Project Management in Switzerland

Visas, Permits, Passports and Naturalization
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Dear EnglishForum members:

As I have noticed during my lurking period that there are many IT specialists and project managers on the forum, I'd like to request your opinion about this matter.

The Situation.

I am an engineer with years long experience.

I have worked in environments where companies needed to be very proactive on the market and the employees dedicated and hard workers to keep the company and your own position doing well.

I have been a technical manager on my domain ( electronics, telecoms ) and also a project manager/project leader on that domain and also in software development projects.

This work as an engineering project manager required, situation analysis, project scope definition, budgeting, ROI calculations, project planing, project execution and follow-up.

All that using classical PM tools as GANTT and PERT charts and involved task execution supervision, reporting and updating the schedules, assigning ressources and recalculating costs all through the process.

As IT software development projects were more variable and difficult to clearly specify, or had ever changing specifications,and also it was difficutl to forecast the tasks duration and cost that made them different to manage than engineering projects. This little by little made me consider that the GANTT and PERT charting and follow up was not appropriate to manage those projects.

I know there are newer and more efficient ways to manage IT projects. In conclussion my experience managing IT projects was more hands-on, coaching and supporting the team where I saw there was a need and also more into trying to structure more the work in what is related to documentation, bug reporting and versioning.

Then I came to Switzerland.

The first thing that surprised me was when I got a job at a bank. I just came in as a business analyst and developper and I saw a giant GANTT chart for the project I was to work on, on the wall.. So I read it and realised we were behind schedule by one month or so. I thought then, "well we have to work hard now to catch-up".... But my hopes falled over when I realized that the dates on the GANTT chart were from 1 year ago .

I have then been working here for many years now, in another small-medium sized company that hired me as a Project Manager.

This company has enough money and their sales keep it doing well even if you can see that their market share is shrinking and in the near future they'll maybe have big problems.

However, in all those years I have been working here, I haven't seen good project management practices. Mostly we have been improvising and delivering things based on lose specifications that change during the whole process, whith no real domain analysis, nor strict software design or procedures. At least not in comparison with I did 10 years ago before coming to Switzerland. In recent years I have been even converted into a 1-man team. As I can deliver quick prototypes they started to use me to build feasability projects or market tests, so no real planning or project management involved, as I was only managing myself.

Now the question:

I finally decide that this situation is bad for my career, ( I know I should have done if before but the conditions were very good).

I have been offered 2 jobs as a Project Manager in 2 big companies. One is an international organisation.

I am feeling that maybe all those years of working sub-standard but well-paid have hindered my PM skills.

But I wonder, maybe this is the standard swiss way ? or even the market standard after all those 10 years ?

Please tell me in all honesty.

how do you see the PM positions here. How it is done in big companies. Which set of skills is expected. What should I expect.

Thanks so much for all your opinions.

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Gooner, that was really good........

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Hi Sunny Side Up

Just a few things you mentioned captured my interest. You mentioned that Gantt and Pert charts are not appropriate for IT related complex projects, and team building based exercises (amongst the other things you mentioned) are more important.

I do agree that people management is a critical component of project management including making sure your project team maintains motivation throughout the project to complete tasks. I also agree with you that gantt charts and other similar tools by themselves are not going to get the project over the line. However, the gantt chart provides a structure underneath the management of the project, and cannot be discounted as it is one of many tools that need to be applied to ensure the project is managed in an ordered fashion. The gantt chart is not only useful for tracking time, but it also ensures all tasks are captured and not forgotten as part of any project.

I disagree with you that an IT project cannot be scoped well. IT projects can be scoped well if the project manager and parts of the team have had previous experience working on similar projects.

There will always be the issue of problems arising. This is where risk management and issue management come to the fore.

To address your main question, it seems you may have worked with companies that have not applied project management principles well. This does not mean that all Swiss companies operate this way, and on the contrary, it is up to you to step up and apply best practice project management principles and frameworks in these companies if it is lacking. To do less could jepardise significant sums of money and threaten the very existence of organisations not following best practice.

Back yourself and your ability to manage projects effectively and with good governance and excellent people management skills. To help yourself work on landing roles where you will not be feeling the strain of incompetent people around you. When in this situation it takes a special person to be able to lift the skills and motivation of those around him or her to ensure success.

I wish you luck with it all, and I hope my essay is not too verbose!

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You could get a certification such as PMP or PRINCE2 to refresh your knowledge of best/standard practices. They look great your on your CV also (regardless of your personal opinion of such certifications).

Anyway I do not think your experience is necessarily a Swiss experience as my company has quite a comprehensive and mature project management process.

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Thank you AnAustralian.

I agree with you.

I think my main problem here is that I got involved in companies that didn't applied best practices on their projects, because maybe excess of income and not real market threats.

I tried to do things right at the beginning but slowly I was caught in their easy, non-stress inertia and just did what they expected and not what I thought we must do.

I felt many times that I was working at 1/2 ( or even 1/4 ) of my capacity, but they were very happy with the results so I just carried on putting my energy in other non-professional subjects.

I want now to put me back on the right track and step up. But I wanted to get an honest reality check from the other forum members.

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Hi Sunny Side Up,

Without knowing you personally it would be difficult for anyone to make too many generalisations. Markowl made a good suggestion in that getting back to research is a good way of ensuring one is up to speed with the latest developments in project management.

I recently became a member of PMI. I am not PMP or Prince 2 certified however do work on complex IT projects, namely around off the shelf systems. In house developed systems pose an even greater complexity.

The most difficult part of any project is getting people motivated to work efficiently, and for stakeholders to accept the new system. Change management is the greatest challenge to be faced by all project managers. On one hand project managers are expected to drive the project sometimes with a big stick. On the other hand they are also expected to manage the change throughout the project. These two roles often have conflict of interest between them.

In regards to your existing experience it is easy to fall into patterns. All the more reason to explore why a pattern exists and whether it is a healthy pattern or evidence that people have fallen into an unhealthy routine.

Your self reflection is healthy and a good indicator that you desire change for yourself and perhaps the projects you work on.

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Thank you for your advice.

I will look into those certifications and courses, I think I need an update on the PM methods and techniques. Specially in German as maybe most of the work will be held now in german, I need to re-read the concepts on that language so I can aqcuire the specialist lexicon in German.

How about the level of expectations that I should set for me for those jobs ?

I have found there are newer methods applicable more to Software Development/IT Project management. Like IBM's Rational Unified Process or Extreme Project Management, or ISO10006 / ISO 10007 or Critical Chain PM.

Are those methods used and applied in Switzerland ? What are the methods or standards widely used here ?

Thanks

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Hi,

Thought you may also be interested in knowing ISO has just begun work on a standard on project management.

More information http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1092

Chester

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PRINCE2 and PMP are both highly regarded and mentioned heavily in job ads. I'm sure other methodologies are newer and fancier but have the risk of being 'fads' that will fall out of favour.

Of the two, PRINCE2 is more IT-centric.

Regards

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Out of all project management methods I find the PMBOK to be the most flexible. Prince 2 whilst very popular, seems a little rigid to me in its applicability, but have never really gotten into it as much as PMBOK. PMBOK I find particularly relevant for IT projects.

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I know both PMBOK and PRINCE2 and would not say that one or the other is better for IT projects. I tend to mix the two approaches (e.g. management by exception from PRINCE2 and stakeholder management from PMI).

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Of the IT software projects that I have been on, none of them

have been on time or under budget.

Consulting companies come in underbid the projects and try

to hold the company to the letter on contracts. It ends

up costing the company many, many CHF in project overruns.

When I miss a deadline, I feel really bad, but many co-workers don't

seem to be bothered by missing deadlines.

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At the last Swiss company I worked for, there was one notorious project with around 30 SW engineers working on it. The giant chart (I don't know what name it was as I'm an engineer not a manager and all that alphabet soup means nothing to me) on the wall showed that the project was over 1 year late.

When I casually asked (casual teatime conversation) the project manager why the project was one year late I got a shrug in reply and something like: "we're hiring 4 new engineers so we should be getting back on track real soon." (He clearly had never heard of Brooks' Mythical Man-Month)

In my experience so far Swiss managment knows nothing about engineering or software development. Swiss tech companies move like molasses compared to US tech companies, and the funny thing is, no one seems to care. They pay like 30 or 40 engineers to do some sort of vague "work" when a team of 3 or 4 would suffice, and the 30 or 40 engineers are out there twiddling their thumbs because they're not given real work to do (but they're paid well, so they don't complain). At the same time, the same company is desperately trying to hire more engineers because they somehow have the hunch that they're somehow "behind schedule".

So I guess it is a good Project Manager's nightmare, but it is a lazy employee's paradise: get paid for doing nothing.

It is amazing companies survive for so long like this. Yet somehow they do.

Anyway, worked at two Swiss companies so far. They both don't seem to manage very effectively. It feels like, not only do they move slow, but they are not very good at associating tasks with the properly skilled people: a lot of talent goes unused or people are put into the wrong roles. But funnily enough, no one seems to mind, the employees seem happy and so does management. Maybe it's a cultural thing, like work is not as important as enjoying the peace and quiet of Sundays or something, I dunno.

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In my experience of contracting in CH the best PM practises are at Man Inv and the worse, by a level of incompetence that had to be seen to be believed, was CS (UBS a close second)

I have worked at a couple other firms that are 'in the middle', I have found the general rule is the larger the company, the more powerful the idiot who's surrounded by a phalanx of 'yes' men.

Now, if you should be so bold as to inform them of the error of their ways, they'll stare blankly at you and state some rubbish about following procedure. The fact that their procedures are not fit for their business or client goes straight over their heads.

My advice is to run the project properly, but report running it the 'Swiss way'.

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[QUOTE=New Forester;274389]In my experience of contracting in CH the best PM practises are at Man Inv and the worse, by a level of incompetence that had to be seen to be believed, was CS (UBS a close second)

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I really need to see it to believe this...I thought the two banks were the most advanced and competent when it came to PM practices.

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I was also at CS, and that was the absolute worst IT shop that I have

ever been in. They worry about whether documents are the right

color. That is their definition of quality.

The documentation of the project has nothing to do with the real

deliverables. It is a bureaucratic pile of sheit!