Making It Happen
I see more and more recruitment adverts for people with
experience in “project management” which tells me one thing – this is going to
be more a part of management in the future as change becomes ever more
prevalent and companies adapt to a faster pace.
I’ve managed projects myself, and know others who are deeply
knowledgeable in this art (or is it a science?), but what I’ve seen in my time
is that you need to:
Ask “Why Are We Doing
This”?
Usually, projects have a reason – to improve efficiency, raise
quality, increase revenues or profitability, introduce a new system, or any
other number of purposes. Make sure you
know why you’re embarking on this
adventure.
Define the “Owner”:
Who owns the project (i.e. wants it done)? This will usually be a head of department, function
or company. Can they make things
happen if momentum is lost?
Define The Objective:
How will you get there if you don’t know what the end result
looks like and when it needs to be in place?
This is sometimes known as an overall specification and needs to be set
firmly, but allow for unforeseen events.
I’ve seen cases where people jumped in without really asking “what do we
want this to look like in the end?” and ended up “starting over”, going over
budget, or both.
Refine The Objective
– Deliverables:
What is actually needed to make sure that the objective is
achieved? This could be premises,
people, processes, systems, changes in the way the business does things - any
number of items which all need to fit together by a certain time.
Delivering the
Deliverables:
What needs to happen to deliver each part of the
project? Break it down into steps
(Post-It notes are great for this!).
Starting at the end and working backwards
is the best way to do this.
Allocate Timelines:
How long will each of the above take? What resources are needed (people, systems,
cash, equipment)? Are they
available? How will you get them? Do you need to hire in extra staff,
plant/machinery? How much will it
cost? This gives you your budget for the
project.
Establish
Dependencies:
Does anything depend on something else happening first, or
can it run “in parallel”? If something
needs to end before something else can start, how do you make sure that things
proceed according to plan? The “Critical
Path” consists of the deliverables, targets or steps that must be delivered or met before
others can begin. Any one of these can
derail the whole project.
Contingency Planning:
What could go wrong?
How will you put it right? What
“early warning systems” can you put in place to tell you that you may have a
problem before it becomes a crisis?
Allocate Budget:
Everything costs time, money and effort. How much will this be? Will it all be worth the end result? Sometimes, the cost outweighs the benefits
and that’s a good reason not to proceed.
Allow room for “unforeseen expenses”.
Too many projects now come in over budget and behind schedule because of
poor planning in the first place.
Allocate Responsibilities:
Who will do what and by when? Are they clear on what they
have to do? Do they have the tools and
resources? What do they do if something
goes wrong? How do they report progress? Does everyone involved know who's
doing what?
Get Support:
Get support – from management above (approval), those at the
same level as you (agreement) and from those who report to you or are junior to
you (acceptance). This is where many
projects founder due to lack of support or commitment from whichever
level.
And Finally...:
Projects don’t manage themselves. Review progress regularly – not only of what
has happened, but what is happening and what is due to happen. How will you track progress? What meetings will you hold, with whom and
when? What information will you need to
track progress? Who will deliver it, how
and when? Who will help make things
happen if delays occur? How will you
measure success? Establish an “early
warning system” to alert you of potential problems before they become disasters
so that you can allocate extra resources.
Labels: Productivity, Strategy, Teamwork
posted by William Martin @ 15:35
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