Use a template for your work breakdown structure

Before starting on your WBS, check if your organization has a template for the WBS for similar types of projects. If no templates are available, get samples of WBS from previous projects in the organization to base yours on. While you do that, make it a template for your future projects.

Even better would be a project management system with a built in work breakdown structure building system.

Tagged with: system • template • WBS • work breakdown structure

Filed under: Documentation • Planning • Scope

As a project manager you should make sure all your team members submit claims, hours, expenses etc as soon as possible, and definitely before the end of month accounting date.

If that information comes in late the profit/margin on the project can quickly change and affect plans.

The hours must also be made to the correct project. You don’t want hours suddenly being transferred to your project from a few months ago because they were incorrectly allocated. This could make an in profit project suddenly be making a loss. If it was done correctly first time, the losses could have been seen earlier and planned or allowed for.

Tagged with: claims • expenses • loss • profit

Filed under: Documentation • Human Resources • Planning • Training

You should make sure that terminology that is ambiguous or unclear is made clear with definitions.

This can avoid mistakes and reduce the time necessary to re-design.

For example:

• “Rail Overbridge”. Is this a rail bridge that goes over something, or is it a rail with a bridge over it?
  • A Rail Overbridge is a bridge over the railway.
  • A Rail Underbridge is a bridge carrying the railway and allowing a roadway, river etc. to pass under the railway.

You may have to get clarifications of definitions from you project sponsor for organizational specific terms.

Don’t assume all your team knows the terms.

Tagged with: definitions • mistakes • terminology • terms

Filed under: Communication • Design • Documentation

Instigate and enforce a good change management system

Change management coordinators and people who have to approve changes spend a lot of time chasing signatures, putting information in to spreadsheets, and general admin duties that could be automated.

It is easy to lose track of changes, or not document them properly.

Documentation for changes often lags a long way behind the actual change occurrence.

Many companies use a collection of spreadsheets. This can be cumbersome because different copies are in different locations, people forget to fill in details. The change coordinator ends up having to fill in all details (when that person may not understand the change).

A very good system would only need the coordinator to set up the initial templates in the system and file hard copies of signatures on approvals as they are received.

Ideally want a system in which the internal instigator can log-in, tick boxes to show effects of changes, type the title and description, allocate who is responsible to enter costs and who should sign. The system should then send messages to those people to review the item fill in details (and attach supporting docs) and approve (all on the system), with printouts available for the person to print, sign, and send to coordinator to file (if required). Ideally want instigators to be able to do all with little work from coordinator except for filing hard copies.

It is even better if your system allows for electronic authorisation, eliminating the need to print and sign papers.

Often the problem with a system is that emails get sent and people don’t notice them, leading to change documentation to be overlooked. This can be avoided with a log-in system that lists what tasks are to be completed for that person.

A system should have a way of enforcing adherence. Ideally where each person who may have to authorise a change has an icon which tells them when something is waiting their authorization.

I system could be a simple database, or it could be a complete enterprise system. Having a system is the important part.

If a senior manager calls up and wants a report on all the changes on a project sorted by cost, with a good system you should be able to give it to him within a few minutes. If your change management system is just on a collection of spreadsheets, this may not be possible. Even better, a good system would allow the manager to log-in and look at the reports themselves.

Tagged with: authorisation • change management • change management system • database • reports • signatures • spreadsheets

Filed under: Communication • Design • Documentation • Planning • Time

Encourage your team (and yourself) to spend a specific time each week in tidying their desk. This should include:

• Stacking and filing piles of paper neatly.
• Putting papers into sections
  • By priority
  • By category

Possibly do this every Friday afternoon before leaving work so that desk is clean and ready for concentrated work on Monday morning. This should reduce the stress associated with not knowing what is on your desk and what needs to be done next.

If it is an enforced policy you will hopefully find everyone becomes more organised. It is important to remember that if your company is looking for people to fire (when in economic difficulty) a messy desk can make you look unorganised and unreliable.

What is your experience with work efficiency with a messy or tidy desk?

Tagged with: organised • tidy desk

Filed under: Documentation • Human Resources • Planning • Time

Consider using wiki software as an internal intranet.

Particularly for a company with no intranet yet, or for a large project.

• Is fully search-able
• All changes are recorded and stored (by user name, so you can see who made the change).
• Changed documents are backed up.
• Can allocate who has access to what.
• Is very fast if stored locally.
• Easy to use.

Tagged with: intranet • wiki

Filed under: Communication • Documentation

If you set a task for someone to update or change a document, you should clarify:

• What the purpose of the document is
• Who it is for, who will then use it or read it
• Who else will be altering it
• What is its priority over other documents (if info is different, which takes precedence?).

A person may be tasked with updating information in a spreadsheet. When they have done so, what do they do with it?

• Leave it on the server?
• Inform certain people it is altered?
• Move it to a “completed” folder?

Much of this information could be kept as a second work sheet in the spreadsheet.

Tagged with: altering documents • priority

Filed under: Communication • Documentation • Training

Get your organisation to implement an electronic authorization system.

This is where each person that must regularly sign paperwork can instead authorize documents in electronic form.

This will reduce the time taken to authorize actions (forms)

The originator could prepare an electronic form and send the link to all the people that must sign it. Those people log on, review the document, and authorize it by ticking a box. Confirmation would then be sent to the originator on which authorizations have been attached.

This will save a lot of server space, bandwidth, and ink as people would not have to print in colour, sign, scan, and email back again.

It can also reduce processing time from weeks to hours or minutes.

It should reduce the processing costs. To chase signatures can take the full time work of a person for each type of form (if done regularly). By doing electronic authorization, I would estimate 90% of the coordination time and cost could be saved (excluding the software cost).

Workflow packages are often used to implement this function.

Tagged with: authorization • forms • paperwork • signatures • workflow

Filed under: Communication • Cost • Documentation • Time

At the start of a project, take the time to make sure the documentation system is as simple and easy to use as possible.

Ideally, you shouldn’t have folders within folders within folders containing spreadsheets and documents on the computer system.

Preferable would be a well managed enterprise project management system, or at least a database system from where most things can be accessed.

Reduce time wastage by making sure files are stored as close to where they are accessed as possible. If your server is based in one city and most of the project team that accesses it is based in another, make sure you either have a very fast connection to it or have the files stored locally instead. A delay of 30 seconds to open every file can add up to hours of wasted time each week per person.

Proper complete training should be provided to all members of the project team on how to find and access files. A standard filing system should be used across all projects so people can easily start work in a project without wasting time. Standard templates should be easily available to cover most common uses, including change or variation tracking, costs changes, and anything that would commonly be used to store information.

You don’t want lots of people using their own style of spreadsheet for the same type of information. It should be standardised and known by all, yet as simple as possible.

Changes or updates to these templates should be easy yet centralised. It should not need lots of signatures and days of waiting. Anyone should be able to easily submit a change to template proposal which will be enacted as soon as possible. (This could be a difficult process to manage, it is better to get the forms right the first time).

Tagged with: database • document system • enterprise project management system • filing • folders

Filed under: Documentation • Planning • Time

Keep a record of all your achievements.

• List of projects worked on and your role in them.
• Your position description for that project (may be different to your official job description). You may be listed as a graduate engineer but because of staff shortages you could be assigned to manage a project. If that means you are listed as the project manager to clients, then certainly record that role.
• Record the length of time in each role.
• Roles you played in the project
  • Design manager
  • Site engineer
  • Site design engineer
  • Project manager etc
• Skills, knowledge, and experience you have gained. E.g.
  • Risk analysis
  • Specific machine experience
  • Commissioning of certain things
• Also record the number of people you managed and their roles.

This assists with resource allocation for future projects (tenders)
It also assists with annual performance reviews (your career)

Tagged with: achievements • performance review • roles

Filed under: Documentation • Human Resources • Training