Project management for engineers and architects

Presentation_ID © 2012 Optimal Consulting LLC All rights reserved.

Project Management Essentials for Engineers and Architects

By

Carla Fair-Wright, PMP, ASQ CSQE, MCTS

Adolf Wolfi- “General View of the Island of Neveranger


Introduction

Carla Fair-Wright, PMP, CSQE, MCP

Founder of Project Managers of Houston, a Texas non-profit organization.

Owner of Optimal Consulting, a small project management firm based in Houston.

Award-winning writer, chapter author of two books and a former featured writer for Microsoft endorsed CODE Magazine.

2009-2010 President of Society of Women Engineers (Houston)

City Commissioner - 2010 Houston Building and Standards Commission Panel.

Presentation_ID 33© 2012 Optimal Consulting LLC All rights reserved.

Michael Aucoin, author of From Engineer to Manager: Mastering the Transition, found that most engineers are unhappy with the "promotion" to manager, saying,

"Much of this frustration is the result of lack of preparation and training."

Presentation_ID 44© 2012 Optimal Consulting LLC All rights reserved.

Three major issues make engineering management a difficult profession:

Engineering managers need soft skills to be effective.

Expectations of an engineering manager are unrealistic.

The engineering manager role lacks profit/loss responsibility.


Why Should I Care?

Why it matters for

you personally?

your family?

your career?

ROADMAP

What is a Project?

What is Project Management?

Role of a Project Manager

Unique Skills are Needed

Project Management Institute

What is a Project?

Project - a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a

unique product or service, and has the characteristic of

progressive elaboration.

The 3 basic levers on a project

• Time• Cost• Quality

Scope / Specification

Cost Time

PeopleCan only control at most 2at any one time…..

They are all linked…via peopleTRADE-OFFS

ROADMAP

What is a Project?

What is Project

Management?




Founders of Modern Project Management

Frederick Winslow Taylor

"If you read Frederick Winslow Taylor from the beginning of the century, there are three fundamental things he taught:

1. Find the best practice wherever it exists. Today we call it benchmarking.

2. Decompose the task into its constituent elements. We call it business process re-design.

3. Get rid of things that don't add value. Work out, we call it now.

Henry Gantt

Henri Fayol

What is Project ManagementProject Management is a discipline

“The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements”– PMI.

Project Management is a discipline – a field of work requiring specific knowledge and that has a set of rules governing work conduct.

Some Benefits of Project Management

• Quantify value commensurate with cost

• Optimize the use of organizational resources

• Reduced Schedules

• Put strategic plans into practice

• Reduced Risk

• Consistent Tracking and Reporting


Processes performed to define a new project or phase

Execute work defined in the WBS

5 PM Process Groups

CloseCloseExecution Execution Planning Planning InitiatingInitiating

Processes performed to establish the total scope of the effort, define objectives.

Process to finalize all activities

Process to complete the work defined in the project-management plan

Identify the Project Manager

Monitoring and Controlling

Define the Project

How is success defined?

Make sure that the stake holders have a common definition of success!

• Stakeholder management

• Not all stakeholders are equal

• Focus on the most powerful

• Try to see project from stakeholder’s viewpoint

• Communicate with stake holders early and often

Step 1: Have Clear Goals

• Problem Definition

• Describe problem / opportunity

• Goal Definition

• Describe project Goal

• Objective definition

• Quantify the benefits from the project

• Outline the costs

• Outline the duration

Step 2: Break down the project

Break the project down

Break into tasks

Break tasks into sub-tasks

Define deliverables for the sub task

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Work Packages, Tasks, Sub-tasks,…

Levels depends on scale of project

Step: 3 Understand Dependencies

Estimate

The actions required to deliver goal

The time and resources for each sub-task

Estimation Exercise

Take a blank sheet of paperDivide it into five columns as follows:

There should be ten rows to write on.

For each item, write (a) best guess and (b)upper and lower estimates that you are 90% confident of.

1. Distance in miles from Moscow to Santiago (in Chile)2. Gold medals won by Finland in summer Olympics 1896-19923. Area of Greenland in square miles4. Year the ballpoint pen was invented5. Year the HJ Heinz company was founded6. Population of Belize in 19907. Denmark’s GNP in $US in 19898. Year that Louis Braille was born9. Average depth of Pacific ocean to nearest 1,000 feet10.Length in miles of the river Danube

Answers

Distance from Moscow to Santiago is 10,118 miles Finland won 97 gold medals in summer Olympics 1896-1992 The area of Greenland is 839,781 square miles The ballpoint pen was invented in 1938 The HJ Heinz company was founded in 1876 The population of Belize in 1990 was 187,000 Denmark’s GNP in $US in 1989 was $105,238 million Louis Braille was born in 1809 The Pacific ocean is 14,000 feet deep on average The river Danube is 1,770 miles long

Why are Estimates So Often Wrong?

Internal causesPsychology: over-confidence, optimism, egoMisjudgement: inexperience, uniqueness of projectFailure to learn from previous projects

External pressuresManagement pressure, sales imperative

Other causesPolitical games, inadequate specifications, unclear objectives Rarely, bad luck

Step: 3 Understand Dependencies

Work out the dependencies between tasks

Resource Dependency

Sequence or Time Dependency

Personnel Dependency

Look for opportunities to optimize:

Independent tasks that can run in parallel

Share resources between tasks

ROADMAP

What is a Project?





Project Manager’s Role

Project Manager’s Role

• Understands the processes

• Needs input from the experts

• Project Managers are not management

The Tools of Project Management

Lay the ground workList the success criteria, all drivers, constraints and freedomsDon’t commit to things you can’t deliverPlanningWrite it down! & use best practiceEstimate the projectBe realistic then plan for contingenciesTrack your progressBe open and honest - don’t shoot messengers!

Basic Tools

People!Teamwork, communication skills, motivation, conflict resolution skills

• Will consume most of your time as a PM• Critical for your career development

ResourcesMoney, equipment, etcTimeDeadlines, milestones, etcProject ScopeGoals and standards


WORK TASKS WINDOWWhere do you spend your time?

IMPORTANTN

OT

UR

GE

NT

UR

GE

NT

NOT IMPORTANT

ROADMAP

What is a Project?






Deal with relationships

Clarify your goals and priorities

Identify relevant currencies, yours

and theirs

Diagnose the world of the other person

Assume all are potential

allies

Source: Influence without Authority, Allan R. Cohen and David L. Bradford, 2005

COHEN-BRADFORD MODEL

Influence through give and

take

The road to Success19th century map

Right System

True Knowledge

Right Business Practices

ROADMAP

What is a Project?






Project Management Institute (PMI) was formed in the USA in 1963

PMI publishes A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), which describes project management practices that are common to "most projects, most of the time."

PMI also offers multiple certifications.


Project Management Body of Knowledge

PMBOK - Project Management Body of Knowledge

• Generally accepted knowledge and practices for project management

• Should not be applied uniformly on all projects!

• A guide, not a recipe book

• Provides uniform terminology and definitions


Carla Fair-Wright

[email protected]

Contact: (800) 723-6120

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carlafair

FaceBook: facebook.com/carla.fairwright


Questions & Answers

© 2012 Optimal Consulting LLC All rights reserved.Presentation_ID 3636

http://www.opc-houston.com

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Project management for engineers and architects