L4 NVQ Project Management

Katrina Gallagher

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Notes & Videos

project management illustration by Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoons.

Why would you focus on

project management?

Project Management Benefits

You may be able to :

● Increase efficiency

● Improve customer satisfaction

● Become more effective in delivering services

● Improve your quality and output

● Uncover development opportunities within the team

● Increase your competitive edge

● Identify opportunities to expand services

● Increase flexibility

● Reduce risk

What considerations to

you make?

Brainstorm

Project Management

● Financial viability of the project

● Time

● Resource

● Budget

● Constraints

● Dependencies

● Legal

● Confidentiality

How do you set clear

goals

Setting Clear Goals

● Who needs to be involved? Who are your ‘stakeholders’?

● How do you identify what is needed?

● What makes your goals SMART?

● What do you do to ensure you’re working towards your goals?

● How are your goals monitored and tracked?

SMART Goals

How do you manage

your resources?

● How do you allocate resources?

● How do you check project requirements against goals?

● What are your time constraints?

● How much budget do you have for each stage?

● What human resources do you require to complete each

stage?

● Do these humans need training?

● How will your humans communicate?

● What are your IT requirements?

Project resources

Project roles and

responsibilities

● Do you need experts from different areas of the

business?

● Do you involve the client and other stakeholders?

● What is your approval process?

● Who identifies training needs?

● Who manages meeting schedules and how?

● When do you produce reports, how, and who to?

Project roles & responsibilities

Communication

● What formal communication is

required?

● What informal communication

would you plan in?

● How do you determine who

needs to know what? eg

clients, stakeholders,

management, team members.

Project communication

Project risk

● Safety issues

● Optimistic time and cost estimates

● Unexpected budget costs

● Unclear roles and responsibilities

● Forgetting or not clarifying the needs of the client

● Changing requirements after the start of the project

● New requirements

● Poor communication

● Lack of commitment.

What are the project risks?

Reducing risk

● Health and safety

● Appropriate training

● Regular project review meetings

● Good communication

● Monitoring

● Updating

How do you reduce project risks?

Practical:

Project Management Tools● Progress reports

● Budget monitoring reports

● GANTT charts

● Critical Path Analysis

● Project software packages.

https://trello.com/b/fDsPBXFt/board-of-templates

http://www.tomsplanner.com

Critical Path Analysis

Project: Make Toast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vS_b7cJn2A

Monitoring Projects

● Update task status

● Re-schedule uncompleted tasks

● Update project elements

● Request additional budget/resources/time

How monitor & steer projects?

Post Mortem

● Improve future projects

● Learn from experience

● Identify what you need for future projects

● Enables you to compare achievements to

original objectives

● Highlight any issues eg health and safety,

problems, training needs, shortages in terms

of resources, increases in costs

● Allows for the ability to revise and update

plans

Why write an end of project

report?

http://www.businessballs.com/project%20management%20templates.pdf

Document Templates

How will you do things differently?

For my next project...

QUESTIONS ANYONE?

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Thanks for listening!

Credits & Further Reading:• Switch: How to change things when change is hard - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Switch-change-things-

when-hard/dp/1847940323 • Yellow and black radio story- http://www.alexandercowan.com/yellow-walkman-data-art-of-customer-

discovery/ • SMART goals - http://orangeshoe.com/2014/12/22/goal-setting-smart-goals/ • Project management communication - https://fishphilosopher.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/edu-627-

effective-communication-and-project-management/ • Trello - https://trello.com/• Rescuetime (time tracking) - https://www.rescuetime.com/• Tom’s Planner (Gantt charts) - http://www.tomsplanner.com/• Document templates - http://www.businessballs.com/project%20management%20templates.pdf • Digital Project Management - http://www.thedigitalprojectmanager.com/• Project Management Tools - http://www.stateofdigital.com/choosing-a-project-management-tool/• SEO Project Management - http://www.stateofdigital.com/project-management-is-the-key-to-seo-success/• Prince2 - http://www.Prince2.com