Introduction to
Momentum Management

This book explains the thinking behind Momentum Management. There is too much to summarize on this web page, but a single example might serve to clarify the book's purpose. Consider the very idea of managing the momentum of the project (a causative factor), as opposed to managing the consequences of actions after-the-fact.

Quick Links to Below

• Concept of Momentum Management
• Momentum Management: Depends on the Owner
• Project Time Management is a Group Effort

Concept of Momentum Management

Picture walking through a crowded shopping mall, where droves of people move at different paces. If you are rushing to a destination, and want to maintain your momentum, you study the crowd ahead, note their respectives rates of travel, and make decisions about your own pace and direction. You may temporarily speed up to slide around and in front of two senior citizens who are about to block a doorway. You may slow down in order to let other pedestrians cross your path in front of you.

We define momentum as "pace and direction," and the concept is that Project Executors are far more effective (and their projects far more successful) if the primary management focus is on establishing and maintaining a collective momentum across the Project Team

This is an Ideology book that only make sense once one fully understands the Technological capabilities and Methodological options of Momentum Management, as discussed in Volumes 5 and 7, respectively.  That is why we recommend that they be read first. (Top of Page)

Momentum Management: Depends on the Owner

In this book, we discuss the successful achievement of Project Time Management under Cognitive Project Management: Momentum Management.  In particular, we discuss how to make PAGUSYS come alive.

Needed are various actions by Upper Management.  Some of those actions are as simple (or not) as an attitude change.  Some actions entail changing management philosophy (the topic of Volume 8).  Some of those changes require a willingness to try something different on a Project Time Management level.

This book full examines how Project Time Management is more, much more, than the mere creation, maintain, and occasional reporting of schedule data.  Project Time Management is, at its core, a management effort – not a technical juggling of enigmatic data of questionable value managerial value. (Top of Page)

Project Time Management is a Group Effort

Project Time Management is a group effort.  Every one of the four domains of Project Management has a vested interest in Project Time Management.

• Project Executors are, of course, the primary beneficiaries of a robust and responsive Project Time Management System.  Because they are the main users of Project Time Management information, they are also the most important and influential contributors to the creation of Project Time Management tools and products.
• Project Administrators are the second most important members of the Project Time Management team. Their collective goal and responsibility is to enable Project Execution to perform according to its preferred timetable and approach.  To the greatest extent possible they should align their internal functions in order to support the Project Execution Strategy. Where this is simply not possible, the Project Execution Strategy must be modified to reflect the reality of these limitations.
• The Project Coordinator (Project Manager) relies on the informational work products of the Project Time Management system (PAGUSYS) to perform his duties, which all revolve around coordination of the overall Project Management effort. 
• Coordination between the other three Project F.A.C.E. Domains is a big part of the job, resolving differences, disputes, and so forth.
• Coordination between the project and the (Contractor’s) Home Office is another important part of the job.  It is at the Home Office where many of the Project Administration functions reside. It is also the Home Office that has the wider view, of this and all other projects in the company portfolio.
• Coordination between the Project and the Owner (and its agents and representatives).  This is where scope changes come from, and the challenge is to balance demands for new, more, different, or less work … with an established Project Execution Strategy already in play.

Project Time Management is a group effort – like an orchestra, only as good as its worst instrumentalist.  Given all that you have read on this and the two surrounding pages/tabs (Volume 5 and 7), we hope you now understand why we insist that that there is more, much more, to Project Time Management than simply creating and maintaining a CPM Schedule … and then comparing planned and actual performance on a monthly basis.
(Top of Page)