Project Management 101

 Quick stop tour of how to manage any project from spring cleaning to delivering the Olympics

1. What's the goal 

Understand the importance of clear project goals and objectives.

Imagine you had a sentence to explain what you want to do:

"Update the decor in my bedroom."

"Complete the Birmingham to Manchester section of HS2"

"Refresh the software across laptop assets"

Now you have written down your aim

Define SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals

Write a simple why - to make the room a more pleasant place to sleep, to enable better transport links, to ensure staff have up to date secure machines

Write what you think the benefits will be - better storage solutions, more space to hang art, a yoga space; creation of 3000 jobs, £15b uplift to the economy; ensure compliance with security system

How will this be measured: Time of going to bed will decrease from 2am to 11pm, more people use buses to travel than drive when going to work, less calls to the IT desk about issues

Is it achievable: Yes I've got a weekend free to decorate, yes the council have £20m to spend on buses, yes we have IT team engaged to deliver

Relevant: yes because I like to sleep, yes because it's part of our environmental plan, yes because we're working with Disney/Netflix and their security teams

Time Bound: yes because I cannot be late for work anymore, yes because the funding runs out, yes because we've got a project with Disney coming.

Learn to align project goals with organisational objectives. - this is key to the likelihood of your idea being accepted and successful

2. Identify your stakeholders

Who are the people who will be involved in this - list everyone who might be interested, effected by or can input into this project. Include your supporters but also include the haters.

From this list you now need to think about the best ways to communicate with them.

What are the different methods of communicating to them?

Email/Text/Phone/Meetings and now think about how you will communicate your initial idea and then the frequency of updates

Create a table

Name / Communication Method / Types of comms / Frequency / Expectations - what are they going to get out of this project?

3. Define deliverables 

what are you going to show for it at the end of the project?

It seems strange but it's really easy once a project starts to start adding in things and loosing track of the ultimate aim. Defining what will come out of this project and how you will measure it stops you from going 'out of scope'. Sometimes it's worth considering them whether they will save money and costs overall, but if your time and budget only allow for the original plan, be cautious adding to it.

The bedroom that's getting updated before a friend comes to visit - wouldn't it be nice to do the hallway too whilst you're there? But the timescale will mean you'll still be hanging wall paper when they come to visit will not be worth adding to.

While it can be tempting to share a detailed project deliverables list, overcomplicating things will lead to confusion for other members of your company. A good project deliverables list is simple, easy to understand, and easy to follow for everyone — even people from outside the project. Focus on the big picture. / Imitate what works. / Go one step at a time. / Welcome feedback from the whole team / Clarify individual responsibilities. / Build in extra time./ Share access to an editable deliverables document / Keep communication open.

4. Plan effectively

1. Explore the project planning process from start to finish. We talked about the time in deliverables but it's worth defining when's this going to deliver (from this you can usually create an initial ball park budget).
2. Break down complex projects into manageable tasks. Look at your project. How many steps does it take to get there? What order do things need to happen. Does everything have to be step-by-step (waterfall) or can things overlap and be done out of sequence (agile)
3. Create a project schedule and timeline. This can be a simple calendar, or gannt chart, notice the impact of what happens when you move things.
4. Define roles and responsibilities for your team. Create a RACI (who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) your stakeholders list will also help with this.

5. Identify the issues, barriers and risks that could put your project off track. 

Assess the risk - no project should commence without assessing your impact (PESTLE)

• what can you mitigate
• what do you need help with
• what do you need to do more of or less of to mitigate it

Develop a risk management plan to anticipate potential issues.

A way to mitigate is putting milestones in your project. Go / No Go points:

What are you milestones that you can either stop - (do we halt before the carpet gets put down to assess whether we ran out of money) at or change direction (make everything white walls and move?) or have to seek further approval to proceed (check with builder you can knock a wall down)?

These points reduce your risk and help you mitigate 

6. Understand Resource Management

What is resource allocation? People, Products, Equipment, Facilities

Understand the role of resource management in project success. Why is it important? 

Go back to that makeover project. We're going to transform this room!. 

What do we need? Paint. 

What also do we need? Someone to paint it

Can we just have one without the other?

There are simple techniques for optimising your resource utilisation - using a calendar, pointing resource at high priorities, training up your resource so they can do more, sharing or pooling resources with other projects, match the right people to the right job to make it more efficient.

Always remember to address potential conflicts and bottlenecks.

Pro-active approach - that bedroom. A bottleneck could be waiting for the perfect shade of paint on order. What else could be done in the meantime, could we pre-order, could we change colour? Can another task happen instead?

There are lots of available tools and software for resource management: ScheduAll, Excel, Asana, Teams - lots on offer and lots of templates available.

7. Keep checking your plan. 

Implement project tracking and monitoring mechanisms. 

Do you need a check list of how you get to the deliverables - are there mini projects within your main project? Keeping on top of where you are up to and what needs to happen next is key to a successful delivery.

Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure project progress. Sometimes on a project there may be moments at which you can make live before the project ends. i.e. your bedroom is near completion but the curtains have not arrived, would that stop you from using it and reaping the benefits now?

Can you start to measure the success of your project whilst you are still delivering it?

Keep to the scope - really important don't let anyone else dump and run. Oh you're doing up the bedroom, could you also paint my room too? Keep to your project scope and no when to say no.

Keep checking the time line - do you have impending deadlines or commitments that need to be kept to, do you need to communicate any new issues? Do you need to alter it? What's the impact to the resources?

Keep communicating - those stakeholders, do they know what's happening, are you keeping to that stakeholder communication plan, does that need updating?

Have you set up regular meetings with your project team, your 'sponsor', key stakeholders?
Mitigate risks - a new one will appear every day, don't ignore them and hope they go away. Share the issues and ask for help and support.

Continue to lead - it's your project, your goal. It can feel quite combative at times, but people who question you are just questioning, they are providing their view. Sometimes it's worth listening to, sometimes not, but always respect for their input and the time they have taken to show your project. You never know when you actually may need their input on this project or the next.

8. Delivery

All projects come to an end or they should (looking at you again HS2)

As part of your delivery you should create a handover to Operations (BAU) or complete with product at the end that is handed over to sales, marketing. You've finished that room, installed a fancy new blind - don't throw away the instructions before everyone knows how to use it!

Documenting along the way - it's not just showing off, it's a record of how you created that success and how others can learn from it, or present it for auditing.

THE WORST THING IS SOMEONE MESSING WITH YOUR PROJECT WHEN YOU FINISH IT

If you don't want someone to change it's use or scope, be clear as day as to how it works (or should work)