Projects can be incredibly long and incredibly stressful. They may last years and can be incredibly high stakes. This puts a very high level of stress on a team. After dealing with all of this and finally finishing a project, a team has usually developed a great level of camaraderie between one another. They have also all grown as individuals and professionals. It can be hard for people to move on from something that has consumed such a large period of their recent life. This work must be celebrated for a few reasons. It must be known that the company values each worker and the contributions they are giving to the company. Also, this can help motivate employees going forward. Many times, core members of a team will stay together for multiple projects. So allowing the team to celebrate together can be an investment in the next project that they are working on. There are many ways to celebrate the end of a project. It can be something small like a pizza party, team tshirts, small gifts, thank-you notes, etc. Or it can be something larger, like bonuses or promotions. As a manager, these can be easy ways to show your team that you, and the company, appreciate them, and motivate them going forward.
After completing the development of the deliverables in a project, they must be installed for the client to use. There are four major approaches that can be taken, but it may not be obvious which one is most effective for your project. These are your options:
Phased Approach This approach means dividing the project into chunks that can be delivered separately. This solution is usually only appropriate when resources are not available to implement another solution. There may not be enough time or people to install the product in one go. Cut-Over Approach With the cut-over approach, everything is done in one swift motion. An old product is removed and the new product is installed. There are high stakes in this approach because the product must work correctly, immediately since the old product is no longer an option. In this scenario, it is always necessary to test the product in the exact environment that it will be installed in. This way you can be sure that the installation will go smoothly. This solution is fast and effective, but must be executed perfectly to work. Parallel Approach In this scenario, the deliverables are installed along side the old product. Both are in production at once. This option can be effective in a scenario where a product can not be effectively tested until installed for the client, or in a situation where the client is in the middle of important work that involves the old product. They can install the new product but still be able to use the old product for some period of time if they wish. By-Business-Unit Approach This approach means that the deliverables are installed one business unit at a time. This is another scenario commonly used when resources are a constraining factor. A company may not be able to afford to purchase the product all at once for an entire team/office/etc, so they will install them one, or a few, at a time as they get more money. In any project, there is guaranteed to be risk. And it is almost always guaranteed to manifest itself in your project in some way. An important part of a project manager's role is to keep potential risks from critically damaging a project. There are four main steps that a manager must take to stop this from happening:
-Risk Identification -Risk Assessment -Risk Mitigation -Risk Monitoring First you must identify the risks for your project. This is anything that could go wrong and harm your project. Four risk categories to look at are technical risk, project management risk, organizational risk and external risk. Make a list of all these risks. Next comes risk assessment. You and your team must discuss the risks and determine the likelihood of each risk occurring and the expected loss if the risk does materialize. Using these two numbers, you can rank risks. There are also many other ways to assess these risks that I will not go into detail about now. Then comes risk mitigation. This means planning what you will do with each risk if it materializes. There are 5 risk responses to consider: Accept, Avoid, Contingency Planning, Mitigate and Transfer. Finally you must monitor your risk. As the project goes along, you must keep track of the risks you identified, especially the important ones, and be aware if they begin to materialize. Sometimes, if you are not monitoring, they may materialize without you even knowing. Taking these four steps will allow you to keep risks, as much as possible, from potentially hurting your project. What exactly is project management? As defined in Effective Project Management, it is a set of tools, templates and processes designed to answer the following 6 questions:
What business situation is being addressed by this project? A situation will either be a problem or an untapped opportunity. This is why there are projects. As a manager you must know exactly what situation you are addressing so that you can effectively lead a project in a direction that addresses this situation. What does the business need to do? In some situations, a business may have a problem and there will be a clear solution to that problem, but in some situations, like in dealing with untapped opportunity, a business may not know exactly what they need to do. So in this case, knowing exactly what your business needs to do will manifest itself over time. Either way, you must document this so that you are aware of what is going to be done. What will you do? This should be answered when you determine your project goals and objectives. Your project overview statement will clearly document what you will be doing during the project How will you do it? How will will complete the objectives of the project can be determined either before started, or iteratively throughout the project. How will you know you did it? Your project should have business value to the company. So before setting out on your project, you should know exactly what criteria you will measure to determine whether or not you completed what you needed to. How well did you do it? Finally, you will measure how well you completed your objectives. There are 4 questions that you can look at to help you determine this: How well did your deliverable meet the stated success criteria, how well did the project team perform, how well did the project management approach work for this project and what lessons were learned that can be applied to future projects? You should be able to measure and take it as knowledge going forward to help you in future projects. |