Project Management Best Practices: The 8 Keys To Bring Every Project In On Time And On Budget

How do we manage projects and customer relationships effectively? How do we understand the full scope of a customer “project”? How do we assemble the necessary resources to effectively manage a customer relationship and attendant projects? To whom do we delegate specific responsibilities, and when? These are among several questions we discuss and about which we learn as we strive to effectively manage projects and the customers whose project we are managing.

• Understand the essentials of project management
• Plan for identifying project needs
• Practice scheduling and teaming
• Create necessary plans, which will allow you to manage projects to success more effectively
• Help you to more effectively manage others’ expectations
• Keep projects on track
• Gain knowledge and skills you can apply to all project team situations
• Keep content, process, and structure on track to produce positive outcomes

INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT

• What is a project?
• What is project management?
• What skills do you need to effectively manage projects?
• Why is project management needed?
• Leading contributors to project success

IDENTIFYING NEEDS, STARTING TOWARD SOLUTIONS

• Identifying stakeholder needs and expectations
• Identifying business requirements
• Performing a systems requirements analysis
• Performing a human resources analysis
• Identifying roles and responsibilities
• Creating a scope document
• Gaining stakeholders’ consensus and approval

SCHEDULING AND TEAMING

• Planning
• Creating a work breakdown structure
• Performing risk management
• Developing effort, time, and cost estimates
• Creating a project schedule
• Creating a budget
• Creating a project team

MANAGEMENT PLANNING AND EXECUTION

• Creating a vendor management plan
• Creating a resource management plan
• Creating a communication plan
• Creating a quality management plan
• Creating a project management plan
• Execution
• Track the project and resolve issues
• Manage resources

MANAGING PROJECT SUCCESS AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SUCCESS

• Managing quality
• Managing the project team
• Managing change
• Case study
• Project closure
• Conducting a customer acceptance meeting
• Conducting a project review
• Identifying the lessons learned
• Compiling a project report

Would you like to get more (or all!) of the projects you manage in on time and on a budget? Are you concerned about people in your project teams not having enough knowledge on how to effectively manage a project? What about yourself? Would you like some help to more effectively manage your projects? Would you like to more effectively manage others’ expectations? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you should join us.

• CEO
• Senior vice president
• Vice president
• Executive director
• Managing director
• Regional vice president
• Area supervisor
• Manager

Chris DeVany is the founder and president of Pinnacle Performance Improvement Worldwide, a firm that focuses on management and organization development. Pinnacle’s clients include organizations such as Microsoft, Visa International, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Sprint, American Counseling Association, Aviva Insurance, U.S. Patent, and Trademark Office, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Hospital Corporation of America, Schlumberger, Morgan Stanley, Boston Scientific, US HealthCare and over 500 other organizations in 22 countries.

He has published numerous articles in the fields of project management, management, sales, team-building, leadership, ethics, customer service, diversity, and work-life balance, in publications ranging from ASTD/Performance in Practice to Customer Service Management. His McGraw-Hill book, “90 Days to a High-Performance Team,” is replete with hands-on tools, templates, and checklists which managers use effectively to improve performance.