11/11/2019 6 Steps Approach to Effective Project Management

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 6 Steps Approach to E ective

Project Management

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11/11/2019 6 Steps Approach to Effective Project Management

6 Steps Approach to Effective Project

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Management

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Practical and effective project management
has its roots in SIMPLICITY. Keeping a thing
simple makes it easier to understand for most
stakeholders e.g. project stakeholders can
provide requirements in simple terms - teams
unambiguously, they can set clear
expectations. Project stakeholders can
measure project success in terms of bene ts it
delivers.

These days all of us are expected to be e cient. Always!

So, if e ciency is expected from everyone, how can we
make the difference? By being EFFECTIVE. Here is a 6
steps approach to do effective project management for
your organization and drive better results.

Step 1 : The Groundwork - First Do Your

Homework

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11/11/2019 6 Steps Approach to Effective Project Management

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Before project manager (PM) or portfolio manager can

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jump on to project planning, you as a PM should be doing

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certain ground work. As mentioned earlier you should
identify

Who are the project stakeholders, who are going to be

bene ciaries?
What are the outcome-bene ts expected by various
stakeholders?
Based on these bene ts, how you can garner buy-in
from senior management or customers?
High level of deliverable, skill set required to deliver
those
Identify metrics: project management KPI
(http://blog.zilicus.com/project-kpis-for-project-manager/)
to de ne project success
How project artifacts, progress, issues, deliverable will
be communication i.e. communication plan

Let’s look at these six basic steps for effective project

management: project planning and project execution that a
project manager can follow in almost every project to
ensure project is delivered successfully.

2. Clarity of project requirements,

project scope

In most cases, unclear project requirement de nitely

results in project failure. Right at the beginning ensure all
relevant stakeholders understand project requirements
clearly and the importance of having unambiguous project

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scope. It is pretty common these days to see that sales

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team, project managers working with clients and help him

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's
articulate client's requirements. Based on very high level

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project requirement, you can chalk out project charter,
project scope.

If you would like to avoid project scope creep

(http://blog.zilicus.com/project-scope-management-part-
iii/), you will have to make stakeholders understand that
project scope is sacrosanct. Having said that total
in exibility can also kill project outcome (i.e. project
outcome will not be useful or bene cial to customer as
expected). You can accommodate change request after
reviewing its value to project outcome.

It is crucial for effective project management to be able to

have complete and clear project requirement, right at the
beginning and avoid project scope creep
(http://zilicus.com/Resources/blog-2013/8-essential-rules-
to-effectively-manage-projects.html) during project
execution. You can use right project management tools to
draft, articulate project requirements, review and seek
approvals, so that transparency and accountability for
project requirement is ensured.

Get Organized & Start Using Project

Management Tool
Nobody likes bad surprises, get your projects, teams and
communication organised. The best project management
tool (http://blog.zilicus.com/project-management-
software/) will help your customer or senior project
management from bad surprises.

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11/11/2019 6 Steps Approach to Effective Project Management

Here are some of the interesting ndings

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44 percent of project managers do not use project

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's
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management software; interestingly though top

or
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consulting rm PWC has found out that using PM
software increases performance.

High-performing organisations successfully

complete 89% of their projects, while low performers
complete only 36%

77% of companies use project management

software, and 87% of high-performing companies
use project management software

Even today most people rely on emails for day to day

communication. But if you are sending emails to
stakeholders by yourself, then you are certainly not doing it
in the best way, you are spending time on things which are
best handled and automated by project management tool.
A project management software (http://zilicus.com) is
indispensable to automate project communication. Any
change in project schedule, issue assignment, new risk in
register, comments to tasks, issues, risks, project
meetings, task due date reminder, project status change
noti cation, etc. will be automatically communicated by a
project management system and thereby leaving no
manual error for communication gap or manual error in
informing project team members, project sponsors or
senior management or even customer.

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11/11/2019 6 Steps Approach to Effective Project Management

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M
(https://projects.zilicus.com/Signup.jsp/?utm_source=ZPM-

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Blog&utm_medium=ZPMBlog&utm_campaign=6StpsEffePM)

3. Planning schedule, risks,

resources

Team Selection
Once a project charter and project scope is de ned and
articulated, you will have to identify project manager and
project planners. Having project manager, project planner
and team members who are subject matter expert for a
project in consideration wins half-battle. As project
manager & project planners de ne work-breakdown-
structure (wbs
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_breakdown_structure))
and identify high level deliverable, identifying right skillset
to work on those deliverable is equally important. So based
on these identi ed skillset, project manager has to select
resources who will be allocated to project and will be
assigned work.

Project Schedule
The planning phase of project requires well de ned project
charter (http://zilicus.com/Resources/blog-2015/Is-
Project-Charter-Important-How-Does-Project-Charter-
Matter.html) and project scope. Based on this project
manager can work on project schedule identifying
important deliverable, WBS, milestones. As he gets better
understanding of project scope, available resources, he can

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create detailed project schedule identifying minute level

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details of project schedule : i.e. tasks, milestones,

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subtasks, allocating and assigning resources to each of

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these tasks. As we know, detailing leads to questions,
questions brings clarity, and clarity drives predictability.

(https://projects.zilicus.com/Signup.jsp)
This phase marks a clear assignment, responsibility for
project team members. Again it is important to have
detailed project schedule (http://zilicus.com/features/task-
management.html) for effective project management. And
equally important it is, to be able track project tasks
(http://zilicus.com/tour/Project-Tracking/) seamlessly

Planning for Project Risks

Managing project risks
(http://zilicus.com/features/project-risk-
management.html) is integral part of project management.
If your projects are not trivial, whether you like it or not -risk
will be inevitable part of your projects. If it is not done as
an academic exercise of managing project risks, project
risk management saves you greatly from surprises. It is
important for effective project management
(http://www.pmi.org/About-Us/About-Us-What-is-Project-

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Management.aspx) to plan for project risks right at the

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beginning. You need to make team members aware of

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project risks also provide a platform like online risk register

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(http://zilicus.com/tour/Issue-Management) where team
members and other stakeholders can quickly record &
highlight project risks.

(http://blog.zilicus.com/project-management-software/risk-
management)

4. Communication Plan - Clarity &

Frequency

At every phase and step of managing project, project

manager has to communicate. Communication strategy
and plan is crucial for greater project visibility and
ultimately for project success (http://blog.zilicus.com/4-
essential-principles-for-successful-project-management/).
Project communication is required for
Informing stakeholder about project plan, scope; review
and approvals thereof

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Keeping team members informed about change in

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project schedule

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Being able to highlight issues and risks in project

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Being able to provide clear & real better visibility to
sponsors, portfolio/executive managers with project
portfolio KPIs (http://blog.zilicus.com/project-kpis-for-
project-manager/)
To get buy-in or support from senior management if
anything is going wrong

Kick-off project

Kick-off project

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Now almost everything looks ready on a paper, it is a time

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for a project team to jump-in and start working on minute

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level tasks. As mentioned earlier, every team member,

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vendor, customer should be informed and made aware of
clear expectations from them i.e.
When a speci c task is supposed to start,
Who will do it,
When it should be completed
What information should be updated (timesheet,
expenses, document, and deliverable)?

It is then become the work to be done on the ground. As

team members start working on it, project manager and
project leaders can play a role of facilitator, guide/coach so
that there is a productive and positive environment for
project team.

5. Monitor & Control

As the project is kicked-off

(http://www.techrepublic.com/article/follow-these-steps-
to-conduct-an-effective-project-kickoff-meeting/) and
project team has started working on project deliverable, as

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project manager you need to track project progress,

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communicate it to senior project managers, customers as

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appropriate. In order to monitor and control project

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You will have to collect progress updates, and check
project is not going off-the-track
Adhere to the project schedule, cost and keep watching
project baseline
Follow the mantra Get Things done, no matter what are
obstacles
Check project deliverable for quality
Involve project sponsors, customers and end-users
informed
Take a regular feedback from team, customers and end
users
Manage change requests, issues and risks judiciously;
as these are inevitable but if not managed well can take
project off the track

6. Deliver, close and Review

When you will deliver project artifacts, meet milestone ; you

would like your project customers to see the bene ts. You
would like customer to actually make use of it. Hence you
will have to see
Project deliverable are working for customer
Address any issue, gaps
Work with customer to identify trainer or champion
Train the trainer
Run a pilot, make it successful and enable customer to
market it inside and outside customer’s organization

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To get customer con rm successful project deliverable,

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you can schedule a pre-planned review meeting to get a

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formal agreement, seek feedback, identify positives and

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negatives of the whole exercise of delivering projects -
project review (http://www.projectreview.net/home3.html).
Thereafter, you should also conduct an internal review of
the project to identify mistakes made, learning thereof and
best way to move forward.

Final thoughts

Successful project delivery is not a rocket science. But it is

perceived to be complicated and demanding process and if
these perceptions are not clari ed, it induces errors, risks
and makes project go off-track, overrun cost, deliver sub-
standard outcome. Though it can be complicated and
demanding processes, it can be achieved. As per industry
reports, there is still large percentage of project which are
delivered successfully (on time, within budget, of desired
quality). Following closing points will help you in
successful delivering projects.
Get clear project requirement, have clear understanding
of project requirements
Have an eye for detailing : be it requirements, tasks,
issues, risks or communications
Ensure team members have enough information to
perform tasks, make them accountable
Stick to project schedule, yet things can go wrong with
project so deliberately have buffer while creating project
schedule
Review project progress, initiate corrective actions
quickly: stop project from failing

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Keep key stakeholders informed, seek buy-in wherever,

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whenever necessary

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Articulate key learning before closing project and utilize

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these learning aptly for future projects.

(https://projects.zilicus.com/Signup.jsp?utm_source=ZPM-
Res&utm_medium=ResourRef&utm_campaign=6SteEffPM)

Read Related Project Management and

Leadership Articles

Case Study: What Happens When Project Team

Has Dual Reporting
(http://blog.zilicus.com/wordpress/project-
management-practice-a-case-study-on-team-
management/)
Project Managers Can't Bypass Stress. Question Is
How to Deal with It?
(http://blog.zilicus.com/wordpress/project-
manager%e2%80%99s-job-stress-management-part-
ii/)
Back2Basics: Ultimate Project Management Guide:
Project Planning
(http://blog.zilicus.com/wordpress/project-
management-guide-basics-of-project-planning/)

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8 Reasons to Decide Whether Your Organization

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Needs Project Management O ce

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's
(http://blog.zilicus.com/wordpress/8-reasons-to-

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decide-whether-your-organization-needs-a-pmo/)
How To Select The Right Project Management
Software (http://zilicus.com/project-management-
software/Selecting-Project-Management-
Software.html)
Take a Look at This Best Project Management
Software (http://blog.zilicus.com/project-
management-software/best-project-management-
tools/)
Here is Your Ultimate Project Portfolio
Management Guide (http://blog.zilicus.com/project-
portfolio-management/)

Post by Dhan Wagholikar

(https://plus.google.com/u/0/108023241050987627367?rel=author)
About Zilicus:
____________________________________________________________________
ZilicusPM is project management
software (http://zilicus.com/tour/)
that offers an incredibly simple and
collaborative way to manage projects. Try ZilicusPM a
powerful tool to stay on top of things with project KPI
dashboard (http://blog.zilicus.com/best-project-kpi-
dashboard-software/). ZilicusPM enables online project
planning: WBS, online scheduling, resource assignment,
Gantt chart software (http://blog.zilicus.com/project-
management-software/gantt-chart/), project tracking,
issue management (http://zilicus.com/tour/Issue-
Management/), online calendar, risk register
(http://dzilicus.com/tour/Risk-Management) and much
more.

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ZilicusPM: Online Project management

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Effective Project Management

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Questions PM Should Ask

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