Circles of Project Management

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hi, I'm Ray Sheen, and
• 00:05 I'd like to talk with you today about the circles of project management.
• 00:10 These are layers of project management effort by a project manager and
• 00:13 the core team.
• 00:14 I've identified four layers of project management that I describe as the circles
• 00:19 of project management.
• 00:20 On most projects, you will not need to conduct all four in a robust manner,
• 00:25 but you will need to do at least two or three.
• 00:28 The first level is the high level project plan.
• 00:31 This is drawn as a circle with an opening.
• 00:33 It's almost impossible to have a perfect project plan.
• 00:36 We represent the imperfection with the gap and the circle.
• 00:40 The harder you work to create a complete high level plan, the smaller that gap.
• 00:45 Understanding your organization's culture and
• 00:47 your project management methodology will help you to fill in the circle.
• 00:51 However, if you rush into the project with no plan, your circle is full of holes.
• 00:56 The next layer of project management or circle is the detailed project plan.
• 01:00 We often find that we need to add details in order to communicate expectation and
• 01:05 to align tasks and resources.
• 01:07 Many times, the project is managed in a phased or adaptive approach, and
• 01:12 that details are developed one phase at a time.
• 01:15 To create a detailed project plan, we often need to work
• 01:18 with subject matter experts and the core team as we make many assumptions.
• 01:22 Even then, we normally miss something and there is a gap in this circle.
• 01:26 The more assumptions we make, the more likely there are to be gaps when some of
• 01:31 these assumptions turn out to be wrong.
• 01:33 Not creating a detailed plan, but
• 01:35 just relying on people to do the right things leaves this circle full of holes.
• 01:40 The third layer or circle of project management is risk management.
• 01:43 As I said, we have assumptions embedded within the project.
• 01:47 There are also some uncontrollable factors.
• 01:49 A robust project risk management methodology will quickly find and
• 01:53 respond to both positive and negative risks.
• 01:56 Without a good risk management circle, risks can quickly grow while the project
• 02:01 manager and the core team are distracted elsewhere and then overwhelm the project.
• 02:05 The better our risk management practices,
• 02:08 the smaller the gaps in the risk management circle.
• 02:11 Even if we've done everything else well,
• 02:14 there's still the tendency of many projects to go down the wrong path.
• 02:18 Projects must be actively controlled to ensure that they will stay focused on
• 02:22 the goal.
• 02:23 So the fourth layer or circle of project management is project control.
• 02:27 The tighter the control, the fewer the gaps in the circle.
• 02:31 But this is also the most expensive circle for
• 02:33 resolving issues because now you're correcting problems, not preventing them.
• 02:38 Which brings us to the point which is why we draw these circles.
• 02:42 In every project, problems occur.
• 02:44 The better we do at project management in each of these circles,
• 02:48 the more likely we are to catch that problem with the ability to fix it and
• 02:52 still achieve the project goals.
• 02:53 And you can imagine that if the circles are porous or even worse, missing,
• 02:58 the ability to find and fix the problems is limited.
• 03:02 Now, some of you may be saying to yourself,
• 03:05 we never do detailed plans and we do okay.
• 03:08 If you are doing at least two of the circles really well, you will probably
• 03:12 find and fix almost every problem and stay on track to achieve the project goals.
• 03:18 But of course, even when we've done a great job, sometimes all of those gaps
• 03:22 line up and then the project fails to achieve one of its goals.
• 03:26 There is always a risk, but don't think that I'm advocating doing all four
• 03:30 layers of project management in a robust manner on every project.
• 03:34 Each layer takes work.
• 03:36 It consumes project time and resources, so
• 03:39 you need to be wise about where you will spend your effort.
• 03:42 I will say that I believe a prudent project manager will do at least two
• 03:46 layers well.
• 03:47 And if you have a large complex project, you probably need to do all four.
• 03:52 So, which circles are best?
• 03:54 That depends upon your organization, your methodology, your team, and your project.
• 03:59 Let's look at the strengths and weaknesses of each.
• 04:02 First, let's take a look at the high level project planning circle.
• 04:06 The strengths of this layer of project management are that it's quick and
• 04:10 provides a big picture view of the project for the team and management.
• 04:13 The weakness is the lack of detail and
• 04:15 understanding the interactions between the departments and tasks or activities.
• 04:20 These are not seen in the big picture, but
• 04:22 they're often the source of many of our risks and problems.
• 04:26 Concurrent projects often rely on this approach and
• 04:30 then trust the core team to work out the details.
• 04:33 Next is the detailed project plan.
• 04:35 This layer of project management provides a complete understanding of the intended
• 04:39 activities and resources.
• 04:41 It proactively plans for
• 04:42 each of the various items that must occur on the project.
• 04:46 The weaknesses are that any aspects of risk and
• 04:49 uncertainty are difficult to precisely plan.
• 04:52 Therefore, the plant either has gaps or it assumes a condition that may not occur.
• 04:58 Resources are then spent on the wrong thing until we understand the problem and
• 05:02 then often must undo and redo the project activities.
• 05:06 In addition, this circle of detailed planning takes a lot of work.
• 05:10 There are tools today to help with that, but
• 05:13 there's still many detailed decisions that must be made.
• 05:16 This is the primary management focus of the traditional or
• 05:20 sequential project management approach.
• 05:22 The third circle or layer of project management is risk management.
• 05:26 The strength of this circle is that you focus in on key issues.
• 05:30 You proactively address the ones that you anticipate and
• 05:33 quickly react to the ones that you did not anticipate.
• 05:37 The weaknesses are that you will often change the plan as you react to risks,
• 05:42 which can lead to confusion.
• 05:44 Plus some in the organization may feel you're spending too
• 05:47 much time firefighting, and
• 05:48 there was better planning there would not be as many risks to deal with.
• 05:52 Each of the methodologies benefits from doing this circle well.
• 05:57 The final circle of project management is the project control.
• 06:00 The strength of this is that we only deal with real problems, not hypothetical ones.
• 06:06 We wait for problems to happen and we take decisive action to control them.
• 06:10 This approach relies on frequent status checks to detect problems as soon as
• 06:15 possible.
• 06:15 For the project team members, this may feel like micromanagement as they're being
• 06:20 constantly checked to find issues.
• 06:22 Also, to control something you need to know what it should be doing.
• 06:26 Which means that this requires either a good high level plan or a detailed plan.
• 06:31 Without a plan,
• 06:32 you can't control because you don't know how much progress should have been made.
• 06:36 The adaptive project has found a way to optimize the use of this layer with
• 06:41 the daily scrum meetings providing that close control and rapid response.
• 06:46 Now, which layers of project management effort or circles that you want to focus
• 06:50 on will depend on upon the culture of the organization,
• 06:53 your own personal preferences, and the characteristics of the project.
• 06:57 Again, these be understood at this time of project origination so
• 07:02 that you can be prepared to plan the project accordingly.
• 07:05 Well, as I said, on a large complex project you probably need to do all four.
• 07:11 But on smaller simpler projects, well, only two or
• 07:14 three circles will probably be enough.

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