Project Management Simplified
Defining the Project
The Key Driver
We are looking to define the cost, quality and time of the project. The central problem of project management is that its near impossible to have all 3, so you need to define the key driver. For example, there is a set-in stone deadline that cannot be moved, or the budget is capped at this point with no higher option.
The key driver is what you must have.
3 key questions to ask to find the key driver.
- Why… do you need it at this time etc.
- What if… what will happen if we go over budget/over time etc.
- Can we trade… can we have a higher budget/more time for more features etc.
By judging the reactions to these questions, we can find the key driver. What do they want the most?
Stakeholder Involvement
Its important to ensure that everyone involved in the project shares the same vision. To do this an initial project meeting should be held to find out the key driver and then meet again to look at the plan to see if everyone agrees and if necessary negotiations can be done. If you’ve had to make changes from the initial meeting plan make sure there are good reasons for this to discuss at meeting 2.
DO NOT start the project until all stakeholders are clear on the plan and are in agreement.
Think of it like an architect, he won’t start building a house with half complete blueprints.
Finalising the definition.
Finalise all of the above in writing, this means that no new things are just being thrown in around the project without good reason. Avoid words like “ill try, maybe, possibly” instead use “I will”, “I won’t”.
Listing the Tasks
A clear plan that outlines everything you are going to do. Brainstorm all the tasks that will likely be included. Then look at the WBS work breakdown structure, this looks at all the tasks in a categorised way.
A task is NEVER ongoing. Tasks need to have deadlines in order to track them. If a task is ongoing, that means it can be broken down into sub tasks with goals.
Evaluating Time & Cost
You want to have a minimum, average and max. You don’t want to expect the average so it is better to quote a little higher than expected to lower the chance of failure. Half way between the average and max is the ideal spot to quote.
Adding up Time & Cost
Look at network diagrams/PERT charts. You see all the tasks, so look at the order they are going into and how they are linked. This will create a critical path diagram. Post-it notes are ideal for this. Assign each task a time value, then you can get a time estimate by adding up all the time values in the longest path of the chart.
Optimisation
Where and how can we save time along the critical path tasks. The high time value tasks are the ones that you can save the most time on with optimisation. Remember faster speed often means higher costs or lower quality, we are back at the 3 drivers that need to be considered.
Gantt Charts (More on this in future)
They are the ideal way to communicate your project plan to people. They allow you to see where you will be the busiest/most flexible etc. as well as being able to instantly see if you’re on track.
I plan to further add on Gantt charts in the near future due to them being so useful when it comes to managing multiple projects.
Risks Analysis & The Action Plan
Find all the possible risks together with your team and by reviewing past/similar projects. Next assign a danger value to these risks such as somewhere between 0 and 5. You can plan to reduce risk by reducing either the severity or the likelihood, ideally both. You need to have ensured that you looked at the risk, evaluated the risk, reduced the risk as much as possible.
Monitoring Your Project
Hold weekly/monthly meetings to assess where you’re at in the plan. Regularly colour in/track your Gantt chart to get an instant overview on current progress.
Monitoring Costs
Earned value. Cost so far compared to progress made. Its important to monitor this as even though you may have spent more to get ahead of planning this may cripple your project down the line. If you overspend for example the extra progress on your project timeline should be equal or higher in value to the amount you overspent.
Rescheduling
The harder step of project management where you accept that something isn’t going as planned and make the needed alterations. We are still thinking about our 3 drivers, cost, quality, time. If the project is running late for example you could boost budget or lower quality to save time.
A different option could be overlapping certain tasks if possible. Overlapping can result in a higher level of risk however.
Ideally if time is not the key driver you can let the project slip slightly, this means going over time but not spending more on budget or reducing quality.
Never do nothing and hope for the best. Everything is about planning ahead.
All of this should be happening as soon as possible, most of the time these things take place in a mid-project review if things aren’t going on track for the first half.
Reviewing the Project
This is often forgotten but vitally important. Reviewing how the project went and the key aspects of the plan will be of massive help in the future when it comes to planning new project especially if they are similar. These reviews are also useful for any new management level people coming on to a project to review team performance on past projects they weren’t present for. Both the good and the bad should be outlined here.
This essentially covers my notes for the self managed research undertaking where I decided to focus on the basic principles of project management. Hopefully these notes help you as much as they helped me when it comes to managing start-ups both in the setup and running phase.
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