project management phase guide

Procedure for Project Management as a Guideline: TIPS to REMEMBER and SUCCEED

ALS – PARTNERS Ltd

S O L U T I O N S * I D E A S * S O L U T I O N S * I D E A S

S O L U T I O N S * I D E A S * S O L U T I O N S * I D E A S

Why Write THESE guidelines and Who Wrote It?

Dr A G Kimmance PhD; MSc-Eng; BSc-Eng (Hons); MCIOB, MAPM, AHEA

BEST PRACTICEProject Management

GUIDELINES

FROM SIMPLE PROJECTS THROUGH TO

MAJOR CHANGE PROJECTS


Dr Andrew Kimmance is a founding director of ALS- Partners, a consultant in Civil Engineering and Construction Project Management, a previous lecturer at the University of Lancashire (UCLan) and Loughborough, a Charted Engineer and Royal Member of the Charted Institute of Building (CIOB) with project management accreditation. He has a HND in Civil Engineering, BSc-Eng (Honours) in Construction Engineering with Management, MSc-Eng in Manufacturing Industrial Engineering with Process Management, and a PhD in Civil Engineering with Construction Management at Loughborough University where he was formerly construction-managing director in the Civil and Building Engineering Department, researching computer-integrated information modelling systems to support construction management processes and part time lecturing. Previously he has 30 years experience in Civil & Construction Engineering and Management with International Organisations incorporating a wide range of consultancy practice, coupled with extensive operational expertise in project management and construction/building professions. His research interests include project management, computer integration, information systems, product and process modelling, and virtual reality applications for improving collaborative communications in the construction industry, and have been accredited with numerous scientific publications for leading International journals in these fields. He believes the modern day manager needs project management skills to deliver the organisations’ agenda. He therefore decided to write this guide to help support them. The writing of this guideline fits nicely with his consultancy motto “Helping organisations deliver projects effectively.” The word project can be misleading. Many people think of large scale building works or changes in information technology. Your project may not be as big as those quoted; preparing and writing a report, developing an internet product alongside marketing and sales plan, relocating an office. They all need careful planning.

These Guidelines are based on some of the finest and most effective techniques devised by provident scholars and project managers, and are based on the unique Construction Project Management System STAR - Systematic Technique for Analysing the Requirements needed in Construction Project Management. The STAR system model is in the process of being used in the consultancy practice and is a tried and tested flexible model for offering services.

This guideline should help you in many ways: Providing you with a structure to manage your projects Giving practical advice based on over 20 years of running workshops and

projects Answering many of the questions posed by people involved in projects Using it to check current project management practices in your organisation

You, as the reader may be a one person business or working in a global company with many thousands of workers. This guideline is written for all of you!! We mention senior managers. If you work alone, you are the senior manager! Please adapt the content to fit your situation. Andrew has worked in the Building, Civil Engineering and Construction Project Management fields for many years. He is passionate about these fields with focus on project management and formed a building and consultancy partnership in 1983. Since then, he has lectured in construction project management, written

Dr A G Kimmance PhD; MSc-Eng; BSc-Eng; MCIOB; MAPM, AHEA


articles, and spoken at conferences and managed many projects for various international organisations.

Good luck with all your projects and we would be delighted to receive feedback about the content of this guideline as well as how you have managed to apply it.

Happy Reading



STAR Systematic Technique for Analysing the Requirements

STAR - Systematic Technique for Analysing the Requirements is a generic Project Management Framework aimed at identifying the clients requirements needed to deliver a project safely, on time, within budget, and to the highest possible standards while taking the scope, contractual and environmental constraints (standards, regulations, specifications) into consideration.


PROJECT MANAGEMENT


Construction Project Management GuidelineI. Project Initiation Phase (One)

There are many explanations of what the life cycle of a project is but as guidance, the Initiation Phase is the first generic stage in a project. In this phase a project/business problem (or opportunity) is identified and a business case or scoping report which provides various solution options is defined. A feasibility/concept study is then conducted to investigate the likelihood of each solution option addressing the business problem and any requirements, and a final recommended solution is put forward. Once the recommended solution is approved, a project is initiated to deliver the approved solution. The next step is to appoint a project manager and develop the ‘Project Charter’, which outlines the objectives, scope and structure of the new project. The Project Manager begins recruiting a project team and will establish a Project Office environment. Approval is then sought to move into the detailed planning phase.The Project Initiation Phase is the 1st phase in the Project Management Life Cycle, as it involves starting up a new project or many projects as it may be. Basically, you can start a new project by defining its objectives, scope, purpose and deliverables to be produced. You will also hire your project team, setup the Project Office and review the project, to gain approval to begin the next phase. Overall, there are six key steps that you need to take to properly initiate a new project. These Project Initiation steps and their corresponding templates are shown in the following diagram.

The Project Initiation Phase is the most crucial phase in the Project Life Cycle as it's the phase in which you define your scope and hire your team. Only with a clearly defined scope and a suitably skilled team can you ensure success. Project Initiation Templates used in Microsoft Office or PRIMAVERA software will help to do this, by providing all the template plans needed to initiate new projects in today’s market.

These templates describe in depth, the steps taken to initiate a project. They also include loads of practical examples, tips and hints. Using these templates, you’ll always have a head-start and should never have to start-from-scratch.

Activities Steps: By following the guidance activity procedure steps described below and using the Microsoft project management or primavera templates, you can quickly and easily create all of the deliverables needed to initiate your new project.1) Develop a Business Case2) Undertake a feasibility Study 3) Establish the Project Charter



4) Appoint the Project Team 5) Set–Up the Office (departments) 6) Perform a Phase Review



Typical Project Management Life Cycle using PRINCE2 and a Gate Review Process



Templates: 1) Business Case; 2) Feasibility Study; 3) Project Charter; 4) Job Description; 5) Project Office Checklist; 6) Phase Review Form.

Figure 1: Generic Procedure activity steps in the Initiation Phase 1

I. Getting Started – Project Initiation Phase (Inception) Stage 1

1. There are various software to help you to develop a solid business case for your projects. Where appropriate, ensure you obtain senior managers’ agreement or approval before you start the project. Research points out that too many projects are started without a firm reason or rationale. Developing a business case will identify whether it is worth working on.

2. Ensure your project fits with the key organisational or departmental agenda or your personal strategy. If not, why do it? Stick to priority projects.

3. Carry out risk analysis at a high level at the initiation stage. Avoid going into great detail here – more an overview focussing on the key risks.

4. Identify at this early stage key stakeholders. Consider how much you need to consult or involve them at the business case stage. Seek advice if necessary from senior managers

5. Where appropriate, involve finance people in putting the business case together. They can be great allies in helping crunch the numbers which should give credibility to your business case.

II. Defining Your Project (Feasibility)



6. Produce a written project definition statement (sometimes called PID) and use it to inform stakeholders – see point 13. This document is ‘your contract’ to carry out the project and should be circulated to key stakeholders.

7. Use the project definition statement to prevent creep. Use it to prevent you going beyond the scope of the project through its use in the review process.

8. Identify in detail what will and will not be included in the project scope. Avoid wasting time by working on those areas which should not be included – identify these in the PID.

9. Identify who fulfils which roles in your project. Document them on the PID. Include a paragraph to show what each person does.

10. Identify who has responsibility for what in the project e.g. project communications is the responsibility of AD. This helps reduce doubt early in the life of the project.

11. Think ‘Team Selection’ – give some thought to who should be in your team. Analyse whether they have the skills required to enable them to carry out their role? If not, ensure they receive the right training. Check they are available for the period of the project. NOTE: this includes any contactors you may need to use

12. Form a group of Project Managers. The Project Manager role can sometimes be very lonely! Give support to each other by forming a group of Project Managers.

13. Identify who the stakeholders are for your project – those affected and ‘impacted’ by the project. This should be an in- depth analysis which needs updating regularly.

14. Recognise early in the life of the project what is driving the project. Is it a drive to improve quality, reduce costs or hit a particular deadline? You can only have 1. Discuss with the sponsor what is driving the project and ensure you stick to this throughout the project. Keep “the driver” in mind especially when you monitor and review.

15. Hold a kick off meeting (Start up Workshop) with key stakeholders, sponsor, and project manager project team. Use the meeting to help develop the PID (see Tip 6). Identify risks and generally plan the project. If appropriate hold new meetings at the start of a new stage.

16. Ensure you review the project during the Defining Your Project Stage – involve your sponsor or senior manager in this process. Remember to check progress against the business case.



II. Project Planning Phase (Two)The Project Planning Phase is the second phase in the project life cycle. It involves creating a series of plans to help guide your team through the execution and closure phases of the project.

The plans created during this phase will help you to manage time, cost, quality, change, risk and issues. They will also help you manage staff and external suppliers, to ensure that you deliver the project on time and within budget.

There are 10 Project Planning steps you need to take to complete the Project Planning Phase efficiently. These steps and the primavera templates needed to perform them are shown in the following diagram (2). When using the primavera software package you can click on each link to learn how these templates will help you to plan projects efficiently.

The Project Planning Phase is often the most challenging phase for a Project Manager, as you need to make an educated guess of the staff, resources and equipment needed to complete your project. You may also need to plan your communications and procurement activities, as well as contract any 3rd party suppliers.

In short, you need to create a comprehensive suite of project plans which set out a clear project roadmap ahead. The Primavera Project Planning Template suite will help you to do this, by giving you a comprehensive collection of Project Planning templates. By using these project planning templates, you can quickly and easily plan your project.



Figure 2: Procedure activity steps in the project Planning Phase 2

III. Delivery Planning Stage 2

17. Create a work breakdown structure (WBS) for the project. A WBS is a key element you will need to develop your plan. It lists out all of the activities you will need to undertake to deliver the project. Post it notes can be a great help in developing your WBS.

18. Group tasks under different headings once you have a list. This will enable you to identify the chunks of work that need to be delivered, as well as put together the Gantt chart and milestone chart.

19. Identify dependencies (or predecessors) of all activities. This will let you put together the Gantt and milestone charts. Ensure you write them down otherwise you are trying to carry potentially hundreds of options in your head.

20. Estimate how long each activity will take. Be aware that research points out that we are notoriously bad at estimating. You estimate a task will take 3 days. Identify how confident you are that you can deliver in 3 days by using % e.g. I’m only 40% certain I can deliver in 3 days. You should aim for 80%. If you do not believe you can achieve 80% then re-calculate

21. Identify the critical path for the project. The critical path identifies those activities which have to be completed by the due date in order to complete the project on time.

22. Communicate, communicate, and communicate! Delivering a project effectively means you need to spend time communicating with a wide range of individuals. Build a communication plan and review it regularly and include it in your Gantt chart.

23. Are you involved in a major change project? If you are, think through the implications of this on key stakeholders and how you may need to influence and communicate with them.

24. Conduct Risk Assessment – carry out a full risk analysis and document it in a risk register. Regularly review each risk to ensure you are managing them, rather than them managing you. Appoint a person to manage each risk.



25. Develop a Gantt chart and use it to monitor progress against the plan and to involve key stakeholders in the communications process.

26. Draw up a milestone plan. These are stages in the project. You can use the milestone dates to check the project is where it should be. Review whether activities have been delivered against the milestone dates and take a look forward at what needs to be achieved to deliver the next milestone.

III. Project Execution Phase – Construction Stage (Three)

The Project Execution Phase is the third phase in the project life cycle. In this phase, you will build the physical project deliverables and present them to your customer for signoff. The Project Execution Phase is usually the longest phase in the project life cycle and it typically consumes the most energy and the most resources.

To enable you to monitor and control the project during this phase, you will need to implement a range of management processes. These processes help you to manage Requirements, Scope, time, cost, quality, change, risks and issues. They also help you to manage procurement, customer acceptance and communications.

The project management activities and Primavera templates which can help you complete them are shown in the following diagram (3).



Figure 3: Procedure activity steps in the Construction Phase

These Primavera Project Execution Templates provide you with all of the documents required to monitor and control the Project Execution (construction) phase within a project. It will also help you manage risk, changes, and quality, costs, time and requirement issues more effectively than before.

To deliver a project successfully, it is critical that you monitor and control the time spent by staff. By using this Time Management Process, you can ensure the completion of Timesheets; measure actual time spent on the project and identifies any potential task slippage early. You will also be able to keep your Project Plan up-to-date by recording the total time spent against each task listed.



IV. Project Delivery – Monitoring and Reviewing Your Project (Project Governance) Stage 3

27. Have a clear project management monitoring and reviewing process – agreed by senior managers - the project sponsor and the project Board, if you have one.

28. Ensure your organisation’s corporate governance structure and your project management monitoring and control structure are compatible. If you do not know whether this is the case then seek senior management involvement.

29. Be aware early in the project what will be monitored, how they will be monitored and the frequency.

30. Keep accurate records of your project not only for audit purposes but to ensure you have documents which enable you to monitor changes.

31. Use a Planned v. Actual form. It is easy to create – it allows you to monitor how you are progressing with specific tasks – time and money. Link these forms into milestone reviews.

32. Identify with your sponsor the type of control that is needed – loose or tight or a variation of these, e.g. tight at the start, loose in the middle, tight at the end. Ensure the system you develop reflects the type of control intended.

33. Agree a system for project changes – have an agreed system for monitoring and approving changes. Use change control forms and obtain formal sign off (agreement) by the sponsor, before action a change. Look for the impact of the change on the project scope as well as the “key driver” - quality, and cost and time.

34. Appoint someone to be responsible for project quality especially in larger projects. Review quality formally with the client at agreed milestone dates.

35. Make certain you have agreed who can sanction changes in the absence of your sponsor. If you haven’t agreed this, what will you do in their absence?

36. Set a time limit for project meetings to review progress. Have an agenda with times against each item and summarise after each item at the end of the meeting.

37. Produce action points against each item on the agenda and circulate within 24 hours of the meeting. Use these action points to help in the creation of your next agenda.



38. Review the items on the critical path checking they are on schedule. Review risks; review yours stakeholders and your communication plans and whether you are still on track to deliver on time, to budget and to the required quality standard.

39. Set a tolerance figure and monitor e.g. a tolerance figure of ±5% means as long as you are within the 5% limit you do not have to formally report. If exceed the 5% limit (cost or time) then you need to report this to the agreed person – probably your sponsor

40. Report progress against an end of a stage – are you on schedule?

Time, cost or quality? Ensure that if something is off schedule the person responsible for delivering it suggests ways to bring it back on time, within budget or to hit the right quality standard.

41. Develop an issues log to record items that may be causing concern. Review at your project meetings.

42. See whether you are still delivering the original project benefits when reviewing your project. If not, consider re-scoping or if appropriate abandoning the project. Do not be afraid of abandoning a project. Better to abandon now rather than waste valuable time, money, and resources working on something no longer required. If you close a project early – hold a project review meeting to identify learning.

43. Produce one-page reports highlighting key issues. Agree the areas to include with the Sponsor before writing a report.

44. Use a series of templates to support the monitoring process, e.g. milestone reporting, change control, log, planned v. actual.

45. Apply traffic lights to illustrate how you are progressing – red, amber and green. Use these in conjunction with milestone reports.

46. Engender honest reporting against specific deliverables, milestones, or a critical path activity. If you do not have honest reporting imagine the consequences.

4.Project Closure Phase (Four)Following the completion of all project deliverables and acceptance by the customer, a successful project will have met its objectives and be ready for formal closure. The Project Closure Phase is the fourth and last phase in the project life cycle. In this phase, you will formally close your project and then report its overall level of success to your sponsor.



Project Closure involves handing over the deliverables to your customer, passing the documentation to the business, cancelling supplier contracts, releasing staff and equipment, and informing stakeholders of the closure of the project.

After the project has been closed, a Post Implementation Review is completed to determine the project’s success and identify the lessons learned.

The activities taken to close a project and the templates which help you to complete each activity are shown in the following diagram (4). Again when using primavera you can click the diagram links using (wizard) to learn how these templates can help you to close projects efficiently. Project Closure is the last phase in the project and must be conducted formally so that the business benefits delivered by the project are fully realized by the customer.

Figure 4: Closing out the project phase Four

The first step taken when closing a project is to create a Project Closure Report. It is extremely important that you list every activity required to close the project within this Project Closure report, to ensure that project closure is completed smoothly and efficiently. Once the report has been approved by your sponsor, the closure activities stated in the report are actioned.

Between one and three months after the project has been closed and the business has begun to experience the benefits provided by the project, you need to complete a Post Implementation Review. This review allows the business to identify the level of success of the project and list any lessons learned for future projects.

Closing a project is not as easy as it seems. You need to first ensure that the project closure criteria have been fully satisfied and that there are no outstanding items remaining. You then need to identify a release plan for the project deliverables, documentation, supplier contracts and resources. Finally, you will want to initiate a communication plan to inform all project stakeholders that the project has now been closed. Each of these activities and many more are described in this Project Closure Report, ready for immediate download.

V. Closedown down and Review Stage 4



47. Agree well in advance a date to hold a post project review meeting. Put this onto the Gantt chart.

48. Invite key stakeholders, sponsor, and project team to the post project review. If the date is in their diary well in advance it should make it easier for them to attend

49. Focus your meeting on learning – identifying what you can use on the next project. Share the learning with others in the organisation.

50. Check whether you have delivered the original project objectives and benefits and not gone out of scope.

51. Make sure that you have delivered against budget, quality requirements and the end deadline.

52. Understand how well you managed risks and your key stakeholders. Use questionnaires to obtain feedback.

53. Prepare a list of unfinished items. Identify who will complete these after the project and circulate to any stakeholders.

54. Hand over the project formally to another group (it is now their day

job) - if appropriate. You may need to build this into the project plan and involve them early in the plan and at different stages throughout the project.

55. Write an end of project report and circulate. Identify in the report key learning points.

56. Close the project formally. Inform others you have done this and who is now responsible for dealing with day to day issues.

57. Celebrate success with your team! Recognise achievement, there is nothing more motivating.

General Tips

58. But what is a project? Why worry whether something is a project? Why not use some of the project management processes, e.g. stakeholder analysis or use of traffic lights to manage your work? They key principle is to deliver the piece of work using the appropriate tools. We use the term project based working to describe this approach.

59. Get trained! Use in-house training by senior management for all personnel (computers & IT sessions, seminars, brain-storming and problem solving sessions, lots of team meetings (after hours), teaching programmes, etc. Research points out that only 50% of



supervisors and management personnel have received regular project management training, while 55% of people have received any training.

60. Ensure you have the buy-in of senior managers for your project. You will need to work hard to influence upwards and get their support.

61. What about the day job? Projects get in the way and the day job gets in the way of projects! Many people have found that by applying project based working to day to day activities and by being more rigorous on project work, more is achieved.

62. Identify early on in the life of the project the priority of your projects. Inevitably there will be a clash with another project or another task. Use your project management skills to deliver and your senior management contacts to check out the real priority of the project.

63. Discover how project management software can help. But, you will need to develop the business case, produce a project definition alongside planning what will go into the software. Many project managers use simple Excel spreadsheets or charts in word to help deliver their project.

64. Remember it is team work; therefore use team focused methods such as concurrent engineering CE principles at the start of projects.

Good luck in delivering your project!



Project Management with STAR

STAR was designed to help people and organisations deliver projects effectively. Its philosophy was developed by Dr Andrews early in the project management consultancy history and is still with the consultancy today. The aim of STAR systems is to implement and integrate work in organisations:

Demystifying project management with professionals at all levels

Developing core skills – of project managers, their teams and project sponsors.

Providing written guidelines and protocols for staff to deliver projects in consistent and effective way.

Helping those involved in the project management process to recognise the need to further develop their people skills as well as their project management skills.

The consultancy practice has a range of qualified staff that supports the delivery of the above philosophy. They are all well trained and work flexibly with clients.

What does ALS-Partners Project Consultancy do?

The following list is a range of services that can be offered to our company, partners and clients. Please note that we customise much of what we do to meet organisational and individual needs. Our services include:

Delivering practical project management training:

designed to ensure project managers and project team members understand the processes and skills to deliver effectively

customised to meet specific needs – really targeting organisational needs

working with project teams focusing on delivering a specific project – alongside developing their team skills

running PRINCE, Project management, primavera qualification programmes or training workshops

Developing in-house project management systems i.e. a customised project management system ensuring consistency of approach - complete with templates

Running training sessions for project sponsors and project board members – to help develop their role effectively



Carrying out audits of projects – after project completion, end of stage or an audit of internal project management approaches.

Organising and running start up workshops for groups pre project – ensuring projects get off to a really effective start

Developing effective business cases.

Effective project leadership training.

Working with senior managers identifying the key projects for the organisation and their priority

Individual coaching support to project managers and project sponsors

Developing programme management strategies and establishing project (programme) support offices

Do get in touch to discuss your needs:

By telephone: +44 (0) 1704 631042

By email: [email protected]

By mobile: +44 (0) 7961310369

These notes on project management have been design to be used as a guideline only, and have been produced for open distribution to anyone. Please feel free to pass it onto friends or colleagues. I would be delighted to hear how you used this book and how useful it has been in supporting the delivery of your project.

Finally, good luck with all of your projects. We would be delighted to talk with you about any project management issues you may have. Do call +44 (0)1704 631042 or email me on [email protected] or [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]



project management phase guide

Documents