project management overview by darryl vleeming

Darryl Vleeming

June 13, 2012 darryl@chasmconsulting.ca

Projects are: ◦ Temporary in nature (have a start and finish) ◦ Create a unique product, service or result

Operations are: ◦ On-going and repetitive ◦ No end date

Projects and Operations do share some of the

same characteristics: ◦ Performed by People ◦ Constrained by limited resources ◦ Planned, executed and controlled

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There are many things you are involved in that are projects - even if you don’t think about them as ‘projects’:

◦ Legal Holds

◦ Acquisitions

◦ Divestitures

◦ Litigation

◦ Compliance investigations

◦ Ethics investigations

◦ Voter Ballots

Each one of the above examples has a start, a finish, and is different each time you do it

You can apply the principles of Project Management to all of these

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“Project Management is the application of knowledge, skill, tools, techniques to Project activities to meet the project requirements”

Everyone has probably see the standard constraints that Projects under

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It’s really about balancing competing priorities

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Just extra overhead/extra cost

Useless/Adding no value

Distraction from “real work”

Unnecessary

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Poor Project Management is one of the top five reasons that projects fail

Failure because of lack of expertise is actually quite rare

A PWC study found that only 2.5% of corporations consistently meet their targets for scope, time, and cost goals for all types of projects

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Managing Projects is very much like driving a car.

Determine the destination, timeframe and how much you have to spend

Create a plan (route, speed, breaks, weather, etc)

Follow the plan

Continuously monitor progress and keep the car on the road

If you don’t:

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Project Success occurs when: ◦ You have a delighted client (expectations met)

◦ Delivered the agreed objectives

◦ Met an agreed budget

◦ Within an agreed time frame

AND ◦ Done professionally and without killing the team

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Most projects follow a standard flow:

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Starting the Project (Initiating) ◦ Developing a Business Case ◦ Developing a Project Charter

Organizing and Preparing (Planning) ◦ Developing a Schedule ◦ Developing the Scope ◦ Developing a detailed Budget ◦ Developing a Communications Plan ◦ Developing a Risk Management Plan

Carrying out the work ◦ Tracking Progress ◦ Controlling Scope ◦ Managing Changes

Closing the Project

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Initiating is where you formulate your “contract” with the client/customer /users/management

Define what/when/how much/why

Lack of agreement about what’s important is the biggest cause for disagreement

Lack of understanding of the impact of changes is the biggest reason for escalating costs (in cost, time and quality terms)

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A business case lays out why a project is necessary

Could be because there is a positive return on investment, or may be for other reasons such as a legal requirement

Allows organizations to select which projects should proceed

The benefits laid out in the Business Case should be tracked post project to ensure that they are realized

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Doesn’t have to be a huge document, or a huge amount of work

Lays the foundation of the project It protects you – defines what you’ve committed to doing,

on what timeframe, for X dollars, based on what assumptions

Stakeholders/Management cannot reasonably ask for changes without expecting an impact on the project – timeline, scope, costs, quality, etc

Lists what you need from the organization to accomplish the project (people, other resources, etc)

Its about setting expectations up front Its important to get the Sponsor/Key Stakeholder to sign

off and agree to it. In the case of ‘unofficial’ projects, this person may be your direct Manager.

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This phase is all about the details – what the detailed schedule is, specifics on what will be delivered, how will progress be communicated, etc

The point of Planning is NOT to follow the plan 100%, but to gain a better understanding of what needs to be done.

“In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable” – Eisenhower

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This doesn’t always need to be a massive Gantt chart that takes hundreds of hours to produce

At a minimum it should lay out the following:

Important Milestones

Key Dependencies between activities

Developing a schedule allows you to understand the impact of unexpected events on your completion date

Allows you to monitor progress on the project, and make adjustments BEFORE the project goes off track

If you don’t develop a schedule do you really think you have a good understanding of when you’ll finish something?

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A Gantt chart is a bar chart with

◦ the horizontal axis time

◦ the vertical axis activities

◦ responsible people (optional)

It shows

◦ the sequence,

◦ overlappings

◦ interdependencies

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Scope defines the boundary of the project

Extremely important to define it in detail

The sponsor needs to read, understand and sign off on the scope

Fail to do the above, and you will not meet expectations as people will assume different things

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Depending on the size of project, this may not be needed, especially if most resources are internal

Benefit of developing a detailed budget is that it will give you advance warning if you’re going to end up over budget - so allows you to make adjustments before its too late

Detailed budget should include all costs – internal labour, external labour, materials, Finance charges, etc

If the project is a Capital Project, its important to understanding Finance Capitalization rules

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Communication on projects is critical A Communications Plan could simply be a couple of

lines defining when and how you’re going to communicate

You should communicate to all Stakeholders. A Stakeholder is defined as “a person, group or organization with an interest in a project”

At a minimum you should communicate: Project Schedule Project Status Project Issues In absence of good communication, people will make

assumptions about the project that are usually not true

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A risk is any factor that may potentially interfere with the successful completion of the project

It’s important to spend some time thinking about risks and what can be done to mitigate them

If you wait until the risk is ‘realized’, and you don’t have a mitigation plan, it’s often too late

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Includes executing what needs to be done, and controlling and monitoring the work

Utilizes everything that was creating in the planning stage

Typically the longest phase of a project

Monitoring for risks, and reacting before they are realized is important

Leadership is critical during this phase – you need to keep your team members motivated

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“Percent complete” is the most dangerous measure in tracking progress

Why?

People don’t know/are over-optimistic/lie

The last 1% tends to take a lot longer than it logically should

There are a number of solutions depending on the progress:

Use binary completion (is it done? Y or N)

Allow only 0%, 50% or 100% completion statuses

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You can’t stop the stakeholders changing their minds, or requirements changing

You CAN make them aware of the impact

Let the customer prioritize – show them the cost of making the scope change

Go back to the project charter – your contract with your customer - does the change help towards the objective?

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No project ever goes according to plan; how you handle changes will determine how successful it is

Create a solid Change Management strategy at the beginning of the project, and strictly follow it

All ‘significant’ changes need to be documented and signed off by the customer

The ability to understand the impact of change is crucial

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Includes getting Stakeholder acceptance of the final deliverables

If you treat ‘go live’ as the end of the project, then you will get “undead” stakeholders – coming back from the past all the time with new requirements/fixes

It is also critical to document lessons learned so that future projects can take advantage and avoid the same mistakes. Typically done very poorly at most organizations.

Its important to celebrate team success. Your team will often give a lot to making a project successful – don’t forget this

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Good Project Managers spend over 80% of the time communicating – to all people impacted by the project – stakeholders, team members, etc

If you don’t have good communication, you will not be successful

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“Changes in Project Scope (Scope Creep) are the current leading cause of project failure globally according to the 2010 Global Survey”

To avoid that, involve your customer early and often in the requirements gathering so they feel ownership

Don’t shorten the requirements gathering portion – it will cost you more time in the long run

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Assumptions presume that what you’re planning or relying on is true, real, or certain.

No assumption is too small to document

Assumptions should be very specific – e.g. “The price of iron will stay at current market rates for duration of project”

Assumptions should be realistic, especially if the entire project depends on the assumption being true

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If your Sponsor isn’t 100% behind the project, it will be difficult to succeed

A good sponsor will help remove organizational roadblocks

If the project is big enough, insist on an Executive level sponsor

Sponsor needs to feel personally responsible for the success of the project

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A motivated team will go the extra mile to deliver a project

Motivate them by involving them throughout the project, especially in the planning phase

"Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can't be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people." - Lee Iacocca

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Project scope isn't managed well ◦ No process in place if a change in scope is being

proposed

Poor scheduling ◦ Setting an unrealistic schedule by always being overly

optimistic

Ignoring problems ◦ Putting off dealing with difficult issues

Underestimating ◦ Not being realistic in the resources you need to be

successful

Being a yes man or woman ◦ Saying yes to everything often means you won’t be able

to deliver your primary objective

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The Project Management Institute (PMI) is “world’s leading not-for-profit membership association for the project management profession, with more than 600,000 members and credential holders in more than 185 countries.”

www.pmi.org

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