Taking Your First Steps into Project Management

From the individual PM’s perspective

So you’ve finally decided to give project management a try, but you’re not sure where or how to start? Most people are not ready or comfortable going “all in” with project management on their first foray. After all, for every person out there saying “we need more project managers,” there’s another saying “we don’t need no stinking project managers, we need more developers, engineers, or people doing real work!”

Of course I’m a little biased (for project management), so you should do your own self-assessment. Ask yourself candidly “do I have a great track record of getting my projects done and meeting management expectations?” If the answer is yes, you can probably stop reading now. But if it’s a “no” or “maybe” and you think a few simple tips might help then read on.

In this article, I’ll lay out an approach for any individual to ease into project management and gradually start delivering better results. This approach assumes that your company does not have a defined PM process that they want you to follow, because if they do then I suppose you should follow that. ? In another article, I’ll address the same question from the perspective of the organization or project management office (PMO).

Schedule:

The project schedule or timeline is typically the most visible project management element, as well as the one that your management or customer is most interested in. So providing a mechanism for communicating the project schedule should be your first step, however this does not mean you have to learn complex software to create a giant Gantt chart. Sure, depending on the size and complexity of the project you may eventually need a Gantt chart, but for the typical accidental project manager just getting started that’s an overkill and probably a waste of time.

You should start by creating a list of milestones. What many people don’t realize is that milestones are a form of timeline – they don’t provide a lot of detail, but when properly defined lay out a high-level roadmap of the project, which is really all you need on small efforts.

Milestones must be clearly measured as “done” or “not done”

In project management a milestone is an indicator of progress. It’s a point in time (e.g. date) that corresponds with the completion of a significant task or deliverable, i.e. protocol written, test completed, approval received, purchase order placed, training complete, etc..

Here are a few guidelines for defining the right milestones for your project:

1.???? Make sure that they can be clearly measured as “done” or “not done.” There’s no such thing as a 50% complete milestone.

2.???? Space them every 2 to 4 weeks throughout the project, i.e. never closer than 2 weeks or farther apart than 4 weeks.

Defined in this way, milestones align the expectations between project manager and management month-to-month so that both will clearly know which milestones have been hit and which have not.

Resources/Budget:

The second thing that new PMs should be thinking about are the resources (e.g. people) assigned and the budget allocated to the project. Both of these elements tie into your ability to predictably hit your milestones.

There are two dimensions of resources to consider. First, do the people assigned to the project have the right skills to do the work effectively and therefore enable you to hit the milestones on time? And second, do they have enough time/bandwidth allocated to the project to do the work?

Create a list of people assigned to your project along with the percentage of their time that is allocated. Work with each person to ensure that the time they have allocated will enable them to meet their corresponding milestone dates. If not, you’ll need to modify one or both.

Regarding the project budget, to the extent that you’re expected to purchase goods and/or services to complete the project, is the budget adequate?

Create a list of goods or services that need to be purchased for the project (to support meeting the milestones) along with your best cost estimate for each and then compare that to the total budget? If the line-item estimates exceed the budget you’ll have to ask for more money or look into modifying the milestones.

Risks:

Risks are things that can go wrong. A huge mistake that rookie project managers make is thinking that everything will go according to plan. The best project managers are realistic (not optimistic). The way to get realistic about your project is to anticipate what might go wrong and then adjust the project milestones, resources, and budget accordingly.

The best project managers are realistic (not optimistic)

Start off by creating a list of things that could go wrong (risks). Next, prioritize the list based on which ones are most likely to happen and have the biggest impact if they do. Now take the top 2 or 3 risks and identify the milestones, resources, and/or budget elements they will affect and modify them as necessary.

Segregate risks into two buckets:

- Those that it will be reduced if you had more information

- Those that you cannot obtain more information on now

For the first category, you should spend the time to gather the necessary information and then adjust your plan accordingly. A huge number of project delays and cost overruns occur simply because the project manager and team didn’t spend enough time to really think through the project. For example, the risk “If there’s a problem with the master bathroom remodel, then we will go over schedule and budget” is pretty broad and can be reduced by breaking the bathroom remodel down to a more detailed level for estimating purposes, i.e. the shower, tub, vanity, toilet, floor, lighting. Estimating at a lower level-of-detail inherently increases accuracy.

The second category is trickier and is commonly addressed by adding buffer based on experience or historical information. For example, the risk “If we discover water damage in the sub-floor during demolition, then we will go over schedule and budget” really can’t be assessed now – you have to wait until the carpet is removed during demolition.

Summary:

Getting started in project management is not a monumental task if you start off by taking small steps and make the necessary adjustments as your learn what works and what doesn’t in your environment. The key is start with the things that your management is most interested in – schedule, resources, cost, and risk.