How to Create and Manage a Project
A project is a vehicle for implementing a specific change – it is bounded by the scope , actions, deliverables, time-frames and costs. Anything that falls outside of business as usual must be properly managed and structured for minimal risk . We offer a range of Project management solutions for your requirements , including technology , business and change management projects.
Good project management techniques and best practices are required to successfully deliver projects on time and within budget.
The project lifecycle has four distinct phases or stages : Initiation phase , Establishment phase , Management phase. Completion phase.
A clear Project Goal must be established early, with a firm scope of work clearly defining what is in and out of scope and what the agreed deliverables are included in the project.
A clear statement of work will further detail the activities, deliverables, schedule and budget required to complete the project.
The tasks required during the initialisation phase include: identifying a suitable design ,budgeting , risk assessment -development of the risk profile, feasibility assessment, business case development, identification of team members – key people ,employees and contractors with the right skills and personalities responsible for the development work.
The establishment phase follows after the decision to proceed. At this stage, the project definition document (PDD) must be completed in detail, including the confirmed scope ,deliverables,budget, team members, Risk log, Microsoft project schedule, work packages details and activities.The PDD will be used throughout the project. Good Project planning reduces risk and budget overrun, so this is crucial at this stage.
All future activities must focus on achieving the overall project goal and produce the deliverables on time and within budget. A project schedule will indicate to all the people involved, when a stage or task must be completed .
The project must be well organised. With all resources including employees , contractors and facilities coordinated and assigned according to the schedule. This schedule is then reviewed and updated daily . The management phase that follows is focused on the actual project delivery. The management tasks Include, measuring actual costs against budget, tracking progress -work stages complete, tasks outstanding, exception management, risk management and mitigation.
Communication is key throughout the project. Regular meetings with the sponsor and various other important people must be included in the schedule of management activities. The goal of these meetings is to review the scope, budget spending, activities in progress, team performance, deliverables, risks and development work planned for the next week.
Any detail design changes or additional development work will require a change request, thus avoiding scope creep and budget overruns.
Each stage of the project must be closely managed to ensure development of the deliverables complies to the defined quality standard , budget constraint and time schedule and is in scope.
Employees timesheets must be submitted weekly with the detail of all work completed and checked against the schedule and budget.
The final phase is “project completion,” this is reached when the all deliverables are accepted by the project sponsor per the list of deliverables, plus any authorised changes. Further development of deliverables is stopped .A project completion report completed, which includes a statement of achievements and credits given to the team and people involved in delivering the project. Any further detail of the work completed, including activities, lesson learned, future design and planning considerations can also be added.
With the project goal completed, the Team is disbanded. All relevant people ,stakeholders , employees informed of project closure and resumption of business as usual.
An event is often held to celebrate the completed project, this will include the management team, employees, contractors and any other development people involved in the work and achieving the overall projects success.
Most small business owners today face one of two problems. They either are not making enough money or it’s a nightmare running their company because they don’t have adequate systems in place or the time to fix them. What Adrian does is to assist business owners make more money without having to make large investments, by implementing powerful systems that free them from the day-to-day running issues. His solutions combine top marketing and customer service strategies with best of breed products to produce a winning formula for business success. Coupled to this is the one stop shop for all Project related services. Including Project management training and a publication has has produced called Project Management Made Easy.
Adrian is highly experienced and has delivered many large scale Retail, Telecommunications,Contact center and general IT turnkey projects around the world.He is available to assist clients globally.
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