Project Management Methodology

A broad overview of the Ten Step Project Management Methodology.

1. Plan and define the Work.
   A critical point on which the success of the project hinges. Understand and gain agreement on project objectives, deliverables, scope, risk, cost, approach, etc. Determine if the original business case is still valid. Make sure the needed resources are available when required. Determine a method for measuring progress. Determine the processes for management.
    
2. Build the Work Plan.
   The work plan is a vital tool to ensure that the project team knows what they need to do. If there is discomfort at creating the work plan this is usually because the project has not been well defined (step 1). How can a decent work plan be built if the Project Manager is not really sure of what the project will deliver?
    
3. Manage the Work Plan.
   Now the work plan must be managed to ensure that it represents the current status of the project. Just as important, the work plan should always give a good representation of how much work is remaining.
    
4. Manage Issues.
   Most projects of any size have to deal with issues. They cannot be ignored and they cannot be deferred to some later time. Issues must be resolved quickly and effectively.
    
5. Manage Scope.
   When the project was defined, certain expectations were set as to what the project was going to produce for an agreed upon cost and within an agreed upon timeframe. Scope change management ensures that the initial agreements are met, and that any changes to the expectations are agreed to by the project team and those same stakeholders, with the cost, effort and duration modified to reflect this additional work.
    
6. Manage Communication.
   Properly communicating on a project is a critical success factor for managing the expectations of the customer and the stakeholders. If these people are not kept well informed of the project progress there is a much greater chance of problems and difficulties due to differing levels of expectations.
    
7. Manage Risk.
   Successful projects try to resolve potential problems before they occur. This is the art of risk management. Risk management is a proactive process that is invoked to attempt to eliminate potential problems before they occur, and therefore increase the likelihood of success on the project.
    
8. Manage Documentation.
   The larger a project is, the more difficult it becomes to smoothly share information between all the team members and stakeholders. If the Project Manager does not think about these processes ahead of time, the project will end up experiencing problems finding relevant information, frustration dealing with inconsistent format of deliverables and spending extra effort re-doing work that was already completed.
    
9. Manage Quality.
   The purpose of the quality management step is to first understand the expectations of the customer in terms of quality, and then put a proactive plan and process in place to meet those expectations.
    
10. Manage Metrics.
    Refers to collecting metrics to determine how well the deliverables satisfy the customer's expectations, and how well the internal project delivery processes are working. Depending on the results, corrective action or process improvement activities can be undertaken to make the processes more efficient and effective.

More information on the Ten Step Methodology is available from www.tenstep.com

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