Delivering IT Projects

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Creating Focus

Posted by Cathryn in : Project Management , trackback

Aside from the fundamental tools and techniques of Project Management, such as planning and controlling, one of the most important aspects of the project manager’s role is to create focus for the project within the organisation.

This is especially true if projects are less formally set up in a company, or if the company does not have a strong project management culture. Sometimes, it can feel like I’m standing in the middle of a room full of people with non-project jobs, shouting ‘look at me, look at my project’.

I do this in any number of ways. A little bit of branding helps - a clear, concise name, a logo of some sort, perhaps a slogan. This is used on all project documentation, including informal notes and memos. My email signature describes me as the PM of the project. Intranet sites are useful if kept up to date and easy to find, as are short regular update emails and getting myself invited to team meetings to tell people about the project. Danny MacNicol at Team Animation did a very good presentation to the Project Management Institute on this subject a few months ago and his website has more detail.

A Project Picture is an invaluable tool to keep the project in people’s minds. It is a visual representation of the project created by me, at a level that is easily understood by the stakeholders, team members and others who come to my desk. It might be a simplified network diagram, a block diagram representing software or a new process, or whatever is appropriate to use as a tool to quickly explain the project. I try to keep a copy in a plastic cover with me all the time.
The real effort is in constantly doing whatever I can to bring the project to the attention of the people who I need to help deliver it. It is very important to have an understanding of key benefits of the project for the people you’re dealing with - and they may not be the obvious benefits listed in the business case. Reducing workload can be quite threatening for some, and they need to be given arguements to understand that reducing monotonous work can allow more time to do the job well, or do the things they should do but never have time for.

That means being the squeaky wheel, sometimes making myself a bit of a pest as I remind people of things that are due, issues that need solving and work that is coming up. Creating focus on the project should be a constant part of the work of every effective project manager.

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