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few months at most), almost no budget, and a small team (two to six people). Example projects are:
to create a new brochure for a program; design an informational website; or develop a proof-of-concept for a smart phone application. Most small projects are in addition to your regular work so you do not have a lot of time or resources to apply to the project.
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WARNING!
Do not use this guide for managing projects that: take more than 4 months to complete, have a substantial budget, or a project team of more than six people. Especially do not use this guide if the project is going to be your primary work. Projects can become very complicated very quickly and you should use robust project management methods such as the Project Management Body of Knowledge as developed by the Project Management Institute.
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The main purpose of the templates is to make sure that everyone is communicating and has a clear understanding of the projects purpose and results.
Put everything in writing so you dont have to guess later what was actually said.
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Bill Brantley
Dr. Bill Brantley, PMP bill@billbrantley.com
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction...2 Instructions for Project Charter.8 Instructions for Scope Statement..14 Instructions for Project Plan.21 Instructions for Communication Manager.33 Instructions for Risk Management.41 Instructions for Project Control Plan....51 Instructions for Status Report Template.61 Project Management Resources.67
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What exactly will the project customer(s) have when the project is completed?
Be specific and most important the project customer(s), project sponsor, project team, and you have to agree 100% on what the project product or result will be.
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2) Project Purpose:
This is the business case for the project product or result. The project product or result must tie into a strategic objective of the organization and there is consensus that this particular project will best meet that strategic objective. The more strategic objectives that this project can meet strengthen the case for doing the project.
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3) Project Customers:
List the people and/or groups that will direct benefit from the project product or results and whose acceptance criteria will determine if the project is successful or not. The project customers are also part of the stakeholders but you will list all stakeholders (those who influence the project outcome) in a later template.
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4) Project Sponsor:
The project sponsor is the executive from whom you will borrow the authority to manage the project. If you don't have a project sponsor then your project will most likely fail. The project sponsor is the one who has the power to supply you with resources, personnel, and a budget and can help remove obstacle to completing the project. It is vital that you meet with him or her on a regular basis and can contact him or her when needed.
Make sure to get their signature so that you can prove that you have the project sponsor's blessing.
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1) Customer Requirements:
The best way to handle this aspect is to have a meeting with all of your project customers and your project sponsor. The fewer customers the better for the project in reaching a consensus on the project product or results requirements. It may be helpful to
list the requirements as: "Must Haves" and "Nice to Haves." Keep the list as short as possible by thinking of
the first iteration of the project as a proof-of-concept and keeping other requirements back for future versions of this project.
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2) Deadline:
The actual date that the project product or results must be delivered or the project will be cancelled. You should also negotiate for milestone dates so that the customer and/or sponsor can decide if the project's progress warrants it going further.
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3) Budget Cap:
What is the maximum amount that you can spend on the project? You will not know the true project budget until you actually start the project plan and begin the work so this figure will be a ballpark estimate. This is also a good point to discuss having contingency planning for unexpected expenses.
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Continually adding more features and tasks will cause project failure. Thus, you need consensus from the project
customer(s), project sponsor, and project team on what will not be included in the project product or results. This does not have to be an exhaustive list because the real purpose of this item is to start the conversation on realistic project expectations.
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Customer Requirements:
1) 2) 3) Deadline: Budget Cap: What is not in this projects scope? 1) 2) 3)
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1) Project Team:
The table is self-explanatory except for the Type column. Many small projects have part-time team members so it is important to note the commitment that individual team members Core team members are the ones you can count on to be there to the end, committed 100%. Shared team members could be on the project the entire team but may only be able to devote some of their time to project tasks. Temporary team members can only commit to some of the project life span. Outsourced team members are the most restricted in that they can only devote some time to one project task. Feel free to expand these categories if needed.
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2) Stakeholders:
These are people and groups that have some influence over your project but differ from project customers or the project sponsor because they don't directly receive the benefits of the project product or result. Examples could be the agency's IT group, a competing department, vendors, or interested executive managers. The purpose of this
question is to determine potential supporters and opponents to the project so that you can plan on enlisting their help or mitigating their opposition.
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3) Task List:
These are the tasks needed to complete the project and deliver the project product or result. A good rule of thumb is to break tasks down to a work
package which can be completed by one person in less than eight hours (one standard workday). Try to order the list with the first tasks first and later tasks that depend on earlier tasks later in the list. If you have more than twenty-five tasks on your list, consider
using a formal project management methodology. In giving a Task ID you can simply number the task or use a prefix scheme to designate a specific group of tasks. For example, if part of your project is to build a website you could use the prefix "WEB-" to number those tasks for easier scheduling and assignment.
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4) Resources List:
Only list the resources you will need specifically for the project. For example, you would list Microsoft Word because that is a common software package in the office but you might list Dreamweaver if you need to purchase that program for editing web pages.
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5) Cost Data:
You will want to create a simple spreadsheet for recording the cost of project resources and any team members you may have to pay for. For ease of tracking expenses, set up the following four tabs: Master Budget: Total costs broken down by expenses and source(s) of income. A balance sheet. Budget by Task: List of tasks with their associated costs. Budget by Resources: List of resources with their associated costs. Cash Flow: The project schedule and anticipated expenditures by day or week. Helps you to spot spending spikes and prepares you to save for those spikes.
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Notes
Type*
Notes
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Dependencies
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Task ID(s)
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Budget by Tasks
Budget by Resources
Cash Flow
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1) Communication Grid:
Ninety percent of your job as a project manager is communication. Go down your list of project customers and stakeholders to determine who you need to communicate with about what. Consult with them on how often they would like to be contacted ("when") and how they want to be contacted (email, phone call, text, etc.). For your own purposes note why you need to communicate with then on a regular basis and any notes that will help you communicate better with that person or group.
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Your very first person on the grid will always be the project sponsor. Your second person will always be the project customer. If you have multiple customers, list the customers in order of importance.
2) Status Reports:
Note that the seventh template of CPMP is a general purpose status template. Modify as warranted depending on your audience. Use the grid to determine who receives the report on regular basis and what information they will receive.
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3) Meeting Calendar:
Use this to plan regular face-to-face or synchronous meetings. The project sponsor always has a standing meeting as well as your core project team members.
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How
Why
Notes
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Status Reports: [General Status Report Modify as Needed] Who Gets It How Notes
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When
About
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1) Risk Register:
A risk is an event that either harms or benefits your project. Most forget that not
all risk events are bad but it is the bad events that can hurt or kill your project. Spend the time brainstorming with your team to identify the bad events and give each event an ID and enough of description to help you plan your response to it. Then, go through your list and decide on
the most likely probability of the event occurring in increments of 20s. This doesn't have to be exact but err on the worst-case scenario side. Also determine what the impact would be to the project if the event does happen. Assign "1" to events that would have a negligible impact on the project all the way to "5" for events that would make the project fail. These are the risks that you want to continually monitor. Continue to add to the risk register as the project progresses.
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2) Impact Grid:
Use this grid to graphically display the risk profile of your project. Start with the first risk event and place its Risk ID in the box intersected by the probability and severity. If you have a color version of this guide you will see a green zone, a yellow zone, and a red zone. For those with a black-and-white version, here are the zones:
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Yellow Severity = 1: 81% to 100% Severity = 2: 41% to 80% Severity = 3: 0% to 60% Severity = 4: 0% to 20%
Red Severity = 2: 81% to 100% Severity = 3: 61% to 100% Severity = 4: 21% to 100% Severity = 5: 0% to 100%
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Red Zone: Plan an immediate risk response by avoiding, mitigating or finding a way to shift the risk to someone else ("insurance"). Yellow Zone: Plan a risk response, but wait until after you completed the red zone risk response plans first. Green Zone: Plan for the items or just accept the risk events when they happen if your resources and time is limited. It is possible for a risk to migrate to different zones to make sure to update the impact grid on a regular basis. A good time would be when you are also updating the risk register.
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3) Risk Responses:
Use this table to index all of your risk response plans. Of course your risk response plan can be more detailed and in a separate document but it is good practice to have a ready reference so that you and your team can act quickly. As with the risk register and impact grid, make sure to update your risk responses table on a regular basis. It is also good practice to examine your detailed risk response plans on a regular basis.
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3) Monitoring Checklist:
The project manager should determine the top three items he or she will monitor on a daily basis throughout the project. For example, the first item can be the budget, the second item can be the quality of the project product or results, and the third item is the schedule. The purpose of this question is to keep the project
manager focused on the project and to serve as early warning signs of developing risk events.
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4) Thresholds:
This should be same as the deadline and budget cap in the scope statement. This is another focusing prompt for the project manager.
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Last Updated
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Monitoring Checklist: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8)
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Project Title / Date / Project Manager / Deadline: Basic information that should be on all status reports. Project Status: This table displays significant tasks and/or events in the project. Red means the task/event status is in trouble, yellow means that the task/event could become trouble unless steps are taken, and green means the task/event is proceeding normally. For black-andwhite reports either spell out the colors or use R-Y-G. Issues: Can be related to an item in the project status table or a general issue and is anything that needs to be addressed before the next status report.
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Recommendations/Requests: Most often used when reporting to the project sponsor. Planned Activities Until Next Status Report: Most often used when reporting to the project team.
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The Core Project Management Process (CPMP) is designed so that all is needed is a word processing program (you can skip the spreadsheet program by putting your budget figures in a Word table and use the Formula function to add and subtract). There are many project management programs out there that you can use but these may be more complex than needed for your small project. The goal is to
have a system that requires as little project administration work as possible so that you and your team can concentrate on the project tasks. But if you would like to have some extra help there
are numerous resources online:
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1) Free Project Management Templates for Excel - Vertex42 offers both free and paid project management templates for Excel. Some of these templates can be used in Open Office. 2) CoHuman- Task and Project Manager that integrates with Google Docs. Free online service that lets you create tasks, assign tasks to other people, and group related tasks in projects. The best part of this application is that the tasks are constantly reordered as tasks are completed.
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3) OpenProj- Free open-source alternative to Microsoft Project. Might be more than needed for a small project but have all of the features of Microsoft Project and can open MS Project files. 4) Open Workbench - Another open-source alternative to Microsoft Project. I personally find OpenProj easier to use. 5) Zoho Projects- Offers one of the better free plans for project management (1 project and 10 MB of file sharing with unlimited users and file sharing). Integrates with Google Docs and I personally feel that their pricing structure is better than Basecamp.
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Thank you for reading and please feel free to contact me if you need advice or want to offer criticism, praise, and suggestions.
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Image Credits: All applicable images and graphics are used with permission under the Flickr Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Special thanks to: Claude, chego101, alancleaver_2000, EvanHahn, kyz, The Fayj, Wisconsin Historical Images, vectorportal, Bogdan Suditu, Brenda Starr, AMagill, o5com, .reid., Artnow314, far4.net, and Identity Photogr@phy
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