Guide to Project Management Guide to Project Management You’ve been asked to lead a project. You appreciate the vote of confidence, but are you panicking because you haven’t a clue where to begin? Do you worry that stakeholders will tug you in a million directions, making it impossible to set clear goals, let alone deliver the goods on time and on budget? How will you know when to stick to your original plan and when to be flexible? And how will you keep all your team members excited about this project—when they have so many other pressures on them? This guide will give you the confidence and tools you need to manage projects effectively. You’ll learn how to: Choose the right team and keep it humming ■■ Avoid “scope creep” ■■ Zero in on critical tasks and map out a logical sequence ■■ Make heads or tails of Gantt and PERT charts ■■ Get disruptive team members on board ■■ Keep stakeholders in the loop ■■ Gauge your project’s success ■■ Stop throwing good money after bad ■■ Capture—and use—lessons learned ■■ TABLE OF CONTENTS Overview 4 The Four Phases of Project Management 12 The Cast of Characters: Who’s Who in Project Management Phase 1: Planning 15 A Written Charter: Your Marching Orders 17 Dealing with a Project’s “Fuzzy Front End” by Loren Gary 19 Performing a Project Premortem by Gary Klein 21 Will Project Creep Cost You—or Create Value? by Loren Gary Phase 2: Build-Up 24 Setting Priorities Before Starting Your Project by Ron Ashkenas 27 Boost Productivity with Time-Boxing by Melissa Raffoni 28 Scheduling the Work: Put the Horse Before the Cart 32 A Rush to Failure? by Tom Cross 38 Getting Your Project Off on the Right Foot 41 The Discipline of Teams by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K.
Smith Phase 3: Implementation 42 Effective Project Meetings 43 The Adaptive Approach to Project Management 45 Why Good Projects Fail Anyway by Nadim F. Matta and Ronald N. Ashkenas 46 Monitoring and Controlling Your Project by Ray Sheen 49 Managing People Problems on Your Team continued on next page Harvard Business Review Guide to Project Management page 2 51 The Tools of Cooperation and Change by Clayton M. Christensen, Matt Marx, and Howard H.
Stevenson 52 Don’t Throw Good Money (or Time) After Bad by Jimmy Guterman Phase 4: Closeout 54 Closing Out Your Project: Handing Off Authority and Control by Ray Sheen 57 Closing Out Your Project: Capturing Lessons Learned by Ray Sheen 59 Glossary page 3 www.org H A R VA R D B U S I N E S S R E V I E W P R E S S The Four Phases of Project Management Whether you’re in charge of developing a website, designing a car, moving a department to a new facil- ity, updating an information system, or just about any other project (large or small), you’ll go through the same four phases: planning, build-up, implementation, and closeout. Even though the phases have distinct qualities, they overlap. For example, you’ll typically begin planning with a ballpark budget figure and an estimated completion date. Once you’re in the build-up and implementation phases, you’ll define and begin to execute the details of the project plan.
That will give you new information, so you’ll revise your budget and end date—in other words, do more planning—according to your clearer understanding of the big picture. Here’s a chart that outlines the activities of each phase, plus the skills and tools you may need for doing the work: Project Phases Planning Build-Up Implementation Closeout ACTIVITIES 00 Determine the real 00 Assemble your team 00 Monitor and control 00 Evaluate project problem to solve process and budget performance Copyright © 2011 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. 00 Identify stakeholders 00 Plan assignments 00 Report progress 00 Close the project 00 Define project 00 Create the schedule 00 Hold weekly team 00 Debrief with the team objectives meetings 00 Determine scope, 00 Hold a kickoff meeting 00 Manage problems 00 Develop a post- resources, and major evaluation report tasks 00 Prepare for tradeoffs 00 Develop a budget Harvard Business Review Guide to Project Management page 4 The Four Phases of Project Management KEY SKILLS 00 Task analysis 00 Process analysis 00 Supervising 00 Follow-through 00 Planning 00 Team building 00 Leading and 00 Planning motivating 00 Cost-benefit analysis 00 Delegating 00 Communication 00 Communication of options 00 Negotiating 00 Conflict management 00 Recruiting and hiring 00 Problem solving 00 Communication TOOLS 00 Work Breakdown 00 Scheduling tools 00 Post-evaluation Structure (CPM, PERT, Gantt) report: analysis and lessons learned Planning: How to Map Out a Project will become even clearer once you figure out When people think of project planning, their who all your stakeholders are—that is, which minds tend to jump immediately to schedul- functions or people might be affected by the ing—but you won’t even get to that part until the project’s activities or outcomes, who will con- build-up phase.
Planning is really about defin- tribute resources (people, space, time, tools, and ing fundamentals: what problem needs solving, money), and who will use and benefit from the who will be involved, and what will be done. They will work with you to spell Determine the real problem to solve. Before out exactly what success on the project means. you begin, take time to pinpoint what issue the Have them sign off on what they expect at the project is actually supposed to fix.
It’s not always end of the project and what they are willing to obvious. contribute to it. And if the stakeholders change Say the CIO at your company has asked you, midstream, be prepared not only to respond to an IT manager, to develop a new database and the new players but also to include all the others data entry system. You may be eager to jump in any decision to redirect the project.
right into the project to tackle problems you Whether you’re managing a project in a cor- have struggled with firsthand. But will that solve poration or working as an independent consul- the company’s problem? To increase the project’s tant, it’s critical to have the support of the people chances of success, you must look beyond the you’re working for. They may take a blue-sky symptoms you have observed—“We can’t get the view and demand an enormous amount of work data out fast enough” and “I have to sift through within an unrealistic time period or expect you four different reports just to compile an update on to perform miracles with inadequate resources my clients’ recent activity”—to find the underly- or staffing. As the project manager, you’ll need ing issues the organization is trying to address.
to make sure the requirements and resources Before designing the database, you should ask line up fairly evenly, or you will set yourself up what type of data is required, what will be done for failure. with it, how soon a fix is needed, and so on. If Define project objectives. One of your most you don’t, you’ll run the risk of wasting time challenging planning tasks is to meld stakehold- and money by creating a solution that is too sim- ers’ various expectations into a coherent and plistic, too complicated, or too late—or one that manageable set of goals.
The project’s success doesn’t do what users need it to do. will be measured by how well you meet those Identify the stakeholders. The real problem goals. The more explicitly you state them at the page 5 www.org The Four Phases of Project Management outset, the less disagreement you will face later To create a WBS: about whether you have met expectations.
In ■■ sk, “What will have to be done in order to A the planning phase, however, much is still in accomplish X?” flux, so you’ll revise your objectives later on, as ■■ Continue to ask this question until your an- you gather information about what you need to swer is broken down into tasks that cannot be achieve. When defining objectives, think SMART. ■■ Estimate how long it will take to complete They should be: each task and how much each will cost in ■■ Specific terms of dollars and person-hours. ■■ Measurable A WBS typically consists of three to six lev- ■■ Action-oriented els of subdivided activities.
The more complex ■■ Realistic the project, the more levels it will have. As a ■■ Time-limited general rule, you shouldn’t have more than 20— Suppose your HR department has been and only an enormous project would require tasked with identifying potential new provid- that many. PMS_Projects_ch03.qxd 1/19/06 10:10 AM Page 25 ers for your company’s health benefits plan Here in the planning phase, don’t worry because the current ones aren’t delivering the about the sequence of activities. You will take level of service they should given how much care of scheduling in the build-up phase.
Rather, money employees have to pay for them. The use the WBS to create the framework that you’ll project’s SMART objectives may be to: fill in once you have a better sense of your staff, budget, and time constraints. S urvey <action-oriented> at least six is an acceptable way to reduce risk, but do it <measurable> providers that meet the de- partment’s minimum threshold criteria for PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS service quality. Recommend <action-oriented>, at the June Work Breakdown Structure <time-limited> board of directors’ meeting, Develop a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to ensure that you do not overlook a significant part of a complex the three <specific> that offer the best and activity or underestimate the time and money needed to complete the work.
Use multiple pages as needed. broadest coverage at a cost that is at least Describe the overall project: 10% <realistic> less than the company’s cur- rent per-employee contribution. The overall project will migrate 3 Web servers and 2 databases to a new physical data center. The project requires that 5 new servers be provisioned in the new data center; these servers will mirror the production servers existing in the old data center.
The new servers will be built to the same specifications as the old ones, they will run the same application and have the same content. Keep the following factors in mind as you de- Once implemented, the new equipment will be tested to confirm functionality. The sites will have a cutover and “go live” data. Finally, the old equipment will be decommissioned and reabsorbed into inventory.
fine your project’s objectives: Level 1 Level 2 Level 2 Major Task Sub Tasks Sub Tasks Sub Task Duration ■■ uality. Identify quality standards, and deter- Q Obtain equipment. Purchase 3 Web servers and 2 Cut P. and order servers.
5 days mine how to measure and satisfy them. Calibrate goals depending on Ship equipment to new data center. Alert data center that equipment is 2 days slated for arrival. the people and other resources you have Provision and Physically install hardware.
Rack and cable new equipment in data 2 days available. implement center and ensure physical and network equipment. Determine what informa- Load operating systems. Load base-level operating systems for 1 days tion each stakeholder needs and how to de- Web and database servers.
Load application level software, includ- 2 days liver it. ing Web server software, database ap- plications, and any required dependencies. Determine scope, resources, and major Mirror content to new servers. Copy configurations from production 3 days tasks.
Many projects fail either because they bite sites, transfer les to new servers, and load appropriately. off more than they can chew and thus grossly Test equipment. Ensure network connectivity , as well as We b 2 days underestimate time and money or because a and database access, functionality , and integrity. significant part of the work has been overlooked.
Go live w ith new Cutover to new production site. Switch Web and database access to new 1 day equipment.