PROJECT MANAGEMENT ON A PAGE
By SAMUEL LARTEY, PROJECT MANAGER.
Having worked in an organisation that did not have a project management outfit, till recently and therefore was having difficulties understanding the process management processes I decided to put up a project management Newsletter. In this paper I was challenged to communicate in a common language the project management language. I remember in my maiden edition I put up this introduction: Project Management is not about building roads, schools and hospitals as traditionally conceived. It is more than just that. In the second paragraph I stated that organisations perform work to achieve a set of objectives and the very work that these organisations perform can be categorised as either projects or operations, though the two sometimes overlap.
In my write up I presumed the organisation will not understand the project terminologies or the efforts I will be making to make it simple in only the first issue. In spite of that I was very basic in my expositions. I remember mentioning somewhere that projects and operations share many common features such as they are all performed by people, constrained by limited resources, planned, executed, and controlled. On the other hand project and operations differ primarily in that operations are ongoing and repetitive, while projects are temporary and unique; and whilst projects concludes when its specific objectives have been attained, operations adopt a new set of objectives and work continues.
To my surprise, just after 15 minutes of circulating the Newsletter, I received my first feedback asking how the project manager will put the project management strategies on a page to exceed customer expectations. How do you make your project management plan a single page document for a non project manager to understand?
In my second publication I had this to offer:
Project Management on a Page
1. Project structure
* What are the key roles & duration of involvement?
* Sponsor, Project Manager, Project Steering Committee and project team members.
* Overall responsibility for all project team members, Overall responsibility for 3rd parties including SLA's, Vendor involvement,
* Product development, Overall co-ordination.
2. Milestones
* What are the milestones of the project, what can you and your project teams celebrate over?
* Task Name, Start Date, Finish Date, Critical Paths,
3. Project budget
* Overall: Establishment of office for key personnel: Recruitment &training: and operational cost
* On-going costs: Staff and labour cost
4. Benefits realization timeframe
* An analysis of the Return on Investment and present benefit.
5. Plan for provision of funds
* What are the plans put in place to raise funds to finance the project?
6. Risks and mitigants
* Delays in project completion, Cost overruns, liquidity risks
* Market risk, environmental risks
8. Potential showstoppers & contingency plans
* Competition, Material increase in level of interest rates may delay the commencement of projects by developers, and protests from non interested project members
Finally, as an organisation have a plan to manage the following:
* End-to-end Project Management support to business initiatives in line with the Project Dashboard
* Successful Post Implementation Evaluation (PIE) reviews
* Management and co-ordination of Steering Committee and Project Team activities
* Develop an effective project management culture within the business
