Circles of Project Management

Quick reference

• 00:05 Hi, I'm Ray Sheen.
• 00:06 I'd like to talk with you now about the circles of project management.
• 00:10 These are layers of project management effort that are applied by both
• 00:14 the project manager and the core team.
• 00:16 I have identified four different layers of project management,
• 00:20 that I describe as circles of project management.
• 00:24 On most projects, you will not need to conduct all four in a robust manner, but
• 00:28 you will need to do at least two or three.
• 00:31 The first level is a high level project plan,
• 00:34 this is drawn as a circle with an opening.
• 00:37 It's almost impossible to have a perfect project plan,
• 00:40 we represent the imperfection with the gap in the circle.
• 00:43 The harder you work at creating a complete high-level plan, the smaller the gap.
• 00:48 Understanding your organization's culture and
• 00:50 your project management methodology will help to fill in the circle.
• 00:54 However, if you rush into a project with no plan, your circle is full of holes.
• 00:59 The next layer of project management, or circle, is the detailed project plan.
• 01:03 We often find we need to add details in order to communicate expectations and
• 01:08 to align tasks and resources.
• 01:10 Many times, the project is managed in a phased approach and
• 01:13 the details are developed one phase at a time.
• 01:16 To create a detailed project plan, we often need to work with subject matter
• 01:20 experts and the core team as we make many assumptions.
• 01:23 Even then, we normally miss something, and there is a gap in this circle.
• 01:28 The more assumptions we make, the more likely there are to be gaps when some of
• 01:31 those assumptions turn out to be wrong.
• 01:33 Not creating a detailed plan, but
• 01:35 just relying on people to do the right thing 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.
• 01:46 There are also some uncontrollable factors.
• 01:49 A robust project management methodology will quickly find and
• 01:52 respond to both positive and negative risks.
• 01:55 Without a good risk management circle, risks can quietly grow while the project
• 01:59 manager and core team are distracted elsewhere and then overwhelm the project.
• 02:03 The better our risk management practice the smaller the gaps in the risk
• 02:07 management circle.
• 02:08 Even if you've done everything else well,
• 02:10 there's still the tendency in many projects to go down the wrong path.
• 02:14 Projects must be actively controlled to ensure they stay focused on the goal.
• 02:19 So, the fourth layer or circle of project management, is project control.
• 02:23 The tighter the control, the fewer the gaps in this circle, but
• 02:26 this is also the most expensive circle for resolving issues.
• 02:30 You're correcting problems,
• 02:31 not preventing them, which bring us to the point of why we drew these circles.
• 02:35 In your project, problems occur.
• 02:37 The better we do at project management in each of these circles the more likely we
• 02:41 are to catch the problem with the ability to fix it and
• 02:44 still achieve the project goals.
• 02:46 And you can imagine that the circles are porous or even worse missing,
• 02:50 the ability to find and fix problems is limited.
• 02:54 Now, some of you may be saying to yourself, well, we never do
• 02:57 detailed plans, or our risk management process is really poor, we still do okay.
• 03:03 If you're doing at least two of the circles really well, you'll probably find
• 03:06 and fix most problems and stay on track to achieve the project goal.
• 03:11 But of course, even when we've done a great job, sometimes all those gaps line
• 03:15 up and then the project fails to achieve one of it's goals.
• 03:19 There is always a risk, but don't think I am advocating doing
• 03:23 all four layers of project management in a robust manner on every project.
• 03:27 Each layer takes work, it consumes project time and resources.
• 03:32 So you need to be wise about where you will spend your effort.
• 03:35 I will say that I believe a prudent project manager
• 03:38 will do at least two layers well.
• 03:40 And if you have a large complex high risk project you better do all four.
• 03:44 So, which circles are best?
• 03:46 Well, that depends upon your organization, your team, and your project.
• 03:49 Let's look at the strengths and weaknesses of each.
• 03:53 First, let's take a look at the high-level project plan circle.
• 03:56 The strengths of this layer of project management are that it's quick, and
• 03:59 it provides a big picture view of the project for the team and management.
• 04:03 The weakness is the lack of detail and
• 04:05 understanding the interactions between departments and tasks or activities.
• 04:10 They are not seen in the big picture, but
• 04:12 they are often the source of many of our risks and problems.
• 04:15 Next is the detailed project plan.
• 04:17 This layer of project management provides a complete understanding
• 04:20 of the intended activities and the resources.
• 04:23 It proactively plans for
• 04:24 each of the various items that must occur on the project.
• 04:27 The weaknesses are that many aspects of risk and
• 04:30 uncertainty are difficult to precisely plan.
• 04:33 Therefore, the plan either has gaps or assumes a condition that may not occur.
• 04:38 Resources are then spent on the wrong thing until we understand the problem and
• 04:42 then often we must undo and redo project activity.
• 04:46 In addition, this portion of the plan takes a lot of work.
• 04:49 There are many tools today to help with this, but
• 04:52 there's still many detailed decisions that must be made.
• 04:56 The third circle or layer of project management is risk management,
• 04:59 the strength of this circle is that you focus on the key issues.
• 05:02 You proactively address the ones you anticipate, and
• 05:05 quickly react to the ones that you did not anticipate.
• 05:08 The weaknesses are that you will often change the plan as you react to risks,
• 05:13 which leads to confusion.
• 05:15 Plus some other organization will feel that you're spending too much
• 05:17 time firefighting,
• 05:18 and that with better planning you would not be susceptible to risks.
• 05:23 The final circle or a project management layer is project control.
• 05:26 The strength of this is that we only deal with real problems.
• 05:30 We wait for the problems to happen and
• 05:31 then we take decisive actions to control them.
• 05:34 This approach relies on frequent status checks to detect
• 05:37 problems as soon as possible.
• 05:39 For the project team members, this may feel like micromanagement
• 05:43 as they are being constantly checked to find issues.
• 05:45 Also, to control something, you have to know what you should do.
• 05:49 So this also requires either a good high level plan or preferably a detailed plan.
• 05:54 Without a plan,
• 05:55 you can't control because you don't know how much progress you should have made.
• 06:00 Now, which level of project management effort you wanna focus on would depend
• 06:04 on the culture of the organization, your own personal preference, and
• 06:07 the characteristics of the project.
• 06:10 As I've said, on a large complex project, you'll need to do all four.
• 06:17 Now, on a smaller simpler projects you can probably get by with just doing
• 06:20 two or three.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.