When Everybody can See the Big Picture it’s Possible to Reach Consensus

Project complexity often arises from the fact that people focus on specific details and deliverables according to their personal interests or priorities so everyone has a different view of what needs to be done. And then people plunge into these details and try to reconcile their different points of view and lots of discussion and arguing results, but nothing much gets decided. And people wind up mentally exhausted and wander off shaking their heads and muttering under their breath.

However, if you give people a big picture framework that everyone can understand and that puts individual details into a meaningful context, then it’s possible to clear things up pretty quickly. Give them a  framework (I like to use a whiteboard or spreadsheet) that provides a place to plug in everybody’s ideas at whatever level people are thinking on – whether they are thinking about the ultimate goal of the project, or different objectives (also known as milestones) that have to be reached to accomplish the goal, or individual tasks that relate to a particular objective. When everybody can see how their different ideas relate to the rest of the project there is a basis for reaching consensus on what needs to be done and how to do it.

Although there are many such project constraints, these should not be barriers for successful project execution and for the effective decision making.

There are main three interdependent constraints for every project; time, cost, and scope. This is also known as Project Management Triangle.

Let’s try to understand each of the element of project triangle and then how to face challenges related to each.

The Three Constraints :

The three constraints in a project management triangle are time, cost and scope.

Time

A project’s activities can either take shorter or longer amount of time to complete. Completion of tasks depends on a number of factors such as the number of people working on the project, experience, skills etc.

Time is a crucial factor which is uncontrollable. On the other hand, failure to meet the deadlines in a project can create adverse effects. Most often, the main reason for organizations to fail in terms of time is due to lack of resources.

Cost

It’s imperative for both the project manager and the organization to have an estimated cost when undertaking a project. Budgets will ensure that project is developed or implemented below a certain cost.

Sometimes, project managers have to allocate additional resources in order to meet the deadlines with a penalty of additional project costs.

Scope

Scope looks at the outcome of the project undertaken. This consists of a list of deliverables which need to be addressed by the project team.

A successful project manager will know to manage both the scope of the project and any change in scope which impacts time and cost.

Quality

Quality is not a part of the project management triangle, but it is the ultimate objective of every delivery. Hence, the project management triangle represents implies quality.

Many project managers are under the notion that ‘high quality comes with high cost’, which to some extent is true. By using low quality resources to accomplish project deadlines does not ensure success of the overall project.

Like with the scope, quality will also be an important deliverable for the project.

The important aspect is to deal with it. The project manager needs to strike a balance between the three constraints so that quality of the project will not be compromised.

To overcome the constraints, the project managers have a several methods to keep the project going. Some of these will be based on preventing stakeholders from changing the scope and maintaining limits on both financial and human resources.

A project manager’s role is evolved around responsibility. A project manager needs to supervise and control the project from the beginning to the closure.

The following factors will outline a project manager’s role.

• The project manager needs to define the project and split the tasks amongst team members. The project manager also needs to obtain key resources and build teamwork.
• The project manager needs to set the objectives required for the project and work towards meeting these objectives.
• The most important activity of a project manager is to keep stakeholders informed on the progress of the project.
• The project manager needs to asses and carefully monitor risks of the project.

Requirements come from different sources, like the business person ordering the product, the marketing manager and the actual user. These people all have different requirements for the product. Using requirements traceability, an implemented feature can be traced back to the person or group that wanted it during the requirements elicitation. This can, for example, be used during the development process to prioritize the requirement, determining how valuable the requirement is to a specific user. It can also be used after the deployment when user studies show that a feature is not used, to see why it was required in the first place.

Eliciting requirements: the task of communicating with customers and users to determine what their requirements are. This is sometimes also called requirements gathering.

• Analyzing requirements: determining whether the stated requirements are unclear, incomplete, ambiguous, or contradictory, and then resolving these issues.
• Recording requirements: Requirements might be documented in various forms, such as natural-language documents, use cases, user stories, or process specifications.

Requirements analysis can be a long and arduous process during which many delicate psychological skills are involved. New systems change the environment and relationships between people, so it is important to identify all the stakeholders, take into account all their needs and ensure they understand the implications of the new systems. Analysts can employ several techniques to elicit the requirements from the customer. Historically, this has included such things as holding interviews, or holding focus groups (more aptly named in this context as requirements workshops) and creating requirements lists. More modern techniques include prototyping, and use cases. Where necessary, the analyst will employ a combination of these methods to establish the exact requirements of the stakeholders, so that a system that meets the business needs is produced.

When tailored, or “fit”, to an organization’s culture, project management brings value by improving:

• The execution of strategy, through repeatable, reliable performance and standardization;
• The integration within the organization, through elimination of “silos” and better communication and collaboration;
• The learning that a projectized organization undergoes as it explores new products, processes and markets.