Project Management and Experience:  The Wedding

Mark Pendergast from Delphi Corporation is discussing his experience in project management in a PLM project called Project Management and Experience A Perfect Marriage For PLM Deployment. This presentation is a quick-fire look at project management and Mark’s experience in running these types of projects. He covered areas of time management, cost management, Human Resource management, communications management, risk management and others that I could not get written down as I indicated quick-fire.

Delphi lessons learned slide indicated some bits of wisdom like, Find a leader that can say “NO”, Investing in team training, Ensure adequate performance.

 



Some of his lessons learned he called Mark-isms. PLM IS out to get you so be paranoid. “It’s like making sausage it can get ugly sometimes.” He indicates that risk is everywhere and it should be managed aggressively. He talks about prototyping everything, and many other gems of what he has experienced.

Mark used many metaphors for his presentation like a waterfall model, and the bear eating the salmon in the waterfall. He used more than once the idea that being a horse trader is a skill that is needed. He also stressed making sure to look for attitude in a project rather than skill, as your people need to have the right attitude. Obviously, Mark has learned many lessons over the years, and is continuing to learn about PLM. He indicates it has been a journey. Delphi is a very large company and they are only in the early stages of deploying their PLM even after doing it nearly 10 years.