Thursday, February 25, 2016

10 factors 5: communication

5.    Communication. Make sure you keep everyone informed by providing the right information at the right time. Produce status reports and run regular team meetings.
Communication is more than just communication in projects, particularly the more complex projects.

The PM/PM office needs to have a very clear appreciation of the information flows and needs of the project, the sources and destinations of information, and what 'meta-information' to keep track of.

Regular systems of meetings are part of the deal, for sure, but they are only hubs in an extensive communication/information network that links the project to its environment, its own performance and its players.

Document management is an important part of this, with currency of documents being tracked to ensure all are using current information.

A project 'data dictionary' to maintain the project's set of definitions and information baseline are important.

If a building/construction project, than a 'BIM' system should be considered, with a system to catalogue and organise the huge flow of information that such projects need.

Friday, February 5, 2016

4. Build a one team one goal approach

If the goal is the overall project and its mission; then 'yes'. But local goals change from time to time. Usually they concerned with task completion, hand off and collaboration, but the goals intertwine. A project is not that neat that at the operational level there is one goal at any time.

Of course, scale might have something to do with this. On a $500m hospital project with the total project team running to dozens of firms and hundreds of people and a WBS of several thousand items, then many goals all the time!