9789147099658

Lilliesköld † Handbook for Small Projects

†††

Eriksson

here eryw v e rund nive e fo at u b s t n en ca izacts gnm gan i r e s j o s o nd da ll pr ul, ies a s an Sma essf pan urse m o ucc o c s c n i e n b on. ithi i.e., m to izati e n nd w h a a t g , s or for is a sitie and cts rder e e o j r o n u r ning s. I ruct all P ntai tion o e st m r c i S u or u an ook req ok f ndb e yo a v o they i h b g d ill se ject Han at w to u r pro s th The u asy t o e s i l y , e ck ure cret che ject ruct con and r pro u st s o o f e y t llow ble pla elp ossi tem to fo nd h p e a t l i b e rview be a mak ove rts. will rs to s o i s effo h n T r o . u p k o s ey wor and luat eva bers d m n e a m ess proc the This han dbo on p ok w roje ill gi ct p ve y sho l a n ning ou p uld inclu , wh ract at a ical be d de, how tips proj one ect , a a r n i mee sk a plan d ho naly ting wo s. It sis s ne c on v also hou an h erba ld old c o n l e t a a f f i n ecti ns t both dw ve ips a ritte duri nd a n pr ng t end ese dvic he p ed. n e tatio roje The ct a ns f se f nee nd a or ew d to f t pag er it kno es w has w to ill co succ ver eed all y with ou you r pro ject.

Handbook for Small Projects Mikael Eriksson Joakim Lilliesköld

Mikael Eriksson and Joakim Lilliesköld have many years of experience teaching project management at the Department of Industrial Information and Control Systems at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).

Best.nr 47-09965-8 Tryck.nr 47-09965-8

4709965 omslag.indd 1

10-06-01 07.38.33

ISBN 978-91-47-09965-8 © 2010 Mikael Eriksson, Joakim Lilliesköld och Liber AB Oiginalets titel: Handbok för mindre projekt

Redaktör: Gustaf Westerlund (original) Formgivning och omslag: Anna Hild Ombrytning: Nette Lövgren Omslagsfoto: PhotoDisc, Volume 62

Första upplagan 1 Repro: Repro 8 AB, Stockholm Tryck: Sahara Printing, Egypten 2010

Bokens hemsida: www.liber.se. Klicka på Högskola och sök sedan på bokens titel.

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Liber AB, 113 98 Stockholm tfn 08-690 92 00 www.liber.se Kundservice tfn 08-690 93 30, fax 08-690 93 01 e-post: kundservice.liber@liber.se

Preface

Small projects can be found everywhere and in many forms, such as; a university project course, a dissertation, the implementation of a new medical records system, or even an order request for a small-sized company. One thing they all have in common is that they need organization in order to deliver successfully. Many of the methods that have been written about in project literature dealing with traditional large projects are essentially obsolete when dealing with smaller projects due to the sheer size dierence of the undertaking. Much of the focus in traditional literature tends to be on planning. Although planning is crucial, there are many other aspects that must be regarded when dealing with smaller projects where fewer resources are available. Meetings must be planned and executed, the group as a whole should operate smoothly, project participants must have support, information should be available and provided both in written form and by word of mouth (to name a few). This handbook provides methods, tips and suggestions to project leaders in small projects.

The contents of this book are an accumulation of years of teaching project management and project-based courses at the Department of Industrial Information and Control Systems at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. This handbook is also based on experience from project courses we have lectured and supervised and from other personal project endeavors. A project course is a small project that involves several hundreds to several thousands of man-hours. Projects of this size tend to need more than just planning and follow-up support. Our experience is that project participants also need a concise overview of group dynamics, the handling of documents, risk-analysis, report writing, and verbal presentation proďŹ ciency in order to succeed.

This handbook is especially written for use in project courses, but is also beneďŹ cial for other types of small projects in need of structure to base their work upon.

We would like to thank all those who have contributed to this handbook.

A special thanks to our guest lecturers from the industrial world who have supported us with their valuable time and insightful knowledge. Thank you to those who have read and commented on the contents of this handbook, and to our colleagues who have contributed in different ways. Last but not least, thanks to all those we have come in contact with as we’ve journeyed through the exciting world of projects!

Stockholm, Sweden; December 6, 2004 Mikael Eriksson & Joakim Lilliesköld

Table of Contents

Introduction – What do I need to know to get started?

The Project Flow Important Concepts and Terms The Project Start – Help, I have become a project manager!

7 8 12 20

The First Project Meeting

21

Planning

23

The Project Plan

35

Project Economy

41

Risk Analysis

42

Project Execution – What do we do now?

47

Project Meeting

48

Information and Communication

52

Group Dynamics and Project Leadership

59

Project Follow-up – How can we show what we have done?

Status Report Project Closing – What did we learn?

65 66 70

Knowledge Reuse

71

Final Report

72

Written and Oral Communication

74

Report Writing

74

Report Structure

75

Linguistic Form

80

The Layout

80

Presentation Skills

81

INTRODUCTION

Introduction What do I need to know to get started?

Projects, projects, and more projects! A project can take many forms: development efforts, procurements, renewals, organizational changes, courses, to name a few. Today, a vast number of endeavors are run as projects. You might ask yourself why? Well, because in a project the work becomes measurable, or at least more measurable than it would be otherwise.

This handbook is aimed at those who are about to perform a project and need support and guidance. It is a handbook, which means it is not meant to be read from cover to cover before you can begin your project. But before you start, you should ask yourself if it really is a project you are about to initiate. Many assignments and tasks are incorrectly called projects. A project is characterized by a necessity to coordinate the different activities simultaneously performed within its scope. It is the necessity to coordinate that requires a certain level of formality in order to obtain order in the process. If there is no need to coordinate activities, then it is unnecessary to create the formal documents that are associated with projects. A simple way to find out if it is a project you are about to take on is to look at the definition of a project: A project is goal oriented. A project has activities and tasks that need to be coordinated. A project has a time constraint, with a beginning and an end. Every project is, to some extent, unique. Does this definition correspond to your task?

7

HANDBOOK FOR SMALL PROJECTS

Project definition Checklist • Is the project task k well-defined?

It is not always certain that your assignment has a well-defined goal from the start.

It can be part of your job to formulate goals that are possible to follow-up on or measure. If you did not receive a specified goal from the sponsor, there should at least be a specification that tells you what should be delivered. A specification can be anything from a course plan or a short description on a post-it note, to requirement specification documents in large A4 folders. A specification should be in written format.

• Is there a deadline? When should the work be finished?

• Is there a budget? t A budget does not necessarily have to be specified in currency. In a programming course or a master thesis project, the budget can be the amount of hours you are expected to spend to achieve the needed result and gain a certain amount of course credits.

If you cannot tick off all the points above, you should speak to the sponsor and examine whether or not it is really a project that should be performed. Otherwise, read on. This book contains suggestions on structure and tips for running smaller projects. Before you throw yourself into the project’s start, please read the rest of this chapter, which defines the general flow of a project and the terminology necessary in order to perform it.

The Project Flow All projects can be divided into four general parts or phases: pre-study, start, execution and closure. Corresponding to these phases, a number of check points are defined that need to be passed (milestones and tollgates), and some documents that need to be created, see Figure 1. Together, this structure is called a project model. More about these terms will be covered later in this chapter.

As an example of how a project runs through project flow, consider this: Two chefs are discussing ideas for the next Nobel Prize Banquet. They present their concepts in what is called an idea description, which they hand over to the Nobel Committee which

8

INTRODUCTION

Figure 1 – A general project flow

is the sponsor for the Nobel Banquet. At a meeting, the sponsor reviews the ideas and decides if any of them should be further investigated in a pre-study. If any of them advance to the pre-study phase, then one person or a small group will be assigned to examine whether or not the ideas are possible to pursue. Is it possible to upscale the ideas for a festivity like the Nobel Banquet? How many chefs will be needed? How much will it cost? How much is required in terms of raw material/provisions? How many personnel are needed to serve the dinner? Etc. When the pre-study is concluded, a summary is written in a project specification, which is then handed over to the sponsor. The sponsor reviews the result of the pre-study, and decides if it looks feasible, and if so, decides whether or not they should proceed.

Once this far, the actual project begins. What happens next is that the pre-study is redone, but this time, together with as many key persons as possible. It is important that everyone involved has a shared understanding of what the project aims to achieve. In this case, it is about the aesthetic experience; the “atmosphere” and the taste of the food they want to mediate to the guests. For the project to be a success, it is important to understand what expectations the stakeholders have so that those expectations can be fulfilled. The stakeholders being: the guests, the Nobel committee, and the TV-audience all over the world. The purpose of the start is not only to develop the goals of the proj-

9

HANDBOOK FOR SMALL PROJECTS

ect, but also to plan the execution. For instance, when should the food preparation begin in order to be delivered on time? How early should it be purchased and delivered in order to remain fresh? Who is responsible for what tasks? Etc. All of these details should be described in the project plan. Once the project plan is ready, it is given to the sponsor for approval.

During the execution phase, everything that was planned during the start phase is carried out. During this phase, it is important to collect information to make sure every thing is developing according to plan. Has the wine arrived? Has the sauce been prepared?

If something is not developing according to plan, an alternate decision must be made on how to act. Once everything is done, the result is delivered (in this case the food is served).

When the delivery has been made and the customer is satisfied (and full) the project execution phase is over. Afterwards, the project manager collects the experiences, through either e-mail, polls, or by word of mouth. Then the entire project group is gathered and discusses what went well and what could have been done better. The experiences are summarized in a final report that is given to the sponsor for approval and archiving.

After the sponsor has approved the project and read the final report, the project is considered formally ended.

One thing that is often forgotten or left out of the final report is the follow-up on how the delivered product was perceived by the customer. The reason for this is that the final report is usually written directly after delivery, which makes for tight time constraints for collecting evaluations. The project is considered over after the final report has been presented, and thus there is no formal procedure for this type of feedback.

However, this type of follow-up should not be disregarded since the product or parts of the product developed within the project are often used for many years to come. This means that it is a pertinent step the sponsor must see too.

Idea

Ideas are an integral part of project flow, see Figure 1. In fact, almost all projects begin with an idea. Once an idea is conceived, it is quickly investigated and its potential is summarized in an idea description. This document will be the foundation for the decision on whether or not the idea will proceed to the pre-study phase.

Pre-study

During the pre-study phase, the idea is further developed. The pre-study is often taken on as a separate project consisting of a start, execution, and a finish phase. The difference 10

INTRODUCTION

is that the pre-study involves only one or a few persons, and thus often considered a separate part of the project flow. A few examples of pre-studies include: a thesis, a dissertation or a larger university project, which can also be used as important background work for larger projects that a company would like to develop. The aim of the pre-study is to describe the idea’s background, its stakeholders, and environment. Further, different alternatives of the idea are discussed and a solution is recommended. The most important result from the pre-study is the evaluation of the idea’s value and its feasibility. Its purpose is to increase the understanding of the idea, why and how it should be excecuted, and what results can be gained.

Studying ideas and producing pre-studies is considerably cheaper than developing projects. That is why many pre-studies that are made never actually make it to the project phase. At this point, the conclusions that have been made are written into a specification. The phase ends with a decision to either continue with the idea and begin the project, or end it directly after the pre-study.

Start

There are numerous studies that show that the early phases of a project determine a project’s success. Thus, the start phase is at least as important as the pre-study, if not more! The focus between the pre-study and the start phase changes, from discussing the feasibility of the details, to planning exactly how they will be executed.

During the start phase, one must again go over many of the steps that were covered in the pre-study. The reason for this is that the people involved during the pre-study and the actual projects (meaning from start, and execution to completion) are not always the same.

The foundation for the start phase is the project specification and accompanying documents (work descriptions, contract agreements and so on) that were developed during the pre-study phase. It is then up to the project manager to specify the expectations and goals the project will have. This is sometimes included in the project specification, but often much effort has to be put into the “translation” of these specifications in order to get a collective view of the goals and expectations.

Execution

During the execution phase, the actual project work is carried out, which means that all the ideas and outlines created during the start phase are now put into action. How this is accomplished differs from project to project. Some projects implement the work in sequential order: not beginning a new activity until the previous one has been com11

Lilliesköld † Handbook for Small Projects

†††

Eriksson

here eryw v e rund nive e fo at u b s t n en ca izacts gnm gan i r e s j o s o nd da ll pr ul, ies a s an Sma essf pan urse m o ucc o c s c n i e n b on. ithi i.e., m to izati e n nd w h a a t g , s or for is a sitie and cts rder e e o j r o n u r ning s. I ruct all P ntai tion o e st m r c i S u or u an ook req ok f ndb e yo a v o they i h b g d ill se ject Han at w to u r pro s th The u asy t o e s i l y , e ck ure cret che ject ruct con and r pro u st s o o f e y t llow ble pla elp ossi tem to fo nd h p e a t l i b e rview be a mak ove rts. will rs to s o i s effo h n T r o . u p k o s ey wor and luat eva bers d m n e a m ess proc the This han dbo on p ok w roje ill gi ct p ve y sho l a n ning ou p uld inclu , wh ract at a ical be d de, how tips proj one ect , a a r n i mee sk a plan d ho naly ting wo s. It sis s ne c on v also hou an h erba ld old c o n l e t a a f f i n ecti ns t both dw ve ips a ritte duri nd a n pr ng t end ese dvic he p ed. n e tatio roje The ct a ns f se f nee nd a or ew d to f t pag er it kno es w has w to ill co succ ver eed all y with ou you r pro ject.

Handbook for Small Projects Mikael Eriksson Joakim Lilliesköld

Mikael Eriksson and Joakim Lilliesköld have many years of experience teaching project management at the Department of Industrial Information and Control Systems at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).

Best.nr 47-09965-8 Tryck.nr 47-09965-8

4709965 omslag.indd 1

10-06-01 07.38.33