Project Management For Non-Project Managers

Project management plays a huge part in today’s business world, with more and more people getting involved in the delivery of projects as part of their day-to-day working lives. 

So What Is A Project?

Projects have a beginning and an ending, and in the middle there are a number of coordinated activities.  Once all those activities are completed and the project is finished, there will be an output (such as a new product). 

Very often the success of the project is not just based on the provision of the output, but also on the ability of the output to deliver the business benefits.  For example, the success of an IT project to install new financial software across a business will not just be measured on the completion of the installation, but also the savings that the company is able to make from using the new software.

Projects can vary significantly in size and scope, ranging from the procurement of new furniture for a small office, through to multi-billion pound IT and infrastructure developments.

The Truth About Project Management

Whilst Project Managers would like us all to believe that managing projects is a very difficult and complicated process (probably to try and justify their large salaries), the actual principles of delivering a successful project are very simple.

The aim of this article is to provide a simplistic breakdown of the project management process to help non-project managers complete their own projects quickly and effectively.

The Project Management Process

The process is broken down into three main stages; Beginning, Delivery and the End.

Beginning Stage

Before starting any activities, project managers do some work to answer the following questions:

• What is the project aiming to do?
• Why is the project taking place?
• How will the project be carried out?
• When will the project activities take place?
• Who will be responsible for the different activities?

To ensure everyone understands and agrees what is going to happen, all of this information is compiled into a single document that can be signed off by the management team and any other important stakeholders. 

Project Managers generally refer to these documents as PIDs (Project Initiation Document).  It doesn’t really matter what you call the document, provided it includes the following key sections:

• Project Overview – High level statement explaining what the project is aiming to do?
• Business Case – High level statement explaining the key business drivers that are causing the project to take place.  Very often projects are implemented to resolve a problem or to capitalise on a business opportunity.
• Project Scope – A more detailed overview of what the outcome will look like, the key components of the project and also a list of any closely-related business activities that will not be covered and therefore considered ‘out-of’scope’.
• Approach – An overview of how the project will be carried out and should include a project plan.  Some people like to have complex Gantt Charts for project plans, but often a simple list of tasks with start and end dates is sufficient.
• Dependencies – Some projects are dependent on the actions of other people or organisations in order to progress.  In addition to text descriptions in this section, dependencies should also be shown in the project plan.
• Risks – Risks are events that may happen in the future that could impact the project in a positive or negative way.  Project Managers tend to worry more about negative risks as they could prevent the project from being implemented successfully.  Risks are often categorised by their likelihood of occurring and the impact of their occurrence.  It is also useful to think of ways to mitigate the risk should it happen.
• Costs – A full breakdown of the project costs should be provided.  When costing a project up, try to base estimates on previous projects and involve suppliers to ensure the project costs can be as accurate as possible.
• Roles / Responsibilities – This section documents the project team and states who is responsible for different parts of the project.  Remember to include a role for the person who approves the budget for the project and signs-off to accept delivery of the project at the end.

Further details can be added to your PID depending on the requirements of your business, but these are essentials to help ensure the project is delivered in a controlled-way.

Once the project has been signed-off by the management team, you can begin delivery.

Delivery Stage

During the Delivery Stage, the activities listed in the project plan are implemented and the project manager’s main responsibility is to ensure that each of these activities is carried out within the specified time period and budget.

If it looks like an activity is going to go over budget or beyond its time-limit the project manager will need to take action.

Initially this will be an analysis of the problem (or in project manager terms ‘issue’).  It is common practice to build in a level of contingency to project plans and budgets, and the best decision may be to just use some of that contingency. 

If the issue is more serious then the project manager can escalate it to their own management or the management of their supplier (if the issue rests with them).

In situations where the issue has become very serious, the management team will need to decide whether the project can live without the problem activity (which may impact the quality of the end product) or in more extreme cases, whether the project needs to closed prematurely.

As the business environment is constantly changing, projects rarely proceed like clockwork and when project managers are not dealing with issues (problems currently impacting the project) they are monitoring risks (problems that could potentially impact the project) and where necessary putting in place activities to stop them from becoming issues.

End Stage

With all the planned activities complete, the end product should be ready for use.  At this point the end user or customer of the project will be asked to quality check the product and ensure they are satisfied with it.  A sign-off document is normally used to make this process official.

Some organisations like to produce a report documenting the important lessons learned, such as what went well and what mistakes where made.  The report can then be used to feed into other projects to help implement them better.

Other organisations like to keep eye on the impact that the project has had on the business over a duration of time, to see if it delivered the business benefits that were claimed in the business case section of the PID.

Project Management Tips

• Project Log – It is useful for the project manager to keep a simple record of all the major decisions made and instances that occur during the project.  In addition to being a useful way of keeping track on decisions and progress, the project log can be picked up by another colleague if the project manager is taken ill or moved onto another role.  The project log is also a great place to note lessons learned as the project progresses, so that they can be quickly gathered up and placed into the lessons learned document at the end of the project.
• Filing System – Keeping a clear and efficient filing system for project documents ensures they can be quickly and easily accessed by the project manager and other people within the company.
• External Planning Factors – When planning projects, try to take into account external factors that may impact your plans.  A classic mistake is not take into account seasonal holidays, when staff and suppliers will have less availability to work on the project.
• Identifying Risks – Identifying and analysing risk is an important process in starting and managing projects.  When buying products we often weigh up the pro’s and con’s before making the purchase, the same approach is applied by the management team in their decision to give the project the go-ahead and they need to have a good view of both sides.  To help identify risks, consider running a brainstorming workshop and looking at the lessons learned from other projects.
• Communication – One of the major causes of project failure is poor communication, where people fail to understand what is required from them and why it is important.  To ensure better communications, try to identify all the relevant stakeholders and implement a communications plan detailing the messages to be communicated and the frequency of these communications.

Comments

[John Reiling]

Excellent article. Everyone does need to have the basics!
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John Reiling, PMP
Project Management Training Online