This document provides an overview of project management concepts and best practices. It discusses the realistic project life cycle which includes initiation, planning, execution, and closure phases. Key steps in planning a project are defining objectives and scope, structuring the project, scheduling tasks, analyzing risks, and establishing controls. The document emphasizes clear communication, tracking progress, allowing flexibility, and evaluating outcomes for continual learning and improvement on projects.
Project management - a practical overview Sue Greener
1. D R S U E G R E E N E R
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
A PRACTICAL OVERVIEW
2. THE 6 PHASES OF A PROJECT?
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punish the innocent
6. Praise and reward the
non-participants.
3. SERIOUSLY, PROJECTS CAN HIT
TROUBLE
Through:
• Inadequate project definitions at start
• Not making a sufficient business case for
the project to stakeholders (costs and
benefits)
• Lack of communication within teams
• Allowing insufficient time for actions
• Inadequate definitions of roles and
responsibilities
• Lack of control & co-ordination through
the project
• Ignoring constraints and thinking the
project is more important than ongoing
work at the client organisation
• Ignoring risks
4. THE PROJECT LIFE CYCLE
1. Identify problem
2. Gather data
3. Analyse data
4. Generate solutions
5. Select the best
6. Plan the implementation
7. Implement and test
8. Monitor and evaluate.
Too
theoretical –
it rarely
happens this
way
5. THINK OF A PROJECT YOU HAVE COMPLETED
E.G. AN ASSIGNMENT
1. When did you first get or get given the idea? At what stage in the process? How
much later was it before you knew what you had to do? what steps were involved?
By you? By others?
2. How did you plan it? Did you decide on the resources needed or was it decided for
you? (tools, equipment, supplies, people etc)
3. Once underway, did it go to plan? In budget, time & quality? Any unforeseen
problems? If so, how did you cope?
4. On completion were there resources unused?
5. After completion did you analyse what happened? Ideas for improvement?
6. REALISTIC PROJECT CYCLE
Initiation
• Defining the project objectives & scope
• Structuring the project
Planning
• Scheduling the project
• Analysing the plan for risks
• Reviewing the plan and assumptions
• Establishing controls
Execution
• Action
• Keep monitoring controls,
changing where needed
Closure
• Report to stakeholders
• Review for future learning
7. HOW DO WE GET STARTED?
• Projects:
• Have unique outcomes
• Are concerned with change
• Take place over a limited and defined period of time
• Use a variety of resources
• To manage a project successfully you need to meet the
needs of:
• The client organisation
• The project
• The project team
8. WHAT DO WE NEED? INFORMATION
• Information about the project
• Clear, specific, numerate, accurate
• Duration, cost/budget, complexity,
importance to client, risk, level of
innovation, links with other projects
• Stakeholders to the project
• Any key milestones - dates
• Information about the project team
• Expertise, skills, time allocation
• Knowledge about the project
• Commitment
• How to connect and share
• Project roles and responsibilities
9. THE PLAN
• Verbal agreement and brainstorms are not plans
• Plans need to be recorded, in a way that is shareable and can be
updated easily through the project
• Plans have overall outcomes but also tasks which must be tracked
and achieved in relevant order
• Plans must:
• Have enough detail to be meaningful but not too complex
• Be easily understood by all in the team
• Be easy to change, update, revise
• Be easy to use for monitoring project progress & helping communication
• A good plan will be based on a Project Specification – giving scope,
aims, key milestones and deliverables which everyone signs up to.
This is the project sales document
10. THE PLAN IN DETAIL
• Deliverables from the project
• Overall timescale, cost/budget
• Actions needed to achieve deliverables within time
span at budgeted cost
• When these actions should start and finish
• Who will carry out the actions
• What resources (information, data, tools, research)
are needed to achieve these actions
• A work breakdown schedule (WBS) will summarise all
the above
11. INTERDEPENDENCY OR HOW PLANS
GET TANGLED
• Some actions must be completed
before others, other actions can be
simultaneous
• A Gantt chart is the simplest way to
identify and communicate these
interdependencies
• Needs a horizontal timescale
• A vertical list of activities/tasks
• A horizontal bar for each activity to show
duration against timescale
• Should visually show critical path
through the project
• More complex projects are likely to
need Critical Path Analysis (CPA) or a
network analysis showing time slack
between activities eg PERT or a
software tool like PRINCE2
13. PROJECT TEAM MEETING GUIDE 1
• The goal is effective meetings where discussion
takes place, all perspectives are respected and you
leave the meeting with a sense that you’ve made
progress towards the project goals
• First meeting
• Get acquainted
• Discuss how you’ll handle meetings
• Elect a co-ordinator, a recorder and a time-keeper (can
rotate)
• Clarify the project
• How will leadership be provided for various phases/key tasks
of the project?
• Plan how you will communicate and how often
• Make sure everyone signs up to the project specification and
the work breakdown schedule
14. THE TASK CYCLE – QUESTIONS TO DISCUSS
IN THE TEAM
Purpose:
Why is the team here and what exactly is the reason for the task
ahead? How does the task fit in to ongoing client systems?
Output (s):
What outputs are needed? What will they look like? When are they
needed? Who are they for? Will client staff need training?
Process:
How can we achieve the outputs? What methods or means can we
use? What ground rules can we agree?
Capability:
What knowledge or information do we need? What skills or
resources would help? What is the minimum needed before we
start?
Roles:
Who will do what? Do we have specific expertise? Contacts?
Monitoring:
How will we keep track? What systems do we need?
15. PROJECT TEAM MEETING GUIDE 2
• Planning future meetings
• Set regular meeting times in
calendars but cancel if not
needed
• Set a beginning and end time
for meetings
• Time agenda items before or
at start
• Prioritise what must be done
at the meeting and what
could be left over
• Prepare for meetings
• Ensure you have completed
all your set tasks from
previous meetings
• Send agenda to team
members
16. PROJECT TEAM MEETING GUIDE 3
• Running a meeting
• Start and end the meeting on time
• Stick to the agenda – time keeper takes charge
• Use the task cycle and the project specification and work breakdown
schedule
• Use brainstorming techniques for creative sessions
• Attack problems, not the people in the group. Try to reach consensus,
Give a little and take a little.
• Divide up the tasks, take turns in doing various tasks
• Transition to next meeting
• During the meeting, record decisions, deadlines and assignments
• At end of each meeting: review decisions and deadlines, make certain
all team members know their responsibilities, evaluate your meeting
processes, how your group worked and suggest improvements
• A simple way to do this is to use someone’s mobile – set to video and
pass around the team – everyone says what they agreed to do by when.
Keep it very short and upload to a common space – see later slides.
17. HELPFUL HINTS FOR SMOOTH
PROJECT ACTION
• Plan for contingencies
• Accept things will go wrong
• Your project is not alone,
remember the implications for
client staff and systems
• Keep talking to all members of
the team, don’t let one go quiet
• Time planning – Gantt charts
can be adjusted and should be
kept updated
• Committing to take action
means exactly that. Not giving
excuses for non-completion
• If you can’t do what you
agreed, communicate fast,
don’t wait until a meeting to
own up
• Take ownership – at least of
part of the project
• Always ask questions, never
pretend you understand if you
don’t
• Keep the client in mind – this is
not about the project team, it’s
about the deliverables to the
client
• When you bring information to
the team, always give the
source / evidence
• Make a difference – or why do
it?
• The client presentation is not
the end, evaluate and learn
18. PROJECT EVALUATION
• Have the objectives been met?
• Are the benefits of the project quantified to the client?
• Did the project outcomes fit with the client’s organisation?
• Are the sponsors or clients of the project satisfied with the outcome?
• Was the project delivered on time?
• Did the project keep to budget (that includes people hours and use of any
resources)?
19. BUSINESS CHALLENGES
• Four groups: Four business
challenges
• How can you see the
projects in each team
shaping?
• Can you predict common
milestones?
• How can you share activity
within the groups?
• Consider Trello
(video intro at
https://trello.com/guide/go_de
eper.html)
20. BUSINESS CHALLENGES
• Four groups: Four
business challenges
• How can you stay in
touch for free without
trawling through emails
and worries about
incompatible messaging
systems?
• Consider WhatsApp
(download to phone at
https://www.whatsapp.com/
download/
Notes de l'éditeur
ALL IMAGES EITHER MADE BY SG OR GOOGLE IMAGES LABELLED FOR NON COMMERCIAL REUSE