project. ‘What value will this project bring to the business?’ and ‘What is its role in our strategic development?’ are likely questions he or she might ask.
case study Carole was asked to take on a project to upgrade her company’s website. She started by asking each of the main stakeholders what they thought would constitute success for the project. The project sponsor, one of the company directors, replied: “I’d like you to deliver the project on time and within budget, and to keep everyone happy.” The IT manager was less concerned with how the new site would work than with ensuring it would integrate well with the existing IT system. Other managers stated different priorities. The supplier said “Project, what project? All we’ve been given is a list of required modifications.” Reflecting on these comments, Carol was concerned at the lack of clarity and shared understanding of the project. Her next step was very sensibly to call a meeting of all the main stakeholders, in order to define the key success factors and build a shared sense of purpose.
• Benefits of the project. The customer wants to know what benefits the project will bring to them and how they will be able to make use of the end product.
• Capability of the project. The skills and resources of suppliers and the project team determine the project’s capability. They will help you answer the question, “How can I successfully deliver what customers and users need, within the available schedule and budget?”
This diagram, adapted from the popular PRINCE2™ project approach (see page 23), shows how you can think about bringing these potentially diverse perspectives together.
Modern project management emerged in the 1950s, with the development of a series of techniques aimed at making planning, estimating and controlling costs and schedules more effective.
You may not need to use a formal methodology for a small project, but it is still useful to know what the main methods are.
• The traditional, or ‘waterfall’ approach. This approach treats projects as a straightforward series of steps from beginning to end. Each phase must be completed before the next begins. If, for example, your company is planning to upgrade its website, then all the user requirements must be known before the programmers begin work.
case study Ali worked for a recruitment agency, where she was asked to install a new database. She felt that the user requirements were not made clear and that the suggested timetable was possibly unrealistic. She decided to adopt an ‘agile’ approach to the project, where she and her team would meet twice a week at the start of the day to discuss problems and set short-term goals. They managed to install a working version of the new database by the specified launch date, using feedback from staff on this ‘first release’ to make modifications that were incorporated into the final version.
• PRINCE2™. This framework for managing projects was developed by the UK Government and IBM and is now used in more than 50 countries worldwide. It describes the different project roles and tasks, how to design and monitor a project, and what to do if the project isn’t going according to plan.
• ‘Agile’ or ‘lightweight’ project management. This is a more informal approach based on breaking down tasks into small units, with minimal long-term planning. It is descended from the ‘Lean’ manufacturing approach pioneered by Toyota, and often uses a framework known as Scrum. Team sizes are kept small, with face-to-face communication preferred over lengthy written reports. Agility (flexibility) is the key.
• Critical chain (CCPM). This aims to reduce project costs and timescales by making the best possible use of resources (people).
Other approaches stress the need for the close integration of project management and a wider business strategy, and emphasize the importance of becoming a learning organization.
A list of useful online resources appears in the further reading section at the end of this book.
Though everyone connected with the project has a role to play in bringing it to fruition, it is you, as project manager, who is ultimately responsible for its success. You are uniquely placed to see how the different elements fit together, and to drive your team forward towards completion.
Good project management rests on three fundamentals. It’s about having the right systems in place, inspiring high performance through good leadership, and exercising sound judgement when required. These are some of the key things you need:
• Process selection. It’s important to use the right tools to cover all the areas of managing a project. Before you begin the project, you will need to decide how you are going to approach planning and scheduling, budgeting and resource planning, risk management, progress monitoring and communication, and evaluation. If this sounds like a long list, don’t worry! All these aspects of project management are covered in this book.
• Approaches and methods. You can choose from a number of different approaches to managing projects (Secret 1.6).
“Project managers function as bandleaders who pull together their players, each a specialist with an individual score” L.R. Sayles, business writer
• Software to help you manage your project. Software shouldn’t be too cumbersome: ensure it is appropriate to the size of the project, otherwise you may find yourself working late every evening preparing plans and monitoring reports that nobody reads!
• Leadership skills. In modern project management, leadership involves more than just managing your project team (essential though this is). It’s about communicating effectively with all your stakeholders, to build and gain support for your project. In Project Leadership, Wendy Briner and colleagues describe how project leaders must manage the team, stakeholders and processes in order to be successful. (Project leadership is covered in Chapter 5.)
• Accurate, up-to-date information. Juggling these priorities requires the ability to ‘see the big picture’, so that you can zoom in to where action is required. You’ll need to ensure you have reliable information about the status of your project, so that you can use your judgement to make an informed decision – sometimes quickly. (There’s more on this in Chapter 6.)
• Overview of the stakeholders. From your ‘control tower’, take a little time to reflect on what other stakeholders are doing to help deliver your project, and what they expect from the project. How well do these expectations fit together? If there is a mismatch, these may need resolving – either by discussion (to agree priorities) or by amending the plan.
Many an ‘old master’ painting started with an initial rough drawing; colours were then added and lines redrawn to produce the final picture. In the same way, every project has to start somewhere – whether