Essential Strategies in Project Management

Essential of a Successful Project Management

Good project steering is vital for early success in a project. This means taking a structured and systematic approach to identifying, prioritising and setting up of projects. It also about maintaining and supporting them all the way to the end. Steering can occur at any level of an organisation. Projects can cascade through an organisation from the corporate centre right down to individual departments or services. Usually steering is done by management teams through the selection of a champion who then establishes the remit and selects the leader.

Which Projects?

As mentioned earlier, projects can come from the review and planning stages of corporate planning. They could emerge as improvement projects identified by internal and external audits. Employee and customer surveys may also reveal ideas that require a PM approach. Also, assessment frameworks such as EFQM (Foundation for Quality Management) may point to improvement activity that needs to take place. Unforeseen events may also create a firefighting approach to PM. So you have a list of potential projects, how does the management team decide which has priorities?

Roles and Responsibilities

Champion
The role of Champion is very important in the success of a project. It is essentially a 'hands-off' role, but with a direct responsibility to support the project leader. It is likely to be someone senior who has an influence across different boundaries.

Leader
Depending on the size and scale of a project, the project leader may be a manager working alone or as part of the project team. It doesn't have to be a professional project manager. Specialist project managers are usually brought in for major projects.

Team Members
People involved in projects can be involved for different reasons and varying contributions. There can be full time members that have major contributions to make or specialists that have a one-off involvement at a particular stage in the project. Facilitators can also be used for group work and when using the various tools and techniques.