A successful Project Manager doesn’t mean one who guarantees success, but one who can learn from mistakes and does better after every challenge he faced. For a newbie project manager, the most important quality is attitude. The zeal or courage to face adverse situations and to keep the composure and self control intact to tackle the situation is mandatory.

A 10 step guide meant to help newbie Project Managers in order to be successful is shared below. The important 3 P of Project Management are Project Scoping and Planning, Process and People. We will talk more about it as we progress through our simple guide.

• Step 1: People:

Knowing your team and managing your resources to the best of their abilities ensures success of any project. One of the key ingredients to success lies in the team member selection. Next is to make the individuals work like a team to achieve a common goal. A project manager must know about the concept of team dynamics and how to ensure he can build teamwork among all his team members.

• Step 2:Project Scoping and Planning:

Honest project scoping and planning reduces the risk of failure, including unrealistic goals which might in turn might result in failure. For the best project plan use the work breakdown structure (WBS), break your project activities into as small and detailed modules as possible.

• Step 3: Process:

Adhering to process ensures high quality deliverables. A standard process can be followed based on the company working culture and business environment. Following the process reduces the risk of repeating mistakes and helps you keep an eye on the progress of the project.

• Step 4: Customer Relationship Management:

For best project results, it is very important to have a good relationship with the stakeholders. Keeping the customer informed about the progress of the project and communicating with your management regarding project issues helps in ensuring customer satisfaction.

• Step 5: Risk Management:

Every project is susceptible to risks and unexpected hurdles. It is  important for a project manager to foresee and be prepared for those hurdles.

• Step 6:Audits and Time Management:

Frequent audits and checks to ensure project continuity ensures adherence to deadlines. A daily update on project progress helps to ensure success. In case there are issues with progress, either more resources can be pulled in or the scope of the project can be reduced after discussing it with the customer.

• Step 7: Communication Skills:

A good project manager must listen and empathize. Empathy is especially important when you’re dealing with your clients as this makes them come back for your service.

• Step 8: Zeal to Gain Experience:

Newbie Project Managers can also pick up valuable experience by seeking out volunteer opportunities in not-for-profits  charities and government agencies.

• Step 9:Attention to Details:

One of the most oft-cited skill for project managers, attention to details ensures one is not missing anything.

• Step 10: Attitude and Zeal to succeed:

There will be adverse situations where a Project Manager will be under a lot of pressure. The one who can face the situation and keep his/her self control to achieve the impossible is one who gains respect and experience. As the old adage says,” When the going gets tough, the tough gets going”.

Success is never guaranteed, it is earned. A Project Manager must know to learn and apply his best.

• Choose the Team Members – each person has unique strengths that he/she can bring into the project. The task of the manager is to identify the best team members and find out who is most suitable for certain tasks. The right team members would allow the project to flow smoothly.
• Allocate the Right Resources - once you have the project team, it’s time to equip them with the resources they need to get the job done. This can come in the form of equipment, access to information, and financial resources. The project manager has to know how much resources are reasonable.
• Set the Deadline – in any project, there should always be a deadline. Aside from being an important goal, it also serves to motivate the team. Without a deadline, there is no pressure to finish the task quickly and effectively.

• Negotiate – if you need to use external resources such as hiring suppliers or contractors, it may be possible to get a better rate by asking for it. The same is true even when you’re dealing with equipment or supplies.
• Ensure Improved Productivity – in many cases, the abilities and availability of staff member is not utilised to its maximum potential because there are too many people in the team. It is sometimes possible to get the same level of output from a smaller team who are committed.
• Hire a Project Manager – an experienced project manager can work with the budget you allocated and deadline. A manager can also see where savings can be made and will act accordingly.

The finances of a business determine the level of service it can provide to its customers. But this article shows that even if you have a tight budget, it is still possible to achieve good output.

Recognize the distinction between target date and deadline

The difference between the two lies in the consequences if the date is not met. When a deadline is missed, the project is basically killed. For example, in contest entries, there is usually a date by which your entry should be submitted by. If the entry was not submitted by that time, there is no point in continuing with a project. On the other hand, when target date is missed, the consequences are also dire but the work still needs to be finished.

Derive rational target dates

The target date should be the result of a detailed project plan. The critical path should make the earliest target date visible. Actual target date may be later depending upon the priority of the company and availability of staff. If the derived target date is unacceptable, there are several choices including (1) reduce project scope, (2) defer certain aspects of the project, and (3) accept the target date and provide strong support for the team.

Differentiate urgency from priority

Priority is a relative term. Without abusing its concept, certain tasks are given varying degrees of importance. Tasks become urgent when the benefits of its success are great while its failure will result to dire consequences.  Urgent tasks/projects move it to a higher level of priority, enabling it to tap otherwise unavailable manpower and funds.

Avoid self-imposed target dates

Whether it’s the target date or deadline, the timeframe should only be the result of a rational project plan or an external event (which influences the need to complete a project). However, in some cases, target dates come out arbitrarily out of management edict or self-imposed desire to complete the project as soon as possible.

Never give reward people to meet deadlines

Successful projects are those that meet the agreed-upon goals, meet the deadline, and are completed within budget. Every team member needs to understand what is expected of them without the need of additional incentives. However, in high-pressure projects, management might try to spur the team with bonuses.  This kind of incentive may undermine the entire project because people will be tempted to take shortcuts and do the barest minimum to meet deadlines.

Author: Steven Macdessi

For 2010, expect to see both old and new project management tactics in the industry. Best practices have been identified and inefficient practices discarded. The world is set to see more efficient and effective processes both within business organisations and outside of it. Here, we will talk about the key ingredient that will define project management for 2010’s: metrics. A group of global experts assembled indentified several trends:

An Increase on Requirements Metrics Performance Measurement

Business analysis, like before, will have a big role for requirements management and development. But greater focus on this may be seen this year. There will also be an increase on RMD reliance, which determines metrics tailing on project performance and helps quantifying management organisational performance improvements.

Project Value and Program Governance

Both project and program handling will have to be embraced from executive management to the project managers, to guarantee an improvement in organisational performance. Performance will be increased by ensuring portfolio, programs and projects work hand-in-hand with organisational resources and objectives.

Eyes on Risk Management

There is a lot of attention being given to financial risk management these days. This wariness will move to other aspects of enterprise where risk assessment is a key ingredient of performance growth. As a result, project management risk assessment will be emphasised on both the program and portfolio level. In 2010, it is expected that organisations will have a more thorough risk assessment that separates systematic from non-systematic risks.

PM Learning Measurement

In 2009, several major organisations put their bet on project management, to outrun their competition. These optimists utilized programs based on pre-conceived notional assessments that had changed leaning program designs, followed by ways of assessing progress and demonstrating performance improvement. Expect that in 2010, an unparalleled increase in the use of assessments to accurately focus on PM learning needs, track progress and identification of the ROI senior management is going to be a critical investment.

PM Learning

Organisations will find ways to use recent technological advances that aid in adult learning to improve hired employees, at the same time improve PM learning retention rates. This will be materialised by using “burst” learning as they call it. This focuses on certain skills for hours, on-demand reference tools, electronic performance systems, job-aids and increase in formal coaching.

Indeed, project managers should brace ahead for new requirements that are brought about for the changing trends. The practices we see in 2010 will hopefully lead to better results.

In project management, the critical chain is the sequence of both precedence- and resource-dependent terminal elements that prevents a project from being completed in a shorter time, given finite resources. If resources are always available in unlimited quantities, then a project’s critical chain is identical to its critical path.

Critical chain is used as an alternative to critical path analysis. The main features that distinguish the critical chain from the critical path are:

1. The use of (often implicit) resource dependencies. Implicit means that they are not included in the project network but have to be identified by looking at the resource requirements.
2. Lack of search for an optimum solution. This means that a “good enough” solution is enough because:
   1. As far as is known, there is no analytical method of finding an absolute optimum (i.e. having the overall shortest critical chain).
   2. The inherent uncertainty in estimates is much greater than the difference between the optimum and near-optimum (“good enough” solutions).
3. The identification and insertion of buffers:
   • project buffer
   • feeding buffers
   • resource buffers. (Most of the time it is observed that companies are reluctant to give more resources)
4. Monitoring project progress and health by monitoring the consumption rate of the buffers rather than individual task performance to schedule.

CCPM aggregates the large amounts of safety time added to many subprojects in project buffers to protect due-date performance, and to avoid wasting this safety time through bad multitasking, student syndrome, Parkinson’s Law and poorly synchronised integration.

Critical chain project management uses buffer management instead of earned value management to assess the performance of a project. Some project managers feel that the earned value management technique is misleading, because it does not distinguish progress on the project constraint (i.e. on the critical chain) from progress on non-constraints (i.e. on other paths). Event chain methodology can be used to determine a size of project, feeding, and resource buffers.

From Wikipedia

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Question 1: If the contract does not provide a rate of interest and the parties make no submission on interest, how would the Adjudicator decide the rate of interest under s.15?

The adjudicator must, in every adjudication, determine the rate of interest payable on overdue progress payments (Section 26(1)(c)).

The assumption in this exercise is that the construction contract does not provide a rate of interest.

If the claimant makes a submission (and the adjudicator is satisfied with that submission) that the construction contract is a “building contract” as defined in Part 4A of the Queensland Building Services Authority Act 1991 (“QSBA”), then section 15(3) applies and interest is payable at the “penalty rate” under section 67P of the QSBA.

That section provides a “penalty rate” of interest on progress payments that are late. The rate is the sum of 10% a year plus the rate comprising the annual rate, as published from time to time by the Reserve Bank of Australia, for 90 day bills.

In cases where the construction contact is not a “building contract” as defined by the QSBA, then section 15(2) prevails and the rate of interest to be applied is the rate prescribed under the Supreme Court Act 1995, section 48(1) for debts under the judgement order.

Where the parties make no submission of interest, an adjudicator should not try to work out whether the contract is one to which the QSBA section 67P applies. Unless a party submits that interest should be at the rate under section 15(3), the adjudicator should not try to assist the claimant and proceed to apply section 15(2).

The adjudicator is to determine the rate only – not the amount – of interest that is to be paid. This can be expressed by way of the following examples:

“The rate of interest payable in the adjudicated amount is the penalty rate prescribed under section 67P of the Queensland Building Services Authority Act 1991”

or

“The rate of interest payable on the adjudicated amount is the rate prescribed under the Supreme Court Act 1995, section 48(1) for debts under a judgement order.”

It is the authorised nominating authority that calculates the amount of interest due at the date of issue of the adjudication certificate.

Question 2: Assume that the payment claim includes an amount for interest on previous progress claims which are not paid on time. Assume that the claimant claims that the amount is payable under s.15(2) or s.15(3) of the Act. Is the claimant entitled to include such a claim in the payment claim?

What difference, if any, would it make if the previous progress claim were not claims under the Act but were duly made under the terms of the construction contract?

The claimant has a statutory entitlement to interest on progress payments that are not paid on time irrespective of what the contract provides.

A progress payment is defined in Schedule 2 to mean a payment to which a person is entitled under Section 12. Section 12 provides that from each reference date under a construction contract, a person is entitled to a progress payment if the person has undertaken to carry out construction work, or to supply related goods or services, under the contract.

Given that “interest is payable on the unpaid amount of a progress payment that has become payable” (section 15(2)), then interest is payable on a progress payment whether or not the progress payment has been claimed under the Act.

The claimant is entitled to include in the payment claim an amount of interest on previous progress claims which were not paid on time, and claim that the amount is payable under section 15(2) or section 15(3).

If any payment claim is not paid by the due date, the claimant should ensure that the next payment claim includes interest from the due date for payment of the earlier payment claim to the reference date for the new payment claim.

REFERENCES

• Davenport P, Adjudication in the Building Industry (2^nd edn, Sydney, The Federation Press, 2004) p42

• Jacobs S J, Security of Payment in the Australian Building and Construction Industry (2^nd edn, Sydney, Lawbook Co, 2007) s95.670

• Davenport P, Supplement to Adjudication in the Building Industry 2^nd Edition by Philip Davenport, (2004), p2

• Davenport P, Guide for Adjudicators in Queensland, (2004), p6

• Davenport P, Adjudicate Today Adjudication Training – Examples of Decisions and Determinations, (2009), p13

Project management is the discipline of systematizing and managing all the different resources and aspects of a project in a manner that the resources deliver and execute all the output that is required to accomplish a project within a pre-determined range, schedule and cost constraints. Moreover, it is a method of making and attaining goals while maximizing all available resources over the entire course of a project. Project management is a vital business concept since it has been adopted to ensure that projects are completed within a specified timeframe and to the best of the company’s ability.

There are two basic approaches to project management. First is the traditional approach which considers the project as a process wherein there is an initiation, an end and everything in between. The other one is the non-traditional approach, also known as agile software development where the project is relegated into relatively small tasks. The difference between the two is that one approach is to view the project in its entirety (traditional) while the other is to view each step as a small task (agile software development).

Generally, project management involves setting up a timetable for three distinct phases: initiation, implementation and closure Each phase features a number of guidelines that must be met before moving on to the next. The extent to which a project needs to be managed depends largely on the scale of the project. For a simple project that has to be undertaken by a small company, pre-conceived goals, milestones, checklists and someone to oversee the project may be all that is needed. On the other hand, a complex project in a large company that involves several team members, multiple resources, time and budget will normally necessitate a more structured approach. The individual steps of the project are further broken down in order to ensure that it delivers the expected results upon its completion.

Project management is both an art and a science, it is an artistic science where methods are driven by specific goals. It is therefore a result oriented process which entails technical skills, scientific procedure and organizational methodology. In almost all cases, a project manager is designated to ensure that everything is moving smoothly and according to plan. The project manager is the most important part of any project management and he/she has the most precise idea of the project destination. As such, project managers are often required to get a certification or they should have a Masters Degree in Project Management. These assure that the manager not only has excellent time management skills but good people skills as well.

The whole concept behind project management may not be a too difficult to understand but it is of paramount importance. The life-blood of any business or organization is the successful completion of a product or the attainment of the goal that was set before the project was launched. Project management is employed to make sure that everyone involved on a particular project is on the same page and has a clear understanding of the goals and the steps needed to attain them. In the end, project management provides an effective solution that delivers results according to the standards required and within the specified time and cost budget, without compromising quality.