#sukad

Understanding the Project Management Function

Your organization may (or may not) have a project management department. If you have a formal department or division, you have already recognized that project management is an indispensable function in your organization. This will provide momentum going forward.

However, in reality, many organizations do not recognize or acknowledge the relevance of the project management function. The truth is, project management is no less essential than a finance department, human resources, or information technology. They are all equal.

Today’s post is direct. Today, we are not sharing knowledge about a relevant project management topic. Instead, we want to help in making project management a critical domain for ALL industries. Consequently, we are working to set project management skills essential for business success. We are learning to adjust in these challenging times with VUCA, COVID-19, and the pandemic-triggered recessions. We are trying to establish a New Normal or maybe a better future. Whether you work from home or work from anywhere, technology is vital. Further, projects are a must to grow the global economies, hence PMI usage of the term Project Economy. In summary, we believe project management is critical for success as we transition and transform. Today’s post is about the Uruk Platform, a project management software, cloud-based solution.

What is SUKAD Corp doing about this?

For a startup, we are doing what we could.

We have opened our online courses to the project management community for free. All of our courses are open, and many have benefited from this offering.

We are also sharing knowledge by participating in virtual events, like PM360, recently in Malaysia and Morocco before that.

Bookboon.com has been publishing numerous e-books on project management by yours truly.

Further, soon we will be launching two programs, where we offer our time to professionals, managers, and even executives that want to understand how project management is strategically important. Stay tuned.

What else?

We are building the engine of applied project management, The Uruk Platform.

The Uruk Platform: The Engine of Project Success

We have published many articles in the past about the Uruk Platform. We have also established a LinkedIn Page, which you can follow to stay up to date with our progress. Further, we have a section the SUKAD Technology Solutions and Uruk on our website.

What have we done on the Uruk Platform, so far?

A group of friends and colleagues and I have worked together to raise funds. We had raised enough funds to register SUKAD Corp in the United States. Also, we finalized the vision and design for the Uruk Platform; we had published a few posts on the Uruk Platform page on LinkedIn. Further, we started architectural design and development. However, we had a major setback with our CTO’s loss, our software guru, who died recently. As a resilient startup, we had to redesign our strategy, pivot and developed our path forward strategy, which we have put into implementation.

We, Mounir and SUKAD co-founders believe that organizations today NEED the engine of applied project management. We know that the Uruk Platform can and will enable organizations to Lead Projects: Concept to Success!

Project Leadership

The key remaining question is: what do we need today?

We need you and for more than one reason.

First, we want believers and those that thrive on making a difference in our world and communities. We are eager to work with champions who believe in the strategic value of project management. In other words, we need the pioneering spirits that can help us help organizations elevate project management to becoming a formally recognized function. Consequently, help organizations Lead Projects: Concept to Success. YOU are our project management ambassadors.

Second, we need to raise funds to continue the development and outreach effort. The US Laws do not allow us to sell shares, but they allow us to work through equity-based crowdfunding platforms, that are open to the public. Open for the ambassadors and everyone in the investment or the project management community.

Here is the role of WeFunder. WeFunder is the largest equity-based crowdfunding platform. To protect YOU and the public, WeFunder has strict rules about who would they allow on their platform to raise funds in return for equity (ownership in SUKAD Corp). The first requirement is a detailed application, which we have done. However, the second requirement is to get YOU to vouch for us and contribute $100 or more. We need to reach $10,000 before they consider us to proceed to the next step.

Call to Action

DO YOU WANT TO BE AN AMBASSADOR?

Do you want to help us move ahead?

Are you one of the pioneers who would help make the Engine of Applied Project Management a reality?

Please check this link, consider our proposal; and we are looking forward to having you join our team!

Thank you

As we continue working on the development of the Uruk Platform, many questions come up. Some of these questions are about terminology and using terms out of context. For example, when you hear the term ‘project cost,’ estimated cost, budget, approved plan, forecast, or actual? The same thing for the project duration or the completion date. How to ensure a properly working software, without ambiguity? How to ensure consistency of terms for the various project management metrics and dashboards? Further, in a software solution, we have to be careful and consistent. Consequently, we need a glossary of terms, which is what we are, including in the Uruk Development Guidelines. Further, this post covers one of those areas of potential confusion.

Project Management Terminology

One of the first areas of confusion is related to the terms: Estimate, Budget, Forecast, and Actual and how to use them. To understand these terms, we need to think about where we are on the project life cycle.

Estimates

While the project is still in the Front End, we use the term estimates for cost and schedule (duration and completion date). The term ‘estimate’ is a common practice because the project is still not approved to proceed to implementation and the delivery phase. In other words, this would be before final approval of the plan. Typically, this would be from concept to Stage Gate 5, per the CAMMP™ Standard Model.

The Front End is the early stages along the Project Life Cycle

Budget – Approved Plan

The term budget is used so loosely that it is almost impossible to know what it means unless we have a clear definition. For example, is the budgeted cost, an estimate, or the approved budget? In the SUKAD Way and the Uruk Platform, we prefer to use the term ‘Approved Plan’ since this would clearly tell us that this is approved, sanctioned by management. Also, we can use this term for cost, duration, and completion dates. Therefore, once management approves the project, the estimates will become “Approved Plans,” i.e., approved budget and approved schedule.

This would be the BAC (Budget at Completion) for the cost (for those who follow the PMI Framework). However, I am not aware of a similar term for Project Duration or Completion Date.

Forecast

Once the project is approved, and we have an Approved Plan, that typically means the team is authorized to go into implementation and delivery (per CAMMP). Therefore, after the approval point, we will have actuals for what passed and estimates for what to come. Consequently, we label the combined value a forecast.

Forecast = Actuals to Date + Estimate of what Remains

Therefore, a forecast is a prediction of the final status, and it would change as the project progresses based on various variables.

During the Delivery Phase, we will have Approved Plan as the “baseline” and the Forecast.

Once again, for PMI followers, this would be EAC – Estimate at Completion.

Actual

This is easy, once the project is complete, we use the term “actual.”

Closing Comments

These distinctions are essential for the dashboards and metrics that we plan to use in the Uruk Platform. It is critical to define the specific fields that a metric would depend on. The distinction is also relevant in project reporting.

The Uruk Platform