Simple Project Management

PMP Summary + Lessons Learned: Planning Phase of a project

The planning phase of a project is a crucial stage where the project’s objectives, scope, resources, and timelines are defined. It involves creating a comprehensive project plan that outlines the key tasks and activities required to successfully complete the project.

The planning phase is accomplished thru many meetings with all stakeholders to gather both facts and ask open ended questions in order to uncover hidden expectations and find out how open various stakeholders are to accept the new change.

The primary outputs of the planning phase include:

Project Charter: The project charter is a formal document that authorizes the project’s existence and provides a high-level overview of its objectives, stakeholders, and overall approach. It sets the project’s direction and establishes the authority for the project manager to proceed. You will find out what constraints you have to work with, eg fixed timeline. This is a good document to also reiterate the company’s commitment to ethical and responsible behaviour.

Project Scope: The project scope defines the boundaries of the project, including what is included and excluded. It outlines the deliverables, features, functions, and constraints of the project. Defining the scope helps ensure clarity and prevents scope creep during project execution.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): The WBS breaks down the project’s work into manageable and hierarchical components called work packages. It provides a visual representation of the project’s tasks, sub-tasks, and their relationships. The WBS is a key tool for organizing and understanding the project’s scope and structure. Lessons Learned: You *will* need 3rd party help from experts to help list tasks and get estimates. These key experts are often senior staff, and are very busy, but are critical to your project success. They may try to put you off for weeks, as this may not be a priority for them. You may need to escalate to get their time. Try to come to them with a start of a task structure, from a template, so that they are not being asked to create a plan from zero.

Project Schedule: The project schedule is a detailed timeline that identifies the start and end dates for each activity and task within the project. It includes dependencies, milestones, and deadlines. The schedule helps the project team understand the sequence of tasks and their estimated duration, facilitating resource allocation and coordination.

Resource Plan: The resource plan identifies the resources, both human and non-human, required to complete the project successfully. It outlines the roles and responsibilities of the project team members, identifies any external resources needed, and considers factors such as equipment, facilities, and budgetary requirements.

Risk Management Plan: The risk management plan assesses potential risks and uncertainties that could impact the project and outlines strategies for their identification, analysis, response, and monitoring. It helps mitigate potential threats and exploit opportunities, ensuring effective risk management throughout the project lifecycle.

Communication Plan: The communication plan defines the project’s communication objectives, stakeholders, channels, and frequency of communication. It ensures that the right information is communicated to the right stakeholders at the right time, facilitating effective collaboration and coordination. Lessons Learned: Take care to define if this includes working with marketing or social media/PR teams. Too many status meetings can drain your time as a PM, taking your focus away from building relationships and trust. Try to deliver status reports via re-useable templates, and only hold meetings to raise exceptions or escalations.

Quality Management Plan: The quality management plan outlines the processes, activities, and standards that will be used to ensure that the project’s deliverables meet the required quality expectations. It includes quality assurance activities to prevent defects and quality control measures to identify and address any deviations.

Cost Estimation and Budget: The planning phase involves estimating the project’s costs based on the identified activities, resources, and timelines. The cost estimation helps create a budget that outlines the expected expenses and provides a financial framework for the project’s execution and monitoring.

Procurement Plan: If the project requires external resources or services, a procurement plan is created to outline the procurement strategy, selection criteria, and contractual arrangements. It ensures that the necessary resources are procured efficiently and effectively, aligning with project goals and requirements.

Change Management Plan: Your project will affect certain stakeholders both in positive and negative ways. You need to find out who will be responsible for this preparation communication and training, and who the managers are that will enforce or manage non compliance with the new changes. Usually this scope is forgotten or neglected, but internal politics will cause a project to fail.
Think of this like “marketing” where you are selling the benefits and getting them to visualize the “future state” to make this extra work and change worthwhile.

As you can see, this is a LOT of work. You will also need time in your schedule to write these plans up, AND get them reviewed and approved by your PMO / or Manager.

Overall, the planning phase focuses on defining project parameters, establishing a clear roadmap, allocating resources, identifying risks, and setting up effective communication and quality management systems. The outputs generated during this phase provide a solid foundation for the project’s execution and control.

Basics Of Project Management: Communication and Risk

Any project can just succeed if the individuals behind the tasks leverage appropriate project management skills or hire a respectable and reputable project management group.

Like every other project, a project management strategy ought to include an appropriate and realistic plan for human resources as the staff will need to be onboarded at the proper time, to keep schedules on track.

Task management might sound like a complex term and it actually is as it involves the procedure of arranging the different aspects involved in creating and completing a project. But task duration can change based on WHO does the work.

All tasks need to start out with a good understanding so that the worker will understand the important things needed for the job to continue in addition to the required timeframe within which these requirements must be accomplished. The task strategy must recognize the scope of the project and the people responsible for the different inputs of the task.

The strategy should consist of the costs associated with managing the job. That can consist of the costs involved in working with human resources and products for the task. A realistic strategy will enable the project manager to satisfy the project requirements on time and in a quality manner.

Once the project is underway: how should you communicate with team members AND stakeholders?
The fastest way is the best. I’ve seen everyone added to a MS-Teams chat (or Discord) or tool where a PM can add a quick sentence to be read by all. It’s transparent, timely, and builds trust that you’re not hiding anything.

You may also need a good communication plan with the outside world if you have public stakeholders.
eg. Twitter Feed or other social media.

If the task has any effect in a certain neighborhood, the task manager need to be more careful to plan an excellent communication strategy. If this is the case, the project supervisor ought to likewise make sure to include public relations content in addition to a communications plan in cases of emergency situation or unfavorable reaction from the general public.

A Communication Management Plan Guideline:

Work together with stakeholders to ask what they want and how often. Make it your guideline to plan with those people who will be the affected by the plan. Do not wait until the project has actually gone south to get their assistance. Start with mock scenarios – Ask “How would you want to handle X situation?”.

Continue collaborating:

Do your workplans, resources, and efficiency metrics give a solid readout of what is going on with your project and the quality of your work?

Lessons Learned: Are we utilizing project management as a data repository for FUTURE jobs? I.e. are we utilizing it as our monitoring and control tool? Ideally, job supervisors are utilizing the info for HR performance and quality checks.

Leaders who master Project Management learn to lead enhancement initiatives that lead to quantifiable growth in ROI, financial value added, sales growth, customer complete satisfaction and retention, market share, time to market, staff member satisfaction, and staff member inspiration.

Other Risk Management Elements for the Communication Planning:
Risk/Danger management should be one of the most important elements of the task plan. The job supervisor must avoid being reactionary whenever emergencies or unfavorable publicity turns up. To avoid this and to become proactive you as PM need to develop a contingency plan for possible scenarios.

Sudden Change in Reqirements:
One of the most difficult tasks to handle as a PM is when emergency scope situations may occur.
A CHANGE MANGEMENT Plan discussed and signed off at the beginning of project will tell the team how they should get approval for the abrupt changes in expenses and the sudden modifications in technical scope associated with the project.

However, a project supervisor must constantly be prepared for any possibility for any kind of project they are managing. The very best thing to do is to prepare an extremely effective Projectplan and Charter with stakeholders approval so that you are not blind-sided by really important elements of the project.
Knowing how and when to communicate and escalate will help you, the PM in managing any change.
Good Luck!

Nonprofit Project Management Best Practices (Part 1)

nonprofit project management best practices

Clearing the scope/ Clarifying the key deliverables

Clearing the scope is a fundamental step in the nonprofit project management process. This step ensures that no part of a project is outside its scope, and it also facilitates project monitoring and evaluation. It helps nonprofits avoid adding new requests and wasting resources on projects that are too broad or too narrow. There are lots of great ideas out there, and analyzing if a group should take on a project or not can be a product unto itself! Watch out for “pet” projects 🙂

The scope statement should be set up early in the project life cycle and should state clearly what work is to be accomplished in order to deliver the end result. It should be reviewed frequently by the project team. It should also be referenced whenever any new tasks or work items are introduced.

Make sure you as PM continue to have buy in from everyone, as people follow their leaders, and internal politics need to be overcome to be successful.

Defining the requirements

A nonprofit organization must clearly define the requirements of the project before launching it. A properly defined scope helps nonprofits execute the project and measure its success. It also helps nonprofits assess the scope of any new requests made by stakeholders, clients, or program recipients. The documentation of project scope can help nonprofits make better decisions about resources and priorities.

Nonprofits face many challenges when it comes to defining and evaluating their success. Kaplan (2001) suggests that nonprofit organisations should measure success according to how efficiently they meet key stakeholder needs. However, managers in the nonprofit sector often choose units of measure that they believe are important and are relevant to funders and other stakeholders.

Bringing in Subject Matter Experts

A subject matter expert is someone who has extensive knowledge in a specific field. This can be a technical, business, or social area. This type of person will not only have expertise in a field, but also know where to find the answers to your questions.

Your organization should avoid being too “proud.” Leverage the experts around you. Yes you may have to pay for their help, but NP’s can always ask for a reduced hourly rate. Focus on asking questions and being curious about your subject’s experience and insights. You will want to ask them questions about challenges, lessons learned, or share a story about a successful moment to help your staff visualize the “END GOAL” and the benefit of working towards that goal.

Keeping controls in place

One of the most important aspects of nonprofit project management is keeping data and finance controls in place. Internal controls can prevent misappropriation or misuse of assets. They are typically described in written policies that lay out procedures and responsibilities. The goal is to establish business practices that serve as checks and balances against outside forces. These are often compromized for the sake of SPEED. “We need to book that flight right now”. “I just paid for it on my own credit card”. etc.

Using project management software

Using a project management software for nonprofits can help organizations reduce the number of needless status meetings and encourage collaboration. It can also help organizations create better future estimations. Unfortunately, choosing the right software solution can be difficult. And the migration from conventional project management to digital project management can be time-consuming.

For nonprofit organizations, a good software solution should have excellent communication features. It should integrate with email software and have features like messaging apps. As many nonprofit employees work in different time zones, this is especially important for effective collaboration.

I’ve guided many organizations to improve their PMO “Project Management Office” and helped train staff on the new tools. But key is always the PROCESS. What you used to do, and what you will start to try now, going forward. Read all you can about behaviour and motivation….

How can I make difficult project management decisions?

making difficult project management decisions

SUMMARY:

When you’re a project manager, sometimes you may be faced with a difficult decision that requires you to make a tradeoff. You can use the triple constraint PM decision making framework to help you weigh your options and determine the best path forward for the project, while still staying realistic and keeping your goals in mind. This framework can be a helpful tool for all types of project management decisions, especially when you have to deal with stakeholders who are not always easy to work with. Here are a few tips for making difficult project management decisions with the triple constraint model in mind.

If you find yourself in a position of authority in your organization, you will soon find that some project management decisions are difficult to make. Fortunately, there are some steps that you can take to improve your decision making skills and keep the project on track or risks under control.

One of the most effective decision making techniques is to quantify the pros and cons of each option. This simple process can help you quickly make an objective choice and get on with the job.

But sometimes you need more that just a checklist. Some pros can become cons in the long term. eg. a quick software fix to please a customer can have long term ramifications.

1. Triple Constraint PM Decision Making Framework

Making difficult project management decisions requires you to be able to recognize competing demands. This helps you make adjustments to keep the project scope, time, and cost in balance.

Using the triple constraint theory is an effective way to make these adjustments and ensure that goals remain realistic and achievable. When you make a change to one of the three constraints, it will impact the other two.

The triple constraint model is useful when negotiating with stakeholders about changes in costs, time, and scope. It allows you to offer them options for increasing Scope in exchange for more Time and Cost, or delivering sooner (less Time) in exchange for a decrease in Scope and increased Cost.

Since RISK affects all three of those options, you may need to make pro/con lists for each of the three scenarios.

Finally, also, compare the values, principles and moral arguments supporting each option. That will expose potential BIASES.

2. Identify the Decision

Are you asking the RIGHT question? When it comes to making difficult project management decisions, there are a few key factors that should be taken into consideration. These include the decision’s impact on scope, quality, staffing (you don’t want key staff to quit) and buy-in/adoptability.

Identifying the decision is a critical step because it ensures that you and your team have as much of the information you need to make an informed choice. You’ll never have ALL the info you think you need. “You can only make the best decision you can with the facts you have at that moment”.

Sometimes you can have the luxury of waiting, and putting off a critical decision, but that is RARE.

Gathering all relevant and appropriate information, pulling in subject matter experts and / or stakeholders as needed.

After you’ve gathered all the information and discussed options, it is time to evaluate them and select one. You can do this by reviewing available information, potential paths forward, and pros / cons of each option to determine which is the preferred option based on agreed criteria.

3. Gather Information

Making difficult project management decisions can be a daunting task. Often, the right decision can make or break a project.

In order to make the right decision, project managers must gather all relevant information. This can include a mix of data from the project team, other stakeholders, and outside sources such as competitors or market research.

Usually, the best way to collect this information is by using a process such as SIPOC diagrams and problem trees or brainstorming with a group of subject matter experts. Taking the time to do so will lead to a better outcome. Waiting to make a decision costs time and money. Software architects can cost $200/hr. Experienced PM’s even more from a consulting firm. So the PM is going to push to get a decision quickly.

You can control the risk of delays by being clear about key decision points in the project. Contingency time may need to be built into the schedule to allow time for key executives to all coordinate their schedules to meet. As well, if you have a team of stakeholders, at the start of the project make sure they assign someone as the FINAL decision maker, who is senior enough to have the power of VETO.

The next time you have a decision to make, you’ll know what the appropriate steps are to reach a successful outcome.

4. Evaluate and Select Options

How are your conflict and negotiation skills? How you manage all the stakeholders at the decision meeting, before and after will matter greatly. Things can get VERY heated when money is on the line. (and egos).

BUT: You need a decision. Now. or x y and z impacts will happen. Some people may try to derail the conversation by bringing up new ideas or asking for more time. Be prepared for that, and speak to the ground rules of the meeting at the start so you can deal with it appropriately. Stay calm 🙂

5. Take Action

Your project or initiative isn’t achieving its milestones, then it’s time to evaluate what’s going on. Evaluations can help you determine whether you’re getting the results you want, identify weaknesses and strengths in your organization or initiative, and suggest new processes or controls.

You’ve discussed everything, gotten buy-in, and gotten a decision from the group. Now take action, and report back the impact as soon as you can to help reassure everyone. (or meet again, and discuss a new difficult decision).

As a project manager, it’s important to know how to manage the budget, schedule and scope of your projects. With these tips in mind, you can make sure your project stays on track and achieves your objectives.

Nonprofit Project Management Finance Risks

SUMMARY:
There are numerous kinds of risks that nonprofits face, and an excellent Risk Management strategy will resolve each one of them. Your risk management procedure includes identifying risks, developing a strategy to handle them, executing the strategy, and routinely evaluating and upgrading the org’s processes. It is essential to understand what risks your nonprofit organization and your finance team deals with in order to avoid them and alleviate the possible damage to the nonprofit’s reputation and objective.

Nonprofit Project Management Finance Risks:

When you’re dealing with a nonprofit project, your finance team needs to understand how to handle risks and threats. This means recognizing risk locations, assessing potential problems, and planning for these dangers. Here are some pointers. Keep in mind that some unplanned contingency is necessary in your project plan. It is necessary to weigh the risks versus the prospective reward, and mitigate them properly.

Recognizing risk:

The primary step is to determine the risks. By listing them, you can make them visible to all stakeholders, so that they can be examined, discussed and mitigated. It is vital to figure out the approximate impact each risk will have in terms of finance, schedule, or even Brand/PR impact. As soon as you have recognized your threat areas, you can figure out which risks are the greatest priority and how to handle them.

Budget threats are those including the loss of money or assets. These threats impact all nonprofits, and they ought to be considered. In addition to funds, nonprofits have physical properties that are at danger. These properties can be harmed by fire, flood, workers, volunteers, and even computer hackers. For instance, some nonprofits have a warehouse filled with products that can be damaged by a fire or theft. Such a loss would have an extreme influence on the mission of the organization.

Examining Risk is an ongoing task for the PM and the Finance team:

Risk evaluation involves identifying the kinds of dangers that a nonprofit organization might deal with and evaluating them. The secret is to make the risks as understandable as possible to all stakeholders to get their buy-in to change or mitigate. A common framework is to ranked from 1 to 10 to determine the risk severity.

Nonprofits face a variety of special dangers, but your concerns will overlap with for-profit companies too. In particular, nonprofits have to deal with cybersecurity threats, which can lead to the direct exposure of sensitive information about donors. They also require to mitigate threats connected with theft, which might take place internally. Internal actors might steal cash or resources from nonprofits, compromising their financial health and preventing them from being able to complete their mission.

Risk Mitigation Approach: Decreasing the Risk:

While a lot of nonprofit project management dangers focus on loss of funds or money, nonprofits likewise deal with threats related to their physical assets. Every organization has office home furnishings, fixtures, devices, and supplies that can be harmed or destroyed by fire, flood, staff member or volunteer negligence.
Often outsourcing expertise by hiring a specific PM or 3rd party consultant can help decrease risk, thanks to their experience or toolset.

To decrease the risk related to the financial management of nonprofit projects, nonprofits should plan Project policies and processes. This consists of accounting and general management controls, including regular monthly reassessment.

Good Risk management methods involve the board, management, and personnel of nonprofits. The board should participate in risk management by working as an oversight committee or appointing a threat manager. These specialists are responsible for evaluating the dangers and recognizing ways to handle them. They can also help avoid or alleviate certain risks that might develop.

While danger management strategies are often perceived as an annoyance, they can prove to be a hero in some scenarios. Staff need to practice fire drills, but also other danger threat response drills. Be sure to have a reward afterward, to have the staff see it as a positive experience.

Risk Mitigation Approach: Accepting a Risk:

Nonprofit Finance teams often deal with a range of risks when planning and executing their jobs. While some risks are major and might bring the organization to a complete dead stop, others are more minor and will only trigger quick responses. BUT, you need a plan, and have everyone agree and understand the mitigation plan, or else you or the PM can’t respond quickly.

Key Lessons Learned During Software Adoption

I’ve seen organizations, big and small, profit and nonprofit, across all leadership types struggle with software change. Hopefully some of these lessons learned will help you and your implementation project managers.

For numerous organizations, the software application adoption process is a very complicated task. It includes a variety of aspects, consisting of a people-first technique, change management, and trialability. There are likewise important considerations for making sure you are considering observability, training and special needs enablement.

Observability
When it concerns software adoption, observability is an excellent way to get more control over your software ‘ecosystem’. It enables you to monitor efficiency, comprehend what is taking place in your IT systems, and resolve issues rapidly. In addition, it can help ensure a steady, reliable cloud container facilities.
Your IT team needs stats to help them make strategic decisions.

According to 451 Research study’s State of Observability 2021 study, over half of companies have actually embraced observability, however many are still in the early stages. That’s despite the fact that contemporary applications are an entire brand-new world of intricate system architectures.

Having full visibility into your IT stack can notify teams to security occurrences prior to they even take place. This means less downtime and happier consumers. Likewise, it can prevent information breaches and help you prevent non-compliance with data personal privacy policies.

With a reputable observability service, you can automate triage and detect concerns as they develop, saving you money and time. You can also utilize observability tools to offer context for system changes, so you can discover the root cause of issues.

Trialability

Trialability is a crucial factor in the adoption process of an innovation. In the context of new apps, trialability is the opportunity to examine, test, and experiment with an application.

Trialability is defined as “the degree to which innovation can be tested or experienced in limited periods.” Research study reveals that trialability affects adoption. As a result, it is necessary to understand the aspects affecting trialability.

Utilizing a conceptual model, the present research study examines the relationship in between viewed attributes of mHealth apps and behavioral intention to use them. It likewise explores the moderating impacts of knowledge, attitude, and self-discipline inspiration. The outcomes reveal that the design exposes a crucial relationship in between trialability and behavioral objective.

This research study proposes a theory that integrates Rogers’ diffusion of innovation (DOI) and new software and process adoption. It recommends that the observability, relative advantage, and intricacy of apps can contribute to behavioral intent to use for new work.

People-first approach to Change Management:

If your company is preparing to embrace a new software product, you ought to have a formal strategy for getting people onboard. A well-crafted strategy will permit you to determine the opportunities and barriers that will hinder the adoption procedure.

The key to a successful adoption plan is to start early. While the application of a new software application will need time, it is very important to begin the adoption process early to avoid interruptions. Make sure that every worker in the company is involved. You might also wish to consider offering rewards to motivate staff members to use the brand-new system.

The initial step is to identify the key goals and metrics. Some organizations select to produce a cross-functional group to figure out the best method. This is a great concept, as the various departments will have various goals and concerns.

Training and enablement strategy.

Making it possible for individuals to adapt to change is essential to any effective innovation effort. This includes training and assistance. Organizations that enable people to embrace change will gain from development and dexterity.

Sales enablement includes training and equipping sales teams to sell brand-new functions. It can also benefit assistance teams. Nevertheless, it’s important to bear in mind that sales enablement is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. You should create a training and enablement plan that can be applied to numerous stages of the sales procedure.

The secret to developing an effective sales enablement strategy is to understand how customer behavior shifts over time. This permits you to much better understand how your audience is receptive to new services and innovations. Use buyer personalities to direct your training and enablement method.

Change management

If you are preparing to execute a software or innovation modification, you have actually likely become aware of change management. The term is a holistic technique that includes planning, engaging staff members, carrying out modifications and examining success.

Modification can be a challenging experience. However, it can likewise be a rewarding one. By focusing on the people side of the equation, you can help alleviate some of the common obstacles.

One of the best practices for change management is to interact. A well-written change management strategy should detail the crucial messages that require to be provided to employees. This will help them understand why the modifications are important and what they will look like as soon as they are executed.

A change management strategy need to also think about developing small coaching teams. These groups will assist you to support leaders as they undergo the modification.