Introduction.

To use the idea of control as part of a managers’ remit these days might seem a little unfashionable. After all aren’t we all meant to facilitate the work of others and lead teams rather than try to manage from an authority base? Whilst in an ideal world those things would be true there are actually 6 areas of performance that a project manager really needs to control. These are:

What to control.

No matter where you are - stay in control of your project!

Costs – a quality project manager will make sure that the project they are controlling is affordable. Although some factors can lead to overspends, there are always savings that can be made too to keep the budget under control.
Timescales – all the client is usually interested in is “when will it be finished”? Having a firm grip on the progress being made by the teams involved in the project is essential; to not let timescales slip you need to have good control over your sub-managers.
Quality – in a building project bathrooms with gold plated faucets but no water running from them would count for nothing. Every aspect has to be finished with quality to the fore, but having a product ‘fit for purpose’ is itself a sign of quality.
Scope - does the project deliver what was required of it? If you don’t control what is the expected outcome from the start – you won’t know if you’re delivering a project that meets the client’s expectations. Remember too, the bigger the project – the wider the difference can be between the clients’ expectations of the projects scope and your understanding of what’s to be delivered.
Risk - any project will have its risks, but when might a risk become a liability? If, for whatever reason, a risk threatens the budget or timeline of the project then control it by insuring against it.
Benefits - something else that needs writing in to the project brief is an understanding of the benefits that the project will bring about. For example, is the project to be sold for profit as soon as completed, is the benefit to the staff who’ll work with and develop the project on hand-over etc.

Help with the control.

Using a Project Management tool like PRINCE2 will be of enormous help to the project manager in getting to grips with the principle and themes of control within a project – wherever they are.

Project Management And Control is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com

Introduction.

We all know the saying “if you can measure it – you can manage it”, but how can we apply that to the concept of managing the quality delivered to the customer at the end of a project? Well the initial clue to solving this problem has already been said – that the project will be assessed according to the things it delivers, rather than any of the activities and events that lead up to the completion of the project.

Measuring the quality.

On the basis that you will have been measuring all of the individual sections of the project as they are being worked on and delivered in order to manage them, you will automatically have been managing the quality of what was being done. Therefore, you will already be in a position to manage the total outcome of the project by virtue of the fact that you have measured and managed the individual sections of it. However, as the Project Manager, you can’t spend all your time overseeing, measuring and micro-managing every little detail of a project; so what are the key things you should do to manage the overall quality of the project?

Rules for managing quality.

If you want to stay on top of the job as a Project Manager, don’t try to micro-manage everything .

Measure It – Manage It is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com

Introduction.

As a Project Manager you undoubtedly already feel under enough pressure to deliver your project on time and within budget. Add to those two things the often dreaded term – quality of delivery and it conjures up all sorts of customer expectations that could seem beyond all sense of realism. So what should your approach to the ‘quality’ of the delivery be?

Quality should be the ‘norm’.

Tell your customers the level of quality they can expect for the budget available.

If a customer should start talking to you about the quality that they expect the final delivery to show, this really shouldn’t come as a great surprise. No one wants to take delivery of a project on time and in budget if two weeks later something fails due to a basic fault with the inherent quality. Therefore, at the planning stage if the customer hasn’t already clearly stated their expected outcomes in terms of the quality of the final product delivered – it is your job as the Project Manager to set, or at least suggest, the quality parameters that you will be working to. Or, put more simply, delivering a project on time and in budget is one thing – delivering a project on time and within budget to take pride in can be quite another. Thus working to standards of quality needs to be your normal mode of operation.

Quality costs.

If you’re project managing a house build and the customer only budgets for stainless steel faucets then complains that they’re not gold plated ones – he or she can’t complain to you about their quality. Which is a very simplistic way of saying that the quality standards that you are able to work to will always be determined by the budget at your proposal. However, two important points arise from that. First that it is your responsibility to ensure the very best materials and staff are employed that the budget will allow and, secondly, that you must make clear in your planning and reporting exactly what the customer can expect in terms of their perception of the quality of the finished product. Or, to be a bit more technical – determine what is ‘fit for purpose’.

Quality For Project Managers is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com

Introduction.

Wondering if you can cut the mustard as a Project Manager? Well, just ask yourself which of these three types most closely matches you, are you the sort to: make things happen, have things happen to them or just sit around wondering “what happened”? If you’re not in then first category – forget a life as a Project Manager as you’ll never be prepared to take risks nor, indeed, be capable of managing risks or dealing with their issues.

Project Management Risks.

With the best will in the world at some point even a smoothly running project will not go exactly to plan. Even if it’s only a small problem it could quickly escalate into something that could derail the whole project – and so it needs dealing with quickly and effectively. This is where the Project Managers ability to assess a risk and deal with issues needs to come to the fore. First off don’t look around for someone else to blame for the problem – that won’t help solve it and will only serve to waste time and effort.

Plan for the risks and manage the issues!

Risks and issues.

Within your plan, remember that’s what we talked about last time, you should have identified the risks to your project – so a risk is something that might happen. If/when it does happen, then it becomes an issue to be dealt with. Again, within your plan you should have state the likely contingencies that will be necessary to deal with the risks you identified in the plan, so if/when the issue arises you should have a plan ready and waiting to swing into action. Having said that, as the project progresses some risks may become more likely to occur, so the action plan to deal with them will need updating as the project progresses. So, in summary, when it comes to risks and issues: Identify the risks, have an action plan to deal with the issues and then constantly monitor and manage them.

Risk And Issue Management is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com

Introduction.

Any Project Manager will believe that they are only as good as the plans that they make. They seem to live by the motto “he who fails to plan – plans to fail”.  This is, of course, a piece of advice that any manager would do well to heed, not just Project Managers. However, if asked to show a plan of how a Project Manager envisions the work progressing they will invariably produce a schedule, probably using a Gantt Chart, as they simply don’t understand the difference between a plan and the schedule they’re working to.

The difference between a schedule and a plan.

Round the world sailing - would she need a plan or just a schedule?

Useful and essential as a schedule is, it will ‘only’ set out the jobs to be done and the timelines in which to achieve them. This is, of course, an invaluable check-list to help keep things on track, but it by no means covers all of the tasks/events that the Project Manager needs to be aware of or control. These other things all come together to form the plan and will need to include things as basic as the aims and objectives of the project through to definitions of roles and responsibilities of the personnel, quality assurance procedures and the required resources etc. To make sure you create an effective plan, ahead of the schedule, consider the following aspects of developing a comprehensive plan.

The 5 elements of planning.

First of all make sure you clearly understand the project’s objectives by writing them down clearly and concisely in a way that everyone involved in the project will both understand and relate to. Secondly, to avoid the project being extended into developments beyond it’s scope, or that would delay the delivery of your schedule; be very clear in defining what the project won’t be doing. This ‘scope definition’ will help to ensure your sponsors don’t try to encourage project creep making the project a never ending task. Thirdly, have the deliverables defined. If your project is to install a new network make sure the deliverables will cover the objectives. It would be no use having all the hardware, software and network cabling sorted out, only to start the job and realize you need to improve the power supply! Number four follows on from this – make the resources you order realistic in quantity and quality. You’ll be under constant pressure to minimize costs, so planning the resources correctly from the outset will reduce the chances that you’ll have to buy inferior products if you later on realize that something is missing. Finally, make sure the schedule is achievable. Obvious, you might well think and yet so many Project Managers end up with projects that over-run! To ensure your project is achievable make sure the schedule covers the whole project, clearly identifies the key deliverable target dates of individual components/stages and make the tracking of the project and reporting on it as easy as possible.

Plan Or Schedule is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com

Introduction.

In the beginning was the project – and then came the Project Manager! If you’re not already aware – becoming a Project Manager does not necessarily mean being involved with a project from its inception. Invariably Project Managers are brought in to take control of a project after it has begun. This can be due to several factors ranging from the company/people who instigated the project suddenly realizing they can’t add the workload of project management to their existing commitments, through to a more serious and potentially dangerous situation for the Project Manager to inherit where the project has descended into chaos! Whatever the reason – going into a new Project Management situation your first job is to establish a credible plan.

You need a plan.

Any Project Manager that is truly worth their pay check knows that the foundation for all of their ensuing work is the plan they put into operation. It will be a very rare occurrence that the plan, if a plan exists at all; that you inherit from the project instigators will be anything like realistic or achievable. Having said that, this is of course the whole reason why you put yourself forward to manage the project – you are a high achiever that not only gets things done, but gets them done right and on time and on budget. How are you going to do that? That’s right – by developing the plan that will rescue the project.

An ultimate project manager - the great US General said “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow”.

Making that killer plan.

So your planning skills are required from the start of your commission, although planning skills are often acquired through experience and even common sense, there are some project planning basics that can be applied to any initial Project Management plan. The first thing to remember is that a plan is not a schedule but a concise document expressing what you are required to do and how you will achieve those things. The plan not only serves to list the objectives, resources and timescales, inspiring the confidence of all that read it – but it will also serve as a useful health check on what preceded your appointment helping you to identify problems and address them.

PM – In The Beginning is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com

Introduction.

As a busy project manager the last thing you need to happen is being involved in meetings that are unsuccessful to you, in terms of their outcomes. Going in to any meeting you have to know exactly what you need to achieve in it, and take away from it, in order for it to be a successful meeting. So, what can you do to ensure that you achieve your meetings objectives?

Personal skills.

Preparation is key to successful meetings.

Inter-personal skills.

Using a forceful personality, assertiveness, to effect push something through, should be seen very much as the last resort. If at all possible you need to get others in the meeting agreeing with you and understanding, or at least accepting, that your ideas are the ones needed for the project to progress correctly. (Notwithstanding of course that others may well make helpful contributions that can be incorporated.) To do this you need to ensure that from the outset of the meeting you have established objectives that are mutually agreeable to all around the table, preferably by building a joint agenda. In doing these things you can be confident that there is common ground on which all the participants will be engaged in. Thereafter – you need to present your case with the degree of clarity with which it was prepared, being quite comfortable in maintaining flexibility to any points made about it, being constantly alert to any negative body language or overtones in any responses to your case. Do give time for others to air their views too, but be sure to make your response one that finds common ground between their point and your objectives – in order to promote the sense of everyone benefiting from the outcome you desire.

Successful Meetings is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com

Before discussing what the key skills for a project manager might be we really need to define what we mean by project management. A definition of project management would be the planning, organizing and then management of the resources required to complete a specific task. The essential point here is that the aims and objectives for the accomplishment of the task will be highly focused requiring you to fully understand these seven key skills.

1. Analysis

Using Project management software will help you to be more efficient at your job.

More correctly referred to as impact analysis a key skill required toward the final stages of a project is the ability to analyse the impact of changes brought about by the project. Exactly the same as the well known ‘ripple effect‘ you must never underestimate the knock-on changes and effect that a major project can bring about. Being able to analyse and then manage these is yet another skill you need to master. Changes to the specification of a project after it has begun are all too easily overlooked and you will need to constantly revisit your impact analysis to incorporate them. Amongst other things any change to the specification could affect your previous analysis regarding legal, health, safety, and marketing or personnel issues. However, the ultimate reason for doing the analysis is – how the change will affect the end-date for the project? Project management is a complex task and the bigger the project, the more complex it becomes. You must be able to keep track of progress on the project from all the various sections of it that are on-going. This can be done on paper, but in all reality you need to learn and understand how to make the most out of one of the many pieces of project management software that are available. Using an IT based project management system will also help you to adjust timelines and priorities as the project develops.

2. Communication

Effective project planning underpins all project management.

If you can’t communicate, I’m sorry but you’ll never become an effective and successful project management. Any manager, but especially the project manager, has to understand that although you’re charged with ensuring the successful completion of a project – you’ll be dealing with a multiplicity of people and companies that you have to bring together in order to achieve the projects aims and objectives. If you don’t communicate effectively, either in speech, writing or presentations you won’t provide the information that your workers need to fulfill their jobs; be that in sharing knowledge, discussing ideas, providing solutions or making an executive decision.

3. Budgeting

Even if you have a team of accountants looking after the day-to-day running of the projects finances, understanding how to use a budget yourself is another essential project management skill to posses. The three key stages to a budget are preparing it, writing it and monitoring it. whilst your finance department may well be ostensibly charged with doing these things for you – as project manager you have the ultimate responsibility for the budget and need to be able to understand what you are being told about the budget. Unless your own background is in accounting you will feel obliged to accept what you’re told, if you don’t take the time to learn some basic budgeting skills. You will need these as at time you will need to know how to rationally and logically challenge budget over-runs that you become aware of as well as be able to sensibly monitor the budget as the project progresses.

4. Teamwork

Effective teamwork - will help you to manage your project most effectively.

The essence of any good project manager is to be a good team leader and, if necessary, be a good team player. Whilst decisions will remain your responsibility, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t encourage input from others or be prepared to work with them to help them achieve their goals too. Furthermore, by building a culture of teamwork into all aspects of the project, you will engender high self-esteem within all of the workers, meaning that they feel personally involved in ensuring the success of the project.

5. Intelligence

This doesn’t mean to say that you have to have a string of letters after your name as intelligence isn’t something you can learn. However, intelligence is something you can improve on and develop, so the more you study the chances are the more you’ll increase your intelligence. In the context of project management intelligence can be considered to be your ability to have a clear vision of all aspects of the project whilst at any one time being able to keenly focus onto a specific aspect of it. Put another way, just having the big picture will not help when you have a decision to make on a specific matter. You won’t always have the time to spend hours researching and re-reading material in order to make the decision at the time it is needed.

6. Calmness

It is almost inevitable that at times your job will be stressful, if not highly stressful. Being able to work calmly under such conditions is an absolute pre-requisite for a successful project manager. A key point to reducing your stress levels is your ability to move on from a setback. If something goes wrong or not according to plan, don’t waste time worrying about who’s fault it might have been or get involved in a cycle of what could have been different, that can come later in your project evaluation. Instead, move swiftly on to solving the problem or rectifying the situation.

7. Time

The Project Management Life Cycle.

Quite simply – are you a good time manager? Understanding the life-cycle for project management will help you to understand how to apply the key skill of time management to it. Your time management and you ability to organize yourself and others are vitally important. Time management is much more than simply allocating portions of time to certain jobs. You need to analyze exactly what it is you’re spending your time on and how important are those tasks and portions of time to the successful completion of the project. For example, you could easily spend up to an hour a day just reading emails. This is a task you can delegate to your PA, get them to be the person that sorts the important from the not so important, telling you what needs dealing with immediate and what can be left until later. That hour you’ve saved – you can use inspecting a part of the project checking on progress or quality etc. You should apply this time management philosophy to most things you do; do I need to attend that meeting or can I delegate someone else? Remember, you are the project manager, you are primarily there to do the strategic planning, overall monitoring and be creative and innovative in solving problems – not micro-manage everything.

7 key skills of a project manager is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com

• “Analyse part of Error #2323 in App-Module KillThreads”
• “Fix part of Error #2323 in App-Module KillThreads”
• “Test part of Error #2323 in App-Module KillThreads”
• “Patch part of Error #2323 in App-Module KillThreads”
• “Rollout part of Error #2323 in App-Module KillThreads”
• “Document part of Error #2323 in App-Module KillThreads”

… the granularity of your project accounting makes controlling it useful or just a big data warehouse that results in a massive waste of time each project-participant, the project-manager and of course the customer. Of course especially very detail-focussed organisations, often public/official relation corporations explain their unbelievable size of organizational overhead with these details… but who needs it?

Apart from accounting times for tasks (let’s assume the granularity is a well “medium” granularity) – not everyone spends the same time as hour-accouting into progress accounting.

Or is you concept, after 50 hours of the 100 hours estimated initially, really finished by 50% ? do you track the results-progress only, or just the time that you sat around searching for hidden games on Microsoft Word?

it seems many organizations track time to get an idea about progress. what a dumb thing… check this out: Project Time accounting

Anyway – what counts is only the relation hours spent to the work completition … a simple one physical formular that applies to projects aswell as to real world.

But where do we get the work-completion data from? We don’t have a tool for it you ask? That’s your job as a project manager (or team-lead, module-responsible, whatever) … ask your team-members, talk to the customers, speak to the QA folks and maybe even let your wife play around with the result (application)…. and then – measure it with your metrics… Only the responsible project manager can, after a careful evaluation, quantitize progress already normalized… otherwise you will always find task in a mode like 99,9 or 99,99 or even 99,999% finished because a very carefull coder has not yet added all comments according to the projects qa-guidelines… got the point?

Physics for PM or Project time account granularity and progress problems is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com

a delightful book especially when compared to dry, heavy feel of others, simple theoretic texts. DeMarco uses the novel technique that more teachers and professors must use, as opposed to a straight lecture style. Like good trainers (like i.e. Chris Stern PhD) he tells you stories and the message itself is materialized in your mind, not his sentences… These type of novel training books have boomed in the last 2 yrs, but I must admit that there are other books of that type that suck… Anyway – if you only want to read one book about project management, get out and read this one!

Att: i actually read the german version: Der Termin. Ein Roman

The deadline is a post from: Enterprise-PM.com