Mastering Managing Projects
The Easy, Five-Step Way to Project Haven!
Tim Woodman is the founder and
managing director of two companies,
Woodman Coaching and Management
Learning & Coaching. Tim is a graduate
in engineering, has a masters in
business administration, and is a
qualified business coach. As a trainer
and coach, he has been helping
managers to manage well for over
16 years, besides being a practicing
manager for over 35 years. Outside
work, Tim has regularly achieved great
success representing the Great British
triathlon age group team.
Business Expert Press 978-1-63157-811-3 (2017)
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Tim Woodman
Abstract: How do project managers add value? Why do
they get paid? What should project managers be doing?
The problem is most project managers cannot answer
these questions well because, whatever they say, the
next question is If you are not there, would the project
still get completed? which leaves them scratching their
heads.
In answering the fundamental questions of how do
project managers add value and what should they be
doing, this article draws on the authors experience of
managing, working with, training, and educating many
thousands of project managers and researching and study-
ing the subject for many years. By exploring the hidden
realities that exist for project managers and by bringing a
common-sense approach to the subject, this article shows
project managers how to make the answers common
practice as well.
It is hoped that this article will help project managers
gain clarity about their role and how they can achieve
results for their employers that justifies their pay.
Keywords: Critical path, Gantt charts, leading proj-
ects, managing, managing people, managing tasks,
mastering management, management, network dia-
grams, principles of managing, project management,
project managers of today, project managing in the
21stcentury, project sponsors, project stakeholders,
projects, work breakdown structures
By gathered information and experience, from over
35years of managing projects, from large to small, and
over 15 years of helping other project managers get bet-
ter at delivering projects on time and cost to the speci-
fication set out at the beginning (or even allowing for
changes along the way). I have found that there are some
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 Mastering Managing Projects
hidden realities when you try to manage a
project, which are really sticky problems
to solve. Being able to deal with the reali-
ties of managing projects and the part that
planning, people, and process (the three
Ps) play is critical to a successful outcome.
Of course, there needs to be a structure
but, lets KISS!!!! (Keep It Simple Stupid).
This way you dont get bogged down with
the process and its administration and prob-
ably end up focusing on the wrong things at
the wrong time when the rest of the project
is going west... ...
Some typical challenges:
Why should I come up with a plan? We
all know what happens to thembottom
draw straight after they have been signed
off and never seen again until its time to
reward the guilty and punish the innocent!
Why is it people, who often dont work
for us directly, commit to doing the work for
us in a certain time and then let us down?
How come shouting at them doesnt work
either or left with what I think at the time
is a good idea by bypassing them and going
to their boss to strong arm them ... totally
destroying our relationship with them....
Why do my projects always go overrun
and I get the blame?
And theres more as you will find out.
I do so hope you enjoy this article and
please give me your feedback, Id love to hear
from you at tim.woodman@management-
learning.co.uk
Feedback is the food of champions
IntroductionWhats the Project
Management Reality?
Am I a Line Manager, a technical expert,
a frontline worker, or a project manager?
Not all companies have full-time project
managers; if they do, they are more than
likely employed in the technical/scientific
areas of organizations or within IT. In to-
days working environment, frontline staff
and line managers are being asked to man-
age projects of increasing complexity and
2 Business Expert Press 978-1-63157-811-3 (2017)
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business value. A quick conversation with
your friendly in-house project manager (if
there is one) adds to your problems as they
start talking in a new language or suggest-
ing you attend a 3-day training course for
this or that qualification, and by the way,
here is a copy of the companys processes.
Searching the Internet does not help as you
are met with a barrage of courses, qualifi-
cations, and methodologies and other such
unedited, well-meaning but typically con-
fusing and overwhelming advice.
Over the last decades, a new role has
emergedthe part-time project manager.
The project manager may arrive at this po-
sition from many different paths such as:
A manager of a team
A senior administrative or technical role
Technical lead
Seconded to manage a project or part of
a project
I am using Technical Lead in its loosest
sense here and I am referring to anybody
who is regarded as a specialist in their field
of expertise, such as: engineer, IT program-
mer, accountant, personnel, administra-
tion, marketing, sales, etc.
For some Technical Team Managers, you
may have three roles to squeeze into your
working week: line management, technical
lead, and project management. Each week
becomes a balancing act of spending the
right amount of time and using the right
tools to succeed in each role.
Some of your key issues might be:
No time for thinking or planning
Impossible deadlines set by senior
management
Feeling that saying No will be perceived
as being negative
Activities are driven by urgency, whos
asking, whos shouting loudest and by
instinct, not by importance
Start doing without thinking or planning
first
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 Mastering Managing Projects
No time to build relationships with team
members
Hostage to fortune by being reactive rather
than proactive
Managing projects does need a toolbox
of tools and techniques that you can use to
complement your existing capabilities and
knowledge. Being able to keep a balance
among line, technical, and project roles is
vital to be able to deliver successful proj-
ects without compromising on the line and
technical functions. As organizations learn
to cope with the new economic realities,
delivering benefits and outcomes through
projects and effective project management
is vitally important. For every big-price-tag,
high-profile project, there are tens of projects
with small budgets and low profiles being
managed by the part-time project manager.
Companies do not understand or dont think
through the implications of having large
numbers of small projects that are badly
managed. I believe, Most projects fail to de-
liver their expected business benefits due to
poor project management. In this article, I
will share with you how you can redress the
balance back in your favor to enable you to
begin to deliver projects however small: on
time, within budget, and to the agreed scope.
Starting Out
If you are new to managing projects, at the
beginning it can seem daunting, stressful,
and overwhelming. Your natural intuition
and instincts, which come from your lifes
experiences, from growing up, attending
school/college, and at work, is the very be-
havior that will lead you down the wrong
path. What we will show you is that by act-
ing in a seemingly counterintuitive way in
which you will get better results.
For example, when asked to complete a
project with short deadlines, instinct and in-
tuition leads you to ignore the scoping and
planning processes and dive straight at the
activity with the inevitable result that the
project fails to meet its deadline and often
Business Expert Press 978-1-63157-811-3 (2017)
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the proposed benefits. As a project manage-
ment tutor, coach, and trainer, I see even
the more experienced project managers
driven by this instinct to jump in, with little
or no planning, and start the activity that is
the output of the project. Rarely, if ever do
I see the manager taking time out to do the
managerial tasks of overseeing the project.
Another example of where you should
adopt counterintuitive behavior is in ques-
tioning your senior managers when they
keep changing the scope of the project or
demanding impossible deadlines be met
with the resources available. Instinct and
self-preservation will lead you to a ccept the
changes without challenge. It is counterin-
tuitive to replan the project, revise the end
date and budgets, and present them back
to the senior management with options on
the way forward. Your fear is if you ques-
tion them, they will perceive you as being
negative (finding fault at every turn), not
very clever (dont understand simple com-
munications) and it will be career threat-
ening. However, the consequences are that
you will then be the cause of the lateness
of the project. The organization will also
suffer because of the additional resources
needed to accommodate these changes and
muddled thinking by the senior managers.
In many of the training events that I or-
ganize and run, delegates tell me these are
the things they are struggling with:
1. Unclear objectives and poor scoping
2. Unrealistic deadlines
3. Lack of senior management involvement
4. Poor or lack of communication
5. No choice but to use the wrong people
6. Un-confident on how to manage stake-
holders, suppliers, project staff
7. Lack of flexible processes
The starting point in any project is an
assessment of what you need to do first. To
make that judgment, look at Eddie Obengs
Project Grid below and then assess which
quadrant your project is in.
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