Improving your project management processes has become a major issue in organisations: to overcome the pressure on prices imposed by your customers and international competition, the following 5 best practices will greatly help you.
To improve your project and portfolio management, there are several themes you must look into. From theoretical knowledge to change management and practical measures, here are 5 key points to help you in this initiative.
Identify the risks of your projects on time
In project management, managing project risks is an essential element to keep in mind when adding a new project to your planning.
There are four points to focus on when identifying risks:
- Costs — What is the probability of runaway costs making the project unprofitable?
- Time — What is the probability or exceeding the original schedule?
- Quality — What is the probability of delivering a usable product or service?
- Content — What is the probability of delivering the whole scope of the project?
In order to refine your analysis, it will be necessary to allocate to each of the identified risks a degree of impact on these four points.
The goal is to measure the consequences that each of these risks may have on the success criteria of your projects — the achievement of your objectives, the quality of the final product or service, or the planning of your project and its costs.
- Level 1: the risk will have minimal consequences on each criterion
- Level 2: your project may be delayed for some activities, or incur a slight increase in costs
- Level 3: your goals will be partially achieved, your product’s performance will decrease
- Level 4: the achievement of your objectives is compromised, your project will not be delivered in time
- Level 5: your project is delayed and costs you much more; your product is unusable
To learn more about the risk analysis section, we have made our risk analysis matrix available to our readers.
Ensure stakeholders feel involved
Identifying your stakeholders helps you take into account the positive and negative actors that will influence the realisation of your project.
This is a broad definition of stakeholders, which could include: your customers, your employees, your project team, your suppliers or even the public.
To assist you in this process, we have created a stakeholder matrix. It will allow you to identify the two essential axes: the degree of power over a project as well as the interest of each stakeholder.If you want your project to succeed, it is necessary for you to stay in constant contact with your stakeholders, by keeping communication regular and effective.
All you have to do is apply the right strategy depending on the degree of power as well as the degree of interest. In this context, communication should be a two-way dialogue, incorporating feedback on the execution and performance measures of your project.
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