The Best Templates to Use in Project Management

As professional project managers, we probably work heavily with templates…either using them or creating them. Templates can be a series of Word files, Excel files, Powerpoint files, or even PDF files. Templates are most often used for expense reports, budgets, letters and emails, project instructions, and schedules…you name it. But what are the best templates to use in project management?

Why do we use templates?

Templates make the life and role of a project manager easier. They save time and they practice consistency across team members, departments and functional areas, and even among other project managers. So much time and effort can be dedicated to creating internal as well as external documents. After all, why reinvent the wheel?

If you are a new project manager to the organization or role itself, it may be your job to create some new templates for you and your team prior to beginning a new project. Where do you start? You can always start from scratch. Get some feedback from your team on what should be in the documents and how to create them. You can also look to some project management software that provides reports as well as templates. But how do you know you are creating or are using the best templates?

What should the best templates include?

The best templates should include the following:

• Company Branding – It is always important to consistently use the company branding on all documents, especially when creating external documents for clients, customers, and quotes. This will maintain a high level of professionalism for all team members and project managers.

• Fields and Headers – When you or a member of your team opens the document, the document should automatically pre-fill information needed (i.e. the PMs name, the date, vendors, project ID, etc.) This will save the team member and/or PM time in filling out the same information over and over, especially if he or she does this several times per day. This will also minimize the risk for error and typos, which could be costly down the line.

• Charts and Other Data – When working in spreadsheet programs such as Excel, it may be helpful to have charts, graphs, or other figures already created. That way when the project manager, team lead, or other team member needs to add data, it will update the chart or graph automatically. Not only will this make it easy for others to use them, but the margin for error and risk will decrease since the charts are already properly designed.

• Comments and Notes – Regardless of which templates you create for what purpose, you should add in notes and comments to different fields, especially to those sections and areas that are meant to draw others’ attention to, such as instructions on how to fill out a certain area, input or feedback, or even an area that is most common left out or missed. You can also include comments and notes on a particular document for training purposes so the new project manager or team member knows how to fill out the document properly and its overall purpose and function.

While setting up and creating templates in the beginning may seem like a daunting and time-consuming task, it will save bundles of time during the height of projects and during peak business time. Templates also help improve efficiency and consistency across all team members and departments. Make sure the templates you create include the points above.

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Useful Questions Project Managers Should Ask

When projects are first assigned, or when hot leads then turn into contracted projects, there are some questions that project managers should analyze and ask themselves at the beginning of a project. This will help fully assess project specifications, identify risks, budget, resources, etc. and put together a plan of action.

• What are the deadlines and what does the schedule look like? Obviously this depends on the projects that you manage or the organization or clients that you are associated with, but ultimately one of the first things project managers should assess are the deadlines. Often times this may involve reviewing and analyzing the specs before committing to a deadline or setting up a schedule.

• What does the budget look like? The second crucial item in a project to analyze and review is the budget. What materials or resources or time does the budget allow for? Is there a little or a lot of room in the budget? Will a risk response plan need to be put in place should project specs change late in the game? Project managers, unfortunately, often have to work with condensed or limited budgets…especially today. It is important to fully assess these constraints and put together a risk response plan for any changes or issues that come up.

• What are the risks involved? In identifying schedules, deadlines, budgets, and project specs, it’s also absolutely crucial to identify project risks. No project should be handed off to team members or vendors until all risks have been identified and addressed and documented. Putting together a risk response plan to address the risks is also a pertinent step. This should outline what the risk category, the risk facet, and the probability that risk will occur, the impact, and what a reasonable response would be. It’s also a good idea to hold regular risk planning meetings to go over these with team members, particularly prior to hand off phases and other milestones.

• What are the customer’s needs? While it’s easy to get wrapped up in data and the details such as schedules, budgets, resources, etc., it’s always important to remember what and for whom the project is for. What is the purpose of this project? What benefits does it serve for the client? What is the client looking to get out of it?Sometimes having this frame of mind will help us to deliver successful projects to clients. It’s also a good idea that when identifying project specs and other data to question anything that doesn’t make sense. For instance, if a particular client asks for a spec that seems odd, it may be worth questioning, or at least trying to understand what he or she is looking for, and then offering a possible or easier solution that may save everyone time and money.

• How can we contribute to the project’s overall success? In addition to the previous point, it’s also important to take a step back and think of how your team can contribute to the project’s overall success. What skills do you and your team have that would benefit this project? What can you bring to the project table that would really ensure its success? Each project manager and team has their own personality and ways of doing things that stand apart from others. While this isn’t a competition, a team should be aware and proud of their skills and put them to use in a project.

These are just several questions that project managers should ask themselves when being assigned or taking on a new project. Some of these are typical questions that we have to identify all the time, however, sometimes we may forget what and for whom the project is for. It’s easy to get stuck on the details and forget the big picture. Taking a step back and truly thinking about these items will no doubt ensure the project’s success.

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How to Ensure Risk Management Success

We’ve talked many times before in this blog about projects and risk management. We’ve talked about identify and analyzing risks, the most common risks and the most common mistakes in risk management, the facets and categories of risk management, and even project management and risk management methodologies. So how do project managers tie all these together to make sure they really capture and ensure successful risk management?

This takes some experience and practice. Project managers are constantly on the go and often times doing several tasks at once. While multitasking is an excellent skill—and one that many project managers perfect over time—this can also have a negative impact.

• Identify Risks – As Early and as Often as Possible While we are busy multitasking, we may be forgetting to pay attention to crucial areas at crucial times, such as identifying risks. Identifying risks should occur at the very, VERY beginning of a project…even if the project isn’t technically a project yet, or is still only a lead or in the bidding stage. While it may seem like this takes more time overall, it can save project managers headaches throughout the project’s life cycle. In addition, it’s true that much of the identifying and analyzing risks should occur as early on in the project as possible, that doesn’t mean you don’t see them through. Depending on the probability and impact of the risk, it may be worth having regular risk or planning meetings with your team to monitor and analyze them through each project phase.

• Prioritize and Analyze Once project risks have been identified, and then re-identified, it is then important to assign tasks to team members as applicable. Each risk can come with its own set of responsibilities and tasks associated with it. In addition to the project manager, of course, each team member can be responsible for a risk or tasks. These tasks will need to be prioritized, analyzed, and then re-prioritized and reanalyzed through the life of the project. Again, this can be done at weekly risk or planning meetings, through documentation methods (such as checklists), or whichever method works best for the team as a whole.

• Communication and Project Management Communication is another big element that we’ve discussed in this blog on more than one occasion. Communication and project management, and communication and risk management go hand in hand…always. Projects will never be successful without implementing proper and open communication. Communication doesn’t even have to mean talking or conversing with one another about what’s going on, it’s about communicating risks, specifications, schedule changes, etc. Everyone should be on the same page at all times. This is of course a challenge for many teams, especially for those teams that work together on an off site or virtual basis, but closing the gap in communication will make everyone’s job easier and will ensure overall project success.

• Engage Team Members At All Times This is somewhat of a spin off of the point on communication listed above. All team members working on any project need to be privy of the specifications, correspondence, schedules, timelines, and especially the risks. Not only will this open the doors of communication and keep everyone on the same page, but it also lets team members know they are valued in every stage of the project.

Again, the challenges teams face today is that most team members work off site, virtually, and even in different time zones. When we all rely on email technology and electronic communication today, it is very easy to miss a detail here and there. Moral of the story? Project managers should do whatever necessary in order to keep ALL team members up to date and practice open communication, no matter where they are.

All in all, while dealing with risks many not be the most exciting part about being a project manager—some may argue that it is the most challenging—it is certainly not an area that should be taken lightly. Practicing the items outlined above will ensure that the proper measures are taken to identify and deal with risks, as well as develop and design risk response plans. This will help ensure that projects transition and are completed smoothly.

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Project Management and Communication

Most project managers would agree that one of the most important elements in projects and in project management as a whole is communication. The overall success and efficiency of a project is only as strong as the communication put into it.

Much like communication is an important part of a relationship. Project managers should treat each project like a “relationship”. While projects or work are nothing like a personal relationship, there are similarities here. Think of how you treat your family members, friends, or children on a personal level. Each person has his or her own individual personality characteristics, or something that makes one unique from the other.

Project managers would agree that it seems like no two projects are alike. This is essentially the case with relationships. Each project has its own unique specs, attributes, and risks associated with them that a good and efficient project manager needs to be mindful of and pay attention to.

Furthermore, one of the most important elements in managing a successful project is communication. Communication needs to be smooth in all areas of a project. This includes to and from the customer or client, team members—particularly if your project involves working with team members that are off site—other departments or functional areas, and vendors. The specs, attributes, and risks should be effectively communicated across these units.

One of the greatest areas of risk in a project is the hand off stages or essential project milestones where projects cross from one area to another, or from one department to another. It is at this point that if instructions and project specs aren’t clearly defined or communicated to other functional areas or team members where the risk for error is the greatest.

If project managers are unsure of how to effectively communicate project essentials to other team members, departments, or functional areas, one of the most effective methods of communication is document control. All specs should be documented and documented again in order to make sure they make it across to all areas of a project, all project milestones, and all team member in all forms and lines of communication.

Experienced and professional project managers recognize how important communication is in any project. As a result, project managers should treat each project like its own original and unique entity. Project managers should establish a “relationship” with that project and treat it as such. One of the most effective ways to do this is to practice effective communication throughout the life of the “relationship” or life cycle of a project.

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Online Teams and Online Team Members

With the development of Internet and mobile technology, more people prefer to work from home or telecommute. Number of online projects is fast growing and now almost all businesses in almost all industries make use of them. Especially, such projects are a frequent choice for start-ups with limited resources, but large companies are no exception.

Are online projects any different from traditional ones? If yes, how different is the work of an online team member?

There are widely different points of views about distance projects. Some managers are still of the opinion that managing online teams is much more difficult and freelancers could be used only for certain well defined tasks, but not for more complicated ones that require close monitoring and supervision.

However, some others find a lot of advantages to managing a freelance team working at geographically different locations in different time zones. They provide clear examples to prove long term success of online projects and that even difficult projects that require much communication between team members and close collaboration are quite suitable for online platform. Indeed, working with online team provides an opportunity to select the best manpower from a diverse range of specialties and criteria.

In fact some people are not able to work without boss under their shoulders and even they are good specialists they will not be effective online workers.

The first freelance work is not fit for everyone. Sometimes people want to be freelancers because of some individual circumstances. They may think they don’t need to go to work and it saves a lot of time. But there are some people, more often extroverts, who are not able to stay and work alone all time. They need people around and working online will be hell for them. This kind of people can’t adapt and may feel quite uncomfortable with working online only connected virtually.

But ability to work alone is not enough to be a good freelancer and an effective member of an online team. Online work requires high level of responsibility because it is easier to hide “in the cloud” than in the real work place. Psychologically, the online worker considers, as less serious fault, if he goes offline without explanation. Moreover, problems with connection could be a smart excuse in case of missing work or delays. But if such things happen often it will affect the team negatively in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. Good online worker always tells in advance that he will not be online or find way to inform team that he has problem with connection.

Team members should be interested in the project in the first place and open for communication; he should be enthusiastic and take active part in discussions and, problems and solutions.

Freelance work is much more result oriented. If you work in an office you have much more freedom to pretend that you are working. Online workplace does not give such opportunity. Moreover, approach to work with remote workers is tougher. Employer can easily fire an ineffective freelancer than office worker. Personal relationships play a more important role when people have physical contacts. There is a kind of people who build the career based on good terms with the boss. People who choose to work online mostly are not interested in such methods or don’t have ability to manipulate people. They prefer to prove their efficiency with hard work and an achievement of valuable results.

A member of online team should be more self-sufficient. Often the duties of online worker are various and ability to get skills fast is very important. In the physical office, people communicate and ability to learn partly could be replaced with ability to communicate.

Very often freelancer works at several online projects at the same time and good online worker is curious, good learner and the person who has excellent ability to switch between works does well.

It is a fact that online project success greatly depends on the right team. The next question is where to find such people and how to manage an online team.

Usually people who are working or prepared to work online have online history. He could have been hired before through freelance sites have feedback tools; probably he may have their own blog site or active in forums. It is quite risky to hire a person who has never worked online for a responsible position. That is why people who are serious about freelance future often agree to lower position and lower money to prove that they are able to work online.

A project manager of an online team has very small chance to control what people are doing. Most freelance sites like oDesk have advanced software to control freelancers but it is boring and time consuming task to look screenshots one by one. So the only measure of people’s work is the result.

The role of project manager in online projects is much more informal. He needs to support constant communication with his team with a purpose of controlling and teaching people. Project manager is responsible for creating an atmosphere where every freelancer feels that the result of the project depends on how he works.

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Dealing with Programmatic Risks…Such as Hurricanes

Every project has its own certain levels of certain risks; risks that are analyzed and identified from the beginning of a project or during the development and submission phases. However, each project also comes with a number of uncertain risks, or even risks that project managers have no control over. Some of these uncontrollable and uncertain risks are related to weather. How many projects do you think are now suffering from a decrease in productivity due to Hurricane Sandy?

Dealing with risk management is a crucial step in every project. Project managers could spend all day putting together a risk management plan for risks that are both certain and uncertain. The truth is, project managers can’t devise a risk management plan for every risk that could occur. However, they can identify where these risks could occur. For example, each project has its own set of programmatic risks, which are basically those risks that affect project direction, but also fall outside of the project manager’s control.

Furthermore, programmatic risks also deal a lot with uncertain risks, or risks that involve environmental impacts. These could include breakdowns in communication, labor strikes, or severe, inclement weather. For example, Hurricane Sandy was a programmatic risk that many project managers face right now. Of course project managers at the start of their projects probably did not bet that a category three hurricane would put a halt to productivity or maybe even risk deadlines or project completion. This is a clear example of a risk that is out of the project manager’s, and even the organization’s, level of control.

So what can project managers do about uncertain programmatic risks?

Of course project managers at the start of their projects could not predict earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, or blizzards that could result in closed offices or interruptions in communication. However, if project managers could be aware of the possibility of these environmental impacts, then perhaps schedule adjustments could be made in advance in order to accommodate the drop in productivity or the breach in deadlines. This could be as simple as messaging or emailing team members to have a back up plan in order in the event inclement weather is predicted. This will give team members the chance to tie up any loose ends, adjust schedules and deadlines as necessary and as possible, and just be ready for the impact.

Again, project managers should not waste valuable time in drafting risk management plans at the beginning of each project to include the likelihood of a hurricane. A big part of designing a risk management plan not only includes identifying the risk, but also analyzing the impact or probability of a particular risk occurring. For example, project managers that took on new projects a week ago could easily factor in the hurricane as a certain risk to the project, because it was a real possibility at the time.

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Are You Project Managing Your Own Life?

Project manager by day…and night? As a professional project manager, do you find that you project manage your own personal life, even when you aren’t at work? Are you multitasking, creating schedules, spreadsheets, or even using a database or software to track and organize your own personal tasks? If you’ve said, “yes” to any of these, you could be project managing your own life.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Keeping detailed records, schedules, and spreadsheets to track budgets, finances, kids’ sports schedules and other activities, and other daily to-dos isn’t unheard of…especially in our busy lives where most of us balance work, school, families, etc. simultaneously. With our lives on the go all the time, it’s hard not to remain in the role as project manager when you leave the office and when you step in the door at home.

What can you do to become more organized?

The work – life balance is tough. No argument there. Being organized and detail-oriented can help you stay on top of finances, work out or diet goals, sports and activities schedules, and even managing grocery lists. You may have even perfected the art of multitasking by doing multiple household chores at one time, or exercising and doing work on your smartphone at the same time, or even scheduling weekend tasks by the day, or even by the hour! It’s all about coordination.

In addition to spending your time project managing your own life, you can also put that energy towards new ideas and even spark creativity. This doesn’t even have to do with your career as a project manager, but could also pertain to your own personal life. Maybe you need to think of a creative interior decorating idea, or help your child with his or her science project, or even plan your family’s next holiday or family reunion. We know what you’re thinking: spreadsheets, Powerpoints, and maybe even Pinterest…

Not all things in life can be project managed.

Project managers find the slightest inefficiencies and make them efficient. But remember, while life can be a project, it’s not as easily managed as some of the projects that may fall across your desk or appear in your inbox. There are challenges, hardships, and unforeseen events in life that just can’t be managed with a spreadsheet. This isn’t an attack on your efficiency, experience level, or performance as a project manager, it’s just a fact. Life is just messy and we all have to learn to roll with the punches. There come points in life when we have to stop being the job and be human beings.

How do you find a happy medium?

So now that we’ve talked about how project managing your own life is a good thing, and about where the line is between career and home, how does a project manager find a happy medium? There are simple ways that project managers function on a daily basis that aren’t over the top but can still make you a better person, personally.

1. Coordination. Coordination always takes effort, whether it be at home or work or even in your own business. However, if you learn to balance home and work and recognize where the line between the two is, when to cross it, and when not to cross it, this will help you in your coordination efforts. This will help you to remain organized and keep tasks, projects, and everything else in check and categorize them between work and play.
2. Communication. Project managers should know it’s all about communication. This item goes beyond the office, email, and the smartphone. This can be used in all relationships, whether personal or professional. Communication among spouses, friendships, and even families is huge in life. Practicing good, effective communication will make you a better person all around.

Finally, project managers can certainly benefit from implementing their own professional tactics into their personal lives. In fact, most professionals often do! However, it’s important as human beings to remember how vital it is not to let this cross over and take over your life negatively. Project management comes with excellent knowledge and skills to utilize in both your personal and professional life.

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