Profiles in leadership: recipients of the annual Project Leadership Awards serve as role models for all project managers. Here are their stories

Software Magazine, Spring, 2002 by Michael Hicks, Jim Johnson, Karen Larkowski

KAREN (BOUCHER) LARKOWSKI

WHAT MAKES A GOOD PROJECT MANAGER? In Standish Group's ongoing focus groups on project management, CIOs cite the need for project leaders to possess qualities such as technology and business knowledge, good judgment, the ability to communicate well, and negotiation and organizational skills. Diplomacy and an aptitude for time management are also critical. Yet even with a checklist such as this, leadership is difficult to define. The Project Leadership Awards, given out at the annual Project Leadership Conference (PLC), help define leadership through role models.

Since its founding in 1994, the PLC has been the defining educational event for IT project executives. Last year's PLC, sponsored by Imark Communications, Natick, Mass., was held in Dallas. The Standish Group has been a major participant and sponsor of this conference in both North America and Europe, and has helped fuel the attendees' interest in improving IT project performance.

Most PLC attendees are there to learn how to improve and develop their project leadership skills. In fact, the key word in PLC is leadership. In that regard the PLC is kind of a quirky event. It does not focus on technology like most IT events. Rather, it focuses on how to be a better leader--in projects.

The PLC has been giving out awards to leaders in project management since its inception. The candidates for last year's awards were selected from over 300 nominations.

A peer submitted each nomination. The nomination form asked many questions about the candidates, such as a description of the candidate's organization, background, project(s), and leadership qualities. The Standish Group used these forms to select the winners based on Standish Group CHAOS project data as well as other project research. A three-person panel from The Standish Group chose the winners. The panel consisted of Michael Hicks, research advisor; James Johnson, chairman; and Karen (Boucher) Larkowski, executive vice president.

Here are the profiles of the top five winners, in rank order:

First Winner: John D. Caine

Organization: Chevron Information Technology Co.,

Chevron Corp., San Francisco

Business Problem: Improve service to retail outlets

Project: Chevron's Retailer Alliance

Chevron has approximately 8,000 retail outlets and 500 independent distributors. A service station could have up to 21 points of contact for retail products with several representatives. It took hundreds of person-hours each month to service the retail dealers--between telephone calls, checking status and entering orders. Chevron needed to improve service while cutting cost.

The company built an online system that allows these retail dealers a single contact via a Web portal. Users log on to the system using a standard Internet browser and obtain order information, check order status, and review new products and promotional items. They can also order products and schedule gasoline deliveries right from their PCs.

Chevron Information Technology Co. utilized the Oracle8i database from Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores, Calif., the WebLogic server from BEA Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., and a Sun Solaris platform.

The project began in 1998, with the first phase finished one year later. The cost of development was $5 million and the total project cost was $24 million.

The main project executive sponsor was Nancy Reyda from the Chevron marketing group. She was both the visionary and the project champion. There were three user groups with a total of 36 people who provided feedback to the developers: the East Coast retail dealers association, the West Coast retail dealers association, and the independent distributors. Chevron Information Technology Co. served as the developer and project manager, with John Caine as the lead project manager.

Things Chevron Did Right:

First, the technology group formed a good working relationship with the business executives, including the executive sponsor. Second, they supplemented their staff with missing skills. Third, they adapted their methodology to a rapid application development methodology. Fourth, they formalized the user involvement with scheduled meetings and prototype reviews. And finally, they time-boxed feature sets.

Things Chevron Did Wrong:

Chevron underestimated the effort it would take to roll out the system through the dealer network. One-third of the dealers were online right away. The next third took a little longer. The last third needed incentives to buy a PC and go online. This rollout took almost two years.

Lessons Learned:

Chevron Technology Group did not include the payment processing division in the project; therefore, the dealer still had multiple points of contact. Also, Chevron overestimated its ROI, but was still happy with the payback.

Second Winner: Nancy Mulholland

Organization: State of New York

Business Problem: Paper overload

Project: New York State's Optics

The New York Workers' Compensation Board was overburdened with paper. They receive approximately 12 million pieces of new mail per year and manage over 350,000 active case folders. It took an army of workers to log, count, stack, copy, move, and file documents. The paper-based nature of this business process necessitated a serial operation, which restricted the accessibility to the documents themselves. These administrative inefficiencies contributed to adjudicatory delays in the system. Employers were also faced with increased costs for providing workers' compensation insurance coverage for their employees.