Project Management Processes

When managing a project you have to take many steps to go from the beginning to the end of the project. Some examples of these steps are "Develop Project Management Plan", "Manage Project Team", "Control Schedule" etc. These steps can be seen as processes.

In total there are more than forty Project Management Processes. A complete overview of all the Project Management Processes can be found in chapter 3 of PMI's PMBOK.

Process Groups

These forty something Project Management Processes are grouped into the following five Project Management Process Groups:

Processes in the Initiation, Planning, Execution and Closing Process Groups are performed sequentially as the project progresses from initiation to closing.

Processes in the Controlling Process Group are performed throughout the entire project.

Why is Grouping Important?

Grouping of the Project Management Processes provides for a structured approach to managing your projects. Discipline yourself to stick to sequence of the Process Groups. As an example, when a business case is needed, it should be done during the initiation of a project or do not start talking to contractors before you went through the planning processes. How would you know what to talk about before you have a project plan?

Related Posts

The Project Life Cycle

Determining Your Project Budget

Resource Assignment in Scheduling

Basis for ALL Your Income

Both starting and established consultants should determine and review their hourly rates. Your rates are the basis for all your income

Many starting consultants have difficulties determining their hourly rates. I have seen all kinds of "home made" formulas as an effort in determining hourly rates.

Hourly rates depends on your personal situation and should account for your desired salary and all your expenses. 

Support Available

In an effort to help consultants determine their hourly rates, I wrote an eBook on the topic. The eBook includes support services for working your specific situation and serves as a common document when I am helping consultants determine their hourly rates.

The book has recently been updated based on feedback from users and is the updated edition is now available.

Related Posts

Hourly Rates are Personal

What to expect for 2012

The hourly rate you should charge as a consultant depends on several factors such as the amount of days you can work a year, your overhead costs such as rent and the annual salary you want to make.

These factors vary from person to person, making hourly rates very personal.

Take your salary for instance. The salary you can earn depends on the level of experience you have and market situation for the industry you are in.

Sometimes you read about consultants asking for examples of hourly rates, only to receive a wide range of rates as answers. I agree, it is nice to know what others in your area are charging. However you have to realize that your personal situation is different from other consultants. The hourly rate you should be charging can be quite different from the consultant across the street!

Review Your Rates Regular

Your personal situation is something that is always changing, so it is good practice to for consultants to review their rates on a regular basis. Both starting and experienced consultants should do this.

Initiation Phase

Planning Phase

Execution Phase

Closing Phase

Know Your Team Members

Type 1: much guidance, little support

Type 2: much guidance, much support

Type 3: little guidance, much support

Type 4: little guidance, little support

Related Posts

Interpersonal Skills

Introduction

Developing a schedule is one of the essential steps is determining a project budget.

Steps in Developing a Schedule

Activity Resource Assignment

Related posts

At the closing of this year I want to thank all of you for the trust and confidence you have put in me throughout the past year. Many of you have commented on several of my blog posts. You may not know how important it is to me to comment on a blog post. When you comment on a post, I better understand what questions you may have about the topic. I can then better address those questions in future posts. It is a win-win situation.

I am very excited about continuing to work with you the coming year. Several of you requested blog posts on certain items. Some are new items, some are follow-up items resulting from previous posts. All requests and ideas have been scheduled and I am excited about addressing them. Answering some of your questions has taken me back to some of my project management files on my hard disk I have not used for many years. I am sure you can imagine what a nice feeling that is.

I know that many of you have some very challenging plans for the coming year. I hope to be part of some of them and I wish you all the best with them. Above all I wish you a healthy 2012 and that all your plans may come through.

Introduction

eBook sales have been increasing since their invention.
As of this year ebook sales have passed the sales of print books.
This post is about the advantages of ebooks compared to print books

What is an eBook

An ebook is a book in digital form that can be read on a computer or other electronic devices such as eReaders, iPad, or mobile phones

eBook Formats

The most popular ebook formats at the moment are PDF, Kindle and ePub.

Advantages of eBooks

• Prices are less compared to print books, while ebooks often have ready-to-use digital templates added as bonuses.
• No shipment required. Acces is immediate upon download
• Clickable links provide access to related websites and to the author if you have any questions.
• Portability: you can take your ebook with you without any added weight.
• No storage required for your library of ebooks

These are just a few of the advantages I could think of at this moment. I am sure there are more advantages. As with everything  there will also be disadvantages. However there are more advantages than disadvantages based on the sales. 

Get one for the coming holidays.

Here is a related article on ebook sales

Hard Skill, Soft Skills

Managing a project requires both soft skills and hard skills. Interpersonal (soft) skills, are the skills required to interact with each other to get things done.

This blog post is about the importance of interpersonal skills.

Hard skills are like the skills required to use software tools to make a schedule or your project budget

There are many ongoing discussions about which skills are most important. I see the required skills, both soft and hard, as the links of a chain. They all are important. If one link is missing, your chain is broken.

When we think of project management training, we often think about the training in the area of hard skills. However, soft skills are just as important and require proper training also.

On this website (blog), I try to find a good balance between posts on hard skills and soft skills.

Interpersonal Skills

In project management nowadays, the following interpersonal skills are needed:

The list above is not exhaustive, but is a good interpersonal skill-set to start with.

In project management, most of the problems that occur are “people” problems. This means that to be a successful project manager, it is essential to have good interpersonal skills.

The importance of interpersonal skills is compounded by the fact that many problems in the hard skills area, such as budgeting, are often caused by poor interpersonal skills.

Development of Interpersonal Skills

 In an attempt to mitigate the “people” problems in our work as project managers, I will regularly publish posts about how to develop your interpersonal skills.

Related Posts

Determining Your Project Budget

Developing Assertiveness

Assertiveness in Project Management

Managing B2B Conflicts

Essential Steps

Determining your budget can be experienced in two different ways: as a rewarding experience or as a daunting experience.

The difference in these two extremes lies in disciplining our self in taking the essential steps when determining your budget. Budgeting is not rocket science, but there are some basic and essential steps that we MUST adhere to.

The essential steps I am talking about are the those needed to go from project scope to project budget.

See these steps as the links of a chain. If one link is not good, your chain is not good. If one link is missing, you have no chain. The sequence of these steps is also important: Does making a budget before having a scope make sense?  We are often tempted to skip one or more of these steps. We might be in a hurry or maybe it is a very small project. However, these steps are essential in good budgeting. Discipline yourself in taking them. For small projects, some of these steps are obvious and, are therefore not formalized. However these steps are there and have to be taken,  even it is only mentally. Next is a brief description of each step.

Scope

In the scoping phase you get a complete picture of what has to be done. From the diagram we see that every following step depends on the scope. If the scope is not complete, nothing else will be complete. Start by disciplining yourself to get a complete scope before proceeding to the next steps. Verify the scope with your client. The scope is write-up and/or  list of everything that has to be done.

WBS

Next take the write-up or list from the scope and break it down into smaller tasks. A good way to start your WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) is to ask yourself who is going to do what. Doing that gives you the first level of your WBS. Next break it down further as needed. Make sure that your WBS has everything that is in the scope before going to the next step.

Schedule

Each element of your WBS takes time to do. Some WBS-elements  have to be prepared, some have delivery time etc. Start your schedule by transferring all the WBS-elements to your scheduling program. Note that some scheduling programs call the WBS-elements “tasks”. Next assign a duration to each task. To get the total duration of the project you  have to put dependencies between certain tasks as needed. If you stick to these simple scheduling steps, you should have pretty good schedule.

Budget

Each task in your schedule has a cost associated with it. Some of these costs are obvious, some have to estimated. You get your budget by adding up the costs of individual tasks. 

Schedule and cost overruns are often caused by not having the discipline to take these essential  steps or not  having a complete scope. If your scope is not complete, there is no way your schedule and budget could be complete!

Can you perform an effective cost control if your budget is not good?

Taking the essential steps in determining your budget goes a long way.

Thursday November 3rd 2011 is International Project Management Day. On this day we honor all project managers around the world. As project managers we are involved in all kinds of projects. With each project, big or small, we shape a piece of the world we live in. On this day, we should reflect on this fact. We should not be only proud of this, but we should recognize the work of our fellow project managers and share this fact with the people around us.

Let me take this opportunity to congratulate you with your day and your achievements.

To help us tell others about our day, Mr Frank Saladis, the founder of the International Project Management Day, has prepared the following short and beautiful video to help us reflect on the work we do and to share this with others.

International Project Management Day from AVS Group on Vimeo.

Every so often, we run into discussions about which project management certification is best. That is understandable because certification means a lot to us.

Nowadays there are several ways to become a certified project manager. There are certifications such as CAPM, PMP and PRINCE2. You can also go for a master’s degree in project management. All of these give you a solid foundation in project management.

However, time has shown us that it is not the certification that makes the project manager, but the combination of knowledge and experience.

The approach to take in your career is to get a good knowledge base and then get experience using that knowledge

The best way to gain experience is by having a mentor. This avoids a lot of trial-and-error learning. The process of gaining experience is the vehicle to take you from the knowledge-stage to the experienced-stage.

Certification is just the starting point. In real life, it does not matter which certification you have. The goal is to reach the experienced-stage, where you are able to handle ANY project they throw at you! You reach that experienced -stage by gaining experience with the certification YOU have.

Asking which certification is best, is like asking which college is best. The answer is they all will serve the purpose

I have been mentoring since 1988, while living and working in the Netherlands.
I find mentoring a gracious way of using your experience.
Maybe that is the reason that I am always involved in somekind of mentoring, teaching or writing.

At the moment mentoring is growing very fast. Mentoring is a very efficient way to start to use your knowledge effectively. I had a mentor when I started out with Exxon. Now after 30+ years I am receiving mentoring requests on a weekly basis.

To accomodate the growing demand for mentoring I started making some changes to our blog:

All existing and new subscribers are now entitled to free mentoring.

I am also working on an eStore where I will be selling eBooks. The topic and content of each eBook is based on questions I receive from mentees. Each eBook will also include free mentoring.

I am also working on a mobile app to facilitate mentoring. After installing this mobile app on your mobile phone, you will have direct access to my mentoring from your Android phone.

Hopefully with these changes we will have a more mentee-friendly blog.

Thank you for the trust you have put in me, some of you for many years now.

Thank You

First of all, thanks for the comments received on the post on “Assertiveness in Project Management” One of the comments was “how to be assertive?”  As a reaction to that comment, I decided to write the following post on how to develop assertiveness.

As stated in the lastpost,postuuppoo  post, one of the problems with being assertive, is that we do not like confrontations. This is a problem we all have. In this post, I will explain how I solved that problem for myself.

Not What But How

We all know that HOW you say something determines if WHAT you say will be accepted or not. It is not WHAT you say, but HOW you say it. When you say something in a non-threatening way it is more readily accepted that when you use harsh words. Knowing this, I then started to develop my assertiveness by using a non-threatening way of stating my points. Instead of making direct statements, I started stating my points in the form of QUESTIONS. Not just questions, but CONSCIENCE-PROVOKING-QUESTIONS. Here are some examples of what I have done to develop my assertiveness.

Ask for Data

As a project manager you submitted a project proposal with a schedule of eight months. Upper management comes back to you with the request to reduce the schedule to five months. Based on historical data you know that five months is too short. You have to be assertive here and defend your schedule. Instead of saying: “We have never completed such a project in five months!!” you can say “How long did it take us to complete similar projects in the past?”

Address the Conscience

In this example you have developed a good relationship with a vendor for certain products and services. Another “vendor”, who has no experience with the related products and services, approaches you for you to switch to them as vendor of the products and services. Switching to the new “vendor” will hurt your project, client or company. You know you have to stop this. You can tell the prospecting “vendor”: “What you are trying to do is wrong. You know you do not have any experience with that product. You will only create problems”. Such an approach will lead to a defensive reaction.

Alternatively you can convey the same message by saying “switching to you as vendor will benefit you, but will result in problems for me and my client. Do you think what you are trying to do is right?” Like that you address his conscience in a non-combative manner. When you are speaking the truth, you will always have the other person’s conscience on your side.

Personal Discovery

Another way of getting your point across is using personal discovery. A few years ago someone asked me to review their business plan for a business start up. The business plan was well organized but included a $50,000 company car. I knew that this was not realistic. I could have told the person to “look for a second hand car to start with”. By doing this however, I would rob the person of the satisfaction found in personal discovery. Instead I told the person to have a bank review his business plan. After reviewing the business plan with a bank the person told me that a $50,000 car will unnecessarily raise the cost of his services. Based on the review with the bank he decided to include a cheaper car in his business plan.

Using personal discovery gives the person the opportunity to listen to their most favorite tutor: themselves. 

Developing assetiveness is not an option, it is a must