Managing projects can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m not a PM by trade, but I’ve managed many projects throughout my career and most of them pretty darn successfully. I’d love to share some of my tips and tricks with you, as well as give you some insight into our PM philosophy at Blue Flavor.
My philosophy on project management
My philosophy of managing projects reflects my philosophy of most things:
- Keep it simple.
- Stick with what works.
- Put the real before the ideal.
- Have a process but be flexible.
- When all else fails, just work.
To expound on that just a little bit: One problem I’ve found with typical design and development processes—and the management of said processes—is they can get over-complicated to the point where more effort goes into managing the process than actually getting work done.
If you spend all your time talking and planning and scheduling, you’ll never have any time to work. All of that can be important, and I’m a huge believer in being organized, but sometimes you just need to do something.
However, working with others can be tricky, and to me that’s where “project management” really comes into play. There are a few keys to managing a successful project and they’re all pretty simple:
- Make sure everyone knows the goals of the project.
- Make sure everyone knows what their role is and what’s expected of them.
- Keep track of the schedule and budget (if applicable).
- Manage expectations and re-set them as needed.
- Communicate often.
If you do all of those well, you’re more than half way there. The rest can be taken care of with a positive attitude and hard work.
Communicate, then do.
I think the majority of what makes a good project boils down to keeping lines of communication open and making sure everyone involved has the time and ability to work.
The communication bit seems pretty straightforward, but not everyone is a good communicator. This is where a good PM can step in and help out. A good PM will recognize the team’s strengths and weaknesses and pitch in accordingly. Most of the time-in my experience anyway-this pitching-in takes the form of communicating, translating and making sure everyone is on the same page so the people who have work to do can get that work done.
I realize it might sound over-simplified, and sometimes it is much more than that, but with most of the projects I manage that’s really where most of my effort lies.
The bottom line.
It’s far too easy to put a process in place that hinders more than it helps. If you find you’re working harder on the management of your projects than you are on the projects themselves, it’s probably a good idea to scale back, re-set expectations and focus on what’s important.
(For a bit more indepth article on project management, written awhile back, see my first Project managmeent Made Easy post.)
“When all else fails, just work.”
Yes, yes! So much momentum is lost when we get bogged down in process - but it’s regained so easily when we just sit down and pound it out.
I’m always hoping for that sweet spot where process falls away because the team is locked on and just knocking off milestones effortlessly.
I definitely agree with your key steps to managing a project. Outlining goals, expectations, and communicating are the most important parts of project management. However, I slightly disagree with you on when all else fails, just work.
If you are getting bogged down in project management tasks something is probably wrong. Either your project plan was not properly developed, your scope is creeping, or you did not properly assess risks and problems. This is to be expected because you can’t plan for everything in a project.
If the project is backed down I think it is important to create a report on your status and what needs to be done to get it back on track and do it. But don’t spend too much time on this, you have a project to get done and you need to keep everyone working to their maximum potential.
I think one of the most important things you left out is project tracking. I really prefer earned value analysis and evaluating cost performance indices and scheduling performance indices for measuring the status of the project. In the end be sure to evaluate the success and failures of the project and remember your lessons learned.
Great article. Project management can be a tedious process. Large projects can develop into a rigorous task to manage time efficiently and seamlessly collaborate with partners. I would recommend a web-based server to communicate your projects in a real-time platform. Our group have used CommuniClique’s application to efficiently monitor our daily task. I hope project management software will be as beneficial to you as it is to us.
Best Regards, Benny T.
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Benny,
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