This truth can be challenging and sometimes a little overwhelming. Brilliant Project Management, which remains at the top PM Best Sellers in Amazon UK, is a valuable resource, especially coming from veteran project managers and consultants who shared their priceless experience. The book tells not only of the good things that happened worth emulating, but also of the bad that occurred worth avoiding at all cost.
It serves as a map of sorts, so that the reader, although just by himself or herself, can still have a smoother professional journey. Experience alone is not sufficient, according to the authors, and doing personal research and getting good advice along the way will prove helpful.
The principles, processes, and practices mentioned in Brilliant Project Management are discussed here in detail.
It is the reference for the serious project professional who seeks expertise in the field, including preparations for PM certification. Authors Stephen Barker and Rob Cole are UK-based project managers who also offer project and programme management consultancy services.
Barker has over 15 years of PM consultancy experience, with clients ranging from small tech startups to large government departments. Cole has more than 20 years of PM consultancy experience, specializing in project troubleshooting.
Together in Barker and Cole Consultancy, they offer project rescue, standard and tailored consultancy, as well as training and mentoring services.
Jose is a subject matter expert and member of the writing team for Project-Management. He has written hundreds of articles including project management software reviews, books reviews, training site reviews, and general articles related to the project management industry.
Project Management Training. Google Certification: Project Management. How to Get a Project Management Internship. How to Run a Project Management Internship. So increasing risk scores, and issues hanging around on the logs indefinitely, should be a cause for concern and further investigation. With a little extra thought and attention, these risks and issues could have been nipped in the bud.
A brilliant project manager avoids being a victim of chance and circumstance. Your risks and issues should be clear, succinct and above all else specific to your project. Make sure you can see the wood for the trees. Concentrate your efforts on the biggest risks and issues, not the ones that are easiest to deal with.
Use your log to give your project a regular health check. The term comes loaded with connotations of goldplated solutions, unrealistic customer expectations and misdirected effort. Project managers understandably respond to the pressure to deliver on time and somewhere close to budget. Quality can often end up as the poor relation to these two very obvious measures of success. However, once the project team has packed up and an organisation has to live with the fruit of its labours, what usually matters most?
For the majority of projects, we believe that the quality of delivery is by far the most important dimension. Good job! No doubt considerable time and expense were then expended putting things right. This kind of experience illustrates why compromising on quality is usually counterproductive. Far from being an unnecessary overhead, chasing quality will keep you on track to hand over a solution that delivers lasting customer satisfaction.
You know quality is an irritating point of detail when. What does quality mean? The term quality means many things to many people. However, for a project we apply a more pragmatic definition: meeting expectations and requirements. Plumbing in the hotel industry provides us with a neat way of illustrating this slant on quality! Say we have the job of supplying taps to one of the finest hotels in the world, which is seeking to attract customers who are used to the finest things in life.
The specification for the taps would include practical things like the ability to turn on and off, and long-term reliability. Being a very upmarket hotel, gold plating or some other sign of opulence would also be essential.
The ability to turn on and off, and reliability, would still be relevant requirements — but the requirement for any luxurious embellishment would be an expensive frivolity. In fact, by our definition, both over-engineered and under-engineered solutions are poor quality. Ultimately this requires a good understanding of what the customer needs, not just what the customer wants.
We know from experience that it can be difficult to reach agreement as to what fit-for-purpose really means. Getting a clear and reliable definition of what constitutes fit-forpurpose on your project is crucial for its success. We therefore want to take a closer look at exactly what we mean by fit-for-purpose in the project context.
Much hinges on reaching a reasonable agreement with your customer about the essence of what is needed. This needs to be more than just a simple list and should be a rich description of all of the important features.
Your role is to help your customers to sort out the genuinely mandatory the musthaves from the really important and nice-to-haves. A useful technique for steering your customers through this discussion is to introduce some kind of prioritisation.
You can then let your customers list everything, even the bells and whistles, as long as they attach their rating of how essential each item is. The next step is to work with them to agree which are absolutely essential for the project to meet its objectives. The resulting mandatory requirements equip you with a minimum fit-for-purpose baseline. Fit-for-purpose baseline top tips I Ensure the people who agree the quality baseline are also involved in the project sign-off.
Agree the relative priority of optional add-ons. Help your customers to understand the cost of items that are of marginal benefit. Anything included in the fit-for-purpose baseline is non-negotiable.
If time or cost pressures become acute, some treats will have to be dropped. This distorts the definition of what fit-for-purpose means, and increases costs and timescales. It also removes scope for manoeuvre if times get tough, because too many treats are seen as non-discretionary. Other times, the reasons are more calculated. Different perspectives from the top and bottom. I Taking a negotiating position. Therefore they craftily overstate their requirements, so they can be negotiated back to where they wanted to be in the first place.
Facilitate a meaningful discussion on this and try to tease out the facts. Accept that the interpretation of quality inevitably involves some degree of subjectivity. She started at the top and worked her way down. And the third, and so on, until all the requirements were universally rated as essential and non-negotiable. The customer was delighted with the requirements prioritisation exercise.
So how do you go about doing this? So, quality measures must focus on project outputs. These include both the final deliverables and any intermediate ones that are required along the way. The most basic question is whether all of the planned deliverables have been produced.
A great way to do this is to use quality criteria. We recommend you phrase your quality criteria as succinct and specific questions.
That way, the people who are working on your project will know how their efforts will be assessed. This in turn increases the probability that what they turn out will be fit-forpurpose. For example, you might want quality criteria to check the ease of maintenance once the project team has been disbanded.
Bizarrely many projects never have enough time to get things right first time, but always find enough time to do it all over again. As a general rule, we recommend you arrange three quality reviews during the production of any important deliverable: I I I Before anyone even starts work. Get the key players together to review the specification of the deliverable and the quality criteria that will be used to assess its fitness for purpose.
Far better to have a hand-wringing session before work starts, than trying to rectify a major misunderstanding once work is well under way. At the earliest point during construction when the first sensible measure of quality can be taken. This is an ideal opportunity not only to check that things are heading in the right direction but also to clear up any outstanding issues in connection with the deliverable specification or its quality criteria.
As development of a deliverable is completed or is nearing completion. A final checkpoint that will, hopefully, reveal only minor deviations from specification. If the deliverable passes its quality review, work can proceed as planned.
One tip is to arrange for quality reviews to be built into the flow of work. There are usually several points in a project where deliverables are handed over like the baton in a relay race. At each of these handover points we recommend the deliverable is verified as fit-for-purpose by whoever is on the receiving end of the delivery. One project team introduced metrics into its quality control process and started rating each delivery to track quality trends.
All went well for a time. The metrics provided a useful tool for spotting problems early. Then suddenly the metrics indicated a sharp and unexpected decline in one area. After investigation by the project manager, it transpired that a few individuals were using the marking system to settle personal vendettas. They were routinely marking deliveries from certain of their colleagues harshly — no matter how good the quality of the work. Quality reviews are like knives: useful devices but dangerous weapons in the wrong hands.
The value of a review is directly proportional to the effort put in and gentle cajoling will pay dividends. Implementing a degree of formality to reviewing deliverables, particularly documents, is a good way of encouraging thorough reviews.
The key is to ask for a sign-off as this creates a different mindset for the reviewer. Interaction will help flush out any issues and put maximum pressure on each reviewer to perform an active review.
The people producing the deliverables must always be involved in the review process to ensure everyone understands the outcome. All points raised during a review must be acted on or there must be a solid reason why not. However this is one occasion where we like to see a degree of pedantic criticism e. It tells you that the reviewers have been paying attention! In fact, within some organisations or industries external reviews are a mandatory requirement. A fresh pair of eyes on a project is always a welcome addition.
Even if no formal assurance team is available, you could always ask another experienced individual you respect to provide an informal review of your project. Sometimes formal assurance points will be predetermined. The litmus test for any assurance point is to think about where the effort is most likely to be outweighed by the cost of not undertaking the review. Are any assurance points mandated within the organisation or industry? If not, are there any industry best practices for assurance that provide a useful pointer?
Are there any points where the consequences of having to backtrack, now or at a later date, would be serious? Points where funds are committed. Are there any scheduled payments or other financial commitments? What checks should be made before funds are committed? Natural break points. Most projects consist of a number of distinct phases.
Are any of these break points a useful place to take an assurance review? As with internal reviews, the value of any external quality assurance review depends on the skills and experience of the reviewers involved.
Unfortunately many organisations seem to have a policy of using quality assurance departments as a retirement home for individuals whom they believe have outlived their usefulness anywhere else.
Nevertheless a positive attitude to working with an assurance team can pay dividends. Shortcomings in quality are not always as obvious and can lurk beneath the surface. Often they emerge only when the final delivery is rejected by the customer, having been labelled as substandard.
Your customers will judge your project by whether what it delivers is fit-for-purpose. Brilliant project managers know the cost of failing to meet customer expectations. Brilliant project managers also realise that their long-term reputation stands or falls on what they deliver. Define what fit-for-purpose means in specific and measurable terms. Be prepared to accept that your customers have the final word on the difference between what they want and what they really need.
Build quality reviews into your daily routine. Check your deliverables are fit-for-purpose at every step along the way. Never let time and cost pressures compromise your minimum fit-for-purpose baseline. What is surprising though is the somewhat defeatist attitude some organisations take towards project costs and timescales.
Perhaps because projects consistently overrun, some customers attempt damage limitation by insisting on starting with the lowest number possible, however optimistic. This is in the forlorn hope that they can use this opening gambit to constrain the final outcome.
Even within organisations that seem to take a lenient view of missed deadlines or blown budgets, brilliant project managers prefer to take a rigorous approach to resource management. They find this makes life easier because projects that are in good shape are easier to manage.
Conversely, they know that spiralling costs and receding completion dates would undermine general confidence in their ability to deliver. Soon it becomes clear how time consuming and ultimately frustrating it is to constantly replan.
Eventually it becomes tempting to give up any semblance of management and let the project deliver itself. Which, of course, is a recipe for disaster! This includes understanding lead times, identifying bottlenecks and arranging for resources to be in the right place at the right time.
Resource planning is an integral part of your overall project planning. A brilliant project manager will also have a good feel for how reliable these estimates are. This gets people thinking.
An average of the two numbers is a reasonable starting point for your estimate. Estimating accuracy Estimates produced in the early days of projects are prone to be inaccurate. So if you need tight, reliable estimates, you also need clearly defined and agreed requirements. At this point, a word of caution is needed. Customers have a habit of seizing on ballpark figures and then immediately treating them as fixed-cost commitments. Or similarly, only the lower end of a range of costs sticks in their minds.
A brilliant project manager must hammer home any assumptions and caveats. Having been burned when a minimum—maximum range is quoted, we favour budgeting on the basis of the upper end of the estimate.
The minus option never materialises. For some projects, sophisticated estimating tools will be available. For others, gut feel and prior experience will play more of a role. In particular, organisations often have standard resource categories that a project manager needs to follow.
Your estimators will find it easier to provide meaningful resource estimates if they are presented with bite-sized pieces of work to consider. Try to relate these units of work to specific project deliverables. Aggregate the estimates for the various pieces of work, to provide an overall resource projection. Highlight any key assumptions that have been used. Check your figures by finding at least one other way of arriving at resource estimates for your project.
You could also get an independent review from another project manager. Keep an eye out for the following. Top estimating tripwires I I I I I I Bowing to pressure to replace carefully estimated figures with more palatable numbers provided by someone senior.
Thinking that estimates inherited from someone else are rigorously researched and carefully calculated. Taking estimates provided by project team members at face value. Not factoring in excessive caution or optimism — or perhaps simple inexperience. Missing out chunks of work completely or not understanding all the steps required to complete a task.
Estimating the effort required from highly skilled people, when a mixed-ability team is actually going to do the work. The best you can hope for is to set one or two of these in concrete. For example, you could fix the costs and timescales but vary what you deliver to fit within those constraints. Alternatively, you could fix the deliverables and vary the time and cost. Contingency is usually built into individual work packages or added en bloc to one or more general pots.
Understanding how much is already built into individual, detailed estimates is part of deciding how much additional contingency you should allow for the project as a whole.
Work package contingency The first kind of contingency is about ensuring realism regarding the amount of effort required to complete each individual piece of work. This kind of contingency gives you a more realistic resource estimate for completing your project, on the basis that each individual work package within the overall project proceeds broadly to plan. Pots of contingency More general contingency is added to deal with significant events that could impact on your project.
For example, an unfortunate misunderstanding about scope might be uncovered. This contingency is usually placed in a central pot, but it can be held in other ways such as by resource type or project stage. Your contingency will often be challenged by your customers or whoever is paid to worry about the costs. If cutbacks are proposed, you need to be prepared to explain why the contingency is needed and what the implications would be if it is taken away. You should review your contingency as the project progresses.
As a healthy project unfolds, contingency levels should go down. Use your contingency wisely When a task is handed out it must be accompanied by an estimate. Overall, you can expect the use of contingency to even out over time.
They should be used for managing significant adverse events — but not for outright catastrophes. For example, if you discover your customer is expecting a fully carpeted house for the price quoted, you could meet the additional costs out of your general contingency funds.
A resource schedule describes how much of each resource you intend to use over time. You can think of it as a table with a row for each resource type and a column for each week or month of your project.
Each table cell will record how much resource you plan to use for that resource type, in that week or month. Each row also provides a picture of how a type of resource gets used over time. Most planning tools will help you to generate the resource schedule. In particular, project managers know that resourcing constraints will have an important influence on timelines.
A difficult balancing act In preparing a resource schedule there are trade-offs to be made between resources and timescales. Typically, constraining resources is likely to lengthen timescales and vice versa. You may need to discuss some of the options with your customers. Make sure you get beyond the idea that they want your project to be both cheap and quick! Book early to avoid disappointment A brilliant project manager is always forward thinking to ensure resources are on hand when needed.
This involves making an early booking and reconfirming availability nearer to the planned start date. Be ready to work around these problems, but avoid the temptation to reassign work to whoever happens to be available. Always keep a close eye on resources that are in high demand compared with their availability. This might be an expert with a particular set of valuable skills or some equipment that has limited capacity.
You might have to base at least part of your resource schedule around the availability of these resources. Even when you book ahead you may run into resource bottlenecks. Lead times and ramp-up It can be easy to overlook the time it takes to get resources on board and fully effective. However, these two things have undone many resource schedules. Lead time is the time that it takes to get a resource on board.
Ramp-up is the time it takes for a resource to be fully effective. Lead times might range from a couple of days for recruiting an internal team member to weeks for an external consultant or even months for a new product to be procured by a government department. The most common example is the need to induct a new team member, but ramp-up time also extends to things like equipment commissioning, software installation and office facility set-up.
Be careful not to underestimate this effort — it can be considerable. This is because resources rarely operate at their full capacity. Be sure that you understand how much effective time you can really expect from your team members. However keen you are on sweating your resources, there are things a brilliant project manager must factor into a realistic resource plan: I I Official and unofficial public holidays.
Booked leave or unplanned leave. Include a pro-rata allowance each week or month if firm dates are not available. Make a realistic allowance to cover sick leave and training. Admin and other overheads.
Nearly all jobs entail a degree of nonproject-related admin and non-productive tasks. Not just because you ought to know how much your project has cost, but to help you to refine your resource plan going forward. Your actual against planned resource usage should feature as a standard item in your progress reports. An interesting point to note is that spending less than forecast is not necessarily a good sign.
Completion is everything A brilliant project manager keeps a close eye on what the resources used to date have actually achieved. But completion is everything. People tend to be over-optimistic about what it takes to finish off the last pieces of outstanding work, which are usually the most problematic. Measuring outstanding work A useful technique for providing a warning of extra work is to ask your team to report on the outstanding cost to complete.
At the end of the week, you ask for a progress update and are told: I three days were spent working on the task; I there are eight days of outstanding work remaining. These metrics are a valuable source of information about project progress. First, they tell you whether resources are being used according to plan. Your customers will certainly attach great importance to keeping within budget. For your own benefit, sound resource management leads to a far more productive and less frustrating day at the office.
The final ingredient is using completion as a true measure for tracking progress. Estimates are the bedrock of resource management. Contingency is your lifeline — retain control over it and use it wisely. Book your resources well in advance and confirm your reservation before the start date. Make sure your expectations of productivity are realistic. Even the best workers go on holiday and occasionally pause for a chat with their colleagues.
Be sceptical about reports of progress. Demand to see the finished goods! A large part of the role involves building effective working relationships with a whole range of people — and sometimes in challenging circumstances.
A mantra for us is: project managers manage people not activities. Autocratic, dictatorial, kick-up-the-backside project managers have lived by this philosophy for many years. For some, this has brought considerable success. But success built on trepidation is short-lived and rarely repeatable.
For us, the litmus test for project managers is whether or not they can repeat success. Whether or not they can repeatedly build effective teams — sometimes using personnel regarded as average performers.
For this to happen, you must develop a reputation based on respect — respect for your knowledge of the job and how you carry out your role. You also need to possess at least a core set of likeable characteristics! A cynical employee we came across was not a big fan of project managers, yet was heard purring with delight about a new recruit.
What was the secret to this unparalleled turnaround? The new sheriff in town brought doughnuts to the weekly team meetings! Small tokens can make a big impression. Start with a smile Quite often teams have low expectations where the behaviour of their managers is concerned. Therefore simple displays of good manners are a fine start.
Providing leadership — setting direction and building a loyal following. Some of the following might sound familiar: I I I Budget constraints preventing much-needed recruiting. Or conversely a generous budget fuelling unrealistic expectations of a fast rampup. Projects being used as a dumping ground. Selfish managers who monopolise the best staff. They hold onto the star performers even when their skills and experience are desperately needed elsewhere. All this is invariably against a backdrop of an acute sense of urgency to get a team up and running.
Avoid the temptation to recruit indiscriminately or to think anybody is better than nobody. Your recruitment activity should be driven by your resource schedule and your expected lead times. In the very early stages of a project it can be tempting to put off recruitment activity. So give serious consideration to clearing the decks for team recruitment — even if this means some short-term pain.
Take an objective and constructive look at the staff on offer. Be wary of second-hand assessments of personnel on offer. Form your own views on their capabilities and the extent to which they meet your requirements. Remember that many so-called under-achievers flourish in a project environment when given the right direction and support.
Think about the mix of people that will work well together. Look for a productive mix of people with bright ideas, people who are good starters and finishers, and people who can keep slogging away even when things look bleak.
Look for a positive attitude. So, if you have to make a choice, favour attitude over skills. Invariably a disproportionate amount of time is wasted trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. If in doubt say no. Remember the practical things that make a person effective. Things like a desk, a chair, tools for the job, a security pass and computer user accounts. This course of action tends to be counterproductive. The considerable drain on current team members as they bring the new people up-to-speed is also often overlooked.
The net effect is that recruitment of additional resource can actually result in a reduced team capability for several weeks, as the new team members are found and absorbed. A project would usually be better off focusing its resource on completing the job at hand as efficiently as possible, rather than being distracted by an eleventhhour recruitment drive.
A project was falling behind and resources were severely stretched. As deadlines approached, the project manager released two under-performing staff and things improved. Later on, another team member was let go and the project eventually went in on time and under budget.
Recruiting is not the only way to improve average performance. Motivating your team A friend of ours once conducted an unusual survey. In fact you may well have seen this effect on a project, with a fast-approaching deadline being the classic example.
Suddenly the whole team seems to step up through several gears and all sorts of things that have been trundling along miraculously get finished. The trick is to achieve something near this level on a consistent basis, not just in response to a project crisis. As a brilliant project manager, you should make increased team productivity a primary target.
A manager can single-handedly scupper any chance of an improved work rate and this sometimes happens. Top five tips for demotivating 1 Be inconsistent for no apparent reason. Like being cheerful and easy-going one day, grumpy and vindictive the next. Even better, when something goes badly, find a culprit immediately. Then avoid doing these things like the plague!
Motivation is about being prepared to put effort into doing something specific. This extends beyond simply being told the minimum your project manager thinks you need to know. Is the workload across the team consistent with its capacity and is it properly balanced? Both of these are a killer for motivation.
So is having one part of the team sitting idle while others are working day and night. Are team members appropriately involved in decision making in the project? If individuals feel that they can influence events they are far more likely to pull their weight. You might find this out in general conversation, by observing them in action or simply through a bit of trial and error.
Basking in the glory of having got something of importance done. Seeing something completed. Gaining satisfaction from having seen something through to the bitter end.
Enjoying a challenge. Having the satisfaction of achieving something that you or others regard as difficult or demanding. Career progression. Undertaking something that furthers your longerterm career interests, even if the immediate task at hand is not that attractive in itself.
Peer pressure. Feeling the need to meet the expectations of your colleagues. Intellectual reward. Enjoying the mental stimulation of a task that requires some thought or imagination. For example, giving someone a pay rise can be a good short-term motivator, but rarely has a positive effect in the long term. People soon get used to a certain salary level and the bonus becomes a norm. Set targets that are challenging yet achievable. Most people respond to a challenge. For example, not just preparing the materials for a key presentation, but having a practical role in the event itself.
Find small but enjoyable rewards for staff. Organise informal social events. A project manager sets the tone for the project. If you have a gloomy outlook from the start your pessimism will be contagious and it will trigger a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Contrast this with a brilliant project manager who believes the project is tough but doable if everyone pulls together as a team. So above all else, set an example by being enthusiastic and highly motivated yourself.
More importantly, does the project manager know? A solid plan is the foundation for effective leadership, but much more is required to inspire your team. A brilliant project manager needs to work in a way that creates confidence and brings out the best in individuals. You can learn and develop much of this behaviour and here are important areas for you to focus on: I I I I I Setting an example. Through the way that you behave you should set standards that you want others to follow.
Never giving up. Being honest but tactful. Acting even-handedly. Treat everyone equally and fairly, even if you have your favourites. Being persuasive. You need to get your facts straight, to put together a solid line of reasoning and to be convincing. Remember that the way you deliver your argument can be as important as the argument itself.
Dictatorship or democracy? There are many different styles of leadership ranging from the autocratic to the consultative. Similarly, if you feel you must call the shots without much room for debate, a more consultative style of working is not for you. However, brilliant project managers are able to adapt their management style to suit their projects. A valuable asset is being able to recognise the situations in which you need to adjust your leadership style. People rise to the challenge better when they feel involved.
A brilliant one knows when to go against the popular view. Being totally driven by the team can be as counterproductive as not listening to it at all. Hands-on or hands-free? They believe it will be quicker to do the jobs themselves and they will be done better too. It can be very hard for a new project manager to let go.
Encourage wild ideas 3. Record all ideas 4. Encourage to build on other people's ideas 5. Continue until ran out of steam Promote learning culture: 1. Lead by example by admitting your mistakes 2. Voice the importance of learning from mistakes 3. Highlight positive lessons learned 4. Connect with team members informally to learn from them Set up the learning cadence to make sure you learn through the project Critical success factors: 1.
Develop project planning skills 2. Focus on people 3. Always learn Focus on solution, involve team members, focus on Client, find win-win solution, get most out of your people, always evolve, lead by example To develop as a manager: 1. Work on stretch projects 2. Identify your skills gaps 3. Find coach 4. Good for beginners This is a great introduction to project management for beginners and the book includes multiple resources for additional learning. The authors are candid in the provided examples about the differences between theory and practice.
Curto e direto ao ponto. Mar 17, Srikanth rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Project managers, tech leads, executives. Shelves: leadership. Its a very concise book having all relevant information for project management. I am sure, this will come as handy for all project management activities either by managers, leads, executives..
Neatly organized. Hope you too like very much!! Enjoy reading.. Feb 07, Tim rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Project Managers.
An extremely worthwhile book for anyone who is involved in Project Management. Full of tips, tricks and useful advice I will carry it around with me and review it often to keep my knowledge and focus on getting results. Excellent overview of Project Management. Mar 14, Tiffany Williams rated it really liked it.
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