Managing Project Plans

Shortcuts to success

Elizabeth Harrin

• Editore: BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
• Anno: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781780172101
• Argomento: Business
• Categoria: Project Management

Planning, scheduling and time management are all key skills for project managers. Every project, irrespective of time frame, needs accurate plans and a managed schedule to be successful and meet its aims and objectives. This ebook addresses vital aspects of this process, such as identifying and setting tasks, keeping the momentum going and managing fixed project dates.This is one section of the book "Shortcuts to Success".

1 KEEP UP THE MOMENTUM

Starting up a project is often the easiest part. Keeping it going takes a lot of effort. Putting some thought into how you will keep the project’s momentum while it is still in the honeymoon period will be time well spent.

THE PUST PROJECT

PUST stands for Polisens Utredningsstöd (police investigation support), and was a Swedish project to give police officers laptops on the beat so that they could cut down the amount of paperwork and processing of crimes that they had to do.

The project launched in 2009 with a team of 10 people and by 2011 had grown to 60 people, delivering system improvements every couple of months using an Agile approach. The rationale behind this was to avoid ‘big bang’ style releases, so the new software and laptops were rolled out to a region at a time, and also phased by type of crime, starting with possession of knives and drink driving and later adding more crime types.

While this phased approach allowed the team some early wins and proved that the solution was working, it wasn’t all plain sailing. As the team grew, handoffs between the sub-teams became less effective. The team was eventually restructured with multi-functional sub-teams working on features, instead of split by role. This worked better, but one of the main areas where things still got stuck was system testing. The focus of the daily stand up meeting was changed: ‘What can I do to contribute to system testing today?’ This ensured that there was enough focus on keeping the momentum of the project going, as the bottleneck became a shared problem. One of the ways they worked to resolve it was to implement test automation. It was a culture change for the developers to stop working on new features for a while and instead start doing developments that would automate the repetitive work of testing. They also switched from a ‘test at the end’ model to ‘test as you go’ which sped up the learning of the developers so that they ended up writing better code. Showing everyone the bigger picture was a valuable tool in helping people to see that the project was more than just their part.

However, once they had removed the bottleneck of system testing they came up against another problem: changes were happening too quickly. The team were not used to dealing with this level of change, and neither were the users. The project manager introduced a low level of bureaucracy to control changes, requiring teams to do a short business case if a change affected more than just their area.

Overall, the project was a success: crimes are now investigated 90 per cent faster than previously and a drink driving case now takes just three days to process instead of 31 days in 2010. The team know that there are more developments that they can do to provide even better investigative support resources to police officers in the field and will continue to release developments incrementally.⁷³

Choosing to deliver incrementally is one of the main ways to keep the momentum going on a project. Can you implement some quick wins to show that the project is delivering benefits? This is also positive for team morale and senior stakeholders, as everyone can see that the project is making progress.

Relying on others is one of the main reasons projects falter. Other people have day jobs and priorities that will not necessarily align with those of the project. Consequently, a good project manager will be able to get them to do their part of the project without it being at the expense of their day job.

The trick is to make it easy for those outside your direct control to do their part, while also making it harder for them not to get involved. For example, if your team cannot follow the schedule you have produced in your planning software, transfer it to a bullet-pointed list. Ask them to tell you when they will complete their tasks: if you impose a date it is easy for them to say it was unachievable. It is much harder for someone to explain why it has not been possible to meet a self-imposed deadline. Communicate what others are doing and the benefits they are receiving. Offer as much help as you can while subtly increasing the peer pressure and finding answers to any excuses you hear as to why things are not progressing.

There is one big risk in situations where the momentum of the project is slacking because people are not doing what is required of them. Letting things slip over a prolonged period results in a stalled project which could be impossible to start up again (and the blame for its premature closure on your career record). ‘Get it done fast,’ write Robin Lissak and George Bailey in their book A Thousand Tribes about their experiences at PricewaterhouseCoopers:⁷⁴

‘In a large organisation, staying the course on any firmwide initiative requires speed – 30-, 60-, 90-day outputs – or it rarely reaches fruition. Unless the game plan is based on speed, a company tends to add time, effort, and bureaucracy to a project so that it never gets done.’

If you notice things starting to slow down, flag the deceleration to your sponsor as an issue.

Be aware that any slowing down of activity could be the first sign of project demise so help your team to keep the pace by creating a structure where you can deliver incrementally.

2 PLAN FIRST – SET END DATE LATER

A project is always someone’s idea, and that person always has an idea of when they want it completed by. One of the hardest things to do as a project manager is to manage the expectations of your sponsor, key stakeholders and team, who will all want to know when this project is going to finish before you are ready to tell them. A period of detailed planning at the beginning of the project is essential for two reasons:

• it provides clarity about what it is that you want to actually achieve, and;

• it gives you a firm foundation and confidence in your schedule dates.

After your planning activity is complete you can announce, with as few caveats as your risk management allows, the amount of time the project will take and therefore when it will be finished.

PLANNING FOR PUBLICATION

It’s difficult to predict how long the publishing process will take when you don’t know what or how many submissions you will receive. That’s the dilemma faced by the editorial board of the international literary and arts journal Upstairs at Duroc. The planning process is dictated by the volume of work, which is only known after the submissions date passes. The magazine receives over 400 short stories and poems each year and once submissions are closed, the planning can begin in earnest. The editorial board can’t confirm the publication date until they really have an idea of what selection process they have to go through.

Two teams of dedicated volunteers read poetry and prose submissions and sift out those that do not make the grade. This process can take several months depending on the volumes. Then there is a second reading where the editorial board reviews all the remaining pieces over a number of weeks, makes detailed notes and then meets to agree the final selection. The prose team normally finishes first as the magazine receives fewer stories and the board often has very similar ideas about what makes a good piece of narrative. The poetry decisions are more challenging. Arranging the final editorial meeting is difficult as it needs to fit around the availability of board members, which can lead to more delays.

Once this is done, the chosen pieces are handed to the layout team who prepare the magazine’s 100 pages for the printer. A talented artist produces the front cover, and the magazine is set to go. The publication date can now be set, and the printer can confirm a date for delivery of the finished magazines.

It isn’t all guesswork: the team can use the schedule from previous years as an idea of how long things will take but can’t assume it will be exactly the same. For example, they may need to commission new fiction or poetry if they don’t receive enough quality submissions. They know that this approach to publishing is unconventional if you compare it to the way monthly magazines are produced, but Upstairs at Duroc prides itself on being an unconventional magazine.

To arrive at a position where you understand the overall duration of the project, start with the basics. Sit down with your team and work out the project plan, applying the same rigour and techniques to project planning as you do to the rest of your project activities. Take into account the advice in this book and best practice in your own organisation. What needs to happen? How long will each task take? The answers to these questions will allow you to pull together a timeline.

In all but the most exceptional of circumstances, try to use estimates gleaned from the people who will actually be doing the work. If you cannot get hold of them, or someone with a similar profile or background to them, make an educated, conservative guess. Educate yourself if need be: find out if a similar project has been done before. Can you speak to the manager? How long did that piece of work take to complete?

It is important to be realistic about what tasks need to be done and the length of time each task will take. In a 2002 survey, having a realistic schedule was identified by 78 per cent of project managers as critical to a project’s outcome.⁷⁵

It is a fine balance between spending too long at this stage and meeting the expectations of your stakeholders: you cannot keep them waiting forever. Aim for a best estimate end date, and tell them that’s all it is until you have a chance to plan in more detail.

Provide a date range that reflects the uncertainty in your estimate instead of committing yourself to a fixed date. For example, ‘It will take seven months, plus or minus 20 per cent.’

It is always easier to plan the early stages than the later ones. You know what you need to do now in order to get things moving in the short term, but predicting what activities your team will need to do six months down the line or even later (with all the changes and modifications that come with managing a project) is much harder, to the poi...