I am having trouble with the definition of the word “value” in this context. Do you mean showing progress, as in earned value, or value to the customer, such as in ROI or payback period? Value has become a loaded word. Please define your terms.

To me, value is some visible form of progress. I prefer working product. I can live with a demo. I can live with a prototype. In some very small number of organizations, I can briefly live with a document. A document ceases to be visible progress after a very small period of time, such as a few days, maybe a week. Demos and prototypes also lose their value over time, if they do not become working product.

Managers can’t make good decisions about the portfolio if they can’t see visible progress, so they can tell if the money they’ve spent is worth the time they’ve invested.

If I really knew how to calculate ROI (and not make it be a number I can just make work), I would use ROI. But that’s a bigger rant for another time.

My PM students are articulating insights about projects that I’m happy to see. One project team said this in their charter, “The value of the product is moving the paper successfully across the room. The value of the project is in the journey, not the destination.”

Some projects exist to see if the project team can proceed with a project — any project. For example, a Hudson Bay start, where you organize a project team to deliver something, to make sure everyone on the project understands how to do his or her part, is a project-within-a-project. (See here for some discussion on it.) The idea behind a Hudson Bay Start is that you move something through the entire project, from requirements through architecture and design, into implementation, test, and release. By trying everything on something small, the entire project team will see where they are more likely to run into trouble on big things.

Some projects exist to create some form of capability within the team. For the class, each team is learning how to set up and monitor projects — a new capability for some people. This project will be a success for each team if the teams learn how to set up projects for success — not if the team creates the deliverable.

Each project has a specific value to the organization. Sometime the value is in the deliverable. Sometimes the value is in increasing the capability of some or all of the people on the project team. Maybe the value is yet something else. No matter what, the effective and pragmatic project manager will define the value of this project early so that everyone understands it. When everyone has a common value project goal, everyone can focus their efforts on that value and no other value.

I was at the Rational User Conference last week. I took away one significant idea from the keynotes and one of the track sessions: Writing software, according to Grady Booch is a “priviledge and a responsibility.” Systems are becoming more complex because we need them to do more things faster. We need people who can increase their value to the organization by providing these systems, taking their responsibility seriously.

Gary Cernosek gave a thought-provoking presentation in “Evolution of the Developer Role.” His premise was the developers need to turn into architects. I’m not sure about that. I do agree that continuous design a larefactoring is necessary and that developers as do all of us need to continuously increase their value to the organization.

If you’re not increasing your value to the organization every day, you’re becoming less useful and more expensive. And, you’re becoming a commodity. Commodity goods and services move to the cheapest provider.

I wrote about this earlier here, and suggested how you consider your career growth here.

Seth Godin is one sharp fella. He’s just published a new ebook, BullMarket: Companies That Can Help You Make Something Happen. I’m thrilled to be part of the Seth’s “unscientific listing blogs” section, along with Hal Macomber and Clarke Ching.

I’m flattered to be part of BullMarket. And I recommend you read Free Prize Inside. Hal’s take is here. Why? Free Prize Inside is about each of us making the step towards remarkability. (My word, not Godin’s.) One of Seth’s points is that “Soft Innovation is Innovation Anyone Can Do” — techniques for doing your job better. What I write about are practices that have worked for me, and may work for you.

Godin is a marketing genius. By putting us in his ebook, there was a good chance we’d mention the book about marketing: Free Prize Inside. I do think you should read Free Prize Inside. He has a ton of great ideas, ideas that will help you think of ways to become remarkable yourself — edgecraft. (I read it straight through one night last week.) Godin’s message: think of your edges, those things that differentiate you from other people in similar businesses. In requirements terms, edges are the attributes of the system, the ways in which the system fulfills requirements you didn’t know you had.

I try to have these edges here:

• Practical techniques: common sense ideas about managing people, projects, and risk.
• Techniques you can use no matter where you are in the organization
• Humor, anecdotes, stories, and some data about how to see these techniques
• An alphabetical archive listing (with date of posting) so it’s possible for you to browse by date and title
• I try to write well. When I don’t I ask for help. And, I write well enough that when I write badly, you, my readers, help me by asking questions so I can clarify what I tried to say in the first place.

You may see edges I don’t because I’m too close to my blogs.

Over 250 of you have subscribed through bloglet, and a bunch more of you read this blog through newsreaders. I’m glad you’ve found this blog worth your while. And, let me pose the question that matters when it comes to marketing yourself, whether you’re marketing yourself from inside an organization or from the outside: What have you done to become remarkable today?

Managers who perform continuous career development with their staff (which means every week in a one-on-one, not just in a yearly performance review) gain benefits for their group and the company. Their group increases its capacity, which in turns helps the company.

If you’re a technical person, consider improving one of the four areas of technical skills (See this post for one idea about how to think about it. And any improvement you make in your non-technical skills such as verbal and written communications, influence, negotiation, or facilitation skills will certainly improve your value. If you’re a manager, review your management skills and think about how you can improve them.How have you provided more value than you did a year ago?

In addition to Frank Patrick’s excellent post of the Top 10 Sources of Project Failure, I have one more: No project manager.

In the past week, I’ve received inquiries from people, asking how they can successfully complete projects or programs without project or program managers. I tell them I don’t know how to do that. I explain that if there’s no one looking out for the whole project, or the series of projects in the case of a program manager, the effort will most likely fail. Then I hear questions such as, “If I have to choose between testing and project management, which one do I choose?” I’m often tempted to reply with “47″ or “widget” — I want to respond to meaningless questions with meaningless answers.

Instead, I ask, “What value does this project have for you? Have you ranked this project among the other projects?” Once we start talking about relative value, the other person has a chance of understanding whether it’s worth fully investing in the project or not.

If you have projects you’re not willing to fully invest in, stop doing them. Cancel the project. But if you are willing to invest in the project, make sure you’ve got a project manager or program manager able to manage the project to completion. One person (not a committee) takes the responsibility for organizing, steering, and managing the project. If you’re not willing to hire a project manager, don’t do the project. Spend your money on something else.