Often times it is seen that a project starts with a good project plan created using Microsoft Project. After all, it’s a project management best practice to have a project plan. It’s a misnomer though that if we have a good project plan, the plan will show accurate status of the project at all times. So, if a senior management needs to know about the status of a project at a high-level, the project plan can provide that information.
It has been observed, on multiple occasions that as the project activities start happening, the updates to a project plan starts to fall behind. Some tasks are updated with % complete, however, actual start and finish dates are not updated. If the project manager is has not set his team’s expectations about requiring an update about progress of their respective tasks from them, he may get updates from some but not all. Thus the project plan update is incomplete and inaccurate. Also, if a project is 50% complete, doesn’t always mean that the remaining 50% will take twice the time already expended.
Creating and maintaining a project plan requires discipline. The project manager should set aside time each week to make those updates. Otherwise, the updates are often not made at all or made in an ad-hoc manner. The updates should include % complete and updates to actual start and finish date fields. In case the finish date is likely to be pushed out, the project manager should make that update.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
knowledge harvesting is so hard!
Typically, documentation which is one of the means of harvesting knowledge on a project gets the least importance as the project nears completion. When any project starts, every project manager lays emphasis on knowledge harvesting and yet its importance diminishes as time goes by. Why does that happen?
One of the reasons is that people believe that documentation needs to be done at the end. As the project nears completion so much has transpired and documentation during the course of the project is in emails, in post-it notes, and people's brains that it is impossible to convert that into documentation that is coherent and meaningful. As a result, even if sufficient time is allocated at the end of the project to complete documentation, the documentation that is created is incomplete, lacks context (why certain things were done) and becomes merely an academic exercise
The consequence of incomplete and insufficient documentation is that the product or service created as a result of the project is not easily maintainable thereby increasing the total cost of ownership (TCO).
Project manager can take some simple steps to circumvent this problem:
1) Take bite-sized-documentation approach - document things as they happen without having to re-write. Provide a control mechanism to measure whether this approach is working and that the documentation is leverageable.
2) Do not take a one-size-fits-all approach - depending on type of project and its duration, different types of documentation may be necessary. Being pragmatic will ensure good documentation and team members will be more willing to complete documentation
3) Always use a central repository to store documentation - sharepoint, project wiki, etc. are good options. This eliminates the need to have to bring it all together towards the end of the project
One of the reasons is that people believe that documentation needs to be done at the end. As the project nears completion so much has transpired and documentation during the course of the project is in emails, in post-it notes, and people's brains that it is impossible to convert that into documentation that is coherent and meaningful. As a result, even if sufficient time is allocated at the end of the project to complete documentation, the documentation that is created is incomplete, lacks context (why certain things were done) and becomes merely an academic exercise
The consequence of incomplete and insufficient documentation is that the product or service created as a result of the project is not easily maintainable thereby increasing the total cost of ownership (TCO).
Project manager can take some simple steps to circumvent this problem:
1) Take bite-sized-documentation approach - document things as they happen without having to re-write. Provide a control mechanism to measure whether this approach is working and that the documentation is leverageable.
2) Do not take a one-size-fits-all approach - depending on type of project and its duration, different types of documentation may be necessary. Being pragmatic will ensure good documentation and team members will be more willing to complete documentation
3) Always use a central repository to store documentation - sharepoint, project wiki, etc. are good options. This eliminates the need to have to bring it all together towards the end of the project
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