Lessons learned in Project Management
Manage the priorities of your projects.
Consider them in relation to other projects, business lines in the organisation, geographic areas, and functional managers.
Tagged with: priorities
Filed under: Scope
Get to know the usual time schedules for producing plans, drawings, and designs in your organisation.
Estimates may be 2 weeks but people with experience in the organisation may know to double this when told 2 weeks by the design department.
Project managers should keep up with the designers for their project regularly to see what they are working on and what their priorities are.
Resources often get pulled onto other tasks/projects, so it important you stay informed.
Possibly escalate to the projects director if necessary.
Tagged with: design schedule • drawings • schedule
Filed under: Communication • Design • Planning
Eliminating unnecessary features in design will give the largest savings in a project.
If your client wants costs cut, look for the most costly features (in design cost and construction cost) that could be eliminated without significantly reducing the final required result of the project.
For example, a client wanted a set of equipment protected from potential flood levels by constructing it on the flat roof of an existing building. However, the rest of the existing plant was below that level so in the case of a flood would be out of operation anyway. To construct on the roof of the building would have taken significant extra structural support costing more than the equipment being installed. It was decided to install the equipment at ground level instead of raising it above the potential (rare) flood level, and installing a simple bypass system for use in case it failed. This saved more than double the price of replacing the equipment in the unlikely event of it being flooded.
Of course this may not be possible with features that are critical to operation, but if they are not critical, eliminating these features at the design stage (early in the project) can save a lot of money.
You must learn to say no to some requests from clients
If change requests from the client will make the design unsafe or unusable, you should refuse to change it. Otherwise you could still be sued as the designer for giving misleading information when your company is the expert (accepting a change could be deemed as approving it, even if you gave a warning that it would be unsafe or unusable).
Another instance to say no is if the client asks for changes that will increase the schedule but won’t approve the increased schedule. Get approval from the client for the extended schedule or cost before saying yes to the proposed change.
Tagged with: change • schedule
Filed under: Client • Contract • Cost • Design • Risk • Safety • Scope
Some companies have idea boxes or systems for employees to share their ideas for improving an organisation or project. Yet they can often find it difficult to get people to submit good ideas.
Giving a significant reward for ideas that make significant savings or profits would encourage ideas even more.
Apparently the Japanese used to have a reward system where if an employee put forth a suggestion that saved money, they would get half of the first years profit or savings from that idea.
Tagged with: ideas • improvements • rewards • saving money
Filed under: Cost • Human Resources
Remember that for a project, quality means compliance with the scope and specifications. Doing what is required.
It does not mean you have to deliver a better product than is ordered, or that it has to have extra features that were not requested.
Tagged with: extra features • specifications
Using the Word Float
It is a good idea to avoid using the word “float” in a schedule or cost report to a client.
Instead you could use phrases such as “Critical Evaluation of final commissioning items”, or something similar.
Using the word “float” usually leads to management or the client wanting it reduced.
Of course only use the alternative wording if it is a necessary float and the words reasonably describe the use.
Tagged with: cost report • float • schedule
Filed under: Client • Communication • Documentation • Planning
Don’t schedule backwards from the end date.
Program the project logically. Do it forwards then adjust to fit for time.
If you do it backwards, you aren’t planning the project, you are just fitting schedule to match the end date, that won’t help achieve the tasks, and will probably mean you go past the scheduled date anyway.
Keep a careful watch on external dependencies.
External things such as deliveries, contracts, and approvals that could delay your project if late.
They may not be your direct responsibility and are out of your control, but you need to keep watch that they are getting done and that dates are not slipping.
Deliveries are a big one here. You should make your suppliers aware of your project schedule (or the part relevant to them) to emphasise the importance of the delivery date you require of them.
Don’t say you need it by a certain date if that date is the actual date you will install it. You need to allow time for delivery, unpacking, checking, and moving to the site.
Tagged with: deliveries • suppliers
Filed under: Contract • Contractors • Procurement • Time
To increase stakeholder acceptance of a project give them ownership.
Do this by letting them choose delivery dates so that they will then support those dates.
For example, ask the production manager to give you the date they will complete the fabrication of a piece of equipment. Then put that specific date in the schedule and note that it was specified by that person. By seeing the date that they chose in the schedule they are more likely to accept the delivery dates of the project.
Tagged with: delivery • ownership • schedule • stakeholder
Filed under: Planning
Before the final signing of a contract with a supplier or contractor, review their status to make sure they are still capable of delivering as originally discussed.
They may have tendered or quoted a long time ago and things may have changed (such as their workload, delivery schedules, material costs etc).
Even if you are still within the validity of the quote, they may have now booked a lot more work and may struggle to meet your expected delivery schedule. Suppliers or contractors may have said they can meet the price, but often the delivery time will slip. So check if they are still capable.
Tagged with: delivery schedule • price • status • supplier • workload
Filed under: Contractors • Cost • Procurement
If a specification is older than 5 years, it is probably outdated or inaccurate.
If you are reusing specifications from old projects or tenders, make sure you check that the information in them is still current.
Sometimes a client will send you a specification that is from their files from previous projects. It can often be outdated information and needs to be checked that it matches the current standard or expectation.
For example, the electrical wiring might be specified to be a certain colour, yet new standards call for different colours. If you are supplying those specifications to a contractor, you would be responsible for specifying the correct colour; otherwise the contractor may install the wrong colour and ask for a variation to rectify it.
Tagged with: specification
Filed under: Client • Documentation
Find out why a project was started.
Some reasons could be different to just business as usual, and these may affect the priority on time, cost, or quality
Tagged with: demonstration • improvement • new market • priority • profit
A project manager should back off from the technical side of a project. Leave that for the people in those positions.
Don’t interfere in the process (methodology) that people use to deliver work.
You should manage the outputs or outcomes of the work, and what order they are done in, not how it is done.
Tagged with: manage • methodology • outcomes • outputs • process • technical
Filed under: Human Resources • Planning
When reading a large specification, to avoid inducing sleep, scan it by key words.
If possible, when given a specification by a client, get the it in electronic form. This allows faster scanning and you can easily come back to important parts by a quick search function
If you have it electronically, use the find command to search it by one word to focus on one area at a time.
For example, search for pipes to find all the mentions of pipes areas of specification (colour, size, joints, type, etc).
Tagged with: pipes • scan • specification
Filed under: Contract • Documentation
Spend a few moments to consider where your project fits in with the business.
Tiny extra costs may not be worth the time or effort to try to reduce. You might spend more money trying to reduce them than the savings in doing so.
Prioritise tasks in terms of your project and also for your organisation. You might have something important for your project to do, but if doing so will delay many other projects even more, maybe you should alter that item to benefit the big picture.
Tagged with: big picture • prioritise • tasks
Even if there is nothing to report to the client, report regularly to a schedule.
This gives the client a current report for their internal systems and means they are not left wondering how the project is going.
It also gives them greater confidence in your abilities and your organisations processes.
Tagged with: processes • report
Filed under: Client • Communication
This blog copyright ©
My Project Management Lessons 
Powered by Flexibility Theme for WordPress