How Pie Charts, Mr. Spock and the Big Picture Can Optimize Your Projects

By Executive Brief Staff

Understanding the Big Picture Supports Sound Business Decisions

“For us the contextual information is as important if not more so than the actual number,” Brim said. “What is the cost of not finishing on time, and how real is that? I’ve worked on projects where you lose a million dollars in revenue a day. I’ve worked on other projects where there was almost no apparent cost,” Brim said.

Executives concerned with the bottom line and middle managers allocating human resources address the variables of people being overloaded with tasks, vendors altering the products the company uses to help create its software and end-user demand or indifference.

“The manager’s question is ‘Who do I have available?’ ‘Where do I find the resources?’ ‘How much have I overbooked this person?’” Brim said. “The executive questions tend to be ‘Are we going to get it done, on-time and on budget?’”

The challenge is to create tools that communicate how far along a company is on a project and when they have to get it done, as well as how high all the potential hurdles are. “You need a simple way to get a good estimate,” Brim said.

Convenience saves not only time, Brim said, but lessens the chance that a component may slip through the cracks, causing an unforeseen delay in production. “You create a heads-up so you don’t get surprised,” he said.

Academics, too, recognize certainty is a commodity at the executive level. “The thing they seem to care about most is managing risk,” Harman said.

Part of the challenge Harman faces in convincing business leaders to go along with his research is not just relieving them of concern but showing them a cost benefit as well. “What I can say is that we’ve proved with real data how this research can be very beneficial,” Harman said. “It can also be very beneficial to be seen to be working with thought leaders.”

Brim believes research that can result in new technology will be of the greatest utility moving forward. “I think we’re going to go to more and more smart systems, and the ability to calculate what’s happening and make real-time adjustments.”

Whatever advances take place will be dependent on the means of communication between research scientists and industry leaders, said Harman, who believes talk amongst colleagues does little to alter the landscape. “Academic journals are not the place,” he said. “There needs to be this middle ground.”

Regardless, the most important task for a software executive in charge of resource allocation may well be keeping an ear to the ground, not just inside the company, not just as it relates to the project, but for breakthroughs that can make the tough calls of prioritizing projects and matching resources easy.

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