Your boss just has come to you with this brilliant idea that will help improve efficiency, reduce costs, and add substantially to your company's bottom line, and you are the ideal candidate to make this project a reality.
You know saying yes and being successful will be another notch in your list of executive accomplishments. It could mean a promotion, a raise, maybe even a move into that office you always coveted.
However, you know failure could do much harm after all those years you've worked to get this far. The reality is you've never managed an IT project like this before, or maybe this is your first opportunity. Among the questions on your mind:
o Where do you begin?
o How do you organize project implementation?
o How do you bring the project in on time and on budget?
o How do you manage properly personnel and other resources put at your disposal?
At this year's IASA conference, two executives from SECURA Insurance Companies–a regional mutual carrier for farm, commercial, home, and auto business, based in Appleton, Wis.–will conduct a session aimed at making you a successful project manager.
The session, titled "Taking the Lead: Critical Success Factors for New Project Managers," will be held Tuesday from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Ernie Pearson, information technology director for applications development at SECURA, and Larry Wright, claims project manager for the carrier, will aim to lay out the "down and dirty" details about project management, "focusing on the basic elements," including hazards and obstacles that can trip up someone while working on an implementation.
"If you do not know anything else, if you can execute well, your chances of success are much improved," says Pearson.
Formal training can make a big difference, according to both Pearson and Wright, with some managers going so far as to pursue a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification issued by the Project Management Institute.
Even those who do not go for the designation can gain a lot of insight from reading the 400-page Project Management Body of Knowledge–" a good read, some might argue essential, if you are a professional project manager," according to the presenters in their session description.
But the reality is when called upon to manage an IT project, not everyone has the time to obtain a professional designation first, and they stress it is not a requirement to become a solid project leader.
Pearson and Wright say their intent is to try to boil down all the knowledge contained in that 400-page text into "the key elements of the five major project management processes–from initiating, planning, and executing to controlling and closing."
What attendees should walk away with after attending this session is an understanding of the keys to project management and confidence they can be successful in their first attempt implementing one off the drawing board, promises Wright.
"We want people to understand what a project is," says Pearson. "People get process and project confused" and need to distinguish between the two.
Discipline is an important element in completing a project successfully, and that includes knowing "how to set the table and knowing how much is enough," he continues. "Projects come in all shapes and sizes," and that can affect management style.
"If you are building a house, that requires a certain amount of management of the project, but building a dog house is a much smaller undertaking," says Pearson, underscoring the scale of the project determines what the management of it should be.
After understanding the scale of the project, the next step is the project's life cycle, Pearson adds. Outlining the life cycle, he says: "One–initiate; then move the plan through execution; then monitor and control it; then close it out."
During the session, Pearson says they will cover not only the most important elements of a project as it moves ahead but also what can go wrong, with Wright noting attendees will be warned about roadblocks project managers might face during implementation.
One potential roadblock is the resources dedicated to the project, such as the number and experience of the personnel allocated, Pearson notes. Are the personnel all able to work on the project full time or just part time? Will this produce a "tug of war" between the project manager and line manager?
"Many people are uninitiated in program management," Pearson points out. "You could be a controller of a company, and next thing you know, the senior vice president of finance says you need to replace the general ledger system, and you are elected the manager of the project. You might be an expert in accounting procedures, but you might not know how to manage a project."
One of the session's major objectives, indicates Pearson, will be to go beyond the textbook of project management to try to offer some real-life, practical advice from their own experiences.
"Many people are thrust into a project management role without orientation," he says. "We say these are the things you should know and give an outline to guide them through the process, showing them they need to keep their eyes open because they easily can get tripped up."
"The goal is to make them more successful in their first project than if they never took our session, because we will point to things they need to pay attention to," according to Wright.
"We have 30 years of project management between us," he continues. "From those experiences, we can see patterns of something if it is not done right."
Indeed, he warns, "if you do not get the foundation right, it gets tougher as you get deeper into the project."
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