Project management is a thoroughly tried and tested discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific criteria for project and business success.
A project is a temporary scheme designed to produce a unique product, service or result with a defined beginning and end.
A project is usually constrained by the parameters of time, funding, and deliverable outcomes, and a project is undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value across the business and to its customers.
Top Tips for Project Management
- Produce good project architecture:
Encouraging your team to put forward new ideas and challenge the ways of working, will not only engage a highly motivated and productive team but, also bring about different perspectives to continuously improve the product, services, and processes within the organisation. This way the team will make their best contribution to the business and project and be at their most committed.
- Identify the right project:
The use of management tools and a benefit-cost analysis looks at the opportunities and the cost vs benefit to the business for the new project. This will result in a project that gives the best-added value for your effort and is optimally aligned with your company’s strategy and aims.
- Plan the whole of the project:
When starting your project, define the scope with precision. When you have defined the scope of the project then, you can communicate the objectives and the cost of changes. This will reduce change requests from others, allowing you to manage the project successfully and where there are additional changes to the project, these are only when it is essential.
- Make sure you get the right team:
Define the skills required and obtain people with those skills. Honesty about where there are shortfalls in skills is important – then rid your team of the shortfalls by taking time to learn how to do things correctly and identify the development areas.
- Similarly, get the specialists and expertise that you need:
Be aware that being a specialist or expert in one area means just that! It does not mean in another area, even if those areas are closely related. It is important to recognise that projects require learning from and collaboration with specialists and experts to be successful.
Specialists or experts within their field may be internally or externally sourced. Furthermore, consider the fact that hiring external specialists or experts that you can work with, can be less expensive than not hiring them at all.
- You need to cover all bases:
For a successful outcome, you need to cover all bases with the following seven knowledge areas:
a) Time and cost
b) Quality
c) Risk management
d) Human Resources
e) Procurement
f) Communications
g) Integration
h) Keep the project on track using stages and gates, with the use of a life cycle
i) Feedback with your team
- To deliver quality and excellence to your customers:
The aim is to exceed customer expectations while providing superb customer service through your team. Every stage – every success AND error is an opportunity to learn how to improve the service and do a better job within the business.
It is said that approximately 60% of companies fail to measure the ROI of projects. The calculation of success is to always make sure that you measure Return on Investment (ROI). This will demonstrate the level of success of the project over time and remove guesswork ensuring profitability for the business.
Project Management Skills
As a manager or leader, there’s always something new to learn or a skill you can improve and develop. Organisations need to support managers and leaders in this development, but you also need to invest in yourself.
Getting formal leadership and management training will not only help you build your leadership skills, it will also help you grow in confidence, and increase your chances of career progression.
Alternative Partnership offers online courses, so Click Here for the Project Management short course. We also deliver ILM-accredited Leadership and Management training programmes to support you and your teams in gaining formal, nationally recognised qualifications. Find out more about our current ILM courses here or get in touch to discuss how our services could benefit you.
