Successful project management

Part 1 “As you sow, so you shall reap!”

Here and now I start a new blog series, this time about “Successfully Managing Projects.”

Are you now thinking “We’ve had that already!“? Right. But project management really is an almost endless field.

And it’s also one of my “hobbyhorses“, but I don’t get to ride it that often in my daily work. Long before I began training and moderating, I “managed” projects. That is, planned, executed and completed. And then started again from the beginning. And in doing so collected a ton of experience – good, some not so good. ?

Today, first and foremost, I concentrate on train-the-trainer and training moderation. But I still get asked to do project management seminars, and I’m always glad to be able to return to my roots now and again.

Let me just quickly do a project…

What exactly is a project? The official definition is as follows:

A task with special characteristics: unique, target-oriented, self-contained, complex, dynamic, risk-fraught
Temporary organisation (in contrast to linear organisation)
Social system

There are more projects in our everyday working lives than we are aware of. We often do a lot of them on the side, so to speak. Just get on with it, or put the cart before that well-known horse. Who doesn’t?

Internal projects in particular are not exactly blessed with huge popularity, anyway. You need an owner, a project handbook, and you may even have to follow a procedure. Shock and horror! Best keep your hands off that one!

In the blog series that starts today, “Successfully Managing Projects,“ I’d like to show you how important thorough project management is. And how it can support you in your work, and what necessary steps you should take.

In 6 steps to the project

In the pre-project phase you first of all set the scene. If you do it right, that is. Because jumping the gun is not always the right way.

The diagram showing the pre-project phase clearly illustrates what it boils down to: before you even get started on your project, it’s important to define the time, facts and social setting, and put these into a context. This is how you do it:

Time demarcation: set a date for the start of the project and a date when it should end. Define a project start-up event and a project wrap-up event.
Define the content: what are the main tasks (= phases) that must be completed in the project? What goals do you want to achieve with this project? While you’re at it, don’t forget that your goals should always be SMART – most of you already know what that means: Specific, Measurable, Appropriate, Realistic and Timed. My favourite bonus questions regarding goals are: What will this project enable? What is the benefit? What will be different afterwards? Also define non-goals and estimate – at least roughly – the budget you’ll need for it.
Social demarcation: Who will lead the project? Who is in the project core team? Who else is involved, and possibly forms sub-teams? Who heads these sub-teams? (compare with the EU Jargon: coordinator, core team, work package leader, partners, work package teams). So this is about the project organisation, the project organigram.
Time context: Think about the pre- and post-project phases. How did this project come about? What happened before the project began? What problem should the project solve? What decisions have already been made, what documents are already available? What experience exists from previous projects? What’s more: what actions & decisions are required after the project? Will there be follow-up projects? If yes, what kind?
Factual context: Analyse how your project connects with other projects (where are synergistic or concurrent relationships) and how it connects with the corporate strategy. Wherever possible, organise information transfer / alignments.
Social context: look at the environments that will affect you. These are people or groups of people and/or institutions that could influence the success of your project. Where do you see potential synergies, where conflicting relationships?

Here a very simple example:

By the way, in the 2nd part of the series there will be an article dedicated to analysing project environments alone, because this really is a crucial topic and you should devote enough time to it accordingly.

You’re only really ready to begin the project after you’ve completed these 6 steps. This means that project demarcation and context analysis form the basis for the actual project. It is also the cornerstone for the project charter, which should be signed by the project owner and project manager.

After all, as the old saying goes: as you sow, so you shall reap!

Everything clear so far? Then pop in again next time – I’m looking forward to having you reading along again!! And feel free to share your experiences with us here!!