The Efficient Project Manager

 Twelve good practices to succeed project

The Efficient Project Manager definitive guide ISBN: 9782212542486 Eyrolles (click to see the book)

Market Project managers, as well as a wider audience of decision-makers.

Content :The Efficient Project Manager

Summary

The success of a project mainly depends on the way it's being run, adapted and defended. Far beyong methodology, the efficient project manager takes up a true state of mind by putting himself in a quality process and by using his natural commom sens. This little guide combines all the necessary conditions to master the art of the subtle symbiosis among men, technologies and issues :

• 8 real field stories
• 12 key success factors,
• 21 detailed recommendations,
• A comprehensive methodology

A chronicle about performance, complex projects, decision-making or not and about decision help shown in a rather wide dimension : real-life experience, fundamental thoughts, concepts into practice, technology, new tools and methods in action.

Author

As a projects manager, expert or consultant, Alain Fernandez lived on the inside through the evolution of the enterprise projects during the last 20 years in France and in Europe. During his career, he trained many projects managers and taught in DESS. Nowadays he is an international consultant. He also wrote several books.

Summary

INTRODUCTION

DRIVING A PROJECT : AN ENTERPRISE APPROACH

Complex projects don't unfold in a certain world and are by definition a center of unexpected events. It's time to reform the notion of quality and to adopt an enterprise approach according to four main actions axis.

• AXIS 1 : MONITORING THE PROJECT ORGANISATION, that's not only scheduling
  Organizing isn't limited to defining the schedule phase. Organizing, that's also building the reference frame which determines, in perfect understanding with all the project actors, the performance and value reference system.
  • 1st key factor : Building a value reference system : a preliminary to any project
    What's the reason why so many projects, once completed, prove to be so little in accordance with expectations? It is important to reexamine the ROI calculation and adopt an approach based on value analysis to build a genuine consensual value reference system
  • 2nd key factor : Surpassing the mechanistic and determinist approach during the schedule phase to favor adaptability.
    What's the reason why, in spite of all the care brought to schedules elaboration, projects never unfold as planned?
    It is sensible to moderate one's confidence in expectations and give more attention to one's ability to react.
  • Nine measures to a better monitoring of the project organisation
• AXIS 2 : STIMULATING EXTENDED COLLABORATION, that's not coordinating.
  At the beginning of the project, the manager doesn't hold all the cards and therefore isn't able to dictate, word for word, respective tasks. Only approaches stimulating the collaboration of all the actors are liable to lead to success.

• 3rd key factor : Replacing the coordination of tasks by the synchronization of roles
  Still-in use classical principles of division of tasks aren't enough for the complexity of current projects. It's time to allow the specialist actors in charge of the fulfillment a wider latitude of action.
• 4th key factor : Giving up truly the traditional and authoritarian mode of operation
  Managers still hesitate in giving up the classical and directive mode of management which yet isn't apropriate to the driving of complex projects, doesn't allow optimal resolution of problems and isn't in line with the new organisations of teams.
• 5th key factor : Adopting principles of team management which favor internal and external cooperation.
  Team work isn't innate. A poorly built and badly managed team might actually act like a value destroyer. The management of an effective team hinges on four major phases.
• Six measures to a better stimulayion of the teams' cooperation.

AXIS 3 : DEVELOPING ANTICIPATION AID TOOLS that's not only measuring.
Measurement for measurement automatically generates repressive monitoring without contributing to the limitation of excesses. Only the installation of genuine anticipation aid tools, integrating risk and threat management, will allow to avoid wrong tracks.

• 6th key factor : Measuring performance to assist decision making and only for that reason.
  Measurement isn't an end in itself. Without a genuine ambition of driving and decision-making aid, it is useless to waste time measuring performance.
• 7th key factor : Not contenting oneself with measuring deadlines and costs without following up on issues.
  It is a tradition to pay very careful attention to the costs and deadlines measurement. This concern, although justified, is far from being enough. For not losing sight of the target, it is essential to complement these measures with a concrete issues follow-up.
• 8th key factor : Adapting a continuous-improvement approach
  Success of the project won't be attainable only by focusing on the objective to reach, but well and truly by adopting a continuous-improvement approach. Performance needs also to be measured according to the so-called "transversal" progress axis.
• 9th key factor : Anticipating failure possibilities
  If it isn't conceivable to envisage all the possible occuring situations, there is nothing to stop us from identifying and then, if the need arises, guarding against foreseeable failure possibilities. The monitoring of project risks unfolds in five major phases.
• Eight measures to build an efficient assistance to anticipation and management.

AXIS 4 : MAKING INTEGRATION EASIER that's not only implementing
Integrating isn't only implementing. Fragmented project approaches are behind the creation of new boundaries which are a guenuine rupture of continuity at the organizational, technological and cultural level.

• 10th key factor : Integrating projects in the value chain
  An entreprise project is bound to make its contribution to the value-creation process. Its integration in the global value chain will be expressed in organizational, technicological and cultural dimensions.
• 11th key factor : Maintaining an active drive of change from start to finish
  Drive of change is not just a phase of the project management. For a perfect integration, it is essential to maintain an active drive of change, from the beginning to the end, starting from the first draft of the project and maintaining effort far beyond implementation.
• 12th key factor : Integrating direct and indirect costs of the integration process in the initial budgets
  Costs of the drive of change are rarely estimated at their true value at the time of the elaboration of initial budgets. Without budget, by definition, all good resolutions go unheeded.
• Seven measures to successfully manage the integration of the new solution

CONCLUSION

Bibliography

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