I’ve been talking to a number of people lately who don’t know what project management is all about and how it can help them. They tend to think of project management as something reserved for large engineering projects or specifically IT projects. Project management can be used on projects of all sizes and in almost any field. It is a way of organizing, tracking and managing resources.

At its most basic, project management and by extension, project management software, can help them:

1. Assign people to tasks
2. Keep all those task assignments in one place
3. Let people know when to start at task
4. Let people know when a task is due
5. Give managers visibility on where everyone is on their tasks
6. Keep all that information in one centralized place

It differs from creating simple tasks lists in that tasks here, are done in the context of completing a project.

That is, the tasks are a coordinated effort by individuals working over a period of time to achieve a specific goal.

Often, that goal has a defined due date and thus knowing how people are doing on their tasks gives you good information for knowing how likely you are to hit the due date or what may need to be done to get to that due date.

Project management software provides a framework for those tasks and the projects they roll up into. It makes it easy to what’s going on. The project owner or manager can track progress and make course corrections as necessary.

Project management software, like Vertabase, can also do micromanaging with automatic email reminders to managers or team members and notifications of when things change.

This question is central to project managers and clients.

Its a tough question because every project has its own unique characteristics. Even if its something that you’ve done before, many factors can throw off a schedule.  As a friend of mine says:

Its not the stuff you know that throws you off. And its not the stuff you know ‘you don’t know’ that throws you off -you can cover that by doubling your estimate or so. Its the stuff you don’t know that you don’t know that can throw you off, 5x or more.

Nevertheless, an estimated due date is a reasonable thing to ask for.  In fact, it is critical to successfully scheduling work, achieving goals and managing people.

So, what’s the best way to answer the question?

First, understand that a due date is a best guess of how things will turn out.  It should be based on the most accurate information available like:

• past estimates of the amount of work tasks took
• past estimates of the calender days tasks took
• comparisons between those estimates and the actual data from past projects
• familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of the project team and
• the current resources available for the project.

But when you present the schedule to your client, frame it as a basis for communication.  Let them know that, while based on the best information available, it is not a definitive prediction of the future. What it does do, though, is become a definitive guide for you to provide them updates on the schedule and for them to ask for the status of the project in very specific terms.

Second, carefully understand the constraints at play on your project. Every project has at least three constraints:

• Time,
• Money and
• Scope - all of which should center around
• Quality.

Explain to your client that each of those constraints directly impacts the others.

If your client requires a hard deadline, you need to have the right amount of resources and a limited scope. Your ability to meet deadlines further improves if you can scale up the resources allocated to the project to meet unforeseen challenges or pressures on the scope.

In any case, it is the project manager’s job to help control these factors and, most importantly, to communicate to the client how changes, challenges and surprises impact the estimated due date of a project.

That’s what a friend who heads the client service group at an interactive agency complained about over lunch. He wanted to know how he could stop his implementation team from being late.

I asked how they currently communicate.

“For each implementation we submit a ticket through a home-grown Microsoft Sharepoint based system. The ticket has the date submitted, the general scope of work and the due date.  They then let me know when an implementation is ready to go. Or, I have to pro-actively call to find out the status of an implementation. Then, inevitably, I have to call the client and tell them their launch is going to be late.”

I suggested putting together a short work plan that described the steps the implementation team goes through to prepare for a launch. In his case, there are generally 5 major steps, each with around 10 sub-tasks. To start with, skip the sub-tasks. Make a bullet-point list of the five major steps. This will give you and the implementation team a single point of reference to gauge the progress of the project. 

Instead of touching base only when it is due, you can touch base at each of the 5 major steps.  This will bring more visibility into the process. It will also give you early warning of when an implementation is starting to run late, before it is actually due, so you can do something about it.

This is a first step. 

This also sets the foundation for more sophisticated and accurate planning using start and due dates for each step and estimating hours, as well as being able to scale the process through resource planning and project templates. But that can come later. The first step is to map out the implementation process in easy, big block steps that become a basis for meaningful communication.

Estimating a project’s schedule can be a real challenge.  There is potential uncertainty and unkowns to consider when creating a schedule.  I’ve found it helpful to categorize projects when estimating a project’s schedule so you know what kind of margin-of-error to build into it. Three categories I find useful are:

1.  New Work
2.  Old Work
3.  Combo Work -Combination of New and Old

New work is an effort or process you’ve never done before. This could be using a new technology, an upgraded tool, developing a new type of solution, implementing a new program or designing an entirely new asset e.g. a website, if you are used to designing print pieces.

Old work is an effort or process you’ve done many times before with the same tool set.

Combo work is a combination of new and old. This could be doing a standard project using a new tool or technique or working on something you’ve done before but which you wouldn’t call yourself an expert at just yet.

MARGIN-OF-ERROR

Each of these categories carries a different degree of uncertainty. You can capture that uncertainty by creating a margin-of-error for your schedule estimates. Here are some guidelines for margins-of-error. 

1. New Work - a margin of 8x.
2. Old Work -a margin of 1.5x
3. Combo Work -a margin of 4x, though you can shift that higher or lower, depending on how much is new vs old.

DON’T FORGET CLIENTS

Clients are another element to consider when deciding what category to put a project into. Doing work for a new client or a new contact person at the client can add as much uncertainty as using a new tool or developing a new solution.