Project Management Manual

Project Management Manual

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About This Course

Author: Sherri Petro Runtime: 2hrs. 14min. Lessons: 27

Course Description Learn how to initiate, plan, and execute thriving projects. This course teaches students to better understand how to balance the constraints of time, cost, and resources through the five stages of successful project management. Project Management Manual

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 5 Objectives ...... 5 Query ...... 6 The Basics ...... 8 What is Project Management? ...... 9 Project Management Institute (PMI) ...... 10 A Little Bit of History ...... 12 More Recent History ...... 14 The Project Management Institute ...... 15 Project Management Techniques ...... 16 Traditional Project Management ...... 17 Six Phases of a Project—Tongue in Cheek! ...... 18 Agile Unified Process ...... 19 Event Chain Methodology ...... 21 Process-Based Management ...... 23 Project Managers Depth of Knowledge and Experience in: ...... 24 The Challenges ...... 26 Query ...... 26 Think about the challenges you’ve had on projects ...... 26 20 Project Management Activities ...... 28 “Official” Constraints ...... 30 Common Challenges ...... 31 Best Practices ...... 32 Project Managers ...... 32 Traditional Stages Revisited ...... 32 Initiating ...... 34 Initiating Successful Projects ...... 35 Successful Project Manager ...... 36 Kick-off ...... 37 Project Management Manual

Scope Inputs ...... 37 Exercise ...... 39 Think of an upcoming project: ...... 39 Planning and Executing Successful Projects ...... 41 Plan Components ...... 42 Project Plan Questions: ...... 43 Estimating, Planning and Scheduling Questions ...... 44 Coordinating, Communicating, Teambuilding, and Facilitating Results ...... 46 Assess Risk and Procure Resources ...... 47 Monitoring and Controlling Successful Projects ...... 49 Project Control ...... 50 A Time Management Prayer ...... 51 Quality and Communication ...... 52 Troubleshooting and Problem Solving ...... 53 Closing ...... 54 Final Tips and Techniques to Ensure Success ...... 55 Objectives ...... 57 How did we do? ...... 57

Project Management Manual

Introduction

This manual contains tips and techniques to help you better manage your time and projects.

Our goal is to help you learn new ways to apply your own style and ideas to become a better project manager.

Objectives

 Define the basics of project management

 Determine the challenges

 Share “best practices”

Let’s begin with your objectives. You are spending valuable time taking this course. Why? What are your intentions? Please indicate your intentions here:

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Query

Think of the best project you have ever completed. You have completed all kinds of projects in your life. Can you remember a time you achieved a positive result? Maybe it was a big project, maybe it was a small project, but when have you achieved a result?

What was the project?

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Who helped you?

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Who was on your team?

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What were you trying to achieve?

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Now that you have the foundation laid, what made the project work?

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The Basics

While we always want to end up with a successful project, we need to start somewhere. Let’s start with the Merriam Webster definition of success. Which one of these is most applicable?

Main Entry: suc·ceed

Function: verb

Etymology: Middle English succeden, from Latin succedere to go up, follow after, succeed, from sub- near + cedere to go -- more at SUBintransitive senses

1) a: to come next after another in office or position or in possession of an estate; especially : to inherit sovereignty, rank, or title b : to follow after another in order

2) a: to turn out well b : to attain a desired object or end

3) obsolete: to pass to a person by inheritance transitive senses

1: to follow in sequence and especially immediately

2: to come after as heir or successor synonym see: FOLLOW

- suc·ceed·er noun Project Management Manual

What is Project Management?

Project management is the discipline of organizing and managing resources in order to deliver all the work required to complete a project within a defined scope, quality, time, and cost.

Do you think there is something missing from this definition?

Let’s not forget the people. We get so caught up in the processes that we forget the most important part of the project—the people who will get it done.

Can you think of a time when a project was started and the people in it were not honored? How did that happen? What could it have been done better? Tell your story below.

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Project Management Manual

Project Management Institute (PMI)

Project Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet project requirements. Here’s something to chew on: How does project management differ from

“regular” work?

In project management, I do this:

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In regular work, I do this:

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What are the similarities?

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What are the differences?

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Project Management Manual

A Little Bit of History

 Henry Gantt

 1950s marked the beginning of the era

 Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

 Critical Path Method (CPM)

 PMI formed in 1969

 Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) published in 1981

We can learn from history and have a healthy respect for the past. Now let’s talk about your history in order to make this real.

When did you first start managing projects?

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What was your first project?

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What was the first lesson you ever learned in project management?

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More Recent History

 PMBOK® Guide – attempt to document and standardize generally accepted information

and practices

 The PMBOK® Guide - Third Edition is widely accepted to be the standard in project

management

 Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3®) is in development

 Knowledge

 Assessment

 Improvement

 Global standard in development

If you are looking at this from an academic standpoint, you can find plenty of resources that will help you better understand the history of project management. Check out www.PMI.org for more. The Project Management Institute is a well-respected nonprofit organization.

 At PMI, their primary goal is to advance the practice, science, and profession of project

management throughout the world in a conscientious and proactive manner so that

organizations everywhere will embrace, value, and utilize project management and

attribute their successes to it.

Project Management Manual

The Project Management Institute

 Founded in 1969 by working project managers

 420,000 members and credential holders

 PMI Membership supports and encourages all project professionals to pursue a new

balance of global and local best practices, relationship building, and sharing resources

o They have 250 chapters in over 70 countries

 Global standards are crucial to the project management profession. Standards ensure

that a basic project management framework is applied consistently worldwide.

 They have been at the forefront of developing 11 global standards (including

Program and Portfolio Management) and have sold two million copies of A Guide to

the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—Third Edition in

Circulation.

Project Management Manual

Project Management Techniques

 Traditional

 Agile Unified Process

 Event Chain Methodology

 Critical Chain

 Process-Based Management

We have several project management techniques, including the Traditional model. Do any of these sound familiar to you? If so, which ones?

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What do they mean to you?

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Have you used them – or are you not yet sure?

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Traditional Project Management

 Initiation

 Planning

 Execution or production

 Monitoring and controlling

 Completion

In your opinion, what is the most important stage?

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Project Management Manual

Think of a project that was unsuccessful or challenging. On these projects that have not gone well in the past, where was the hang-up?

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Why do you think the project got stuck?

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Six Phases of a Project—Tongue in Cheek!

 Wild Enthusiast

 Total Disillusionment

 Complete Panic

 Search for the Guilty

 Punishment of the Innocent

 Praise & Honor for Nonparticipants

Project Management Manual

Do you have any humorous stories from your time working on projects? It might help to get them out of your head and down on paper:

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Agile Unified Process

 Inception

 Scope it! Plan it! Get money for it!

 Elaboration

 Prove it!

 Construction

 Build it!

 Transition

 Deploy it!

The agile unified process is used a lot in software and new business development. Project Management Manual

What are other applications for this technique that might work for you?

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Why might it not work for your projects?

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Project Management Manual

Event Chain Methodology

 Uses uncertainty modeling and network analysis technique, focusing on events and event

chains that affect scheduling

 Allows for easy modeling of uncertainties in the schedule

 Probabilistic risk

 Tasks are affected by external events at any time

 Event chains are events that can cause other events which can affect the project

 Critical events or event chains are the ones that have the most potential to affect projects

 Involves project tracking with events and forecast future project performance

 Event chain visualization uses event chain diagrams on a Gantt chart

Uncertainties can waylay a great project. Have you experienced an event during a project that

“came out of left-field” and caused you to take a different direction?

Which project?

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How did you deal with it?

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Make a commitment to better understand the consequences of your actions within the project management framework. It is critical during start-up that you consider many of the events that could enhance or hamper your efforts.

Write your intent here. That’s right. Write it out. How are you going to ensure that you remember to flow with critical events rather than fight them? Every project has some surprise in it somewhere!

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Project Management Manual

Process-Based Management

 Think from a process perspective

 Process governs the mindset and actions in the organization

 Align the operations with the vision, mission, and values of the organization

 Work towards achieving the vision rather than targeting specific activities and tasks

Have you ever issued a project flow chart?

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How did it work to help the team complete the goal?

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Project Management Manual

Project Managers Depth of Knowledge and Experience in:

 Time

 Cost

 Scope

 Risk

 Integration

 Communication

 Human resources

 Quality assurance

 Schedule development

 Procurement

From this list:

Which do you manage best?

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Project Management Manual

Where can you improve?

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What’s missing from your knowledge and experience that you would like to develop?

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Project Management Manual

The Challenges

Challenges? What is your number one project management challenge?

Query:

Think about the challenges you’ve had on projects

We’ve spent time on the best project you were ever involved in. Now, let’s go in the opposite direction. Write out your story below. Start with the background:

What was the project?

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What were you trying to achieve?

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Who was involved?

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What happened?

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20 Project Management Activities

 Define the objective

 Plan the work

 Manage risk

 Estimate resources

 Allocate resources

 Organize the work

 Acquire resources

 Assign tasks

 Direct activities

 Control execution

 Track and report progress

 Analyze the results

 Forecast future trends in the project

 Manage quality

 Manage issues

 Solve issues

 Prevent issues

 Close the project

 Arrange the celebration

 Communicate Project Management Manual

Notice how all the activities are active verbs. You always have a lot to do as a project manager.

Even delegation becomes a key skill in getting a project done. It is reflection time again:

What do you do well?

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Where can you improve?

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What is missing from your method of managing projects?

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Answering these questions will help you focus on what to take away and what behaviors to change in your own project management. Project Management Manual

“Official” Constraints

 Scope

 Cost

 Time

The big three. Which one has stymied you most in the past?

 Finance

 Resources

 Time

Project Management Manual

Common Challenges

 Scarcity

 Clarity

 Time

 People

 Money

 Know-how

 Quality

 Abundance

 Scope Creep

 Risk

 Naysayers

 Overlap

Go back to where you wrote down your personal challenges. If this page gives you more ideas, add them below.

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Project Management Manual

Best Practices

Project Managers

What is the most important skill for a project manager?

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Traditional Stages Revisited

 Initiating

 Planning

 Executing

 Controlling and Monitoring

 Closing

What is the difference between this description of the traditional method and the one described earlier?

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Why did we make this change?

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Project Management Manual

Initiating

 It’s critical!

 Determines the nature and scope

 We must understand

– The environment

– The team

– Necessary controls

 Starts the plan

How well do your project kick-offs go?

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Based upon your instructor’s comments, what changes can you make to ensure you have better project initiations?

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Initiating Successful Projects

 Clearly define the scope

 Kick-start a winning project

 An inspiring project manager

What have you done to inspire your teams in the past?

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Based upon what you are learning today, what will you do differently in the future?

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Project Management Manual

Successful Project Manager

 Must be able to communicate

 Must get the right people on the team

 Must be able to envision the entire project from start to finish

 Must have the ability to ensure that this vision is realized

 Must be able to manage time, resources, risk, quality, and client satisfaction

 Must be able to achieve results

Use this job description to gauge your own performance. On a scale from one to ten, what would you rate yourself in each category?

_____ Communication

_____ Right people

_____ Vision

_____ Realize vision

_____ Manage time, resources, risk, quality, and client satisfaction

_____ Achieve results

Project Management Manual

Kick-off

 Who is in the room?

 What are they being told?

 What processes are we willing to create together to honor all our skills?

 How will we communicate activities, challenges, and solutions?

 How will we know we are successful?

Which of these resonate with you? Which can you commit to adding to your list?

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Scope Inputs

 What is the intention?

 What is the most successful outcome?

 What needs to be achieved?

 What background is relevant?

 What activities support achieving the outcome?

There’s more! Project Management Manual

Which of these resonate with you? Which can you commit to adding to your list?

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Project Management Manual

Exercise

Think of an upcoming project:

What is the intention?

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What is the most successful outcome?

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What needs to be achieved?

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What background is relevant?

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What activities support achieving the outcome?

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Project Management Manual

Who is in the room?

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What are they being told?

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What processes are you willing to create to honor everyone’s skills?

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How will we communicate activities, challenges, and solutions?

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How will we know we are successful?

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Planning and Executing Successful Projects

 Develop a compelling project plan

 Estimate, budget, and resource planning

 Flexible scheduling that yields high performance

 Facilitate top quality results

 Coordinate, negotiate, and communicate effectively

 Build, lead, and energize your team

 Identify and assess risks

 Organize procurement

Let’s concentrate on a project plan. Why is this project important and worthy of the time required to make it happen?

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How much money will you need?

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Plan Components

 Address needs

 Have measurable goals

 Review current operations

 Design the operation of the final product

 Define requirements

 Analyze the costs and benefits

 Include a budget

 Select stakeholders

 Create a project charter

 Define tasks, deliverables, costs, and schedule

What are your goals?

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What do you need, other than money and workers, to make this project work?

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How will you create the project charter and use it to insure success?

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Project Plan Questions:

 Who? ______

 What? ______

 When? ______

 Where? ______

 How? ______

 Make sure you’ve hit all of these in your plan......

Project Management Manual

Estimating, Planning and Scheduling Questions

What resources do you have to work with?

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What time constraints do you have to work with?

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How do your team members manage time?

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Project Management Manual

What processes can everyone commit to?

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Which one of the questions above hardly ever gets addressed?

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What is the timeline?

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How are you going to react to surprises and build them into your timeline?

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Project Management Manual

Coordinating, Communicating, Teambuilding, and Facilitating Results

Who is doing what and when?

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What glitches are we facing?

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When and how will we communicate?

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How will we ensure we are on the same wavelength?

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How will we handle conflicts?

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Project Management Manual

Who are the back-ups if key individuals must move off the team?

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How will you support team members?

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How will we hold ourselves and each other accountable?

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What are all the ways we can communicate and which ones will work for us?

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Assess Risk and Procure Resources

Where can this falter?

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What are the possibilities of failure?

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What are the probabilities?

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Where can we get more assistance?

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How long will it take?

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What are the impacts on the scope or on pending results?

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There is no need to go overboard and become gloomy. You just have to assess risk realistically.

If you are up-selling the project in your organization, your supervisors will want to know the risks. What is the difference between possibilities and probabilities?

Monitoring and Controlling Successful Projects

 Controlling change proactively

 Managing time, minimizing costs, and monitoring resources

 Ensuring quality

 Maintaining open communications

 Containing risks

 Handling procurement

 Troubleshooting and problem-solving

From the story the instructor told, how do you think she could have done better?

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Project Management Manual

Project Control

The element of a project that keeps it:

 On-track

 On-time

 Within budget

Which one is most often missed in your organization?

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Reflection: What are your best time management techniques?

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Project Management Manual

Managing time is a misnomer. We engage time more than manage it, don’t we? List your best techniques here:

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From the instructor, list more techniques you plan on integrating into your time management:

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A Time Management Prayer

Grant me the serenity to prioritize the things I cannot delegate, the courage to say no when I need to, and the wisdom to know when to go home.

Say this out loud three times, or print it out and keep it at your desk for inspiration!

Project Management Manual

Quality and Communication

_____ Process checks

_____ Safe environment to share

_____ Create milestones

_____ Use positivity in meetings

From the instructor, how can you move to more positive communications?

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How can you create a safe environment?

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What is your process for developing your process checks?

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Troubleshooting and Problem Solving

Which skill will you practice in the next three months?

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Project Management Manual

Closing

 The formal acceptance of the project and the end of the project scope

 Celebrating victory

 Producing quality reports

 Evaluating processes

 Administrative activities

 Archiving the files

 Documenting lessons learned, starting with, “What worked?”

Which one of these usually gets short-shrift?

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How will you ensure that you don’t let that happen on your next project?

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Project Management Manual

Final Tips and Techniques to Ensure Success

 Feed the passion of your team

 Celebrate milestones along the way

 Juggle multiple projects

 Tools for success

To summarize, while we concentrate on our processes and methodologies, these are things that also contribute to our success as project managers.

How will you feed passion?

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How will you celebrate milestones along the way?

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How will you juggle multiple tasks?

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How will you ensure the tools for success are available?

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Objectives

 Define the basics of project management

 Determine the challenges

 Share best practices

How did we do?

You’ve certainly become more aware of your own style as you worked your way to the end.

You’ve also learned the basics, gained a better understanding of the challenges, and been introduced to the best practices. Use what you know. Create a project plan. Think of applying what you have learned during this workshop to your new project. Review some of the questions and complete them with budgets and timelines. Give yourself thirty minutes of planning time.

Then, GO FOR IT!