During the conference, I got the opportunity to listen to a very informative presentation on project management by Thomas S. Brinks. Brinks is a senior project manager for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). He has been a project manager for over 15 years.
In his presentation, Brinks stated that through his years of project management that he has came up with 10 important concepts that all project managers should understand. These are especially important in today’s fast-paced work environment.
1. Understand the Business Vision. As Brinks stated, you must be willing to ask questions of people. By asking these questions, you can better understand the business vision and how the project fits into it. According to Brinks, more projects fail because they fail to correctly understand the business requirements.
2. Manage by Influence. Project managers need to learn to be proactive leaders. They must learn to see the need, take initiative to meet those needs, and have the confidence to be the first to meet those needs. They must also be flexible so that they can better adapt to changing project situations and requirements. However, most important is to have the ability to persuade others to join your effort, even when you don’t have the authority to make them do so.
3. Manage the Triple Constraints of Cost, Time, and Scope. According to Brinks constraints are the external factors that must be managed to ensure project success. As Brinks stated, the customer can control any of two of these constraints, but the third must be left to the project manager. The key here is to educate the customer early about the constraints.
4. Plan for Unknowns. Brinks laid out what he called “The Armageddon Approach.” When discussing this, he brought up the movie “Armageddon” where Bruce Willis’ character had to deal with destroying the large comet heading towards earth when the end of the earth was eminent. According to Brinks, if we would take care of the small problems early, we can avoid this type of thinking. He said the key was to create a risk management plan.
5. Manage Changes to Scope and Requirements. Customer requirements will change throughout the life of the project, so Brinks said to plan for this. Have in place a formal change management process for managing the scope of the project.
6. Plan the Work and Work the Plan. Be sure to plan the project scope, develop a time table, determine the resources needed, evaluate, and celebrate when the project has completed a milestone. Brinks talked about developing a “Work Breakdown Structure”. This structure helps to define the project artifacts, the deliverables, resources needed, and the time table.
7. Iterative Product Releases. Deliver a product every two or three months. This helps the project sponsor to better clarify their needs. It also helps to boost development team morale.
8. Communicate. That means communicate with the project sponsor, management, and the development team. The key to being successful with any project, stated Brinks, is to “Manage Customer Expectations.” This involves communicating early and often. Brinks said that he likes to write down everything that the project sponsor and the development team agree to. As he said, “Nothing is decided until it is written down.”
9. Teamwork. As Brinks said, a group is not a team. To be successful, the development team must take ownership of the deliverables. Teamwork is one area that project managers falter, Brinks pointed out. That is because they simply do not understand the “Human Factors” in project management. Project managers need to get to know their team members and how best to involve them in the process.
10. Use Good Project Management Tools. These include using risk logs, developing one-page status reports, using Microsoft Project software, and holding daily team meetings.
In closing, Brinks said that the true keys to succeeding in any project is first to “kill the biggest dragon one arrow at a time”. In other words, attack each issue as it arises. Finally, remember that not all projects are alike. A process that might have worked for one project, may not work for another.
Use the following link to access the Brinks speech. You can also contact Brinks at [email protected].