|
Best Practices in Project Management
Continued from page: 1
Anil Chopra
Monday, June 01, 2009
Teamwork
Another key ingredient for successful project management is teamwork. Unless
you have everyone chipping in, and willing to help out, the project just won't
take off. Therefore, you need to construct the right team for your project. You
must include all the key stakeholders in the project--customers/users, vendors,
peers, and the management. Users/customers would give you feedback and criticism
about the project. The management would help define the business benefits.
Vendors would help identify the requirements, and the Ops team would help you
put it all together. In order to ensure that everyone pitches in and does their
role, the project head must have the skills to motivate them in achieving their
goals. So you must know how to talk to different team members in a language they
understand.
Leadership
How well can you manage your team, mentor and guide them, and keep them
motivated? You must be able to build a real strong team, and the only way to do
that is to have excellent interpersonal equations with everyone.
 |
|
Sanjay Gupta
Executive Vice President, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd |
What according to you is the most difficult part in managing a project
and how do you deal with it?
The most challenging part of the project is to ensure that the project
is implemented within the cost and timelines that are normally set for it.
The few vital things that this depends on are requirements, clarity and
comprehensiveness. This also means that the scope of the project in terms of
delivery & implementation needs to be managed very effectively and smartly.
There would always be changes to the original scope during the course of
implementation, however IT has to play an important role to ensure that the
original scope is well understood and validated to ensure atleast 90%
comprehensiveness and provide for 10% changes in cost and project planning.
What are some of the essential ingredients for successful project
management?
“What gets tracked and measured gets done”. For the project to succeed
it needs to be ensured that the right milestones are identified and tracked.
The tracking need not be at a micro activity level. It is important that the
key milestones are identified and project team is given a delegation to work
it within themselves and ensure that the milestones are met. There needs to
be enough motivation which would ensure buy in and passionate attitudes are
created to achieve the milestones.
Tell us one project management practice that has always worked for you in
all the projects that you have deployed.
To ensure that there is sufficient buy-in and motivation to have a
successful rollout, we ensure that the participation from business is
throughout in any project. In our case, while the technology is responsible
for designing and architecting the solution, project management, vendor
management etc. the business part of the project team is responsible for
requirements definition, testing, process documentation, training and
rollout. This team also ensures that at the time of requirements
finalization inputs from actual users is collected in form of pain areas,
expectations etc. and incorporated into the requirements. It is even better
when at the requirement gathering stage an excitement is created by sharing
the benefits of the new development. |
Business and technical knowledge
You need to have knowledge of both if you want to implement a successful
project. The degree of knowledge in both aspects could vary depending upon the
project. If you don't posses sufficient business or technical knowledge, then
you'll find it difficult to manage the project.
Therefore, it's recommended that you have strong knowledge of at least one of
the two domains.
 |
|
K B Singh
VP / Head IT (CIO)
BSES (A JV of Reliance Infrastructure Limited formerly Reliance Energy
Limited) |
What according to you is the most difficult part in managing a project
and how do you deal with it?
Managing a project is not as difficult as some might think. You need to
understand the project in the right perspective, break it down into
activities with intermittent milestones, plan resources and perform analysis
on what can go wrong and what are the main hurdles with remedial measures to
take. The most difficult part of the project isn't the execution of the plan
at all. It's the conflicting priorities that businesses send your way. It's
always a squeeze between the budget, the project scope and the time line.
What are some of the essential ingredients for successful project
mgmt?
The first and foremost assignment is to take all stakeholders on board
in favor of the project. This should give them a thrill and prompt them to
be supportive whenever a need arises. Another most important part is the
motivation and engagement of the project team with clarity in their roles.
Have an official launch meeting to clarify the project charter and introduce
project participants to one another; keep regular communications, meetings
and social gatherings to keep players up-to-date and connected as a team;
and behavioral norms to which participants adhere to.
What are some of the best practices that you follow while managing
projects?
Steps that go into successful project management are not mysterious at
all they are standard procedures that, if executed, will improve a project's
chances of success. Projects fail because of poor planning and fuzzy
requirements that cause a chain reaction of poor productivity. Regardless of
size, good projects benefit from careful planning and active management.
Follow the 20/80 theory: Increase your planning process by 20 percent, and
you will reap 80 percent growth in productivity.
Tell us one project management practice that has always worked for you
in all the projects that you have deployed.
Planning, persuasion and promulgating, ie open communication with required
transparency and sincerity in approach, after all the project will benefit
the organization and so all of us. "Plan before doing": so the ability to
plan successfully is obviously the first important skill. However, to get
something done, you need the people to do the "doing" and for that you need
the skill to persuade people to do just that. And that, I think requires the
third and ultimate skill, the ability to communicate effectively. |
Commitment and involvement from team members
The skill sets that the team brings to the table are equally important,
because they'll be ultimately delivering the work. So it's important that you
choose the right members for it. How do you do that? What skills should you look
for besides technical expertise? One is that every member should be a team
player. Second, each team member must be completely dedicated and committed to
the job, ready to work over weekends, and under all kinds of stress. Fire in the
belly is a must. Unfortunately finding the right people is one of the biggest
challenges in project management.
Negotiation skills
Your ability to negotiate would be required at every stage of the project.
Whether it's negotiating with the management for budgets, or with vendors for
equipment cost and services, you need to have the expertise. A good negotiator
goes a long way in getting the best deal for the project.
If you don't have that skill, then you need to ensure that somebody else in
the team does.
Vendor Management
Proper vendor management is essential to managing projects successfully.
Most projects involve several vendors, so ensuring that they work together in
harmony is a key skill that every project head must have. The vendors should be
willing to walk that extra mile to support you. For this to happen, you must
ensure that all vendors deliver their part of the work, be it products or
services, on time. To find such a vendor is of course another task.
Risk Taking Capabilities
Every project involves some amount of risk, and you must be prepared for it.
You must identify the major risks in advance, and work out a plan to tackle
them.
Otherwise, you'll be caught by surprise, which can be extremely detrimental
for the project. Moreover, risk assessment should happen on a continuous basis
because it may not be possible to think of all the risks you're likely to face
over the course of the project. Some things might strike you only while working
on the project.
Page(s) 1 2
|
Print
Comment
Email
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Twitter
