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So, You’re Going to Manage a Project?

In this chapter, you learn what a project is, essential skills for project managers, and what it takes to be a good project manager.

The Elements of a Project

What exactly is a project? You hear the word used at work, as well as at home. People say, “I am going to add a deck in the backyard. It will be a real project.” Or,“Our team’s project is to determine consumer preferences in our industry through the year 2029.” Or, “I have a little project I would like you to tackle. I think that you can be finished by this afternoon.”

A “project” is the allocation of resources over a specific time frame and the coordination of interrelated events to accomplish an overall objective while meeting both predictable and unique challenges. It is a temporary endeavor, undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result within constraints of time, resources, and cost. The architect Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “Man built most nobly when limitations were at their greatest.” Since each architectural achievement is a complex project, Wright’s observation is as applicable for day-to-day projects routinely faced by managers as it is for a complex, multinational undertaking.

Experts cite five major elements that define a project: creation, planning, executing, monitoring, and completion, each tackled in a logical sequence. The creation has to do with defining a scope of work that is to be performed, along with major goals that are to be accomplished. Planning is required to define the scope of work and entails defining each job and each task within each job to be accomplished, the duration of the work, the human resources required, and the materials needed.

Execution equates to working the plan. Monitoring, or command as some call it, entails updating the plan as it is worked. Completion means closing out all open tasks required to reach the desired end. However, when you boil things down, projects can be viewed as undertakings that have multiple elements, including the aforementioned specific time frame, an orchestrated approach to codependent events, a desired outcome, and unique characteristics.

1. Specific Time Frame

Projects are temporary ventures. Projects can last years or even decades, as in the case of public works programs, feeding the world’s hungry, or sending spacecrafts to other galaxies.

Projects invariably end, however, because the mission is accomplished or is deemed unreachable or obsolete, or funds dry up, or sponsors and stakeholders move on, or external factors require a shift in focus, or the project is consumed by another project, or any of at least a dozen other reasons.

Many of the projects that you face in the work-a-day world will run somewhere in the range of hours to weeks, or possibly months, but usually not years or decades. As such, the scope of this book will be limited to projects of short duration—say, up to six months, but usually shorter than that.

A project begins when some person or group in authority authorizes its beginning. The initiating party has the authority, the budget, and the resources to enable the project to come to fruition and “make it so.”

By definition, every project initiated is engaged for a precise period, although those charged with achieving the project’s goals often feel as if the project were going on forever. When project goals are completed, a project ends and something else, invariably, takes its place.

Much of the effort of the people on a project, and certainly most of the resources, including funds, are directed toward ensuring that the project is designed to achieve the desired outcome and be completed as scheduled.

Toward completion or realization of a desired outcome, the project might have interim due dates in which “deliverables” must be finished. Deliverables are something of value generated by a project management team as scheduled, to be offered to an authorizing party, a reviewing committee, a client constituent, or another concerned party, often taking the form of a plan, report, procedure, product, or service.

Deliverables can take the form of a report, provision of service, a prototype, an actual product, a new procedure, or any one of a number of other forms. Each deliverable and each interim goal achieved helps to ensure that the overall project will be finished on time and on budget, at the desired level of quality.

2. An Orchestrated Approach to Codependent Events

Projects involve a series of related events which are divisible, definable units of work related to a project, which might or might not include subtasks. One event leads to another. Multiple events might be contingent on other multiple events overlapping in intricate patterns. Indeed, if projects did not involve multiple events, they would not be projects! They would be single tasks or a series of single tasks that are laid out in some sequential pattern.

Projects are more involved; some could be so complex that the only way to understand the pattern of interrelated events is to depict them on a chart, or to use sophisticated project management software. Such tools enable the project manager to see which tasks need to be executed concurrently versus sequentially, and so on.

A project manager is an individual who has responsibility for overseeing all aspects of the day-to-day activities in pursuit of a project goal, including coordinating staff, allocating resources, managing the budget, and directing overall efforts to achieve a specific, desired result. Coordination of events for some projects is so crucial that if one single event is not executed as scheduled, the entire project could be at risk!

3. A Desired Outcome

At the end of each project is the realization of some specific goal or objective. An “objective” as used here refers to a desired outcome; something worth striving for; the overarching goal of a project; the reason for which the project was initiated. It is not enough to assign a project to someone and say lightly, “See what you can do.” Nebulous objectives pretty much lead to a nebulous outcome. A specific objective increases the chances of leading to a specific outcome.

While one major, clear, desired project objective is established, in pursuit of it there could be interim project objectives. The objectives of a project management team for a food processing company, for example, might be to improve the quality and taste of the company’s macaroni dish. Along the way, the team might conduct taste samples, survey consumers, research competitors, and so on. Completion of each of these events can be regarded as an interim objective toward completion of the overall objective.

Project teams sometimes are charged with achieving a series of increasingly lofty objectives in pursuit of the final, ultimate objective. Often teams can only proceed in a stair step fashion to achieve the desired outcome. If they were to proceed in any other manner, they might not be able to develop the skills or insights along the way that will enable them to progress in a productive manner.

Just as major league baseball teams start out in spring training in Florida or Arizona by doing calisthenics and warm-up exercises, and reviewing the fundamentals of the game, such as base running, fielding, throwing, bunting, and so on, so too are project teams better off honing their skills and capabilities to meet a series of interim objectives and outcomes.

The interim objectives and outcomes go by many names. Regardless of the terminology used, the intent is the same: to achieve a desired objective on time and on budget, with the desired level of quality.

When You Wish Upon a Star—Time and money are inherent constraints in the pursuit of any project. If the scheduled start and stop times—in other words, the time line—is not specific and the project can be completed any old time, then it’s not a project! It might be a wish, a desire, an aim, or a long-held notion, but it is not a project. By assigning a specific time frame to a project, project team members can mentally and physically acclimate themselves to the rigors inherent in operating under said terms.

Many projects are completed beyond the time frame initially allotted. Still, setting the time frame is vital. If it had not been set, the odds of the project being completed anywhere near the originally earmarked period would be far less.

While the budget for a project is usually imposed on a project manager by someone in authority, or even by the project manager, as with the time frame constraint, a budget serves as a useful and necessary constraint of another nature.

It would be nice to have deep pockets for every project that you handle, but the reality for many organizations and project managers is that budgetary limits have to be set. And thank goodness. You are not Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. Budgetary limits help ensure efficiency. When you know that you only have so many dollars to spend, you spend those dollars more judiciously than when you have double or triple that amount.

4. Unique Characteristics

If you have been assigned a multipart project, the likes of which you have not undertaken before, independent of your background and experience, that project is original and unique to you. Yet, even if you have recently completed something of a similar nature the month before, the new assignment still represents an original project, with its own set of challenges. Why? Because as time passes, society changes, technology changes, and even your workplace changes.

Suppose you are asked to manage the orientation project for your company’s new class of recruits. There are 10 people and they will be with you for a three-week period, as with the group before them. The company’s orientation materials have been developed for a long time, they are excellent, and, by golly, they work!

You have excellent facilities. Your budget, though limited, has proven to be adequate, and you feel up for the task. Still, this project will be unique, because you haven’t encountered these 10 people before. Their backgrounds and experiences, the way that they interact with one another and with you, and a host of other factors ensure that challenges will arise during this three-week project, some of which will represent unprecedented challenges.

Project Planning

Projects managed effectively involve the preparation of the project plan, which is considered the basic project document. Indeed, the project progresses and endures based on the efficacy of the project plan.

The project plan is the fundamental document that spells out what is to be achieved, how so, and what resources will be necessary. A well-developed plan offers clarity and direction, and spells what you can identify, up to the present, that needs to be handled to achieve the desired project outcome. The plan aids you in periodically assessing if you’re where you need to be, or if you’re not, what is needed to succeed. The basic project components, according to Hallows, are seen in Figure 1.

“With the plan as a road map, telling us how to get from one point to another,” says Hallows, “a good project manager recognizes from the outset that a project plan is more than an academic exercise or tool for appeasing upper management. It is the blueprint for the entire scope of the project, a vital document which is referred to frequently, often updated on-the-fly, and something without which the project manager cannot proceed.”

The term “scope of the project” or “scope of work” refers to breadth and depth—the level of activity and effort—necessary to complete a project and achieve the desired outcome as measured by staff hours, staff days, resources consumed, and funds spent.

Before laying out the project plan (the subject of Chapter 6), the manager starts with a rough draft “preplan” which could take the form of an outline, a proposal, a feasibility study, or simply a memorandum. The preplan triggers the project. From there, a more detailed plan is drawn up that includes the delegation of tasks among project team members and the identification of interim objectives, both laid out in sequence for all concerned.

FIGURE 1 Basic Project Components

Once action commences and the project team members, as well as the project manager, begin to realize what they are truly facing, the project plan is invariably modified. Hallows notes that “All plans are guesses to some extent. Good plans are good guesses, bad plans are bad guesses.”Any plan is better than no plan, since no plan doesn’t lead anywhere! No plans are analogous to horrible guesses.

Note that while plans start as educated guesses, they become increasingly accurate and well-defined as the project progresses. Ultimately, you’ll gain a good grasp of project goals, which form the backbone of a good project plan.

Project Implementation

Following the preparation of a formal project plan, project implementation ensues. This is where the excitement begins. If drawing up the plan was a somewhat dry process, implementing it is anything but. Here, for the first time, you put your plan into action.

You consult the plan as if it were your trail map, assigning this task to person A, that task to person B, and so on. What was once only on paper or on disc now corresponds to action in the real world. People are actually doing things as a result of your plan.

If your team is charged with developing a new software product, some members might begin by examining the code of previous programs, while others engage in market research, while still others contemplate the nature of computing two years out. If your team is charged with putting up a new building, some begin by surveying the area, others by marking out the ground, some by mixing cement and laying foundation, others by erecting scaffolding, while yet others might be redirecting traffic.

If your project involves successfully training your company’s sales division on how to use a new type of handheld device, initial implementation activities might involve scheduling the training sessions, developing the lesson plans, finding corollaries between the old procedures and the new, testing the equipment, and so on.

Regardless of what type of project is at hand, the implementation phase usually is a period of high energy and excitement as team members begin to realize that the change is actually going to happen and that what they are doing can make a difference.

Command

From implementation on, the project manager’s primary task becomes that of monitoring progress. Because this is covered extensively in Chapters 7 through 10, suffice it to say here that the effective project manager continually examines what has been accomplished to date; how that jibes with the project plan; what modifications, if any, need to be made to the plan; and what needs to be done next.

She or he also needs to consider what obstacles and roadblocks might be farther along the path, the morale and motivation of her or his staff, and how much of the budget has been expended versus how much remains.

Monitoring progress might unwittingly become the full-time obsession of a project manager intent on bringing the project in on time and on budget. In doing so, some managers lose the personal touch with team members. So, steadfastness in monitoring the project is but one of the many traits necessary to be successful in project management, and that is the subject of our exploration in Chapter 4, “What Makes a Good Project Manager?”

Players and Their Roles

The following are participants you’ll likely encounter and the roles that they play in the course of a project:

◾  Authorizing Party—Initiates the project. (Often called a sponsor: an oftimes unfortunate term, since after initiation many “sponsors” offer notably little sponsorship.)

◾  Stakeholder—Stakeholders are individuals who are keenly interested in seeing a project succeed and represent those people who’ll be affected by the outcome of the project.

◾  Note: A stakeholder could include the authorizing party, top management, department and division heads, other project managers and project management teams, senior managers, business developers, clients, constituents, and other parties external to an organization. In short, the parties listed above and below, on some level, are all considered stakeholders.

◾  Project Manager—Initiates, then scopes and plans work and resources.

◾  Work Manager—Responsible for planning activities within projects and servicing requests.

◾  Administrative Manager—Tends to the staff by ensuring that standard activities such as training, vacations, and other planned activities are included in schedules.

◾  Team Member—A staff member who performs the work to be managed.

◾  Software Guru—Helps install, run, and apply software.

◾  Project Director—Supervises one or more project managers.

Effective project management requires the ability to view both the project at hand and all its players from a holistic perspective. By seeing the various interrelated project events and activities as part of an overall system, the project manager and the project team have a better chance of approaching the project in a coordinated fashion, supporting each other at critical junctures, recognizing where bottlenecks and dead ends could occur, and staying focused as a team to ensure effective completion of the project.

QUICK RECAP

◾  A project is a unique undertaking to achieve a specific objective and desired outcome by coordinating events and activities within a specific time frame, on budget, and with the desired level of quality.

◾  The project plan is the fundamental document directing all activities in pursuit of the desired objective. The plan might change over time. Nevertheless, it represents the project manager’s continuing view on what needs to be done, by whom, and when. As the whole team participates in the development and execution of the plan, it becomes more accurate and role players are more invested in the project’s success.

◾  Regardless of what type of project is at hand, the implementation phase usually is a period of high energy and excitement.

◾  Planning leads to implementation; in turn, implementation requires control. An effective project manager constantly monitors progress for the duration of the project. For some, it becomes a near obsession, so the quest to maintain work-life balance is vital.