Introduction
Staying competitive in today’s economy involves delivering projects to the client faster than ever before and with significantly higher quality. Making the switch to new technologies challenges our traditional notions of software engineering best practices, project management methodologies and team leadership styles.
Myths
Companies define completion and success:
- If, despite the odds, projects are completed faster, cheaper and better
- By adopting a logic for IT infrastructure projects to shorten the planning process, with an emphasis on jumping right in and starting the work
- By segregating Business Analyst and Project Management roles and get them to follow some goofy trends that are made on the fly
However these aspects impede a successful delivery most of the time. This shortfall could be overcome by use of effective project management processes and techniques. A check list of such practices is as provided below.
Project Management Practices Checklist
1. Define roles and responsibilities up front
It is imperative to outline resources’ responsibilities as to who in the team will manage issues, scope change, risk, quality, communication, and so on. It is important to be able to manage the project rigorously and proactively and to ensure that the project team and all stakeholders have a common understanding of how the project will be managed.
2. Converge PM & BA Roles
Need for efficiencies and doing more with less is also driving the convergence of Project Management and Business Analyst roles. For example, who should gather requirements – the PM or the BA?
As each company and project determines what the best fit is for them, some will require specialists and others will leverage generalists to lead the way. The need for PM’s to be more of a Product Owner that owns the definition and delivery of the solution will continue to emerge. S/He should be able to lead the entire SDLC from market research, requirement definition to development onto product launch.
Project Managers can utilize stakeholder analysis technique to see the bigger picture by:
- Understanding the business – market and technology needs
- Liaison between customer/business and the development team
- Leading (not managing) the project team from concept/initiation to launch/close
3. Do Project Planning progressively
Success of the project depends on acquiring the skills necessary to progressive plan a project throughout its life cycle rather than just at the onset. The planning of the project should ideally end only with the closure of the project. Each member of the team has to be a member of the planning process at some stage.
Some of these time tested tools and techniques maybe used for planning the project including:
- Brainstorming, Delphi Technique
- Work break down structure
- Rolling wave planning
- Precedence diagramming method
- Analysis and estimations
- Cost-benefit analysis
- Benchmarking
- Networking
- SWOT analysis
- Fast Tracking
- Schedule Compression
- Make or buy analysis
4. Coordinating Planning and Execution
- Project planning and execution are intertwined and inseparable activities.
- Those who will do the work should help to plan the work.
- Project managers must solicit input from the team to develop realistic plans.
- Project managers must lead by example to demonstrate the importance of creating and then following good project plans.
- Organizational culture can help project execution by:
- Providing guidelines and templates
- Tracking performance based on plans
- Executives may still need to break the rules to meet project goals, and senior managers must support those actions.
Establish the steps and guidelines required to manage the projects and deliverables including monitoring and reporting on the project performance.
5. Execute the Project
Important skills required for effective project execution are:
- General management skills such as leadership, communication, and political skills.
- Product, business, and application area skills and knowledge.
- Use of specialized tools and techniques.
6. Differentiate Execution from Monitoring and Control
- Clearly define, auditing and inspection. Auditing is done when the project or module is developing and results in improving the processes whereas the inspection is done for a product and results finding defects and improving the product.
- Understand that two important outputs of monitoring and controlling project work include recommended corrective and preventive actions.
7. Monitoring and Controlling Project Work
Changes are inevitable on most projects, so it is important to develop and follow a process to monitor and control changes.
- Monitoring project work includes collecting, measuring, and disseminating performance information.
- Usage of specialized tools and techniques like:
- Change control meetings
- Inspection
- Variance analysis
- Performance reviews
- Project Management software
- Resource levelling
- What-if scenario analysis
- Adjusting leads and lags
- Schedule compression
- Scheduling tool
- Earned value management
- Forecasting
- To-complete performance index
- Cause and effect diagrams
- Flowcharting
- Histogram, Pareto chart, Run chart
- Statistical sampling, scatter diagram
- Reporting systems
- Risk reassessment
- Risk audits
- Reserve analysis
- Status meeting
8. Project Closure
Close a project, by finalizing all activities and transfer the completed or cancelled work to the appropriate people. Specialized tools and techniques include:
- Procurement audits
- Negotiated settlements
- Records management systems
Conclusion
This narration is an attempt to introduce Project Management practices. The Project Manager has to be responsible in coordinating the team to achieve a project’s goals by selection of appropriate tools, techniques, people and technology by providing adequate guidance and leadership at different stages of the project.
Authored by Puneet Wadhwa
Follow Nous Infosystems on Facebook, Twitter, Blogger & LinkedIn :
nousinfosystems
