Deidre Hicks

Presentation: What is Success to a Project Manager

Abstract: You have been appointed to manage a project and given a clearly defined scope, a healthy budget and a reasonable schedule. You also have a strong, hand-picked team with all of the expertise necessary to get the job done AND you deliver!!! On time, in budget everything the sponsor defined. A Miracle – maybe. A Rarity – certainly. But is this this project a success?? Maybe – and – Maybe not. I want to share with you a story of one of the projects I worked on early in my career that fit this scenario exactly and was deemed a success, for a time. But a little more then 2-years later was completely scrapped and abandoned.

How could this happen?? Successful management of the triple constraint is not the full definition of project success. The job is much more complex than that. They need to work in concert with Program and Portfolio Managers to understand the big-picture and not be afraid to recommend that projects be killed when they fall out of alignment with organizational strategy.

PMI Talent Triangle: Strategic and Business Management

Biography: Deidre Hicks serves as an Assistant Division Chief in the Decennial Census Management Division at the Census Bureau. Ms. Hicks heads up the Program Management Office, which is responsible for defining and implementing program management policies, processes and the control functions for planning and implementing the 2020 Census. She spent the first 15 years of her career as a DoD contractor, working as a project manager over software development and since 2004 has been a federal employee of the Census Bureau. Ms. Hicks is certified as a PMP since 2006 and holds a FAC-P/PM Level 3 (IT) and FAC-COR Level 3.