2.1 Introduction
The project start is a very important part of your project! During this phase, you build your project base. If this is not done properly, for example, due to high pressure from management to start your project as soon as possible, you will face trouble during the project execution phase.
The following subjects will be discussed in this chapter:
2.2.1 Introduction
The project “kickoff” is an important starting point of the project for all involved.
This implies that all stakeholders and the project team members should be invited and in any case the sponsor must show his/her commitment to the project.
2.2.2 Tips
Often the project team that consists of people who have not worked together in this combination can be a good start. Ask everyone to share in the round of introductions. You could ask each person to introduce himself by:
Then the project manager can discuss the following:
At the beginning of a project everyone is usually full of energy as everyone is ready to start the new challenge. This is usually put to the test during the project implementation.
You can arrange for instance something to eat and drink during or after the kickoff. However, beware of things such as the following:
2.3 Project File
2.3.1 Introduction
The project file is the conscience of the project! This implies that the project file is the only place where the project documentation is saved! So it is “forbidden” to have project documentation on local computers, USB sticks, DVDs, etc., unless there is a copy of the project file.
However, it is important as a project manager to also take care of “privacy” and “security” of the project data so if people have project data in different media, monitor the risk of loss and all other possible consequences that can be avoided. Of course, the project file has basically a backup where changes, for example, from a month ago can be picked up today. Apply version control as well for documents.
Note: when using “requirements management” or project management tooling, the project file is normally integrated in this environment.
The project file may have a structure like:
It is also important, as applicable, of course, to save the project file on the following considerations:
2.4 Business Case
2.4.1 Introduction
The business case is the project justification. During the project execution, the business case must be validated continuously while for instance the circumstances may have changed in such a way that it is no use to continue with the project.
This document needs to be SMART! If not, you can expect all kinds of discussions both during project execution and during project closure!
In fact the business case must also contain a cost/benefit analysis taking into account ongoing operations and maintenance (also called often “business as usual”). This final part is rather important too!
2.4.2 Content
The business case can be composed of the following subjects (e.g., Prince2):
The benefits should be both qualitative and quantitative. Furthermore, the benefits must be aligned with the organization’s benefits. For each benefit, tolerances must be defined.
Only after formal approval of the business case by the proper executive management (project board), the project manager is allowed to start. Store this formal approval as quality record in the project file.
2.5 Contract
2.5.1 Introduction
Before a project really starts many steps have to be taken.
The trigger for a project is normally an idea or business need. By means of a business case, the justification is obtained to start the actual project. A project could be executed within the own organization or outsourced to an (external) organization/company.
Whatever option is selected, a formal agreement needs to be arranged, such as a contract, between the requesting and delivery organization. In this context, the delivery organization is the organization that is going to execute the project. After the project has been finished, the deliverables need to be handed over to the organization that is going to execute the business as usual activities to make sure that the deliverables are up and running. This is contracted by means a service-level agreement which is beyond the scope of this document.
2.5.2 Contract Types 1
In the case of a contract with external parties this could be a “real” contract but also a letter of intent (LoI), memorandum of understanding (MoU), “authorization to proceed” (ATP), or a “statement of work” (SOW). LoI, MoU, and ATP are precursors of a contract and already regulate some cases, particularly in the legal field between the parties where the liability is also recorded. Without a formal contract or agreement, a large (legal) risk is possible and should be avoided!
Proceed as project manager to what extent it is possible to charge the external client using LoI, MoU, or ATP (this may not be possible).
When using an SOW, it should be possible to invoice an external client.
In the case of internal parties like India, for example (in a global delivery center), it is normally sufficient with a document of understanding. Do not proceed as project manager before the contract is formally approved by the appropriate management level.
If you start without a contract you lose your negotiation position as well!
2.5.3 Contract Types 2
Apart from the types of contracts mentioned in the previous paragraph, another set of contract types is applicable (the commonly used):
An option could be to use the bare cost hourly rates and apply uplifts (e.g., 20% or different uplifts depending on roles) to make an offer.
Some big client organizations have even standard rates you are allowed to charge so at that stage you can already see if you want to get into the project.
Apart from these contracts, all kinds of other constructions are possible such an incentive fees to push the supplier to deliver as quickly as possible by means of a financial gain.
Then you should also scan the contract for obligation of effort or obligation of results. The main difference is that the first one only states that the supplier will do his best and there is no guarantee regarding the results.
The second one states that the supplier is responsible for the results and in case of not meeting the results (who have determined these and how SMART are they?), the supplier has to achieve the results (costs for the supplier). If the results are not achieved by the supplier, the client is likely to call this a breach of contract and I think there is a pretty good chance you will end up in court.
2.5.4 Tips
Here are some issues that you should consider as a project manager in a contract (and if these are not present then pull the plug):
The negotiation regarding the terms and conditions takes place before the actual contract signature. Governmental organizations for instance have their own terms and conditions and the supplier needs to agree with these. This is a process between the procurement organizations of the involved parties.
As project manager you also need to check these to sort out what you need to keep in mind and need to be compliant with.
2.6 Stakeholders
2.6.1 Introduction
The stakeholders are those who in one way or another have an interest in the project. Stakeholders are also those who can exert a direct or indirect influence on the course of the project. It is important to perform a stakeholder and influencer analysis also from a risk management point of view.
2.6.2 Steps
First it is necessary to get a “picture” of how the organization is structured. This could be an organization chart. However, the organization regarding the project may be different especially when an organization has a matrix form where one dimension is the line organization and the other dimension is of the project organization. Make a chart of the roles of the persons involved in the project and then link names to these roles.
The next step is to gain insight into the informal sector in the company or the “old boys network.” This informal network is often very powerful and of great influence. Within the “old boys network” is a fast communication alive and everything is arranged informally often outside the formal organization. Maybe the decisions are made in this network and communicated via the formal management structures.
Sort out who really makes the decisions within the organization that affect the project. Also determine which persons have hidden agendas and interests.
It is key to perform the analysis of the corporate culture and the local culture. The way people deal with each other within the project should be in line with this. Example: the use of Amsterdam culture (very direct) in Limburg (kind of relaxed) is asking for trouble and opposition.
After the analysis, the stakeholder and influencers are placed in a matrix and the strategy can be determined on how to deal with these people. Persons who minimally affect the project could be disregarded.
Note: in the course of time things can shift in which people who first had a minimal impact on the project suddenly have a much greater impact and vice versa! So it is important to keep an eye on the proportions.
A proposal of an analysis matrix:
Another important analysis that should be done is which stakeholders are “involved” and which are “committed” (this is big difference). What are the (personal) interests of the stakeholders (ask yourself “what’s in it for them” and try to get this confirmed or ask them directly)?
2.7 Communication Management
2.7.1 Introduction
Communication management is in my opinion one of the most crucial tasks of a project manager. A project manager spends approximately 90% of his/her time on communication. Once a project starts, when the project manager is appointed, it must be established how, with whom, how often, etc., communication will occur. The communications management plan is one of the first deliverables of the project. The business case must show which parties should be involved during the execution of the project. On this basis, the stakeholders are determined.
2.7.2 Content
The communications management plan describes the following:
When people are on vacation for instance they should delegate the review including the authority to approve/reject the material.
The project communications management plan is one of the “deliverables” and as such should also be included in the project definition. Also, related changes should be documented in a new version, and the various parties should be informed of this new version.
All stakeholders should be involved in assessing the communications management plan.
Also take into consideration any cultural differences when drawing up the plan, especially when persons are located outside the country where the project is implemented. Be punctual in making and keeping appointments especially, explicitly saying “no” (which is not very common in particular countries and cultures), etc.
Finally, take time zones into consideration when it comes to meeting times. In some cases, wide time zone differences occur. When the time differences are large (e.g., between the United States and India) where there are no overlapping “normal” working hours, then change the meeting times so that the meeting times during and outside of normal working hours are (evenly) distributed between the locations.
2.8 Project Definition
2.8.1 Introduction
The project definition is called “Project Initiation Document” in Prince2 and is the basis of the project. Changes in this document need to be under strict change management! Changes can impact for instance the contract, design, duration time, and costs.
2.8.2 Possible Subjects
This document describes for instance:
A number of practical tips:
Consider this document the base document for building your own house . . .
2.9 Change Management
2.9.1 Introduction
Change management is unfortunately not always implemented as intended in practice. If change management is not running properly (may well be described but the practice is not in accordance with the theory) within a project, the chances of major problems are very high.
Problems, which often occur as change management is performed incorrectly, could include the following:
One of the most common causes of misery in projects is that from the beginning of the project the baseline is not explicitly clear. The baseline is the fundament/base of the project, especially in functional terms (the baseline). If the base is not clear how can you keep changes under control?
This is real . . . (Colorado, United States)
2.9.2 Tips
Why is change management often causing issues during project execution? Here are a few common reasons:
General tips:
2.10 Risk Management
2.10.1 Introduction
Risk management does not always get the attention it needs or is too late . . . (when the problems go skyhigh). As project manager you have a radar up and running all the time scanning for possible risks. Doom thinking is too negative but thinking a bit this way could be an approach as well.
A risk is an event, something unwanted normally, which has an impact on your project with a probability that it will occur.
Rather often a risk is considered to be negative but this is not always true. A risk could also have a positive impact on your project (an opportunity)!
The intention is that you are already thinking ahead about potential risks and in the following manner:
What measures can the project manager make in advance to prevent risk (“mitigation”)?
When the risk has occurred what options are possible to eliminate as much as possible the resulting problems (“contingency”)? Prepare beforehand for it.
Risk management can help you to reduce the impact of having a secret team member onboard called Murphy . . .
Prince2 has a good risk management approach in my view.
Risk management consists of the following steps:
A project must have central risk register to capture and maintain information regarding identified threats (and opportunities while risks could also have a positive impact). The register should contain at least the following items:
Beware of items 8 and 9 while this could be different persons.
No project is without risks and during the course of the project you will be confronted with risks and risks will become a reality. This is one of the very few certainties you have as project manager.
During the financial project definition, a risk budget should be assigned. This budget is intended to be used only to cover costs of risk analysis, etc. Not for changes or anything else. Your experience as project manager in this field is very important, so make a realistic estimate.
You can’t make a rough estimate of, for example, 5% of the project costs, you need to dive into the project and have a look at items such as:
2.10.4 Risk Response
A rather standard list of how you can respond to risks is given below. Beware that you need to prepare these responses in advance and not when the risk has become a reality.
Risks can have a positive or negative impact so always look at the bright side of a risk as well as opportunities.
2.10.5 Tips
2.11 Issue Management
2.11.1 Introduction
Issues in this context are in fact problems, whether or not arising out of a risk, that cause a disturbance in the project.
2.11.2 Tips
These may be not only issues within the project, for example, a team member is sick for a long time, but also issues that come from outside the project and affect the project. The internal project issues should be resolved by the project manager with possible assistance from “outside” (e.g., for getting replacement of human resources).
The external issues are outside the span of control of the project manager, and need to be raised to the Steering Committee members to take action. In the latest case, the project manager needs to track the progress.
The communications management plan describes how the escalation path is constructed when you book insufficient progress or do not achieve the results you want/need.
2.12 Deliverable Management
2.12.1 Introduction
Each project has one or more goals and ultimately is “something” to be delivered: “deliverables.” Deliverable management is the way these deliveries will be arranged.
A few practical tips:
To prevent a lot of discussion it is crucial to have the acceptance criteria very SMART and have defined, and agreed with the client in advance, test cases in order to show that the deliverable meets the acceptance criteria.
It is preferable to deliver documents as “pdf” format to the client so that changes cannot be made easily. However, this should be stated in the contract, for instance, what should be delivered in which format.
2.13.1 Introduction
In this context, resource management means the management of the persons working on the project.
The modern project manager should, according to me, pay special attention to managing the human resources. First of all we are dealing with human beings just like yourself. I guess you also want to be treated with respect, for instance. Treat other people the way you want to be treated yourself.
Secondly . . . without human resources you are nowhere . . .
2.13.2 Tips
A few practical tips:
Another way is the earlier mentioned “old boys network.” This is a very fast personal network where you go back to people you know. The big question is, of course, whether these people are available and whether they want to contribute to this project. In particular, within large international companies, many internal “tools” are available that can be used to search for (internal) resources. The “old boys” network might not be appreciated by the human resource management organization.
2.13.3 Global Resources
The efforts of people from other countries is a separate discussion, including legal, financial, cultural, and language, which is not covered here. Another possibility is to outsource to a party outside the project and then run by the project manager and any other specialists.
For more information please refer to the chapter “outsourcing.”
2.14 Financial Management
2.14.1 Introduction
Financial management in the context of project management is actually “bottom line” no more than:
A few practical tips:
Consider also training costs for people who have no knowledge or experience, for example, with the use of certain tooling within the project. For remote workers, it is an option that they do not take hours during training because it is for their enrichment.
2.15 Expectation Management
How often is this mentioned in ads for vacancies? To date, I have still not met anyone whose thoughts and expectations can be read by another person. The solution is simple . . . put the expectations on paper by mutual agreement and verify these regularly (to capture new insights as well during the course of the project).
The expectations are (obviously) SMART and need to be recorded. See capturing expectations (apply change management as well!), the same as capturing the “requirements” of the project.
2.16 Project Planning
First, it appears that in practice, there is confusion about “project plan” and “project planning.” A project plan is the project definition. In other words, how it is going to be, what will be, what does and does not belong to the scope of the project, etc. The project planning is about how the project activities will be carried out and the view of the completed project carried over time. This section is about the last subject. Usually a “Gantt chart” is used where the critical path is also visible (red in this example).
On the critical path are the activities that have a direct impact on the duration of the project.
The project planning can be used in different ways for different purposes such as purely for planning activities over time and progress monitoring.
The presentation of the project planning must be adapted to the target group. Executive management is not interested in details but wants to know, for example, when and what will be delivered, the costs, and when the project is completed. In this case use a simple presentation, for example, in the form of a table in which the project phases are plotted vertically and horizontally by time in months/quarters. You can also consider the project planning as a way that after “collapse” of the whole only the project phases (“summary tasks”) are still visible and do not use the “Gantt view/report” but another “high-level view/report” which is available in practically every project planning package.
You can add for instance to summary tasks the percentage complete in case you are also tracking progress.
Every project is part of a bigger picture and is therefore affected by its environment and affects its environment as well.
In short, every project has external dependencies that affect the project. You can include in the project planning a separate phase “dependencies” in which the dependencies are appointed and data are indicated. In this way, you can connect to this stage in your project/tasks and instantly see the impact on your project if a dependency in terms of date changes.
2.16.1 Tips
A few practical tips:
2.16.2 Gantt Chart versus Resource Planning
Project planning is most of the time based on tasks/activities resulting in deliverables. This works rather well within a single project where the human resources have been assigned to the project and not to other projects at the same time.
The planning is in this setting a Gantt chart.
In case the same people are working on different projects this type of planning becomes very complex and time consuming. In this case a human resource planning could be used.
Running a single project with let’s say seven human resources might already be a challenge . . . this becomes even a bigger challenge in case you are running a program or multiple projects where the same human resources are active on multiple projects! This challenge is however not linear . . .
The reaction is quite often that additional controls are added, that is, extra human resources and tools (which generates additional costs as well of course), with the intention that “we are in control.” However, a project planning is not really stable and changes in one project will result in side effects in related other projects. The overview might be lost rather quickly . . .
What the market says (based on hundreds of reviews and research):
An option might be to make people directly responsible for planning their activities. The human reaction will be to add contingency in their planning to be on the safe side, which will result in increasing project duration (and related costs). This will become a vicious circle within the program resulting in less efficiency. This must be prevented!
One way to prevent the above-described issue is to change the approach: change the focus from projects to resources.
Resource allocation is the main challenge for management; organizational conflicts are inevitable (Laslo and Goldberg [23]).
Each project has its own dependencies, objectives, deliverables, planning, etc. and the availability, at the right time, of the human resources is quite often the critical factor of a project. People are working on multiple projects at the same time. You want to prevent people from becoming overloaded which is a personal risk not only for them but also for your program/project. People can become ill, go on vacation, follow courses, etc. When people who are performing tasks on the critical path of your project become ill for instance, this will have a direct impact on your project duration. When someone who is working on another project could step in (keeping in mind that overload should be prevented) what will be the impact on the other project(s)?
One woman can deliver a baby in 9 months. Nine women cannot deliver a baby in 1 month . . .
Excel sheets and Gantt bars are a waste of time in an ever-changing environment.
Project planning (and tracing) is not simple nowadays and can be rather time consuming. Many companies have outsourced work to other countries so virtual teams are very common. However, this doesn’t make collaboration easier. In the past you just walked to your team members and discussed with them their activities, vacation plans, etc., but this has changed a lot. Collaboration becomes even more complex when the team members are in different time zones. And I’m leaving out the cultural and language challenges of this entire discussion . . .
Wouldn’t it be great to have a dashboard that gives you a practical resource allocation (and load, etc.) over all projects and enables you at the same time to dive into particular project details? This makes life easier for everyone, saving costs as well and will improve efficiency and effectiveness of the human resources. This should contribute to a happier team, better results, lower costs, faster delivery, risk reduction, and last but not least more satisfied client.
90% of the managers are unsatisfied with the project management system (Caniëls and Bakens, 2011 [19]).
Recent studies have shown that 90% of the managers are unsatisfied with the project management system. Why? The data are not accurate, and it costs too much time to configure and maintain the system. The remaining 10% achieves far better results.
Furthermore, the majority of project management software has its roots in single project environments such as MS project. However, multiproject management requires a different approach. Using project management techniques and tools in a multiproject environment harms your organization! Projects start and finish but the human resources stay. Another approach is to focus on human resources and the progress, visibility, etc., of ALL projects is controlled, and not only the most critical projects.
Managers say planning is important, but they hate to do it (Mintzberg [20]).
A Dutch company has developed a software package that will be of great value for multiproject-based organizations. With a minimum set of effort, they can get control over their project portfolio. The project managers, team leaders, planners, and other staff can spend their valuable time on activities that really matter to them.
Based on experience, the return on investment is far less than one year. On top of this, the performance is increased significantly (please refer to case stories on their website).
Remarks regarding the software package:
Managers need to know if they have sufficient capacity and the right skills in-house. The employees need to know which task is important now.
Planning is nice for managers; your people want to know what to do now and next. The software package prioritizes their tasks based on the needs of your organization.
You need to order your tasks and set a deadline. The software package does the rest for you; no replanning and no endless juggling with Gantt bars.
For more detailed background information please refer to: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042815036095
Note: in our very fast developing world, the (software) development is also running at a high pace. This implies that what is not possible today could be possible next week. Maybe other software suppliers come up with similar software in the future.