Paul Roberts - Effective Project Management: Identify and Manage Risks Plan and Budget Keep Projects Under Control

Effective
Project
Management

Paul Roberts

Publishers note

Every possible effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this book is accurate at the time of going to press, and the publishers and authors cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, however caused. No responsibility for loss or damage occasioned to any person acting, or refraining from action, as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by the editor, the publisher or any of the authors.

First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2011 by Kogan Page Limited

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licences issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned addresses:

Paul Roberts, 2011

The right of Paul Roberts to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 978 0 7494 6157 7

E-ISBN 978 0 7494 6158 4

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roberts, Paul, 1964

Effective project management : identify and manage risks plan and budget keep projects under control / Paul Roberts.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-7494-6157-7 ISBN 978-0-7494-6158-4 (ebook) 1. Project management. I. Title.

HD69.P75R628 2011

658.404dc22

2010036665

Typeset and eBook by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt Ltd

To my wife Sarah the best Project Manager I have ever met and to our wonderful children, Matthew and Ruby, with love.

Contents

As always, I would like to thank my Fifthday business partner, Roger Middleton, whose change-management talents are truly awesome. I am also grateful to the many Associates of Fifthday Longview Limited who help us to inject real-world experience into the company. Thanks also to Julia Swales, Sarah Cooke and their wonderful colleagues at Kogan Page. In particular, I am continually grateful for the friendship, guidance and opportunity provided by the customers with whom I have formed such a close partnership over the years. Finally, my thanks to Nigel Ludlow for originally suggesting that I commit my ideas to paper, and who encouraged me towards my first publishing opportunity.

PRINCE is a Registered Trade Mark and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is Registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office.

PRINCE2TM is a Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce.

Extract from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, first broadcast by the BBC in 1978.

Extract from Alices Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1865.

Paul Roberts has been managing projects for over 20 years and is a founding director of Fifthday Longview Limited ( www.fifthday.com ), one of the worlds leading and most innovative project management consultancies, providing expertise, education and resource. He has worked with some of the worlds largest, most influential companies, and many of the smallest, both public and private, helping them all to embed the principles, techniques and culture of effective project management.

Well before the discipline of project management was as developed as it is today, mankind was using projects. From the construction of the Pyramids of Giza in ancient Egypt to the development of todays most sophisticated business computer systems, projects have been the vehicle to build and deliver things. We hear about them in the media and we use them in our personal and professional lives. In fact, they are so commonplace that we sometimes find ourselves involved in projects without even realizing.

Perhaps thats why youve picked up this book; it has suddenly dawned on you (or on someone else) that what youre embroiled in is a project. Maybe its about to begin, or it could be already under way. Perhaps you have been working in projects for years or you may be a novice. In any case, someone somewhere is referring to you as the project manager. What does that actually mean? This book aims to help you understand your responsibilities and obligations by providing you with advice, guidance, tools, techniques and some good old-fashioned common sense.

However, a particularly important message which I hope comes clearly out of this book is that the project manager is neither the only person involved in the management of the project nor are they the most important. Sometimes, this comes as a surprise to people new to the subject.

It takes a team to deliver a project successfully.

The project manager will be dependent on others, not least those who must deliver what has been planned, but especially other managers and leaders who must provide direction. In fact, there are a good many things that the project manager is unable or unauthorized to do or decide by themselves. Therefore, although it is a very positive step, putting a project manager in role is not sufficient to guarantee a successful outcome, despite what some people may think. This can lead to many problems for the project manager. They may be held responsible for all sorts of things for which they have neither the authority nor competence. In turn, their inability to meet others excessive expectations may be difficult for both the project manager and others to accept and is therefore a risk to the projects success. In my experience the most common and damaging problems for a project are failing to involve the right people, or poorly defining their roles and responsibilities. The way in which the project manager can overcome such risks is to encourage the participation and engagement of what may be several essential stakeholders who will jointly participate in the management and leadership of the project. This can help to ensure that there will always be someone who is accountable for resolving even the thorniest of challenges. For this reason, the messages contained in the chapter considering who does what will be fundamental in building a robust project environment.

I have always maintained that a project manager must be someone who instinctively seeks to instil regulation because they have a natural aversion to disorder. In a project, where huge sums of money may be at stake, and where the consequences of failure can be catastrophic, order is essential. So, in addition to attracting the right people, the project manager can also create a sense of stability in an uncertain and changing world by planning, monitoring and controlling time, cost and quality expectations. Therefore, the effective project manager ought to be, at worst, someone with a talent for planning, and, at best, someone who really enjoys organizing things. Much of how the project is to be organized can be captured in the plan. When professionally developed and maintained, the plan can be something which provides a basis for control, helping everyone to participate in an ordered way. This is why a good proportion of this book is given over to the explanation of some powerful planning techniques, and what a good plan should look like.