Method123

I would like to create a Resource Plan for my project. Can you please take me through the steps in MPMM involved in doing so? A Resource Plan is typically completed after a Project Plan has been signed off. A project plan it-self will already include information on resources at a high level which describe how the project is going to be delivered and by whom. However the Resource Plan provides a detailed list of all of the people, equipment and materials and other resource types required to deliver the project on time within budget and to specification. The Resource Plan will not only list all of the resources but it will set out the quantity of each resource required and a schedule will be constructed which will monitor the consumption of the resources over a period of time.

How do I create a project plan and what should it include?   A project plan is one of the few documents that will be referred to every day through out the project life cycle.The project plan not only includes all of the tasks that in the work breakdown structure, and resources, it more importantly includes all of the milestones for the project and when those tasks are to be completed. The project plan it-self should be signed off by the project stake holder and customer. It should be reviewed at least on a weekly basis by the project manager prior to completing a project status report.

Using Project Management Templates in Your Project Career Would you interested in boosting your Project Management career? Christmas is often the perfect time to reflect back on your Project Management career using your completed Project Management Templates to date and set a new path for the coming years. If you’re like to get the most out of your career, then read this newsletter. It will give you tips and tricks on... Project Management Career Building A lot people find themselves in Project Management by chance. They were offered a role, took it because it looked like fun and now they’re running on “go-go juice” (pure adrenalin) trying to coordinate people, time and money to meet expectations. It’s pretty hard scheduling a career around this. However the Christmas period usually gives people a chance to reflect on the year to date and plan ahead for the following year. So use this time wisely, by reflecting on our advice below… Dream jobs Your dream job might be something like “t...

What is a project Phase Review and why is it used? Method 123 Management Methodology otherwise know as MPMM, includes Phase Reviews at the end of each major phase of the project. The purpose of the Phase Review is to identify the progress of the project to date and to quantify if the progress meets the requirements of the project. The project Phase Review includes meeting with the project stake holders, and reviewing all of the deliverables produced, determining if that phase is complete and if the project should proceed to the following phase of the project.

Can you please take me through the project management process required to set up a project office, and support the organization? A project office is set up and implemented for a medium to large sized project. Smaller projects often don’t require a project office to be set up because there are fewer infrastructures required to implement the project life cycle. When establishing a project office the most important things to remember are to find and appoint a physical location, to recruit people into predefined roles, to find, store, and support all the equipment and communications infrastructure for the project. Lastly and most importantly the definition of all project management documents and procedural documents required to support the project management life cycle .

We are about to appoint the project team. Can you please tell us what project management process we should go through in order to recruit the most suitable people to our project? Recruiting a project team is another incredibley important part of the project management life cycle. You need to complete a number of steps each of which determines the skills and capabilities of the staff required in order to deliver the major components of the project. Your project will consist of a suite of roles and responsibilities each of which will comprise the entire project team. The steps you need to take in order to recruit the most suitable people to your project include identifying all of the roles and responsibilities needed for the project, identifying a process for recruitment of each staff member including part time, full time, contractors and suppliers and then executing that recruitment process to ensure that the right people are included within the interviewing process and appointed to...

Staff Motivation over Christmas using Project Management Tools When Christmas comes round it can be a real worry, to a project manager. You have a backlog of project work to complete, yet many of  your team will be on leave and the remaining team members want to “wind down” over the Christmas period. So how do you keep on track? Read this newsletter to learn tips for... Christmas Motivation of Project Staff The Christmas period often results in substantial delays for projects. With staff holidays, reduced productivity and a lack of focus, teams often fall way behind with their deliverables. Besides - when your peers are all away on holiday, who would want to work, right? It would take a talented Project Manager to keep their project on track over this time of the year and deliver an outstanding result. To help you do this, follow these 5 tips... Tip 1: Plan Ahead Most, Project Managers have no idea who is taking leave until the week before Christmas. So they suddenly become short of re...

I have a Project Charter for a project but it is not very comprehensive. Can you please let me know which items in the Project Charter I should use to complete the Charter for our organization? It is great that you have a Project Charter for your existing organization. A Project Charter is arguably the most important document within the project because it defines the overall vision and scope of what it is that the project is going to achieve. A Project Charter should comprise a number of sections which includes defining the project vision, objectives, scope and deliverables. A great Project Charter should fully define the projects organization, customers, stake holders, roles and responsibilities, as well as the structure of the project team. Finally any Project Charter should define the overall approach to the implementation of the project and any risks, issues, assumptions and constraints that have been identified to date. Using the MPMM Project Management software you can crea...

Which steps does one usually go through to complete a feasibility study for my company? There are five steps you would usually take when completing a feasibility study as part of the overall project management process . The first step is to research the business problem more fully than described in the business case. Once the business problem is known and a Route Cause analysis has been completed then the requirements for the project should be identified and the feasibility of producing a solution which solves those requirements should be determined. For each solutions and its associated level of feasibility you should identify the overall rank and priority of those solutions and then finally determine which one of those solutions can be implemented for your project.

Which steps are undertaken in order to develop a Business Case for my business? There are a number of steps to undertake in order to complete a Business Case for your organization. The most critical step is to identify the business problem that you’re attempting to solve. After that you will need to research the market to identify a suite of solutions that will meet requirements of each business problem that has been identified. You will then need to list all of the solutions and investigate each one to determine its feasibility and at that point identify the costs and benefits of each solution so that you can then recommend a preferred solution to your project sponsor. Once a preferred solution has been selected, the final step is to identify an overall approach to be taken towards the implementation of the project plan .

Project Management Templates and Project Life Cycle It you don’t want to have to start every project from scratch, then it’s worthwhile creating your own Project Lifecycle. How should you do this? What should it look like? And how do you use it? Keep reading to find out how to... Create your own Project Lifecycle... A Project Lifecycle is a series of steps that you take to complete a project from start to finish. Of course, it implies that you can complete the same steps for every project— so is this true? In principle, yes. Every project will have an Initiation phase, a Planning phase, an Execution phase and a Closure phase in the project management templates . However within these phases, the steps you take may vary slightly between projects. The trick is to create a lifecycle that is generic enough to use for all of your projects, while still being specific enough to add value and save you time on delivery. Here’s how to do it… Map it out Every project is delivered in some form of ...

How do I close my project ? Using MPMM you will undertake a number of activities prior to closing your project. Firstly it is important to note that you should not consider undertaking project closure until each of the deliverables that have been produced by your project has been formally accepted by your customer. At that point once your customer has signed off each deliverable produced and has agreed that your project has meet all of the requirements of the project as defined by the project plan set up at the start of project initiation, then you are ready to start the project closure process . This includes releasing all of the staff, terminating supplier contracts, releasing contractors, releasing equipment, materials and other resource types seconded to the project. It also includes the filing of documentation, the cessation of office premises, and the final step in the project closure phase is to communicate to customers that the project is now fully closed and a post implemen...

Title Project Management Execution Phase Description The longest phase of a project is the project execution phase. Keywords execution phase of project management Tell me which activities are included within the Project Execution Phase ? Well there are a suite of activities that are included within this phase which is typically the longest phase in the project management life cycle. They include the physical construction of each of the deliverables which are going to be presented to the customer. These deliverables form the body of work which was agreed with the customer at the outset for delivering the project. The deliverables in total comprise the full scoop of the project and that scope is produced for the customer within the project plan which was defined at the start of the project initiation phase of the project. While the deliverables are being constructed by the customer there are a number of project management processes which are undertaken by the project manager to enable...

What happens in the Project Planning Phase ? This is arguably the second most critical phase in the project life cycle . The reason is that during the planning phase all of the planning, resources, and materials required to complete the project are defined against business case which was created in the project initiation phase. If the project plan is not complete and accurate then the project has no hope of delivering the mile stones within the agreed targets set with the customer. Within the project planning phase a number of sub plans are created, a project plan, resource plan, financial plan, equipment and materials plan, procument plan for hiring suppliers. The Project planning phase is possibly the second longest phase in the project life cycle of the project after the project execution phase which is phase in which the physical deliverables are constructed for the customer.

Standards within the Project Management Life Cycle Have you ever heard a Project Manager say “we use best practice” or “we applied project standards” to projects? If you have, then what do they really mean and how do they do it? Read on, to learn... How to use Project Standards... A “Project Standard” is an agreed best practice way of managing a project. We say agreed, as the standard will usually have been reviewed and used by thousands of project managers around the world, before it becomes formally recognized as a “standard” practice. There are 3 common standards in the Project Management Life Cycle industry: 1. PMI “PMBOK” Standard 2. OGC “Prince2” Standard 3. APM “Body of Knowledge” Standard These standards give you a generic way of managing projects. They don’t give you a prescriptive “step-by-step” approach to managing projects (as MPMM does), but they do give you a set of practices and principles that you can apply to your projects, to boost your chances of success. So how sho...

Tell me about the Project Initiation Phase . This is the first phase in the project. It is the phase in which the project is defined at an overall level. It describes the delivery of the project and sets out how the project will be constructed. Basically the first step in the project management process is the definition of the business plan, then the feasibility study is completed in-order to determine if the solution that is proposed in the business plan can feasibly be achieved. Afterwards the project charter is created which describes the scope of the project, and then a high level plan for the project delivery is created. Overall the first step in the project management methodology is the project initiation phase . It is the most critical phase in the life cycle and our project management software MPMM helps you deliver each of the phases in the Life cycle successfully

What is the Project Management Life Cycle ? The Project Management Life cycle is a series of stages that the project passes through in order to progress from start to finish. It includes the following phases, project initiation, planning, execution, and closure. These phases are often undertaken in a sequential fashion so that the project is properly planned before the deliverables are constructed. The execution phase is the longest phase in the project management process using project management software such as MPMM you can navigate the project life cycle faster than before.