3 Necessary Factors Of A Successful Project

Why bother on a project if its successful completion doesn’t bring benefits for your organization? The ultimate goal of undertaking a project is to benefit from it. Indicators that determine the level of success of your projects are usually increased customer satisfaction, more profits, higher conversion rate or some other essential indicators of performance

 

A project will undoubtedly involve many individuals of different areas of expertise working together on a single goal to lift the organization to greater heights. However, most projects fail when problems arise in terms of costs, delays, etc. This causes stress and frustration for everyone working on the project. A project that looked so promising during the planning stages then collapses. So, how do you get around this? The three primary factors discussed below are necessary to improve the chances of the successful completion of your project.

Time

This refers to the time of completion and delivery of the project. Being able to deliver your project on time is important to both your customer and senior management. This gives you the time to get your resources available and prepared to take on the next project. On time project delivery isn’t that common, but when you are able to pull it off, it’s going to be a nice boost in your career as a project manager.

With regards to the customers, on time delivery could mean success and rewards, it might even get the customer to stick with you on the long run. This will also make your customer happy and you need that for the success of your business.

Budget

Another success factor is finishing the project with or less than the pre-set budget. Doing this is also rarely seen with projects and you give your chance a better chance at a great track record as a project manager. You will make your customer and senior management happy when you can achieve this.

To stay as close to budget as possible, you should pay a good attention to the scope. If you work outside the scope, that ultimately means you are using planned hours on unplanned work, which will probably result to shooting over budget. If there is going to be a creep in the scope, you should bring it to the attention of the official, get the budget increased and then you’d have increased the chances of completing the project on budget.

Customer Satisfaction

The third key factor for the success of a project is the level of customer satisfaction. This is a hard one to achieve but is aided by on time and on budget delivery. Sometimes, the satisfaction of your customers can be out of your control. To be a successful project manager, you need to be able to produce results that will make your customers happy. You can do this by always been there for them, keeping them in the loop with the progress of the project, treat them as an important part of the project and always address their needs on time. Your goal should always be to have a happy customer at the end of the project.

The above factors are essential for the successful completion of the project.

Stress Management Is Not Only Necessary But Essential

The process of project management can be a huge source of stress for the body. This is why it is essential to lean towards proper stress management. It is an essential step for you to take once you have determined that you are facing stressful situations in your life, irrespective of the cause. It’s been said that there are some forms of stress that gears you toward channeling the burst of energy into something that is positive and productive. However, living with stress is not in any way good for the body. If accumulated over a long term period, stress can have negative impacts on your health and it can deteriorate your health at a faster rate than most diseases do.

 

In addition, excessive stress on the body can hinder your ability to function and perform well, either in your personal life or at work. As a result of this, stress is not a thing to bask in. Aside from the negative personal impacts it can have on you, it also influences, in a bad way, how you handle things around you as well as how you interact with people in your live.

Techniques of stress management

Knowing the cause of your stress is the first step to in stress management followed by the effective techniques aimed at stress relief. Unfortunately, when it comes to managing stress, knowing the source isn’t enough, there is a need to keep a stress journal in order to monitor the level of stress and what effect it produces. This is an effective way to determine your level of stress, what triggers it and exactly what cools you off. Knowing this enlightens you about the necessity for effective stress management technique.

When you are able to manage your stress, you stand to regain the control of your life, and you can escape the constant feeling of the amount of stress you had to deal with. One thing to keep in mind however is that, you can’t expect to completely rid yourself of stress. It is a gradual process, the first stage of which is to reduce it before being able to completely escape it. Some ways to go about stress management are discussed below.

Improving time management skills: Most of the stress in life are a result of not been able to balance your plans with the amount of time available to you. Hence, creating a schedule based on priorities will enable you to achieve more in less time.

Study your reaction to stress: This requires you to be honest with yourself. You need to determine if the way you cope with stress is effective or not. If not, then attempt to change your ways.

Take good care of your body: Most of the time, this aspect is neglected. The health status of your body should be the most important consideration in stress management. Get enough rest and eat good food.

Stress-free your mind: Mostly, stress ensues from your mindset. If that happens to be the case with you, then changing your perspective might help you reduce your level of stress.

To sum it up, stress management comes with a lot of benefits, some of it are mentioned below:

• Improves your overall health status;
• More positive outlook and attitude in life;
• Gives you better focus, hence increasing productivity;
• Better control of emotion and response to it; and more importantly
• Reduction and possibly elimination of stress in your life.

Project Execution In A Nutshell

A project is an exercise done once and varies in duration. It is carried out to meet the specific need of an organization, which may be to provide a service, create a product or even to change the process of a business. Execution of a project involves tracking and managing the project. At the start of the project is the use of a PD report (Project Definition Report) to create the project plan.

 

The PD is an indication of how to go about the project. It is more of a summary of the project which is the central document that is used to manage the project for its duration. It helps get agreement and acceptance from all members of the team on aspects such as the project milestones, phases and tasks, as well as who is responsible for each task, associated timelines and what deadlines are to be met.
The essence of the PD is to allow for the successful execution of the project. Once done effectively, executing the project follows. The stages of executing the project are Risk Management, Quality Control, Progress Control and change control.

Risk Management
Managing the risk associated with a project is very important as they may impact the successful completion of the project if not factored in. Here, anything that could have a negative impact on the project is put into consideration. It could be in form of illness or attrition which might cause losing a member of the team, annual leave of team members, the possibility of recruiting new members and training them, delay in delivery of necessary equipment or contractors running out of business.
A risk log is used to record and grade risks and carries an associated action plan to minimize the identified risk. Issues of the management is an also to be considered, it refers to concerns related to the project which are raised by any stakeholder.

Quality control
This is mostly the job of the project manager. It involves a series of regular reviews made in a formalized meetings to ensure that the output of the project is reviewed against specific pre-defined standards.

Progress control
This is another responsibility of the project manager. It encompasses monitoring the project and generating regular reports on the progress of the project. The report is so as to be able to relay the progress to the higher management.
There are cases of projects not going exactly as planned, progress control helps keep an eye on the direction the project is headed. It helps monitor the degree to which the project execution follows the plan, also to take appropriate action if there are deviations from the original plan. In essence, project control allows the regular tracking of the project.
Having regular checkpoints while the execution of the project is on helps achieve adequate progress control. This can be made a weekly activity and doing so helps monitor, control and capture statistics of each member of the team. It also helps in making estimates on timeframe for completion and start of the next round of tasks.

Change control
By the nature of most projects never going exactly to plan, changes will need to be made to the length, direction and type of tasks carried out by the team. This has to be fully documented by the project manager in the form of 'change control'.
Change control involves the project manager in documenting requests for change, identifying the impact on the project if the change is to be implemented (e.g. will it affect the finish time of the project, will the project run over budget, are there enough resources) and then informing all stakeholders of the implications and alternatives that the request for change has identified.
The execution phase ends once the project has achieved its goals and objectives as underlisted by the key success criteria in the PD Report.

A Motivated Team Is The Most Influential Aspect Of Project Management

he ability to guide performance and keep team motivated is one of the essential skills that a project managers must possess. It is sometimes difficult to maintain team motivation because of the rapid changes today. Business has moved from the old bureaucratic incentives to the use of modern day entrepreneurial opportunities to make efficient use of available resources. Though it might be difficult, it is critical for project managers to be able to exercise leadership attributes during the course of a project.

 

The motivation of a team is also dependent on the strength of each member of the team and their desire to successfully work together on the common goal. When it comes to project management, there are so many things that can easy flip the side of the coin, de motivating the team. This will undoubtedly have negative impact or influence on the outcome of the project. Hence, it is the duty of a project manager to manage the team carefully, as during the course of the project, friendships are established, bonds are created and all this is essential for the successful completion of the project.

There are a few things to do to ensure that you get the best input from the team working on a project. They are discussed below:

Recognition

Understanding the personalities of each member is a great way to keep track of the dynamism within the team. It allows understanding individual strength and knowing appropriate way to recognize the skill of each members. As an example, if a member is good at a particular job, you should assign the job to such an individual or at least pair them with someone else to help them learn. This will give the individual the satisfaction of doing what he/she loves which is a great source of motivation.

Giving Rewards

Awarding rewards for a job well done is a great way to boost the morale of the team members. It gives them a sense of pride. The reward could be in form of an extra holiday day, a lunch or some vouchers. It is better to do this at different stages of the project rather than at the end. It could also be in form of a milestone. Discussing the reward with the team to find out their preference is an option.

Provision of adequate tools and training

Making sure that your team members have the correct tools and effective skills to make use of the tools will give them the motivation to work on the tasks. Without this, achieving the set goals and objectives will be hard.

Also, the importance of efficient training programs as part of project management cannot be overstated. It is invaluable and can empower people with the right skills. If they feel like you are investing in them, giving them the support needed, they will want to prove something to you and hence, the motivation needed for the job.

Setting clear goals and objectives

Setting both individual and team objectives will give clear focus on what the project is about and what is to be achieved. Be it short term or long term, giving them a sense of achievement will motivate them to go extra mile towards the successful and timely completion of the assigned task.

Conclusion

Bringing people together, irrespective of the department they are from and getting them to work as a team towards the same objectives is not an easy task. The success of a project is directly linked to the teamwork put into it. The failure of the project will surely result if the group does not work as a team. As a result of this, motivating the members of the team is absolutely essential.

Lear Set Smart Goal For project execution

Project management skills, the type that support the effective and excellent delegation of work to members, usually involve the execution of project/assignment. After all, management is the process of getting work done through others. So, when making a decision on how prepared the team is to carry out the job successfully, an important question to ask, to which an affirmative answer must be provided is: “Have we defined crystal clear, detailed, and measurable objectives and goals for our project?”

 

Today, it is no longer enough to just complete projects on time and on budget. It is not affordable to waste precious time and money on projects that fail to deliver measurable benefits. In these difficult economic times it’s more important than ever to deliver expected benefits, ensure organizational readiness, stakeholder engagement and solution adoption. Easily said, of course, but hard to do in practice because there is often no process or expertise in place to make it happen.

The way to ensure consistent delivery of high benefits during the phase of executing a project, lies in the strategic planning of the processes involved in carrying out the project. The best way to do this is by defining the project objectives and SMART Goals.

SMART Goals setting refers to specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound goals setting. They play a crucial role in communicating company priorities, reducing ambiguity and focusing all levels of an organization on what really matters. SMART Goals are critical to clearly communicate expectations, plan strategies, measure performance and achieve desired results.

Each letter of the acronym is further defined below.

Specific: This refers to a clear and unambiguous definition of what will be done and the desired outcome.

Measurable: This means measuring and evaluating the products of the project objectively. It can be done using time, quality, cost or productivity data measured during the course of the project.

Attainable: Objectives set are always challenging but attainable.

Relevant: In other words, this means making sure the goals of the project are in line with the vision of the company. It exists to directly impact the achievement of the goal and helps make sure that the outcome will have a significant positive impact to the company.

Timely: Each objective has a time element attached to it. Projects are expected to be completed by specified dates and times and often metrics are used to track the rate of progress of the project.

In essence, SMART Goals focus on a company’s mission and desired outcomes of the project. They provide the basis for developing strategies, a set of logical reasons for tactical planning and the criteria for making objective decisions or SMART choices among all projects. SMART Goals backed by a strong project management process will undoubtedly ensure that every project undertaken by a company is a success. It includes success metrics to demonstrate how it will measurably impact and contribute to achieving one or more of the company’s SMART Goals.

With SMART goals set, projects that fail to clearly link to a strategic goal or show how they can advance the aims of the company can be easily put to an end before wasting more time and resources. Hence, setting SMART goals is a very important aspect of project execution that every organization embarking on a project must put in place.

Effective Budget Planning In Project Management

The importance of budgeting in project management is not really a subject for debate. If you want to have a successful financial plan for your project, then an effective budgeting strategy is more than necessary. With the advent of technology, there is easier intertwining of the different parts of an organization, hence more risk in running costs. As a result of this, it is important to get the budget right before the onset of the project

 

Although projects are of different natures, the strategies involved in the planning, setting and writing of the budgets for the projects are common. Mostly, the first project budget you write is going to be the hardest. After this, you have the experience and model to use to write going forward. Below are some tips to help you create a budget which will be effective for your project.

Learn from past experience and project

To write your first project, you can get help from an experienced team of the member. You don’t have to do everything all by yourself, if it’s a group work, learn from as much people as you can. Finding other similar past project to the one you are currently working on can be of great help. You can use the past project as a model. With past data, you can find out the time and money invested into a certain project, as well as identify the resources used for the successful completion of the project.

Know the major costs

You need to determine the basic costs for getting the project running. These include the cost of running the team members, equipment, software, travel, etc. Once you are able to determine the basic cost, check it against the project budget, the lesser the basic costs are to the budget of the project, the safer you are.

Be flexible to adjustments

With the uncertainty surrounding a project, the budget could change at any point. As a result of this, it is important to allow flexibility by making contingency plans against this potential fluctuations in the expenses required to complete the project. The project manager needs to be able to anticipate this and make tweaking the work plan possible so that the expenses don’t overshoot the budget.

Monitor resources

Undoubtedly, salaries are a big part of the budget of a project. For effective budget planning, the project manager needs to make sure that each team member is performing his/her duty to the best capability, and also that enough hour is put into the work so as to be able to finish task on preset time constraints.

Always exercise transparency

Keep your team informed of the evolving budget forecast. Communicate what is expected of them to stay within budget. People might start watching how they designate hours and other costs to the project, and they will understand any requests to change directions if such requests come up.

Manage scope

Creeping of the project scope deals the budget a huge blow. So as to avoid the overrunning of costs due to surfacing of works which are originally unplanned for, a project manager should make gap for this by giving tolerance for such situations in the original plans for the project. With accurate projections, sudden outburst of additional costs will not have a detrimental effect on the pre-planned budget. However, if such happens, seek additional funding to take care of the changes.

Conclusion

If you are able to employ the guidelines above in setting the budget for your project, you will take control of your expenses and have a road map for greater success. As you move from project to project, you will be able to develop effective budget planning skills the more. Remember, most people do not plan to fail, they just fail to plan. So keep up with effective budget planning for success of projects.

Dominant Aspects Of Preparing Bids

Winning tenders can lead to a major growth for your company. However, if you are starting and responding to your first offer or experienced in this process, there are some key aspects of the process to take into consideration while preparing the bids. If done right, your company is surely aiming for success.

Understanding that the process is a long-term goal

Before responding to bids, it is very important to understand that writing winning bids can be a long-term process. To be realistic, the chances of winning a tender bid is like one in three. You cannot expect to win every proposal you respond to. It’s not likely that you will be the first to respond, so you need to be realistic with your response. Approaching the offer with the mindset that it is a long-term process is one of the many strategies needed for growth and it will ensure that you are ready to face the competition along the way.

Evidence of capability to complete the job successfully

The successful preparation of the offer is based on evidence. How do you prove to the organization that you have the experience and that you are capable of efficiently and successfully completing the offer? You need to show that you can complete the job to the required standard. This can be demonstrated through examples of past works, experienced and qualified staff, internal systems and procedures or awards and recognition. Nothing shows that you are capable more than the works carried out successfully within specifications and budget. This is why it is important to keep records, photographs and contacts (referees) so you can have proof of your success.

Professional tender preparation

Your tender document must have a professional appearance, clear and well established. Large companies use graphic designers and writers of professional offers to prepare their material. It does not matter if you are preparing an expression of interest for a small subcontracting role or a major multi-million dollar project, the information you provide is the one that represents your company. How well you portray yourself, the text and the overall presentation is a direct reflection on your company. Your presentation should be clear, concise, relevant and easy to follow. Use the title pages, content lists, and separate attachments. This will make it easy to read and clear to follow.

Setting Prices

Everyone knows that pricing is important, but how important is it? If you are too low the organization will think you either do not understand the project or it will not be viable in the long run. If you are too expensive, you price yourself out of the market. Finding the right price is essential.

Conduct research and understand the culture of the organization

It is essential to know the organization to which you are applying. What are their priorities? What do they value in a provider? What is the company looking for on this specific occasion? Make contact with the organization if possible or attend any on-site inspection. This will provide valuable information about what they are looking for, along with pricing requirements.

The process of tendering is becoming more and more competitive. To win a new business you need professional tender preparation that captures the attention of the organization and clearly positions your company as the ideal provider. Keeping the above points in mind while preparing your tender will ensure that you are on the right path.