Contents
Introduction
Adapting to the unique objectives, stakeholders, and complexity of the environment is crucial for project success.
Tailoring, the deliberate adaptation of approach, governance, and processes, plays a pivotal role in achieving favorable outcomes.
By tailoring project systems and considering interrelated complexities, teams maximize value, manage constraints, and improve performance.
This article explores the significance of tailoring and its impact on project success, highlighting the benefits and iterative nature of this process.
The Importance of Tailoring
Tailoring entails customizing the project approach, governance, and processes to suit the specific project context.
Every project exists within a distinct environment, influenced by factors such as the business environment, team size, uncertainty, and complexity.
Project teams meticulously select the appropriate framework, ensuring flexibility to consistently achieve positive outcomes throughout the project life cycle.
Tailoring decisions may involve accepting established methodologies or explicitly selecting elements that align with project characteristics. Regardless, tailoring is indispensable in optimizing project value and adapting to evolving circumstances.
Determining the Most Appropriate Methods
While projects may share common elements, their contexts are often unique due to dynamic organizational factors. The project team’s responsibility lies in carefully examining the project’s conditions to determine the most suitable methods for achieving desired outcomes.
Leveraging existing methodologies or common ways of working can guide tailoring efforts. While adopting the parent organization’s methodology provides consistency, tailoring is still necessary to align with individual project requirements.
Organizational policies and procedures establish the authorized boundaries within which tailoring can occur, ensuring a balance between standardization and adaptability.
Cost, Value, and Process Efficiency
Tailoring the project management approach involves considering the time and cost implications of various processes.
Untailored processes may offer minimal value while increasing costs and extending the schedule.
Tailoring involves selecting and utilizing processes, methods, and artifacts that align with the project’s unique characteristics and deliver maximum value.
PMBOK 2021
By making informed decisions regarding process-related costs and their contribution to project outcomes, project teams can optimize resource utilization. This approach enhances project efficiency, reduces waste, and supports the achievement of desired results.
Communicating Tailoring Decisions
In addition to tailoring the approach, effective communication of tailoring decisions to stakeholders is crucial.
Transparency ensures that project team members understand the chosen methods and processes that relate to their roles and responsibilities.
Stakeholder involvement in defining the tailored approach fosters deeper commitment and a customer-oriented focus.
Clear communication facilitates alignment, minimizing misunderstandings and promoting project success.
The Benefits of Tailoring
Tailoring a project approach to the unique characteristics of the project and its environment yields numerous benefits.
These include deeper commitment from team members, reduced waste of actions and resources, customer-oriented focus, and more efficient utilization of project resources.
Additionally, tailored projects foster increased innovation, efficiency, and productivity.
They enable lessons learned to be shared and applied to future projects, facilitate continuous improvement of the organization’s methodology, promote experimentation for discovering better outcomes, and integrate methods and practices effectively within multidisciplinary teams.
Tailoring enhances the organization’s adaptability in the long run.
The Iterative Nature of Tailoring
Tailoring is an iterative process throughout the project life cycle.
Project teams collect feedback from stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of the tailored methods and processes, continuously adding value to the organization.
This iterative approach ensures ongoing adaptation and refinement to align with evolving project dynamics.
By embracing feedback and making necessary adjustments, project teams can enhance their performance and increase the likelihood of project success.
Conclusion
Tailoring is the key to unlocking project success. By adapting the approach, governance, and processes to suit the project’s unique objectives and environment, project teams maximize value, improve efficiency, and foster innovation, ultimately driving project success and organizational growth.
|PMBOK Principle 1 – Be a Diligent, Respectful, and Caring Steward|
|PMBOK Principle 2 – Create a Collaborative Project Team Environment|
|PMBOK Principle 3 – EFFECTIVELY ENGAGE WITH STAKEHOLDERS|
|PMBOK Principle 4 – VALUE FOCUS|
|PMBOK Principle 5 – System Thinking|
|PMBOK Principle 6 – LEADERSHIP|
