Gantt Critical Path
aka “The Magic Schedule”
An important part of planning a project is to develop a model of the sequence of tasks needed to accomplish the desired outcome. For simple projects with few tasks it would be sensible to make a checklist. The order of tasks would be straight forward assuming that each task must occur before the next one begins. Frequently, larger projects have some tasks that can be performed in parallel with other tasks. When this happens, a critical path is created that defines the fastest possible route from start to finish. In other words, some tasks must occur in a certain sequence and others may shift in time and not affect the project end date. Making use of this sequence is known as the Critical Path Method or CPM. For more complicated projects there might be more than one critical path. The typical method to document and view the tasks and the resulting critical paths is through use of a Gantt Chart. This can be developed by hand using paper and pen. The current best in class tool for building a Gantt Chart is with your computer and specific software such as Microsoft Project, Clarizen, Wrike, and others.
Project Management – What is it?
The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines it as “Project Management, then, is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements”.
It has also been defined slightly differently to “Actively manage risks to achieve the desired project or program outcomes”.
This is easily said and hard to do.
A team with expertise in the following functional areas (in no particular order) would be a good place to start. They are Product Development, Safety, Finance, Engineering, Accounting, Purchasing, Supply Chain, Legal, Manufacturing, Compliance, Operations, Marketing, Sales, Quality, Customer Interaction, and Project Management. This list may be different depending on the industry and maturity of a specific firm.
An experienced project manager has a working knowledge of all of these areas and can help your team achieve their project and risk mitigation goals.
We Know What to Do!
It is not uncommon today to find teams designing and prototyping the “product” well before the Marketing and/or Product Manager provide a written specification. The team is experienced and has developed products before, so it is not surprising to hear them say “we know what to do!”. So, how will you know if all the time and effort to be invested will deliver the desired outcome? It is useful to imagine what success would look like when the project is finished. Easily said, but not easy to do. The hard work begins with market research, technical feasibility studies, production capability and capacity reviews, financial analysis, and organizational readiness measurements. As each of these areas are explored they become integrated and develop dependencies. At some point the goodness of the requirements are sufficient to initiate a project to implement the vision. This sufficiency is sometimes called Critical to Quality (CTQ) metrics. An exception to all of this occurs when a customer (think automotive OE like BMW) provides a complete set of specifications and your job then becomes “can we do this profitably?”. In all cases, it has been proven over and over again that insufficient requirements usually doom a project. Take the time to create clear requirements and the probability of success increases dramatically. Let your project manager organize this very important planning element.
Budget – Can’t I Just Guess?
A budget usually comes from one of four places. A guess, a similar project from the past, a number (not to exceed) provided by the management team, or one created by the project team as part of the overall planning activity. For small projects with a short time frame a budget estimate borrowed from a similar project may be perfectly adequate and reasonable. Sometimes the organization dictates the amount which may or may not be sufficient to execute the necessary work. However, this technique is often used to force the project team to be creative and efficient. It may also force the team to take on more risk that needs to be managed. The preferred manner to determine the budget is to plan the work, expenses, and capital funding needed to achieve the project goals. The team will need to challenge itself as the plan is developed to minimize the projected costs while balancing risks, deadlines, and financial hurdles such as payback and internal rate of return. This method is also the most accurate because the estimates are created by the team that will do the work. Buy-in of the budget is also achieved in this manner. The person best suited to lead the project budget effort is an experienced project manager.
Obeya – It Works!!!
Think about your recent experiences driving a car. As you drive, you scan various the areas of the dashboard. You have information for the engine, air pressure in the tires, fuel quantity, cabin temperature, velocity, mobile phone status, and perhaps a GPS system. A similar visual information system for your project is called an Obeya Room and is a place for project teams to communicate, share, and make decisions quickly. Most do not have any tables or chairs to facilitate stand-up meetings which tend to be shorter, more focused, and more frequent. It is a dedicated space for the project and has walls for posting documents and charts. Typical paper charts include schedule milestones, issues, risks, project financials, product costs, material status, market research, product testing results, management reports, etc. Each set of charts is owned by one of the project team members who represents a function of the organization. At Obeya meetings each member speaks to their progress, status, issues, and problems. The team learns from each other and helps each other to solve problems and make decisions quickly. Most often, the charts are updated during the meeting using pens and post-it note paper. The project manager is usually the person that guides the meeting. This style of project management works very well for one site project teams. Future Obeya rooms will use large smart screens to replace paper and to involve team members in other locations.
Project Meetings – Not a Waste of Time!
Unfortunately, most meetings are not very productive and affect your project’s health and ability to achieve its mission. Some symptoms of ineffective meetings that tend to be common across all departments include; attendees arrive late or not at all, the reason for the meeting is not clear, people leave the meeting frustrated, and some or many of the attendees are distracted and clearly disengaged. There are several things that must be done pro-actively to make these meetings more productive. The place to start is with a clear and specific agenda of the meeting’s goal, the desired outcome, and ground rules, all built into the meeting invitation. This will be true even for repeating status meetings. Next, with the plan for the meeting set, invite the people that need to be there. The challenge is to keep the numbers as low as possible while including only the meeting stakeholders. The meeting leader needs to start and end on time and hold to the agenda to establish respect for everyone’s most precious resource, time. If the meeting goals are achieved sooner, adjourn it early. And finally, the decisions, actions, and open issues are documented for follow-up for no surprises.
Project Planning – More Than a PowerPoint Slide!
The importance of planning comes from a former President, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was quoted as saying “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” This concise statement illustrates two important points that are always true. First, planning provides those charged with implementation to craft a descriptive path to the project’s goal. This path is built on fact, assumptions, estimates, risks, costs, guesses, and unknowns not accounted for. The exercise of creating a plan serves the project team well to engage them and secure buy-in. However, once the plan is set, people problems, technical problems, scope creep, and a myriad of other forces will cause deviations to some or all of the elements of the plan. This means the plan is now wrong and will not help the team reach the goal as expected. Therefore a regular review of the plan is necessary to make adjustments and corrections to keep the team on track towards its goal. A plan is a dynamic tool and should change to adapt to events as they occur or are anticipated, yet respect the end goal and critical constraints.