A clear understanding of the basic principles of project
management will pay dividends for any SMB looking to harness IT for
business success
Effective project management can provide the same major benefits
for small and medium-sized enterprises as it does for larger
organisations. Well-managed projects should result in required
deliverables to the quality expected. These should be produced to
planned timescale, resource and, of course, cost.
Successful projects can significantly help the organisation
achieve its business objectives, making effective use of IT and
business processes to enhance performance, productivity or
competitive advantage.
Yet many SMBs suffer badly from "failed" projects which do not
meet business expectations. Their senior executives and other users
may feel that project management is an unnecessary overhead - a
black art which delivers unpredictable or unsatisfactory results at
high cost.
This may be because in many SMBs with limited resources and
budgets, dedicated project management is not seen as an essential
specialist skill. For example, business analysts or technical
specialists may be asked to multi-task by handling projects in
addition to their other roles. Such multi-tasking or change of role
could dilute their focus and effectiveness, and make it difficult
for them to keep their eye on the ball across their various
roles.
A cost-effective solution could be provided by engaging a
specialist project management consultancy - for example, on a
fixed-cost or fixed-time basis - to manage a project or portfolio
of projects, while also advising in-house staff on project
management principles, processes and techniques for specific needs
of the organisation.
Most of the basic principles of project management apply to SMBs
just as they do to larger organisations. But it is by no means one
size fits all, as most of these businesses do not have project
management offices or internal project auditors, or make full use
of a heavyweight project management methodology.
Nevertheless, clear identification of business needs and their
effective delivery via projects is often essential for the
commercial success of an SMB. Key factors to address include
project framework, responsibility, process and results.
An SMB can gain significant benefit from its executives clearly
knowing what they want from their projects. Initially, they should
understand the big picture, or framework, of where they want to go
and some alternative approaches (eg business changes, processes,
IT) for how to get there.
An evaluation should be done to assess the comparative business
benefits and risks of each approach. In this way it should be
possible to clarify which approach is best aligned to the
organisation's business objectives.
For each project, the SMB chief executive should appoint an
executive (the more senior the better) as sponsor, with top-level
commitment for ensuring project success and overall responsibility
for all aspects of the project including resources, budget and
business benefits. Project success can be helped by good use of
process, techniques and tools based on best practice guidelines and
selected aspects of a widely used standard methodology such as
Prince 2.
Key aspects to address include clear definition and
documentation of project requirements and deliverables. Also
important is test planning from an early stage, leading to as much
system and user testing as possible, and fast turnaround of test
results and issues.
These and other aspects can be optimised to fit the
organisation's needs, resources and budgets, using:
- "Light" project planning and control using only selected key
documents/outputs;
- "Light" processes for project governance, reporting and other
communications;
- "Light" configuration, quality and risk management;
- Off-the-shelf, re-usable templates and tools where
possible.
- Project results should be easy to monitor against plan, easy to
communicate and easy to compare with project requirements and
success criteria.
- Business benefits delivered can therefore be
measured.
How can a busy SMB CEO or senior executive start the process of
improved project management? This could be effected by an initial
assesSMBnt of business needs, plans and current project status by
an external project management specialist. Such an objective health
check can help to identify and clarify project needs, areas of
concern and aspects needing particular focus.
Dalim Basu is founder and managing director of specialist
project management consultancy Dalim Services