Managing Your Project Mix in Alignment with Organizational Priorities Angela Lucente-Prokop, Consultant

Organizations often invest significant resources into Strategic Planning and are rewarded by having a leadership team and operational staff that are focused on their mission and values, well informed of the most significant opportunities and threats in the environment, and prepared to leverage their unique strengths and assets to accomplish priorities and objectives.   Typically, organizations count on the effective execution of projects to accomplish strategic priorities.  One of the challenges organizations face is deciding which projects to choose and managing them to increase the likelihood of achieving targets within scope, on time, and within budget.

Project management has been a growing field over the past few decades and is acknowledged as both art and science by industry experts.  While the industry has an established methodology, body of knowledge, certifications, and a career path, surveys by the Project Management Institute, an industry leader and project management certification association, suggest that as many as 96 percent of projects are over budget, over time, or abandoned entirely.  Such failures can significantly delay or impede strategic planning implementation and erode needed staff enthusiasm and leadership support for these critical efforts.  In general, project overruns and failure rates are influenced by a multitude of characteristics including industry, environment, methodology, communication, and experience.

7 Project Management Best Practices

Recognizing the importance of effective project management, organizations increasingly employ growing numbers of project managers and include project management expertise within staff training and development programs and within organizational development goals.  Among the tactics organizations can use to increase the likelihood of selecting the appropriate projects to meet strategic planning goals is to use or create decision support tools to evaluate opportunities.  Practical tools for project selection that are most often recommended include weighted criteria and modeling predicted future performance to better understand anticipated returns.  Making wise choices about which projects to execute and following seven best practices for managing projects will increase the likelihood of projects achieving objectives on time and within budget.

Business Case & Charter

Every project should begin with a clear and compelling business case. The business case can be a brief description of purpose, how the project aligns with business objectives, a clear understanding of costs and resources needed, any dependencies, and expected returns.  While a limited audience of decision makers are likely to see the business case, a project charter is developed as a living document to guide the project and the team’s efforts throughout the project life cycle.  Project charters typically include an executive summary of the business case; detail on the efforts and activities that are considered within the scope of the project, including any exclusions necessary for clarity; a listing of expected work products or deliverables and any preliminary project requirements; a preliminary discussion of risks and assumptions; a high level timeline; and a signature page to note project sponsor approval and the endorsement of the functional business leads necessary to engage organizational resources to execute the project.  Project charters can be modified with project sponsor approval, and some version control efforts should be in place to ensure that team efforts are anchored to the same version.

Experienced Project Managers

As is many fields, experience often yields higher returns.  The industry gold standard is the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute which requires three to five years of project management experience based on education level and successful completion of a rigorous certification exam representing six process groups and 11 knowledge areas.  Certification does not guarantee effectiveness but certainly improves the odds.  Similarly, there are many excellent project managers who are not certified; therefore, PMP certification is not the only way to choose a project manager.  In general, the best predictor of future performance is past performance, so it is critical to ask challenging questions and to look for objective evidence of results.

Stakeholder Engagement & Planning

It is important to thoroughly consider stakeholder groups that will be affected by the project and the extent to which they are likely to be supportive of the project.  This is often best conducted through small group brainstorming to develop a list of stakeholders, their interests, anticipated level of support, if or how they should be engaged, and identifying their communication needs before, during, and after the project.  

Assess and Manage Risks

Assessing project risks and managing risks proactively is also important enough to make the best practice list.  Many project risks can be identified and mitigated by proactive efforts and contingency plans.  For example, if there is a scarce resource that is critical to the timely completion of your project, it is critical to recognize the risk early and plan accordingly.  Many costly risks can be avoided through early identification, ongoing monitoring, and proactive management.

Manage Communications Proactively

Given that communications issues tend to be cited as the most frequent cause of project failure (or workplace challenges), it makes sense to dedicate the relatively small level of effort required to consider and document the communications necessary for project success.  Communication plans typically note the type of communication, key content, who is responsible for completing, who the target audience is, the start and end dates, frequency of distribution, resources needed, and the estimated level of effort required.  Effective communication planning goes a long way towards avoiding project issues and setting the stage for project success. 

Capture Lessons Learned

Having the discipline to properly “close” a project is very important and often overlooked.  Many project closing details should be managed including closing communications, file management, documentation and final reports to clients and sponsors, vendor contract closing, sharing appreciation and capturing lessons learned with the project team.  A project closing meeting is often a useful format to share lessons learned and celebrate project success.  Ideally your organization will have a mechanism to share resources to ensure that future projects can leverage the successes and lessons learned from past projects.

Professionalism

In closing, it merits a reminder that continuously managing projects with a high standard of ethical and professional conduct should always be among the best practices of project managers.  These are the skills that will not only help your team navigate challenging moments during the project but will build and sustain relationships for your organization over time and increase the likelihood of future project success.

Organizations put hundreds of hours and expend tremendous resources into defining a long-term strategy.  Successful project management is vital for effective and efficient plan implementation and will help your organization realize the many fruits of its labor.

For more information regarding project selection or project management, please contact Hill Group Consultant Angela Lucente-Prokop at alucenteprokop@hillgroupinc.com  or 412.722.1111.

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