Interactive work: Project management for dummies

1. PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR
DUMMIES:
PART IV: STEERING THE SHIP:
MANAGING YOUR PROJECT
TO SUCCESS
JORGE LUIS RENGIFO
TUTOR: MSC. MIGUEL
PONCE

2. CHAPTER 12
TRACKING PROGRESS AND
MAINTAINING CONTROL
Successful projects require continued care and
management to ensure that they follow their plans correctly
and, in turn, produce the desired results. When unexpected
situations occur, you, as the project manager, must react
promptly to adjust your efforts and keep your project on
track.

3. HOLDING ON TO THE REINS: PROJECT
CONTROL
Project control entails the following activities, which you perform through-out your project to
ensure that it proceeds according to plan and produces the desired results (see the appendix
for a flowchart illustrating the cyclical
nature of project control):
Reconfirming the plan:
At the beginning of each performance period, reaffirm with team members the following
project responsibilities and commitments they made for the coming period:
Assessing performance:
During the performance period, have team members record information on the following:
• Completed intermediate and final deliverables
• Dates they reached milestones
• Dates they started and ended activities
Taking corrective action:
If necessary, take steps to bring your project’s performance back into conformance with your
plans, or if doing so isn’t possible, change the plans to reflect new expectations.

4. ESTABLISHING PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
A project management information system is a set of procedures,
equipment, and other resources for collecting, analyzing, storing, and
reporting information that describes project performance
It contains the following three parts:
Inputs:
Raw data that describe selected aspects of project performance
Processes:
Analyses of the data to compare actual performance with
planned performance
Outputs:
Reports presenting the results of the analyses
In addition to requiring that you define the data, designing a PMIS also
requires that you specify how to collect the data, who collects it, when
and why.

5. REACTING RESPONSIBLY WHEN
CHANGES ARE REQUESTED
Many times we will have to modify the project, for various reasons, by changes of
opinion, change of circumstances, improvements of systems or technologies that's
why it's important to be willing to make the necessary changes to
achieve positive results in our projects.
always follow these steps:
1. When you receive a request for change to some aspect of your project, clarify
exactly what the request is asking you to do.
2. If possible, ask for the request in writing or confirm your understanding of the
request by writing it down yourself.
In a formal change-control system, people must submit every request for change on
a change-request form.
3. Assess the change’s potential effects on all aspects of your project. Also
consider what may happen if you don’t make the change.
4. Decide whether you’ll implement the change.
If this change affects other people, involve them in the decision, too.

6. CHAPTER 13
KEEPING EVERYONE INFORMED
Many projects are just like that walk across the dark room. People plan
how they’ll perform the project — who will do what, by when, and for
how much — and they share this information with the team members
and other people who will support the project. But as soon as the
project work begins, people receive no information about their
progress, the work remaining, or obstacles that may lie ahead.
Effective communication — sharing the right messages with the right
people in a timely manner — is a key to successful projects.
Informative communications support the following:
• Continued buy in and support from key audiences and team
members
• Prompt problem identification and decision making
• A clear project focus
• Ongoing recognition of project achievements
• Productive working relationships among team members

7. I SAID WHAT I MEANT AND I MEANT
WHAT I
SAID: SUCCESSFUL COMMUNICATION
BASICS
The communication within a company or project must be fluid and
effective, it can not be lost or changed.
The process of transmitting information includes the following
components:
Message:
The thoughts or ideas being transmitted
Sender:
The person transmitting the message
Encoded message:
The message translated into a language understand-able to others
(This language may consist of words, pictures, or actions.)
Medium:
The method used to convey the message (I discuss different mediums
in detail in the “Choosing the Appropriate Medium for Project
Communication” section later in this chapter.

8. CHOOSING THE APPROPRIATE
MEDIUM
FOR PROJECT COMMUNICATION
Project communications come in two forms:
• Formal:
Formal communications are preplanned and conducted in a standard
format in accordance with an established schedule. Examples
include weekly team meetings and monthly progress reports.
• Informal:
Informal communications occur as people think of information
they want to share. These communications occur continuously in the
normal course of business. Examples include brief conversations
by the water cooler and spur-of-the-moment e-mails you dash off during
the day

9. • Although written reports have quite a few benefits, they
also have some draw-backs that you need to consider:
• They don’t allow your audience to ask questions to
clarify the content, meaning, and implication of your
message.
• With written reports, you can’t verify that your audience
received and interpreted your message as you intended.
• They don’t enable you to pick up nonverbal signals that
suggest your audience’s reactions to the message, and
they don’t support interactive discussion and
brainstorming about your message.

10. Preparing a Written Project-Progress Report
The project-progress report is a project’s most common
written communication. The report reviews activities
performed during a performance period, describes
problems encountered and the corrective actions planned
and taken, and previews plans for the next period

11. PREPARING A PROJECT
COMMUNICATIONS
MANAGEMENT PLAN
A project Communications Management Plan is a
document that specifies all project communications
generated throughout the project, their target audiences,
their information content, and their frequency.
Prepare an initial version of your project Communications
Management Plan in the starting the project stage of your
project, and update it as needed in the carrying out the
work stage.

12. CHAPTER 14
ENCOURAGING PEAK PERFORMANCE
BY
PROVIDING EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
Leadership is one of the most important issues facing
organizations. As a result, a large body of literature has emerged
to explore how to guide people to achieve common goals in a
wide variety of settings.
Your project’s success depends on your ability to organize,
coordinate, and support a diverse team that’s working toward a
common goal Often the people on your team come from different
areas of your organization, have different operating styles, and
don’t report to you administratively. Successfully guiding such a
group of people requires both vision and structure.

13. COMPARING LEADERSHIP AND
MANAGEMENT
- The manager maintains; the leader develops.
– The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader
focuses on people.
– The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
– The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-
range perspective.
– The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and
why.
– The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the
leader’s eye is on the horizon.
– The manager imitates; the leader originates.

14. YOU CAN DO IT! CREATING AND
SUSTAINING TEAM MEMBER
MOTIVATION
Keep your team and yourself motivated.
Here are some factors that influence the motivation of your work group:
Desirability:
The value of achieving the goal
Feasibility:
The likelihood that you can achieve the goal
Progress:
Your accomplishments as you work to reach your goal
Reward:
The payoff when you reach the goal
When your project meets people's professional and personal needs in each of
these four areas, you strengthen your commitment to the project's success. In this
section, I show you specific ways to meet these needs.

15. CHAPTER 15
BRINGING YOUR PROJECT TO
CLOSURE
One characteristic that distinguishes a project from other
work assignments is its distinct end - the point at which all
work is complete and the results are achieved. However,
with intense demands pulling you to your next assignment,
you may be compelled to let your completed projects
languish and eventually fade away instead of clearly ending
them with an announcement, recognition of the results, and
to thank-you to all the people who made them possible.
This is why it is important to bring your projects to a total
and orderly closure.

16. STAYING THE COURSE TO
COMPLETION
Every project must be finished correctly in order to analyze its results, its benefits,
compare investment costs, etc.
The following situations make it difficult to close a project:
• You don’t have a detailed, written list of all the activities you must perform during
closeout.
• Some team members transferred to new assignments during your project’s course,
forcing the remaining members to assume new responsibilities in addition to their
original ones.
• The project staff loses motivation as general interest in the project wanes and people
look forward to new assignments.
• The project staff wants the project to continue because they don’t want to end the
personal and professional relationships they’ve developed or they’re not excited
about their next assignments.

17. HANDLING ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES
• When the project ends, terminate all authorizations and
permits granted to your collaborators, leave your
financial accounts in order, pay everything you owe,
obtain approvals from clients and your superiors in
writing.

18. PROVIDING A GOOD TRANSITION
FOR TEAM MEMBERS
• When a project is finished people must return to their
daily activities, for that you have to do it in an orderly
manner, with time, maintaining good communication with
everyone, thanking all the team members, make a
document where all the contributions of the members,
help the people to make a transition plan to their normal
activities.

19. SURVEYING THE RESULTS: THE POST-
PROJECT EVALUATION
• Conduct a survey to measure the results, activities,
processes and reliable techniques that can be used in
new projects.