ManageIT Project Management (MPM)
Almost every project is a one-time happening with a beginning and an end. You get one and only one chance to do it right. Whether the project is going to make you rich and famous or just get you through your next salary review, you can’t afford to screw up. There are loads of opportunities in most projects to do exactly that.
It is amazing the number of bungled projects that occur on a daily basis. On a large scale, bridges collapse, oil tankers run aground, nuclear power plants over-run their construction budget by billions. On a smaller scale, businesses go bankrupt, builders get sued, and parades get rained out. The toll in human suffering, disappointment and financial carnage due to project MISmanagement is incalculable. And it goes on and on.
Poor project management hurts the people that work on the project. No one likes to waste even a part of their life on a project that flops. When a project fails it is not just the customer or project leader that suffers. Everyone connected with the project loses.
What is a project? A project is a one time happening. It has a beginning and an end. It often involves a team of people brought together for that single purpose. The Vancouver Worlds Fair was a project. Every new building is a project. Every new product is a project. No two projects are exactly alike. So even with vast experience, there is always more to learn and some brand new pitfalls.
Organizations are now blending project management into their methodologies so that we all can have a “roadmap” to help manage the project from start to finish. Our version is ManageIT MPM.
The logic behind our MPM revolves around a “Phased, Gate Deliverables Process”. Every project seems to go through six phases. They are:
1. concept definition and justification,
2. planning and budgeting,
3. design and feasibility testing,
4. development/construction,
5. launch preparation, and, finally,
6. announcement, opening and delivery
We made a decision to merge phase 1 and 2 into our Assessment Phase and phase 5 and 6 into our Optimize Phase. Thus we’ve created a methodology with four phases meeting all the requirements of the six phase project.
Between each phase there is a gate that is simply a meeting between the project leader and project sponsor to review progress and obtain approval to continue. For every gate meeting, there are deliverables. Our deliverables are associated with each task. They are evidence that key activities that should be accomplished, indeed, have been. That is the underlying process.
Woven into MPM is the essence of goal-oriented leadership and planning. In support of this process, the project management body of knowledge has been segmented into 55 issues, matters that require action of decisions. Most medium or large projects will face all of these issues during the life-cycle of the project.
Let’s discuss just a few of these 55 issues to provide a flavor of what is involved. They will be presented more or less in order of how they are encountered in the life-cycle of a typical project.
1. Forecast the income or savings the project will generate at an optimum price and decide if the project is economically attractive from that stand-point.
2. Determine the Return-On-Investment for the project to decide if it is good enough.
3. See how the best project leader should be selected from the available candidates.
4. Develop an understanding or contract between the Project Leader and the Project Sponsor.
5. Determine a specialized nuance needed for the project and decide where and how to get it.
6. Develop a list of project concerns. What could go wrong?
7. Select a project planning software that will best suit the needs of the project. We prefer Microsoft’s Project.
8. Develop a project activities list, work breakdown structure. ManageIT provides a starting point for these activities.
9. Estimate time and resource requirements for the project.
10. Decide how to condense time and cost requirements. This is commonly known as crashing the network.
11. Optimize project design.
12. Do Value Analysis: assure quality design, reliability and produceability.
13. Monitor Earned Value as the project proceeds during implementation.
14. Diagnose and correct any leadership or technical problems that may arise.
15. Recognize and form a strategy to deal with the risks of the project.
16. Do a launch readiness review and plan the ribbon cutting ceremony.
17. Determine how to recognize the project team and key individuals on the project.
That is what we are after. Whether your project is an ERP implementation, a new product development, a sales presentation, a training program, a project documentation effort, a client research undertaking, or starting a consulting practice, you cannot risk your project not going well. You must anticipate the pitfalls and know what to do about them before they appear. MPM can assist you to do this.