Project monitoring in BRM 2/2

Yesterday I covered project monitoring, the documents needed and the tools that the project manager can use to achieve the correct output. Today I will try to give further explanation on why project monitoring is necessary. Imagine driving going to a wedding in a distance town where you have never been to before. You will definetly need a GPS and also ensure that you leave in good time. You don’t want to arrive late and walk in to the wedding ceremony, long after the bride and the groom are through with the wedding. This is similar to project monitoring, where you need the correct tools, GPS, to ensure that the project manager has a proper control on the pace of the project. It helps to dictate the pace and acts as an indicator on the status of the project. It is the pulse telling us how much alive the project is. Without project monitoring it won’t be possible to know the problems which rise during execution phase and may need better solutions for progression to be realized. Effective monitoring helps in knowing if the intended results are being achieved as planned, what actions are needed to achieve the intended results during the project execution, and whether these initiatives are creating a positive impact towards the project execution. In a nutshell, it can be said:

Assessment of project outcome: To know how the objectives are being met and the desired changes being met.

Process planning improvement: It helps in adapting to better contextual and risk factors which affect the research processes, like social and power dynamics.

Learning promotion: Gives insight on various approaches to participation which influences the outcomes.

Better understanding of stakeholders perspectives: Through direct participation in the process of monitoring and evaluation, the PM is able to learn about the people who are involved in the research project. This gives better understand of their values and views, as well as design methods to resolve conflicting views and interests.

Enhance accountability: To assess if the project has been effectively, appropriately and efficiently executed, so that they can be held accountable.

But how does the process actually work like?

3 Ways to Track and Re-Plan a Project

Rarely do projects flow as envisioned in the plan. There is always someone sick, a missing resource, dependency that is not available and so on. It is therefore important as a project manager to ensure that there is a fall back plan when needed. The following three approaches can be suitable in ensuring that in such times, the project management is not caught flat-footed.

1. Check and understand the progress of the project: Before starting to re-plan your project, you should be sure of the current state and status of the work. Setting up a meeting for the whole team together to get to know about the updates of the current work, upcoming tasks and issues will be beneficial. Also, recognize the important milestones in this meeting.
2. Search for and Manage Exceptions: Stay on a look-out for exceptions like risks, issues and change requests. Open issues will have to be resolved so that roadblocks can be removed, and a risk mitigation plan will have to be developed.
3. Re-plan the project: You have an idea of how to re-plan the project. The following steps will help you do so:

• Keep the important project documents updated, which includes the project charter.
• Share the new plan with the shareholders.
• As per the demand, re-assign the work. Communicate with the team members regarding the new assignments and send automated reminders to them.
• As required, make changes on the project site with the updates reports and dashboards.

In conclusion, project monitoring is important in making the project management plan work to meet the project objectives. It is a part of the project and project management, not an addition to it. Given the data about the team, the project and the prediction of overdue, project managers can customize the project plan and address issues before they happen. With project monitoring, you can identify the most efficient way to manage your resources and continually assess your project status, so you can ensure your project success.

Project monitoring in BRM 1/2

Project monitoring in project management is a very important task that helps the project manager to keep track of the progress and remain alert to any changes both internal and external. PMBOK defines it as

“The process of tracking, reviewing, and reporting the overall progress to meet the performance objectives defined in the project management plan “

This is vital for decision-making activities within and outside the project team. As a developer, I have always been fascinated with tracking project development in JIRA and see how the sprints progress as they move from one phase to another and draw closer to the closing date. I have learnt however that in project management, its something different altogether though they have lots of similarities. It is normal to see project managers do it, for the sake of fulfilling the project management plan but without really being keen on it’s effectivness. Some of the areas where project monitoring can be found useful include: Clarification of the project’s objectives, linking of activities to objectives, reporting of project progress to management and helps the management to be aware of the projects status and potential risks.

This is a key motivator to both management and the sponsor to complete the project within the given budget and time. In the development of a software, this will typically start from the time the project manager helps the team why they have to develop the software to the time the software is actually released as a deliverable. That is, from the time the stakeholders understand what the project is about to its development completion. It is normally a continous process addrssing any performance issues that may rise along the way to the future project status.

A project manager needs to master his area of domain and know which data is necessary for making decisions. Decision-making without a proper foundation makes it difficult to convince the stakeholders of its viability and may also be ineffective. Enter project management and it means that decisions are sound and reliable based on the outcome of the monitoring process. Just like at home where you would keep an eye on a toddler, monitoring them closely on their movements, so is project management. It is the toddler, that you would not let go closer to a staircase alone, or to the washing machine. As a project manager, you will certinaly not let the project unnecessarily be exposed to risks that may be costly. To have a better and proper monitoring of the projects, the following input documents are necessary; project management plan, project documents, work performance information (project scope, control resources etc), agreements made (procurements) and any other cordination documents such as risk register and risk reports. With such input, there should be enough information to make well-informed and sound decisions on

1. Whether tasks are being carried out correctly as expected.
2. Are there unforeseen risks such as potential price rise on components or products?
3. How does the team velocity rate against project workload?
4. Are there project components that should be changed or dropped? And what will be the impact of such changes?
5. Does the project still mirror the projected strategic goals?

And nothing good comes easily. Project monitoring is a tedious task, that requires concentration and keenness. Having automated tools and technologies can however simplify the process. Many software platforms today, provide addition add-ons that provide such excellent services. To improve the project managers effeiciency in project monitoring, the project manager should consider using their expertise to make the correct judgement, perform data analysis (cost benefit analysis, trend analysis, alternatives analysis etc.), decision making tools and collaborations in meetings. These are some of the avenues that data from the first step can be used to keep the projects well monitored. Several aspects of project monitoring should be considered, including but not limited to:

1. Parameter of project planning such as effort, costs, schedult, timeframe etc.
2. Stakeholder committments. Could be external or even internal customers.
3. Project risks that arise along the way as well as opportunities that may show up including people, tools, processes etc.
4. Data Management: Monitor all the configuration items, including software, hardware and project documentation.
5. Progress reviews: Conduct and manage the project progress reviews with the help of different techniques which includes the work progress of team members, client meetings, milestones reviews, etc. Based on these activities, various status reports are created, which are shared with the stakeholders as well.

As the project manager keeps track of all these aspects of the project, it also enhances the projects capability of delivering deliverables within the expected time frame and budget. It also increases stakeholder confidence to know that the project is sailing as planned. Tommorrow I will shortly focus on this area and explain how to actually track a project as a project manager. Don’t miss out.

Digitization in project management.

In one of my earlier posts this month, I talked of Project management in digitization and the benefits that may arise out of these two. We saw how digitzing service/products can lead to better effeciency in managing projects. Today I will go back to that post and review it from another perspective; how digitization is transforming project management and how these two disciplines are being used to achieve planned benefits in an organization.

There is an increased impact of digitization on project management, project managers and organisations. There are unlimited number of project management tools in the market today, both free and commercial. Digitization of what used to take ages, has made it convinient for project managers to move from the laborious task of documentation and collaboration to concetrate more on management. Gone are the days when projects were managed without any technology. Digitization has brought about new culture trends in organizations making great leaps of transformation success. It has become possible today to initiate projects where the benefit owners/sponsors could be sitting on the other end of the globe, without any problems. In 2018, FIFA managed to introduce the concept of VAR (Video Assisted Referee) in World Cup competition, where matches could be analyzed on real time. This is a concept that started in Netherlands in early 2010 and took time before it’s first implementation. The idea which was initially a dream, took lots of project managers in different parts of the world to get it executed properly. Since it’s inception, there have been improved efficiency in officiating matched. The point is, partial digitization of matches has succedded in bringing benefits to both players, sponsors, officials and other stakeholders involved. There are fewer incidences of incorrect judgement by football officials. The project took cross disciplined teams that were well stacked against solving the recurrent problem of incorrect officiating and the end results was to partially digitize the service.

Digitization is changing project management rapidly and massively than anyone would have thought. This can be attributed to the large number of additional internal digitization of projects that continously get initiated but also because customers have become more tech-savvy today and companies have no choice but orient themselves along he market expectations. This has led to advancement in products digitization in favour of customer-specific procedures. Since a “digitized” administration is generally considered to be more efficient, this is not a problem, at least it is often claimed. The speed is infact so fast that project managers are gasping, trying to catch up with the pace at which things are changing. This puts more projects into risk of not realizing the intended benefits as we will see shortly.

Digitization in project management may lead to disoriented stakeholders especially in large teams. Most projects are often interrelated with other projects within a program initiative. If a project is highly digitized and the

interrelated projects are not, this may lead to inappropriate flow of information which may result in costly adjustments. For instance, an ERP system in a company which makes it possible for the finance, sales and warehouse dept. to discharge their duties may be a good idea. now, let’s suppose that a cargo delivery company offers an interface program for the clients to track their orders and a new project is born. The project manager is bound to cordinate with other project managers in the other departments to ensure a seamless integration with the ERP. Digitizing of such a service may be costly if the end product will be a lousy solution bogging the network down. Rescue measures for the misaligned project will often affect other projects.

This is not to say that digitization is bad. Not at all. It all depends on the project manager’s competence and ability to streamline the process. It is important that I should point out that holistic project and portfolio management with central resource planning is able to maintain an overview, set priorities and enforce them as well as to realize controlled client projects and digitization projects. Such a project and portfolio management with upstream demand management will form the backbone of digitization in project management.

Enhancing project governance in a project team

I had a colleague once who quit his former job because of “unrealistic decisions by the project manager”, so he claimed. I tried to prod him further on what he thought the project manager did wrong and what his proposal to the problems would have been. Without hesitation, he quickly replied, “stand up to the management and advice them on the best way forward.” Later on, I came to understand what he meant as I found myself in an almost similar situation. In a well-governed project team where members are informed of the boundaries as team members, there is no feeling of capability restriction by the project manager. Often, there are always ambitious members in a team who would like to do more than the project’s scope. The problem is that this may not augur well with the planned budget and there could also be time constraints. The question is how does the project manager alienate the project team to the defined governing boundaries while maintaining cohesiveness and team spirit? Several factors have to be illuminated in the project team as we will see below:

Benefit owner/sponsor presence

An organization with a good governance model, runs their projects at the behest of the sponsor and benefit owner. These two entities should be identified at the initial stages of the project since they are the ones responsible for facilitating the business case. Once the business case is approved and the charter documents signed, it is the project sponsor who becomes responsible for finding the resources and setting the project team’s vision. They are also recognized as the main decision makers responsible for benefit measurement, and should therefore work hand in hand with the project manager and the rest of the team in fulfilling the project’s output ensuring that they are well aligned with the business strategy and the planned benefits.

Detailed Project management plan

This is necessary for a project manager to have as it is what guides the team within the confines of the project initiative. It is also used by the project manager to align the project on the benefits register and maintain the BRM

plan updated. This consequently makes it possible for the program and

portfolio manager to collaborate in the development of the business case and charter. The team members input to the project management plan remains guided by the governance model of the company

Project reporting

In the course of the project cycle, there is always alot of activities such as cordination with the other project and program managers, risks, changes,

emergent benefits or even unexpected costs. With well detailed reports (project reports, budget reports, briefings to stakeholders), it becomes easier for the project manager to keep the steering committee abreast with the development of the project. The key decision makers get enough and relevant information which makes project governance tenerable as it becomes apparent when making projects comparison.

Engaged stakeholders

During scrum meetings, it is not always possible for all the stakeholders to be present. This at times may create problems where pertinent issues may need their input. Sometimes, the need to accomodate changes may come later in the project and may not be within the budget. Engaged stakeholders

play an important role in the governance of the project, by addressing these issues. They create the link between the project team and the end users and help the project to be aligned with the stakeholders expectations whilst staying within the boundaries of the project management plan. Importantly, though, the issues raised may be taken together with the other relevant decision making authorities such as PMO, without necesssarily creating time constraints on delivering the outputs.

Review lessons learnt along the way…

Team collaboration should not just be about completing the project and getting a pat on the back. The project manager should ensure project review is done and the team contributes with their experiences. If for

example, a software developer checked in a software release in the wrong branch or corrupted the HEAD of the version control system, then this should be taken as a lesson. There should be proper measures undertaken to avoid a recurence of the same in the future. By sharing such lessons and putting fail-proof measures in place, it improves the culture of product delivery and governance . This guides the team in the future, allowing which boundaries a procedure should be undertaken.

Benefits review

It is important for the project manager to continously perform a benefits review and project audit to ensure that it will serve the purpose it was intended for. This avoids disappointment, time wasting and unnecessary budget expenditure. The project manager is responsible for performing this in collaboration with the program and portfolio manager through the benefits register and review of the BRM plan. Auditing the project during initial or execution stage is critical and requires stakeholders input as stated earlier while considering the teams input on the project management plan.

The above named factors are what I consider critical in enhancing project governance in a team. These should be followed along the bes practices of project management as envisioned in PMI for a fruitful outcome. Is there something that you think is important that I didn’t mention, don’t hesitate to give a shout out in the comments section.