Sarah, it sounds as if your organization is results driven toward bottom line (top executives pushing down through engineering/project management/financial. The focus should be on what the ultimate client needs are; hence, what “bang” are they getting for their “buck”. In today’s tech environment, there are way too many virtual teams and staff to keep an eye on actual performance. Pushing tech jobs offshore isn’t going to help Six Sixma measurements at all either. Metrics must be clear and understandable, and transferable to scalable projects. The problem I’ve discovered as a senior program/project manager with a global IT services giant is that little training is given before a technically competent person is “annointed” as project manager. That’s when you hear the huge “GULP!” sound coming out of cubicles.
