10 Steps to Successful Project Management

Lou Russell

Description

A crash course for effectively planning and managing timely, organized projects.

10 Steps to Successful Project Management features a structured methodology for delivering high-quality projects on time. Learn how to distinguish between a project and task, build a convincing business case, define project scope, assess risks and constraints, create a project plan, collaborate on action items, and measure and communicate results. This title is an essential resource for anyone, in any function, of any business. 

Sujets

• Organizational Behavior
• Employabilité, métiers et formations
• Economics
• Business

Informations

• Publié par: Association for Talent Development
• Date de parution: 26 mai 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781607284475
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

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Successful Project Management

Lou Russell

Alexandria, Virginia

©April 2007 by the American Society for Training & Development. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please refer to the Rights & Permissions section on the ASTD Online Store website at store.astd.org or write to ASTD Rights & Permissions, Publications Department, Box 1443, Alexandria, VA 22313‐1443. ASTD Pressis an internationally renowned source of insightful and practical information on workplace learning and performance topics, including training basics, evaluation and return‐on‐investment (ROI), instructional systems development (ISD), e‐learning, leadership, and career development. Ordering information for print edition:Books published by ASTD Press can be purchased by visiting ASTD’s website at store.astd.org or by calling 800.628.2783 or 703.683.8100. Library of Congress Control Number: 2007937426 Print edition ISBN: 978‐1‐56286‐463‐7 PDF eBook edition ISBN: 978‐1‐60728‐447‐5 2007‐1 ASTD Press Editorial Staff Director: Cat Russo Manager, Acquisitions & Author Relations: Mark Morrow Editorial Manager: Jacqueline Edlund‐Braun Editorial Assistant: Kelly Norris Copyeditor: Christine Cotting Indexer: April Davis Proofreader: Kris Patenaude Interior Design and Production: UpperCase Publication Services, Ltd. Cover Design: Renita Wade

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Preface

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Introduction

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Decide If You Have a Real Project to Manage

Prove Your Project Is Worth Your Time

S T E P T H R E E Manage Scope Creep

S T E P F O U R

S T E P F I V E

S T E P S I X

Identify, Rate, and Manage Risks

Collaborate Successfully

Gather Your Team and Make a Schedule

S T E P S E V E N Adjust Your Schedule

S T E P E I G H T

S T E P N I N E

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Embrace the Natural Chaos of People

Know When You’re Done

Follow Up to Learn Lessons

Conclusion

Appendix

Resources

Index

About the Author

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Let’s face it, most people spend their days in chaotic, fast-paced, time- and resource-strained organizations. Finding time for just one more project, as- signment, or even learning opportunity—no matter how career enhancing or useful—is difficult to imagine. The10 Stepsseries is designed for today’s busy professional who needs advice and guidance on a wide array of topics ranging from project management to people management, from business planning strategy to decision making and time management, from return-on- investment to conducting organizational surveys and questionnaires. Each

book in this ASTD series promises to take its readers on a journey to basic

understanding, with practical application the ultimate destination. This is truly a just-tell-me-what-to-do-now series. You will find action-driven lan- guage teamed with examples, worksheets, case studies, and tools to help you quickly implement the right steps and chart a path to your own success. The 10 Stepsseries will appeal to a broad business audience from middle man- agers to upper-level management. Workplace learning and human resource professionals along with other professionals seeking to improve their value proposition in their organizations will find these books a great resource.

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Like yours, my business life and my personal life have been very

chaotic this year. Ironically, I have been writing this project man-

agement book, offering others advice about how to juggle all the

projects in their lives while I haven’t been doing a very good jug-

gling job myself. I love teaching project management, and this, my

third book on the topic, has enabled me to do what I love and has

helped me get my own project management back where it should

be. I hope it will be helpful to you in the same way.

I work in the real world. Academic project management is a

nice starting place, but not enough for the complexity of the things

that I want to manage. As I speak, the dog is scratching the door and my husband is rewiring the stereo system at full volume in the family room. My teenager’s boyfriend will be here any minute and then we’re all off to church later this evening. One daughter wants me to look at the IKEA website and help her (with my credit card) redesign her room. The other daughter wants me to help her load CDs on her new Chocolate cell phone. It’s the week after Christmas, and the decorations are piled in the hall, near a foothill of laundry. Been here?

Professionally, my 20-year-old consulting company, Russell Mar-

tin & Associates, has been redefined at least 20 times. Right now,

project management is critical to our ability to survive and grow.

Like you, I didn’t have time to do anything else, especially write a

book. Sales were slow last year and we were scrambling to evolve

our marketing strategy and product focus. Around this time, I heard David Norton speak. He shared this statistic: less than 10 percent of all companies successfully implement their strategies. I was con- vinced that if we could not implement our strategy, we’d be closed by the end of 2006. It was also motivating to hear that most of our competitors were likely to be unsuccessful at their strategies.

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I organized our strategy into projects and explicitly named

project and task managers. My staff are not project managers, and I

had overestimated how much they understood (ironic, since we are

so busy teaching others!). We prioritized our projects and worked

the plan. Making the transition to this approach is still evolving;

unfortunately, you can’t just create a plan and then walk away. The

edges are always shifting. We often revisit the questions, What is a

project? and Where does everything else go? But we’ve made dra-

matic changes, and I’m more confident that people move through

change more easily when it’s clear what is expected of them. This

directive clarity is what project management brings.

The point is tocommunicate.The more chaos, the more tempta- tion to run and hide, but the more critical it is to communicate. In my business this has been a constant challenge. In our customers’ businesses, it’s exponentially more challenging.

Complex project management software, techniques, and meth-

ods are very useful when you’re doing large, “cross-silo,” mission-

critical projects. We’ve worked with very large, global customers

who have tried to implement rigorous, cross-functional project man-

agement strategies. They attempt to go from anarchy (everyone do-

ing what they want) to dictatorship (everyone blindly following the

process), but eventually find they need to come back to the mid-

dle—to real project management. That’s my expertise.

In a sense, my company has carved a niche translating academic/

theoretical project management to real-life project managers in the

business trenches. We provide project management learning to training organizations, information technology (IT) units, and often entire corporations. A good project manager cannot hide behind a methodology. Good project management requires a person who can think, a person who k nows how to pick the best approach for a spe- cific project. You’ll find in this book that my 10 steps parallel a rig- orous approach while backing off the complexity a bit.

These same large project management tools and techniques can

be roadblocks when you’re managing the kinds of projects filling

most of your personal project portfolio. I’ve tried to write a book to

Preface

share with you a “slimmed-down” version of the best of project

management. I know that if you implement any one of these steps,

your project success will improve; and if you implement all of them,

you’ll be much more successful than you are now.

Many of you are unexpected project managers. Although you

never dreamed you’d be a project manager, suddenly your whole

work life revolves around projects. You’re the manager on some of

these projects, some you participate in, and you compete with oth-

ers for scant resources. The project manager with the organizational

skills necessary to manage this project maze will thrive. That’s what

I hope this book will help you develop—the ability to navigate the

real world of your projects.

This book and companion CD-ROM are my attempt to outline

the 10 most important things that a person needs to do to improve

his or her capacity and reduce the stress level. Whether it’s your

workload or your family schedule, it’s not likely that the amount of

chaos is going to diminish soon. What I’ve written here is not an

organizational approach, but it will fit nicely into whatever policy

your company has. Most of our customers feel the same way. Most

have implemented a formal project management methodology but

have not been able to realize the hoped-for benefits.

And now it’s your turn, reader. Use this book to become more

resilient and agile. Practice flexible structure—at all times have a

plan for focus, but always be ready to change when the situation

dictates. Learn to sit quietly and think rather than just jump up

and do. Feel free to contact me with your questions as you learn.

(My email address is [e-mail], and my phone number

is 317.475.9311.) I’ll be working on these things with you. Peace.

Acknowledgments

My ability to manage projects is only as good as my home team. Thanks to Doug, Kelly, Kristin, and Katherine for keeping it all to- gether as I sneaked out to write early every morning. I am most proud of my family project.

Preface

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Thanks, also, to Mark Morrow (my editor at ASTD) for patience

as I worked through this book and my challenges this year. Mark,

you are a good friend.

Thanks to Margie Brown, Vija Dixon, Carol Mason, and our

newest team member Tina Osborn for undying support and energy

in making our transition from an event-oriented to a project-

oriented company.

This year, I’ve had the privilege to employ and work with some

unbelievably good project managers. I would like to thank Mary

Cook, Janice Daly, and Susan Vaughn for sharing their abilities to

manage complexity and change.

Huge thanks to Christine Cotting, editor-extraordinaire, able to make you laugh while you're avoiding your writing. She has become a dear friend through this adventure.

Finally, I dedicate this book to the other side of my brain, Vija

Dixon, who is beginning the most courageous fight of her life. PHAO

(Pray Hard and Often).

Lou Russell May 2007

Preface

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When you improve your capacity to manage projects, you affect a large chunk of your life, so my goal for you as you move through this book has two parts: 1.that you realize how much of your time actually is spent on project management, both at work and at home 2.that you learn simple, useful ways to improve your proj- ect management velocity.

When you go looking for a book on project management, you

have a lot of choices, but many of the books are written for people

who are certified project managers or are running large organiza-

tionwide projects at global companies. Many of us need a comple-

mentary but simpler approach.

I’ve found expert information in surprising places, from NASA to the women who run the Christmas drive at church. One of the metaphors from NASA that influenced my thinking a great deal is the story of the Three Little Pigs.

Discovering the Basic Principles of Project Management

NASA has a wonderful web magazine calledASKthat it uses to share lessons learned on projects. At the January 2006 Professional Development Conference of the National Society of Professional En- gineers, NASA’s administrator Michael D. Griffin describedASKin this way:

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