Documenting Failure Modes in the Critical Paths of Marketing Tasks by Phase
The last unique, value-adding method for traditional project management is applying FMEA to the cycle-time design. This is one item you almost never see used in project management, yet it is the easiest to apply, and you get a really good payback for the time invested in doing it.
FMEA can be applied to any process; it works great to help identify risks and respective consequences. Using the FMEA tool helps teams design a proactive approach to avoiding cycle-time problemsa key enhancement. Some people may use FMEAs to support developing reaction plans to address problems if and when they arise, but that is not the most effective way to use the tool. A risk analysis and mitigation tool from the project management discipline can be just as effective in contingency planning. Table 3.1 shows a classic FMEA template.
What is the Task/Tool application under evaluation? What is the purpose of the tool?
In what ways does this Task/Tool application corrupt cycle-time goals?
What is the impact on the project cycle time?
How severe is the effect on the schdule?
What causes the lose of Task/Tool fuction?
How often does cause or FM occur?
What are the tests, methods, or techniques to discover the cause before the next phase begins? How well can you estimate cause?
|
Current | |||||||||
|
Project | |||||||||
|
Management | |||||||||
|
Potential |
Potential |
Evaluation | |||||||
|
Tool |
Failure |
Failure |
Potential |
or Control | |||||
|
Task/Tool |
Function |
Mode |
Effects |
SEV |
Causes |
OCC |
Mechanism |
DET |
RPN |
As shown, a project FMEA has seven basic elements and three quantifiable attributes to calculate the magnitude of the potential risks (as denoted by the column headings). First, let's examine the seven basic FMEA elements:
• Task/Tool: Identify the task (function) or tool that can fail.
• Tool Function: Describe the tool's purposethe key question it tries to answer.
• Potential Failure Mode: Describe the exact nature of the potential failure of a given task.
• Potential Failure Effects: Define the specific impact or effects that would result if the failure occursthe potential impact.
• Potential Causes: Determine what level of risk the failure presents to the project and the team.
• Current Project Management Evaluation or Control Mechanism: Develop and document a preventive and reactive control plan to lower the possibility of risk and the level of risk if it occurs.
• Revised Project Plan: Describe and document the risk-reduced project plan at a Gate Review.
Every team should present this revised, de-risked project plan at a Gate Review before starting the next phase of work. Gatekeepers should offer guidance and resources to prevent or avoid cycle-time problems during the next phase.
The analysis stage of FMEA has three ways to quantify risk:
• SEV (severity) : Rank the severity of the effect or the impact of failure mode.
• OCC (occurrence) : Identify how often failure mode may occur.
• DET (detectable) : Identify how detectable the failure is. Define whether and how you see it coming and how to measure the impending failures. Define how well the failure can be measured after it has occurred.
Typically the FMEA table lists the items in descending order on a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is high risk and 1 is low risk. The three types of quantified risk values are multiplied to yield a Risk Priority Number (RPN). The failure modes are ranked by their respective RPN. The team starts with the highest RPN, which symbolizes a call to action, to devise a preventive and reactive plan to mitigate the risk. The team continues to work its way down the list, from the highest score to the lowest, to complete its preventive and reactive plan.
An RPN ranks and prioritizes the critical path of tasks based on contribution to risk. Every task on the critical path should have an RPN and a control plan . This should be a nonnegotiable requirement for every Gate Review. The summary gate deliverable is the cycle-time FMEA ranks and the control plans. The gatekeepers can follow the critical path by ranked risk levels and can decide what help they can give the team to protect the forecast cycle time. This helps the team and gatekeepers act in a unified fashion by including predictability in the project plan and devising reasonable ways to deliver the goals on time.
An entire project of standard marketing work can be designed, forecast, modified, and balanced for the right cycle time to meet the project's goals (see Figure 3.5 on the next page).
Figure 3.5. The entire project simulated.
Phase Phase 20—iase 30Phase 40Pf>ase 50Phase
Figure 3.5. The entire project simulated.
Example of Crystal Ball MC Software from Decision eering
With this kind of disciplined approach to designing cycle-time management, the team of marketing professionals can fully communicate just how long a project should take from a realistic position of tool-task flow to produce the right deliverables to fulfill the gate requirements.
Diluted core competencies on ill-defined projects with anemic deliverableshow can that possibly sustain growth? This nine-step approach to designing cycle time gives you the information necessary to enable a robust cycle-time discussion among the team, their project manager(s), and the executive sponsors. Realistic negotiations and enlightened trade-offs can take place. If you cannot see how you could possibly spend the time on such due diligence in designing and managing cycle time, we wish you luck. You will need a lot of it, because luck will be your default strategy for sustaining growth. We suggest enhancing your luck with these nine opportunities to prevent downstream cycle-time problems. Using this approach takes longer than either the bottom-up guessing or top-down deterministic approaches, but the resulting project target completion date will be more credible. The prescribed time allocated to planning may be more than what you are used to, but the results are worth itachieving your goals the first time. Wall Street is watching, as are your shareholders. The former requires this discipline; the latter deserves it.
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