Advanced Project Management: A Complete Guide to the Key Processes, Models and Techniques

As the advanced project moves into its execution phase the roles and responsibilities of its principals need to change. The main principals remain the same: the line manager, the project manager, the work package manager, the sponsor, the customer, partners , suppliers and team members . All of these people need to change their mindset to become delivery focused. This reassessment should be a deliberate move by the people involved in the project. It is helpful for you to sit down with the key individuals and ask them to assess whether they are the right type of person for this stage in the project. You need to explain that the project is moving out of its methodical planning stage. You must ensure that the principals understand that the work is moving from the design phase into the implementation phase. Everyone needs to switch into a delivery mode rather than a planning mode. Principals need to appreciate that they will now be expected just to get on with it regardless of the problems that they encounter.

Being delivery focused means knocking barriers down. Barriers are perceived problems that stand in the way of things being delivered. A common problem is that people feel they do not have the authority to do something or say something. Delivery-focused people tend not to think in those terms. There's a saying, ˜Ask for forgiveness , not permission', and this would be a mantra for delivery-focused people. They go with the direction of the plan, looking for the next milestone. These people tend to be very tactical in nature, just going for the next milestone, rather than worrying about the whole picture.

In this phase people need to be very thick- skinned and robust because they will come in for enormous criticism as things progress. This criticism tends to come from people who are not involved in the main delivery process and tends to be in questions such as ˜Why was this not planned more effectively?' and so on. At this stage though, the team effort is all-important. The team members, the workers, are the key to success and this means that you should focus on moving the hurdles that may exist out of their way. You should remain focused on the processes and the deliveries that are required and ensure that the reporting is run effectively and the other supporting mechanisms for the team members are in place, for example the defect recording and control method or the scheduling of activities.

Ensuring that the principals understand that they need to adopt this way of working is very important. Talking to the individuals about what will be required in a candid manner offers them the opportunity to assess whether they are suitable for this phase of the work. It also offers a good vehicle for you to open the discussion with the principals about whether they are the right people. The majority of the conversations will result in the principal and you agreeing that the principal should remain in the role. Occasionally people will see that the role is not really for them.

Once you have talked to the principals about their roles you should start to work with the work package managers on building up the teams and their methods of working through this phase. You should remember that project success will not be achieved without a successful team being formed . The team members need to understand what contribution they are expected to make and how to make it.

An effective way to encourage a team approach is to hold team meetings. At these meetings the individual team members get a chance to meet others in the project and hear about progress. If the team meetings are well managed, the team members will leave the meeting feeling motivated and excited. Deciding on the number and structure for team meetings will depend on the size of the project. You should take a number of factors into account:

• How experienced is the project team?

  An inexperienced team will need to spend more time together than an experienced one. This experience should be judged both in terms of knowledge to perform tasks and in terms of time spent as part of a team.

• How distributed is the project team?

  A distributed team generally requires a more formal structure than one that is co-located. A team that is spread out geographically should have clear and regular meetings in place. This is particularly important if the team is spread across multiple time zones.

• How mature are the project processes?

  Advanced projects tend to be undertaken infrequently, since they are expensive and disruptive to the organization. Support in the form of processes for these projects is generally immature. Often the processes are simply the existing project management processes, which are generally inadequate. Where the processes are poor, more structure is required, at least initially, to allow team members to sort out activities and interfaces.

Once you have considered the factors governing what team meetings are required you need to decide on the type of meetings that should be held. There are various categories of meetings:

• Technical meetings

  These are held to discuss technical issues. For example, a software project may have an ongoing technical architecture meeting that occurs monthly.

• Briefing meetings

  These are held to release information about progress versus plan. This type of meeting should be held regularly to ensure that team members are kept up to date about progress towards the final project goals.

• Fun events

  These are held to boost morale . Fun events should be held irregularly but not so irregularly that people are unable to remember the last event. Fun events are often held when a major milestone is passed or a major contract signed.

• Management meetings

  Management meetings are held to plan project activities and ensure that the future tactical and strategic plans are acceptable.

• Customer meetings

  Meetings with customers are held regularly to explain progress towards key milestones in the project. These can be held with internal or external customers.

• Supplier meetings

  These are held with people supplying goods and services. Often these meetings are held with external organizations but they can be held between different divisions of the same organization.

This list of meeting types and factors to consider can seem daunting. Project managers often start out with good intentions about setting up meeting structures. Unfortunately their good intentions often falter when they start to understand the large number of meetings and factors that need to be accounted for. They switch to an abdication mode where they let the meetings form on an as-needed basis. They take little or no active management role.

You do not have to take the abdication approach. Instead you can adopt a simple process for deciding what meetings are required:

• Step 1

  Identify all the potential management meetings. This can be achieved simply by analysing the work breakdown structure. You should assume that there is a management meeting for each work package and another meeting where there are several tasks being managed collectively.

• Step 2

  Decide on the purpose and complexity of each meeting. In many cases the meeting's purpose will be simple. It will involve only the manager and the team member. You should ignore capturing and managing these simple meetings. The meetings should continue but it is not necessary for you to include them in the formal project structure. Instead you should try to identify meetings that are likely to involve six or more people on a regular basis.

• Step 3

  You should now classify the identified meetings using the categories given previously: technical meetings, briefing meetings, fun events, management meetings, customer meetings, supplier meetings.

• Step 4

  Once all the potential meetings have been identified you should gather together the work package managers. Collectively you and the work package managers should assess the potential meetings. Once you have agreed which meetings are required you should collectively develop a schedule for them. The schedule should cover the frequency of the meetings and their duration. Developing meetings in this collective manner ensures that there is no overlap in scheduling, a common problem in large projects.

• Step 5

  Review the agreed schedule for missing meetings. The method of developing the meeting schedule is task focused. However, there are always a number of meetings that add value but are not task based, for example fun events. Where such meetings have been missed they should be worked into the meeting schedule.

The final meeting schedule should now be published and periodically reviewed. It is useful if the meeting schedule is published electronically since this allows it to be updated simply and quickly in response to the changing needs of the project. An obvious place to publish the schedule is alongside the organizational chart on the Web page.