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 Quick Quiz
By Barbee Davis, MA, PHR, PMP
My organization can’t afford the pricey online methodology products for project management. How can we standardize a process at a reasonable cost?
A. You get what you pay for. Purchase the highest priced product you can afford.
B. Choose a product without a fancy website. It can sell products for less.
C. Spend your money on an internal team to develop your own processes.
D. All the methodologies are equally valuable as long as they are automated.
 This Quick Quiz was inspired by a submission to the Community Post suggestion box from Sarah Kegley, PMP, of Sacramento, California, USA, who has been involved in project management for 25 years. |
Answer: C. Spend your money on an internal team to develop your own processes.
The best way to do a project differs by organization and industry, so those with a limited budget may find great success with a set of processes they create themselves. Here are some basics, pegged to the five process groups outlined in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—Third Edition:
- Initiating. Develop a Project Charter form for management signature to give you authority as a project manager. Create a Preliminary Scope Statement form to capture early estimates for the project. Produce a Project Management Plan form for how project managers will approach all the processes of this project.
- Planning. Design a Scope Statement form to show more definitive estimates for the project and a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) template that will outline all of the work for the project.
Develop a process to define activities, sequence them, estimate durations, estimate and assign resources, and develop a schedule and cost baseline. Decide if you will display this information in a calendar format, on a Gantt chart, or in an automated software tool.
Prepare a template for distributing the activities assigned to the resource who will do them.
Create a process to assess risk and decide on the triggers that will cause the project manager to react. Develop a Risk List document to capture this information for the team.
Also, conceive a form to help plan quality requirements. They might be more qualitative in a service organization and more quantitative — indicating, for example, control limits and tolerances -- if your deliverables are more tangible.
Construct a Change Control process for the organization, perhaps with a board that includes key stakeholders, and decide what level of changes will go through this process. Also, conclude what amount of Cost Variance or Schedule Variance is significant enough for your organization that the project manager should take action
- Executing. Author a Communications Plan form to map out what information will be sent to each stakeholder category during the project. Develop a process for choosing outside vendors.
- Monitoring and controlling. Prepare report templates for regular team updates on project status. Develop report templates for the project manager to use in updating the stakeholders about project progress.
- Closing. Plan a checklist for contract closure with outside vendors or subcontractors. Fashion a questionnaire to capture lessons learned among team members and share the results. End with developing a process to release the team and archive the lessons learned and other project documents.
While each industry or service organization will differ in their processes, these general guidelines will get you off to a workable and inexpensive start.
 Barbee Davis, MA, PHR, PMP, is a reviewer for the global PMI Registered Education Provider Review Team. She owns Davis Consulting and is a published author, speaker, writer of training materials and an innovator in presentation skill workshops for corporate trainers. She holds a Black Belt in MS Project and teaches at the university level. Ms. Davis encourages your questions or comments.
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