project_management_made_easy

What Are We Making?

After you choose a driver, write up a list of constraints. A constraint is a limit on the project. For example, if the driver is quality, we might say, “Make it as good as possible, as long as it is done by the end of the year and costs under $2,000.” In that case, the time limit and cost limit are constraints.

Draw and Write a Detailed Description of What We Are Making

Now you are ready to write a detailed description of the product, service, or result of your project. Each detail you don’t write down now will take ten times longer when, in the middle of the project, you have to stop work and figure out what you are doing. As we discussed in Chapter 1, the best project managers plan most thoroughly. A complete, detailed plan is essential when life is on the line, but it also pays off on any project.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has written an excellent description of a good requirements specification. It has these qualities:

Complete. The whole scope is there.

Consistent. It doesn’t contradict itself.

Correct. It contains no errors and accurately represents user requirements.

Feasible. It can be accomplished within the time, cost, and other constraints of the project.

Modifiable. It can be revised without getting scrambled.

Necessary. All the information is needed for the project.

Prioritized. Items are identified as required or, if not required, given an order of priority, so that if scope has to be reduced, we know which items to cut first.

Testable. The items are defined well enough that the project team and/or the user can look at each of them and say if the product meets the requirement.

Traceable. Each detail of each requirement can be traced to the customer who requested it, to each module and feature necessary for its implementation, and to its place(s) in the Work Breakdown Structure, the activity list, project plans, tests, and other records of project activity.

Focus on one driver: highest

quality, lowest cost, or earliest delivery.

Agood project plan has a

picture and a thousand words.

Project Management for Small Business Made Easy

Unambiguous. Each element of the specification has only one reasonable interpretation.

Although the IEEE recommended these specifically for software design specifications (in document 803.1993), I find that it helps to review any specification and every project-planning document with these qualities in mind.

Pictures and Words

The best specifications include both pictures and words and even have more than one type of picture. Think of an architect’s design for a house. There will be a picture or model for potential buyers plus a description stating the number of bedrooms, the location, and other features of the home. Those are for the customers. For the construction team, there will be blueprints plus a long list of building materials and very exact engineering specifications.

The Lesson: A picture may be worth a thousand words, but your project plan will need a picture and a thousand words.

AWBS links what we are

making to how we will make it.

Write a Detailed Work Breakdown

Structure (WBS)

A Work Breakdown Structure is a detailed list of all the parts of our product or service. For example, the WBS for an airplane would list one fuselage, two wings, some engines, a tail, some controls, seats, so forth and so on. The WBS includes all of the items that go into the product and only those items. It is a hierarchical list, so the detail of an engine would have a housing, a block, cylinders, pistons, and so forth. The lowest-level items in a WBS are called work packages. When we make each work package right and put it all together and test it, our project will be complete.

How to Write a WBS

To write a WBS, think about the unique parts of this project first. Set aside the parts that are like ones you made on past projects. Think about the unique parts and then describe them carefully with pictures and words. We do the unique parts first because if we don’t, we often forget them or don’t give enough attention to those details.

What Are We Making?

After you’ve done that, add the ones that are more familiar. In fact, if you have plans or a WBS from a past project, you can copy the parts that are similar to what you’ve done before from a past project plan. Just make sure to include any changes that are different this time around.

In making a WBS, we need to remember that we have a budget and a schedule. Since a WBS should include all the work to be done, we need a section of the WBS for project management—the work we will do to make sure we deliver on time and within our budget. For example, be sure to include time for gate reviews and for the rework that might be needed if the deliverables need to be fixed after the review. We also want to make sure that we get the job done right—with quality. So we create a section of the WBS that includes all the work we will do to ensure quality—testing, quality control, and quality assurance.

Once we’ve broken down the work into small pieces, it becomes easy to see how we will do the work. Creating the WBS has helped us make the crucial transition from what we are making to how we will make it.

Making a Really Good WBS

Here are some tips for making an excellent WBS:

Let each person make the WBS for the work he or she will do. People are more committed when they plan their own work. It also lets everyone contribute expertise to the project.

Walk through the WBS as a team to clarify ideas and make improvements.

Never copy a whole WBS—because every project is unique. But copy—and modify—parts of WBSs that are similar from past projects.

Checking the WBS

When we think the WBS is done, we should make sure it’s clear and complete. Have everyone on the project look at it. Have each person walk through his or her work. Is everything there? Could each person do a good job without any further instructions? If you put it all together, would everything work or would anything be missing? Remember: every missing step in the WBS means an inaccurate budget, a schedule you can’t keep, and ten times as much work to fix it later. Take the time to get it right the first time!

We get it right the first time

by doing three things: checking, checking, and checking.

An action plan should be so

clear that if one person leaves the project, another person with appropriate skill can step in and do the job without a problem.

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Write a Detailed Action Plan

In writing the WBS, we went from the top—the big picture of the whole thing we are making—down to the bottom—to each work package that describes a small, manageable part of the whole project. That is called top-down design, and it is the best way to bring a project under management.

Now, we’re going to complete our work plan by going from the bottom up. We start with each detail—each work package—and ask, “How will I make this?” If you’re working with other people on the project, assign each work package to a team member. Then say, “Write down how you’re going to make this and to test it to make sure it works.” Each person should create an action plan for each work package and you should read and review them all. When you review each work package, here’s what you should check:

Is each step clear? A clear step is a verb followed by a noun. For example, “draw blueprint,” “write user instructions,” and “assemble gearbox” are all good, clear steps.

Is there a clear starting point? Are all the components listed? Does

the worker know where he or she will get each one?

Is everything checked or tested as the work is done?

Is all the work necessary to complete the whole work package included?

Are all appropriate tests included?

Does a walk-through show that this will get everything done?

Is this the best way to do the job?

Working as a team, keep improving the action plan until you see that every step is written down, so that each work package will be complete and correct. Then add work packages for assembling components and testing everything as the parts come together and then more tests when it is all assembled. Be sure to include action plans for project management, such as weekly status meetings, and quality management, such as end-user testing to ensure customer delight.

When the WBS and action plan are complete, you are ready to create a detailed estimate of the time and cost, finish planning, and launch the project.

Planning Time and Money

Estimation. Estimation is a thoughtful guess about the future. Based on our project plan, how much will this project cost? How long will it take? The types of estimation methods we use early in the project, when we have less information, are different from the methods we use later, when we know more.

Scheduling. Scheduling is more detailed than estimation. Estimation gives us a statement of the total amount of work. Scheduling gives us a plan: what job will be done each day, each week, until all the work is done.

Budgeting. A budget is a plan for spending money from the beginning of the project to the end.

Let’s look at some key concepts about how to get allocation, estimation, scheduling, and budgeting done right.

Estimating is easy, but most

people think they’ll never get it right.

Key Concepts

If we remember a few basic rules, we can avoid the most common problems in planning time and money:

Keep allocation and estimation separate. Allocate based on the amount of time and money the company can reasonably spend to get project results. Estimate from the project plan. After both the allocation and the estimate are prepared, then see if the project is affordable. If not, change the plan or cancel the project.

In estimating, avoid bias. Bias means leaning one way or the other. For example, if you say, “I have to do this for under $2,000,” then you’ll try to make the numbers look right. You could end up fooling your- self—telling yourself that you can do a $5,000 job for $2,000. Instead, make an honest estimate and then deal with the gap between the estimate and the allocation.

In estimating, be as accurate as possible. Early on in a project, we don’t know enough to make a very precise estimate. Instead, we should come up with a range, such as “We can finish this project in two to four weeks.” As we learn more and plan the project in detail, we can make a better estimate. When we’ve complete the WBS and action plan that we talked about in Chapter 6, What Are We Making? we can make a precise estimate along with our schedule and budget.

Allocate and estimate sepa-

rately. Then resolve the gap.

Planning Time and Money

5.Add up the totals of each column to get your low and high estimates. You can follow a very similar process for creating a cost estimate:

1.Complete as much of the plan as you can.

2.Write down any decisions you haven’t made.

3.Make a shopping list. What will you buy?

4.Make a rough list of the steps that you are going to take. This isn’t a full action plan or WBS, but it’s a start.

5.Put two columns next to the list—low estimate and high estimate. In the low estimate column, write down the least amount of money you think each task will reasonably cost, and in the high estimate column, put the largest amount of money.

6.Add up the totals of each column to get your low and high estimates.

Time Is Money

If you’ve ever said, “I did it myself and it didn’t cost me a cent!” you were fooling yourself. You are worth something and so is your time. If you earn a salary, your time is worth your hourly rate plus 50 percent for benefits and other overhead. If you run your own business, your time is worth what you could have been doing if you hadn’t been doing this project. When planning a project, consider the cost of your own time.

The Lesson: It is a mistake to think that your time or the time of your staff doesn’t count as money. Often, we are better off hiring an expert to do a project and spending our time making money some other way.

How do we decide how long each item on our list will take or how much money it will cost? Here are some approaches:

Do some research. Take a few minutes to look up prices or to ask someone who’s done this kind of work before.

Estimate based on the steps of a past project. Don’t compare with an entire past project, but do compare each work package with work packages in a past project. Do it intelligently. Don’t just copy the numbers. Instead, ask, “What’s different this time? Is there anything that would make it take more or less time? Cost more or less?”

When in doubt, guess. If you guess several items, your guesses will average out pretty accurately, as long as you do a high and low estimate on each guess.

T he high and low estimates

are important. If you don’t do both, you’ll be either consistently optimistic or consistenly pessimistic.