Effective Project Management

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Effective Project Management

• Barbara Stone Jodie Mathies
• August 30, 2007

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Agenda

• Intro to class
• Intro to Project Management
• Projects vs. Operations
• Success vs. Failure
• Building a Team

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a little about us..
Barbara Stone Jodie Mathies
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a little about you

• Name
• Program and year
• Any Project or Project Management background?
• Hopes for this class?

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Course objectives

• Successful project management through team
  building, scope containment, careful planning
  controlling
• When managing projects, you will be able to
• Build a team that has the right skill
  personality combination to be successful and use
  communication vision to stay cohesive
• Create charters that comprehensively represent
  requirements and deliver ROI
• Customize lifecycle to efficiently deliver
  product/service
• Estimate duration and cost of project activities
• Control project through critical path
• Create practical success metrics
• Report and present to sponsors and customers
• Know when youre in trouble what to do about it
• Use of Retrospectives for quality planning

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Methodology

• Review our projects and yours in class
• Case study
• Practical application leads to mastery
• Tool review throughout course
• Develop portfolio of examples templates

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Required reading - books

• Effective Project Management Traditional,
  Adaptive, Extreme this is a basic overview of
  methodology
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team every project
  represents a new project team
• Supplemental reading will be provided

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Other resources

• Microsoft
• Templates
• Discussions

• Gantt Head
• Templates
• Discussions

Jodie and Barbara will maintain a reference site
for additional reading and discussion
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How will the class be graded?

• 50 Assignments professionalism part of grade
• 30 Class attendance and participation and
  quizzes, (including oral presentations)
• 20 Presentations
• Assignments are Project documents not the
  deliverables of the project
• No final or mid-term exam, but the last written
  assignment is significant a comprehensive
  review of project

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Participation

• No laptops except as needed to complete in class
  exercises
• Listen to your colleagues as well as the
  lecturers

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You will need a project

• Characteristics of a project
• Limited time frame (has an END), measurable
  goals, etc
• What qualifies for a Class project?
• Effort for another class research, SW
  application
• Effort for a job, volunteer position or home
• You are the Project Manager you do not have to
  build the product

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How will you create the project documents?

• Two kinds of document Tools
• Word Processing Charter, Requirements,
  Communication plan, etc
• Task organization and schedule WBS, critical
  path, Gantt
• We do not believe any specific tool is
  appropriate for all projects, but think a
  grounding in MS Project will probably be useful
  to you in the future

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Document templates

• We will be showing multiple examples of each
  document we assign or talk about
• Some companies require rigid adherence to
  lifecycle and templates, others allow more
  flexibility.
• In grading your assignments for this class we
  will be looking for
• a version of the assigned document that works for
  your project
• an explanation of your thought process

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Professionalism

• Writing
• 1st page executive summary
• 2 copies
• ?????
• Presenting
• Represent entire team project not about you
• ?????

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Intro to projects
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Its all either Projects or Operations

• Projects
• Temporary Has a definite beginning and end
• Produces a unique output or deliverable
• Has no predefined work assignments

• Operations
• Ongoing Same process is repeated over over
• Produces the same output each time
• Has predefined work assignments

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Why project management?

• You will be working in the context of projects
• Even if you are not in the Project Manager role,
  your knowledge of project management will help

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What makes a successful project?

• On time?
• On budget?
• Met requirements?
• Supports greater organizational goals?
• Harmonious team?
• Food?

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And yet

• 26 of IT projects deliver on time, on budget
  with the original feature set
• A couple of examples of failure

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Wrong Elephant

• Lack of shared vision between the sponsors /
  stakeholders and rest of project team
• SOLUTION
• Charter, scope statement, analysis

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Why projects fail

• Lack of Sponsorship
• Communication Plan
• Pet Project
• Careful scope definition lifecycle modification
• Operational Failure
• Training Documentation

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Personal failure

• Failed leadership
• Pyrrhic victories
• Wrong project or wrong time
• Solution
• Communication plan
• Team building

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1 Solution - Question everything

• We are all ignorant but about different things
  Will Rogers
• Explain it to me as if I were a 3-year old
  Denzel Washington in Philadelphia

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Break-out exercise
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Building a Project Team

• Project Manager(s)
• Single
• Program Manager, with subprojects which have
  their own Project Manager(s)
• Core Team
• Team that builds the product of the project
• Business representatives

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Team Operations

• What are the activities in which the team
  interacts that need operating rules?

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Team Operations

• What are the activities in which the team
  interacts that need operating rules?
• Problem solving
• Decision making
• Conflict resolution
• Consensus building
• Brainstorming
• Team meetings

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Project Management is Leadership

• What are you leading? Your team.
• Your top goal is achievement of project
  objectives
• but what good is that if no one wants to work
  with you (or each other) ever again?

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Leadership and emotions

• You are our boss here and a damn good one. We
  are all falling over each other to do the things
  you want us to do. Do you think that is because
  you have authority over us?
• Isnt it?
• No. Wake up, dummy. Your power comes from
  something else entirely.
• Youre saying, people do what I want because
  they like me?
• Its not because they like you. Its because
  you like them.
• From The Deadline, by Tom DeMarco

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Leadership and emotions

• You like and respect people who work for you
• You care about them
• Their problems are your problems their concerns
  are yours
• You give trust before a person has really
  demonstrated trustworthiness
• From The Deadline, by Tom DeMarco