Project Management Skills

You may have heard a lot about project management and think that it's a complex process. Many people find the idea of project management a bit daunting.

Fundamentally, however, project management is deciding what needs to be done, and then making sure that it happens.

Put like that, it sounds and is a lot simpler.

Project Management Qualifications

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Those with a project management qualification – usually PRINCE2 or its predecessor PRINCE, which stands for ‘projects in a controlled environment’ – often make the processes involved in project management sound very complicated.

Those who provide project management training also have a vested interest in maintaining that impression.

While there is no doubt that formal project management has prevented some really big projects from running over time and budget, the vast majority of projects in most organisations and at home do not require a formal project management qualification.

However, we suggest that for a large number of the projects routinely undertaken by companies and individuals, some basic and fairly straightforward practices, used consistently, can ensure that projects deliver results on time and within budget.

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Basic Rules of Project Management

Good project management, like risk management, is a team activity.

One of the useful elements of formal project management is that it forces you to bring together the right people to run the project. It also has the advantage of requiring good documentation.

These give us two fundamental rules of project management:

1. Decide who needs to be involved early on, and get them round the table to agree the scope, desired outcomes and time-lines for the project.
   This group should formally be designated the Project Board, and be responsible for the project.
2. Document everything. You need to write down, and regularly review, your scope, desired outcomes and time-lines, and who is responsible for each task.
   It’s also helpful to document anything related to the project, even casual phone calls. Keep a book by the phone, and get into the habit of writing notes during phone calls. It can also be useful to send an email to the person you have been speaking to after the call noting what you discussed and agreed.
   Yes, it sounds bureaucratic, but you would be surprised how often two people emerge from a conversation with completely different ideas of what was agreed. Writing it down and sharing it makes sure misunderstandings don’t endure for long.

Project Documentation

There are a number of essential pieces of project documentation which you will, as a project manager, need to prepare fully.

You will also need to take the time to ensure that these pieces of paper are read and agreed by all those involved, if necessary standing over them as they do. However long this process takes, it is well worth the investment as it could save you huge amounts of time and trouble in the future.

Good Project Documentation Includes:

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• A one-page summary of the project, which sets out the project sponsor, the project manager, the scope, the important deadlines, the budget, and an ‘elevator pitch’ of the project, or the way that you would describe it to the CEO if you met him in the lift (or elevator) and he asked what you were working on.
• A time-line/project plan, which sets out how long each task will take, constraints on each, and who will be involved.
• A budget, including both people and financial resources, which can often be the hardest thing to agree.
• A risk analysis. See our page on Risk Management for more about how to do this.

Resource: skillsyouneed.com