Planning, Controlling, and Managing Projects

Before implementing P6 Professional to schedule projects, team members and other project participants should understand the processes involved in project management and the associated recommendations that help smooth the implementation that best supports your corporate mission.

If you were driving to a place you had never seen, would you get in the car without directions or a map? Probably not. More than likely you'd take the time to plan your trip, consider alternate routes, and estimate your time of arrival. Planning the drive before you even left would help your trip to be more successful. And, along the way, should you encounter road blocks or traffic delays, you would have already identified alternate ways to reach your destination.

Project management follows the same methodology and purpose; to achieve each project's goals, you need to plan them in advance. Good project management is no longer an option in today's corporate world. It is a critical tool to help your company stay on target and accomplish its goals.

Simply stated, project management is the process of achieving set goals within the constraints of time, budget, and staffing restrictions. It allows you to get the most out of your available resources. Resources include

• People
• Materials
• Money
• Equipment
• Information
• Facilities
• Roles

Project portfolio management factors in all of these variables across multiple projects, enabling project managers and company executives to see an accurate picture of how each project's resource use affects other projects.

The process of project management is guided by three key principles:

• Planning
• Controlling
• Managing

Planning a project

The first step in project management is to define your project.

1. What is the scope of the work? What activities will make up the project and what is their relationship to each other? You'll want to identify the major milestones that will help you monitor the project's progress.
2. What is the project duration? What are the dates when the project will begin and end?
3. What resources are available to the project? Beyond labor, think about all the types of resources you will require.
4. Who will perform what tasks? Determining your labor resources and their available workhours is a key part of building a successful project. You'll need to plan for downtime and holidays and determine the regular workweek for various staffing types.
5. How much will the project cost? What are the costs per resource? Are there any hidden project costs?
6. What is the estimate budget? Establishing a project budget estimate in advance helps you monitor possible cost overruns.

The answers to these questions form the framework of your project.

Controlling a project

Once you have built your project and estimated your budgeting needs, you save this original plan as a baseline, or target schedule, to help you control the project. A baseline provides a solid point of reference as your schedule changes over time. It allows you to compare the original schedule to the current one and identify significant changes and develop contingency plans.

You control a project to keep it heading in the right direction. You'll want to track work progress and costs, compare them to your baseline, and then recommend what actions should be taken.

Effective project control reaps many benefits. It allows you to keep a close eye on possible problems before they become critical. It lets the project team and senior management view cost and scheduling timeframes based on the reality of the schedule.

Managing a project

The process of guiding a project from start to finish is the responsibility of a project manager. A good project manager wears many hats, acting at various times as a motivator, communicator, coordinator, and advisor. As you control the project's progress, it is your job to keep your team aware of changes to the schedule and possible consequences. In many ways, you are the project's ambassador, ensuring that your project organization is carrying out its responsibilities for the best possible outcome.

To be an effective project manager also requires consistency when you update your projects. Select a day each week, or biweekly, when you will regularly update projects. This regular update will include progress on values such as

• Dates on which activities started or finished
• Dates when resources are consumed
• Changes to resource rates

Determine a standard policy for the update and scheduling procedure, and for reporting progress.

The Project Management module provides many tools to assist you in reporting progress to both team members and senior management. Use the Project Web Site option to create a central location where team members can view project progress. Consider the many system reports as a means for communicating change. In addition, senior management can use the Portfolios section of P6 to summarize project data and easily capture a snapshot of how a project or group of projects is progressing.