How are you doing against your New Year’s Resolutions so far? Have you joined a gym? Started taking your own lunches to work? Said no to a trip to the pub? No, neither have I. But we’re at the start of 2011 and there is plenty of time to yet to organise some new habits for the year. Let’s make this a great year for project management and make some resolutions!
1. I resolve to manage risks actively
Risk management is more than just a list of risks on a spreadsheet. Risks need to be actively managed. They get more likely, or less likely, or risk having more of an impact, or less of one. If you don’t keep on top of them, you’ll get hit hard when a risk materialises. If you don’t know enough about risk management to feel confident doing this, check out my book, Project Management in the Real World (use the discount code PMRW31111 to get 15% off until the end of January) which has several chapters on risk management, or get a more in depth guide like David Hillson’s book Managing Risk in Projects.
2. I resolve to keep in touch with project stakeholders
I talk to the project team all the time, but they do most of the talking to project stakeholders outside our immediate circle. That’s not a problem, but I’d like stakeholders to know who I am too, and what I do on the project. If that sounds like you too, make a plan this year to get out and meet all the stakeholders. It’s an opportunity to share the project vision, and it’s useful to learn how they think the project is going.
3. I resolve to bother with quality
When was the last time you looked at your quality plans? I don’t even want to confess to the state of mine. Not everyone will agree with me, but I believe that quality plans aren’t required for every project. Quality is an attitude, and writing a few pages about what quality means to us on this project doesn’t equal quality deliverables. Quality should be something we manage instinctively as part of the deliverables for a project task. We shouldn’t need a document to tell us to do our jobs properly and deliver a good quality, fit-for-purpose outcome. Even so, we need to maintain that attitude and approach everything with a quality ‘hat’ on. My hat slipped a bit at the end of last year. That won’t happen again.
4. I resolve to update my plan more regularly for the benefit of others.
My project plans are often – whisper it – quite a bit out of date. Progress is in my head, not ticked off against the schedule, and every so often I’ll update everything in one go. If I was struck down with flu and unable to come into work, someone would pick up the plan and wonder how I was getting away with delivering that far behind our target dates. However you plan, MS Project, Seavus Project Planner or another tool – vow to keep it up to date with task completion, delays, resources and milestones so that everyone knows what is going on.
5. I resolve to be a project leader
You don’t have to be in a position of leadership to lead, as Thomas Juli explains in his book Leadership Principles for Project Success. Leading is more about bringing people along with you, and you can do that even if you aren’t at the top of the hierarchy by ensuring everyone understands the project vision and is empowered to be able to do their jobs to the best of their ability. And if you are in a position where you are leading the project, then make sure you are leading – not just managing. Project leadership is going to be a hot topic this year.