Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
About the Author xv
Introduction Part One 1
What Is The Everyday Project Manager? 1
Who Is This Book for? 2
The Everyday Project Manager vs the Professional Project Manager 3
The Structure of This Book 3
What This Book Is and What It Isn't 4
Introduction Part Two 5
Some Project Management Definitions 5
Projects, Programs, and Portfolios 5
Waterfall vs Agile Project Management 6
Phase 1 Project Start-Up
Chapter 1 What Are We Doing Here?: The Vision, Benefits, and Objectives 11
Is This a Project I See Before Me? 11
Where to Begin 12
Do You Know Where You're Going? 12
The Cascade 13
The Vision 13
Benefits: The Why 15
Objectives: The What 16
Objectives Relating to Time, Cost, or Quality 20
Linking the Chain 21
So Now You Have the Why and the What 22
Chapter 2 The Trade-Off: We Offer Three Kinds of Service 23
The Holy Trinity 23
A Word About Quality and Scope 24
What Is Fixed and What Is a Priority? 25
And I Want It Yesterday… 26
How to Go Faster, Cost Less, or Improve Quality 27
Two Levers to Pull 32
The Cost of Change 32
And That's About It 33
Chapter 3 Project Scope: Defining the Requirements 35
The Final Link in the Chain 35
How Does It Feel? 36
Not All Requirements Are Created Equal 37
I Must Have Everything 38
Linking Back to the Objectives 39
Ways of Specifying Requirements 40
Start with an Outline Scope 40
Build Your Requirements from the Outline Scope 41
Baselining Your Scope 43
A Few Things to Consider if You Are the Person Specifying or Reviewing the Requirements 43
Now You Can Begin Work on the Solution 46
Testing the Requirements 47
Snags, Defects, and Missed Requirements 48
Why the Distinction? 49
Cost to Rectify 50
Requirements Failure versus Requirements Change 51
Scope Creep 52
Vigilance and Discipline 54
Scope Change - and How to Manage It 55
What Is Out of Scope? 56
You Now Have a Fully Defined Project 57
Chapter 4 Roles and Responsibilities: I'm Putting the Team Back Together for One Last Job 59
What Are You Lot Doing Here? 59
Key Roles to Consider on Every Project (Spoiler: They May All Be You) 60
The Sponsor 60
There's Only One Project Sponsor 61
If You Are the Sponsor 62
The Project Manager 62
If You Are the Project Manager 65
The Sponsor and the Project Manager 65
The Requirements Gatherer 67
The Solution Designer or Subject Matter Expert (SME) 67
If You Are the SME 68
The Supplier/Implementer(s) 68
If You Are the Implementer 69
The Change Manager 69
If You Are the Change Manager 69
The Operational Owner 70
If You Are the Operational Owner 70
And the Rest 70
Collective Responsibility 71
When You Are Performing Multiple Roles on the Team 72
Bringing the Team Together 72
Who is Not on the Team? 73
Stakeholders 73
The Illegitimate Stakeholder 74
The Illegitimate Senior Stakeholder 74
How to Deal With Them 75
Having People Inside the Tent 75
If You Are an Illegitimate Stakeholder 76
Who's Missing From the Team? 78
The RACI Matrix 78
The Take-Away Point 81
Party With Pizzas 81
The Numbers Game 81
Being Clear on Boundaries 82
The Process Is an End in Itself 82
Phase 2 Design and Planning
Chapter 5 The Best-Laid Plans: Planning and Estimating Your Project 87
If You Fail to Plan 87
Planning Forward versus Planning Backward 88
Fixed Date or Fixed Timeline 89
The First Pass - Identifying the Tasks 90
Getting the Level of Detail Right 91
The Second Pass - Assigning the Tasks 92
The Third Pass - Scheduling the Tasks 94
Increasing Schedule Maturity 96
The Critical Path 98
Putting the Float Back 100
Estimating Tasks 101
Broadly Right vs Precisely Wrong 101
Planning Horizons 102
Pitons and Firebreaks - Putting in Your Failsafe Mechanisms 103
Go/No-Go Decisions 107
Milestones and Milestone Management 109
Managing - and Adapting - the Plan 112
Chapter 6 How Much?!: Budgeting and Cost Management 115
Tracking and Managing Costs 115
Put It All Into a Cost Plan 115
A Good Cost Plan Tells a Story 116
Building Your Budget 118
Linking Cost and Schedule 124
Including Contingency and Risk in Your Budget 124
Contingency Versus Risk 124
The Purpose of the Cost Plan Is Not to Cater for Every Eventuality 128
Sacrificing Contingency and Risk 128
Go Back to the Objectives 129
Road trip! A Worked Example of a Cost Plan 129
Chapter 7 Control Mechanisms: Setting Up Your Project Governance 141
Change Under Control Versus Controlling Change 141
Setting Your Baselines 142
Change Management and Re-Baselining 144
Tolerances 150
Governance Gateways 152
The Project Management Office (PMO) 153
Reporting 155
RAG Statuses 156
Reporting on Your Schedule 157
Reporting on Your Costs 159
General Reporting Principles 161
Organizational Governance 162
Steering Groups and Terms of Reference 163
Everything's Fine Until It's Not 164
Phase 3 Build and Execute
Chapter 8 Hell Is Other People: Managing the Team 169
Considering the Team 169
Where Is the Friction? 172
Is There Someone Who Dislikes the Group Environment? 173
The Project First-Timer 174
Matrix Management 175
Being a (Good) Manager 177
Your Focus: You Are Not the Expert - Focus on Time, Cost, and Quality 178
Finding Your Own Voice 179
Invocation of Authority 180
Who Has Authority? 180
Who Invokes Authority? 181
Acting on Your Own Authority 182
Tricky Team Members 182
The Show-Boater 183
The Would-Be Project Manager 184
The Over-Involved Sponsor/Control Freak Stakeholder 184
The Keyboard Warrior 185
The One Who Actively Seeks Your Untimely Demise 186
Other Behaviors to Watch Out For 187
It's All About the People 194
Phase 4 Project Closure and Lessons Learned
Chapter 9 Managing Uncertainty: A Brief Introduction to Risk Management 197
What on Earth Could Go Wrong? 197
Defining a Risk 198
The Risk Management Process 199
Identifying Risk 200
Analyzing the Risk 200
Mitigating the Risk 202
Reviewing and Monitoring the Risks 204
Budgeting for Risk 205
Risks That Are Not Risks 206
Chapter 10 In Extremis: How to Manage Difficult Projects 209
Not All Projects Are Created Equal 209
First and Last 209
Projects That Are Already Failing When You Take Over 210
Which Ships Have Already Sailed? 211
What Aren't We Talking About? 212
Getting the Message Out 213
What's the Morale Like? 214
Everything's Fine Until It's Not (and Now It's Not) 216
Leave the Firefighting to the Firefighters 216
Who's Doing What? 217
JFDI Projects 218
Managing a Project That Cannot Now Succeed 219
Lessons Learned 220
Appendices 223
In Summary: Delivering a Project in Three Pages 225
Key Information for Every (Everyday) Project 229
Index 231
