Planning, Organizing

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• Planning, Organizing Managing Resources
• Laurie Buczek
• Southwest Exchange, Phoenix
• September 20, 2008

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Agenda

• Definition of Project Management
• Project Planning What is planning managing
  resources all about?
• Why is it important?
• Your toolkit
• Lets apply
• Questions

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A little bit about me

• I am a program manager at Intel Corporation
• This means, I have multiple projects,
  multi-million dollar budget and numerous people
  resources that I manage within a strategic
  program umbrella
• Intel is very disciplined in program and project
  management strong engineering core philosophy

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A Definition

• Project Management is the discipline of planning,
  organizing, and managing resources to bring about
  the successful completion of specific project
  goals and objectives.

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What this means to you?

• Project Management is an in-demand skill set and
  one of the fastest growing professional
  disciplines in North America.
• Project managers earn an average salary of
  85,850 - Certification Magazine
• Acquiring these skills benefit both the League
  and areas outside of your non-profit work

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What are some examples of projects?
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How many of you have managed projects?
What kinds?
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Project Planning Scenario?

• Imagine that youre going to make some home
  improvements, but cant decide what to do.
• Should you put on new siding or a new roof?
• Put in new windows or remodel the kitchen?
• How will you decide?
• Here are some questions you might ask before
  getting started
• How much will it cost?
• How long will it take?
• How much will it improve the value of my home?
• What other home improvements might I do instead?
• Are there any risks?
• What is the cost of doing nothing?
• How do I want to spend my money?

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Project Planning in the League

• In the Junior League, approving projects is much
  like deciding which home improvements to make.
• Funds and other resources are limited
• Projects must have a positive ROI (return on
  investment)
• Choosing to approve one project often means that
  another project must be denied approval
• Since there is always competition for project
  approval, a good proposal needs to include
  metrics to show that there is a need AND that it
  is the best way to address that need.
• Is this the best way for the League to spend its
  money?

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Why Is Good Project Management Important?
Project Management breaks down the chaos of an
overwhelming workload into manageable elements -
scope, time, cost, quality, human resources,
communication, risk, procurement, and integration
Without good project management you run the risk
of missing deadlines and not achieving your goals
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Example

• You planned the home improvement project to
  include
• Replace bathtub and shower in master bathroom
• Budget is 15,000
• Scheduled completion in 4 weeks
• If this project isnt managed effectively then
• Suddenly your spouse decides that you want to
  replace the carpet with tile?
• An additional 5,000 is added to costs
• Contractor tells you that tile replacement will
  add at least another week to the schedule
• While you are waiting for the tile, your family
  is squeezed into one bathroom
• Finally the tile begins to be laid down and you
  realize that the wall paint color needs to be
  modified
• 8 weeks late and 7,000 over budget your
  bathroom revisions are complete

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What are some of your most challenging League
projects?
Do you feel your projects are consistently on
time on budget?
Why or why not?
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Tools for Successful Project Management
Money
Resources
Scope
Time
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Resources
People, equipment, material

• A successful Project Manager must effectively
  manage the resources assigned to the project.
  This includes but not limited to
• Labor hours of the contractors
• Volunteers
• Equipment and material

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Managing Volunteer Resources

• Success means having the right people, with the
  right skills and the proper tools, in the right
  quantity at the right time.
• Ensure that they know what needs to be done,
  when, and how. And it means motivating them to
  take ownership in the project

How does relying on volunteer resources enhance
or challenge the Leagues projects?
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Leveraging the diverse skills of a volunteer work
force

• Discover what are the skill sets of your
  volunteers
• Have the right balance of seasoned with
  learner volunteers per team
• Leverage strengths
• Say thank-you often

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Mitigating the Risk of Volunteer Resources

• Understand the capacity of your volunteers
• Hours per week/month
• Time of day or week
• Understand the skill sets- dont ask someone to
  do something over their head
• Ensure their volunteer time is worthwhile
• Have a mitigation plan when life impacts
  available volunteers
• Use the 80/20 rule

Work on the Smart things
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Equipment Material Management

• The right equipment in the right place at the
  right time.
• The supplies need to operate properly.

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Time
Time management is critically important

• TasksDuration, resources, dependencies
• ScheduleTasks, predecessors, successors
• Critical PathChangeable, often multiple, float

The most common cause of blown project budgets is
lack of schedule management.
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Breaking down tasks

• Duration- amount of time each task will take
• Ex Gaant charts
• Resources- what do you need to complete task
• Dependencies- what needs to occur in order to
  remain on task

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Example

• Provisional Welcome Luncheon for 30 people
• Sept. 1st Create invitation list Order custom
  invitations
• How long does printing process take?
• Sept. 9th Committee meeting to stuff invitations
• How many people do you need?
• Sept. 10th Bulk mail invitations
• How long does bulk mail take? What are the
  costs?
• Sept. 20th RSVPs due, collected
• Who is collecting RSVPs?
• Sept 21st Food ordered
• Who is ordering food? What are the costs? When
  will it be delivered? Is set-up and staff
  services included?
• Dependencies caterer delivers on time actives
  home remains available budget approved by
  Finance

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Money
CostsEstimated, actual, variability
ContingenciesWeather, suppliers, design
allowance ProfitCost, contingencies,
remainder To maximize your chances of meeting
your project budget, meet your project schedule.
The most common cause of blown budgets is blown
schedules
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Cost Example
What is the ROI you want to achieve? 5x
expenses? 10x? 20x?
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Scope

• Project Size
• Goals
• Requirements
• The project scope is the definition of what the
  project is supposed to accomplish and the budget
  (of time and money) that has been created to
  achieve these objectives.

This is the MOST IMPORTANT step!
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Ex Project Scope

• It is absolutely imperative that any change to
  the scope of the project have a matching change
  in budget, either time or resources.
• Ex If the project scope is to build a building
  to house three widgets with a budget of 100,000
  However, if the scope is changed to a building
  for four widgets, the project manager must obtain
  an appropriate change in budgeted resources.

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Scope Creep

• Scope creep is the piling up of small changes
  that by themselves are manageable, but in
  aggregate are significant.
• Example Provisional Welcome luncheon
• Presidents decides that she wants select number
  of sustainers invited number increase to 40
  people
• Then a committee member wants to add flowers to
  the table centerpieces adds resource 100 to
  budget
• Sustaining advisor recommends doing small gifts
  for provisions adds resource and 50 to budget

Make sure any requested change, no matter how
small, is accompanied by approval for a change in
budget , resources and schedule etc..
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Have your projects been victims of scope creep?
What are examples?
What could you do to avoid this in the future?
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How many of you have boards that do regular
project reviews?
How do your normally determine if a project meet
success criteria came within budget?
How do you capture key learning for process
improvement?
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Why Board Involvement is Important?
Benefits of Board Involvement in project
oversight

• Board ensures the project is fully resourced and
  shows political support
• Board ensures project plans are developed
  implemented
• Board members can provide a wide range of
  useful expertise
• Board members can provide objective assessment on
  project issues results
• Board members help to ensure project stays
  within scope
• Key learnings can be shared and leveraged across
  the organization

This is not micro-management of the tactical
details but objective review of execution to plan
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Application

• 5-8 minutes Table talk share challenging
  league projects and pick one as case example.
• 8 minutes Using the tools- identify where the
  project went wrong?
• 8 minutes Create modified project plan for this
  project
• Share out

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Key Takeaways

• Start using your tool kit to map out your project
  plans
• Beware of scope creep
• Remember that one change in your project plan
  requires another
• List your requirements and prioritize (makes
  trade-off decisions easier)
• Scope is your most important step
• Taking time to plan upfront, can avoid a lot of
  time down the road

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