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i business process management
Importance of tracking and progress reporting.
Tracking and Reporting Progress
Considering a two-person project team, the project manager and a staff
member, the project manager will need to stay informed of the progress
of the staff member on project activities. This can be done in several
ways, such as through a short daily e-mail detailing the work completed,
the work to be done, and a list of any issues or problems. Most of the
time, this will be sufficient.
Alternatively, a 15-minute face-to-face report can accomplish the same
thing. A combination of the two might be best, since e-mail satisfies
the requirement of documentation. Regardless, the main thing is that the
project manager should be fully aware of the staff member’s progress so
that it can be tracked effectively.
Change Management
Even with a two-person project, it’s likely that changes will occur.
Most requests for changes come from stakeholders. As a project manager,
it’s your responsibility to assess the impact of accepting these changes
into the project. You must make a good estimate of the impact the change
will have regarding the extra effort and cost involved. Changes often
impact the schedule as well. By understanding clearly how a specific
change will affect the schedule and budget, you can better decide
whether or not you will accept the change into your project plans.
A small project shouldn't need a fancy change control board to decide
whether a change is acceptable or not. A quick discussion with key
stakeholders should be enough for you to come to a decision, providing
you have worked out the impact on cost and schedule.
You should never simply accept a change, even if you think the change is
small. Before accepting a change, you should fully understand the scope
of its impact on the schedule and costs. There is something called
“scope creep,” in which the project grows bigger and bigger as more
changes are added to the project. Before you know it, your small project
has become a large project and you will inevitably fail to complete your
project in accordance with your original budget and schedule.
Risk Management
Even small projects have their risks. Make sure you think through all
the possible risks at the beginning of the project, monitor the top five
or ten risks each week, and keep on the lookout for new risks. Failing
to properly manage risks is a main cause of project failure.
Overhead on risk management is very low. You might draw up a list of ten
risks, five of which might be serious. Working out a plan to avoid or
minimize each risk might take a couple of hours. You can spend half an
hour or so each week reviewing the risks and finding any new ones. It’s
likely that upon project completion, you’ll find that some risks
actually materialized but you were able to handle them immediately
because you’d already identified a plan at the start of the project to
minimize their impact. With a little effort up front and ongoing
attention to identify and manage risks, you’ll get a big payback.
Summary
You can apply best practices to even a small project without creating
too much paperwork or overhead. Best practices consist of the actions
countless project managers have taken on thousands of projects and have
proven themselves to be of value. They are deemed to be best practices
because they help project managers achieve the best results.
Never think that just because your project is small, you can ditch best
practices. Best practices apply to projects of all sizes. If you
disregard them, you’ll regret it later when your project turns into an
unmanageable mess. With best practices, you’ll get the best results.
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