1. Centre for Project Leadership
Projects
Leading Them to Success
Gordon Bartlett
The Centre for Project Leadership is a Division of
the Centre for Executive Development Pty. Ltd.

2. About projects
How a project should be run best practices
Your Contribution
How to do it
Questions wrap up
Overview

3. A project is defined as being a set of activities to
deliver a unique change with defined parameters
especially time and to a predefined scope.
Projects deliver an organisations strategy - and so
doing them right is key to an organisations success
Project failure rates are high due to many factors
About Projects

4. The Challenge
Technology is rarely the cause of project failure
The organisational culture and it s lack of project leadership are the real issues
2004
Failed Challenged Succeeded
2000
1998
18% 53% 29%
23%
28%
49%
46%
28%
26%
1996 40% 33% 27%
* Source: Standish Group Chaos Reports 1996 to 2009
2009 24% 44% 32%

5. Plan if you don t know where you are going, any road will get you there ..
The right people does your project need experienced leaders or will it allow
people to learn and grow very different approach
Control scope - Eat the elephant one bite at a time don t try to boil the ocean
all at once
Measure if you don t measure it, you can t improve it!
Repeat good practices practice makes perfect? or Perfect practice makes
perfect have a Framework/methodology best practices
Test know what you want and define how you will determine success at the
start of the project (Success/Exit Criteria)
How a project should be run

6. What is a Framework?
INITIATING
PLANNING
EXECUTING
CONTROLLING
CLOSING
PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS ANALYSIS DOCUMENT TEMPLATES
PROJECT
LIFECYCLE
FRAMEWORK
INITIATION
STAGE
PLANNING
STAGE
ANALYSIS
STAGE
DESIGN
STAGE
CONSTRUC-
TION
STAGE
TESTING
STAGE
IMPLEMENTA-
TION
STAGE
CLOSURE
STAGE
INITIATING
PLANNING
EXECUTING
CONTROLLING
CLOSING
PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS ANALYSIS DOCUMENT TEMPLATES
PROJECT
LIFECYCLE
FRAMEWORK
INITIATION
STAGE
PLANNING
STAGE
ANALYSIS
STAGE
DESIGN
STAGE
CONSTRUC-
TION
STAGE
TESTING
STAGE
IMPLEMENTA-
TION
STAGE
CLOSURE
STAGE
An example
6
What is a framework/Methodology

7. What is your role? are you the project Sponsor? Project Manager? Know it,
agree it and do it (avoid role confusion)
Lead provide clear direction and accountability for the project team clarity
generally defines a successful project (roles and responsibilities document
such as a RACI)
Support and encourage once you have put the right components in place, let
them run without undue interference
Regularly review project goals Business conditions and environments
change even on a short project the situation may require review and re-
direction or even cancelling a project
Your Contribution

8. Document your scope with clarity in goals and success criteria that can be
objectively tested? eg: Project Management Plan (PMP)
The PMP is the consolidation of several activities, including:
Ø Define scope
Ø Plan quality
Ø Develop schedule
Ø Plan risk management
Ø Estimate costs
Ø Develop Human Resources plan
Ø Plan communications
How to do it?

9. Clear Roles and Responsibilities select the right people for the roles and
then provide a roles and responsibilities document, RACI, etc
How to do it?

10. Plan your execution, then execute your plan create a Work Breakdown
Structure (WBS) and then define the activities to achieve the deliverables, order
them, estimate the effort and duration, estimate the resources, create your
schedule (not plan) and calculate how much it will cost and when it will be able
to be delivered NEVER provide a delivery date prior to this exercise unless
you are prepared to throw money at it and/or accept a lower quality at the
nominated date (Triple Constraints)
How to do it?
WBS
Deliverable

11. Plan your execution, then execute your plan (continued)
Sample Schedule
How to do it?

12. Plan your execution, then execute your plan (continued)
The Gantt Chart
How to do it?

13. Regularly review project progress (measure) to execute the plan the
project needs to regularly assess its progress against the schedule, budget and
other project areas.
Typically this is done by a report which the PM defined around his/her
requirements. The PM needs to define the report around the requirements of
those that will read and action it
Typically these reports use RAG (Red/Amber/Green) status to visually show the
status of components
How to do it?

14. Track basics like Assumptions, Restrictions/Constraints, Dependencies,
Risks, Issues, Actions. There are many things that can determine a projects
success and these need to be tracked, reviewed, treated, monitored and closely
scrutinised.
Assumptions:
when you create your business case and projects scope (along with just
about any other item in a project), you almost certainly make
assumptions on which your decisions are based. Document these and
continually review and test them throughout the project lifecycle.
How to do it?

15. Track basics like Assumptions, Restrictions/Constraints, Dependencies,
Risks, Issues, Actions (Continued)
Risks/issues:
These need to be actively and continually managed for a project to be
successful. Actions to mitigate/resolve need to be taken as seriously as
any other activity in the project. Don t forget positive risks
(opportunities)
How to do it?

16. Track basics like Assumptions, Restrictions/Constraints, Dependencies,
Risks, Issues, Actions (Continued)
Dependencies:
If the project is part of a larger program or related to other projects,
then managing the links (dependencies) between components can
be critical.
How to do it?

17. Target and regularly review project goals
Ø Targeted success Criteria
Ø Conduct Portfolio Management reviews where all current projects are
compared and the overall business benefit of each compared
Ø Business conditions and environments change even on a short
project the situation may require review and re-direction or even
cancelling a project
Ø Be prepared to cancel a project if the business case no longer stacks
up Do NOT look at Sunk Funds but rather what the project will cost
to complete versus the benefits that will flow
How to do it?
& ObjectivesProject Goals

18. Select your people well and develop them one key mistake made by most
organisations is that the project becomes all important forgetting about the
development of their staff who run this project, and then the next, and the one
after that. Those ignore study history are doomed to repeat it.
Leadership capability of project participants is a clear component in
defining whether a project will be successful. Leadership can be defined by
looking at the characteristics of a good leader which fall into 2 areas:-
How to do it?

19. Managing Self
ü Manage ambiguity
ü Make crucial decisions
ü Hold self to account
ü Build trust and credibility
ü Demonstrate personal commitment and
courage
ü Build self resilience
ü Be disciplined
ü Be consistent and maintain focus
ü Encourage feedback on own
performance
ü Manage energy
ü Define and manage personal brand
Leading Others
ü Articulate the project vision, goal and objectives
ü Establish key accountabilities, roles & responsibilities
ü Set clear KPIs with team members
ü Test buy-in to individual and team KPIs
ü Develop appropriate strategies to meet objectives
ü Reward and recognise performance
ü Identify and manage key dependencies between teams and
individuals
ü Hold critical conversations with key stakeholders
ü Manage stakeholder expectations
ü Build alliances in order to influence & persuade
ü Develop team capability by Coaching & feedback
ü Hold others to account
ü Delegate effectively
ü Identify key risks
Key project leadership capabilities are clustered into two broad development areas:
Leadership Capabilities

20. Audience Level Focus
Ø Project Director / Program Manager
who have extensive project
management and leadership experience,
but need to develop advanced
leadership skills as well as hone current
leadership skills
Ø Senior Project Managers who have
extensive project management
experience and some exposure to or
potential for leadership
Ø Project Managers who have project
management fundamentals but who
must understand the importance of
managing self as the first step in
leadership
Program Levels
Managing
Self
Leading
Others
Managing
Self
Leading
Others
Foundation
Managing
Self
Leading
Others
Intermediate
Advanced

21. Gordon Bartlett
Director
Centre for Project Leadership
Email: gbartlett@cpla.com.au
Mobile: +61 438 244 115
www.cpla.com.au
Leadership and management development for Project Managers
also
Dr Denis Bourke
Email: dbourke@cpla.com.au
Mobile: +61 (0)425 224 943
and
Peter Farley
Email: pfarley@cpla.com.au
Mobile: +61 (0)412 970 202
Questions Wrap Up