HOW TO KEEP THE PROJECT MOMEMTUM GOING

Tip #1: Set achievable deadlines

Complete everything by Friday? That's a lot to ask. So set deadlines for your team members that are achievable. In fact, it's even better to get them to help you set the deadlines. If they sign up to completing a task by a particular date then they are far more likely to achieve it than if you told them what the deadline is.

Split big tasks into smaller tasks so that each part has a separate end date. This will also make the deadlines more achievable and easier to monitor.

Tip #2: Monitor progress

You'll be able to see how well you are making progress on your project if you monitor the status of each task. Monitoring will also help you see if anything (or anyone) is slowing down, allowing you to talk to them about keeping the momentum going. Use real-time information to check the progress of tasks and ensure that everything is moving forward.

Of course, you need a plan to monitor progress against, so make sure you have all the tasks and proposed completion dates noted down for you to check against.

Tip #3: Share your progress with others

It isn't enough for you to know that progress is being made. In order for others on the team to feel as if they are achieving their project goals everyone should be updated on the project progress. 

Being able to see that the project is moving forward is a great motivator and will help the team keep going towards those end goals.

Tip #4: Celebrate success

Don't wait until the end of the project to celebrate success! Find a few moments through the project where something has been achieved that is worth shouting about and celebrate those. For example, the end of the testing phase when you have a product that is fit for shipping, or the completion of a big piece of design. It really doesn't matter what you are celebrating as long as it is linked to the project somehow and you can use the occasion to demonstrate what progress is being made and what is still to do. Even small celebrations motivate team members which in turn helps you drive the project onward.

Tip #5: Don't take on too much

A massive project can be daunting for everyone on the team and you might find that work slows down because people are overwhelmed. Split your project into smaller phases and deliver it a bit at a time. This can help structure the work into achievable pieces and make it manageable. If it feels less daunting, the team will be more confident about making progress.

5 BIGGEST CHALLENGES AS A PROJECT MANAGER

1. Dispelling PM myths about Project Manager’s and project management in general

It’s the myth that Project Manager’s are just paper pushers. They’re just working on admin, administrative stuff, that they’re bullies. They’re the ones who are always on my back about things and they get in the way. They give me too much extra stuff to do. They just add extra work to the project. Those are myths that I think Project Manager’s spend a lot of time working on trying to dispel. Just to get the credibility back into their role and to the field of Project Management.

2. You have to re craft and reorganize

There’s so much going on now whether it’s your industry, whether it’s technology, but it’s keeping up, not only on that, but also the changes that are occurring constantly on the project. So, hang on, change is coming, because what happens is that changes the priorities and when priorities change you lose your resources, you lose your budget, and things constantly change. 

3. Staying relevant. So, having the time to develop yourself

To learn what are the trends going on in my industry. What’s the technology that people are using? Now organizations are incorporating using mobile phones, social media, and new tools. Also, policies. What kind of policies are infecting the environment, our industry? Whether it’s telecommunications, technology, real estate, all types of industries. What methods? There are all kinds of methods now and knowing which method is appropriate for you type of project.

4. Losing resources

So, as things change and they’re higher priority projects, invariably you lose your people or your budget. You know, the critical resource, the super star on your project, that you fear, “Oh my god if I lose that person, I’m dead in the water”. Well typically, we do, and then the budget, so budget gets reallocated to other projects. So therefore, you have to go back re prioritize your work. Change it, and that’s constantly happening.

Then the other one is standing firm. There’s actually a song that says “Know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em”. I think it’s harder to actually stand and hold ‘em. Meaning, step up or go to bat for things in your group, whether it’s resources, trying to fight for or stand for the people so that you don’t lose them. Go to your organization and let them know why it’s important that you keep that resource. Or time, you may have to go back to your stake holders and position and stand firm that you need more time, things have changed, actually go to your change control board. Then process changes. So, there may need to be some process changes in your organization where you have to change things in order to be more efficient.

5. Politics, dealing with the gremlin of politics in your organization

So, it’s harder to stand firm. I think if a Project manager can overcome some of these challenges then they can begin arming themselves to handle the other challenges, like the risk, the change, the managing risk holders expectations, and all those things that the other research reports back.

5 RISKS TO PROJECT SCHEDULE

Project managers rely on their schedules. The Project Schedule is the one document that tells everyone what they should be doing, when it needs to start and how long it should take. It is also used to track progress, so managing a project without a schedule is virtually impossible if you want to achieve the agreed milestones and delivery dates. However good we think our schedules are, there are always risks when it comes to managing tasks, resources and the project scope. Here are 5 scheduling risks that you could be facing – how will you manage these on your project?

1. Not Scheduling Vacations

Is anyone taking an annual vacation this year? Yes? Well, are those dates incorporated into your project schedule? It can be difficult to get this information from your project team members, especially if they don’t work directly for you, but the best thing to do is to bring it up during one of your regular team meetings. Use your normal team collaboration approaches to check the dates of everyone’s planned annual leave (including your own). Then you can incorporate this downtime into the schedule. If you don’t, there is a risk that you’ll be allocating tasks to team members when they aren't even in the country. This will delay the project overall and it could inconvenience other teams and departments that are waiting for those tasks to be completed.

2. Scheduling Everyone At 100%

Everyone is dedicated to your project and gives it their all, right? Wrong, but not for the reasons you might think! Even the most dedicated project team member won’t spend 100% of their day – 7 or 8 hours – working on your project. They go and buy a sandwich, they talk to a colleague they haven’t seen for ages, they have a doctor’s appointment… The list of things to fill up a day with (that aren't your project) is huge.

The risk here is that your schedule will suffer delays as tasks take longer in reality than you planned. The best way to handle this is to make sure that you only schedule project team resources at 80% capacity. You can do this every day by limiting the amount of hours of tasks they have to do, but it is probably easier to do it by week. Everyone’s availability per week then only becomes 4 days out of 5.

If you report or update your schedule on a weekly basis this should be manageable. If you do update your schedule more regularly than this you may have to look at scheduling on a daily or hourly basis instead.

3. Forgetting Tasks

Ideally, your project schedule should include absolutely everything from the very first day that you commit your thoughts to your online project management tool. Unfortunately, it is rare that project teams have that much clarity about project tasks, and there is normally something that has been forgotten!

Small tasks may be able to be accommodated without many issues, but if you have left out something major – well, that’s a different problem.

There’s a risk that uncovering a large task that has been missed delays your schedule to the point where you can’t achieve the published deadlines. Then you’ll have to submit a change request to your project sponsor and ask for the end date to be officially moved.

Build in a mechanism or process to deal with forgotten tasks and remember to review your schedule regularly with your team. This will at least ensure that you have the time to discuss any extra tasks with your team members, so there is less likelihood of tasks being overlooked.

4. Inaccurate Estimates

If you are doing something for the first time it can be difficult to work out exactly how long tasks will take. Even subject matter experts may not know, even if they have done something similar before.

Projects are generally unique and anything with a bit of innovative thinking may require you to plan for tasks that have never been carried out in the company before, such as the launch of a new piece of software or a new product.

Inaccurate estimates can be a risk to your project schedule because they mean your milestones and end date can change dramatically. Normally the problem comes when the estimates are too low – not many project sponsors worry about delivering a project early!

5. Scope Creep

Scope creep is when unauthorized changes slip through and make it into the project scope. This results in the team doing more work than originally planned. Scope creep normally happens when a key stakeholder puts forward a request to change something and this does not, for whatever reason, go through the change management process.

Over-enthusiastic sponsors are often the culprit! They ask for changes without necessarily understanding the full implications for the schedule, resource plan or budget, and yet the team has to make the change. The risk here is that the overall project schedule slips. Critical tasks may not get completed on time as team members are working on new changes, and that can create delays that you might not be able to make up.

The best way to avoid the risk of scope creep is to ensure that all changes go through the approved change management process. A good project schedule is the foundation for any project, and the project manager should make sure that it is as accurate as possible. All projects face risks, and risks to your schedule are no different.

RISK PROFILES & RESOLUTION : RISK MANAGEMENT IN A PROJECT

Risk Profiles

Risk to a project can be measured on two major axes: Likelihood of failure and Impact of failure

The more likely a problem is to occur, the more risk it poses to the project. Even fairly minor problems or issues can become a threat to the project if they occur so frequently that they can’t be avoided. Similarly, the impact or consequences of a problem are also important. Some problems can stop a project in its tracks all by themselves.

Many systems exist for categorizing risks into different categories but the one presented here is fairly simple. In this system each risk item is qualified on two scales: likelihood and impact. 

Each scale is divided into two simple categories of “ Low ” or “ High ” and risks are rated according to each scale.

A. “ Critical ” issue represents one that will stop the project in its tracks (known as a “Show Stopper”) and must be dealt with immediately. 

B. “ Major ” risks represent a significant threat to the project because of their frequency or because of the seriousness of their impact; these threats usually have to be dealt with as soon as possible. 

C. “ Minor ” risks which are neither likely nor particularly serious and can be left until others have been dealt with. Minor risks however have an annoying habit of turning into major ones when your back is turned.

Resolution of risks

Once you have profiled your risk they can be ranked into an ordered list representing the various threats to the project to be dealt with. The more significant can then be examined and assigned an action by the project team.

Typical actions are as below

Research : The risk is not yet fully understood. Its impact or likelihood of occurrence may be unclear or the context in which it may occur could seem unreasonable. Further research by members of the project team is
warranted.

Accept : The risk is unavoidable and must be accepted as-is. This category of risks become extremely important to a project since they cannot be resolved but still represent a threat to completion. Anticipation therefore become the key to dealing with this category of risk.

Reduce : The risk as it stands is unacceptable. The project team must act to reduce the risk and to establish contingency plans should the risk occur. The risk will have to reviewed in future to define the threat it poses.

Eliminate : The risk is unacceptable under any circumstances and must be eliminated as a possibility. The project team must put in place processes and procedures not only to ensure the immediate threat is eliminated but that it does not re-occur in the future.

COSTING & BUDGETING OF A PROJECT

COSTING & BUDGETING OF A PROJECT

Some projects are relatively straightforward to cost but most are not. Even simple figures like the cost per man/hour of labor can be incredibly difficult to calculate and in most cases approximations are used. Some fundamental principles to keep in mind are derived from standing accounting practice as below:

The Concept of 'Prudence'  - You should be pessimistic in your accounts (“Anticipate No Profit and provide for all possible losses”). Provide yourself with a margin for error and not just show the best possible financial position. It’s the old maxim: promise low-deliver / high once again.

The 'Accruals' Concept     - Revenue and costs are accrued or matched with one another and are attributed to the same point in the schedule. For example if the costs of hardware are in your budget at the point where you pay the invoice, then ALL the costs for hardware should be “Accrued” when the invoice is received.

The ‘Consistency’ Concept - This is similar to accruals but it emphasizes consistency over different periods. If you change the basis on which you count certain costs you either need to revise all previous finance accounts in line with this or annotate the change appropriately so people can make comparisons on a like-for-like basis.

Costing

At a basic level the process of costing is reasonably simple. You draw up a list of all your possible expenditure and put a numerical value against each item; the total therefore represents the Tangible Cost of your project.

Tangible Costs

Capital Expenditure - Any large asset of the project which is purchased outright. This usually includes plant, hardware, software and sometimes buildings although these can be accounted for in a number of ways

Lease Costs - Some assets are not purchased outright but are leased to spread the cost over the life of the project. These should be accounted for separately to capital expenditure since the project or company does not own these assets

Staff costs  - All costs for staff must be accounted for and this includes (but is not limited to): Salary and Pension (superannuation) costs; insurance costs; recruitment costs; anything which can be tied directly to employing, training and retaining staff

Professional services  - All large-scale projects require the input of one or more professional groups such as lawyers or accountants. These are normally accounted for separately since a close watch needs to be kept upon expenditure in this area. Without scrutiny the costs of a consultant engineer, accountant or lawyer can quickly dwarf other costs

Supplies and Consumables  - Regular expenditure on supplies is often best covered by a single item in your budget under which these figures are accrued. 

One-off costs - One-off costs apply to expenditure which is not related to any of the above categories but occurs on an irregular basis. Staff training might be an example. While it might be appropriate to list this under staff costs you might wish to track it independently as an irregular cost. The choice is yours but the principles of prudence and consistency apply.

Overheads – Sometime called indirect costs, these are costs which are not directly attributable to any of the above categories but never-the-less impact upon your budget. For example it may not be appropriate to reflect the phone bill for your project in staff costs, yet this still has to be paid and accounted for. Costing for overheads is usually done as a rough percentage of one of the other factors such as “staff costs”.

Intangible Costs

It has become fashionable to account for “Intangible” assets on the balance sheets of companies and possibly also projects. The argument goes like this: some contributions to a project are extremely valuable but cannot necessarily have a tangible value associated with them. 

Typical things you might place in the budget under intangibles are “Goodwill” and “Intellectual Property”. Personnel-related figures are a frequent source of intangible assets and so you might find things like “Management Team”, “Relationships” & “Contacts” on an intangibles balance sheet.

Budgeting

Once you have costed your project you can then prepare an appropriate budget to secure the requisite funds and plan your Cash Flow over the life of the project. An accurate cost model will of course entail a fairly detailed design or at the very least requirement specification so that you can determine your scope of work. This is normally completed well into the design phase of the project.

The sad truth of the matter however is that more often than not you are required to prepare some sort of indicative budget before approval of the project and you are often held to your original estimates. You must be extremely careful with initial estimates and always follow the “Promise Low / Deliver High” commandment.

Costing and Budgeting follow the Iterative life cycle as do other tasks within the project. As you refine your design, so you will need to refine the costing which is based upon it. As in scheduling, you need to build in adequate contingency (reserves) to account for unexpected expenditure. For example, if due to a failure in the critical path a task is delayed and a milestone (like software purchase) falls due in the month after it was scheduled. This can wreck your carefully planned cash flow. But if you have carefully budgeted your project then variations should be relatively easy to spot and cope with as they arise. 

PRINCIPLES OF PROJECT SCHEDULING

In truth the art of scheduling a Project is based on experience and the more experience you have, the more

accurate your schedule will be.

However, by following some simple rules you can still produce an accurate schedule.

Rule #1 - Don't commit to something you can’t Deliver

Scheduling is one part prediction and one part expectation management. If you are pressured into picking a date “on-the-fly” at a random meeting you can bet that the date will not only be wrong, it will come back to haunt you. 

Rule #2 - Eliminate uncertainty wherever you can

The more specific you can be in your project planning, the more accurate your schedule will be. If you leave  functionality or other items unspecified in your plan, then you will, at best, only be able to approximate them in the schedule. Don’t go overboard, though, there is a balance. If you are spending time adding detail to tasks which will have no impact on the project delivery date, then you are probably wasting your time.

Rule #3 - Build in plenty of contingency to cope with variation

No matter how well specified your project and how accurate your schedule, there will be the inevitable random influences that will wreck your carefully crafted schedule. People get sick, equipment fails and external factors join together in a conspiracy to see that you miss your target date. In order to buy yourself some insurance you should build in an adequate amount of contingency, so that you can cope with unexpected delays.

Rule #4 - Pick the right level of granularity

When drawing up your schedule it is important to pick the right level of detail. If you are going to require daily updates from your team then it makes sense to break into day-by-day chunks. That way everybody has the same understanding of what must be achieved by when. 

On the other hand if your project has large portions of time devoted to similar activities, testing for example, then it may be better to simply block-schedule one or two months of testing. Maybe you can leave the details up to your team, it all depends on the level of control you want.

Rule #5 - Schedule for the unexpected

Project management is the art of handling the unknown. 

Often events and circumstances you could not have foreseen will interrupt the flow of your project. It’s your job to take them all in your stride. Schedule for the most likely delays and cope with them should they arise. If experience or instinct tells you that a certain type of task will overrun, then anticipate it, pad it with some

contingency and make sure you have adequate resources on hand when it comes up.

THE PURPOSE AND ELEMENTS OF PROJECT PLAN

The purpose of a project plan is to maintain control of a project.

As a complicated process, a project always threatens to exceed the limit of your control. To maintain control you need help in the form of tools, your best tool is your plan.

The project plan controls the project by:

• Breaking a complex process down into a number of simpler components

• Providing visibility for obscure or ambiguous tasks in the project

• Providing a single point of reference for everyone

• Enforcing scrutiny of the sequence and nature of events

• Providing a baseline against which the actual execution of the project can be compared

• Anticipating likely events and providing pre-planned means of avoiding them

A project plan must be as accurate, complete and as specific as possible. How accurate, complete

and specific of course depends upon how much time and resource you have available.

The Elements of a Project Plan

Every project planning methodology has its own specific taxonomy and names for its parts. But in a very broad sense the minimum elements a project plan must specify are:

What is to be done – what is desired of the project and what it must deliver to succeed. This is a scope document at a high level and requirements specs. at lower levels 

When it needs to be done by– the deadlines by which the objectives must be met

Who is to do it – The people, sometimes unkindly labelled “resources”, or the team who are to deliver those objectives. This also usually implies costs since in most projects the application of costs implies the use of skilled employee

How it is to be achieved – This is normally in documents such as a technical specification 

You do not need to complete all of these prior to starting your project. Typically one draft of the proposal, schedule and budget are completed before your project commences. Each of the other documents will be completed at some point through the life cycle.