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The Project Manager has direct responsibility for the activities of all project participants,
all project tasks and all deliverables.
Bear in mind that the Project Manager needs to achieve this without direct control over
the participants. The Project Manager will not have power over the leadership, nor the
internal and external contributors. Even in the project team there may be loaned staff,
part-timers and sub-contractors who will have their prime loyalties elsewhere.
The concept, objectives, approach and justification of the project are properly defined,
agreed and communicated.
Management-level planning maps out an overall management plan from which resources,
acquisitions and sub-contracts can be identified, costed and put in place. The business
case will be re-assessed to ensure the original assumptions and justification hold true. At
this stage, many of the detailed management processes will be defined and instigated.
A project will pass through several stages or phases, each with a different objective and
deliverable. Typically the phases will require different skills, structures and resource levels.
It is normal to plan, estimate and resource each phase separately (albeit overlapping the
preliminary work to avoid stoppages).
Planned benefits will be assessed and monitored throughout the project - optimising
benefit should be the prime goal of the project manager.
Quality requirements and approaches will be defined and agreed during the project startup. Typically there will be rules that apply to the routine work of the team plus
specified quality audits at the end of the phases.
Risks will be assessed at the start of the project. Contingency plans and avoiding action
will be defined as appropriate. The risk management process will pro-actively monitor
risks throughout the project. Risk assessments and plans will be modified as appropriate.
All participants will be encouraged to communicate potential issues for resolution. The
issues management process will ensure they are considered and addressed.
The scope of the project and specific changes to the solution will be controlled through a
management process with appropriate balances and controls - focused on achieving
optimum overall benefit.
A documentation management process will ensure all information is available to all those
who require it, and is subject to careful control over authorship, reviews and updates.
Organisational change issues will be assessed early in the project, leading to a course of
communications, events and other activities to ensure all parties affected by the change
are ready and willing to change.
The needs to communicate outside the team with other parts of the organisation,
customers, suppliers, and other parties will be assessed. A course of communications will
be defined and actioned.
Where sub-contractors are involved, there will be a management process to agree and
monitor contracts.
At the end of the project, there will be several activities to transition work, processes and
deliverables to line operation. The team also need to ensure filing and documentation is in
good order, leaving behind sufficient detail for the operation of the system, audits
concerning the project, and as a baseline for future maintenance and development.
People, equipment and facilities need to bedemobilised.
After the live solution has settled down, it is normal to organise a Post Implementation
Review to measure the success of the project, to see what further improvements can be
made, and to learn lessons for the future.
It is common to put in place a small project office team to deal with the administrative
tasks of the project, freeing up the project leadership and project resources to get on
with their jobs. A project office team might comprise roles such as project manager,
project planner, progress tracker, financial controller, process administrator (change
control, risks, issues, configuration, documentation management), quality controller,
communications manager, organisational change manager, and administrative support.
It may be beneficial to use an integrated set of support tools. Project information can be
shared among the team members from a single data source. Modern tools enable
effective communication of project information through existing user interfaces such as
web browsers and eMail. Typical uses would be to:
make the detailed calculations concerning scheduling, costs and progress etc,
manage the workflow for submitting and handling changes, risks, and issues,
enforce controls, for example in the "checking in" and "checking out" of documentation.
Am I certain this is the best investment we can make with our limited resources?
Each project should have a proper definition, for example: objectives, budget,
performance measures, accountabilities and timescale. It should follow well-defined
project management processes, designed to ensure it stays on track to deliver optimum
benefit. To have any degree of confidence in the outcome of a project you need to put in
place the right people with the right combination of skills. They should work with the
best practice processes and tools to make sure the project is properly defined and run.
This needs to be in place before the work starts.
To have any degree of confidence in the outcome of a project you need to put in place
the right people with the right combination of skills. They should work with the best
practice processes and tools to make sure the project is properly defined and run. This
needs to be in place before the work starts.