Project Management Tips for Starting A New L&D

The best place to start is to clearly define what you mean by project. It may seem obvi¬ous, but it often isn’t. A project has a distinct beginning and end. Someone asks you to do them a favor and create a few PowerPoint slides and the next thing you know; you’re creating a half-day workshop on customer service—that’s a project. Remember: Tasks and projects both have a beginning and an end. Projects are a collection of tasks. If something is going to take you more than an uninterrupted half day, it’s not a task, it’s a project.
To properly manage a project—and balance all your other responsibilities—you need to know when a project ends. In our work, the end can be confusing. Using the half-day workshop on customer service example, is the end of the project when the workshop is built or when it is held? A workshop requires scheduling, tracking, and trou¬bleshooting, as well as updating as it ages. That’s a really long time for a project to last! Ongoing, repeating tasks without a specific end point like workshop management—or payroll—are called processes. You and your customer must decide where the end of a project is early in the process. Here’s a basic breakdown of the differences between projects and processes:

Project

 

•     Creation of a one-day workshop
•     Implementation of learning management software (LMS)
•     Creation of a compensation plan
•     An organizational needs analysis

 

Process

 

•     Supervising an employee
•     Ongoing administration of the LMS
•     Performance review
•     Managing to a learning strategy

 

What Is Project Management?

Simply put, project management consists of planning, organizing, and managing work.

• Planning—anticipating and trying to predict how to set up your tasks for the implementation of a project. This part is a lot of guessing because it’s about what will happen in the future and we’re (usually) not psychic. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that the project will never go as planned. Ever.
•  Organizing—coordinating all the moving tasks, people, dates, budgets, and quality needs once the project begins in order to reach its final goals. This happens every day, in the present.  
• Managing—adapting and being resilient to surprises and disasters that have occurred in the past and keeping them on track. As the project progresses, things change, mistakes occur, people don’t show up, and disaster always strikes.

In a sense, project management means living in three different states of time—the future, the present, and the past. Keeping an eye on all three for the duration of the project, while difficult, is critical to success. Much like juggling, it requires conscious adaptation and realignment of resources. Later in this chapter you will learn about four basic phases of project management that will help you accomplish these three responsibilities.

Important Project Management Roles

 
The project manager owns the planning, organizing, and managing responsibilities. As the caretaker, the project manager plans for the needs of a project, organizes current priorities, and manages surprises as the project progresses. The role of project manager requires one foot in the future (creating a plan), one foot in the past (learning from mistakes), and the rest of the body in the present (reacting to surprises).

Many learning and development professionals simultaneously assume the role of project manager and other roles, including developer, graphic designer, and LMS load¬er. If this is true for you, be careful to budget time on your calendar to think about your project (you’ll read more about this when you learn about mitigating risk in chapter 3). Project development, which is more easily measured, may tempt you away from project management time. But failing to block off this time can end up wrecking the entire project.

However, project managers need to remember that they do not own the project and thus cannot control it, which are two very upsetting concepts to some people. And project managers who think they own and can control the project are stubborn, non-collaborative, and secretive. Open communication among all the players drives project success, not anarchy.

Instead, the project is owned by the business that employs the project manager, and it is led by a project sponsor. All projects need a project sponsor, who acts as the business champion of a project, sees the return on investment (ROI), and knows when to cancel the project if the ROI becomes unlikely as the project progresses. The project sponsor ensures that the project aligns to the business goals and that it is delivered on time.

One project manager is much better than many. Co-project managers usually add unneeded complexity to a project. One project sponsor is also much better than many—multiple project sponsors (or worse, a board of directors) can paralyze a project. If that’s a constraint on your project, get help with the politics and try to cultivate a “secret” sponsor from the group.

Beyond the project manager and project sponsor are the stakeholders who you will need to complete the project successfully. These stakeholders could include developers, business analysts, or the finance, legal, or IT departments. When creating the project charter (see chapter 2), you’ll figure out which roles you’ll need. And when building the project schedule, you’ll figure out which people will play those roles. Many will be surprised to hear that you need their help, just like you are when someone drops something on your to-do list. The project manager constantly manages communica¬tions with the stakeholders to ensure that they know what and when their deliverables are needed.

Should learners be stakeholders for your project? It seems obvious that they should be, but often they are not. Stakeholders receive something from the project and provide something to your project. If you are working with subject matter experts to build your workshop, you may not work directly with the learners. Revisit the end of your project: Is the delivery of the learning project in your scope, or part of the implementation process? If your pilots are part of your project scope, will the participants be actual learners or experts?

You may be thinking that the differences in tasks, projects, processes, and project roles are not always clear-cut—and you’re right. The lines get pretty blurry. To be an effective project manager, you must be able to plan, organize, and control, as well as be clear which activities the people playing stakeholder roles will own. It’s easy to get confused between doing the project (development) and managing the project (project management), which is especially true when you play both roles. For that reason, this book focuses on both: project management techniques and development activities.

Four Basic Phases

There are four basic phases of project management: define, plan, manage, and review.

Define.  The define phase answers the question: Why are we spending money on this project instead of something else? Think of this phase as establishing the business purpose, or even better, the business case. The project sponsor plays a critical role in this phase by helping you understand how to set up what you need to do the project correctly. The deliverable created during the define phase is called the project charter. This document will serve as your baseline over the course of the project, while being updated and changed as you learn more about it.

Plan. The plan phase answers the question: How are we going to do this project? Given that you now understand the reason the project is critical to the business, what’s the best strategy for getting it done? Which people should be involved, how much time do you have, and what exactly should be delivered? The project manager plays a critical role in this phase, working out all the logistics until there is a comprehensive list of tasks, which are assigned to specific people, with due dates. It’s like solving a big puzzle, and never easy. The project charter holds the high-level answers that help you figure out the best approach. The deliverable created during the plan phase is called the project schedule. Keep in mind that as the project progresses, things will change and so will your project schedule.

The Project Management Institute’s Project Management Body of Knowledge uses the phrase project plan to refer to the project charter and the project schedule. However, many people use these terms interchangeably, so pick what works with your organization. This book uses project schedule throughout.

Manage. The manage phase answers the question: How can I adapt to the surprises and glitches that happen to my project?  With your project schedule outlined, you’re now ready to implement it. This is an exciting time to start building whatever it is your business needs. Be aware that everything may change at a moment’s notice, and that’s to be expected.

Resiliency and flexibility will be your most valuable traits as you manage all the changes and update the project charter and schedule to keep everyone on task. Remember, you can’t control a project; instead, adapt! The deliverable of the manage phase is a finished or cancelled project.

Review. The review phase answers the question: What can we learn from this project that will help us with the next? As a professional in the field of learning and performance, you know that learning actually occurs while debriefing an experience, not during. The deliverable of the review phase is a transitioned project with a project review.