Manage Projects Successfully

Contents

Are you a good project manager?

1. Understanding the basics of project management

2. Managing your time

3. Building a project team

4. Working with a project sponsor and stakeholders

5. Planning, scheduling and budgeting

6. Dealing with the unexpected

Where to find more help

Index

Are you a good project manager?

Answer the questions and work out your score. Then read the guidance points to find out how you can improve your project-management skills.

What skills does project management require?

a. Being an all-rounder with an ability to see the ‘big picture’.

b. Nothing special: a cool head, common sense and good organization will see you through!

c. A general understanding of the process and good management skills.

What does the word ‘project’ mean for you?

a. A finite task with a set cost and timescale.

b. Something that’s difficult to accomplish.

c. It’s just another word for ordinary work.

Do you feel you use your time effectively at work?

a. Yes. I am completely in control of my time.

b. I mostly stay on top of my work but occasionally run into problems.

c. No. I am completely snowed under.

Do you prioritize your work?

a. Yes. I make sure that I spend my time on important activities.

b. I try to but sometimes find my to-do list over-full.

c. Not really. I just do what grabs my attention.

Are you able to delegate?

a. Yes. I use my team effectively as I cannot be everywhere at once.

b. I do delegate but I find it hard.

c. No. I’d rather do things myself.

How do you rate your team management?

a. Good. I run a tight ship.

b. Not bad. There’s room for improvement.

c. Help! My team is a nightmare – I can’t control them!

Planning is:

a. One of my best skills.

b. A necessary activity, which I find difficult.

c. A waste of time.

Something unexpected happens. How do you react?

a. I keep calm as I’ve thought in advance about potential problems.

b. I’m normally surprised, but I’ll deal with it.

c. I tend to panic.

a = 1, b = 2, c = 3. Now add up your scores.

Chapter 1 will be useful for everyone, as it summarizes the essentials of project management. Then, depending on your total score, the most relevant chapters are indicated below.

8–13: Well done; you have great project-management skills. There’s always something you can learn, though, so look at Chapter 4 for ways to work with key sponsors – they can make your job a lot easier. Also, Chapter 5 offers useful tools, such as Gantt charts, which will help with organization.

14–19: You’re getting there, but could do with polishing up your skills. Chapters 2 and 3 will help you manage yourself and others better. Chapter 5 is full of invaluable advice on planning, while Chapter 6 will help you cope better in emergencies.

20–24: You need some help with your management skills, but don’t worry! Chapter 2 can help you improve your time management and Chapters 3 and 6 provide advice on building your team. Once you’ve mastered the basics, move on to Chapters 5 and 6 to fine-tune your planning.

1

Understanding the basics of project management

‘Project management’ is a term that’s often bandied about today. It first became popular in the early 1960s, driven by businesses that realized that there were benefits to be gained from organizing work into separate, definable units and from co-ordinating different kinds of skills across departments and professions. One of the first major uses of project management was to handle the US space programme, and governments, military organizations and the corporate world have all since adopted the discipline. In this book, we’ll be looking at how project management works and how you can take the stress out of it, whatever the size of the task at hand.

Although the term is now universally familiar, not that many people fully understand exactly what project management involves. We tend to think of it as common sense, and that anyone can manage anything by being calm and well-organized. These are qualities that a project manager definitely needs, but other things are essential too. Project management is, in fact, a structured way of working and recording events that can bring order and coherence to any set of tasks with a predetermined goal. This chapter sketches the outlines of that structure.

Step one: Define what a project is

‘Project’ is one of those terms that is defined in various different ways by different bodies. However, all