Project refers to a one-time task that needs to be completed under the condition of limited resources, and project management is an auxiliary activity carried out in the process of achieving the task. what should i do at all stages of the project? what skills, tools, and methods can help us better manage our projects and avoid detours? this article author analyzes this and shares it with you.
Here's the question, what's the project? what project management? what is project management in charge of? how to do a good job of project management?
There are many different explanations online, but they are the same - projects are one-time tasks that need to be completed under restricted resource conditions. project management is an auxiliary activity carried out in the process of achieving the task.
The above concept is still a bit false... to put it bluntly, project management is related to the party, resources, time (progress), scope, cost, quality, risk, communication, resource integration and many other content. With so much management content, we need to combine project facts to get the right entry.
There are differences in the size, complexity, roles, etc. of different projects, but the phase of the project does not change. It is divided into five stages: project start-up, planning, task execution, monitoring process, project closing. We can efficiently drive and manage projects by dismantling specific tasks at each stage of the project and then using the corresponding tools.
What should i do at all stages of the project? what skills, tools, and methods can help us better manage our projects and avoid detours? this article answers the above questions in turn.
The project starts
Project start-up as the initial stage, mainly on the project charter and other framework content combing and confirmation. At a minimum: identify project needs, clarify project objectives, clarify project scope, form a project team (including related parties)...
Identify project requirements
according to the stage of the software, software attributes and other elements, the software project will derive a variety of project scenarios. project requirements vary from scene to scenario, and you first need to understand and confirm what the project is going to do. like what:
Self-research product launch: a project that is usually initiated based on a company's strategic planning should be clear with the leader to understand the context of the project so that the project needs are clear.
Custom product launch: customized products for customers /business are basically customer claims, product managers through research and demand analysis to clarify project needs.
General product iterations: typically, product managers select higher priority requirements from the demand pool based on the current stage of the product's development.
The need must be stated in the text and stakeholders to clarify the confirmation, do not think that they are very clear. If the understanding error is not confirmed, the project is deflected from the beginning.
Sometimes it is too "optimistic" to analyze the feasibility of a project. sometimes the leader throws out the proposition lets the following person verify, the following person presets the "successful" position to find evidence to support, is obviously biased.
Identify project objectives
Also confirm project objectives synchronously when you confirm project requirements. We can't guarantee that the goal of pushing the show on our own is what the customer wants. some projects value quality, some projects to be quickly online, some projects to lower costs ...
Clarify the scope of the project
Knowing the goal, the next step is for the project stakeholders to be clear about what they have to do to accomplish the goal, and that's the scope of the project. Scope should be necessary to do, do more will waste resources, do less will not achieve the goal. Clarifying the scope of the project will facilitate the development of more detailed plans and assessments of the consumption of resources.
We can use the goal to untangling the list of things that need to be done, and then further derive the results that each item needs to deliver.
Form a project team
Things have to be done, it's time to put together a project team... the project team here is not just the people who perform, nor is it a group of people who suddenly emerge after determining the scope of the project. The project team should include the following four roles. at the same time through the role to identify stakeholders, to find out who is related to the project, effectively select project members.
- Who approves: the role of full responsibility for the task and monitoring progress. such as the project manager (at this time replaced by the product manager).
- Ask who to consult: the person who provides guidance in the implementation of the task is usually the department or individual affected by the project. such as Colleagues in the business and operations sections.
- Tell who: the person who needs to be notified when the phase task is complete. such as a superior leader or customer.
Make a plan
Once successful, a comprehensive, detailed and holistic action plan is needed throughout the project. The project plan is the project team's action guide, so take full account of the complexity of the project.
A project plan that can be executed should include the following points: task breakdown, schedule planning, communication plan, budgeting, procurement planning, risk management...
Task decomposition
Meal to eat one bite, things to do one by one, according to the scope of the project to dismantle the task. task decomposition in product projects is generally carried out in accordance with the implementation process decomposition, and then in accordance with the functional module decomposition combined way. how to dismantle also has rules to follow:
Progress planning
Cooking rice to wash clean and then under the pot to add water to boil, the project task situation is more complex. requires a reasonable and efficient allocation of tasks in the event of multiple conditions (resources). progress planning focuses on these things:
- Task priority: mainly no logical depends on the priority order between tasks, first core and then edge, first important again. If the core business is met before the branch business is satisfied.
- Task time assessment: estimate when tasks will take time to execute and set deadlines. Be careful to reserve buffer time to allow for subsequent risks.
- Task acceptance criteria: each task needs to have the corresponding delivery output content and acceptance criteria. It is both progress planning and quality management, while facilitating subsequent progress monitoring.
Communication plan
The transmission and reception of information that occurs every day when you talk to people is communication. communication is so easy, why make a so-called communication plan? because to "communicate effectively" ... the communication plan in the project is designed to enable stakeholders to obtain and understand the information of concern in a timely and accurate manner.
Key elements of project communication include: who notifies, who receives, what is notified, how often, how. communication methods should be contacted by everyone, according to the urgency of the task to choose their own mode and frequency. like what:
- Mail: more formal, but less timely. can be used as an archive of project progress for subsequent traceability.
- Station meeting: basically project executive participation, daily station will be able to quickly understand the current progress, today's plan, current risks and so on. can be used in combination with gantt diagram.
- Daily news: the frequency of reports can be adjusted according to the project stage. when there are more changes in the early period, daily and weekly reports can be made, and after the project is stable, they can be changed to monthly reports or key node reports.
- Regular meeting: similar to the station meeting, there will generally be stakeholders involved in reporting the progress of the project, risks, plans, etc. commonly, monthly or quarterly meetings.
Budgeting
Cost and budget concepts are less involved in projects of the "general iterative product" type, but "self-research product start-up" and "custom product start-up" will certainly account for costs, assess the proportion between costs and benefits, and the estimate is that the project will be yellow if it is not sufficient.
Budget based on estimated costs - what resources are required for each matter and how many resources are available. budget rules are designed to:
- Ensure that the resources required to implement the project are implemented;
- Avoid the misuse of resources;
- Effective control of the difference between actual costs and budgets;
- Ensure consistency in project tasks and resource usage.
The costs, benefits, budgets here are varied in form, and can be time, manpower, capital, materials, etc. budgeting needs to be realistic, clear and specific, and cover all activities. each project is prepared differently.
Procurement plan
Not every project needs procurement, involving the use of external resources of the company will have procurement intervention, including but not limited to software applications, hardware equipment, consulting services, human outsourcing and so on.
Our main task in this section is to make a detailed list of purchases that need to be made, and how to do so should be handled by the company's purchasing staff.
Risk control
The existence of risk is not transferred by our subjective will, risk control is to predict the potential types of risks and provide countermeasures. what should i do to prepare for risk control?
- Identify risks: establish and refine the list of risk items based on the type of event, and you can port experience from other projects. note that flagging possible trigger points for risk.
- Risk grading: assess the importance and scope of different risk items to help better establish early warning and processing mechanisms.
- Addressing risk: pre-set solutions for the corresponding risk items, divided into potential risk responses before and treatment after risk occurs.
- The most important thing is to avoid risks, to identify in a timely manner, timely early warning, timely treatment.
Perform a task
Reasonable "planning" creates a good project implementation environment, and environmental maintenance requires "task execution" to maintain. task execution refers to coordinating people and resources to manage project execution activities according to the plan. the specific execution of the task does not explain too much.
From a management point of view, this link should be done: provisioning, team management, communication management ...
Provisioning
After "budgeting" clearly the resources required for implementation, in the implementation of the need to do is to allocate resources rationally. provisioning does not amount to resource distribution, needs to fully understand the configuration, in place, distribution, use ...
Common resources in software projects such as: external software platform (third-party account application), manpower (new members in place), hardware equipment (server in place), etc. combine task features with locations in your schedule, and schedule ahead.
Resources in a link after abnormal, to timely early warning and change adjustment. involved in risk control, change control, quality control, in the details below.
Team management
Project is to temporarily pull a group of people to work, is a fixed partner is just, if it is composed of unfamiliar people, in cooperation inevitably need to run. the project manager is required to build and manage the team at this time.
- Team atmosphere: people are not machines, mental state plays an important role in the quality of work. administrators can improve their enthusiasm by group building and other means to avoid negative energy, pushing, complaining and so on.
- Work coordination: there will be friction between the run-in, and administrators can use the organization of meetings to understand each other's work habits. on the one hand, put people in a reasonable position, on the other hand, establish a suitable task convergence model.
- Improving enthusiasm is not necessarily a group building, the focus is to understand each other's personal appeal, the appeal and project combined to impress the other side. Group building is not necessarily a dinner, perhaps the afternoon of a bottle of drink can also produce cohesion ...
Communication management
Project members communicate according to a pre-set "communication plan" to ensure that both parties are able to communicate and receive in a timely and effective manner. At the same time, effective communication can enhance the participation of management stakeholders, enhance support. For example:
Monitoring the process
All phases of the project are monitored. the role of monitoring is to track, review, and adjust whether project progress deviates from the plan, and if so, to identify and control changes in a timely manner. in order for monitoring to really work, in addition to a high level of risk awareness, a variety of monitoring methods are needed.
Methods and tools include, but are not limited to: daily station meetings, project regular meetings, project schedules (gantt diagram), project progress kanbans, project day/week/monthly reports, periodic feedback reports...
As the project evolves, the watch list includes not only "plan - risk control" content, but also the timely identification of new risk items. monitoring content, should focus on: overall monitoring, progress monitoring, supervision and communication, change management ...
Overall monitoring
The overall monitoring is responsible for comprehensive monitoring of the implementation of the project for deviations. if a risk item is triggered, it is immediately handled in accordance with the risk control plan. theoretically, there are many monitoring items, according to the actual situation of the project to choose. such as procurement monitoring, quality control, time monitoring and ...
- Scope monitoring: to confirm that the scope of implementation is in line with the original plan, can not appear to do more, do less, do wrong and so on. the change of Scope seriously affects the resources, progress and quality.
- Budget monitoring: check the allocation and use of budgets (resources) for compliance with the intended schedule.
- After confirming the exception, the preferred option is to pull back the original plan, if pull back needs targeted processing.
Routine measures such as increasing staffing, increasing investment time (overtime), adjusting people, adjusting working methods and tools, can't reduce requirements (narrow projects, reduce quality requirements).
Progress monitoring
It is mainly to track the project execution process, to prevent team members from understanding the task deviation or other factors, resulting in problems during the execution phase. the focus of the monitoring session is on progress monitoring, which focuses on high-risk tasks (critical tasks).
In addition to task monitoring through communication and meetings, an important approach is a "phased deliverable audit."
Supervise communication
Why should communication be supervised? although a communication plan is in place, the multiple teams and departments involved in the project operate in different modes, making communication and collaboration more difficult and the quality of the planned execution not guaranteed. in order for the action not to deform, supervision is essential.
How do you supervise communication? supervised communication is not to participate in every communication occasion, but to establish a fixed communication channel, requiring each communication to output the minutes of the meeting. the minutes do not emphasize formatting, even a few concise words can be. (if you have a set-up minute template, it's also a good choice to fill in each fill-in)
Only in this way can the mind be controlled in general, not to supervise the failure.
Change management
Sometimes the adjustment of the project plan in order to adapt to the changes in the operation of the project and various key factors to ensure the realization of the project objectives is called change management. change triggers are likely, such as changes in customer/leader thinking, changes in the external environment (policy or market), project resource adjustments, team movements...
For whatever reason, constant change will inevitably lead to the project progress out of control, so it is necessary to establish a set of standardized change management mechanism, so that the project changes without confusion.
- Unique receive entry: anyone can request a change, but must designate a person as the sole recipient, usually the product manager. avoid mouths everywhere and can't co-ordinate the big picture.
- Assessing the impact of changes: after receiving them, the impact of changes on the project is strictly assessed, and changes cannot enter the execution phase without A conclusion. the executive does not accept any change requirements from non-product managers.
- Timely warning of changes: review and update the affected documents, time, resources, costs, etc. during the planning phase after the review is approved... the focus is on timely and relevant personnel to synchronize changes, early warning.
Project closes
Project closing is the last link in the project process and the critical moment of the project. mainly on the project's indicators to assess acceptance, as well as the project re-entry, sum up lessons learned. if the acceptance of loopholes, the project will also be a loss! so put a good last pass, to do a good job of acceptance results and project summary.
Conclusion
finally in the time, scope, cost, quality balance to complete the product line and project delivery. this means that you can breathe a sigh of relief, after all, a relaxed rhythm is more conducive to follow-up work.
there are certainly management or personnel issues in the course of the project. the matter deviates from the original plan, the matter is not in the plan... in the face of endless problems, product managers need to prepare the project team for challenges.
the most important thing is to be able to build a learning organization (team), sum up the project experience in a timely manner, and apply the experience to the follow-up work. this enables team members to grow.
the above is about the project management process of the full interpretation, there are too many outstanding, welcome private communication.
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