Winning strategy

How can you make sure that your project goes to plan? Alan Moser explains

What is the recipe for a successful project? Project management courses offer widely used cookbooks providing the theory. As an associate at consultancy Cavendish Wood, with over 20 years’ experience in project and programme management, I have formed my own view of the key ingredients.

The plan is not a key ingredient
Somebody once said that – to paraphrase – plans are useless but planning is indispensable. I’ll return to who might have said that later on in this piece. I have come to completely agree with this view and fi nd that once the planning phase has been completed, there are three key factors that truly determine the success or failure of a project:

• A focus on the customer;
• The elimination of waste; and
• Knowing that it’s all about the people.

The process of planning at the beginning of a project is vital as it sets the project up for success. It defines the what, how, when, where and who. One of the most useful deliverables from this phase is the work breakdown structure because it identifi es the ‘what’ and provides a constant reference point for the project manager throughout the life of the project. The project manager can confi dently create and manage a plan based on the work breakdown structure among other things. On projects where the scope has not changed wildly, the work breakdown structure at the end of the project will not be far off its original version at the start of the project.

As project professionals, we know that plans invariably change during the first week of the project, but we have the work breakdown structure to keep us focused when modifying our plans. It is during this constantly changing – and sometimes frenetic – environment that I believe we should think about how important other factors besides the plan are in guiding the success.

Focus on the customer
You are only managing a project because there is a need for the result it will deliver. Somebody owns this result – not you, the project manager, but the customer. The project manager is purely an agent of change, helping to deliver the result. The best project managers keep their customers at the forefront of their minds as the customer’s perception of the end result is one of the best measures of whether the project succeeds or fails. Project managers should listen effectively, take on board the feedback they are getting and look for ways of incorporating it whenever they can.

The triple constraints of time, cost and scope are important metrics in controlling a project, but not necessarily an indication of project failure if they are not met. Borrowing a popular example from the construction industry, the Sydney Opera House was a spectacular failure from a project management perspective. When construction started in 1959, it was estimated to cost around AUS$7m (£4.1m), and took more than four years to build. It was fi nally completed in 1973 for over AUS$100m (£60m). Yet the Sydney Opera House is arguably one of the most beautiful and recognised buildings in the world.

The analogy I’m building here is that while you may not be creating the world’s next iconic structure, consider developing a great relationship with your customer because you might discover that the result is more important than those triple constraints.

Eliminate waste
Trimming the fat is a principle borrowed from the agile manifesto of software development (these principles are successfully making inroads into everyday aspects of project management). If you’re not running a kanban board (signboard) these days, you’re missing out on the benefits of doing only what needs to be done when it needs to be done. It doesn’t mean shortening or abandoning the traditional project life cycle. It does mean starting with a work breakdown structure, measuring everything and emphasising dependencies.

I bet you’ve rarely missed a flight. That’s because you had a hard deadline and you (albeit probably mentally) created a work breakdown structure of the essentials that needed to happen: find and pack suitcase; check passport, wallet and ticket; arrange transport to airport. Anything else was nice to have (getting that John Grisham novel you’ve been meaning to read) but not essential to the success of the project (getting on the flight).

Reach for the low-hanging fruit first and kill those lengthy unproductive status meetings, then stop creating documentation that is never used (remember that requirements spec written six months ago that nobody refers to now?). The work breakdown structure will be your best friend and help you to get more ecient. Don’t do anything that isn’t on there without questioning why. Take the time to question it again and identify which elements are valuable and which can be eliminated.

It’s all about the people
Teams are staed by real people who have strengths and weaknesses, dierent motivations for being at work and things going on in their professional and personal lives. Truly excellent project managers find and use the strengths in everyone and try to ensure that they allocate roles to those best placed to deliver. They learn to keep everyone motivated and know which buttons to push to get results.

One of my early projects was to deliver a reporting system back in the days when paper output was still in fashion. One of the developers assigned to me was severely partially sighted, yet had been set a task that involved ensuring the layout of the paper reports was perfect. When I inherited the project and the team, it took me some days, a couple of coees and some discrete enquiries with his colleagues to work out why he was an unwilling participant. It turns out that he was, by nature, proud and not one to say he was not up to the task. By simply reassigning him to a more suitable task (he had a brilliant mind so I asked him to look at solving complex bugs that had eluded others), his morale and that of the rest of the team lifted visibly, we made quicker progress and I learned a useful lesson.  

Projects are delivered by people for people. Our project work is about getting the best out of our teams, and so the human element is fundamental to project management.

Summary
So who said that plans are useless but planning is indispensable? Some attribute the remark to General Eisenhower on the eve of the Normandy landings in June 1944, but I heard it from my first boss over 20 years ago. Of course, a plan is needed. Create a plan, be prepared to change it and consider other factors that will guide your project to a successful conclusion. Understanding your team, questioning what is crucial to a project’s success, and always keeping the customer in mind, will help you to ensure that each project succeeds.