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Very Brief Overview of Project Management and some thoughts on implementing project management approaches in the library
- 1. Very Brief Overview of Project Management and some thoughts on implementing project management approaches in the library Sarah Barbrow Special Projects Librarian sbarbrow@umich.edu @lovesthesox August 13, 2013
- 2. Thank you Library Human Resources Department!
- 3. what is a project?
- 5. okay, so what’s project management?
- 6. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Conductor.png http://www.flickr.com/photos/68751915@N05/6355836713/ directing activities controlling limited resources successfully achieving end goal {epic picture of brandi chastain scoring her winning goal in the penalty shoot-out of the 1999 women’s world cup; removed because not cc-licensed. find it here: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/brandi%20chastain}
- 8. What business situation is being addressed? What do you need to do? What will you do? How will you do it? How will you know you did it? How well did you do?
- 9. Close & Reflect Monitor & Control Launch & Execute Scope Plan the five stages of project management
- 10. Close & Reflect Monitor & Control Launch & Execute Scope Plan http://www.flickr.com/photos/protoflux/2542631273/
- 11. Scope Plan Launch & Execute Monitor & Control Close & Reflect http://www.flickr.com/photos/stargardener/4610115463
- 12. Launch & Execute Plan Scope Monitor & Control Close & Reflect http://www.flickr.com/photos/extremecb/2212309022/
- 13. Monitor & Control Plan Scope Launch & Execute Close & Reflect http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrianclarkmbbs/495559275
- 14. Close & Reflect Plan Scope Launch & Execute Monitor & Control http://www.flickr.com/photos/catdancing/4454015701/
- 16. discussion: what’s useful for our work in the library?
Editor's Notes
- Outline: I ’ m going to talk a bit, then we ’ re going to have a discussion, then if there ’ s time, I ’ ve got a hands-on activity for us to do. My name is Sarah Barbrow and I ’ m a Special Projects Librarian for Library Administration. I have been supporting Donna and Paul – though in the future I may support James too to some extent. That means I do a number of different things. You may have seen me send emails about open calls or open conversations, coffee with the Dean, etc. But I also work on things like Staff Development, the Library Report, FestiPaul, helping with the 360, etc. There really are many approaches to project management. I ’ m going to give you one really high level, broad-brush view, but there are others (with other sets of jargon, best practices and processes). Just a note: we ’ ll be putting out a Staff Development Strategic Plan in the fall, and it places an emphasis on three themes that we want to focus on as a library over the course of the year. One of those themes is “ change management ” and while I ’ m not going to talk about change management explicitly today, I think that project management methods & perspectives & approaches can help us as a library better understand, implement and manage change too – they ’ ve got quite a few similarities I think.
- My overview comes from a course I took on the Library Juice platform with funding from Library Human Resources – thank you LHR – and also integrating resources I found through that course & just books on PM.
- 1. What is a project? a. Why do we even start with this? I think in the library, we ’ re so busy doing lots of things that it ’ ll be really hard to implement any project management techniques unless we can fairly easily identify a project as it starts up as distinct from a routine process or a larger program.
- Two key features: i. It ’ s temporary . It ’ s going to end. Ideally, it has a defined start and end time. ii. It ’ s unique . It requires a specific set of resources (human, organizational, institutional, research, fiscal, etc.) brought together to accomplish a set of well-defined goals . iii. Ideally, there ’ s a management & budget structure that enables success. c. So for example, my VCM work vs. Open Call process.
- 1. What is project management? a. When I was a master ’ s student in ecology, I had a collaborator named who worked at another institution. When we were at a field station together, I noticed he had a little post-it note stuck on his computer monitor. It read: get shit done. In some ways, that ’ s not very useful... but, I would argue that project management is a method to do just that, and to do it well (if not the first time then better and better over time).
- On July 10, 1999, at the Women's World Cup at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California , after s coring the fifth kick in the penalty shootout to give the United States the win over China in the final game, Chastain celebrated by spontaneously whipping off her jersey and falling to her knees in a sports bra , her fists clenched, flexing her defined biceps. Photographs of the incident were featured on the covers of Newsweek and Sports Illustrated and the event also landed her on the cover of Time . [2] The image of her celebration has been considered one of the most famous photographs of a woman celebrating an athletic victory. a. Wysocki calls it, “ organized common sense ” : Project management is all about directing activities to execute a project while controlling limited resources (again, human, organizational, fiscal, technological etc.) efficiently & effectively, ensuring the end goal is successfully achieved . This involves: i. Understanding stakeholder needs ii. Planning what must be done, by whom, when, to what standards iii. Building, motivating & coordinating a team of people iv. Monitoring work being done v. Managing changes to the plan vi. Delivering (successful/effective) results
- 1. Types of methodologies : I ’ m not going to talk about these methods, maybe we can have another brown-bag on them, but I wanted you to hear the words: a. Traditional Project Management i. Dates back to the 50s & 60s, relies on sequence of phases (define, plan, execute, close) with tasks identified in each phase. IBM software program helped this along. Very linear & rigid (do this, then can do that, then can do that). b. Agile Project Management i. Been around for ~25 years. Useful in a software development environment. Emphasizes people & interactions over processes & tools; work products over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiations; responding to change over following a plan. ii. Menlo Innovations right here in Ann Arbor has some Agile Project Management Workshop I think – though it ’ s probably incredibly expensive, just know that it ’ s there! a. Extreme Project Management i. For R&D type projects. Least structured, most creative of the models. Failure rate is high, they ’ re fast & change a lot; high uncertainty. Still sequence of repeated phases, but each phase is based on a limited understanding of goals & solutions.
- 1. Questions all project management methodologies must answer: a. What business situation is being addressed? i. Project corrects a problem ii. Project takes advantage of an untapped opportunity b. What do you need to do? i. Just like a reference interaction, the “ client ” may not know exactly what they need or want. You need a clear, complete statement of the problem to be solved, and then you need to provide a statement for how you ’ ll solve it. c. What will you do? i. May need to use different PM methods to fit different projects. Projects may change, may need a new approach mid-way through. d. How will you do it? i. This is the plan for delivering an acceptable solution. ii. Ideal plan: description of all work to be done, how long it will take, what resources are needed, how much solution will cost iii. Reality: just-in-time plan which evolves over the course of the project. Iterative, repetitive. e. How will you know you did it? i. What are the success criteria required by the project. Need to satisfy these and the client requirements. State both of these in such a way that at the end of the project you know if you succeeded or failed with no debate. f. How well did you do? i. Quality of the product reflections ii. Process reflections: 1. Project Management Process Improvement: a. How well defined & documented were the project management processes we chose to use? b. How well did the chosen processes fit the needs of the project? 2. Practice Improvement: a. How well did the team follow the chosen processes? b. How well did the chosen processes produce expected results? g. TRANSITION STATEMENT: So these questions should be dealt with by every project management methodology or approach (though they may do so in very different ways!). But, I think it ’ s easier to see what we here at our library can implement with respect to project management by looking at the five stages of project management.
- a. Scope i. Some call this “ initiate ” but that ’ s less clear ii. Answers the question “ What do you need to do? ” iii. Also defines success criteria, answering “ how will you know you did it? ” iv. Processes: 1. Recruit project manager 2. Discover true needs of client 3. Document client needs 4. Negotiate with client on how those needs will be met 5. Write a description of the project 6. Get approval from management for the plan
- a. Plan i. Answers the question “ How will you do it? ” ii. Processes: 1. Define all work of the project 2. Estimate time to complete work 3. Estimate resources to complete work 4. Estimate total cost of the work 5. Sequence the work 6. Build initial project schedule 7. Analyze & adjust the project schedule 8. Write a risk management plan 9. Document the project plan 10. Get approval from management to launch the project
- a. Launch & Execute i. Processes: 1. Recruit the project team 2. Write the project description 3. Establish team operating rules 4. Establish scope change management process 5. Manage team communications 6. Finalize project schedule 7. Write work packages ii. More of an art than a science: give people time to get comfortable as a team. Need to have time for introductions.
- a. Monitor & Control i. Processes 1. Establish performance & reporting system 2. Monitor performance 3. Monitor risk 4. Report project status 5. Process scope change requests 6. Discover & solve problems ii. This is a critical phase for the project manager.
- a. Close & Reflect i. Answers the question, “ How well did you do? ” ii. Processes 1. Gain client approval of having met requirements 2. Plan & install deliverables 3. Write final project report 4. Conduct post-implementation audit
- 1. PMSIG & Special Projects Librarians: What ’ s our role? a. Special Projects Librarians: Not a role unique to UM (though it ’ s not totally pervasive either). b. High variability in roles, responsibilities – across institutions, within. c. One thing I think we could do – and really it doesn ’ t have to just be SPLs, but perhaps people in this PM SIG – as a group is to get trained more in specific methods and processes of project management and be the driver of that mentality in the library. We ’ re never going to have a library where LHR says “ this is how we do PM here ” (like Eric at Epic). But, as each of us are on our teams, we can be that person that asks that we write a scope document and tracking document. We can be the person that solicits input for a “ lessons learned ” reflection. i. This group already provides a nice infrastructure to think about how this might work. We could start with some conversations around scoping or reflections (two things I think we could stand to do better in this library) and try to use them in projects and see if they improve things? ii. Just a thought...
- 1. How can we implement this in our library? Discussion: what do you think? a. This all might make total sense to you. Or it might be words rushing over you but not sticking. But, what ’ s most important to walk away from this short chat with? b. We ’ re all different too – my experiences on my projects in my department may be very different from yours in another department. What do you take away from this so far? c. Do you already do this? What are things you do? What are things you don ’ t do? d. Do we even need to increase our project management abilities as a library? What about some departments or units? e. My thoughts: i. I don ’ t think (on the projects I am working on) we do much (enough) on the reflection side. And I ’ d like to see a little more formal scoping. ii. We ’ re not the kind of library where everyone gets trained in PM Methodologies (like Eric at Epic). So, given that, how can we implement this in a grassroots / organic / from the bottom way? Will it just depend team-to-team? iii. Can the SPLs and people of the PM SIG be the drivers of / consultants around project management? If so, what do we want this group to do? Perhaps we have one lunch meeting to map out template docs (the ones I shared are too formal) for scoping & reflecting? f. What are the impediments? i. We work on teams. Not everyone thinks like this (in this project management set of stages). ii. We ’ re not all trained to do things in one way (this is a good thing in my opinion). iii. We ’ re busy. Sometimes it doesn ’ t feel like there ’ s time to scope, plan, or reflect on what went well or not. g. What are the opportunities? i. More scoping & planning more efficiency in projects ii. More reflection more lessons learned better project results in the future h. Anyone want to talk about a project they ’ re on or starting that they could see using this process with? i. What would you like to see next? Discussion on any one of these five topics?
- For anyone with a UMICH account.
- 1. Hands on activity a. Scope or reflection document.