Project Management for Trial Managers

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Project Management for Trial Managers

• Robin Henderson
• MY Consultants Ltd
• robin_at_myconsultants.net

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Course Objectives

• Introduce you to a range of project management
  techniques
• Develop project plans through a series of
  activities
• Develop an understanding of the need for formal
  and informal communication processes
• Develop an understanding of different management
  styles

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What is a successful project?

• Measures of success
• On or under budget?
• On time?
• Appropriate Quality
• Think about some recent projects
• London Eye
• Millennium Dome
• Scottish Parliament
• Have they been successes or failures?

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What is a successful research project?

• Spend some time talking to the person next to you
  thinking about what would make your project
  successful from
• Your perspective
• That of the funders
• That of your organisation

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Project Management

• The application of knowledge, skills, tools and
  techniques to project activities in order to meet
  stakeholders needs and expectations from a
  project
• ..the process of integrating everything that
  needs to be done as the project evolves through
  its life cycle in order to meet the project
  objectives

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Benefits of Project Management

• Clarify what has to be achieved
• Clarify roles and responsibilities
• Focus on shared goals
• Plan, Monitor and control the budget
• Minimise risk
• Communicate to all involved
• Manage the change

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Project Planning Framework
Identify Stakeholders
Define the Scope
Identify the tasks
Identify the risks
Plan
Implement and Control
Review
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Stakeholders

• Anyone who has an interest or involvement in the
  project
• Normally bring something to the project (finances
  / opinions / ideas) and expect something in
  return
• Need to understand stakeholders whilst defining
  the project and during execution

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Understanding stakeholders
Activity

• Working in small groups discuss
• Who are the stakeholders of a current project of
  one of the group?
• What resources do they bring to the project?
• What do they expect in return?
• How much influence do they have in setting
• the outcomes of the project ?
• how these are achieved?
• How can the stakeholders be managed?
• Are their conflicts between the interests of
  stakeholders

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Mapping Stakeholders
What needs done
Criteria Power
Comprehensive Power
Disempowered
Operational Power
How it is done?
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Defining the scope

• Scope what needs to be done to complete the
  project
• Make sure it is clear to all involved
• Defines the boundaries of the project (what is /
  isnt expected)
• Confirms common understanding of all stakeholders
• The scope should be verified / approved by all
  stakeholders
• Get this agreed up front as it will solve
  problems later!

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Identifying the Tasks

• Once you have identified the scope you can now
  identify the tasks you need to perform to
  complete the project
• Break the project down into tasks and subtasks
• The subtasks should be small enough chunks that
  you can easily assess progress

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Work Breakdown Structure I

• Identify all major activities that make up the
  project
• Identify sub activities to be completed for each
  major activity
• Continue to build by adding the next level of
  work
• You will continue down to the level at which work
  is actually done, and track and manage the
  project at this level
• Each sub activity should comprise a discrete task
  with a given duration
• The WBS must be complete, so when all activities
  are done, the project is finished.

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MS Project Usual to show as an indented list
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• In small groups
• Take a project which one of you is currently
  working on
• Develop a work breakdown structure for the
  project (use the post-its provided)
• Remember that the WBS only shows the activities
  and sub activities and not the order you perform
  the activities in.

Activity
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Duration Estimates

• How might you go about estimating the duration of
  activities ?

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The project Network
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Gantt Charts

• Usual to include milestones on the project plan
• key deliverables
• linked to physical items

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Activity

• Taking the project you have developed the project
  network for and develop the Gantt Chart for the
  project
• What elements of the project can be labeled as
  milestones?

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Develop the detailed project budget

• Identify all the costs
• Procurement / Internally purchased items
• Staff costs important to include these
• Any hidden costs?
• Overhead costs?

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Risk Management

• Identify sources of risk
• Assess the likely hood of risk
• Assess magnitude of risk
• Develop response
• Document the process

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Sources of Risk
Scope
Internal
Quality
External
Human Resources
Cost
Time
Information
Project Management
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Risk Quantification
probability
Risk (Probability x Impact) 1- 2 Low 3 - 4
Medium 6 - 8 High 9 Extreme
3 6 9
2 4 6
2 4 6
1 2 3
Consequences / impact
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Risk Register

• Capture all the information regarding risk
  management
• Risks Identification
• Description of risk, owner
• Risk Quantification
• Probability, Impact, Overall Risk
• Risk Response
• Mitigation Strategy, Response, When, Who
• Control
• Actions to date, next review, date resolved

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Progress Reporting?

• What should you do to ensure that progress is
  clearly captured?

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Document Control

• Important to develop a document control system
• everybody knows which order the information came
  in
• reduce chance of a previous version of the
  document being utilised
• with use of computers (and especially email) it
  is easy to get things in a mess.

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Document Register
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Scope Change Control

• Scope Change
• Common reason for projects delivering late / over
  budget
• Control ensures that
• Changes are beneficial to the project
• Determines that a scope change has occurred
• Managing the actual changes when they occur
• Everybody is aware of the impact on the schedule
  and outcomes of the project

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Behind Schedule ?

• Everybody aware of costs / implications of delays
• Discuss changes in plans
• are they possible
• get more ideas
• people will be more committed if they are
  involved throughout
• Adding resources does not always speed things up
• learning curves
• Avoid persecution - next time they wont mention
  that they are behind until it is too late !

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Behind Schedule?

• What happens if you cannot achieve the project
  completion date with the available resources ?
• Work overtime
• Work Shifts
• Increase productivity
• Remember learning curves
• Subcontractors
• Reduce scope of project work

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Behind Schedule ?

• If problems are with delivery of key items
  consider placing a member of project staff within
  the supplier.
• Respond early before it is too late
• Remember that the base-line plan is a plan and is
  not rigid - introduce some flexibility
• If the project is in crisis involve the client
  and stakeholders

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Budget Control

• Need to monitor budget regularly reconcile
  regularly
• Accounting should be the basis of commitments
• Evaluate any changes in spending on the project
• What effect does this have on the overall project
  (knock on effects)

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• If everything seems to be going well, you
  obviously do not know what is going on

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Project Close Out

• Critical to close out the project properly
• What should do to ensure that the project is
  closed out effectively?

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Summary

• Take the time out to plan
• Think about your stakeholders throughout the
  project
• Evaluate progress against the plan
• Actively manage the risks
• Keep the team involved and informed throughout
  the project.