How to take a role in project management?

The first thing I want to write is about that change from an operation role to one management position, no matter how big is the jump, always new challenges require learning and I see it as follows:

The project will be a target, a product or a goal .But the elements I just mentioned only become the center of a whole environment. This is when we begin to have a vision 360 degrees and start thinking: Who would affect my decisions? How much will cost? How long will it take to see results? In addition, most importantly, have I the resources?

I'll explain a little of each of these questions, and how you can try to explain:

1. The affected, right now we have a word that many will sound very familiar "stakeholders" and are defined as groups involved and directly or indirectly with the company and its activities.

Those affected with the decisions tend to think that just going to be the owners of the companies they work or as many customer. However, it goes further, because as mentioned above are groups directly involved: shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees, etc. (I hope the readers stop using the word of workers and migrate to employees or collaborators) and indirectly involved and here are the media, communities where the projects are carried out, competitors and others.

Now, you will say, how this may affect the development of a project? Only with the community disagrees with the work to be executed, it may be sufficient stop the job. So, if is in your hands the project possibility, you need to stop thinking only in the target.

If you want to know more of the stakeholders I invite you to read this paper from Nuclear energy agency: here.

2. The cost

This point it should be mixed with the following points (3 and 4). Because, money, time and resources are always linked. We tend to think that “more people, faster” in most cases is it, but also remember that the greater number of hands require greater supervision. Furthermore, this will increase the cost, which is not always best for the company, and will surely show that is a problem of money management.

I remember once, I was working in some designs and those activities were transformed into sequences, these made it difficult to work in various sectors because not everyone was a specialist, and not everyone working at same rate. The results of this were, that people had spent days waiting for his predecessor finish before starting work again.

My recommendation at this point with respect to the excess staff to perform tasks more quickly is not rushing, divide the project into processes and examines whether these can be generated in parallel or in series. Moreover, given the time each of them is very useful to use Microsoft Project to represent graphically.

Count how many people you would require for each activity and as you might divide the work so you do not disturb one another. For example, in roads it is the best example that I can emphasize the division of labor, because if you have a large project, you can open multiple teams in different locations that could go from end to end.

Another thing to consider is resources, not everything is personal but there are also equipment. If the machineries of the company are rented, sometimes is better add more staff and you could have a possibility of a discount. In addition, it could reduce the execution time and that will be good for customer relations.

Likewise, I'll be posting later How to monitor costs? That would be beneficial when you take control of the project from the tender.

3. Time, you will need to take in consideration three axes:

·        Company time

·        Costumer time

·        Real time

There is where the relationship with the customer and therefore could carry out the project.

Meet the job before discussing this point with the customer.

In my experience, the best dead line for the costumer is for yesterday.

At this point, I will focus on real time, but that will be for another post when we talk about time management.

4. Resources, in this globalized world we must thank the technology at least two things: first, we have the opportunity to have more and better equipment (No matter what business you are) and secondly, connectivity.

My recommendation about the equipment is:  you must consider every plug you are going to need, think from macro to micro.

I remember one time we were working with a compressor and a blower machine (equipment used to drop fiber optic) and found that everything was arranged to begin to work. When we went to connect the machines, the connections were different. We were forced to buy one four times more expensive to ensure the delivery time to the customer.

I hope these recommendations were useful, and subscribe to read more post like this,

Greetings,

JSalvadorb