Good
project management...
Requires disciplined processes
and up-front planning.
It seems incredibly difficult in many organizations to consistently deliver projects meeting customer demands, within budget and on-time. This difficulty can cost millions and create competitive disadvantages in the marketplace. Although good project management cannot prevent all problems from happening, it is amazing how few organizations have invested in disciplined processes to improve project results.
Disciplined project management processes requires organizations to go through a series of basic steps for each project, with intensity of each step depending on project scope, risk and impact.
These steps include:
1. Initiating
2. Planning
3. Executing
4. Controlling
5. Closing
The
investment in the initiating and planning phase is critical to determining
project success, as it defines scope and sets clear objectives from
a customers viewpoint (why are you doing project in the first place?),
and lays out the major steps and resources needed to reach the objective.
Many disastrous projects result from lack of adequate attention in this
stage - "we don't have time for that" inevitably turns into
making twice as much time to get back on track.
Executing and controlling is the meat-and-potatoes effort of:
- Organizing and directing the work required,
- Assessing frequently whether you are on track or not
- Reacting to this information quickly where needed
These activities are easier said than done, especially when full-time project management resources are not available. Many projects are led by technical experts buried in workload to get the job done, without the time to assess constantly whether they are on track. Then, poof, surprise to everyone in senior management and customers (but not the project team) - it is late and more costly than expected. It may not even be on track to customer expectations. Many organizations are developing Project Management Offices, or PMOs, to ensure best practices are applied in managing projects by project professionals.
Finally, closing the project means getting customer signoff and doing a post-completion audit. Did the project meet its objectives? Was final cost and timeline in line with expectations, and if not, what was learned to prevent this in the future? Unfortunately, very few organizations complete post-completion audits, resulting in mistakes being repeated over and over.
ProjectDash™ facilitates project communication and discipline by clearly setting out initiating and planning activities and summarizing controlling project gates. It also facilitates post-completion audit activities.