| Project management |
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| Monday, 29 June 2009 07:39 |
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Topic Summary This topic helps you: • Scope out a project and define project objectives • Develop realistic schedules and set deadlines • Create and accurate and usable budget • Monitor budgets and keep projects on track • Communicate progress and problems to stakeholders • Assess risk and develop contingency plans Topic Map Topic Overview What Would You Do? Topic Map Topic Summary About the Mentor Using the Topic Core Concepts What Is Project Management? Identifying the Business Need and Project Objectives Understanding Competing Demands and "Scope Creep" Defining Roles and Responsibilities Creating a Project Charter Developing High-Level Estimates Assembling Your Team and Assigning Tasks Developing a Budget Developing a Schedule Creating a Communications Plan Launching the Project Monitoring and Controlling the Project Managing Risk Wrapping up the Project Steps Steps for Building an Effective Project Team Steps for Building a Gantt Chart Steps for Developing a Critical Path Tips Tips for Getting Your WBS Right Tips for Scheduling a Project Tips for Selecting Project-Management Software Tips for Putting a Late Project Back on Schedule Tools Worksheet for Identifying Your Project Objectives Project Charter Worksheet Worksheet for Developing High-Level Estimates Worksheet for Assessing Project Team Members' Skills Meeting Minutes Form Worksheet for Monitoring Project Progress Form for Capturing Lessons Learned Test Yourself Instructions To Learn More Online Articles Articles Books eLearning Programs About the Mentor Mary Grace Duffy Mary Grace Duffy, EdD, a partner at the Cambridge Hill Partners, has more than 30 years’ experience “multitasking” as both a line manager and a consultant. She has condensed this expertise into practical techniques for managing tasks and people, managing organizational change, planning and decision making, and the other key skills for successful project management. Her work focuses on expanding managers’ existing general management skills to improve their project management abilities. What Would You Do? Brett was in charge of launching the company's public relations program. After three months of creative energy and high enthusiasm, the mood of the group began to change. Team members were overworked and deadlines were slipping. Even the quality of the team's work seemed to be decreasing. Amidst all these concerns, Brett received a memo from his boss asking for a progress update. What would Brett say? How could he get the project back on track before his boss pulled the plug on it? What would you do? What Could You Do? Even though the project is underway, Brett might start by revisiting the objectives, schedule, and set of deliverables that were decided upon during the early planning phase. By reviewing these documents and retracing how the work then unfolded, he might uncover the roots of the problems. Next, Brett needs to evaluate his options for getting his project back on track. Perhaps he can renegotiate some of the deadlines or narrow the project scope. Maybe he can hire temporary help or delegate some of his work to another group. Each step of the way, he should communicate with his team and keep his boss appraised of what's happening. In this topic, you'll learn how to define the scope and mission of your projects; plan schedules, budgets, and tasks; and create back-up plans, so your project can keep on track even when you encounter obstacles. Using the Topic Topic Structure The content for Project Management is divided into the sections listed below. Links to these sections appear across the top of your screen. Topic Overview Click Topic Overview for an introduction to the topic. Review a hypothetical situation, What Would You Do?, followed by a possible solution, What Could You Do? The Topic Map provides a "site map" with links to all the elements within the topic. Core Concepts Click Core Concepts for a comprehensive presentation of the main ideas in the topic. Learn how to lead a project from start to finish—from defining the project scope and objectives to planning the schedule and budget, to executing the tasks, and to evaluating its success when closing it down. Steps Click Steps for information on how to build an effective team, create Gantt charts, and develop a critical path diagram. Tips Click Tips for information on how to create an effective Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), schedule a project, select project-management software, and put a late schedule back on track. Tools Click Tools for worksheets and forms to help you identify your project objectives, develop your project charter, develop high-level estimates, assess project team members’ skills, capture meeting minutes, monitor project progress, and summarize lessons learned. Test Yourself Click Test Yourself to see what you’ve learned. You will receive immediate feedback on your choices. A summary page provides links to reference material. To Learn More Click To Learn More to read two articles related to the topic. You will also find an annotated list of articles and other resources. Topic Navigation To navigate through the topic, click the links at the top and on the left of your screen. When you click a link at the top of the screen, the links on the left will change. For a comprehensive, linear path through the topic, follow these steps: • Visit each section in the topic by clicking the links at the top, from left to right. • Review the information within each section by clicking the links on the left, from top to bottom. • In the Tools section, click on an icon to open a tool. You can print a copy of the tool to use offline. Or, you can complete the tool online and save it to your hard drive. • Finish by taking the quiz in Test Yourself and reading the Online Articles in To Learn More. ________________________________________ What Is Project Management? A project is a set of interrelated activities, usually involving a group of people working together toward a common goal or objective over a period of time. Designing a new car, for example, is a project. A group of people collaborates on design, building, testing, and modification. Once the new car goes into production, the project ends for the design group. The responsibility for producing, marketing, selling, and servicing the car is handed over to established departments or business units. Projects are undertaken at all levels in a company. They may require the efforts of a single person or many thousands. Their duration may range from a week to more than two years. Some involve a single unit of one organization. Others (such as joint ventures and partnering) cross functional or even organizational boundaries. If you're managing a project and you want to ensure its success, you need to transform what may begin as a vague concept into a measurable and accountable process that meets your company's requirements. Project management, then, is the planning, scheduling, and orchestrating of project activities to achieve objectives within a specified period of time. Not surprisingly, project management requires strong organizational, budgeting, staffing, controlling, and communication skills. The benefits of project management By managing projects effectively, you generate immense benefits for your company. Here are just a few examples: • You ensure that things get done on time and budget. These achievements add predictability to your organization's work. • You minimize costs. By finding ways to deliver on objectives within reasonable planning horizons, good project managers reduce costs. • You utilize resources effectively. Sound project management makes more efficient use of money and valuable employees' time. • You add value to the business. Projects are a key means by which organizations reach their strategic goals. Project management as a process To manage a project, you typically progress through four phases: 1. Defining and organizing the project. You identify the business need for and objectives of the project; clarify competing demands and watch for scope creep; define roles and responsibilities; create a project charter; and develop high-level time and cost estimates. 2. Planning the project: You assemble your team and assign tasks; develop a budget; develop a schedule; and create a communications plan. 3. Executing the project: You launch the project with your team; monitor and control progress in terms of cost, time, and quality; and manage risk. 4. Closing down the project: You and the project team evaluate the team's performance; archive documents related to the project; capture lessons learned; and celebrate the project's completion. Overlapping tasks and activities Even though the four phases of project management have distinct activities associated with them and the process appears linear, the major tasks of the phases often overlap and are iterative. For example, you might begin the first phase of defining and organizing the project with an approximate figure for your budget and an estimated completion date for the project. Once you're in the second phase, planning the project and filling in the details of the project plan, you'll probably want your budget and schedule estimates to be much more specific. So you'll revisit some of the steps you took during the defining and organizing phase, asking questions in greater detail. Similar overlaps occur in later phases of the project life cycle. Returning to the activities and tasks of an earlier phase in this way does not mean that you're moving backward or losing ground. Rather, it simply means that you are incorporating new knowledge and information into the overall plan to improve the performance of your project tasks. See also the Online Article: "Dealing with a Project's 'Fuzzy Front End.'" Identifying the Business Need and Project Objectives Suppose you've been assigned a project with explicit responsibilities and expectations. In this case, it's still a good idea to make sure that you've correctly identified the underlying need that the project is supposed to meet so that project solves the right problem. For example, imagine you're an IT manager and several people in your department have asked for a new database and data-entry system. You informally ask them: "Why do we need the new system?" The answers you receive include: "We can't get the data out fast enough" and "I have to sift through four different reports to compile an update on my clients' recent activity." These responses describe symptoms, not underlying problems or needs. You need to ask more probing questions, such as "What type of data do you need?" "How are you using the data now?" and "How quickly do you need to retrieve the data?" Unless you know the answers to these and similarly detailed questions, you risk wasting time and money by designing a system that doesn't address your group's fundamental concerns. Here are some questions that can help you uncover the real issues at the core of your project: • What is the perceived need or purpose behind what we are trying to do? • What caused people to see this as a problem that needed solving? • Who has a stake in the solution or outcome? • How do the various stakeholders' goals for the project differ? • What criteria are people going to use to judge this project a success? Brainstorm alternatives After you have pinpointed the business need for the project under consideration, develop options for how you want to address that need. Brainstorm alternatives with your project team. Ask open-ended questions that encourage exploration of new ideas; for example: • How many different ways can we solve this problem? • Of the available alternatives, which will best solve the problem? Why? • Is this alternative more or less costly than other suitable choices? • Will this alternative result in a complete or only partial fix of the problem? Based on your responses to these and other questions, select the best alternative. Set project objectives The next step is to define your project's objectives. The success of your project will be defined by how well you meet your objectives. Thus, the more explicitly you state your objectives at the outset, the less disagreement there will be at the end about whether you have met them. When defining an objective, think SMART. In other words, an objective should be: • Specific • Measurable • Action-oriented • Realistic • Time-limited For example, consider a task force within an HR department that has been charged with developing a new health care benefits plan. Its SMART objectives might be: • To survey <action-oriented> at least six <measurable> providers that meet the department's minimum threshold criteria for service quality. • To recommend <action-oriented>, at the June <time-limited> board of directors' meeting, the three <specific> providers that offer the best and broadest coverage at a cost that is at least 10% <realistic> less than the company's current per-employee contribution. Align objectives In addition to making your objectives SMART, also be sure they are aligned with the company's objectives. Doing so ensures that everyone on the project team understands how the project at hand fits in with the larger company goals. It also gets everyone moving in the same direction—the right direction. Note that in the first project phase, defining and organizing, much is still in flux. Be prepared to revise your objectives as you gather more information about what your project is to achieve. See also Worksheet for Identifying Your Project Objectives and the Online Article: "Which Projects Get Top Billing?" Understanding Competing Demands and "Scope Creep" With any project, there are competing demands that you'll need to take into account while finalizing your objectives. In addition, many projects experience "scope creep"—expanding demands that go beyond the original aims—as they progress. As a project manager, you'll need to take both of these issues into account as your project moves forward. Competing demands Every project has three competing demands: • Quality: Satisfaction of the project's requirements. • Time: The amount of time needed to produce the project's deliverables. • Cost: The number/amount of money, people, and other resources needed to complete the project. You can think of these three competing demands as variables in an equation: Quality = Time + Cost Change any one of these variables, and you change the other two as well. For example, suppose you decide to complete a database project in half the time than you originally estimated. In this case, one of two things would happen: Your costs would go up, or the quality of the final product would go down. That's because you will need to employ more people to get the job done faster, or you'll have to accept a system that has more bugs than originally planned because you didn't have enough time or personnel to double-check its functionality. Deciding whether and how to make tradeoffs among quality, time, and cost is a major aspect of project management. It is crucial that you keep all stakeholders informed of any changes in your project's objectives—and that you explain the consequences of those changes in terms of quality, time, and cost. If you neglect to do this, your stakeholders may end up surprised—and dissatisfied—by the final outcome of the project. Scope creep As you continue to define your project's objectives, be on guard against "scope creep." With scope creep, stakeholders put pressure on a project manager to do more than the project plan originally called for. As you discuss the project with stakeholders, they may begin defining "project success" in ever-lengthening terms and identifying more and more problems that they believe the project should solve. Suddenly, you realize that your list of objectives for the project has grown to alarming proportions. For example, suppose you're managing a project that focuses on improving an inefficient exhaust system during construction of a particular automobile model. The manager in charge of the model's lighting fixtures asks you to develop sturdier headlights "while you're at it." To avoid getting caught up in scope creep, resist the urge to solve everyone's problems with your project. Even legitimate or urgent problems that your company needs to address don't belong in your list of project objectives if they lie beyond the project's scope. If stakeholders demand that you increase that scope, make sure they understand the impact on quality, time, and cost. What is the key to making tradeoffs and redefining objectives as a project progresses? Do so with full understanding of the consequences. And ensure that stakeholders understand—and accept responsibility for—those consequences. Defining Roles and Responsibilities The success of a project hinges in part on the people who participate in it. If the right people are not on board—or if people aren't clear about their roles and responsibilities—the project can fail. Most projects have several key players: Project sponsor Whether conceptualized by a manager or a team, a project must have a sponsor. The sponsor authorizes the project. He or she should be a manager or executive with a real stake in the outcome and accountability for the project's performance. The sponsor: • Champions the project • Has the authority to define the scope of the work • Provides the project team with necessary resources • Eliminates organizational obstructions • Approves or rejects the final deliverables of the project A project sponsor also performs these critical tasks: • Ensures that senior management supports the project team's decisions and direction • Ensures that the project's progress is communicated to the rest of the organization, especially to leadership • Watches for any changes in company objectives that may affect the project's objectives • Helps managers resolve any difficulties regarding their direct reports' splitting time between project duties and regular assignments Project manager The project manager plans and schedules project tasks and oversees day-to-day project execution. He or she has the greatest accountability for the endeavor's success. This person receives authority from the sponsor and plays a central role in each phase of the project's life cycle. In many respects, a project manager's tasks resemble those of any manager leading a team. Both individuals: • Identify needed resources • Recruit effective participants • Coordinate activities • Negotiate with higher-level management, especially the sponsor • Mediate conflicts • Set milestones • Manage the budget • Keep work on track • Ensure that project deliverables are provided on time and on budget Like team leaders, project managers do not always have formal authority over the people participating in the project work. For example, the project manager of a new IT initiative may be the IT manager, but the project team members may come from marketing, finance, customer service, and so forth. Thus project managers must rely on leadership skills to influence team members' behavior and performance. Project team leader Many large projects have a project team leader. This individual reports directly to the project manager and takes responsibility for one or more aspects of the work. In small projects, the project manager also acts as the project team leader. An effective project team leader plays six roles: • Initiator: Identifies actions needed to meet project goals. Encourages team members to take those actions. • Model: Demonstrates behavior that supports the project's success. For example, if team members need to interact with customers to complete the project, the team leader regularly travels to customer locations, creates customer focus groups, and so forth. These behaviors encourage other team members to follow suit. • Negotiator: Uses negotiating skills to obtain resources needed for the project. • Listener: Spends as much time listening as talking. Gathers signals from the environment—about impending trouble, employee discontent, and opportunities for gain. Makes decisions informed by the experiences and knowledge of many people. • Coach: Uses coaching to help team members excel; identifies coaching opportunities in the course of everyday business. • Working member of the team: Does a share of the work, particularly in areas where he or she has special competence. Acts as a member of the team. The tasks of a project team leader include: • Regularly communicating progress and problems with the project manager. • Periodically assessing team progress and the outlook of members. • Making sure that everyone contributes and everyone's voice is heard. Project team members Project team members perform most of the work. They should be selected on the basis of their skills and ability to collaborate with others. The primary tasks of project team members are to: • Complete all assigned tasks on time. • Communicate dissatisfactions and concerns with the leader and other members. • Support the leader and other members. • Help others when they ask, and ask for help when they need it. The optimal size for a project team depends on the project's goals and tasks. Have just enough people to do the job and no more. Having too few people will slow you down and deprive you of needed skills. Having too many will also slow you down by diverting valuable time and energy into communication and coordination efforts. Project stakeholders A stakeholder is anyone who has a vested interest in the outcome of your project. Contributors, customers, managers, and financial staff are all stakeholders; they are the people who will judge the success or failure of the project. To help you identify all the stakeholders in a project, consider what functions or people might be affected by the project's activities or outcomes. Also ask who contributes resources—people, space, time, tools, and money—to the project. Once you have identified the stakeholders, ask them to spell out what success on the project means for them. Because stakeholders' interests vary, their definitions of success are likely to differ. One of your critical tasks in the defining and organizing phase is to meld stakeholders' expectations into a coherent and manageable set of project objectives. Creating a Project Charter Having the right cast of characters on a project team is important. But so is having a charter that spells out the nature and scope of the work and management's expectations for results. A project charter is a concise written document containing some or all of the following: • The project's mission statement • An outline of the roles and responsibilities that people will play, including the name of the project sponsor • The scope of the project • A concise description of project deliverables (objectives) • The relationship between the project's goals and higher organizational goals • The expected time frame of the work and milestones • The budget, allocations, and resources available to the project team • A list of constraints • A list of any assumptions that are being made about the project • Quality requirements • Major risks • Benefits of the project to the organization • The sponsor's signature Does your project have a written charter? Does it contain these important elements? If you're managing a project and you don't have a project charter in place, take steps to create one immediately. At a minimum, ensure that you create a charter for your next project. It may seem time-consuming to capture all of this information. But without a formal charter in place, a project can head off in a direction that jeopardizes organizational objectives. A project can also suffer "scope creep"—as stakeholders demand more and more from it. A good project charter indicates the desired outcomes of the effort—but not the means by which a group will achieve those ends. The means should be left to the project manager, team leader, and members. If you've recruited people with the right abilities, they'll have the competence to do the job. See also Project Charter Worksheet. Communicating the project charter Once you've developed a project charter, distribute it to all stakeholders and project team members. The charter spells out in writing the nature and scope of the work that is being undertaken, as well as management's expectations for results. Failure to disseminate this information could lead to misunderstandings and set the project up for failure. Developing High-Level Estimates Many projects fail either because someone has overlooked a significant part of the work or managers have grossly underestimated the time and money involved. One tool that many project managers find helpful in planning is the Work Breakdown Structure. Using the Work Breakdown Structure The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) helps you develop estimates, assign personnel, track progress, and show the scope of the project work. With a WBS, you subdivide a complex activity into smaller tasks, continuing until the activity can no longer be subdivided. At that point, you have defined each task in its smallest—and most manageable—unit. To create a WBS: • Ask, "What has to be done to accomplish X?" • Continue to ask this question, breaking those tasks into the smallest possible subtasks, until your answer represents a component or task that cannot be subdivided further. • Estimate how long it will take to complete each of these tasks and how much each will cost in terms of dollars and person-hours. When developing a WBS, many managers wonder when to stop subdividing the activities. As a general guideline, stop when you reach the point at which the work will take an amount of time equal to the smallest unit of time you want to schedule. Thus, if you want to schedule to the nearest day, break down the work to the point at which each task takes a day to perform. A WBS typically consists of three to six levels of subdivided activities. The more complex the project, the more levels the WBS will have. As a rule of thumb, no project should have more than 20 levels—and only an enormous project would have that many. Consider the following example of a WBS: In the first phase of project management—defining and organizing the project—don't worry about the sequence in which the project activities are performed. You will take care of scheduling during the planning phase. Use the WBS during the first phase only to build a rough framework that you'll fill in once you have a better sense of your staff, budget, and time constraints. See also Tips for Getting Your WBS Right. Estimating time Once you are satisfied with the breakdown of tasks, ask: How much time will it take to complete each task? If a task is familiar—that is, employees have done it many times before—estimating completion time will not be difficult. Unfamiliar tasks, in contrast, require more thought and discussion. Here are a few tips for making time estimates: • Using experience. Base estimates on experience, using the average expected time to perform a task. The more familiar you or other employees are with a particular task, the more accurate your estimate will be. • Keeping estimates as estimates. Remember that estimates are just that—estimates. They're not guarantees, so don't change them into firm commitments quite yet. • Clarifying assumptions. When presenting estimates to stakeholders, make sure they are aware of all the assumptions and variables behind those calculations. Consider presenting time factors as ranges instead of fixed estimates. For example, say, "Task A will take eight to twelve hours to complete." Any fixed estimate is bound to be wrong; a range, on the other hand, is more likely to be right, because it accounts for natural variations. • Padding. Padding estimates is an acceptable way of reducing the risk that a task (or the entire project) will take longer than the schedule allows. But apply this practice openly and with full awareness of what you're doing. For example, if your estimate is based on receiving certain products within a two-week period, make sure that expectation is clear. That way, the project team and stakeholders know there is a chance those products may not arrive on time. Also let them know what the consequences of a late arrival would be. Estimating costs and identifying needed skills Once you've estimated time, consider each task's potential costs. Ask what financial and other resources you'll need, and which skills will be necessary. Your answers will indicate the level of resource commitments the organization must make to support the project. You'll also gain a clearer picture of who should participate on the project team. If the required skills are not available within your organization, you'll have to acquire them through training, hiring, and/or contracting with independent specialists—all of which you'll have to factor into the project's costs. Your WBS will give you a rough estimate of how much time, how many people, and what skills you'll need for the project. These estimates form the foundation for the next phase in the project life cycle—planning the project. See also Worksheet for Developing High-Level Estimates. Assembling Your Team and Assigning Tasks In the second phase of project management, planning the project, you translate your high-level estimates into action. Your time estimates become schedules. Your cost estimates become budgets. And you bring your team together and assign tasks. Recruiting a new project team If you have not yet assembled your project team, you should assess the skills needed for the project using the information you generated from the Work Breakdown Structure. Then recruit the right people from inside or outside your company. Look objectively at each task and determine exactly what skills are needed to get it done. For example, if your task is to create an online customer survey about a new product, you may decide that your team must include members with Web programming, market research, and customer service skills. Next, look at the people in your organization and determine who has the right skills needed for the project. Skills come in numerous forms, including the following: • Technical: expertise in specific areas, such as market research, finance, software programming • Problem-solving: the ability to analyze difficult situations and craft solutions that others may not see • Interpersonal: the capacity to work effectively with others • Organizational: understanding the company's political and logistical landscape, and forming networks of contacts throughout the organization • Developmental: the ability to master new skills as needed • Communication: the ability to effectively and efficiently exchange information and listen to others Make assignments according to the best matches between skill and task. You may need to provide training for people who need additional skills or hire someone from outside. Don't forget to budget time and money for any training or hiring needed to cover skill gaps. See also Worksheet for Assessing Project Team Members' Skills. Working with an existing project team If a team already exists for your project, you'll need to do the best you can with the available talent. That means assessing people's skills and matching them to the task list, and using training to fill in skill gaps. If you have worked with the team members before and know their individual strengths, make task assignments yourself. If you're unfamiliar with members' individual capabilities, create two lists: one with the names of all the people assigned to the project team, and another with all the skills required to successfully complete the work. At your next team meeting, go through these lists. Encourage people to talk about their own skills, and give the group responsibility for initially assigning people to the listed tasks. Determining assignments in a group setting: • Allows people to know what one another's skills are • Ensures that the right person is assigned to the task • Helps team members understand the finite resources they have available Most experts on team creation maintain that you'll rarely get all the skills you need on the team. Something will always be missing. And in most cases, it is impossible to anticipate every skill needed. Thus, the savvy project team leader looks for people with both valued skills and the potential to learn new ones as needed. See also Steps for Building an Effective Project Team. Developing a Budget A budget is the financial blueprint or action plan for the project. It translates the project plan into measurable expenditures and anticipated returns over a certain period of time. When developing a budget, first ask yourself: What is it going to take—in terms of resources—to successfully complete this project? To determine the cost of the project, break it down into the key cost categories you anticipate. Here are the typical categories in which projects generate costs: • Personnel. This is almost always the largest part of a project's budget and includes full-time and temporary workers. • Travel. People may have to travel from one location to another in the course of their project work. Is everyone onsite, or will the team need to gather at one locale? Don't forget to budget for meals and lodging. • Training. Will training be required? If the answer is yes, will that training take place onsite or will there be travel expenses involved? If you plan to hire an outside contractor to provide the training, the budget must reflect his or her fees and expenses. • Supplies. In addition to the usual—computers, pens, papers, and software—you may need unusual equipment. Try to anticipate what the project will require. • Space. Some people may have to be relocated to rented space. How much room and money will that require? • Research. Will you have to buy studies or data to support this project? How much research will your team have to perform itself? At what cost? • Professional services. Will you have to hire a market-research firm? Do you plan to bring in a consultant or seek legal advice? The budget must reflect the cost of each of these. • Capital expenditures. What more expensive equipment or technical upgrades will be necessary to do the job? Will any capital expenditures pay for themselves, and how? Once you've entered the hard-and-fast figures from these standard categories into your project budget, consider frequently overlooked variables that could affect the budget. For example: • Training costs to bring team members up to speed • Training costs at the back end to teach users to implement your project • Ongoing personnel costs • Ongoing maintenance costs for space • Costs for insurance • Licensing fees • Costs for outside support such as accounting or legal counsel Determine whether the project should proceed To complete the project budget, you estimate costs before the work actually begins. Thus creating the budget gives stakeholders and the other project management players a chance to ask themselves whether they really want to move ahead with this project, given the costs. The sponsor, for example, may wish to reconsider the project or reduce its scope once he or she sees the cost estimates. If the sponsor is unwilling to fully fund the budget, the project manager—and anyone else accountable for the success or failure of the effort—may wish to withdraw. Projects that are not fully funded are imperiled from the very beginning. Build in contingency In most cases, project budgets contain some degree of flexibility. Because it's extremely difficult to anticipate every expense in a project, flexibility is valuable during budget creation. Flexibility can actually make a project manager more effective. The best managers make changes to get around roadblocks and seize valuable opportunities as their projects move forward. For these reasons, many project managers build some contingency into their budgets. They ask for 5% of the estimated budget for contingency alone. This extra "wiggle room" enables them to accommodate some unanticipated costs without having to beg the project sponsor for more funding. Once you've launched your project, you can use the budget to monitor progress by comparing the actual outcomes of your project with the budgeted, or expected, outcomes. This monitoring and evaluation process in turn helps you and your team to take timely, corrective action to get a wayward project back on track. Developing a Schedule To sequence and control the activities entailed by your project, you need to establish a schedule. The following steps can help you create a workable and realistic schedule: 1. Define tasks using the Work Breakdown Structure. Revisit the activities and tasks you outlined when creating your WBS in the first phase of project management—defining and organizing the project. 2. Examine the relationships between tasks. Many project activities must be done in a particular sequence. Others can be performed in parallel. To reduce the overall time required by your project, look for opportunities to accomplish different activities in parallel. 3. Create a draft schedule. List the required tasks, estimate how long each task will take to complete, and indicate the task relationships (which ones must be done in what sequence, and which can be done in parallel). This is a draft schedule; you'll refine it once everyone has reviewed it. Managers use several different kinds of tools to create draft schedules: • Gantt charts A Gantt chart lists project tasks in the left-hand column and indicates time blocks for each. These blocks indicate when each task should begin, based on task relationships, and when it should end. Gantt charts show the following: o Task status (completed tasks are shaded out. In the diagram above, the blue bar represents completed tasks.) o Estimated project duration o Estimated task duration o Task sequences and tasks completed in parallel The popularity of the Gantt chart stems from its simplicity and from its ability to depict the "big picture" at a glance. What the Gantt chart does not indicate are the task dependencies—that is, which task must be completed before another begins. Thus, it is difficult to assess the impact of a change in one area on the rest of a project. Schedulers must be extra careful to reflect those relationships in the time blocks as they enter the items. See also Steps for Building a Gantt Chart. • Critical path Your draft schedule should indicate the project's critical path: the set of tasks that determines total project duration. The critical path is the longest sequence of tasks through the project. Any delays in the critical path will delay completion of the entire project. By identifying the critical path for your project, you can allocate resources efficiently. For example, consider a project that involves six activities with the following requirements and time expectations: Activity Requirement Time to Complete A 5 days B 3 days C A and B completed 4 days D B completed 7 days E A completed 6 days F C completed 4 days • • The critical path for this project can be diagrammed using circles to indicate the activity. The diagram tells you that the earliest you can complete the project is in 11 days. You also see that activities A and E are critical for the project to meet that deadline. Using this information, you may want to commit most of your resources toward these critical activities. See also Steps for Developing a Critical Path. • PERT charts A PERT (Performance Evaluation and Review Technique) chart shows when every project task within a phase should begin and how much time is scheduled for each task (and when it should be completed). The chart also shows all tasks in progress at a given time, and all the dependencies between outcomes, tasks, and events. In the PERT chart, each task is represented by a node that connects with other nodes, or tasks, required to complete the project. While a PERT chart indicates the important task dependencies of a project, a downside is that it the chart can be complex and difficult to master. How do you decide which scheduling tool or method to use to create your draft schedule? Select the one you're most comfortable with, as long as it does the job. Don't use a tool just because everyone else does or because it's the latest thing. To choose a method, look at how you're currently tracking and scheduling your own work. Are you satisfied with it? If you are, consider using this system to schedule your project. But remember that you'll need to communicate the schedule to all team members. Also, keep in mind that a number of software packages are available to help you develop and manage your schedule. To figure out which software is best for you, get recommendations from users. Unless you are already familiar with the software, build time into your personal schedule to learn it. You may need to get reliable training and technical support for the program. See also Tips for Selecting Project-Management Software. 4. Optimize the schedule. With your team, critically examine your draft schedule and seek ways to make it more accurate, more realistic, and tighter. Look for the following: • Errors. Are all time estimates realistic? Pay particular attention to time estimates for tasks on the critical path. If any of these tasks cannot be completed on time, the entire schedule will unravel. Also, review the relationships between tasks. Does your schedule reflect the fact that some tasks can start simultaneously and that others cannot start until some other task is completed? • Oversights. Have any tasks or subtasks been left out? Has time for training and maintenance been overlooked? • Overcommitments. Will some employees have to work 10 to 12 hours per day for months on end to complete the tasks assigned to them in the schedule? Are you expecting a piece of equipment to perform in excess of its known capacity? To remove such overcommitments, redistribute the workload. • Bottlenecks. Will work necessary for a particular task pile up at that point in the process? Think of an auto assembly line that has to stop periodically because the people who install the seats cannot keep up with the pace of the line. To remove bottlenecks, you'll need to improve the work process used in that task (that is, speed it up) or to shift resources into that task—for example, by adding more people or better machinery. Your overall goal in optimizing your schedule is to tighten it as much as possible, within reason. Because tasks on the critical path define the duration of the entire project, look carefully at them for opportunities to shorten the schedule. For example, by shifting more resources to tasks on the critical path, you may be able to remove a bottleneck. Consider diverting resources from noncritical tasks to the more critical ones. For example, if you have four people working on a task that has four to five days of slack time, shift some or all of those people onto a critical-path task for several days. See also Tips for Scheduling a Project and Tips for Putting a Late Project Back on Schedule. Creating a Communications Plan As the final important activity in the planning phase of project management, you create a plan for communicating progress to all project stakeholders. The following guidelines can help you craft a helpful plan. Hold regular meetings Meetings are typically the least favorite activity of busy, action-oriented people. However, they are often the best way to communicate information. Meetings provide forums within which project team members can share ideas and make decisions. To make the most of meetings, stick to a regular schedule as much as possible. If people know that project team meetings take place every Monday from 3 to 4 p.m., for example, they can plan their other responsibilities around those times. Having a regular schedule also saves meeting organizers the frustrating task of finding a time when everyone is available. Write meeting minutes If you're managing a sizable project with plenty of meetings and many participants, you can easily lose track of what has been done and what hasn't, who has agreed to things and who hasn't. To avoid this scenario, systematically keep track of decisions, assignments, and action items. Many organizations use meeting minutes—notes recorded by an appointed individual—for this purpose. The minutes are reviewed and approved at the next meeting and amended if necessary. Approved minutes then go into a file, where participants can consult them as needed. See also Meeting Minutes Form. Draft progress reports In addition to writing meeting minutes, many project managers create progress reports that track all the work that's being done on a project. For example, if you're overseeing the development of a new product line, you might write a progress report that updates team members on the R&D testing under way, the marketing specialists' survey findings on customer needs, and the financial analysts' latest forecasting of projected revenues. As with meeting minutes, be sure to file progress reports in an orderly way that makes them accessible to whoever needs the information. Establish a stakeholder communication system Project stakeholders want continuous updates, status reports, and progress reports. Understanding these individuals' expectations, making tradeoffs among their demands to create a feasible project scope, and keeping them continuously informed are vital for achieving your project objectives. In communicating about the project with stakeholders, be aware of the common tendency to downplay or hide problems as they come up. If you give in to this tendency and the problems sabotage the project (in the stakeholders' eyes), you'll be in twice as much trouble as you would have if you had alerted stakeholders in the first place. Make team communication ongoing and two-way While it is important to share information when managing a project, it's equally vital to listen to what others have to say. Take the time to ask team members how they are doing and how they perceive the project. When you listen to their concerns and invite their viewpoints, you help keep them motivated and invested in the project at hand. Launching the Project Once you've drafted a project charter, assembled a team, and scheduled the project work, you're ready to enter the third phase of project management—executing the project. Start by launching the project. Conduct a launch meeting The best way to launch a project is through an all-team meeting. While you and your project team will have discussed the project extensively and engaged in detailed planning before the launch meeting, there is no substitute for a face-to-face gathering attended by all team members. Be sure to include the project sponsor. Physical presence at this meeting has great psychological value, particularly for geographically dispersed teams whose members may have few future opportunities to convene as a group. Being together at the very beginning builds commitment and bolsters each participant's sense that the team and project are important. During your project's launch meeting, strive to accomplish the following tasks: • Define roles and responsibilities. • Review the project charter. • Seek unanimous understanding of the project charter. • Have the project sponsor explain why the project's work is important and how its goals are aligned with the larger organizational objectives. • Outline the resources that will be available to the team. • Describe team incentives. Monitoring and Controlling the Project Once your project is under way, you need to monitor and control its activities as much as possible to ensure that it stays on track. Monitor the project's budget One way to monitor project activities is to compare the actual spending results for a given period with the spending specified in your budget. The difference between actual results and the results expected by the budget is called a variance. A variance can be favorable when the actual results are better than expected—or unfavorable when the actual results are worse than expected. If evaluation reveals that the project's spending is on target, with actual results matching the budget's expected results, then you don't need to make adjustments. However, if actual results compare unfavorably with the expected results then you must take corrective action. For example, suppose your team expected to pay outside consultants $24,000 in July, but you find that actual payments totaled $30,000. In this case, you would need to investigate the reason for this discrepancy and possibly correct the situation. When monitoring actual costs against your estimates, watch out for these common contingencies that can send your project over budget: • Unexpected inflation during long-term projects • Failure to factor in currency exchange rates or to predict fluctuations in exchange rates • Lack of firm prices from suppliers and subcontractors • Estimates based on different costing methods; for example, hours versus dollars • Unplanned personnel costs used to keep the project on schedule, including increased overtime • Unexpected space or training needs • Consultant or legal fees needed to resolve unforeseen problems Most of these contingencies could not have been predicted before your project began. That's why you need to stay alert to the real numbers as they come in. Watch for significant deviations from the budgeted amounts. Then find out the reason for the differences and take corrective actions. Apply variance analysis to other aspects of the project While variance analysis is a helpful tool for examining budgets, you can also use it to evaluate other aspects of a project, such as: • Hours: How much work effort has been expended on any given activity? Does the number of hours expended match the number specified in the budget? If not, why not? • Activities: Which activities have been worked on? When did they start? Are they complete? Were they finished on schedule? If not, why not? • Milestones: Have milestones been met? If so, which ones? If not, why not? • Deliverables: Have deliverables been completed on time? Did they meet quality standards? What caused any shortfalls? Understand causes of variance There are many causes of variance. Here are just a few: • Vague project objective • Ambiguous project scope • Overly optimistic schedule • Incomplete project plan • Failure to manage risks • Lack of proper tracking and control • External forces • Unforeseen events Investigate variances promptly What should you do if you detect unfavorable variances? In general, you need to investigate them immediately. Revisit tasks and times outlined in your project plan and budget. Challenge assumptions, deadlines, resource allocations, and stated deliverables. Ask yourself: Why did this variance occur? Is it likely to repeat itself? What corrective measures are called for? Corrective actions may include requesting a change in resources, fast-tracking the schedule, or persuading the sponsor to accept the variance. With any corrective action, don't try to develop the action yourself; draw on the insights of the people closest to the problem as well. Below are additional ways to control variances and keep your project on track. Conduct periodic quality checks To make a quality check, you examine some unit of work at an appropriate point to ensure that it meets specifications. For example, if your project entails building a new e-commerce site, you, as the project manager, may want to test components of the software system as they are developed. That way, you can see whether they function according to plan. Periodic quality checks uncover conditions that are out of specification. Once you've identified these problems, your project team can identify and address the causes. Subsequent tasks' outcomes are then more likely to meet quality standards. Consider these guidelines for achieving high-quality products and results: • Don't rush quality checks to meet deadlines. The cost of fixing problems after the fact is usually far greater than the cost of confronting and solving them before they spin out of control. • Determine quality benchmarks in the planning phase. Take into account things such as your organization's policies regarding quality, stakeholders' requirements, the project's scope, and any external regulations or rules. • Inspect deliverables using the most appropriate tools; for example, detailed inspections, checklists, or statistical sampling. • Accept or reject deliverables based on previously defined measures. Rejected deliverables can be returned or reworked, depending on costs. Track milestones Milestones, or significant events in a project, remind team members of how far they have come and how much further they must go. They may include completion of key tasks on the critical path. Here are a few examples: • The sponsor's acceptance of a complete set of customer requirements for a new service • The successful testing of a product prototype • Installation and successful testing of a critical piece of equipment • Delivery of finished components to the stockroom • Completion of the project—the ultimate milestone! Milestones should be highlighted in the project schedule and used to monitor progress. You can also use them as occasions for celebrating progress when celebration is called for. Some project teams recognize milestones with a group luncheon or a trip to a sporting event. Build a suitable monitoring/control system Budgets, variance analysis, quality checks, and milestones are basic monitoring and control devices that apply generally to projects. But there may be other methods that apply specifically to your situation. Do you know that they are? If you don't, here are some guidelines for selecting and implementing them: • Focus on what is important. Continually ask: What is important to my organization? What are we attempting to do? Which parts of the project are the most crucial to track and control? Where are the essential points at which we need to place controls? • Build corrective action into the system. Your control system must use information to initiate corrective action; otherwise, all you are doing is monitoring. If quality is below standard, set up an ad hoc group to determine the cause and fix the problem. But don't let control lapse into micromanagement. Encourage the people closest to the problem to make the needed corrections. • Emphasize timely responses. Corrective actions require real-time, daily, or weekly information about what's going on with your project. No single control system is right for all projects. A system that's right for a large project will swamp a small one with paperwork, while a system that works for small projects won't have enough muscle for a big one. So, find the one that's right for your project. See also Worksheet for Monitoring Project Progress. Managing Risk Every project contains risks—for example, a supplier to whom you've outsourced an important task falls a month behind schedule or a key member of your project team is suddenly hospitalized for several weeks. While executing your project, you need to practice risk management: identifying key risks and developing plans for preventing them or mitigating their adverse effects. Some risks are relatively easy to anticipate; others are very difficult. Managing anticipated risks To manage anticipated risks, apply this process: 1. Conduct a risk audit Conduct a systematic audit of all the things that could go wrong with your project. A risk audit involves the following steps: • Collect ideas widely. People's perspectives about risk differ greatly. Some foresee perils that others miss entirely. By talking with project team members, customers, or suppliers, you may harvest some surprising information. For example, a supplier may tell you that a rival company is working on a product for the same market that your team is working on—and that the competitive product development team is much further along than yours. • Identify internal risks. Understaffing can be a source of risk. One key resignation, for example, could cause an important project to collapse. Poorly trained quality assurance personnel represent another source of internal risk. Their substandard work may allow defective or dangerous products to reach customers, resulting in a costly product recall, lawsuits, and a public relations fiasco. • Identify external risks. An external risk may take the form of an emerging new technology that will render your new product line obsolete. An impending regulatory change may also pose a threat. External risks are numerous and often hard to spot. Some large technology companies maintain small "business intelligence" units to identify these threats. As you conduct your risk audit, pay particular attention to areas with the greatest potential to harm your project. Depending on the project, these areas might include health and environmental issues, technical breakdowns, economic and market volatility, or relationships with customers and suppliers. Ask yourself where your project is most vulnerable. Then consider these questions: What are the worst things that could go wrong in these areas? Which risks are the most likely to surface? 2. Take actions to avoid or minimize risks In the most drastic cases, you may alter your project's scope to avoid risks that the organization is not prepared to confront. For example, a sausage maker, fearful of bacterial contamination somewhere in the production or distribution channel, may decide to produce only precooked and aseptically packaged meats. In another case, you may take positive steps to prevent risks from escalating into full-blown crises. For example, if you are concerned that a key project member may leave the company, consider taking these steps: • Make sure the project member has a visible and attractive future within the company. • Start preparing and training employees to fill that person's place in the event that he or she leaves. • Distribute important tasks among several reliable project team members. 3. Develop contingency plans Some risks cannot be avoided. Others can be reduced, but only in part. Develop contingency plans for unavoidable and uncontrollable risks. A contingency plan is a course of action you prepare in advance to deal with a potential problem. It answers this question: "If _____ happens, how could we respond in a way that would neutralize or minimize the damage?" Here is an example of a project contingency plan: The Acme Company set up a two-year project to modernize its manufacturing facilities. Senior management regarded the two-year deadline as crucial. Recognizing the real risk that the deadline might not be met, the sponsor agreed to set up a reserve fund that could be used to hire outside help if the project fell behind schedule. This contingency plan included a monthly progress review and a provision that falling three or more weeks behind schedule would trigger release of the reserve funds. In addition, two managers were charged with identifying no less than three vendors who could help with the project. A good contingency plan prepares your project and company to deal quickly and effectively with adverse situations. When disaster strikes, managers and project members with a plan can act immediately; they don't have to spend weeks trying to figure out what they should do or how they will find the funds to deal with their new situation. Dealing with unanticipated risks The above process works well when risks can be anticipated. But what about risks that cannot be anticipated? For example, consider a new technology that emerges without warning and enables a rival company to come out with a product that makes yours obsolete. The traditional tools of project management—high-level estimates, budgets and schedules, control systems, etc.—couldn't have helped you anticipate this event. When uncertainty is high, you need something more than conventional risk management—you need adaptive project management. Adaptive management approaches project activities as smaller, iterative learning experiences. The information gathered from these incremental activities is then used and applied towards subsequent tasks. Some companies refer to this approach as "rapid iterative prototyping." Consider the way in which venture capitalists work with entrepreneurs. They seldom give entrepreneurs a large sum of money at the beginning of a project. Instead, venture capitalists stage their commitment as their entrepreneurial partners produce results. If the entrepreneur has a plan to develop a breakthrough software application, the venture capitalist will provide only enough money for the project to move forward to the next level. If the entrepreneur succeeds in reaching that level, the venture capitalist will review progress and develop expectations for the next step. Each investment gives the venture capitalist opportunities to probe for more information, learn, and reduce uncertainty. An adaptive project management model encourages you to: 1. Perform experiments iteratively and quickly. Team members engage in small, quick incremental experiments with the project work. They evaluate the outcomes of those experiments and make adjustments moving forward. The quick turnaround time helps them learn fast and apply their new knowledge promptly to the remaining project work. Many companies refer to this as "rapid iterative prototyping." 2. Have fast cycles. Long lead times interfere with the iterative approach. 3. Emphasize early delivery of value. Instead of delivering value at project end, your team provides deliverables earlier and in smaller pieces. This encourages feedback and enables team members to incorporate learning into subsequent activities. 4. Staff the project with people who have a talent for learning and adapting. Some people are faster learners and more amenable to change than others. 5. Avoid over-relying on decision-making tools that assume predictability. Decision-making tools such as return on investment, net present value, and internal rate of return are useful when future cash flows are reasonably predictable. However, when a project has a high degree of uncertainty associated with it and future cash flows can't be predicated, these decision-making tools are less valuable. Adaptive project management may not be necessary for every project. But you do need to use it when uncertainty during the planning and execution phases is high—that is, when you can't anticipate all the risks or when your project may have a wide range of potential outcomes. Wrapping up the Project Closing down your project is the fourth and final phase of project management. During this phase, your team delivers or reports its results to the project sponsor and stakeholders and then examines its own performance. Closing down the project is important because it gives everyone a chance to reflect on what they've accomplished, what went right, what went wrong, and how the outcome might have been improved. Such reflections form the core of organizational learning—which should be leveraged in other projects sponsored by your organization. Activities within the closedown phase include performance evaluation, documentation, lessons learned, and celebration. Performance evaluation With performance evaluation, you determine how well the project performed relative to quality, schedule, and cost, as well as any subsequent amendments: • Objectives or deliverables. Have all objectives been met? Have project deliverables met the mandated specifications? For example, if the project charter required the delivery of a complete plan for entering a new market—including data on market size, a listing of competing products and prices, and so forth—the plan submitted by the project should be evaluated against each of those details. • Schedule. Was the project completed on time? If not, the project team should do two things: (1) estimate the cost of the project's tardiness to the company, and (2) determine the cause of the delay and identify how it could have been prevented. • Cost. What completion of the project cost? Was total cost within budget constraints? If the project ran over budget, the team should determine the cause of the overspending and identify how that variance might have been avoided. Ideally, an independent party capable of making an objective assessment should conduct the post-project evaluation. Documentation Every large project produces reams of documents, such as meeting minutes, budget data, the closedown performance evaluation, and so forth. It's vital to collect and store these documents to encourage learning. Consider this example: Two years ago, a market-strategy project team was credited with the successful launch of a new breakfast cereal, CornCrunchies. The team's deliverable was a complete market analysis and plan for introducing a new cereal. Helen, a product manager at the same company, has been given the job of organizing and leading an analogous project—this one aimed at introducing KiddieKrunchies, another breakfast food under development. To learn from the CornCrunchies experience, Helen and core members of her project team spend several days poring through the stored documents of that earlier project. They pick out useful reporting templates, research reports, and Gantt charts. They also interview the CornCrunchies project manager and several key participants. Then one of Helen's coworkers, Stephen, makes an important discovery. "A report I found in the file cites a meeting between our marketing people and Fieldfresh, a major U.K. grocery distributor. According to this report, Fieldfresh had proposed being the exclusive U.K. distributor for CornCrunchies, but we went with Manchester Foods instead." "And we all know what a poor job Manchester has done," Helen chimes in. "Make a copy of that report. We'll want to have Fieldfresh on our list of possible distributors." In this case, Helen's team found several useful pieces of information in the previous project's documentation: a proven approach to organizing work around marketing analysis and planning; reporting forms; and a potential overseas distributor. Your project may likewise be a mine of useful information for subsequent project teams—but only if you gather all important documents and store them in accessible formats. Lessons learned As your project winds up, all participants should convene to identify what went right and what went wrong. They should list their successes, mistakes, corrected assumptions, and processes that could have been handled better. That list will become part of the project's documented record. Here is a partial list of questions that participants need to address during a lessons learned session: • In retrospect, how sound were our assumptions? • How well did we test our key assumptions? • How well did we seek out alternatives to our business problem? • Did we under- or overestimate time estimates for tasks? • Were our meetings productive? • If we could start over again tomorrow, what would we do differently? Make a systematic list of these lessons, grouped by topic (for example, planning, budgeting, execution, and so forth). Ensure that the document is available to all subsequent project teams. Next to the project deliverables, these lessons may be the most valuable output of your team's effort. See also Form for Capturing Lessons Learned. Celebration To mark the formal end of a project, hold a celebration to acknowledge the team's success. Invite all project team members and the project sponsor. Consider inviting customers, suppliers, and nonproject employees who nevertheless contributed to the group's results. Reflect on what the team accomplished and how the project has benefited the company. If the project failed to deliver on its entire list of objectives, highlight the effort that people made and the goals they did achieve. Finally, use the occasion to thank all who helped and participated. Once that's done, pop the corks and celebrate the end of your project! ________________________________________ Steps for Building an Effective Project Team 1. Recruit competent members. o Identify the skills needed to fulfill the project team’s goals. o Identify individuals who possess the required talent, knowledge, and experience. o Recruit for any missing competencies or find ways to strengthen skills in existing team members. o Look for members who can learn new skills quickly as needed. 2. Define a clear, common goal. o Identify the project team’s goal in concise, clear language—such as “Overhaul the customer service process so that 95% of incoming calls will be handled by one service representative.” o Explain how the goal supports the company’s vision, values, and strategy. o Clarify the team’s duration—how long it will work together to complete the project. 3. Identify performance metrics. o Select metrics that express how the team’s success on the project will be measured; for example, “Eighty percent of all customer calls will be resolved in three minutes or less.” o Set up performance metrics for interim milestones that the team can achieve as it carries out the project. 4. Foster commitment to the goal by cultivating a supportive environment. o Encourage collaborative work among team members and emphasize collective achievement. o Use language that accentuates communal effort, such as “We are making good progress” or “Where do we stand with respect to our project deadlines?” 5. Create a project charter. o Develop a concise written document that spells out the nature of the project that the team will complete and expectations for results. o Work with the team to develop the specific means by which the team will achieve the project objectives. Steps for Building a Gantt Chart 1. List phases of the project, from first to last, down the left side of the page. 2. Add a time scale across the top or bottom from beginning to deadline. 3. Draw a blank rectangle for phase one from phase start date to estimated completion date. 4. Draw rectangles for each remaining phase; make sure dependent phases start on or after the date that any earlier, dependent phases finish. 5. For independent phases, draw time-estimate rectangles according to preferences of people doing and supervising the work. 6. Adjust phase time estimates as needed so that the entire project finishes on or before deadline. 7. Add a milestone legend as appropriate. 8. Use graphics to indicate which stakeholder group has responsibility for completing a particular activity. 9. Present the chart to stakeholders and team members for feedback. 10. Adjust as needed. Steps for Developing a Critical Path 1. List all the activities required to complete your project, and give a brief description of each. 2. Determine the expected duration of each activity. 3. List the other activities that must be completed before each activity’s start. 4. On a separate piece of paper, add a time scale across the top or bottom of the page from beginning to deadline. 5. Draw a critical path diagram, using circles to indicate project activities and arrows to indicate task duration. 6. Compute the earliest start times for each activity. 7. Compute the earliest finish times for each activity. 8. Identify the critical path by locating the longest sequence of tasks through the project. 9. Estimate the expected duration of the entire project by adding up the durations of all the activities in the critical path. ________________________________________ Tips for Getting Your WBS Right Start by identifying the top-priority tasks that must be completed for your project to succeed. Break those tasks into the smallest possible subtasks. Stop subdividing activities and tasks when they require the same amount of time as the smallest unit of time you want to schedule. For example, if you want to schedule tasks to the nearest day, break work down to tasks that take one day to perform. Identify the people who will have to do the work laid out in your WBS, and involve them in the process of breaking down tasks. They are in the best position to know what is involved with every job and how those jobs can be broken down into manageable pieces. Analyze each task. Ask yourself whether each is necessary and whether some can be redesigned to make them faster and less costly to complete. Check your work by looking at all the subtasks and seeing whether they add up to the highest-level tasks. Take care that you haven’t overlooked any important tasks. Aim for three to six levels of subdivided activities—with additional levels for more complex projects. Keep in mind that only enormous projects have more than 20 levels. While estimating the time required for the tasks in each level of your WBS, keep in mind that these are estimates. You may well decide to change them later, as you begin refining a project schedule and budget. If you decide to incorporate padding in your time estimates to reduce the risk of certain tasks falling behind schedule, let other stakeholders know about the padding. Ensure that everyone knows the consequences of failing to meet deadlines. Tips for Scheduling a Project Select the most useful tool for creating a draft schedule—such as Gantt charts, PERT charts, and critical path diagrams. You can create these with paper and pencil or with project management software; use whatever approach you’re most comfortable with. Know which deadlines are hard and fast and which have some flexibility. Avoid including tasks that have a duration of more than four to six weeks on your schedule. Instead, break such tasks into smaller tasks that have shorter durations. Don’t schedule more activities than you can personally oversee. Record all time segments in the same increments, such as days or weeks. Avoid creating a schedule that assumes overtime is needed to meet original target dates. You want to leave some flexibility for handling unexpected problems that might arise once you begin implementing the schedule. Look for ways to make your schedule more accurate and streamlined. For example, ask whether your time estimates are accurate. Consider whether you’ve left any tasks out. Anticipate potential bottlenecks. Tips for Selecting Project-Management Software Any project-management software should: Handle development of and changes to Gantt charts, PERT diagrams, and calculations of critical paths. Produce a schedule and budgets. Integrate project schedules with a calendar allowing for weekends and holidays. Let you create different scenarios for contingency planning and updating. Warn of overscheduling of individuals and groups. Tips for Putting a Late Project Back on Schedule Renegotiate. With stakeholders, discuss the possibility and ramifications of extending the deadline. Use later steps to recover lost time. Reexamine schedules and budgets to see if you can you make up the time elsewhere. Narrow the project scope. Are there nonessential elements of the project that can be dropped to reduce costs and save time? Deploy more resources. Can you put more people or machines to work on the project? If so, weigh the costs of deploying more resources against the importance of the deadline. Accept substitution. For example, if the project is delayed because certain parts will be arriving late, can you substitute a more readily available part? Seek alternative sources. Can another source supply a missing item that has caused the project to fall behind schedule? Accept partial delivery. Can you accept a few of a needed item to keep work going, and complete the delivery later? Offer incentives. Can you offer bonuses or other incentives for on-time delivery of work or parts needed to meet project deadlines? Demand compliance. Emphasize how crucial it is that people do what they said they would to meet project deadlines. Demanding compliance may require support from senior management. |
