Project Management as a Breakthrough at CERN
M.Vanden Eynden, P.Ninin
Marc.Vanden.Eynden@cern.ch, Pierre.Ninin@cern.ch
European Laboratory for Particle Physics - CERNCH 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland
Abstract
Building and maintaining control systems for highenergy physics is becoming an increasingly complex andcostly activity. The quickly evolving technology and thetight budget conditions require today a better managementof our engineering activities. This situation led us toorganise these activities as “projects” and to use modern
project management practices already widely spread inindustry.
In this context, many aspects of the re-engineering of
the controls infrastructure of the two CERN largest
particle accelerators - SPS and LEP - as well as thesupervision of the CERN wide technical services are fully
conducted as projects with special control over the costs,
resources, objectives, activities and maintenance aspects.
This paper presents our experience in project-based
management with special emphasis on its applicability ina research environment, on the impact on the current
working practices and on the potential benefits for thefuture.
Some key concepts and techniques of project management are introduced and illustrated through practicalexamples.
1 Introduction
The fast technology evolution and shrinking budgets
have major impacts on the engineering activities atCERN.
New technology requires more expertise but also
greater care before being deployed. A lack of strategy inthis domain leads either to the wrong belief that jumping
to new technology will solve all problems or to deadlock
situations where people embark in endless systemmodifications to satisfy unclear objectives.
Equally important, laboratories like CERN will have tocontract out some of their computing activities to industry.
This requires first that CERN engineers who build control
systems for high energy physics understand and practicethemselves modern project management methods widelyused in industry.
How to face these important challenges? How toconsolidate our approach to new technology insertion?
How to define clear requirements and strategic choices?
How to provide quality? How to create and animate
teams towards important CERN objectives? The next
sections illustrate how project-based management may
provide an answer to these questions.

1.1 Why do we need a project-based approach?
Projects can be seen as a temporary endeavour
undertaken to create a product or service. Projects arefundamentally different from on-going activities because
projects cease when their declared objectives have been
attained, while non-project undertakings adopt a new setof objectives and continue to work. As we see, projects
require the definition of objectives and timetables. As theproject must end at a fixed point in time, engineers willorganise their activities and will define strategies insteadof rushing prematurely in endless developments. Projects,
by definition, encourage good engineering practices.
More important, we experienced that the combinationof a team, a common unique objective and a deadline in achallenging situation was the catalyst which releases theenergy.
1.2 Why do we need project-based management ?
As we have seen, a project encourages engineers tobetter organise their activities. Encouragement is good but
solutions are even better.
While many engineers claim to work in “projects”,
project-based management practices are rarely applied.
This remark makes all the difference between what we
propose for the future and the present situation : the term
project management is sometimes used to describe anorganisational approach to the management of ongoing
operations. Controls Projects involve new and unknown
tasks, lead to a change in people’s daily work and are
subject to strict deadlines. Therefore, project managementmeans organising, planning and controlling the project.
2 Project-based management in practice at CERN
Since three years, several project-based management
experiences in the field of controls have taken place in theCERN SL and ST divisions: the CERN SL PowerPCProject [1], the CERN ST TDS Project [2], the CERN SLSSIS Project [3] and the CERN SL Apollo97 project [4].
As shown in Table 1, these controls projects involved
both CERN and external manpower and had direct impact
on the operation and performance of the two largest
accelerators at CERN SPS and LEP. Some projects werere-engineer-ing projects while others were aimed atinserting new technology. This diversity of objectives
contributed to enrich our experience in the field of project
management and led us today to manage controls projects
as described in the following sections.

ProjectDescription

Resources

CERN SLApollo97

Migration and Re-engineeringof SPS Machine Software fromApollo towards HP-UX
platform. CERN + IHEP
Protvino collaboration
Replacement of CERN SL
front end computers byVMEbus PowerPC systems.
CERN + industry collaboration
Re-engineering of SPS
Software Interlock System.
Project contracted out toindustry
Large Scale Supervision
System for CERN TechnicalServices. CERN + Industry
collaboration

3 man year

CERN SLPowerPC

CERN SLSSISCERN ST
TDS

future requirements. Planning should be an opportunity tothink anew, from a different perspective and to test ideas
in a stimulating environment. It is also the best way toobtain commitment.

7 man year

3 man year

6 man year

Table 1. Recent CERN SL and ST Controls Projects

Proposal and Initiation

Perceive Problem
Gather Data
Define Problem

Project Definition

Project Purpose
Project Scope
Project Objectives

Project Organisation

Process Model
Interfaces
Responsibilities

Managerial andTechnical Processes

Monitoring Mechanisms
Procedures
Staffing PlanTools and Techniques
Documentation

2.1 What is important ?
A project requires the establishment of anorganisational structure and the management of workwithin that structure with the assistance of specificmethods and tools [5]. As shown in Figure 1, there arethree important areas of project management : planning,organisation and control.
TaskLevelProjectProjectProject
Planning Organisation Control

Objectives
Responsibility Milestone
Global Mandate Who will doMilestone
Reports
what ?
planActivities

DetailHow will it be done ?

Figure 2. Launching a Project
Launching projects this way is quite innovative : itbrings high transparency in the organisational activities
and allows managers to better control their resources. As
shown in Figure 3, an important aspect of project planningis the “Milestone planning” [5]. Milestone planning isimportant because it shows the logical sequence of theconditions or states a project must pass through to achieve
the final objectives, describing what is to be achieved ateach state, not how the state is to be achieved.
Apollo97 Project - Milestone Plan
Pre-development PhaseOM

T

M1

Activity
Reports

List of all Apollo software modules
exists and is validate by all SL
equipment groups

O1

Figure 1. Overview of Project Management
2.2 Project planning
As shown in Figure 2, project planning at launch time
is aimed at achieving a common understanding of the task
to be resolved and to lay the foundation for allocating andcommitting resources [6]. Planning is also aimed at
obtaining an overview of the work to be carried out and at
defining how control and monitoring take place. We haveexperienced that planning must be a group activity. If all
the project members are involved, they acquire a common
insight into the project and a common understanding ofMilestone
Project management plan is approvedby the CERN SL/CO and SL/OP
authorities

T1

M2

M3

A technical proposal for thereplacement of the Apollo nativegraphics system exists and isapproved by the project team
The terms of the collaboration withIHEP Protvino exists and are approvedby CERN SL/CO and Protvino
authorities
Decision is taken to embark on themigration phase

Figure 3. Milestone Planning

The circles represent the milestones and the lines
joining them represent the logical dependencies between
them. The milestone plan can be seen as a logical network
for the project. Milestones are grouped into verticalcolumns representing the areas of work. For example theCERN Apollo97 project involved important milestones indiffer-ent areas of work : some management decisions (M)had to be taken before embarking in technical activities(T). Some organisational activities (O) were required inorder to take management decisions.
2.3 Project organisation
Projects are rarely isolated from the rest of anorganisation. Project activities involve people from andoutside the project. For example line managers will haveto be consulted before taking important project decisions
or external organisations entities may provide some
services used by the project. Project organisation is aimed
at clarifying all roles and responsibilities. Because eachproject is unique, organisation should be as suitable aspossible with regard to the task to be performed. As
shown in Figure 1, organisation occurs at two levels : aproject responsibility chart explains the roles of thedifferent parties in important project matters. Project
responsibility charts are directly derived from the project
milestone plan : responsibilities should be established foreach project milestone. At a later stage, the activity
responsibility charts explain and describe the roles ofspecific people in concrete project activities (ie. writing asoftware module).
2.4 Project control
What is control ? Project control is different to projectmonitoring. While project monitoring is describing whathas occurred and what the situation is, project control isdoing something about what the project reports show.
Control is management, not paper work, it must happen
through discussion, analysis, and results in measures
which improve the situation of the project. As shown in
Figure 1, reporting can be done at the global project level(milestone plan report) or at the project activity level(activity plan report). At the project level, reporting must
give an account of which milestones have been reached. It
should also state whether anything in particular has
occurred in the work toward reaching the milestone which
is of interest for the management of the organisation. At
the project activity level, reporting must state if a resource
estimate shows itself to be wrong or if particular human or
technical problems have been encountered. Even more
important, project control is not only aimed at looking atproblems, it should also motivate people on objectives byproviding encouragement.

engineers and managers of organisations like CERN. Of
course, stepping into this new approach affects theorganisational culture and requires great care to be taken.
An organisation needs to adapt considerably to accept thedifferent culture of projects. This can occur in one of twoways: in a composite environment, in which controls
projects and operations sit alongside each other; or in a
project environment, in which all the organisation’s work
is managed through projects. When introducing thecomposite environment, the organisation undertakes afew, isolated projects to introduce specific changes into
the operations environment. Many people in anorganisation (managers and engineers) are uncomfortablewith the impact this structure has on the working
environment, creating resistance to change. The following
sections explain how to overcome this resistance.
3.1 Deciding about the organisation
The structure of organisations often constrains theavailability of or the terms under which resources become
available to projects. Organisational structures can becharacterised as spanning a spectrum from functional to“projectised” [8], with a variety of composite structures inbetween. It is mandatory for the organisation of controls
projects to decide which model should be used. Figure 4
shows the composite organisation. This kind oforganisation is good because the old structure is still inplace, allowing local controls projects to take place in agiven section while larger controls projects can take place
in a project-based perspective. In this scheme, groups andindividuals are arranged in various constellations ofresponsibilities and authority, depending on the matter
involved. It is also true that nowadays problems arecomplex and are rarely of such nature that they can beresolved at one specific place in the base organisation.
Many sections of the organisation must be involved.

Group Leader

Section XSection YProject
Leaders
Pool

Staff

Staff

Project
Leader

Staff

Staff

Project
Leader

Staff

Staff

Project
Leader

3 Introducing project-based management in a
research environment

Project Coordination

As we have explained, project-based management in
the domain of controls has many potential benefits forFigure 4. Composite Organisation

3.2 Participation
Implicit within the notion of organisation development
is the need for people to participate fully in the change
process. It is often said that people resist to change. Inreality, people resist having change imposed on them[5,7]. Managers should ensure that the need for change isexplained and that the objectives and benefits of theproject-based approach to specific groups are fully
understood. If people understand the objectives and seethat those objectives may be of benefit, they are more
likely to contribute positively to the change.
3.3 Training and development
Our recent experience has shown that training anddevelopment of new skills are mandatory.
“Project management is not a matter of reading
methods and applying them on top of our working
practices. It is new culture”.
Training should be as close as possible to the practicalreality of projects. Good and bad examples run in theorganisation should be analysed and discussed during
training. Modern project management techniques like
Goal Directed Project Management [5] and ESA PSS-05[9] should be explained. A culture of project should bedeveloped.
3.4 Commitment from the management
Project managers must have the backing andcommitment of the management. This is because the useof this new approach requires long-term planning anddedication al all levels of the organisation, and because
the project manager must have, and must be seen to have,the authority and autonomy to run his project.
Management should demonstrate that its wants to manage
its projects and that it is concerned with the progress of its
projects. Finally, the organisation must take use of its own
experience and constantly develop project expertise inorder to cope with the evolution of the technical, scientificand economical context.
4 Benefits and conclusion
In this paper we have explained that the growing
complexity and cost of High Energy Physics engineering
activities require the best possible management andcommitment through organisations like CERN. Futureengineering activities will involve even more collaborations between different sections of research institutes, butalso contractual relationships with high-technology industries. This is matter of concern for everybody at CERN.
Project-based management has been experienced recently
for several controls projects and has proven its successfrom the human, organisational and managerial points ofview. A recent inquiry showed that 100% of the CERN
staff members involved in the CERN controls projects

referenced in this document want this approach to be
developed at CERN [10] and would prefer to work in a
project-based approach if they had the choice in thefuture. Time has now arrived to develop a wider culture ofcontrols projects by explaining, encouraging and motivating the CERN engineers towards a new approach ofengineering which improves the communication in theorganisation, commits people to clear objectives, brings
transparency of information, resources and cost usage and,last but not least, encourages creativity. This will not be
possible without the commitment of the management.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thanks our CERN managers: K. H.
Kissler, R. Lauckner, P. Ciriani, P. Charrue and H. Laegerwho accepted our challenging idea of introducing projectbased management for CERN projects and for theirencouragement. We would also like to thanks B.Denis
from the CERN SL/CO group for the daily and fruitful
discussions we have about project management at CERN.
Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to all
CERN engineers who participated in our controls projects,
accepted to work in a new manner and opened the road tothe success of project-based management at CERN.
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