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Automotive Industry

Making Project Management easy as 1-2-3: once you've mastered these steps, you'll be gliding effortlessly through your next project - Supplier Business: Plante Moran

Automotive Industries, Dec, 2002 by Jonathan E. Probst

Project management (PM). To many, just hearing those wards conjures up a myriad of negative emotions--uncertainty, anxiety, and concern, to name a few. When some people think of PM, they often think of very expensive software systems and large project implementations that last years, leading to countless capital costs yet yielding marginal and unquantifiable savings. This is the wrong approach to PM. PM is not frightening, but trying to function on a day-to-day basis without it is. PM is concerned with all kinds of things that make jobs easier--stress reduction, gaining control, providing tools for their organization and saving money.

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It's that simple. Understanding PM and knowing how to create an effective PM process can improve productivity as well as your bottom line.

Defining Project Management

Of the projects you are currently involved with:

1. Can everyone on the project team access a common, regularly updated, project schedule that identifies independent tasks for each individual on the project?

2. Does everyone know where to locate all project forms and documents, including the project scope and objective?

3. Is the correct version of a document always used by project stakeholders?

4. Is scope creep always handled in a standard, manageable manner in which budget, resources, and schedule concerns are addressed?

5. Are project issues captured for everyone to view?

6. Does management always have buy-in to new projects?

If you answered no, then there is a very simple solution--provide a standardized controllable approach to solving these issues. This can be done with Project Management.

The Project Management Institute defines PM as, "the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project." There are four main application areas in that definition--knowledge, skills, tools and techniques. To simplify, "knowledge and skills" are elements of experience that someone who has experience in projects possess. 'Tools and techniques' are application areas that a PM methodology will provide. Tools and techniques are part of the process that can be tailored to meet your organization's needs.

When Good Projects Go Bad

Why do good projects to bad? Reasons include:

1. Unclear scope or direction

2. Unclear requirements

3. Lack of resources

4. Undefined project end date

5. Lack of clear deliverables t having timeframes for tasks

7. Not knowing who is on the project

8. Poor communication

9. Lack of planning

10. Not knowing where to go to access project information

11. Changing requirements or scope

12. Cost and schedule overruns

13. Lack of buy-in and accountability

All of these problems have one thing in common--lack of PM. How does an organization go about putting together an effective PM methodology? Use this Top 10 list as a guide.

The Top 10 Tips for Instituting Effective Project Management

1. With new projects, capture the known project objectives, scope, deliverables, stakeholders, project manager, assumptions, risks, budget constraints and senior management personnel responsible for approving the project.

2. Determine who you need on your team to plan and execute the scope outlined in Step 1.

Sound like a lot? But if management or the project manager doesn't know the answer to Step 1, then how will project team members? Oftentimes, team members have a different opinion of the scope and head in a different direction. Avoid this pitfall.

The level of experience is often critical to project success. The leadership and technical expertise varies from project to project. The team responsible for planning the project must have some ownership and accountability in the project in order for the planning process to be successful.

2. How are project stakeholders going to communicate with each other?

Who needs what information, when, how and at what frequency? This applies to all people affected by the project. This is one of the most important overlooked elements to the planning process and includes steps such as when and where the project team will meet, what technology will be used to send information, and how will people be notified.

4. Where and with what structure will project information be stored?

This step is critical, especially for larger projects that touch many stakeholders. For example, a project team could specify a common drive or web site location where all project forms and documentation Will be stored along with a folder structure to allow team members to quickly and efficiently locate, project information. It's also important to have a PM methodology to locate documents across projects.

5. Develop your schedule.

Start by creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to capture the tasks required to support and relate project deliverables. After the WBS, capture the task relationships -- what needs to happen first. Estimate the time duration and assign a responsible person to complete each task with a discrete output.

Automotive Industry

Making Project Management easy as 1-2-3: once you've mastered these steps, you'll be gliding effortlessly through your next project - Supplier Business: Plante Moran

Automotive Industries, Dec, 2002 by Jonathan E. Probst

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