Project Management: Doing projects effectively

Project Management

What is project management?

A project is a unique, transient endeavor, undertaken to achieve planned objectives, which could be defined in terms of outputs, outcomes or benefits. A project is usually deemed to be a success if it achieves the objectives according to their acceptance criteria, within an agreed timescale and budget.

A key factor that distinguishes project management from just ‘management’ is that it has this final deliverable and a finite timespan, unlike management which is an ongoing process. Because of this, a project professional needs a wide range of skills; often technical skills, and certainly people management skills and good business awareness.

The core components of project management are:

• defining the reason why a project is necessary;
• capturing project requirements, specifying the quality of the deliverables, estimating resources and timescales;
• preparing a business case to justify the investment;
• securing corporate agreement and funding;
• developing and implementing a management plan for the project;
• leading and motivating the project delivery team;
• managing the risks, issues, and changes on the project;
• monitoring progress against plan;
• managing the project budget;
• maintaining communications with stakeholders and the project organization;
• provider management;
• closing the project in a controlled fashion when appropriate.

Stages of Project Management

Traditionally, project management includes a number of elements: four to five project management process groups, and a control system. Regardless of the methodology or terminology used, the same basic project management processes or stages of development will be used. Major process groups generally include:

• Initiation
• Planning
• Production or execution
• Monitoring and controlling
• Closing

Initiating

The initiating processes determine the nature and scope of the project. If this stage is not performed well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’ needs. The key project controls needed here are an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are incorporated into the project. Any deficiencies should be reported and a recommendation should be made to fix them.

The initiating stage should include a plan that encompasses the following areas. These areas can be recorded in a series of documents called Project Initiation documents. Project Initiation documents are a series of planned documents used to create an order for the duration of the project. These tend to include:

• project proposal (the idea behind the project, overall goal, duration)
• project scope (project direction and track)
• analysis of business needs and requirements against measurable goals
• SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the business

and more.

Planning

After the initiation stage, the project is planned to an appropriate level of detail. The main purpose is to plan time, cost and resources adequately to estimate the work needed and to effectively manage risk during project execution. As with the Initiation process group, a failure to adequately plan greatly reduces the project’s chances of successfully accomplishing its goals.

Project planning generally consists of:

• determining the project management methodology
• identifying the activities needed to complete those deliverables and networking the activities in their logical sequence;
• estimating the resource requirements for the activities;
• estimating time and cost for activities;
• developing the schedule

and more.

Executing

While executing we must know what are the planned terms that need to be executed. The execution/implementation phase ensures that the project management plan’s deliverables are executed accordingly. This phase involves proper allocation, coordination, and management of human resources and any other resources such as material and budgets. The output of this phase is the project deliverables.

Project Documentation

Documenting everything within a project is key to it being successful. In order to maintain budget, scope, effectiveness, and pace a project must have physical documents pertaining to each specific task. With correct documentation, it is easy to see whether or not a project’s requirement has been met. To go along with that, documentation provides information regarding what has already been completed for that project. Documentation throughout a project provides a paper trail for anyone who needs to go back and reference the work in the past. In most cases, documentation is the most successful way to monitor and control the specific phases of a project. With the correct documentation, a project’s success can be tracked and observed as the project goes on. If performed correctly documentation can be the backbone of a project’s success.

Monitoring and controlling

Monitoring and controlling consists of those processes performed to observe project execution so that potential problems can be identified in a timely manner and corrective action can be taken, when necessary, to control the execution of the project. The key benefit is that project performance is observed and measured regularly to identify variances from the project management plan.

Monitoring and controlling includes:

• Measuring the ongoing project activities (‘where we are’);
• Monitoring the project variables (cost, effort, scope, etc.) against the project management plan and the project performance baseline (where we should be);
• Identifying corrective actions to address issues and risks properly (How can we get on track again);
• Influencing the factors that could circumvent integrated change control so only approved changes are implemented.

When changes are introduced to the project, the viability of the project has to be re-assessed. It is important not to lose sight of the initial goals and targets of the projects. When the changes accumulate, the forecasted result may not justify the original proposed investment in the project. Successful project management identifies these components, and tracks and monitors progress so as to stay within time and budget frames already outlined at the commencement of the project.

Closing

The closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities include the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned.

This phase consists of:

• Contract closure: Complete and settle each contract (including the resolution of any open items) and close each contract applicable to the project or project phase.
• Project close: Finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a project phase

Also included in this phase is the Post Implementation Review. This is a vital phase of the project for the project team to learn from experiences and apply to future projects. Normally a Post Implementation Review consists of looking at things that went well and analyzing things that went bad for the project to come up with lessons learned.

When do you use project management?

Projects are separate from business-as-usual activities, requiring people to come together temporarily to focus on specific project objectives. As a result, effective teamwork is central to successful projects.

Project management is concerned with managing discrete packages of work to achieve specific objectives. The way the work is managed depends upon a wide variety of factors.

The scale, significance, and complexity of the work are obvious factors: relocating a small office and organizing the Olympics share many basic principles, but offer very different managerial challenges.

Objectives may be expressed in terms of:

• outputs (such as a new HQ building);
• outcomes (such as staff being relocated from multiple locations to the new HQ);
• benefits (such as reduced travel and facilities management costs);
• strategic objectives (such as doubling the organization’s share price in three years).

Stakeholders in Project Management?

The following are examples of project stakeholders:

• Project leader
• Senior management
• Project team members
• Project customer
• Resource Managers
• Line Managers
• Product user group
• Project testers
• Any group impacted by the project as it progresses
• Any group impacted by the project when it is completed
• Subcontractors to the project
• Consultants to the project

Advantages of Project Management

The main advantage of project management is that helps you to manage your projects effectively, enabling you to resolve problems more quickly. It takes time and money to manage a project, however following good practices can help you:

• improve your chances of achieving the desired result
• gain a fresh perspective on your project, and how it fits with your business strategy
• prioritize your business’ resources and ensure their efficient use
• set the scope, schedule, and budget accurately from the start
• stay on schedule and keep costs and resources to budget
• improve productivity and quality of work
• encourage consistent communications amongst staff, suppliers, and clients
• satisfy the various needs of the project’s stakeholders
• mitigate risks of a project failing
• increase customer satisfaction
• gain competitive advantage and boost your bottom line

From lost time to inconsistency, not having a process to manage your projects can result in lost time, wasted money and poor performance.