Project Management Tips

In high school, college or university, we have all had group projects assigned to us.  My experiences were not great.  I know some people enjoyed their experiences, but often like me were frustrated and unsatisfied.  Typically, a few people dominated the project, others were not motivated, and although assignments were eventually completed, few people achieved the results they wanted or desired.  This result was more common if the members of the group were assigned by the instructor rather than chosen by the group themselves.

It doesn’t have to be that way.  Whether you are a student, a parent with teenagers, someone in a group at work, or even as a volunteer.  If you or someone you know is tired of having to carry too much of the load, or tired of not being able to contribute fully, this post is for you. 

To be successful, there are processes, skills, attitudes, and behaviors that need to be acknowledged, learned, and applied.  These are not complicated and although they might take a few hours to establish, they work, and they will alleviate much of the frustration and provide much better results for everyone.

The first step is to determine what the assignment requires, examining the scope of what is needed and what is not part of the assignment.  This step should be documented, and it can be called an Assignment Charter or Project Charter.

A project charter is a high-level summary of what, when, and how the team wants to accomplish.   

Next, the individual members of the group should establish some ground rules for working together.   The purpose of this step is to begin forming a team.  Determining the ground rules is part of creating a team charter for the assignment.  Collectively each person should contribute and agree to the points suggested.  For example,

• Set dates, times, duration, and methods for meetings.  In-person is the best way according to project experts.  Virtual meetings can work only as long as everyone participates and keeps their cameras on. 
• Discuss and agree collectively on what expectations will be for “who is going to do what.”
• Determine what success for the team will be, and what grade everyone wishes to achieve.
• Take the time to examine the top three to five skills that each person brings, their strengths, and their weaknesses. 
• Appoint a leader; however, the goal for the team should be to become self-organizing, and the role of leader can alternate among all team members as it grows and accomplishes its goals.
• Encourage, empower, and agree that everyone’s opinion is important.  A key element of success is to acknowledge that different perspectives make a team stronger and helps to avoid blind spots.
• Agree on a method of making decisions.  A simple majority rules strategy could work.  Consider ways to accommodate minority views.  For example, “Fist of Five” is a good way of ensuring that everyone has a voice.  Five fingers mean full support, four is still supportive, three is okay but with some reservations; two means support but with some strong reservations; and one or no fingers means they cannot support the team at all. 
• Agree on how to resolve conflicts.  Remember conflict is healthy and not necessarily a bad thing, but it is important to have a dispute resolution method.
• Agree on what happens when someone doesn’t do what they agreed to do in each meeting.  Everyone on the team is accountable to each other.
• Encourage everyone to track processes that work, processes that do not work, and ways to improve, throughout the project timeline.  Learning happens throughout the life of the assignment, especiallyas the team develops.
• The Team Charter should be written down and signed off by each team member.

The importance of the team charter cannot be underestimated, it is the key to creating a high-functioning team that is built on inclusiveness.  Expect in the early stages it will take time to get everyone working together.  As each person starts working as a member of the team, cohesiveness will grow, as well as the team’s ability to achieve the success the team desires. 

Once the group has agreed on “how” it will function.  The team can start breaking the assignment down into manageable “chunks.”  In this “initiation” phase the team should break the requirements down or decompose the project assignment into its individual components.

Knowing when the assignment is due can help the team divide just how much time is available for each individual “chunk” or work package.  The group should look at each of these work packages and prioritize their importance and sequence.   Each work package should be examined from a cost, time, and complexity perspective.  Cost is the amount of work required; time is how long it will take, and complexity measures the difficulty.  All these work packages should be documented. 

When the team has prioritized all of the work packages, they will have moved from the initiating phase into the planning phase.  The prioritized work packages could be called the project backlog.  Since quite often the number of backlogged work packages exceeds the number of team members, the team will decide on how many to tackle at a time.  The number of work packages the group is working on is called an iteration.

These iterations start with the highest priority items and can be assigned to one team member or pair of people.  A useful tool is to have a short 15-minute meeting at the beginning of each day to check-in.  Each person should update the team on what they have accomplished since the last meeting, what they plan to accomplish that day, and what impediments they are facing.  The designated team leader should try to help remove any barriers for them.  The technical term for these meetings is “Stand up” Meeting. 

Each work package should be completed within the time agreed to by the team.  The overall schedule is important to follow to ensure all the assigned work can be completed before the due date.  As each cycle or iteration period is completed, the work completed is reviewed and the team should discuss what they have learned and share ways to improve the process.  Complete as many cycles as necessary until the team agrees that all the work packages have been completed.

If during the project timeline, if/when someone suggests making a change or the instructor assigns additional items to be included in the assignment.  The team should break the change into one or more work packages.  The project backlog should be reprioritized and then the team starts on the next iteration. 

As part of each iteration or cycle when the team is executing the work they should use online tools to check grammar and spelling.  Additionally, the team should refer back to the original assigned scope and requirements to ensure they stay focused on the goals of the project or assignment. 

When all of the work packages are complete, the team should allow time for final checking and corrections.  The cost of prevention is much less than the cost of finding errors after the project has been presented to the instructor.

When the project is complete, submitted, or presented, and when it is returned to the team.  The work is not yet finished.  Have one more meeting.  In this meeting discuss what the team has learned, what processes worked, and what things did not work.  Write down these lessons learned and share them with each time member.  

Few teams in high school, college/university, and even in the work environment currently do this type of project management.  This methodology works and is becoming more and more commonplace.  Groups of individuals who follow this type of project process transform themselves into high-performance teams.  Every member of the team grows and the level of frustration is almost non-existent.  I have summarized, very briefly, a Hybrid project management model in this post.  I challenge you to learn more about adaptive as well as traditional project methods.  They work on large construction projects, software design projects, and on any academic and work projects whether they are large or small.

Good luck,

Paul.