How to Manage Large Projects

Would you like to manage large projects?

The most difficult thing about managing a large project is juggling the set of deliverables, timeframes, staff, suppliers, equipment, materials, contractors and customers. It can be an extremely challenging task. To make things easier for you, we've described here:

How to Manage Large Projects

So what is a large project? It's usually one that:

• Involves a large financial expenditure
• Takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years
• Has a big project team in different locations
• Involves the creation of large quantities of deliverables
• Requires external suppliers and contractors.

Large projects typically have higher risk and are harder to control than small projects, as they involve large quantities of people, time, money and resources. So they have a lot more to lose when things go wrong!

Each of these processes are described below:

1. Manage Time

Delivering "on schedule" is usually the hardest challenge for a large project, due to the sheer amount of work involved. You need a clear time management process to record time spent by staff, log it in a timesheet register and update the project plan with current progress.

This process allows you to track progress and control delivery against the original target date set. All staff should complete timesheets and hand them to the project administrator weekly.

2. Minimize Cost

To minimize the cost of the project, a cost management process should be implemented. This involves recording all expenses in an expense register and regularly updating the project plan and financial plan schedules with the status of the project budget.

Only by gaining an up-to-date view of the total project spend, can you control expenditure and minimize costs.

3. Control Quality

The quality management process is used to conduct quality assurance reviews to check that the deliverables produced by the project meet the quality targets set.

A set of quality control measures are put in place, to monitor and control the quality of each deliverable produced.

4. Reduce Change

Using a change management process, the Project Manager can identify any requests for change and review their potential effect on the project.

Large projects all too frequently suffer from scope creep, whereby changes are implemented without approval. This causes delays and budget over-runs. The change process will prevent this occurring, by monitoring and controlling all changes and implementing a formal process for their approval.

5. Mitigate Risks

Large projects usually encounter a larger amount of risk, so the key to success is in identifying these risks early and mitigating them before they impact on the project. Using a risk management process, you can identify and mitigate project risks early.

Low and medium priority risks will be addressed by the Project Manager, however high priority risks will be raised at Project Board meetings to be addressed.

6. Resolve Issues

Complex and technical projects usually encounter a high number of issues, as the project deliverables may be unique in nature. The trick is to resolve them as early as possible. Implement an issue management process, to enable staff to raise issues and have them resolved by the Project Manager in a timely manner.

7. Manage Procurement

If you're obtaining goods and services from external suppliers, then you will need some form of procurement management process. This process will explain how you want to procure items, through the issuing and fulfillment of Purchase Orders.

It will also explain how you intend to manage the performance of your suppliers, by conducting supplier reviews at each contractual milestone.

8. Get Acceptance

It's not enough to produce top quality deliverables, you have to gain acceptance from your customer that each deliverable meets their requirements. This is called the acceptance management process.

As you finish each deliverable, get your customer to sign it off as being 100% complete. It will help you manage the project and get permission to perform project closure when you're ready.

9. Perform Communications

On larger projects, it's crucial that you keep stakeholders properly informed. By implementing a communications management process, you can distribute formal communication messages, to ensure that you deliver the right content to the right people at the right time.

10. Complete Phase Reviews

And lastly, to manage large projects, you need to implement phase reviews at the end of each major project phase. Each review allows your team to determine that they have met their objectives for the current phase and can therefore progress to the next phase in the project life cycle.

For large projects, these processes help Project Managers to monitor and control their projects effectively, increasing their likelihood of achieving success.

How to Manage Small Projects

Do you often manage small projects?

If you do, then you will know that the way you manage small projects is different from managing larger more complex projects. To help you make this distinction and improve your success in managing smaller projects, we've described in this newsletter...

How to Manage Small Projects

So what is a "small project" vs. a "large project"? It's fair to say that small projects have:

	A lower project budget
	Very short delivery timescales
	Less people and more limited resources
	Lower risk and fewer project issues
	More clearly defined deliverables

However small projects are not necessarily easier to manage than large projects! They may still be complex and involve a range of departments, resources, suppliers and customers to complete them.

So to boost your chances of success, we have set out here, the Project Life Cycle for managing small projects:

Step 1: Create a Terms of Reference

For small projects, the first step to take is usually the creation of a Term of Reference. This document describes the project vision, scope, objectives, deliverables, timeframes and known risks for the project.

You need to get all of the project stakeholders to agree to this document, so that you gain a crystal clear view of what the project is to achieve. Without formal approval, projects suffer scope creep, lack of change control, poor sponsorship and communication problems.

Step 2: Appoint the Project Team

Thanks to your Terms of Reference, everyone agrees what it is that has to be achieved. You're now ready to appoint your team. For small projects, you will usually need to gain the support of senior management, to allocate resource to your project, from within the business.

You will probably have a very limited budget for appointing external suppliers, consultants and contractors. But if they are required, you will need to formalize supplier contracts at this point.

Regardless of the project role appointed, make sure you create a clear Job Description first, so that staff know exactly what's expected of them.

Step 3: Set up the Project Office

Even small projects need the support of a project office who help with project reporting, risk / issue / change resolution, training and administration. For small projects, you will need the services of your project office to make sure that your project conforms with internal standards and processes, and to get project support when you need it.

Step 4: Create a Project Plan

The Project plan is more than just a schedule of events. It describes the entire Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the project by defining all of the phases, activities and tasks required to deliver it. It also sets out the project scope, milestones, effort, deliverables, resources and dependencies in detail.

For smaller projects, your project plan will become your "single view of progress for the project." By updating it immediately after your weekly project status meetings, you can ensure that you remain on track.

Step 5: Create a Quality Plan

With a clear view of the project plan, you now need to work out how you're going to ensure that you will meet the requirements of your customer will help you do this by defining your quality targets, complete Quality Assurance reviews and Quality Control.

Step 6: Create a Communications Plan

The final step in the planning process is to set out a plan for keeping stakeholders properly informed of the progress of the project.

Using the Communications Plan can define the communication needs of all stakeholders. You can then build a schedule of communications events so that you inform the right people with the right information at the right time.

Step 7: Build the Deliverables

Of course the largest amount of time allocated in your Project Plan, will be spent building the physical deliverables for your customer. Whether it's creating new products, deploying new services or re-engineering processes, make sure that you use a Deliverables Register to record the progress of your deliverables towards completion.

Step 8: Monitor and Control

While your team are building the project deliverables, your job is to monitor and control the critical elements of the project. This includes:

• Time Management
• Cost Management
• Quality Management
• Change Management
• Risk Management
  
• Issue Management

Step 9: Close the Project

Once all of the deliverables are complete, your job is nearly finished. At this point, you need to close the project by completing any outstanding items, filing project documentation, releasing suppliers, terminating contracts, re-allocating resources and communicating closure to the project stakeholders.

Step 10: Review Completion

Even for small projects, it's necessary to review it's completion. By completing a Post Implementation Review you can gain an independent assessment of the level of success of the project, the areas for improvement and any lessons learned.

And that's it! By following these 10 steps, you'll boost your chances of delivering your projects on time and under budget.