How to Manage a Successful Data Consulting Project

I was happy to join Aptitive because one of our core values is to create “excellence in small team consulting work.” What that means for me is that we maintain a top-tier, project management culture. Today, I will discuss the subject areas Aptitive promotes to manage a successful consulting project, ensure long-term relationships with our customers, and maximize our end results!

Project Planning & Governance

The old adage is to spend 80% of your time on planning and 20% on execution. With a large data project, creating a detailed breakdown of the tasks and then actively managing project expectations can be the difference between a failed and successful implementation.

• Estimation: Create a Project Road map, High level Work Breakdown Structure
• Staff Planning: Define required staff and clarify functional roles
• Scope Management: Create a Project Charter and maintain a change order process

Progress Tracking

After we’ve defined the plan, do not forget to actually track the work. As a developer, it is easy to be “heads-down” in the development stage; however, it is important that the team take the time to manage the detailed sub-tasks and celebrate the wins (I love a happy hour after a successful go-live)!

• Task List: Maintain a task list to eventually break down and assign with deadlines
• Schedule: Maintain a project schedule with milestones
• Budget: Develop cost profile and track budget impact and burn rate

Communication

The best way to control the scope of the project and create a “no surprises” relationship with the end-users is to send consistent updates. Be clear on the progress made as well as the resources required to be successful, and customers will respect requests even if not part of the original plan.

• Status Updates: Transmit consistent status updates to the client
• Aptitive Updates: Make sure your management team is informed on project progress, start/end dates, and resource requirements

Issue & Risk Management

When I interviewed Project Managers for this article, one of the top pitfalls we discussed was risk mitigation. What are your project risks? Who owns it? What is the potential of it occurring? Moreover, it is critical to a successful project to keep track of your issues as they occur and develop a plan to reach a resolution.

• Risk Mitigation: Create a risk assessment or potential issue list
• Issue Tracking: Maintain process for tracking, prioritization, escalation, resolution of project issues

Continuous Improvement & Accountability

Finally, the subject area that is usually forgotten! I like to focus on creating constant improvements to our processes and deliverables. A project is not truly “done” without reflecting on how we can do the next one better!

• Retrospective: On regular intervals during the project (and especially at the end), reflect on lessons learned, collect new/updated PM templates, document/collect intellectual capital, create case studies, and analyze estimates for accuracy.
• Project Management Review: At least once (or on a regular basis for long projects), hold a meeting with a PM outside of the project to review the minimum expectations and provide feedback

To wrap up, I wanted to mention a few thing that Project Management is NOT:

• Not Account Management: PMs are not solely responsible for the management of sales and the relationships with particular customers
• Not a Development Methodology: Whether it’s Agile or Waterfall, the minimum expectations for project management should still be met
• Not Meant to Micromanage: We love to experiment with different tools and approaches, but we don’t ever want to “under-manage”

Aptitive teams invest the time and effort for a successful implementation because we know that projects do not manage themselves. If you are looking for a partner on your next data-oriented project, please reach out!