T.J. Elliott wrote:
>I am looking for references to a system that I recently heard about. The
>person describing it said it was called the 'roll call' method. In this
>method, managers or leaders coming together for a review are asked to
>characterize projects as red light, yellow light, or green light.
The problem here is to establish rules, when a project should be
characterized red, yellow or green light. Faulty rules, as well
intentioned as they may be, will lead to wrong decisions and surprises.
A good example is a learning history, published by Art Kleiner, on an
automotive development project which turned out to be a great success, but
which had to struggle with senior managements notion that the project is
not only red but deep purple. (I have seen this in HBR, but also on the
web. I think it has also been mentioned here on the list before. Rick, do
you know the URL?)
[Host's Note: A portion of this learning history is on the web at
http://www.sol-ne.org/pra/pro/aut/index.html
This is "The Learning Initiative at the AutoCo Epsilon Program" but don't
be put off by the title, it's an important program at a major auto maker.
Kleiner and Roth had a nice article in the HBR about a year ago. ...Rick]
A great approach to overcome this problem on how to judge the progress of
a whole project with respect to time, budget and content is the TOC
(theory of constraints) approach to project management. I would recommend
two books on this:
Critical Chain, a novel by Eliyahu Goldratt
Project Management in the Fast Lane: Applying the Theory of Constraints
by Robert C. Newbold
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
--"Winfried Dressler" <winfried.dressler@voith.de>
[Host's Note: In association with Amazon.com, these links...
Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0884271536/learningorg
Project Management in the Fast Lane : Applying the Theory of Constraints (St. Lucie Press/Apics Series on Constraints Management) by Robert C. Newbold http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1574441957/learningorg
...Rick]
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>