by Project management methodologies require a project management information system (PMIS), which is based upon procedural documentation. The procedural documentation can be in the form of policies, procedures, guidelines, forms, and checklists, or even a combination of these. Good procedural documentation will accelerate the project management maturity process, foster support at all levels of management, and greatly improve project communications. The type of procedural documentation selected can change over the years and is heavily biased on whether we wish to manage more formally or informally. In any event, procedural documentation supports effective communications, which in turn, provides for better interpersonal skills.
An important facet of any project management methodology is to provide the people in the organization with procedural documentation on how to conduct project- oriented activities and how to communicate in such a multidimensional environment.
The project management policies, procedures, forms, and guidelines can provide some of these tools for delineating the process, as well as a format for collecting, processing, and communicating project-related data in an orderly, standardized format. Project planning and tracking, however, involve more than just the generation of paperwork. They require the participation of the entire project team, including support departments, subcontractors, and top management.
This involvement of the entire team fosters a unifying team environment. This unity, in turn, helps the team focus on the project goals and, ultimately, fosters each team member’s personal commitment to accomplishing the various tasks within time and budget constraints. The specific benefits of procedural documents, including forms and checklists, are that they help to:
- Provide guidelines and uniformity
- Encourage useful, but minimum, documentation
- Communicate clearly and effectively
- Standardize data formats
- Unify project teams
- Provide a basis for analysis
- Document agreements for future reference
- Refuel commitments
- Minimize paperwork
- Minimize conflict and confusion
- Delineate work packages
- Bring new team members onboard
- Build an experience track and method for future projects
Done properly, the process of project planning must involve both the performing and the customer organizations. This involvement creates a new insight into the intricacies of a project and its management methods. It also leads to visibility of the project at various organizational levels, management involvement, and support. It is this involvement at all organizational levels that stimulates interest in the project and the desire for success, and fosters a pervasive reach for excellence that unifies the project team. It leads to commitment toward establishing and reaching the desired project objectives and to a self-forcing management system where people want to work toward these established objectives.
The Challenges
Despite all these benefits, management is often reluctant to implement or fully support a formal project management system. Management concerns often center around four issues: overhead burden, start-up delays, stifled creativity, and reduced self-forcing control. First, the introduction of more organizational formality via policies, procedures, and forms might cost some money, plus additional funding will be needed to support and maintain the system. Second, the system is seen, especially by action-oriented managers, as causing undesirable start-up delays by requiring the putting of certain stakes into the ground, in terms of project definition, feasibility, and organization, before the detailed implementation can start. Third and fourth, the system is often perceived as stifling creativity and shifting project control from the responsible individual to an impersonal process that enforces the execution of a predefined number of procedural steps and forms without paying attention to the complexities and dynamics of the individual project and its possibly changing objectives.
How to Make It Work
Few companies have introduced project management procedures with ease. Most have experienced problems ranging from skepticism to sabotage of the procedural system. Realistically, however, program managers do not have much of a choice, especially for larger, more complex programs. Every project manager who believes in project management has his or her own success story. It is interesting to note, however, that many have had to use incremental approaches to develop and implement their project management methodology.
Developing and implementing such a methodology incrementally is a multifaceted challenge to management. The problem is seldom one of understanding the techniques involved, such as budgeting and scheduling, but rather one of involving the project team in the process, getting their input, support, and commitment, and establishing a supportive environment. Furthermore, project personnel must have the feeling that the policies and procedures of the project management system facilitate communication, are flexible and adaptive to the changing environment, below and provide an early warning system through which project personnel can obtain assistance rather than punishment in case of a contingency.
The procedural guidelines and forms of an established project management methodology can be especially useful during the project planning/definition phase. Not only do they help to delineate and communicate the four major sets of variables for organizing and managing the project:
(1) Tasks
(2) Timing
(3) Resources
(4) Responsibilities.
They also help to define measurable milestones, as well as report and review requirements. This in turn makes it possible to measure project status and performance and supplies the crucial inputs for controlling the project toward the desired results.
Developing an effective project management methodology takes more than just a set of policies and procedures. It requires the integration of these guidelines and standards into the culture and value system of the organization. Management must lead the overall efforts and foster an environment conducive to teamwork. The greater the team spirit, trust, commitment and quality of information exchange among team members, the more likely it is that the team will develop effective decision-making processes, make individual and group commitments, focus on problem-solving, and operate in a self-forcing, self-correcting control mode. These are the characteristics that will support and pervade the formal project management system and make it work for you. When understood and accepted by the team members, such a system provides the formal standards, guidelines, and measures needed to direct a project toward specific results within the given time and resource constraints.
Established Practices
Although project managers may have the right to establish their own policies and procedures, many companies have taken the route of designing project control forms that can be used uniformly on all projects to assist in the communications process. Project control forms serve two vital purposes by establishing a common framework from which:
- The project manager will communicate with executives, functional managers, functional employees, and clients
- Executives and the project manager can make meaningful decisions concerning the allocation of resources.
Success or failure of a project depends upon the ability of key personnel to have sufficient data for decision-making. Project management is often considered to be both an art and a science. It is an art because of the strong need for interpersonal skills, and the project planning and control forms attempt to convert part of the “art” into a science.
Many companies tend not to realize until too late the necessity of good planning and control forms. Today, some of the larger companies with mature project management structures maintain a separate functional unit for forms control. This is quite common in aerospace and defense, but is also becoming common practice in other industries. Yet, some executives still believe that forms are needed only when the company grows to a point where a continuous stream of unique projects necessitates some sort of uniform control mechanism.
In some small or non–project-driven organizations, each project can have its own forms. But for most other organizations, uniformity is a must. Quite often, the actual design and selection of the forms is made by individuals other than the users. This can easily lead to disaster.
Large companies with a multitude of different projects do not have the luxury of controlling projects with three or four forms. There are different forms for planning, scheduling, controlling, authorizing work, and so on. It is not uncommon for companies to have 20 to 30 different forms, each dependent upon the type of project, length of project, dollar value, type of customer reporting, and other such factors.
In project management, the project manager is often afforded the luxury of being able to set up his or her own administration for the project, a fact that could lead to irrevocable long-term damage if each project manager were permitted to design his or her own forms for project control. Many times this problem remains unchecked, and the number of forms grows exponentially with each project.
Executives can overcome this problem either by limiting the number of forms necessary for planning, scheduling, and controlling projects, or by establishing a separate department to develop the needed forms. Neither of these approaches is really practical or cost-effective. The best method appears to be the task force concept, where both managers and doers will have the opportunity to interact and provide input. In the short run, this may appear to be ineffective and a waste of time and money. However, in the long run there should be large benefits.
To be effective, the following ground rules can be used:
- Task forces should include managers as well as doers.
- Task force members must be willing to accept criticism from other peers, superiors, and especially subordinates who must “live” with these forms.
- Upper level management should maintain a rather passive (or monitoring) involvement.
- A minimum of signature approvals should be required for each form.
- Forms should be designed so that they can be updated periodically.
- Functional managers and project managers must be dedicated and committed to the use of the forms.
Categorizing the Broad Spectrum of Documents
The dynamic nature of project management and its multifunctional involvement create a need for a multitude of procedural documents to guide a project through the various phases and stages of integration. Especially for larger organizations, the challenge is not only to provide management guidelines for each project activity, but also to provide a coherent procedural framework within which project leaders from all disciplines can work and communicate with each other.
Specifically, each policy or procedure must be consistent with and accommodating to the various other functions that interface with the project over its life cycle.
Goal of Process Documentation
The goal of process documentation is to ensure that your business continuously, efficiently, and correctly completes processes that help you reach your business goals.
You can improve your business processes in many ways, such as working with standard operating procedures or business process management strategies. However, process documentation remains a convenient choice you can start with just one documented vital process, and build it from there.
As you’re documenting your processes, you’re also building the blueprint of your business. Will continually reviewing procedures and noting down what works make your business more productive?
Simply put, no matter if the goal is to scale, sell, or simply improve the business process documentation will help take you there.
