This is well-known fact these days that the Project Management is the backbone of the project. Be its planning of resources, be its effort and cost estimation, be it anything related to project, efficient Project Management is most important and crucial factor in the success of the project. Experts say it takes almost 10-12% effort of total project effort in Management.
Project Management is not as simple as it seems to be. It feels good to project Manager of any project but when it comes to actual execution, he/she is the one who takes the most pressure. In order to have a smooth path for the project, there are a lot of tools and techniques in the market which can not only make the Project Manager�s life easy but can lead to a systematic and controlled execution throughout the project.
In the article, we will discuss the most commonly tools and techniques being used by successful leaders. We will talk about the techniques first followed by the Tool:
Techniques:
1) Brainstorming
This is a most common technique used at the very early stage of everything. This is basically having an open discussion with all stakeholders involved and narrow down to the specific path. This is the easiest way to start a new activity or decision-making process.
2) Critical path (Flow diagram):
This technique helps a Manager to get a quickest and the slowest timelines of the project. In this, all the major milestones act as intermediate destinations that create a path from start to end of the project. Then with help of proper stakeholders, Manager conclude a set of mandatory destination for the project and a way leading through Mandatory destinations is called critical path. This gives Managers a flexibility of delay for the destinations that are not on critical path.
3) Fish Bone analysis
This technique helps a Manager to find out the root cause of any problem in early stages the project. This is basically a Cause and Impact and helps to find out anything that can make a big impact on the project and the possible cause of the activity. So basically it helps in writing down risks in the project.
4) Lesson Learned
This is most commonly technique used by Managers to document the findings from a completed project and use the same in the upcoming similar project in future. Lesson learned can be documented through various project closure meetings. feedback sessions, Feedback surveys. This is very important and essential technique to be used in every project.
5) Variance report
This is another very important technique being used by Manager during the execution of a project and in order to have a better control and governance on the project. Manager document the actual effort and cost being used in the project against the planned. This helps higher management to have an overview on the consistency in the project as well as a confidence for having a good governance.
6) Project Charter
This technique is used to initialize any project. The project charter is a document that contains all the relative information about the project requirement, stakeholders, and tentative timelines. This is generally a one-page document that act as inputs to the actual scope document.
7) Gantt Chart
This is a most important technique that a project manager uses throughout the project. Gantt chart is basically a timeline of complete project and details on the milestones or destinations. Project Manager often uses Gantt chart to showcase the whole project to management instead of the detailed project plan.
Project Management tools:
1) Microsoft Project: This is one of the most widely used project management tools across the globe. Very handy tool that provides almost everything from planning to execution out of the box. Excellent tool for a beginner. It provides a very interactive user interface that seems like a simple excel sheet to use and do many things automatically for the Manager. If you want to track the overall project in very simple and easy way, this is the tool for you.
Product Vendor: Microsoft
License: Paid /per installation or Bulk
Application Use: Desktop Based application
Features:
1) Complete project Plan
2) Resource Detail and dependency
3) Ability to trace the relation and dependency of tasks on other tasks.
4) Out of box Gantt chart
5) A number of reports to be used.
2) Gantt Project: This is just a smaller version of MS Project and often reviewed and compared by a user across the world. Like MS project, it is also an interactive tool but the person using this must have good knowledge of Project Management. It manly focus on PERT and Gantt charts.
Product Vendor: Open source
License: Free
Application Use: Desktop Based Application
Features:
1) Gantt. PERT Charts
2) A number of reports to be used in pdf and word format
3) Project Place: This is a cloud-based tool and being used by number of organization across the globe. This is very interactive and detailed planning and execution tool and a complete project Management solution. Using Project Place once can track to smallest possible activity with resource attached, the status of activity, execution dates, effort spent and much more. Project place act as a single repository for project planning, document handling. Issue tracker, Meeting notes, meeting scheduling and much more. Whole plan can be divided into the board (phases) and can further be divided into cards (tasks) that can be assigned to respective resources. Once of the best project Management tools if used to fullest capabilities,
Product Vendor: Project place International
License: Paid /per user
Application Use: Cloud (web based)
Features:
1) Complete project Plan
2) Resource Detail and dependency
3) Ability to trace the relation and dependency of tasks on other tasks.
4) Always live and actual status of the project. No need to put anything in any report.
5) Tracking to activity level
6) Single place for all project related documents
7) Out of box meeting scheduler and Minutes of Meeting holder
8) Issue tracking and reporting facility
9) Out of the box resource level report for work load
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