“The Critical Path is Not Critical”

The complexity of today’s projects often requires robust project management software and technology in order to effectively track all the moving parts of your business. With so many differing stakeholders there is often a disconnect between who is beholden to the critical path and how it works.

The shortest description is that the critical path is all about timing, it’s about finding the most bottle-necked areas of your project and exploiting them for the most efficient project completion. It’s almost always about the timing of your project.

There will be detractors who, without understanding this principle, may well attempt to derail a project, many times unknowingly. They may feel the critical path is not the “technical” path, the most difficult path or the path that is critical to their particular function as a stakeholder in the project. While each of these could be an individual’s concern going into the project, there must be wholehearted understanding that the critical path is all about the timing. Ignoring it is simply another way of expanding your expenses via costly time-consuming projects where project managers go rouge at the expense of the organization. Believe me, this is not a good place to be.

Project Equals Strategy

Many organizations forget that projects are all about implementation of an idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but it’s the execution of the strategy and the ideas which separate the dreamers from all else. Too often corporations, whether they are implementing an IT project or not, completely ignore the need for proper project planning prior to implementation of their idea.

For many projects, successful strategy is measured by timing and timing is never executed without a proper project plan. Unfortunately, many organizations fail to meet project deadlines regularly, doing so outside the realm of today’s project software opportunities. For those who understand the overall corporate strategy, and whose projects are necessarily aligned, missing deadlines should be treated as a disastrous failure. In some cases, project managers are too focused on minimizing the negative, instead of looking to maximize the strategy and plan for the positive. It some ways, it’s a bit like the glass is half empty/half full scenario.

Here are some key reasons why proper project timing is essential for executing on strategy:

• Competition kills. If your competitors are faster than you and on par, then you are toast. If they are faster and better, it’s project suicide.
• First-mover advantage. While many strategists argue there is often little value in being the first mover (in some cases it can work to your detriment), it is still helpful to execute quickly and then shift strategy, then to fail to execute over and over again. Think of what a difference a year could make on a patent being released. It could mean the difference in huge coin.
• Shorter schedules reduce cost and increase turnover. Why do players like Wal-Mart and Amazon win? They focus on providing low costs to the customer with rapid inventory turnover. The longer you wait to turnover your project, regardless of the project’s type, you are wasting time. Time is money.

So the next time you look at the “critical path” on some Gantt chart within your organization, remember that timing is just about everything when it comes to project planning and implementation. And timing is almost always about strategy and execution.

Stakeholder Management Processes and Pointers

When it comes to projects, there will always be those who’re more invested, excited and prepared than others. Regardless of your situation, some of the greatest assets and liabilities which will be evident throughout your project will be the other stakeholders involved. Management of these personnel will either make or break the project with which you will be involved.

Stakeholder management involves several key components many of which often come naturally in any business or project decision. However, the mapping of processes–like what occurs in nearly any project–will help to clarify the who, what when, where, why and how of the project so as to ensure more rapid success.

Identify and Connect

Finding the stakeholders is very difficult, but you’ll almost never be able to find that for which you are unaware. Mapping out your stakeholders includes time for identifying those who’ll be most desperately needed for your project. Sometimes those involves will seem to have little involvement at the outset, but their decisions will have lasting effects down the road.

Once you have identified key management and input personnel, it is essential that such individuals are not only contacted but brought in for initial discussions and preparation for the project. During this project planning process, you may find some individuals will become frustrated or even annoyed, but understanding who each stakeholder is and what they bring to the table along with where they fit in the value chain will be of utmost importance. In many cases, it helps to identify who the emergency contact is during critical moments through the project timeline. If nothing else, this gives you a pulse on who to call when something goes wrong, for things certainly will.

Mapping

Project mapping can often be treated lightly, but once you have key stakeholders in place, a lack of mapping can take key individuals off track from the original goal. Creating and informing key individuals of your project’s map will be extremely helpful for ensuring the project goes off without a hitch.

Monitoring and Review

When progress is measured, it improves. When progress is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement increases.

Feedback for each stakeholder not only allows for improvement, but also gives a way for you as the manager to see where holes may occur in your current processes. While monitoring and project review can often seem mundane and sometimes progress is slow, not doing so ensures that almost nothing will be done to improve or change over the course of time.

Your projects may prove difficult, but ignoring the stakeholders could be the most detrimental toward the success of your endeavor. Get them involved early and often and keep them in the loop for key milestones. You’ll be glad you did.