5 Tips For PRoject Managment

Effective project management strategies should optimize the pace, people, plan, platform, and performance.

Introduction to Project Management at Stimler Advantage

As part of its services, Stimler Advantage supports organizations in project management strategies. Project management is the practice of balancing flexibility and structure to efficiently plan, organize, and manage resources to achieve project objectives. The Stimler Advantage 5 S’s Framework informs the firm’s project management work.
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Organizations benefit significantly from careful, consistent, and clear project management. Investing in effective project management practices from the outset requires thoughtful resource planning to achieve the best possible outcomes. Effective project management strategies should optimize the pace, people, plan, platform, and performance. When these elements are aligned, teams can work more cohesively, adapt, and meet project goals. Strong project management enhances efficiency, provides accountability, and develops capabilities for continuous improvement.

5 Tips for Project Management

1. Pace: Pace defines the cadence and tone that drive progress and maintain momentum. Establishing an appropriate pace requires balancing speed, production quality, available resources, and necessary oversight and control. Organizations must set a focused, measured, and timely pace to move projects forward and avoid the pitfalls of endless delays, unreasonable slowdowns, and project stalls. Urgency serves as an engine for action. In our dynamic and crisis-laden world, agility, acceleration, and decisive action are essential to overcome the obstacles that hinder progress. ​Set project goals within a condensed and achievable timeline. Establish target dates and deadlines, ensuring that project participants recognize these dates as real, tangible, and consequential. Visualize the pace using countdown clocks, shared calendars, and task charts highlighting bottlenecks, dependencies, and problem areas. While a steady pace is powerful, remember to incorporate necessary periods for rest, resupply, and review to ensure sustainability in your objectives.
2. People: The success of a project heavily relies on its team members, influenced by the organization's size and project complexity. Essential roles include the executive sponsor, who provides strategic direction, and the project manager, who is responsible for planning and execution. The project team, consisting of internal members and working groups, should focus on completing specific deliverables. Engaging customers and stakeholders is crucial for achieving project goals, while external experts can offer valuable insights for overcoming obstacles. A clear hierarchy and defined roles must ensure all participants are committed and ready to execute their tasks. A focused mindset is vital for maintaining momentum, and constructive discussions should stay on track to mitigate risks. Ultimately, a positive, proactive attitude among team members enhances project success.
3. Plan: A project plan sets clear expectations and empowers teams to execute confidently and clearly. An essential function of a project plan is to define and keep the project team focused on what is in or out of scope.  It provides a foundational and detailed roadmap that guides team members in navigating their tasks and responsibilities while ensuring alignment with overall goals. Deliverables, tasks, and metrics should all correlate back to the stated objectives of the project plan. While not immutable, project plans must be protected from distracted or purposeless amendment to keep the project and team moving forward. Regularly reviewing the plan ensures alignment and consistency between the original project aims and success outcomes when adapting to changing circumstances and potentially incorporating new activities, tasks, and objectives. Project plans can be best built on a cloud and web-based project management platform, allowing for real-time collaboration, editing, version control, additional graphics or multimedia, and linking to project calendars, tasks, and metrics. Your project plan should be part of every project check-in meeting and milestone, embedded, linked, or just a tab away from the moment as your single source of truth. 
4. Platform: Choosing the right platform for a project can significantly impact its success by influencing how information is accessed, shared, stored, and managed. Many organizations operate within platform ecosystems that support cross-functional needs, including office productivity, project management, communication, and data analytics. Start by considering the digital platform tools already owned and supported by your organization’s IT department before exploring custom or external solutions. Look into additional applications or integrations that may enhance project management functions. Many project management tools offer features like meeting minutes, knowledge bases, and wikis, which can improve documentation and knowledge management in alignment with project goals. Incorporating chat functions that allow for sharing assets and documents within the platform can also enhance communication and collaboration. Remember to consider a platform's export and migration capabilities when you want to move important information forward to future system environments. Effective project management tools can help your team automate tasks, work asynchronously, gamify the process, and become more self-driven. Ultimately, a good project management platform enables your team to spend more time executing the project and less time discussing it. 
5. Performance: Performance measures in a project management platform inform teams or individuals about their performance. Regularly reviewing performance to identify strengths and weaknesses, allowing for targeted improvements that align with overall goals. A continuous focus on performance ensures that project teams remain agile and aligned with achieving their overarching mission. Ensure that your performance measurement tools enable you to export assets, data, and files to generate reports to communicate and document the project. From the outset of your project, identify your Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). OKRs define qualitative objectives and measurable key results to track progress, whereas KPIs are specific metrics used to evaluate success in achieving business goals. Track your assignments, tasks, and goals through online dashboards in your project management platform. Different graphic displays such as boards, lists, and pie charts can illustrate progress, provide insights into bottlenecks, and show what is left in the queue to complete. It is vital to demonstrate the impact and outcomes of your project to demonstrate success for project sponsors, customers, and stakeholders.

Here are some further considerations for project management:

• Start With A Project Charter: Creating a project charter is a crucial first step in the project management process. It should be developed before the project management plan and serve as a foundation for that plan. A project charter is usually a concise, high-level document that outlines the project's objectives, scope, resources, and stakeholders. A well-defined project charter provides direction and helps secure commitment, resources, and support from stakeholders. 
• Prioritize Asynchronous and Cloud-Based Work: Prioritizing asynchronous and cloud-based work methods enhances a project's agility, documentation, productivity, speed, and trackability. By employing digital collaboration tools, teams can maintain effective communication and cooperation. This approach allows project teams to focus more energy and resources on completing their tasks effectively. 
• Learn And Adapt New Techniques and Tools: Project management is constantly evolving. Utilizing the latest technologies and methodologies enhances individual skills and boosts team efficiency. Regular certifications, training sessions, workshops, and knowledge-sharing activities contribute to the ongoing improvement of project teams. By proactively embracing change and fostering an innovative mindset, teams can better meet the demands of their projects and anticipate potential challenges. 

Connect with me to discuss your executive management consulting needs.

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