Part IV
Making Project Management Work for You
In Parts II and III, I explained how you can plan and run a project, covering the most commonly used project management techniques.
In this part, I will provide you with some advice on how to put this book into practice on your particular project. Each of you reading this book will come from different types of organizations, operating in different sectors and be working on different types of projects. The culture of your organizations will also vary considerably. My experience in a range of different organizations and sectors has shown the techniques in this book are widely applicable but that doesn’t mean to say you can follow everything blindly. Some of you may be in organizations with a well-developed project management method; others of you may be working in companies where project management is applied in a very arbitrary way or not at all! As a project manager, you need to adapt your personal style and the detail of how you apply the techniques to suit your project team, senior management team, customers, and stakeholders.
Principles
- Be faithful to the principles underlying project management.
- Adapt your personal style to the culture, but don’t compromise your ethics.
- Tailor your approach to project management to suit those around you.
- Be realistic regarding other people’s knowledge and capabilities.
- Communicate in plain language; no acronyms or jargon!
- Use “enough” process to gain the consistency your need.
- Use each project as a learning vehicle for the next project.
How to use Part IV
The sections in Part IV are written to open your minds to the challenges you face. Even with the best advice, methods, and tools, things may become tough. You are, after all, dealing with people, each of whom has their own agenda, aspirations, fears and needs. This is what every manager has to deal with on a daily basis and as a project manager you are not immune and, because of the transitory and unique features of projects, those challenges can be greater for you than for line managers who have more opportunity to continually tune their operations. Chapter 30 deals with the less tangible aspects of being a project manager and Chapter 31 provides you with ideas on how to define your project method.