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Tools, Tips and Lists
35+ Tips for Project Managers Excellent advice for both new and experienced project managers. ABOUT YOU Determine to be professional. It is easy to give mental assent on a training course, but then to ‘let things slip’ when you get back to the project environment. Determine to do it right – only you can do that.Review your progress. List action points for your project management and ensure that you are meeting them. Put notes in your diary (say at 3 month intervals) so that you can spend half an hour or an hour reviewing if you are putting your points into action. You could team up with another project manager and help each other check progress – accountability can help! Learn from your experience. Yes the project may well have a ‘Lessons Learned Report’, but what about having your own personal ‘Amnesia Book’? Put some time aside at the end of the project and perhaps at key points through it, to record what you are learning (what worked well not just what went wrong!). You can also make entries for useful tips you pick up on courses, seminars and in reading. Then from time to time, and especially when you are starting a new project, you can flip through and refresh your memory. 
Ongoing development. Take responsibility for
your own development in Project Management. Plan to read, or attend more
training to keep yourself up to date and moving forward. Then make sure
you are doing it. Conferences can help sometimes, but it can take a long
time to pick up a few tips!
PLANNING Don’t omit deliverable led planning. It is tempting to get straight into activities, especially if you are using a computer scheduling tool. But remember that deliverable planning pays dividends. It is not a saving to omit it.Be realistic. It is abandoning control and diminishing your chances of success to bow to pressure to put unrealistic times into the project plan. Don’t offer early estimates. Unless you are really sure of your ground, don’t give ‘off-the-top-of-your-head’ project estimates, particularly to senior staff. When you have determined that the project actually involves much more than you first realised (normal!) it will be very hard to go back to increase your estimate no matter how many ‘ifs’. ‘buts’, ‘provisionals’ and ‘depending ons’ that you mentioned in the first place. Resist pressure by saying things such as “I need to go away and think through what would be involved – can I get back to you on Wednesday?” Don’t cut back on planning. It is a false economy to rush into the project without a good plan to manage it. Don’t over-plan. The other side of the coin is that your plans should be balanced against the control needs of the project. Plans that are too sophisticated will cost you twice. It will cost you effort to build them, then it will cost you again to maintain them. Include contingency. If you don’t you will be late, or overspent, or both. Something is going to happen that you haven’t thought about. Murphy’s Law is that ‘If something can go wrong, it will go wrong!’ O’Connor maintained that Murphy was an optimist! Involve the Project Board or Sponsor. Get the Board or Sponsor involved in the planning to ensure that they understand it, accept it and can provide the resource listed on it. Be open with the Project Board or Sponsor. Don’t hide things like contingency or risk. Be open unless you are absolutely forced to close down by conditions such as ‘blame cultures’. But even blame cultures can be attacked by naming them and discussing them with the Board or Sponsor up front. Get signatures. Don’t allow Project Briefs or Project Initiation Documents or Phase documents to be accepted merely by verbal assent. Get them physically signed off. This will be easier if you make the requirement for signing off clear before the product is even written. It is also easier if the title page has marked spaces for signatures. Keep the plans up to date. This requires discipline but it must be done. It is pointless having project plans that do not help you determine action where we are now. A plan representing the position eleven weeks ago is not going to help you manage today’s problem. RISK MANAGEMENT Don’t omit risk management. So many projects fail when situations arise that could have been both predicted and controlled. Don’t let yours be one of them.List the risks. Make them visible, then they can be managed and everyone knows about them. Don’t get carried away by the numbers. The numbers (scales of probability and impact) can help with risk analysis, but don’t get so focussed on the numbers that you lose touch with the reality of the risk. A low probability but high impact risk may still need some management, despite its seemingly low ‘score’. Ensure that countermeasures are working. What is worse than biting into an apple and finding a maggot? Biting into an apple and finding half a maggot! What is worse than a project that gets hit by an uncontrolled risk? A project which gets hit by an uncontrolled risk that was identified and analysed, but we forgot to put the management plan into action to control it! Beware of risk bravado. In group situations, people can sometimes spur each other on to accept risks that no one would countenance if they were alone – they all like to be seen as brave and confident! Beware of risk wimping. It is not usually the case that all risks must be avoided on the project. Most involve a balance. Beware of trying to squeeze out all risk at disproportionately high cost. QUALITY Integrate quality management. Quality management is a part of project management. It needs to be incorporated into the whole process and included in the plan. It is not possible to build a product and then sprinkle some quality on if there is time.Give quality the right priority. In many cases organisations focus on delivery, on time, and within budget, but don’t look seriously at quality. But in the long run quality may be very important or even the most important. Two years down the line if the product is exactly right and works really well, it may not matter that delivery was a couple of weeks late and the project slightly overspent. Challenge organisational standards. If any of the site standards don’t help your project, try to get exemption. It is pointless and expensive complying with standards that don’t offer a benefit in this project, and it will pull down a team’s performance if they have to undertake work that they know to be of no real value. 
Spell out quality responsibilities. Make it clear
who is responsible for checking quality, and then make sure that it was them
that checked it (not a substitute or a ‘deputy’ with insufficient skills).
Avoid quality games. Watch for quality games where people pretend to be meeting the quality requirements but are actually only paying lip service. A common one is where something must be signed, and people sign without having done a proper check. Senior managers in particular are often used to signing things that their staff have written for them and they don’t see a need to give a document more than a glance. This approach in a project environment is disastrous. DURING THE PHASE Monitor regularly. It is easier to keep on top of things than to let them slip and then try to catch up. Check progress regularly against the plan. Ensure that time and cash spent is recorded and the plan updated regularly (weekly is often the best). Project support services can help with this.Watch time and cost. Slippage of these two are significant early warning signs of project problems. Watch for other signs. Be observant and think what project metrics are telling you. For example, a lot of Requests for Change where team members are asking for signed off products to be re-worked should immediately lead to you checking the quality procedures. Get out there. You can’t project manage from behind a desk. You need to get about to see what is going on, and so that you are seen. You have an important role in encouraging the teams, so talk to people working on the project. You can find out what is going on and offer encouragement without undermining the authority of the team manager. Clear road blocks. Prepare to be personally involved in sorting out problems quickly so that the project is not delayed. Get out in front – proactive rather than reactive. Monitor the teams. Don’t neglect the human aspects of management in favour of your computerised scheduling tool. How are the teams getting on? Are the staff enthusiastic and upbeat, or sullen and disinterested? Team performance is the key to project success. SUPPLIERS Involve suppliers. Treat them as part of the project wherever possible. Involvement breeds commitment.Listen to suppliers. They are usually expert in their area and may sometimes know things that you don’t! Try and get their views early on and before things get too fixed when it may be too late to start taking advantage of unforeseen options (e.g. when the contract is already pinned down tightly). Communicate with suppliers. Their input needs to be project managed just like any other part of the project. Don’t forget to inform them of what is going on in the project as well. Communication is two way and they can’t be expected to mind read to know what is going on. Allow bad news. Don’t store up problems in the project by making it clear to suppliers that you only want to hear good news. You need to know what is going on in YOUR project, and if you don’t know about a problem then you can’t help resolve it. Try to pick good ones. This sounds obvious, but in some organisations, ‘good’ is spelled ‘c-h-e-a-p’ and the two are not always the same! Delivery orientation. Delivery of an expensive supply on time may prove to be a lot cheaper than delivery of a cheaper supply late. If your project is to save your organisation money, think of the delayed benefits when you think of going for a cheaper supplier who may not deliver on time and so hold up the whole project. CLOSE OUT Make sure the project is closed cleanly. Some projects are allowed to ‘fizzle out’ with remnants of the team still working on the final products and where nobody is clear if the project is still running or the products are in ‘maintenance’.Is it all done? It sounds obvious, but check that everything that should have been delivered has been delivered. Don’t forget items such as maintenance and operational instructions. Do you have another 'tip' that you would like added to this list? Please send it to resource@mentoric.com. |
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