Project Management Best Practices: Advanced Tools by Mark Radtke, Business Support System Expert

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The success of any project, no matter how simple or complex, depends on intent (a clear goal), direction (a plan of attack), and engagement (commitment from all involved parties). Effective project management uses a variety of deceptively simple techniques to support these key factors. The foundation of productive, regularly scheduled project management meetings and the interim work between meetings consists of six basic tools: agenda, minutes, attendee recap, tracking issues and risks, status reports, and communication plan. Beyond these basics, several additional tools are equally important in keeping a project on track.

1. Tollgates (aka milestones) are checkpoint meetings held at the transition points between project phases. Before declaring the analysis phase complete, for example, all stakeholders convene to determine if the project is ready to enter the design phase. While ongoing status reports and conscientious project management should prevent any surprises in the tollgate meeting, the formal session is essential to keep everyone aligned. Tollgates act as a project management "traffic cop," maintaining the project as a priority for everyone from front-line to executive suite and ensuring intent, direction, completion of deliverables, adherence to timelines, and effective use of resources. With the tollgate framework clearly visible, structural concerns will not distract stakeholders, leaving them free to devote full attention to their assignments.

2. Stakeholder support must be explicit and unambiguous. Most importantly, it must start at the top of the organization. The best way to demonstrate stakeholder support for a large, company-wide project is to begin with an all-staff kick-off meeting. The most senior executive opens the meeting by stating and endorsing the goal. High-level endorsement establishes the purpose and importance of the project for everyone involved in its execution and affected by it. With a strong base of support in place, the project manager can then draw out problems and concerns from the team and begin the project process.

3. Engaging resistance is much more easily said than done, and one of the tests of a skilled project manager. Many people tend to avoid conflict with colleagues, and may ignore the scowling individual sitting in the back of the kick-off meeting with arms folded. Ignore this person at your peril: he or she may well become the roadblock that sinks the project. The wise project manager will directly engage participants who haven´t bought in to the process, soliciting their objections and addressing them at the outset. It may take time to win over a resister, but the up-front investment will pay off in the long run.

4. Budget is a key project management tracking tool, along with deliverables and timeline. Preparing a comprehensive and realistic budget and managing it obsessively are among the project manager´s most critical responsibilities. A budget report must be part of every tollgate meeting. Careful budgetary management prevents "scope creep" and keeps the project in line.

5. Change requests also limit scope creep while allowing the project to evolve and adapt to new developments. When a revision to the project plan is requested, the project manager prepares a change request document detailing the adjustment, describing its impact on the overall project, and seeking project management team agreement on how to handle the request.

An independent project management consultant can provide the specialized skills and objectivity needed to make best use of these valuable tools, even in large organizations with in-house project managers. The return on investment is a successful project completed on time and on budget.

To learn more about project management essentials, please e-mail mark@BATMANNConsulting.com

www.batmannconsulting.com