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Archive for the ‘Project Managment’ Category

Takeaway: Here?s everything you need to know to set up a project management group in your organization. I have included links to several free tools?spreadsheet, sample business case document, and PowerPoint slides?to help you.

Here?s everything you need to know to set up a project management group in your organization. I have included links to several free tools?spreadsheet, sample business case document, and PowerPoint slides?to help you.

So here?s the interesting thing about good project management: Things get done, on time, within budget, and meet or exceed the expectations of the business. Project management is a key skill any CIO needs. But you can?t manage all projects and run the IT organization at the same time. As a CIO in a Small or Medium-Sized Business (SMB), you will likely have to manage some, but your best bet is to create a project management group.But this project management group does more than just manage projects. This group is responsible for the company?s IT Project Portfolio Management process. A company?s portfolio of projects should reflect the goals of the company. This is a key process for ensuring that IT is aligned with the business. There are a ton of definitions on project portfolio management out there, but this practice serves two main purposes.

1. Aligning IT with the business
2. Demonstrating the value of IT in the enterprise

Aside from the two main benefits, there are a ton of other minor benefits you get. But by focusing on these two, you are approaching things from the root cause/benefit perspective and the rest will just come.

I developed my own methodology taking bits and pieces from various trade magazine articles and books on the subject and then hybrid-ized it for SMBs. That said, specific attribution cannot be recalled, but a lot of the basics came from CIO Magazine.

There are several steps to creating the PMO:

1. Project Management needs to be viewed as essential. A simple math exercise demonstrating the benefits of Project Management should satisfy the management team. If project management is not employed at your company, then I would bet that the number of failed projects is very high. (Failed project functional definition: Project was behind schedule, over budget and/or did not meet expectations) How much has this cost the company? Missed revenue because of delays or cost overruns or delivering a project that is never used?
2. Centralize all of your IT projects. For a description of why you should do this, see the piece called ?Why you should centralize your IT projects.?
3. Project alignment is the next step. Many companies break things down between operational ?keep the lights on? projects and strategic projects. I actually use four classifications: infrastructure, transactional, informational, and strategic. For an indepth look at these classifications and how the exercise works.
4. Project prioritization is the next step. You now have all your projects in a central repository. You have the estimated cost, the estimated benefit, the resource requirements, time frame for delivery, time frame for business case realization, etc. Now you have to sit down with management to prioritize the projects. For how to do this and what elements you should include in the process.
5. Over Communicate: Come up with an easy-to-read dashboard spreadsheet denoting all of the active projects with their status and any changes to scope, schedule or budget. In the next section, have the on-deck projects in order of priority. Finally, have all of the new projects to be reviewed. There should be hyperlinks to business case documents. so everyone can review the projects. If there are a lot of projects that have to be reviewed, weekly meetings/conference calls should be conducted for the VP/director team until the list is prioritized with reasons for the prioritization.

A word on business case documentation

The level of detail required varies by company. Some will get funded because the idea sounds too good to pass up. Others may require a 5-year pro forma.

The frequency of meetings should be established upfront. Both management teams need to understand that come budget time, attention and time will need to be given to this process. After the initial rush of new projects, monthly or even quarterly update meetings should be held with both teams. I suggest having the VP/director meetings at least two weeks prior to the executive team meeting to allow for distribution of prioritization artifacts to be reviewed by the executive team prior to the meeting.

So what do you know?

You have visibility into the entire portfolio of projects. Even better, the entire management team has that same visibility. They know that one off requests to absorb a project resource will cause project delays and carry with it, inherent accountability. IT is fully aligned with the strategic goals of the company. You have an efficient vehicle for capital budgeting. At one company, this process became THE capital budgeting process. You have justification for project resources and general agreement that good project management will help the company and not hinder it.

One side effect of this process is that it may turn out to be not just an IT process. This is a very good thing. Now IT is taken into account with every other capital budget item. These departments will all have to go through the prioritization exercises and everyone will understand how their individual department or even their individual job will contribute to driving the company forward. Bottom line? if this happens, let it. Embrace it. It?s a good thing.

As business leaders, we all must strive for achievement and enable the organization to accomplish change as opposed to reacting to change. The difference being similar to a beach surfer who regrettably is overcome by a large wave he desired to ride into shore. Accomplishing organizational change is a direct result of the quality of change management training received by the management staff. Prince2, MSP, and management or risk training all help to define and prepare supportive structures to accomplish company goals. The most cutting edge businesses are integrating p3o training as an independent entity designed to be a constant source of managerial guidance and advice.
As businesses are continually confronted with obstacles, beleaguered management teams regularly seek new ideas and counsel on how to meet these challenges. Typically assigned workplace titles of portfolio, programme, and project offices, p3o training is a permanent or temporary enabling and delivery support structure for all training within an organization.
This training appropriately unifies the processes, principles and techniques used to provide structured guidance to project management.
Beyond developing the solidified base from which the project will grow, business analysis training underscore’s the training from Prince2 and enables efficient and effective prioritizing, resource acquisition, resource allocation (divide and conquer), and development of process models.
In the end, the company receives organization specific guidance that will be universally applicable as the company confronts upcoming and unforeseen changes and challenges. Senior management will be provided with unified reports allowing them to more easily address the future of the company. From now on, the beach surfer catches the wave.

If you are having a hard time handling and managing your team then youd better apply the right kind of project management solutions that will not only help you but also your team to achieve the results you want from your projects and plans. Project management is what makes every project and plan a success. This success can now be easily attained if you will only apply the right approach of project management on the plan and projects you set.

Although project management is what your team and your projects need it is still important to learn some tips or solutions on how you can apply it with ease and confidence. A good leader or manager exactly knows how to use different project management solutions that would help his team.

Here are the project management solutions you need:

1. Save costs where they matter the most To make your project management a success make sure pinch pennies for the present.Make sure that the money you saved will pay off in your project in the long run since you do not know when you might actually and really need to cash out. If you will start compromising on the quality then it will be able to cost you later on replacements and repairs. This is one of the many project management solutions that would certainly help you gain success on your projects.
2. Adopt a predictive managerial style
One of the most important project management solutions you need to apply on your projects is your back up plan. In every project and plan there is a possibility that you will face failures, one way or another. However if you will only get to apply the right kind of project management then you will surely know what to do in case some problems and troubles occur.
Having your own back up plans will certainly help you achieve the results you want from your projects.

3. Test your contingency plans
For this next project management solution you need to apply and perform it from time to time to help you get prepared from sudden mistakes and failures. It is actually a very risky move to wait for those problems and troubles to occur. If you want to avoid any complications from this problem then youd better try and test your solutions from time to time to see whether it will work or not. This is one of the most effective project management solutions you need to apply on your plans and projects.

4. Stand up for employees
For you to achieve the best results you want from your project management you must learn how to stand for your team. If some employers and managers treat their team and employees hard then now is the time to change this kind of treatment. One of the best ways you must never forget which can actually help you achieve the result you want from your project is to let your team or your employees feel how much you appreciate their hard work.

Take these project management solutions and you will surely gain all the amazing results from your projects!

What is scope in project management?

This is the first of a series of articles covering project management scope.

What is scope in project management? This is not so easy to see as some of the other classic aspects of project management, for example performance, time and cost factors. These are the areas that all managers are trying to optimise. Unfortunately, getting two out of three well managed is all you can ask for.

To improve performance and reduce time costs usually go up in terms of extra equipment, more personnel or an increase in control measures. A similar case can be put forward for trying to optimise any two out of the three.

As well as the holy trinity of cost, performance and time there are other key aspects to consider. Some of the key ones are scope, risk and benefits.

The scope planning in project management relates to setting up boundaries beyond which the project should not stray. Doing so is called ‘project creep’. The temptation to ‘cross the line’ can be very strong but should be resisted.

Note that we usually refer to project scope as naturally covering key areas of the whole project. However, each separate task will have an output. This in turn will have defined specifications and these represent the ‘scope’ of that task. It is easy in this case to appreciate that going outside the specification is not good.

Whether scope is associated with the overall project or a task it can only be transgressed if a justifiable case is put forward and agreed by senior management.

Definition of scope in project management

We have noted above that scope is similar to the tolerances for a task’s output that defines its quality. It is not enough to know what these are but you have to know when you are approaching them so that you have time to do something about it.

These might be termed alert limits before critical limits are reached. The project manager should make sure that the scope limits are backed up with the appropriate documentation. The scope must be measurable in some way so that a person knows if critical values are approaching. If this is the case a review of basic project management assumptions may be required.

When you wish to define scope in project management ask those that matter. That is, the customers and other stakeholders. Get their agreement. It is up to the project team via the manager to challenge any assumptions so that those running the project are left in no doubt as to the projects boundaries.

Ensure that you think about areas that are ‘left out’ of the scope as this may provide valuable information and other ideas.

It is easy to confuse the scope with a project constraint. The latter will be something beyond the project team’s control, such as, new recruitment reduction.