Professional Project Management is becoming more pervasive. Like “electrification” occurred during the era of proliferation of electricity, “projectization” is occurring throughout the workforce and organizations. Most of the emphasis I have seen is on professional project management. However, most people will not be professional project managers, but rather will be team members, support personnel, subject matter experts, department managers, C-level executives, and the like. This article explores what is being said about this broader workforce in a projectized world.

The essential question is, “What knowledge level about project management do non-project managers need to have in order to function effectively on professionally managed projects?” One parallel situation over the past 25 years has been the proliferation of computers. Virtually everyone in the work force has needed to acquire at least a user-level knowledge of computers and a variety of software packages. This has included understanding the basics of Windows and MS Office, competence in using the internet, and the ability to use a variety of applications. Similarly, a basic level of knowledge is required to function effectively in a projectized world. Here are 5 key areas of focus for non-project managers to be effective in the world of projects:

1. A project has a beginning and an end, with smaller beginnings and ends in between. – Understanding the anatomy of a project can help to distinguish between other things that actually are not projects, but may be termed such. This will put a non-project manager onto the same page conceptually as a professional project manager.

2. Understand the difference between the plan for a product and the plan for a project. – This is one of the most common misconceptions. This often occurs for those with deep technical abilities, which often makes workers more “product centric”. They mistakenly think that a clear description of the product, whether written, in drawings, or some other representation is enough. The problem is that there are many issues and challenges surrounding that product that are in the realm of “project management”, not “product management”.

3. See that all projects need to be, at some level, an implementation related to the overall objectives of the organization. – Everyone in an organization should have a pretty good, albeit general, idea of where the organization is going. If that is not true, it may be a failing of upper management as often as an employee or associate. What is important here is that, given the assumption that the individual understands in general terms the overall objective, directives, and current initiatives of the organization, that they have the basic sense to ask and seek to understand how the project aligns with those objectives.

4. Recognize that projects are budgeted in terms of time, money, and resources, and that they need to achieve objectives within constraints on these resources. – This is a basic fact of life, and scarcity as a concept is one of the foundations of economics. A mature awareness of this fact should spawn a curiosity and awareness that there are constraints on all projects, and should encourage questioning on the part of any team member about the constraints on their given projects. Awareness of project constraints on the part of team members is a healthy development for any project manager.

5. Understand what a stakeholder is. – Stakeholders are anyone who is affected by the project. Recognizing that there are many potential stakeholders will raise awareness of risks and opportunities. Stakeholder awareness should become second nature to project managers and non-project managers alike as part of a projectized culture.

Competence in understanding and incorporating the above into day-to-day activities can bring project skill “ownership” to non-project managers such that they are very effective on most projects. In fact, they will likely be able to manage portions of projects or small projects on their own.

There are many other topics that can be of interest to everyone in the organization. In the process of becoming “projectized”, an organization needs to continuously educate everyone in the organization. The indoctrination of everyone in the basic essentials of project management is part of that. The results will be more successful projects, smoother functioning teams, and alignment across the organization within the important function of managing projects.

Managing a project can be daunting. Whether planning your wedding, developing a new website or building your dream house by the sea, you need to employ project management techniques to help you succeed. I’ll summarise the top 7 best practices at the heart of good project management which can help you to achieve project success.

Define the scope and objectives

Firstly, understand the project objectives. Suppose your boss asks you to organise a blood donor campaign, is the objective to get as much blood donated as possible? Or, is it to raise the local company profile? Deciding the real objectives will help you plan the project.

Scope defines the boundary of the project. Is the organisation of transport to take staff to the blood bank within scope? Or, should staff make their own way there? Deciding what’s in or out of scope will determine the amount of work which needs performing.

Understand who the stakeholders are, what they expect to be delivered and enlist their support. Once you’ve defined the scope and objectives, get the stakeholders to review and agree to them.

Define the deliverables

You must define what will be delivered by the project. If your project is an advertising campaign for a new chocolate bar, then one deliverable might be the artwork for an advertisement. So, decide what tangible things will be delivered and document them in enough detail to enable someone else to produce them correctly and effectively.

Key stakeholders must review the definition of deliverables and must agree they accurately reflect what must be delivered.

Project planning

Planning requires that the project manager decides which people, resources and budget are required to complete the project.

You must define what activities are required to produce the deliverables using techniques such as Work Breakdown Structures. You must estimate the time and effort required for each activity, dependencies between activities and decide a realistic schedule to complete them. Involve the project team in estimating how long activities will take. Set milestones which indicate critical dates during the project. Write this into the project plan. Get the key stakeholders to review and agree to the plan.

Communication

Project plans are useless unless they’ve been communicated effectively to the project team. Every team member needs to know their responsibilities. I once worked on a project where the project manager sat in his office surrounded by huge paper schedules. The problem was, nobody on his team knew what the tasks and milestones were because he hadn’t shared the plan with them. The project hit all kinds of problems with people doing activities which they deemed important rather than doing the activities assigned by the project manager.

Tracking and reporting project progress

Once your project is underway you must monitor and compare the actual progress with the planned progress. You will need progress reports from project team members. You should record variations between the actual and planned cost, schedule and scope. You should report variations to your manager and key stakeholders and take corrective actions if variations get too large.

You can adjust the plan in many ways to get the project back on track but you will always end up juggling cost, scope and schedule. If the project manager changes one of these, then one or both of the other elements will inevitably need changing. It is juggling these three elements – known as the project triangle – that typically causes a project manager the most headaches!

Change management

Stakeholders often change their mind about what must be delivered. Sometimes the business environment changes after the project starts, so assumptions made at the beginning of the project may no longer be valid. This often means the scope or deliverables of the project need changing. If a project manager accepted all changes into the project, the project would inevitably go over budget, be late and might never be completed.

By managing changes, the project manager can make decisions about whether or not to incorporate the changes immediately or in the future, or to reject them. This increases the chances of project success because the project manager controls how the changes are incorporated, can allocate resources accordingly and can plan when and how the changes are made. Not managing changes effectively is often a reason why projects fail.

Risk management

Risks are events which can adversely affect the successful outcome of the project. I’ve worked on projects where risks have included: staff lacking the technical skills to perform the work, hardware not being delivered on time, the control room at risk of flooding and many others. Risks will vary for each project but the main risks to a project must be identified as soon as possible. Plans must be made to avoid the risk, or, if the risk cannot be avoided, to mitigate the risk to lessen its impact if it occurs. This is known as risk management.

You don’t manage all risks because there could be too many and not all risks have the same impact. So, identify all risks, estimate the likelihood of each risk occurring (1 = not likely, 2 = maybe likely, 3 = very likely). Estimate its impact on the project (1 – low, 2 – medium, 3 – high), then multiply the two numbers together to give the risk factor. High risk factors indicate the severest risks. Manage the ten with the highest risk factors. Constantly review risks and lookout for new ones since they have a habit of occurring at any moment.

Not managing risks effectively is a common reason why projects fail.

Summary

Following these best practices cannot guarantee a successful project but they will provide a better chance of success. Disregarding these best practices will almost certainly lead to project failure.