Trendy Consultants

Project Management

Project management plays a crucial role in enabling business transformation.

Trendy Consultants are proven project managers who have successfully delivered a wide range of small and large projects for their clients.

Here’s a quick guide for executing project management effectively in service of strategic goals as practiced by Trendy Consultants:

Project management steps

Project management is broken down into five phases or life cycle. Each phase intersects with any of 10 knowledge areas, which include: integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communication, risk procurement, and stakeholder management. The phases, processes and associated knowledge areas provide an organized approach for project managers and their teams to work through projects, according to the following outline:

Stakeholder expectations

Stakeholders can be any person or group with a vested stake in the success of a project, program, or portfolio, including team members, functional groups, sponsors, vendors, and customers. Expectations of all stakeholders must be carefully identified, communicated, and managed. Missing this can lead to misunderstandings, conflict, and even project failure.

Here are some tips for managing stakeholder expectations.

  • Assemble a team specific to project goals, ensuring team members have the right mix of skills and knowledge to deliver.
  • Leave sufficient time in advance of a project for key individuals to delve into and discuss issues and goals before the project begins.
  • Ensure the project timeline and scheduled tasks are realistic.

Project scope

During the planning phase, all project details must be solidified, including goals, deliverables, assumptions, roles, tasks, timeline, budget, resources, quality aspects, terms, and so on. The customer and key stakeholders work together to solidify and agree on the scope before the project can begin. The scope guides the project work and any changes to the scope of the project must be presented and approved as a scope change request.

Project management methodologies

Most projects are conducted based on a specific methodology for ensuring project outcomes based on a range of factors. As such, choosing the right project management methodology (PMM) is a vital step for success. There are many, often overlapping approaches to managing projects, the most popular of which are waterfall, agile, hybrid, critical path method, and critical chain project management, among others. Agile, which includes subvariants such as Lean and Scrum, is increasing in popularity and is being utilized in virtually every industry. Originally adopted by software developers, agile uses short development cycles called sprints to focus on continuous improvement in developing a product or service.

Project budgets

Budgets play a large role in whether a project progresses, or if it can be completed. Few companies have an unlimited budget, so the first thing project stakeholders look at in determining whether a project succeeded or failed is the bottom line. This fact fuels the pressure project leaders, and their teams face with each passing day. As such, effective budget management is a primary area of focus for project managers who value their careers. The following are five strategies for maintaining control of your project budget before it succumbs to whopping cost overruns:

  • Understand stakeholder’s true needs and wants
  • Budget for surprises
  • Develop relevant KPIs
  • Revisit, review, re-forecast
  • Keep everyone informed and accountable

PMO vs. EPMO

Successful organizations codify project management efforts under an umbrella organization, either a project management office (PMO) or an enterprise project management office (EPMO).

A PMO is an internal or external group that sets direction and maintains and ensures standards, best practices, and the status of project management across an organization. PMOs traditionally do not assume a lead role in strategic goal alignment.

An EPMO has the same responsibilities as a traditional PMO, but with an additional key high-level goal: to align all project, program, and portfolio activities with an organization’s strategic objectives. Organizations are increasingly adopting the EPMO structure, whereby, project, program, and portfolio managers are involved in strategic planning sessions right from the start to increase project success rates.

PMOs and EPMOs both help organizations apply a standard approach to shepherding projects from initiation to closure. In setting standard approaches, PMOs and EPMOs offer the following benefits:

  • ground rules and expectations for the project teams
  • a common language for project managers, functional leaders, and other stakeholders that smooths communication and ensures expectations are fully understood
  • higher levels of visibility and increased accountability across an entire organization
  • increased agility when adapting to other initiatives or changes within an organization
  • the ready ability to identify the status of tasks, milestones, and deliverables
  • relevant key performance indicators for measuring project performance

Project management tools

Project management software and templates increase team productivity and effectiveness and prepare the organization for changes brought about by high-impact projects. CIO.com has compiled the ultimate project management toolkit as well as some open-source project management tools to help you plan, execute, monitor, and successfully polish off your next high-impact project.

Project management software falls into multiple categories. Some tools are categorized as project management software; others are more encompassing, such as project portfolio management (PPM) software. Some are better suited for small businesses and others for larger organizations. Project managers will also often use task management, schedule management, collaboration, workflow management, and other types of tools. These are just a few examples of the project management software and tools available to help simplify project management.

Popular project management tools include:

  • Asana
  • Changepoint
  • Clarizen
  • Planview
  • Mavenlink
  • Trello
  • Wrike

Project management skills

Effective project managers need more than technical know-how. The role also requires several non-technical skills, and it is these softer skills that often determine whether a project manager — and the project — will be successful. Project managers must have these seven non-technical skills: leadership, motivation, communication, organization, prioritization, problem-solving, and adaptability. It’s also beneficial to have a strategic mindset, have change management and organizational development expertise, agility, and conflict resolution capabilities, among other skills.