Project delivery
Practical Project Management oversight
Project Management Tools
Tools
Skilful and effective use of tools will help you manage work, communicate expectations and report outcome. Use tools to convey the right message to the target audience. The most important thing is the clarity of the content of the document, not necessarily how fanciful the document is. A project manager should be versatile in using some tools like those listed bellow:
§ Project management: Scheduling (Microsoft Project, Clarity, Workbench); Planning, brainstorming, problem solving and decision making (Mindjet Mind Manager Pro or similar mind mapping tool).
§ Office productivity: Document, charts, analysis and presentation (Microsoft® Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Visio or Open Source equivalent – e.g. Sun® OpenOffice).
§ Financial systems: Estimating, forecasting, budgeting, account payable etc.
There are many good tools, including those that support full automation. However, without practical project management practices, including stakeholders’ discipline in providing relevant and quality information, you may not be able to explore or take advantage of the automation capabilities of these tools. Tools provide control information, but exercising control requires sound governance, skills, discipline and good judgement.
Categories: Project delivery Tags: project management tools tools
Composure
Composure
A project manager needs to maintain his/her composure, particularly in tough situations and times. Being composed is a sign of maturity. It does not mean lack of concern. Though you may be troubled inside, loosing your composure in the presence of the team/stakeholders may weaken their performance and resilience to face tough situations. As an analogy (stated earlier): a project manager could be likened to a General in the army who faces a tough battle. Though he is troubled inside, he has to summon courage to act skilfully and inspiringly, without loosing his composure in order to motivate and strengthen the troops.
Maintaining your composure enhances your ability to make good decisions and operate effectively. To do this, you need to understand yourself and develop appropriate strategies to manage stress and stressful situations. Doing otherwise may cause more problem than you are trying to solve. You may be the last hope to straighten crooked situations in your project. Hence maintaining your composure is a great virtue.
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Project Administration
Administration
As a project manager, sometimes you may find yourself juggling different administrative tasks, particularly if you do not have a dedicated project support analyst on your project, depending on your organization setup and specific project need. Administrative tasks include gathering information, preparing for meetings and managing minutes, monitoring and recording action items, work schedule, status reports and agreements.
The key to success is to minimize the number of reports or consolidate your reports into relevant categories, which address the unique need of the stakeholder groups. Keep vital information such as project profile as a single source and use it in applicable reports.
Some organizations have automated enterprise project management systems, which generate reports on the fly and manage projects’ information (storage, distribution and work flow). The key challenge is the discipline to maintain quality data required by such information system in order to generate accurate reports.
Categories: Project delivery Tags: project administration administration
Project management ethics
Ethics
Every profession has its own ethics or code of professional practice which guide the work behaviours. It cuts across organizational boundaries. Project Management Institute (PMI®) calls this Professional Responsibility.
Key ethics, among others, include:
§ Be honest: there is difference between diplomacy and misrepresentation.
§ Do not take bribe: expression of gratitude is not illegal, but does not have to be fulfilled.
§ Gifts: know and follow your organization guidelines for gifts received from third parties and partners.
§ Respect contract/agreements’ terms and conditions.
§ Negotiate in good faith. Otherwise a party who felt cheated may have a hidden resentment or vengeance attitude, which could materialise in future dealings.
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Key Success Skills – Financial
“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.” Albert Einstein
No one wants to pay for things that do not provide a convincing and expected value. Every project must demonstrate its worth, else it could be considered of little or no value. A project manager needs a reasonable understanding of the project financial responsibility to demonstrate to the key stakeholders, particularly the sponsor, that the project is on track to deliver the desired outcome at the agreed and expected cost, time and quality. Treat it as a typical seller-buyer relationship. Essentially, you need solid understanding of project estimation and budgeting, financial performance tracking/monitoring and reporting.
Project Estimation and Budget
Project estimate is usually prepared by the project portfolio management group, prior to formal project approval and initiation, as part of the project conceptualization and business case development. A project manager needs good understanding of project cost estimation to ensure that cost accuracy, within tolerable limits, is maintained during the project life cycle, due to changes in scope and other factors such as inflation, technology etc. Organizations establish tolerable limits using the cost contingency range (measured in percentage) at different stages of the project life cycle.
The preferred or recommended approach to building the project cost estimate, which the client can relate to, is the result based costing. Result based costing is based on the project deliverables. This approach enables the client and stakeholders to trace the cost of delivering the desired project outcome.
Building the Cost Estimate
A professional will ensure that all costs are captured and avoid any attempt to hide cost in order to secure acceptable funding. Underestimation is a recipe for disaster, a major reason for project failure or mediocre outcome. Overestimation is neither a good thing, avoid it.
Underestimation and overestimation usually occur due to incompetency, organization attitudes or undue influence to control cost in a generic way. For example, the use of across the board cost cutting, which usually impact those who have done due diligence to present realistic cost. People tend to overestimate to catch up with the across the board cost cutting tactics. It is prudent to provide honest and valid estimate you can stand by and defend. Clients disrespect all attempts to overestimate or provide cost without clear justification.
Experienced, knowledgeable and ethical professionals know the importance of sound estimate that can be defended. For cost estimation you may use the top-down approach for a start and validate with a bottom-up approach. Otherwise, you should build the project cost using the bottom-up approach, which enables you to minimize cost contingency or changes in the future.
The key considerations for successful cost estimation include the following:
§ Requirements – the key determinant of what the project will likely cost.
§ Stakeholders/human capital – chargeable fees, resource types and rates.
§ Materials/Equipment – capital and operating assets, facilities and tools.
§ Administration – the overhead cost for managing the project and delivering the product.
Figure 17 shows a result based project cost estimation guide. The approach maps all cost to deliverables, which are combined to deliver the desired project outcome.
Notes on Over/Under Estimation
- Overestimation and underestimation should be avoided. Underestimation is rare, overestimation is common. The consequences of both are not desirable.
- Underestimation usually results in the delivery of poor or low quality product.
- Overestimation could be considered fraudulent. Sometimes it could be just to cover unexpected issues and risks. However, avoid situation where it could lead to project abandonment.
- Underestimation to reduce time and cost may end up costing you more money and time. Do not try to be ‘penny wise and pound foolish’.
- Do not provide estimate based on unclear needs or scope. Ask questions; do due diligence and state assumptions clearly.
- Cost may change; base it on justifiable or defendable reasons.
You might be thinking this is not real and no big deal, but a seriously business minded organization frown at careless estimates and you may loose respect over time. Even organizations which do not take their estimates seriously will do when they are dealing with limited resources and contending priorities.
Figure 17 – Cost Estimation Guide
Table 7 includes a reference or link to a result based cost estimation workguide template.
Table 7 – Cost Estimate Template
| PPMGuideProjectManagementPPM_CostEstimateTemplate.xls |
Financial Performance Tracking and Reporting
“Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.” Albert Einstein
A financial report should focus on what is relevant and useful for the stakeholders. Trying to report all possible financial records could overwhelm the audience and may dilute or hide vital information for decision making. The importance of relevant and valuable financial information cannot be understated. The content of a financial report, including the template, is discussed in Part 6 (Deliver Result).
Delegation of Authority (DOA)
Delegation of Authority (DOA) stipulates guidelines and rules to ensure quality of financial and related activities, by enforcing limited accountability at different assignment levels within the organization. This is a major requirement for auditing and responsible enforcement of financial dealings and service request approvals. It is not about whether or not you are trusted, it is about due diligence to ensure efficient and effective project cost performance tracking and prevent undue abuse of assigned roles and responsibilities.
As a project manager, you need to understand the DOA for your organization in order to effectively plan and secure approvals of key financial related activities for your project(s). You should accommodate the DOA reviews and approvals turn-around in the project plan (schedule). The DOA key elements are included in the Project Checklist section, Part 6 (Deliver Result).
Networking
Networking
It is very valuable to know who to call and seek help from when you are in challenging or tough situations. Establishing personal and professional links could serve you well. The goal here is to emphasize the value of networking.
Your networks include the internal and external parties who could become great asset to you in your professional life. So seize opportunities to develop and build on them. It could be through personal and professional contact or online contact (for example, social networking like faceguide.com, linkedin.com etc.). It does not cost you much; just pay some attention to it and it will pay off sometime. It is not usually one way, you may have something to offer to others, based on your experience, capability and skills, and others in your networks know it.
Identifying and seeking counsel from others, as a coach and/or a mentor, pays. Explore them in your workplace, professional gathering and other great avenues. Maintain good contact list of people in your networks. Keep networking at professional and social level, avoiding becoming part of a gossip network, political or rivalry camp within the organization.
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Stress Management
Stress Management
Stress is a common thing in the workplace due to the nature of the workplace. Workplace stress contributors include high work demand, time and cost constraints, people and other issues. Reasonable stress level could be good to move you from the comfort zone to creativity zone. Excessive and constant stress is a problem. Understanding causes of stress will enable you to exercise preventive measures to manage and minimise stress in your workplace or project team.
Causes of stress include the following:
§ Unrealistic expectations – putting great demand on teams, beyond their capability, in order to do more at lower cost and/or in less time.
§ Incompetence – inability to confidently perform an assignment either due to wrong self-assessment or due to assignment of tasks that are not commensurate to the resource skill set or capability.
§ Lack of enough rest – long hours’ work, without enough rest to be in a state of mind and physique to withstand regular long hours of work, could be a recipe for disaster.
§ Disorganization of self, information and team.
§ Organization culture and practices – high level of bureaucracy, unstructured and ineffective governance, favouritism, unethical behaviours, imbalance performance reward etc.
§ Emergency situations – include fire and flood. These are usually rare occurrences, and their impacts could be very transient.
§ Lack of adequate equipment, tools and technologies, required to support the project, could cause frustration leading to stressful situations.
Stress can be managed and controlled. Stress management techniques and tips are widely published and you can reference them in your local library or on the Internet. Unmanaged stress leads to loss of productivity or poor quality outcome. It is important to manage stress in a responsible way, because it is better to be safe than sorry.
Categories: Project delivery Tags: Stress Management
Decision Making
Decision Making
“I never worry about action, but only inaction.” Winston Churchill
You will always be making decisions about actions to be taken at every stage of the project. No matter the situation you encounter, you cannot afford to do nothing if you want the project to remain active and move forward. There is no room for inaction on a live project, when time is ticking and money is depleting.
Indecision is not an option. It is simply a sign of confusion or incompetence. Some may say indecision or inaction is an option; that is only true for the lame and the confused. If fear of repercussion is preventing you from taking action, seek and ask for help. There are willing folks within your team, unit or organization or other professional colleagues who will share their thoughts and get you out of the confusion and stalemate. You are never alone, except you keep yourself from others, who are willing to help.
For every decision you are about to make, obtain facts from reliable sources and understand the consequences to a reasonable degree. A decision method is dependent on the situation. Decision methods may include any or combinations of the following: negotiate, consult, instruct or direct, mediate etc.
Make a decision and take actions once you have understood and accepted the implications or consequences of the decision.
Categories: Project delivery Tags: Decision Making
Leadership
Leadership
“Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is growing or swelling.” Woodrow Wilson
There are leadership qualities you should be aware of and practice to be a successful project manager. Leadership is not only for those in the executive, higher management and supervisory positions, or entrepreneurs. It cuts across every level of the organization. Leadership is about being accountable, taking charge of an assignment, helping others to succeed, having the right attitude and commitment to go above and beyond the call of duty. Leadership discipline contributes significantly to becoming and sustaining a performing organization.
As a leader or project manager, your role is to simplify things (such as vision, mission, scope, and deliverables) to a point where every responsible party can clearly understand his/her assignments and commit to deliver them. You should be proactive in discovering issues and risks, with help from all reliable sources. Help the team by ensuring or creating a clear path from the goal setting to result, remove obstacles to performance and set the team members up for success.
A leader is not threatened by strong characters, but open to and tolerant of diverse opinions. A leader encourages, believes and promotes healthy and open debates, promotes and celebrates service excellence. A leader is like the conductor of an orchestra. He/she makes no sound or plays no instrument, but his/her actions facilitate the delivery of a masterpiece musical show by the team of talented musical instruments’ handlers. The leader’s actions usually match the outcome.
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Political Acuity
Political Acuity
“Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.” Albert Einstein
The most important thing here is the political awareness. You do not need to be a political figure or professional politician. However, you need to be aware of when, why and how politics are used in your organization, particularly those that are, most often than not, geared towards personal, rather than organizational, interests.
A project manager should be sensitive, bold and decisive, and tolerant of diverse opinions. He/she should wisely manage behaviours that may jeopardize the interest of the project and the organization. In dealing with political issues, take note of the following:
- Be more professional than political. Politics in organizations may involve the use of unfair or illegal means to get result, which are mostly beneficial to individuals. Such approach breeds rancour, vengeful attitudes and behaviours. Never underrate the intelligence and power of others, irrespective of their levels in the organization. What you need is a committed, not conforming, team to achieve result. Wrongful use of power makes people conformant or mediocre at best.
- You need practice and experience to handle political situations, due to the unique nature of each occurrence and issues involved. No amount of theory, though helpful, will solve political issues.
- Make decision and take action once you can accept the consequences. Remember that sometimes it makes sense to act now and ask for forgiveness later. It may be your best bet in certain situations where nothing seems to be moving or get done. Though this is not a license to indulge in silly behaviours. You still have to take calculated risk, which takes skills and requires sound judgement. It may be necessary for the project manager to secure some alliances when extreme measures have to be taken or extra ordinary decisions have to be made.
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