10 Elements of Project Management Success

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eric.shaw

Project Management Institute defines “project management” to “application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements” (PMBOK Guide, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute Company, 2005). In short, project management goal is to make the project successful completion. It is to meet the project budget and time constraints, to achieve project delivery targets, carried out by the project start, project planning, project implementation and resource management rules to be followed when.

A successful project manager plans the project from start to finish, follow up progress of business and technology in time, with flexible management tools.

1. Respond flexibly to changes in project
Traditional project management methods have been proved to be too rigid, bureaucratic, time consuming, not suitable for today’s rapidly changing business environment. In fact, these methods can be used by IT departments. But you need to emerging issues and respond quickly to changes. Adhere to the traditional project management documents and processes will crush you.

2. Not share exhaustive project
Ideal project manager is a leader, not stubborn crazy. Some project managers focus on achieving milestones or completion of projects; too rigidly stick to the details. Agile project management needs in the left / right brain, hard / soft skills to make trade-offs between.

3. Continuously improve project management skills
Technology to meet the changing needs of users, is in constant development. Similarly, the project management methodology and business and technology need to advance with the times. With your team, customers and business partners to communicate from time to time, find ways to improve project management processes.

4. Project plans should also advance with the times
Project manager of the most important activities is the project planning. Project plan must be detailed, organized, and is participatory completed. The real world, plans always change with the change, the change can change the priority of the task plan. Therefore, plan, modify the plan, then plan.

5. Maintain a sense of urgency in the work
If the project has unlimited time, money and resources, would not be great? But the reality is that the project is always in a limited time, money and resources constraints, continue moving forward. Regular status updates, regular meetings and a clear follow-up is essential.

6. Take account of deliverables and project activities carefully
Project manager and project team must have a common an image to describe the item to the matter in the end is like. This is to ensure all efforts in one direction. On this issue to avoid ambiguity, we must at all costs described clearly demonstrate to everyone, and everyone’s consensus.

7. Distribution Project submission of project deliverables
Climbing a mountain may be terrible, but if the whole process of climbing down into too many small steps, the top may not be so far away. Similarly, the project objectives cannot be accomplished overnight. The task of the project to go step by step, every step of the process according to the project review and approval to ensure the project towards the right direction.

8. Risk Management Project
Assign someone to monitor the potential project risks. This role requires the following qualities:
  • All team members found that the risk, do not hesitate to report to him.
  • Maintain a list of risks, tracking risks and solutions for all problems and progress.
Do not rigidly stick to the details. Risk assessment should not be the size of your main duties. Risk Management will cost you time and effort, but considering its role in the project, you will not hesitate to enforce it. Remember, you need proper risk management, but do not overdo it.

9. Open communication
All aspects of the project to strengthen communication is essential. Project to maintain an open communication mechanism to encourage all members to express their views and suggestions. This reduces the feedback cycle, thereby reducing the risk of error, saving time and money, project management, project manager Alliance

10. Cannot ignore the three elements: time, budget and quality of projects
Although the practice of project management is very flexible and open, but it has the same basic methodology. Only if you meet the time, cost and quality constraints of project, and submit the product to customer with satisfaction, that is a greate success. One of the major role of project manager is to make all team members aware of this. Time, cost and quality of these elements are very important.
viksidhu
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Those are good points and pretty much everyone can see why they are important. Would you consider a #11, know and feel your customers pain?
Vik Sidhu, MBA, PMP
Viktory Solutions
satisfactionuk
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Lol, in principle I agree with a lot of what you have said, but to be honest you have in a round-a-bout way described the all of the principles laid out in Prince2 which in my opinion is a far better system than Agile, the PMI PMBOK Guide and the APM all of which attempt to differentiate themselves by breaking project management down into ever smaller elements that seem to want to micromanage the actions of project managers.

For instance, a good portion of the PMBOK guides planning criteria is in actual fact simply a breakdown and manual interpretation of the functions that are carried out more efficiently and effectively by MS Project or other reputable project planning software package. Why dont they just say that being able to use one of these packages is required by them in order to be qualified.

As is other key PMBOK knowledge areas such as risk management which in itself is considered to be a highly subjective area whether you use qualitative or quantitative analysis methods, it has been proved time and time again that simulation analysis is a far better method that gives better and more reliable results when using computer packages such as Palisades @Risk for Projects or Crystal Ball. Lets face it, Palisades Precision Tree used for comparative decision making is far more efficient and effective than trying to draw out and do manual calculations on a piece of paper. Here again, why dont they just say, you have to have a good knowledge of one of these packages.

As for the area that covers configuration management in my opinion the Prince2's dedicated configuration management programme Project In A Box cant be beaten for its ease of use, flexibility and saleability that ranges from a free single user license for individual consultants to a fully integrated server based corporate package. Here again, why should a person need to be tested on a manual system of paper shuffling when a much more effecient and effective computer based method is readily available.

With all these benefits going for Prince2 I really don’t see why people go to the great expense and hassle of gaining what are in actual fact unnecessary trade certificates that only have perceived value that has been gained through extensive marketing targeted to some extent at ignorant employment agencies who just tic boxes on the people spec and have very little idea what project management actually entails.
Kind Regards

Stephan Toth
satisfactionuk
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Oh, One last point, to have a flexible plan is not to have a plan at all.

Of course a project plan has to be rigid and not allow changes without due process. Among other business related issues often contracts are involved, so due process for changing the plan has to be bureaucratic by its very nature.

This does not of course mean that (change) due process has to be slow, unresponsive and inefficient it just means that it has to be sensibly controlled.

From a project managers perspective there are two types of change, one that is acceptable and one that is not.

Acceptable changes are Agreed, Authorised, Controlled and Fully Budgeted in both time and cost, not only in relation to the direct effects of that particular change but also with consideration to the knock on effects to the project schedule as a whole.

Unacceptable changes are any changes to the project that do not meet the above criteria.

Prince2 actually supports this assertion.

A project manager that bows down to the unsupported fickle whims of anyone who tries to influence his project (when it comes to changes) is in effect becoming the master of his own demise.

A simplistic example under Agile from what you are inferring in #1 above is:
The customer nods and winks to the project manager or some other member of the project team that s/he would like an addition that will take one extra day in a project that has say twelve months to run.

Now on the face of it every subsequent phase and task is pushed back by one day. No, in that twelve months the first of the X amount of suppliers state that they cannot make delivery on that new date and that the earliest possible delivery date is three days later so now the whole schedule is knocked back four days. Because of this, and in sequence you get the same response for each of the other say three suppliers who’s planned delivery schedules are now mucked up.

So now the project is 13 or more days behind schedule. This problem is made worse because the new final planned schedule conflicts with the holidays or other work that is scheduled for one or more other key players or consultants. So now the problem is compounded and the project is in real difficulty.

You either have to buy in the services of these key workers or consultants or delay the project even further.

Because you didn’t go through the 'bureaucratic process' of costing the changes and their subsequent effects on the projects finances and scope before officially sanctioning them, the customer is now citing you for a breach of contract and/or enacting a time phased penalty clause in order to avoid paying his or her bill, either in whole or in part.

Are you really suggesting that Agile condones this sort of mess,

I don’t think so, and if it does, then surely the Agile Project Management methodology is seriously flawed and should be avoided.

Or maybe you just got it wrong.

Also you have to take into account especially when it comes to a project for a customer, a change to a contract invalidates the old contract and forms a new one that includes the new terms and conditions which have to be negotiated and officially agreed to and sanctioned to avoid law suites. In law you cannot change a 'contracted' project unless provision for changing it is included in the contract terms and conditions and this legal change process is highly bureaucratic and sometimes time consuming too. Which means overall that not only suppliers contracts need to be checked for legal implications to the total amount of changes but also the clients contract too.

And this process does cause considerable delays.

Kind regards

Stephan Toth
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