Fundamentals of Project Management

Description of the book

This book was written by Joseph Heagney. He has a lot of experience from project management. In 2001 he became a president of company in the US, where he provided a lot of managerial learning solutions. He was also a Global Practice Leader. This book of his aims to show us what is project management and what is project manager going through (or should) in his work. It also has a lot of tools and ways for planning, risk analyzing, timing, budgeting and so on.  

Why did I chose this book

In my learning contract for this semester I put an extra focus on project management. That’s why I went around TAP asking for book recommendations. This one was given to me by my colleague Jan. He already finished this book at that time and said to me that he found so many ideas for tools to use in practice. That inspired me to pick this one first for this theme. Also the name indicated that it would be a good choice as a first book for straight up project management.

What did I learn from the book

First takeaway from this book for me was this quote: “Leadership is the art of getting others to want to do something that you believe should be done.” The importance is being put on them wanting to do something. If you try to make someone do something without them wanting it, it won´t work. In that case the book calls that a dictatorship. Project management is a lot about leadership. The manager is an enabler of employees. His job is to make sure everyone in the project team has what he needs to do his job well.

Next takeaway is an example about setting mission, vision and identifying a problem. Including information that goal is not a problem, to reach a goal, one has to have a problem at first. It is shown on a case of a girl finding a new flat. Normally when you would ask her about what her mission and vision is, they would sound similar: “to have a place to live”. But there is a difference. We need to find “the gap” which is pretty much the main problem. If you ask here where she wants to be when the problem is solved and where she is now, you will reach the gap. In this case “she has no place to live.” Then you ask her to describe what is she looking for, and you will get the musts and wants. That’s her vision. This vision defines the “done” position. The mission then becomes finding such place that meets the musts.

What about timing a project? How to start with it, well we need to know who is going to be doing the task and then we can build on that. The person doing it is one of the, if not the biggest factor in timing. It makes a huge difference if you have a student, an amateur or an expert doing a task. In a book there is an example of you giving a task to shuffle playing cards by colors and numbers in order. Normal adult person takes few minutes to finish. If you give it to a 3 year old, that can take so much more, if he even finishes it. Of course there is much more factors, in this example even the adult can get tired, he accidentally drops cards or whatever. But all of these can be reduced by practice. But what if you are making a longer plan than just one task. There was a tool for it. It´s the Backward-pass and Forward-pass computations. In the Forward one you go task by task from the start to finish, and like that determine the ending time of a project. In the backward one you start with a deadline and plan the tasks from it, to the start. You are seeking where do you need to start doing tasks, or if you are not already late.

What about risks of a project? The book tells us that many project managers wait too long to assess risks in a project. Well these risks can shut you really quick, so you need to conduct a risk plan. You can just start by the easy question “What can go wrong,” and build on that. In the book is presented a 6-step plan. Taken shortly:

1. Making a list by brainstorming.

2. & 3. Determine the probability and negative impact those risks can take.

4. Prevent or mitigate those risks

5. Consider contingencies

6. Establish the trigger point

You can use many tools for this, the book suggests Risk matrix and Risk register (which I don’t believe are really that good).

Smaller takeaway I took was thinking if the change is necessary. Since project manager is like a project´s gatekeeper, he needs to make sure that what goes through is not a nonsense. The book says that it happens many times that managers just apply changes without thinking twice about them. A solution to this is asking: “How does the change affect the sides of my triangle: scope, schedule and budget?” That should help enough to paint a picture.

One more little but great thing was the KISS principle. In full name “Keep It Simple, Stupid!” It means that we need to look at our work, and if there are any parts that bring nothing to anyone, then we just throw it away. Why waste time with it? One example of this could be in the way I did my essays in the first year. I was spending a lot of time writing about every chapter of a book. I don’t believe anyone red those parts, neither did I. So I just stopped writing that extra paragraphs. Now my essay writing takes about 30 less minutes, and the result has the same quality. Keep it simple.

 “The tools and techniques of project management are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for project success. As I have stated, if you can’t handle people, you will have difficulty managing projects, especially when the people don’t “belong” to you.”