2011

24 MAY 2011

José Filipe Rafael Project Management 2

FACTORS FOR PROJECT SUCCESS

IMPROVING PROJECT PERFORMANCE

PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS

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Senior management commitment

Adequate project funding

Well-done requirements and specifications

A comprehensive project plan

Commitment of stakeholders

Project status reporting

Critical risk assessment

Project contingency plans

A willingness to stay the course

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The issue is not that projects go forward without appropriate approval, but rather that the approval is too often automatic.

There is an important distinction between approval of and commitment to a project.

Ensure senior management’s clear understanding of the project’s perceived difficulties, risks, and benefits.

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Projects often require heavy financial investments if they are to be successful.

Costs must be recalculated at several checkpoints in the project life cycle, and the new figures communicated to senior management.

Senior management should view the changing project costs in a positive light.

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Develop a clear understanding of what will be delivered and what will not be delivered.

Project requirements and specifications must be complete and they must be reviewed by people familiar with the business issues the project is to support.

Additions made to the requirements and specifications in the later stages of the project imply too much time and funding and they often do not work.

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Planning allows the planners to present a clear, well-documented, properly focused understanding of the project.

The planning process raises questions that would not otherwise be considered.

Planning builds confidence in the project and its processes.

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The organization is poorly served when people not directly involved can dissociate themselves from projects in which they have a vested interest.

You should not initiate or install any projects without the complete support, involvement, and attention of the appropriate internal customers.

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Provide regular project status updates.

These updates must be accurate.

Projects managers typically postpone the delivery of bad news, such as a delay. Senior management might then be alerted to the problem by someone else or late and this has a negative effect on senior management, on everyone involved in the project, and on the project itself.

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PM should complete and publish a careful analysis of the project’s risks before it seriously considers approval.

Foloow a risk check list in your analysis.

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Project managers must have a plan to put in place to overcome difficult situations if they should arise.

Developing a project contingency plan should be linked to the issues of project planning and project funding.

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All projects face some level of difficulty, and much of it can be mitigated through sound management approaches. However, problems must be anticipated. As they arise, people will try to modify the project.

Project managers should be flexible.

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Bypass an obstacle

Cause people to stretch, not break

Focus on the goal

Follow a standardized process

Learn from the past

Maintain ongoing communications

Record the work being done

Reuse previous work

Seek buy-in from all involved

Seek simplicity, not complexity, in goal and path

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Don’t sit idle

Don’t look for meaning in insignificant issues

Progress requires resilience, preserverance, creativity and leadership

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Avoid unrealistic deadlines

Performance and productivity start decreasing when reality confronts unrealistic expectations

Psychological effects are burnout, turnover, conflict and disfunctional behaviour

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Don’t overlook the purpose of a project when administering its details

Don’t rely too heavily on numbers to determine significance

Three actions:

constantly query about progress

establish a consistent, standard “yardstick” for measuring progress

avoid myopic decision-making

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A common set of tools, procedures, and jargon will help

Standardization

enables efficiency and effectiveness through consistency

enables better integration

reduces rework

improves communication

encourages creativity

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“he who fails to study history is destined to repeat it”

To avoid repeating costly mistakes

To capitalize on previous successes

Read/write audit reports and “lessons learned”

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More projects have probably failed due to poor communications than from any other factor

Avoid to confuse the medium with communication

Distinguish between data and information

Send the right information at the right time in the right amount to the right person

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If the work goes unrecorded the knowledge and expertise are lost due to turnover and time constraints

Forces people to think about their actions, and determine where and when to spend their effort and time.

It would gain several benefits for future projects

Fosters good communications among team members.

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Avoid to reinvent the wheel

Occurs on both the project management and technical development levels

Typically reused items are sections of schedules, report formats and forms

Reuse

allows more accurate planning

allows team members to focus on more important issues

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The most powerful way to get a project to progress rapidly is through commitment by the people doing the work

Commitment comes from the heart — not the head

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Simplicity, of course, is not the same as being simple, even though both share the common characteristic of clarity

Complexity, however, is sophistication gone insane, when confusion rather than clarity is the guiding rule; symptoms: many people request additions, changes, removals, or repositioning, so that the plan becomes full of exceptions and contingencies.

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- Communicating (probably the most important)

- Organization (probably the 2nd. most important)

- Lidership and team building

- Budgeting

- Problem solving

- Negotiating

Project Managers must know about many things and must be excellent

communicators – “he´s a mile wide and an inch deep”

Key skills:

- Orientation twoards the results

- Flexibility

- Decision ability

- Expert on the project field

- Influencing the organization

- “Project Management”