Author Susan de Sousa

Email Susan@My-Project-
Management-Expert.com
Website http://www.My-Project-
Management-Expert.com
Date August 2010
Version V1.0
Approved Yes

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

 Table of Contents

Tip 1 Write Accurate Project Documentation 3

Tip 2 Define Project Success Criteria 4
Tip 3 Remember to Write a Project Plan and Keep it Updated 5
Tip 4 Manage Project Risks and Issues 6
Tip 5 Estimate Based on Effort, Not Calendar Time 7
Tip 6 Count Tasks as Complete Only When They're 100% Complete 8
Tip 7 Plan Contingency Buffers 9
Tip 8 Report The Project Status Openly And Honestly 10
Tip 9 Grab The Good Team Resources 11
Tip10 Don’t Ignore Difficult Project Stakeholders 12
Appendix Useful Links 13

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO FORWARD THIS

EBOOK ONTO YOUR COLLEAGUES & FRIENDS

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

Tip 1 – Write Accurate Project Documentation

When you start a project it is extremely tempting to rush head long into

getting resources and budgets sorted. When I first started in project

management I used to be much of this mindset myself until I came to the

realisation that most of the problems encountered later on in the project were

all arguments over things such as change requests and scope issues.

I quickly realised that spending some time at the beginning of a project detailing

accurate, unambiguous project documentation which was formally approved by

the key project management stakeholders and Project Sponsor would resolve a

great deal of these issues.

As such the key documentation you should have in place are:

Project Initiation Document (Big Project)

Project Charter (Small Project)
Project Scope Statement
Business Requirements Documentation ( written by Business Analyst)
Project Management or Status Report

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

Tip 2 - Define Project Success Criteria

Now you’re probably reading this and thinking, “if I’ve written all that

Documentation in Tip 1 of course I’ll have defined what will determine a

successful outcome for this project”.

Well it’s certainly the first thing I want to know when I am brought into a

company to turn around a troubled program or projects. I have lost count of the

number of times I have discovered that all the key project stakeholders have

different views of what will constitute a successful project despite there being

reams of documentation produced.

Now sometimes this can work to your advantage especially if your project is

running late. So for example if you were delivering a new infrastructure

technology platform you could claim that your project was completed on time

when all the servers were deployed, rather than at a later stage when all the

software needed to be installed and all the existing applications migrated over.

However it is definitely better to get it nailed down in advance otherwise it will

simply lead to numerous arguments later on with your boss and project

sponsors /stakeholders. It will also probably cause your project budget to run out

of control as this is one of the major causes of scope creep, which is hard to stop

once it starts.

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

Tip 3 – Remember to Write a Project Plan and Keep it Updated

I would bet that if most people were asked “what do you think a project manager

does?” they would answer “write project plans”.

Now it’s true that being able to write a project plan is a key ability for any project

manager to have. However often in the rush of getting a project of the ground and

delivered, having a coherent project plan written and approved is often forgotten. This

then leads to deadlines being missed because key stakeholders were unaware of their

existence.

Now the key thing as always is not to go mad with your project plan. A 1,000 line

plan may look very impressive but who do you think is going to be stuck late at night

updating it when tasks start slipping?

So remember to write a plan, keep it short and sweet, and most importantly, make

sure it is kept up to date at all times .

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

Tip 4 – Manage Project Risks and Issues

If you don't identify and control project risks and issues, then they will control you

and ultimately, the project. A risk is a potential problem that could affect the delivery

of your project if it materialises. Basically a problem that hasn't happened yet, and

which you'd like to keep it that way [Wiegers, 1998 1]. An Issue is basically a Risk

which became a reality and which you now need to actively troubleshoot.

Risk management has been identified as one of the most significant best practices for

software development [Brown, 1996]. Simply identifying the possible risk factors

isn't enough. You also have to evaluate the relative threat each one poses so you can

focus your risk management energy where it will deliver the best result.

The key to all of this is to ensure you keep a manageable list of Risks and Issues.

After all you may feel that having 400 risks in the RAID log, but will you really have

the time to manage them all, without taking your eye off the really important

problems as well as actually delivering the project itself?

So follow the 80/20 principle and you’ll find that you manage the project risks, rather

than them managing you!

1
Wiegers, Karl. "Know Your Enemy: Software Risk Management," Software Development, vol. 6, no. 10
(October 1998), pp. 38-42.

2. Brown, Norm. "Industrial-Strength Management Strategies," IEEE Software, vol. 13, no. 4 (July 1996), pp. 94-
103
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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

Tip 5 - Estimate Based on Effort, Not Calendar Time

As part of your project planning activities in Tip 4, you will need to ask your team

leads and resources for estimates for delivering tasks. Now most resources like

providing these estimates in terms of calendar time ie 5 days. However this doesn’t

help you much as a project manager particularly when working in a matrix managed

environment ie where you don’t have dedicated resources.

As such I prefer to get estimates in terms of effort ie the actual hours it will take to

complete the task and then translate this into calendar days. This allows you the

flexibility to take into account the fact that key information required for that task

might take a week to appear, but since the task itself will only take 3 hours that’s not

anything to panic about.

The other key point of working in this way is that project manager’s always over-

estimate how many hours resources actually spend on their task. They always assume

it is 100% of the time, whereas in reality most resources only spend 50-60% of their

time working2. The rest of the time is spend in paperwork, admin and let’s be honest,

surfing the internet!

So remember, get estimates in terms of effort rather than calendar timeframes, and

don’t assume in your project plan that your resources will devote 100% of their

available hours to delivering your work.

3. Wiegers, Karl E. Creating a Software Engineering Culture. New York: Dorset House Publishing, 1996
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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

Tip 6 - Count Tasks as Complete Only When They're 100% Complete

It can be really daunting to look at your project plan and realise that few of the tasks

are ticked as complete. As such it can be extremely tempting to start ticking tasks as

complete even when they’re not.

After all if lawyers often operate on the principle of “I was thinking about your case

this morning therefore that counts as billable time”, it’s not surprising to find your

key resources following similar thoughts processes along the lines of “well I was

thinking about that algorithm in the car and I reckon I’ve got a solution. So that

probably means I’ve completed about 70% of the task since the solution part was the

toughest bit”.

Now the big problem is when loads of your resources start thinking in this way. This

can sometimes be due to over-confidence; often it’s due to resources having too

much work to do and trying to fob you off. Either way you’ll rapidly find out that a

project which on paper looks as if it’s bang on track, in fact isn’t. and is rapidly

slipping as a result.

So the golden rule is that if you ask someone whether their specific task is actually

complete and they answer “yes…………except for……” then it’s not done and you

should ensure their task is not marked as complete.

Tip 7 - Plan Contingency Buffers

I’ve managed numerous big projects and programs for over 13 years now and in that
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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

time I have never known either mine or colleague’s deliveries to go exactly to plan.

Actually that isn’t completely true. There was one project manager who managed it,

but she had a tiny little project which she micro-managed by working 18 hours a day

and driving her team resources insane. At the end of it they had to ship her off abroad

because all the key resources refused to work on her projects.

So you should assume that your projects will never go precisely as you planned.

Contingency risks happen. Everything from swine flu to rail strikes to resources

resigning can and does happen. That is why I wrote the article,

“Why Do Experienced Project Managers Devote Time Developing Contingency Plans?”

Now there are a variety of ways to get around this. You can use your project risk

analysis to estimate possible schedule impact and include that as a contingency buffer.

An even more sophisticated method uses critical chain analysis which pools

uncertainties in estimates and risks into a rational overall contingency buffer 3.

However the way I personally use is to always include contingency into your plan

from the outset. You don’t need to put this in as a separate item, just increase the

length of certain tasks you deem the highest risk and see what you can get away with!

Tip 8 – Report The Project Status Openly And Honestly

Last year I wrote an article which proved controversial to say the least titled,
3

4. Zultner, Richard. "Project Estimation with Critical Chain: Third-Generation Risk Management," Cutter IT
Journal, vol. 12, no. 7 (July 1999), pp. 4-12.

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

“Do Too Many Project Managers use Project Management Reports to Bury Bad
News?”

Yet the reality is that it is becoming a common ploy by project manager’s to cover up

the real situation a project is in. Now this may be due to the pressure caused by the

global economic crisis which is contraining project budgets, but certainly it is occurring

in everywhere from large $100M programs to small $100k projects.

In fact just this year I’ve been approached to manage two large programs which have

been in a crisis situation for months now, but no-one realised because those in charge

were extremely economical with the truth. Further none of the Executives felt able to

check the reality because the report was usually presented as a 70 slide deck!

So you need to ensure you report accurately but without panicking you project sponsor.

If you can see the project is heading for trouble do not hesitate to put your project status

into RED. Just make a serious attempt to resolve it before pressing the panic button!

Tip 9 – Grab The Good Team Resources

At the end of the day you are only going to be remembered for having delivered

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

a project successfully on time. No-one is going to care or remember whether you

had to do it with few resources or worse still, with the incompetent resources. As

such it makes sense to get the best and most experienced resources you can

working on your project because they will make your life much easier in terms of

planning as well as in delivery.

Now you may wonder about my comment about incompetent resources. Well as

in life, not everyone is the same. You will find some resources who are absolute

gems. They go that extra step to help you, they deliver on time and they don’t

give you any problems. Then there are others who are clueless and extremely

difficult to manage.

All you need is one of these on your team and you will spend all your time

firefighting their incompetence whilst trying to ensure the rest of your team

doesn’t get sucked down by their attempts to divert attention away from their

deliverables.

So ask around, and ensure you find a way to get the best resources working on

your project. That will certainly make managing your project team easier whilst

giving you a greater chance of successfully delivering the project!

Tip 10 - Don’t Ignore Difficult Project Stakeholders

Have you ever been in the situation where you simply cannot see eye to eye with

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

certain project stakeholders? All they seem to do is occasionally turn up to meetings,

complain and create problems.

In this instance it’s really easy to simply decide to ignore them completely. To not

invite them to meetings, to make decisions without their input. This is a fatal mistake

which will come to bite you later on especially when you get into the change request

process.

Dilbert ©2010, United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

So if you are unfortunate enough to end up in a Dilbert situation as above then, try

everything you can to work with your project stakeholders. If that fails talk to your

boss and ask their advice on what you should do. You’ll find that unless you are

perceived as being a difficult person yourself, that others will have been in the same

situation as yourself with this individual.

Useful Links

Project Management Basics

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/project-management-
basics.html

Duties of a Project Manager

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/project-manager-duties-1.html

How to Manage a Project

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/how-to-manage-a-project.html

How to Write a Project Plan

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/how-to-write-a-project-plan-
1.html

Six Sigma Projects

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/six-sigma-projects.html

Project Management Certification

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/project-manager-
certification.html

Contingency Approach

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/contingency-approach.html

Project Quality Management

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/project-quality-
management.html

Change Request Management

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/change-request-
management.html

Useful Links Cont.

How to Write a Project Initiation Document

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/writing-a-project-initiation-
document.html

How to Write a Project Charter

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/how-to-write-a-project-
charter.html

Project Status Report

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/project-management-
report.html

Managing and Controlling Scope Creep

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/managing-and-controlling-
scope-creep.html

Managing Project Risk

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/managing-project-risk.html

Estimating Project Costs

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/estimating-project-costs.html

Managing Project Teams

http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/managing-project-teams-1.html

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO FORWARD THIS

EBOOK ONTO YOUR COLLEAGUES & FRIENDS

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The Top 10 Tips of Successful Project Management Ebook © My-Project-Management-Expert.com 2010