Team Building Skills

Project Management

Project management is those principles, rules, and methods used to control project scheduling, costs, and outcomes. Good project management will result in quality projects delivered on time and within budget. When starting a project, there are some basic things you need to consider:

• Purpose: Do all team members have a clear understanding of the project, its purpose, and the desired outcomes?
• Roles: Who is on the team and what roles will they play? It is extremely important to identify the project manager.
• Requirements: What is needed in terms of human time and resources? Who has the knowledge and skills you need? How will you access or acquire those that are not available on your team?
• Timeline: Review dependent and independent tasks and break large projects into smaller components. Remember to analyze external commitments. Developing an attractive timeline makes no sense if those involved cannot commit to the deadlines.
• Budget: If there is a budget allocated for the project, who will monitor that and how? How and when will budget resources be reviewed?
• Review: The budget, timeline, requirements, roles, and purpose should be reviewed periodically during the project. Changes may need to be made at any point by the appropriate people.

There are many project management resources available as well as software such as Microsoft Project to help managing projects. Charts help visually oversee projects.

Gantt Chart

One of the most common timeline charts is the Gantt chart. It is a bar graph that shows the duration of each task and how the tasks relate to each other.

Example:

Computerized Gantt charts can also calculate costs and show individual schedules to eliminate overlapping projects on employees' schedules. Being able to track estimated timelines to actual time spent is incredibly valuable, especially for recurring projects.

PERT Chart

A PERT (program evaluation and review technique) chart shows each task, its duration, and its relationship to the other tasks. The PERT chart is the best chart to see how tasks depend on each other and the order in which tasks must occur.

Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle

The plan-do-check-act cycle is designed for implementing change. It was designed by W.A. Shewart in the 1930s and made popular by W. Edwards Deming in the 1950s. PDCA was created as a circle, which symbolizes that it has no end and the cycle should continue endlessly for improvement.

The four steps are:

1. Plan: Understand what needs to be changed and how.
2. Do: Develop a solution and carry it out.
3. Check: Review how the change went and make any changes as necessary.
4. Act: Adopt the solution, decide on changes, and plan ongoing review.

Next section:  Handling Conflict