access to the key people who have a part in the problem the consultant is being
asked to solve
 Contract paper about the work (Thorough description about the scope of the work,
terms and condition, mutually accepted)
 Enough time to do the job professionally
 An agreement that he will not be asked to individually evaluate the performance of
people he works with on this project
 Money
 Access to certain records and documents
 The commitment of the top person in the organization to proceed with the project
 Response to phone calls and e-mails.
4. ow consultant starts the assignment?
Typical way consultant starts the work that I have observed: they first understand the problem in
the context it is happening. They do the gap analysis and based on that they propose solution and
check the validity of the solution. If there are changes required, they fix and iterate the same
process. What are the differentiation factors? We have observed that analyzing abilities and
proposing the right fitment are key, which are unique for the context.

PM World Journal
Commentary
This is like Design Thinking (DT) which is a more human-centered, rapid prototype-based
innovation method. Its main idea is to develop a solution in close exchange with stakeholders
and target users to ensure desirability, viability, and feasibilityof the final solution. All consultants
apply similar types of practices.
By definition, being a consultant—and not a manager—means we have direct control and
responsibility only for our own time and our own support resources. The line manager is paid to
take responsibility for what the line organization implements or doesn’t implement. If the client
manager takes your report and chooses to do nothing about it, that is the manager’s right. In the
final analysis, you are not responsible for the use of your expertise and recommendations.
Below are a few observations I have made.

PM World Journal
Commentary
C
Fig c: captures most of the skills required to run a smooth consultancy assignment which need to
polish an ongoing basis.
5. uriosity skill
Customers don't always know what they want. But even if they know what they want, they
sometimes don't communicate it clearly. Furthermore, what they say they want may not be the
best solution to their problem. Therefore, information gathering is a key consulting skill. This skill
entails the ability to draw pertinent information from customers, even if they don't know the
information is pertinent or wouldn't otherwise think to tell you.
Consultants use several types of questions, such as those listed below, to draw information from
customers. Used in combination, these types of questions can generate more information and better
quality information
Investigative questions: Helps us to learn more about the problem or situation under
discussion. For example:
 "Can you give me a specific example of what you mean?"
 "What sorts of things have you already tried to resolve this situation?"
Investigative questions are open-ended, tell-me-more questions that swiftly queries the customer
for surplus data. What was the history of the problem, problems with the existing procedure, the
results of other attempts to solve the problem, and conditions for success?
Expounding questions: Helps us to offer a way to double-check your understanding of what the
customer has told you. For example:
 "Do I understand correctly that what you're saying is ...?"
 "When you say there are communication problems, what do you mean?"
These questions signal that you're really listening and provide an opportunity for clarification if
you've misunderstood something. They also prompt the customer to add some information even
if you haven't misjudged.

PM World Journal
Commentary
Procedure questions: Helps us to ensure that the customer is comfortable with the way you're
conducting the interview. Just a few such questions may suffice. For example:
 "Do you have any concerns about what we've discussed so far?"
 "Would you like some time to mull it over?"
Process questions tell customers that it's OK to have opinions about the conduct of the interview,
and to express those opinions. These questions help to put your customer at ease, and customers
who are at ease are more likely to expound at length than those who feel they're undergoing an
interrogation.
Sympathetic questions offer a way to build rapport by focusing attention on the customer. They
are a simple and very effective way to exhibit a sense of caring during the interview. For example:
 "Is this a really frustrating situation for you?"
 "It sounds like you're constantly juggling priorities."
Just a little bit of empathy can go a long way in making a human connection. And it's not
unusual for customers to respond to expressions of empathy with, "You're right, and as a matter
of fact,” thus giving you additional information that you might not have gotten otherwise.
Meta-questions are questions about the questioning process. They are a creative way to help
customers remember important information they might not otherwise remember to mention until
it's too late. For example:
 "What question will your staff wish I had asked you?"
 "If we get started with the information I now have, what question will we later
wish I had asked?"
When we can smoothly incorporate these types of questions into our information-gathering
sessions, we will be pleased with the amount and quality of information that we generate.

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