Project Management My Potential briefing

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Project ManagementMy Potential briefing

• Fiona Christie
• Careers Service

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On Todays Menu

• What is Project Management?
• Stages in Project Management
• Project Management tools
• Getting your project started
• Health and Safety briefing
• My Potential briefing

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What is Project Management?

• Management of the activities to deliver a
  result
• With the expected result
• Within required timescale
• Within budget
• To the agreed quality

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• BUDGET
• 325,000,000

• TOTAL COST
• 798,000,000

• PLANNED COMPLETION DATE
• Autumn 2005

• ACTUAL COMPLETION DATE
• January 2006
• 31 March 2006
• 13 May 2006 (FA Cup)
• May 2007

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Stages in Project Management
1. Definition
2. Planning/Implementation
4. Refine
3. Review
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Project definition
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Stages in Project Management

• 1. Definition
• Clear objectives/goals
• Identify resources (finance people)
• What are the success criteria?
• Scoping what is the project? - why is it being
  done?

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Stages in Project Management

• 1. Definition - Defining goals
• SMART
• Specific detailed, particular, focused
• Measurable quantifiable
• Action-oriented produce results
• Realistic practical, achievable
• Timed deadline

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Stages in Project Management

• 2. Implementation - Planning
• Identify strengths/interests
• Breakdown of tasks required
• Prioritising
• Contingencies
• Key milestones

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Stages in Project Management

• 3. Review
• Build in monitoring systems
• Communication and feedback on progress
• Timescales
• 4. Refine
• Changing whenever appropriate (fluidity)
• Not a sign of failure!

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Project Management Tools

• Action Planning
• Sequential and Parallel Activities
• GANTT Charts
• Critical Path Scheduling

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Project Management Tools

• Action plan 1
• Brief list / breakdown of tasks that you have to
  carry out to achieve an objective. Allows you to
  work out
• The stages of your project
• Who needs to do what
• When tasks need to be completed
• TIP Start your plan from the deadline and work
  backwards

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Project Management Tools

• Action plan 2
• Prioritise
• Set realistic times for completing tasks
• Check availability of resources / people
  (including your own group!)
• Plan for times when you know you cant work on
  project (e.g. holiday, other course deadline etc)
• Ensure others know too!

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Project Management Tools

• Sequential and parallel activities
• Sequential activities
• Need to be completed in a sequence, with each
  activity being completed before the next can
  begin.
• Parallel activities
• Not dependent on completion of any other tasks
• Or, may be done at any time before or after a
  particular stage is reached.

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Project Management Tools

• Gantt Charts
• Visual representation of tasks involved
• You can see what each person is supposed to be
  doing, when and how long for
• Key milestones are clearly identified
• You have a chart against which to plot progress

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Project Management Tools

• Gantt Chart example
• Round the world trip
• Breaks down into smaller tasks
• You have 10 minutes to rank the tasks in order
  and create a Gantt chart

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Project Management Tools

• Critical Path Scheduling
• Focusing on the essential tasks / activities
  identify them on your gantt chart
• Good for monitoring your progress
• Helps you adapt plans if you overrun on time

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Things to think about at your first meeting

• Who will contact the employer?
• When (and where) can you all meet
• What strengths/experiences do you have
• What can you realistically achieve

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Creating Effective Meetings
The Process

• Whos in charge?
• The Chairperson, who called the meeting
• What are we doing today ?
• Whats on the agenda we circulated beforehand
• When does it end ?
• At the time set out in the agenda
• What did we decide last time?
• Whatever was recorded on the minutes
• Who was supposed to have done what ?
• The action plan says who was responsible

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Advice from last semesters students

• Do as much as you can at the beginning of the
  project as youll definitely run out of time at
  the end
• Produce minutes as you go along rather than
  making them up at the end!
• Make sure you know where you are going!
• Dont waste time being overly polite to each
  other you need to get on with the project
  arguments can help get things moving

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Advice from last semesters students

• Project contacts can be difficult to get hold of
  so phone them ASAP to arrange a meeting
• Dont rely on email
• Arrange a definite meeting time and place and
  make sure every one attends
• Get everyone to write down major course work
  hand-ins, field work etc. before you start so
  that you can work around this
• Be realistic about what you are going to achieve
  or your team will feel demotivated

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What makes a good project

• Teams of 4 (or 5)
• Choose project you want to do first, rather than
  prioritising who you want to work with
• Challenging but achievable
• Clearly identifiable outcomes
• Obviously put lots of effort in
• Used time available well
• Take ownership of the project
• Demonstrate problem solving skills, creativity
  and initiative
• Good Team Report