A successful Project Manager must simultaneously manage the four basic elements of a project: resources, time, money, and most importantly, scope. All these elements are interrelated. Each must be managed effectively.
All must be managed together if the project, and the project manager, is to be a success.
Resources : People, equipment, material
Time : Task durations, dependencies, critical path
Money: Costs, contingencies, profit
Scope: Project size, goals, requirements
Most literature on project management speaks of the need to manage and balance three elements: people, time, and money. However, the fourth element is the most important and it is the first and last task for a successful project manager.
First and foremost you have to manage the project scope.
The project scope is the definition of what the project is supposed to accomplish and the budget (of time and money) that has been created to achieve these objectives. It is absolutely imperative that any change to the scope of the project have a matching change in budget, either time or resources. If the project scope is to build a building to house three widgets with a budget of $100,000 the project manager is expected to do that. However, if the scope is changed to a building for four widgets, the project manager must obtain an appropriate change in budgeted resources. If the budget is not adjusted, the smart project manager will avoid the change in scope.
Usually, scope changes occur in the form of "scope creep". Scope creep is the piling up of small changes that by themselves are manageable, but in agregate are significant. For example, the project callls for a building to be 80,000 square feet in size. The client wants to add a ten foot long, 4 foot wide awning over one bay door. That's a pretty minor change. Later the client wants to extend the awing 8 feet to cover the adjacent bay. Another minor change. Then it's a change to block the upwind side to the covered area to keep out the wind. Later, it's a request to block the other end to make the addition more symetrical. Eventually, the client asks for a ceiling under the awning, lights in the ceiling, electrical outlets, a water faucet for the workers, some sound-proofing, and a security camera. By now, the minor change has become a major addition.
Make sure any requested change, no matter how small, is accompanied by approval for a change in budget or schedule or both.
You can not effectively manage the resources, time and money in a project unless you actively manage the project scope.
When you have the project scope clearly identified and associated to the timeline and budget, you can begin to manage the project resources. These include the people, equipment, and material needed to complete the project.
Part 2: Managing Resources - People, Equipment, and Material
A successful Project Manager must effectively manage the resources assigned to the project. This includes the labor hours of the designers, the builders, the testers and the inspectors on the project team. It also include managing any labor subcontracts. However, managing project resources frequently involves more than people management. The project manager must also manage the equipment used for the project and the material needed by the people and equipment assigned to the project.
People: Project employees, vendor staff, subcontract labor
Equipment: Cranes, trucks, backhoes, other heavy equipment or Development, test, and staging servers, CD burners or Recording studio, tape decks, mixers, microphones and speakers
Material: Concrete, pipe, rebar, insulation or CD blanks, computers, jewel cases, instruction manuals
Managing the people resources means having the right people, with the right skills and the proper tools, in the right quantity at the right time.
It also means ensuring that they know what needs to be done, when, and how. And it means motivating them to take ownership in the project too.
Managing direct employees normally means managing the senior person in each group of employees assigned to your project. Remember that these employees also have a line manager to whom they report and from whom the usually take technical direction. In a matrix management situation, like a project team, your job is to provide project direction to them.
Managing labor subcontracts usually means managing the team lead for the subcontracted workers, who in turn manages the workers.
The equipment you have to manage as part of your project depends on the nature of the project. A project to construct a frozen food warehouse would need earth moving equipment, cranes, and cement trucks. For a project to release a new version of a computer game, the equipment would include computers, test equipment, and duplication and packaging machinery. The project management key for equipment is much like for people resources. You have to make sure you have the right equipment in the right place at the right time and that it has the supplies it needs to operate properly.
Most projects involve the purchase of material. For a frozen food warehouse, this would be freezers, the building HVAC machinery and the material handling equipment. For a project to release a music CD by a hot new artist, it would include the CD blanks, artwork for the jewel case, and press releases to be sent to deejays. The project management issue with supplies is to make sure the right supplies arrive at the right time (we'll talk about the right price later).
All your skill in managing resources won't help, however, unless you can stick to the project schedule. Time management is critical in successful project management.
Part 3: Managing Time and Schedule
Time management is a critically important skill for any successful project manager. I have observed that Project Managers who succeed in meeting their project schedule have a good chance of staying within their project budget. The most common cause of blown project budgets is lack of schedule management. Fortunately there is a lot of software on the market today to help you manage your project schedule or timeline.
Tasks: Duration, resources, dependencies
Schedule: Tasks, predecessors, successors
Critical Path: Changeable, often multiple, float
Any project can be broken down into a number of tasks that have to be performed. To prepare the project schedule, the project manager has to figure out what the tasks are, how long they will take, what resources they require, and in what order they should be done.
Each of these elements has a direct bearing on the schedule.
If you omit a task, the project won't be completed. If you underestimate the length of time or the amount of resources required for the task, you may miss your schedule. The schedule can also be blown if you make a mistake in the sequencing of the tasks.
Build the project schedule by listing, in order, all the tasks that need to be completed. Assign a duration to each task. Allocate the required resources. Determine predecessors (what tasks must be completed before) and successors (tasks that can't start until after) each task. It's pretty simple and straightforward. For instance, think of a project called "Getting Dressed In The Morning". The task "put on shirt" may have a longer duration if it is a buttoned dress shirt than if it's a pullover. It doesn't matter which order you complete the tasks "put on right shoe" and "put on left shoe", but it is important to complete the "put on pants" task before starting the "put on shoes" task.
The difficulty in managing a project schedule is that there are seldom enough resources and enough time to complete the tasks sequentially. Therefore, tasks have to be overlapped so several happen at the same time. Project management software (see sidebar) greatly simplifies the task of creating and managing the project schedule by handling the iterations in the schedule logic for you.
When all tasks have been listed, resourced, and sequenced, you will see that some tasks have a little flexibility in their required start and finish date. This is called float. Other tasks have no flexibility, zero float. A line through all the tasks with zero float is called the critical path. All tasks on this path, and there can be multiple, parallel paths, must be completed on time if the project is to be completed on time. The Project Manager's key time management task is to manage the critical path.
Be aware, that items can be added to or removed from the critical path as circumstances change during the execution of the project. Installation of security cameras may not be on the critical path, but if the shipment is delayed, it may become part of the critical path. Conversely, pouring the concrete foundation may be on the critical path, but if the project manager obtains an addition crew and the pour is completed early it could come off the critical path (or reduce the length of the critical path).
Regardless of how well you manage the schedule and the resources, there is one more critical element - managing the budget.
Part 4: Managing Costs, Money, and Profits
Often a Project Manager is evaluated on his or her ability to complete a project within budget. If you have effectively managed the project resources and project schedule, this should not be a problem. It is, however, a task that requires the project manager's careful attention. You can only manage effectively a limited number of cost items, so focus on the critical ones (see the 80-20 Rule in the sidebar).
Costs: Estimated, actual, variability
Contingencies: Weather, suppliers, design allowance
Profit: Cost, contingencies, remainder
Each project task will have a cost, whether it is the cost of the labor hours of a computer programmer or the purchase price of a cubic yard of concrete. In preparing the project budget, each of these costs is estimated and then totaled.
Some of these estimates will be more accurate than others. A company knows what it will charge each of its projects for different classifications of labor. Commodities like concrete are priced in a very competitive market so prices are fairly predictable. Other estimates are less accurate. For instance, the cost of a conveyor system with higher performance specifications that normal can be estimated to be more expensive, but it is hard to determine whether it will be 10% more or 15% more. For an expensive item, that can be a significant amount.
When the estimated cost of an item is uncertain, the project budget often includes a design allowance. This is money that is set aside in the budget "just in case" the actual cost of the item is wildly different than the estimate.
Unusual weather or problems with suppliers are always a possibility on large projects. Companies usually include a contingency amount in the project budget to cover these kinds of things.
So a project budget is composed of the estimated cost, plus the contingency and design allowance, plus any profit. The project manager's job is to keep the actual cost at or below the estimated cost, to use as little of the design allowance and contingency as possible, and to maximize the profit the company earns on the project.
To maximize your chances of meeting your project budget, meet your project schedule. The most common cause of blown budgets is blown schedules. Meeting the project schedule won't guarantee you will meet the project budget, but it significantly increases your chances. And above all, manage the project scope. Don't allow the project scope to "creep" upward without getting budget and/or schedule adjustments to match.
Successful project management is an art and a science that takes practice. The ideas presented above can give you a basic understanding of project management, but consider it only a beginning. If your job or career path includes project management, and you want to improve your skills, talk to successful project managers, read, and practice. Project management can be a very rewarding career.
How To Manage A Project
Here's How:
Define the Scope: The first, and most important, step in any project is defining the scope of the project. What is it you are supposed to accomplish by managing this project? What is the project objective? Equally important is defining what is not included in the scope of your project. If you don't get enough definition from your boss, clarify the scope yourself and send it back upstairs for confirmation.
Determine Available Resources: What people, equipment, and money will you have available to you to achieve the project objectives? As a project manager, you usually will not have direct control of these resources, but will have to manage them through matrix management. Find out how easy or difficult that will be to do.
Check the Timeline: When does the project have to be completed? As you develop your project plan you may have some flexibility in how you use time during the project, but deadlines usually are fixed. If you decide to use overtime hours to meet the schedule, you must weigh that against the limitations of your budget.
Assemble Your Project Team: Get the people on your team together and start a dialog. They are the technical experts. That's why their functional supervisor assigned them to the project. Your job is to manage the team.
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List the Big Steps: What are the major pieces of the project? If you don't know, start by asking your team. It is a good idea to list the steps in chronological order but don't obsess about it; you can always change the order later.
List the Smaller Steps: List the smaller steps in each of the larger steps. Again, it usually helps you remember all the steps if you list them in chronological order. How many levels deep you go of more and more detailed steps depends on the size and complexity of your project.
Develop a Preliminary Plan: Assemble all your steps into a plan. What happens first? What is the next step? Which steps can go on at the same time with different resources? Who is going to do each step? How long will it take? There are many excellent software packages available that can automate a lot of this detail for you. Ask others in similar positions what they use.
Create Your Baseline Plan: Get feedback on your preliminary plan from your team and from any other stakeholders. Adjust your timelines and work schedules to fit the project into the available time. Make any necessary adjustments to the preliminary plan to produce a baseline plan.
Request Project Adjustments: There is almost never enough time, money or talent assigned to a project. Your job is to do more with the limited resources than people expect. However, there are often limits placed on a project that are simply unrealistic. You need to make your case and present it to your boss and request these unrealistic limits be changed. Ask for the changes at the beginning of the project. Don't wait until it's in trouble to ask for the changes you need.
Work Your Plan, But Don't Die For ItMaking the plan is important, but the plan can be changed. You have a plan for driving to work every morning. If one intersection is blocked by an accident, you change your plan and go a different way. Do the same with your project plans. Change them as needed, but always keep the scope and resources in mind.
Monitor Your Team's ProgressYou will make little progress at the beginning of the project, but start then to monitor what everyone is doing anyway. That will make it easier to catch issues before they become problems.
Document Everything: Keep records. Every time you change from your baseline plan, write down what the change was and why it was necessary. Every time a new requirement is added to the project write down where the requirement came from and how the timeline or budget was adjusted because of it. You can't remember everything, so write them down so you'll be able to look them up at the end-of-project review and learn from them.
Keep Everyone Informed: Keep all the project stakeholders informed of progress all along. Let them know of your success as you complete each milestone, but also inform them of problems as soon as they come up. Also keep you team informed. If changes are being considered, tell the team about them as far ahead as you can. Make sure everyone on the team is aware of what everyone else is doing.
From F. John Reh,Your Guide to Management.
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