EPISOD 6 - AUDIENCE AND ACTORS OF CONSTELLATION

CONSTELLATION BY PRIMAFRANCE

Audience

Collecting and integrating different project schedules into one consistent schedule is a time consuming activity. Not only the scheduler, who manages the master schedule, should have the knowledge about the scope elements executed by the other units, but also he/she should be able to think the way the other planners thought while developing the schedule.

In order to provide additional security over the data exchanged, the processes of the “Constellation Method” are grouped and related to different project roles. The two main roles are the Project Manager and Scheduler. Access to project schedule data is governed by corporate policies and project processes, therefore no other roles were identified and connected to Constellation.

Constellation is being developed to help project schedule consolidation and targeting of project planners and project managers.


Actors of a Constellation

Constellations are visible on the sky because they are composed from bright stars. If we follow this analogy, each organization playing active role in the project execution is a bright star. However in project management this will create chaos, we need to identify a bright star, which is actually brighter than the others. Let us call this star as the Leading Unit.

The Leading Unit

This Leading Unit is the point where the different “constellations” which are created following the method, are connected to each other to form even more complex structures. To illustrate this, imagine the organization chart of a project, where the Project Manager is the connector between the Client’s organization and the project organization. Each organization is a “constellation” of resources, including their relations, proximities, power and influences.

By following the previous analogy, the Leading Unit is the unit which takes the sole responsibility towards the final Client for the project and its deliverables. All other units are revolving around the Leading Unit.

Before we go any further, we need to identify and name all the other bright stars which are part of the Constellation. These stars are the Participating Units.

The Participating Unit

Participating Units are the “other stars” of the constellation; they are visible to the trained eyes and those, who are familiar with the project, but remain accessible only via the Leading Unit.
Participating Units are responsible for certain scope elements delegated to them by the Leading Unit.

Nested Constellations

Today we only know a certain number of constellations. Imagine that a powerful tool is available and the human kind is able to look beyond the currently known stars. There might be other constellations…
Units within a corporation are playing different roles in different projects, which means that Unit A plays the role of Leading Unit in Project A, but a Participating Unit for Project B. Possibilities are only limited by the computing power of the used hardware and software and by the capacity of the team members to control complex structures.