Huri Larner

“You wouldn’t fail to plan your wedding, so why you are failing to plan your smaller projects.” Matthew Larner

A project plan is a formal document that outlines the project activities in detail. It should include what needs to be done, when, and also who will take the actions to deliver the project outputs. Indeed, we need our customers’ inputs and milestones to be able to create a successful and accurate project plan. So, we need to communicate clearly with our customers from the beginning of the project to make sure we are on the same page. Also, we should develop a good relationship with our customers, which leads to successful project launches and new future programs.

As a program manager, we are responsible for creating the project plan with our team. Once we identify our activities, critical paths, and their duration, we need to share our proposal with our customers. The critical point is that our plan should be realistic. We cannot afford to overcommit to our customers, and also, we should not expand our activities to be on the safe side.

In my programs, my customers always provide their key milestones, and it is my job to plan my activities within their deadlines. Sometimes, we have enough time to deliver our products. Occasionally, we may need to negotiate with our customers for an additional duration, or we need to tailor our plan to be able to meet their deadlines. At least we need to show them why we need more time for our activities.

Once we outline our plan, we need to have progress meetings to ensure our internal team members are working on their actions. Also, we need to have periodic meetings with our customers to get their feedback about our progress. There will always be issues, problems, delays; that is the reason each project has a program manager. As a program manager, it is our job to solve the problems, coordinate the activities, and monitor our project plan. The important point is that we need to know when and what to share with our management and customers. If the issues we are facing could impact our deliverable, this needs to be communicated earlier, not at the last minute. Not only will it help us to gain our customer’s trust, but it will also give us more credit for being transparent. As we do, our customers have their management, to whom they report the program process. So, if we share bad news with them very late in the program, it may hurt their credibility to their management and also may harm our relationship with them.

Overall, for the successful project, we need to create accurate planning and we also need our customer’s agreement. We also need to periodically inform them of our progress. With each new program, we will improve our planning skills. As Benjamin Franklin says, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

The project management profession offers a wide range of job opportunities. The question is, what are the requirements to become a Project Manager ? We can gain some of the qualifications by taking project management training, courses, or a certification. However, most of the time, project managers still need to have a bachelor’s degree to manage their responsibilities in their sector. For example, I’m working as an Automotive Program Manager, and my job requires technical knowledge, automotive experience, an engineering degree, and PMP (Project Management Professional) certification. Besides these skills, I continuously learn the specific product and customer requirements related to my current job, and also, I still work on my project management skills.

Sector knowledge and program management skills are equally important. Some of the vital program management skills are; defining the project, planning it from start to end, mapping out a timeline, executing and monitoring each phase, communicating with stakeholders, and solving any issues that may arise throughout the project. You see, knowing our process and product are critical when we define, execute, and monitor our programs. On the other hand, to be able to lead a team, we need to have good organization, communication, conflict management, leadership, and problem-solving skills. These skills may seem very basic, but they are critical to have a successful program.

The good news is that most of the program management skills are transferable to other jobs, companies, even different sectors. Taking PM training is not only helpful for program managers but also helps other professions. The value of this training and selecting program management as a career is that the knowledge you gained can help you to do your job better and also give you a chance to try other opportunities as well. I have a colleague who used to work as an IT program manager. He has been with our company and applying his program management skills to a new industry. He sometimes blends his IT knowledge of his work. We can even use our knowledge for our personal life see it’s benefits.

Overall, there are many values of project management as a career. It offers many job opportunities from different sectors. Regardless of the industry, we work for, we use similar program management tools and steps.

Generally speaking, each project has five phases, and each step is critical to complete a project on time, within budget, and of course, with the required products. However, one phase needs more attention than others. It is our first phase, ‘Project Initiation.’ In this phase, we identify our project. Needless to say, if our project definition is not specific and clear enough, each stakeholder can have a different understanding and expectations. For this reason, when we have a new program, the first step we take is to create a project definition and review the timing and cost. Then, we have a high-level agreement with our customers and other critical stakeholders. Some call this agreement a project charter; some call it a business case or a project initiation document (PID). Regardless of how we name it, there are certain details each document must include for a successful project launch. I will explain step by step what we should consider in our project definition and why.

The first step is having a clear understanding of the customer’s expectations. We should be aware of the customer specifications, acronyms, and requirements. Our project definition should not allow any assumption or ambiguity. Once we agree about the end product, we need to document it. Also, it should be signed by customers and critical stakeholders, because this will be our baseline if we have any conflict or scope change. We can go back to it anytime and clarify any possible confusion. Unquestionably, a precise and clear project definition is a must for a successful project.

What’s more, it will help us to stay on track and deliver our products, on time, within the expected cost and required quality criteria. In the project management world, we call it cost, quality, and time triangle or the “Scope Triangle.” When the scope starts to creep, in other words, when we have additional requests or changes, we may end up compromising on delivery time, cost, or quality. So, each change request also should be agreed and documented with the customers and stakeholders.

The second step is knowing when our customer needs specific deliverables. So, we should be aware of customer milestones and events. Based on customer milestones, we can create our internal schedule. I plan my timing with MS Project; in this way, I can see which activities can be done in parallel with others, or which actions must be completed before the others start. Another benefit of using MS Project is that you can add sources to your Gantt chart. Also, it always helps me to add some buffers in my internal timings because when launching a new project, there can be delayed. If you do not have a buffer, you may have a delay in your customer deliverables.

The third step is having a project team, which is dedicated to working for your projects. Sometimes it is really hard to draw a line under the activities and responsibilities. So, from the beginning of the project, if you define which activity belongs to who, this can prevent confusion. In my current job, I’m pretty lucky because I have dedicated team members for my projects. However, I wasn’t always lucky. Indeed, in my first project management job, I had team members who never wanted to support my programs. Whenever I asked them to do something, they acted as if they were doing me a favor. Because we never had a clear definition of our job responsibilities. It caused so much frustration for all of us. In my five years of working life there, we never had a clear understanding of who was supposed to do what. If you have similar issues, I would highly recommend you use a project management tool called RASIC, which stands for responsible, approve, support, inform, and consult. This matrix can help you to define relationships between the activities and resources. It also shows clear responsibilities for each resource. I wish I knew about it in my early career; it could have helped me a lot.

The last step is having periodic meetings with the customers and internal team members. Meetings are A lifesaver for me, which can avoid pages of e-mails and conflicts. I hold weekly meetings and include all of my key team members. During the meetings, we review our timelines, customer milestones, and customer expectations. Also, we discuss project activities and make sure everyone is getting enough support to complete their actions. Each meeting is a reminder for everyone of what we are trying to achieve.

To sum it up, projects already have their own challenge. Besides these challenges, if a project definition is broad and not clear, we would feel lost. As long as we have a clear project definition, we can find our way quickly, and also all other project phases will get easier. I hope, moving forward, we will all focus on the project initiation phase more. This will help us and our team members to enjoy our work and achieve successful project implementations.