To help the iLab teamswith mastering skills that are relevant for project management and consultancy projects, the Fudan MBA Program has provided the iLab workshop since last semester. On March 22nd, the first iLab lecture for this semester was kicked off. Associate Professor Zhai Li, the former iLab faculty mentor, gave a talk on Successful Project Management and has got good feedbacks from the audience.
How to define project success? It is the first question that pops into a project manager’s mind when start running the project. Based on the Chaos Report by Standish Group in 2009, the success rate for any project is 32%, the failure rate is 24%, while the in-between rate is 44%. We can notice that there is a large amount of waste resources during any project management process. So what are the criteria to evaluate a project? In most cases, the three-iron triangles of the criteria are time, cost and quality. From the other perspective, any consulting project will eventually lead to customer satisfaction and acceptance.
So if we venture to define the characteristics of a project, the key element is “temporary”. Which means the organization is temporary. In the meanwhile, the consulting service focuses on a particular problem with a particular goal. So in general, the service should be unique as well.
The project life cycle is the different stages of a particular project, which involves definition, planning, execution and delivery. Based on the project life cycle model, the first stage involves identify the customer needs, existing problem and potential opportunity. The critical step is for manger to well understand the customer, well communicate with the client, raise proposal requirement (TPR or RFP), and reach mutual confirmation with contract. If TPR or RFP is quite extensive, then executive summary is required. During the second stage for project initiation and approving, the management need conduct project requirement analysis and feasibility analysis. During the whole progress, it is very critical to stay close contact and intensive communication with the clients, work out very clear project objectives, and make wise decisions to reach solid and executable proposal.
During the last stages, which are performing and implementation of the project, managers need to stay with the finalized proposal and commit all efforts in achieving the final goal. It can be helpful to follow the WBS technique, which refers to work breakdown structure, by dividing projects into several sub categories. It is a map of the project that identifies tasks in forms of “work packages”. A work package should not exceed 10 workdays in order to well control the process and deliverables. When work packages have significant uncertainty, it is a prudent policy to require 3 time estimates –optimistic, pessimistic and most likely. Thus we can use a formula to derive reasonable estimate of the whole progress. Managers can also apply models like Gannt Chart and network diagram to spot out the critical path, optimize the duration and maximize the input/output rate. A milestone plan, on the other hand, identifies key stages of implementation process. It helps identify key parties responsible for different stages. The golden activity planning rules include:Arrange plans for 4-6 months ahead; Make good time judgment; Limit activities to 1-3 weeks workload; Calculate with 3.5 days/week; Assume important decisions take 2-3 weeks and Mark out all important milestones.So to make a project successful, the backbone elements should include communication and trouble-shooting.
（Written by 2012 IMBA Zhenzheng Davy Lin）
MBA Program
Mar. 28th, 2013
