Managing a project involves managing people, deadlines, clients, budgets & deliverables at the same time. Not only does it add pressure on your organization’s resources but it also increases the risk of error.
What if a software could automate mundane tasks, improve team engagement, free up resources, send you timely reports and notifications? This will allow you to focus on more important aspects such as business strategy & customer/client satisfaction.
This is where project management tools can make a difference by revolutionizing the way you work and increasing performance and brand equity.
Project Management Software is an ocean with several options available. Which tool do you choose?
We saved you the trouble of searching! Here are the 10 best project management tools online.
“How do I choose the right project management tool??”
One size does not fit all. Just because certain software is highly rated doesn’t necessarily mean it will meet your requirements. Make sure you clearly define your goals & then select the appropriate software that has features that will help you get there.
The importance of Resource Allocation and Resource Leveling In Project Management
What Is Resource Allocation?
Resource allocation is to assign the needed resources for all construction activities in the required amount and timing.
Work performed on construction requires the utilization of labor, equipment, and materials resources. Shortages in the availability or quantity of any essential resources can affect the performance and project finish date. Therefore, the resource requirements for each activity should be evaluated before a time schedule is put into action. By allocating the labor, equipment, and materials required to perform each individual task on the time schedule, one is able to pre-plan the anticipated resource needs for each workday of the project before the time schedule is put into action.
This total resource requirement is then compared with the quantity on-hand. If the supply on-hand exceeds the requirement, then the time schedule can be worked as planned. If it is found that the demand exceeds supply, then steps need to be taken to ensure that the proper amount of resource will be on hand on the date needed. It should be noted that the Resource Allocation process only determines whether or not there is a problem when comparing resource demand and supply. It won’t state the course of action needed to correct the problem.
What is Resource Leveling?
Resource leveling is a project management technique in which the project start date and end date are adjusted based on resource constraints with the goal of balancing the demand for resources with the available supply.
When performing construction project planning activities, the project manager will attempt to schedule certain activities simultaneously. When more resources such as people or machines are needed than are available, or perhaps a specific person is needed in both activities, the activities will have to be re-scheduled in a concurrent way or even sequentially to manage the constraint.
Project resource leveling is the process of resolving these conflicts. It can be used to make a balance for the workload of primary resources over the course of the projects, usually at the expense of one of the traditional triple constraints (time, cost, scope). When using specially designed project time schedule software like Primavera P6, leveling typically means resolving conflicts of over allocations in the construction project plan by allowing the software (Primavera P6) to calculate delays and update activities automatically.
Project management software (Primavera P6 or Ms Project) leveling requires delaying activities until resources are available. In a more complex organization, resources could be allocated across multiple, concurrent construction projects thus requiring the process of resource leveling to be performed at the firm level. Resource leveling techniques are closely related critical path method calculations. For that reason, total float, activity sequences, and the network diagram logic affect the required resource quantities per time.
Resource leveling Techniques
The critical path is a common type of technique used by project managers when it comes to resource leveling. The critical path represents for both the longest and shortest time duration paths in the network diagram to finish the project. However, apart from the widely used; critical path method concept, project managers use fast-tracking and crashing if things get out of hand.
Fast tracking:
Fast tracking shortens the schedule by overlapping activities that are normally done in parallel. One way of doing this is changing the network logic by using leads and lags. For example, you can change a finish-to-start relationship to a finish-to-start with a lead.
This causes the successor activity to start before the predecessor is complete. You can also change it to a start-to-start or finish-to-finish with a lag. This performs critical path activities. This buys time. The prominent feature of this technique is that although the work is finished for the moment, the possibility of rework is higher.
Crashing:
Crashing looks for cost/schedule trade-offs. In other words, you look for
ways to shorten the schedule by applying more resources or by spending more. The intent is to get the most schedule compression for the least
amount of money. Some common ways of accomplishing this include
Bringing in more resources: Sometimes, more people working, or using
additional equipment, can speed up progress.
Be careful. Sometimes adding resources actually extends the duration because coordination, communication, and conflict actually take more time than they save!
Working overtime: Many times, you can work longer hours or work weekends. However, this is useful only for a couple of weeks. After that, people burn out and are less productive, so this is but a short-term fix.
You also have to take into consideration any union or labor regulations.
Paying to expedite deliverables: This can include overnight shipping and paying bonuses to contractors for early delivery.
You could crash some activities for the childcare center example. For example, you can bring in an extra carpenter, electrician, plumber, HVAC person, or painter and reduce the duration. You can also ask those resources to work more hours (depending on any labor union restrictions).
Bringing in more resources might even reduce the time without increasing cost because the extra resources will shorten the duration. Overtime is usually billed at time and a half, so that option may cost more.
A cause-and-effect matrix — sometimes called a C&E matrix for short — helps you discover which factors affect the outcomes of your Six Sigma initiative. It provides a way of mapping out how value is transmitted from the input factors of your system (the Xs) to the process or product outputs (the Ys). With these relationships visible and quantified, you can readily discover the most-influential factors contributing to value.
Project Management and Project Delivery seemingly harmless words; but can run businesses to the ground when gone wrong. It is not as simple as moving from one point to the other or setting a goal and distributing the activities among a set of people and arriving at it happily.
If you are one of those Project Managers who thinks things are this simple – you are lucky! Projects are complex endeavors with 100s of moving parts. Pick any project from your experiences so far and analyze. You will find elements like resources, time, budget, milestones, defined deliverables, company direction, change of stakeholders, change of stakeholder requirements, market conditions, competition, acts of nature etc. that need to be assessed and planned for.
You miss to account for one of them & if it skews in an unwanted direction your entire project runs the risk of crumbling like a house of cards. Agreed that we cannot humanely control all of these elements but definitely a few of them and mainly the critical ones – Scope, Timelines & Budget!
And the most interesting thing about these 3 elements lies in the fact that they are controlled, changed and tossed around by the same set of people – most of the times.
Existing or New Stakeholders
Change in stakeholder requirements
Business demands
Company direction etc.
Let us see how any unplanned changes to these elements impact our deliverables and their quality. The root of all troubles for any project lies in Scope changes or Scope Creep as commonly referred in a purely project management terminology.
Understanding Scope and Scope Creep
Defining and understanding Scope of a project is the most important activity in the project management life cycle. Simply, because Scope or the statement of work [SOW] is the very basis and the bible that guides your project from start to finish The “single source of truth” that pervades and resolves all conflicts! At the onset of a project, being a Project Manager you must spend a fair amount of time to understand:
The requirements
Ask more and more questions till you are sure you understand your client and stakeholders expectations.
What are the business drivers of the project
What is the fundamental need of the project
Why the project is being funded and prioritized as it is
Once you have all the above answers, you must proceed with documenting them, circulating them among the stakeholders, decision makers to ensure they understand, agree and sign-off.
A point worth noting here is the documentation is to ensure everyone involved with the project knows very clearly as
What WILL be delivered
What WILL NOT be delivered
In addition, to this allow for a few days for your clients and executives to review and request any modifications. But at the same time do assign an “offer expires by date” to add the much needed attention & focus to this binding document.
The expiry date triggers a very helpful chain reaction where all stakeholders become keen to ensure ‘their objectives’ are part of the project scope. Thereby, there is increased participation, debate and Q&A to further refine the end objective and project goals.
Do note that the increased participation also means greater stakeholder alignment which is one of the critical success factors for successful project delivery.
Having performed the above due-diligence, ensures that everyone understands the deliverables, the time, efforts and cost required to meet the overarching project goal. So far so good! You have done everything a good project manager MUST do. Now, let’s get to the devil that lies in actual practice and implementation – say hello to Scope Creep!
Scope Creep, simply put is adding new features, altering existing requirements or changing the pre-agreed project goals. They can come in at any time and disrupt your entire project strategy because they require additional resource, time and cost which were not accounted for at the beginning.
Typical scope creep comes in as minor requests or major overhaul due to a change of business strategy, market demands etc.
It is often noted that a seemingly harmless tweak is requested and this one tweak leads to another and another and before we realize we have already shifted away from what was originally intended! And suddenly, there are delays, milestones are being missed, planned costs rise, quality is impacted and customer dissatisfaction starts pouring in.
Hence, it is important to understand that no project is free of Scope Creep! They are bound to find their way in to your project. But it is also important to understand WHY?
Why do I have Scope Creep?
As stated earlier, if enough effort and focus is not devoted to base lining your scope, you have setup yourself for a definitive failure. However despite of the due diligence there are other factors that contribute to a lack of proper Scope e.g.
Lack of enough clarity or information on requirements
Unavailability of the right stakeholders
Conflicting ideas and opinions
Lack of proper and time bound feedback mechanism
Promising the moon
Bid to outdo the competition
PM with poor leadership
Understanding the impact of Scope Creep on Time and Budget
We now have a fair understanding of what is scope creep & what contributes to it. So let us rightly move to explore its impact on our project, project team and reputation of our organization.
Consider a very relevant yet hypothetical example of a new iPhone to be launched. At the onset of the year it is decided that the next iPhone would pose a larger screen with a new exterior look. We all know it’s the WWDC in September each year without fail where the products are launched.
Hence all project execution and planning is done with that date in mind. Now the project kicks-off everything goes fine and suddenly there is a buzz around removing the standard headphone jack or adding a dual sim slot!
What do you think is the impact of these 2 feature changes?
These “features” as we refer to bring with them a whole range of research, additional planning and overhauls the execution. Almost everything stops until the exterior frame is finalized.
Do not forget the manufacturer involved in making these phones. So the new plan goes like this – research and builds ability for the iPhone to host and run the 2nd sim, remove the headphone jack and replace – replace with what???
You get the drill! Think of this – the WWDC CANNOT be shifted; what all is at stake – Money, lots of it! Reputation – one that is hard to earn so easily and must be protected at all costs. So again – Money! Bound to meet the WWDC deadline so add resources, more and more resources.
Now, do note that we all are not Apple Inc. and consider what havoc a Scope Creep can cause to our bottom-line, company’s reputation and most importantly the confidence and moral of the project team. Demotivated soldiers have never won a war!
This is as seen on the surface. Just drill down a bit and imagine how a real workplace with such an activity in progress would look!
Continuous fire fighting
Conflicting interests & priorities
Overloaded and overworked resources
Rising expenses & investments
Dissatisfied Stakeholders
Demotivated & battered employees
How to protect your project from Scope Creep
With the insights shared so far it is pretty evident of what must be done to ‘prevent’ scope creep. But what about when you are already into it ?
Let us take a quick look at some best practices or guidelines followed by project teams across the globe to contain scope creeps and yet maintain a high client satisfaction and project success rate.
Invoke the Scope Baseline or SOW
The project Scope is a Project Manager’s best friend! The most diligent of PMs live by their Scope Baseline and refer to it for the slightest of activities that may indicate a deviation from what was agreed.
The healthy practice of consulting the baseline proves an effective strategy in holding off pushy clients. In other words, it also reminds them of what they signed up for and puts the extra onus on them to be judicious with their requests
Communication and Feedback
Too much communication has never proved harmful! Make sure your clients, decision makers and each individual who has a significant stake in the project and can alter its course are fed a steady stream of progress information.
Define a clear communication criteria in terms of frequency of updates, means of updates (reports, meetings) and timing of these updates.
This keeps your clients updated with actual status and helps ease any anxiety plus helps build their confidence and trust. Also, when they know they have the right platform & tools to voice their feedback or concerns they would be more vocal and mindful of the timing too to not derail steady progress.
Thus any conflicting or contentious issues can be proactively identified and addressed to prevent Scope Creep.
We all know an outright rejection or denial of a client’s request isn’t advisable. And most of the times you may not be even aware of what does a scope change request entails.
It might be a fairly simple ask and not impact the scope. The best thing to do upon receiving an unexpected request is to respond with – “Let me assess and estimate the time and cost implications of the requested change”.
You will easily ward off any client personnel who is neither serious nor committed to the project with these words – assess and estimate! On the other hand if they are serious, they would definitely like to take a look at your assessment and make an informed decision. And if they decide to move forward, you have an opportunity to generate additional revenue and invoke your change management process. Thus, we all are happy!
Built a Strong Change Control Culture
The significance of a robust Change Control process cannot be emphasized enough. You should NEVER have a contract without a Change Process clause! When the change is requested, there is a series of approvals that are triggered.
This leads to enhanced attention on the requested changes and the required focus to decide if it is needed at all. Well, it will curb scope creep is one aspect but the important thing is it leads to a good review of the original plan and assessment of
What will the impact
Are we ready to accept the impact – delays, costs etc.
Is there enough cost and time bandwidth
Lastly will it enhance or significantly support the fundamental goal of the project
Change Control culture allows you to maintain the required transparency & puts you in control!
Additionally it demonstrates your forward thinking and professionalism thereby a positive impact on your company’s reputation. Win-Win! Isn’t it?
Penalties – The Silver Bullet
Penalties are an aggressive approach deployed by the client and service providers alike to ensure both hold their end of the bargain.
With penalties baked into a contract ensures both parties are always diligent and never lose sight of the goal. Penalties trigger a competition, fierce at times where both strive to achieve the same goal.
And it goes without saying, all unwanted and impulsive requests are out of the door right away.
Why so? Because the primary reason for undertaking a project is to make money not lose it! Having said that, Penalties are a bitter pill best not enforced upon because they indicate lack of trust, obstruct innovation, impact the team’s morale & rather sets us up for unwanted conflicts And hence, they are not considered to be professional in nature.
To that effect, let us deploy the right tools as illustrated above and at our disposal to ensure that things never come this far in our projects!
