Suc­cess­ful project man­age­ment: proven methods

A wide-ranging network plan, curve diagrams, or a complex lean man­age­ment concept: the creation of diagrams and plans like these are a type of me­thod­i­cal approach. And project man­age­ment methods are an essential key to success, because they help to ensure that a project is brought to a sat­is­fac­to­ry con­clu­sion within a pre­de­ter­mined time frame and with the resources available. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a customer order from an ad­ver­tis­ing agency, designing a website as a free­lancer, or the social project of a non-profit or­ga­ni­za­tion: time is a scarce resource, financial resources are usually limited, and existing employees might not be able to per­ma­nent­ly commit to a project.

Good project man­age­ment increases the chance that your projects will be completed on time and stress-free, even under difficult con­di­tions. However, this requires planning, mon­i­tor­ing, con­trol­ling, and eval­u­at­ing all processes. As a rule, this is the project manager’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. They should keep an eye on all areas of the project and delegate tasks to their team. Various me­thod­i­cal ap­proach­es are available for project im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Project man­age­ment methods structure a project so that instead of seeing the project as a whole, it’s broken down into more man­age­able work areas. Each smaller area is easier to manage and easier to access in terms of the amount of effort required.

Most methods rely on so-called work packages. These are prac­ti­cal­ly self-contained task areas that have to be completed in order to perform a certain service within a project. A work package should be worked on by a single person or a group of employees. Only pre­vi­ous­ly defined resources are available to the par­tic­i­pants and the result must be delivered on an agreed date. Work packages like these can be used to divide large tasks into smaller work areas. In order to set pri­or­i­ties, tasks are usually arranged hi­er­ar­chi­cal­ly. This makes it easy to see which tasks are based on each other.

Each task is assigned to a re­spon­si­ble employee who has to work within a specified budget and ensures that deadlines are met.

An example: An ad­ver­tis­ing agency is planning a large-scale campaign lasting several months to increase the pop­u­lar­i­ty of public transport. The aim is to create a new website, use social media channels, and put up posters in buses. The campaign can therefore be divided into various small projects. To match the budget, it also makes sense to specify an overall project plan for dis­trib­ut­ing tasks, managing time, and sticking to the available budget. It is important to optimally co­or­di­nate the various small projects.

In project man­age­ment, method­olo­gies help you to maintain an overview and not lose sight of the project goal. You must therefore choose the method at the start of the project, since they set the course for later project work and ensure that each working group or employee has a clear goal. In addition, good project man­age­ment ensures that the budget is not used up too early or invested in the wrong areas.

The larger and more complex your project is, the more important it is to select a suitable project man­age­ment method. This is es­pe­cial­ly important when many different people are involved, since project managers often get bogged down in the numerous co­or­di­na­tion processes. And very com­pre­hen­sive projects often involve not only the team but also the man­age­ment, customers, external service providers, fi­nanciers, and other stake­hold­ers. A clear project plan fa­cil­i­tates com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the parties involved and therefore also sim­pli­fies the agree­ments.

When choosing a par­tic­u­lar project man­age­ment method, you need to consider several factors:

Project type

Is it an or­ga­ni­za­tion­al project (e.g. to make company processes more efficient), an in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment aid project, an IT project, or a marketing project? Depending on the type of project, other stake­hold­ers might be involved who are pursuing different goals. For example, the marketing goal of an ad­ver­tis­ing agency is largely de­ter­mined by the customer that it is ad­ver­tis­ing for. An internal or­ga­ni­za­tion­al project, on the other hand, must take greater account of the wishes of the employees and managing directors. On a large con­struc­tion site, you have to give higher priority to risk man­age­ment than when de­vel­op­ing an app.

Project size               

The duration of the im­ple­men­ta­tion and the number of people involved influence the com­plex­i­ty of a project. Large projects often require much more small-scale planning. However, some methods aren’t able to do this justice so they are only suitable for projects above a certain size. For im­ple­ment­ing phases only a few weeks long with small teams of no more than five employees, these methods can be ideal.

Project phase

Sometimes it makes sense to use a different method for each project phase. When de­vel­op­ing new software, for example, cre­ativ­i­ty methods are ideally suited for the ini­ti­a­tion phase. But the later test phase, as well as delivery and marketing, place com­plete­ly different demands on the employees.

Industry

Software de­vel­op­ers like to use computer-aided solutions to create a project plan. However, they usually also have the ap­pro­pri­ate technical in­fra­struc­ture at their disposal. On the other hand, the employees of non-profit or­ga­ni­za­tions are often not so well networked tech­ni­cal­ly and may prefer to refer to them­selves as anything other than IT experts. In social projects, con­tin­u­ous eval­u­a­tion also plays a major role – con­se­quent­ly, only methods that allow eval­u­a­tions like these are suitable for these projects.

Business culture

The business culture depends not only on the industry, but also on the size, age, and phi­los­o­phy of the company. Small startups often prefer agile methods, while tra­di­tion­al companies prefer tra­di­tion­al project man­age­ment and tra­di­tion­al methods. An open at­mos­phere, the desire for trans­paren­cy, and equal par­tic­i­pa­tion in the team are char­ac­ter­is­tics of companies that are better advised with agile ap­proach­es. They promote personal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, allow flex­i­bil­i­ty, and take into account the resulting need for greater co­or­di­na­tion. In companies that rely on fixed struc­tures, com­pre­hen­sive doc­u­men­ta­tion and detailed planning, tra­di­tion­al methods are often more readily accepted.

A wide variety of method­olo­gies are available. In the following paragraph, we present a few that have proven suc­cess­ful across all in­dus­tries.

The Kanban method is used to assign tasks to certain project members, to visualize work steps, and to provide a constant overview of progress. All par­tic­i­pants can see each in­di­vid­ual task and those re­spon­si­ble for it. A task’s progress can be checked at any time, even when it goes through different phases. Kanban ensures a good workflow and helps you quickly recognize any problems that might arise.

The Kanban method works with tactile means such as a pinboard, flipchart, and black­board as well as colored cards and sticky notes. There are also cor­re­spond­ing software solutions. A Kanban board hanging up in the office has the advantage that employees can keep an eye on the work status at all times, discuss it, and add cards them­selves.

The vi­su­al­iza­tion technique works as follows: the Kanban board is first divided into columns and rows. By using words such as “to do,” “in progress,” and “done,” you can easily keep an overview of what needs to be done and when. For more complex projects, you can subdivide the in­di­vid­ual process steps more precisely (as shown in the above diagram). Depending on the type of project, ad­di­tion­al columns can be useful, such as “released by customer or man­age­ment,” “on hold,” “pro­duc­tion prepa­ra­tion,” or “behind schedule.”

You then place labeled cards on the Kanban board – each of these cards rep­re­sents a task. If a necessary step has been made in order to complete a task, the employee re­spon­si­ble simply pushes the cor­re­spond­ing task card into the next column of the table. This enables everyone to have a good overview of the project’s current status. If many cards ac­cu­mu­late in the “to do” area, this results in a “task jam.” Thanks to the table, however, it is quickly apparent when and where action is required.

Since im­ple­ment­ing a project usually requires numerous tasks to be ac­com­plished, it is advisable to arrange them in a logical sequence – for example, to arrange tasks that belong to the same task area directly under each other. For the “budget control” area, these could be “create budget plan,” “check budget position for personnel, office supplies, external service providers,” and “final billing.” Cards with high priority tasks should be placed as high as possible within a task area. This way, it’s possible to identify which tasks should be completed most urgently.

Kanban requires some pre­lim­i­nary planning before it can be used. It’s important to determine the tasks that have to be completed in advance. It is also important that the number of tasks for each process step is not too large, otherwise trying to manage a project with Kanban quickly becomes confusing. In addition, only one employee should be re­spon­si­ble for one task at a time. For these reasons, Kanban isn’t really suitable as a method of project man­age­ment for complex projects. With projects like these, a detailed sub­di­vi­sion of the process steps would result in the Kanban board quickly being over­loaded and difficult to un­der­stand.

Kanban is an agile method and is most suitable for companies that rely on the personal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of their employees and give them lots of in­de­pen­dence when it comes to decision making. Kanban is par­tic­u­lar­ly popular in the software de­vel­op­ment field as well as in the agency sector. Being limited to a few tasks keeps processes lean and means that tasks can be processed faster and more ef­fi­cient­ly. If there is a time delay in several tasks, these can simply be restacked. Kanban is therefore a flexible system that aims to involve every employee. Each person works in­de­pen­dent­ly, but makes their progress and re­gres­sion visible to the rest of the team.

As a result, Kanban only works if all employees are willing to disclose their task status and con­sis­tent­ly update the pro­cess­ing status them­selves. However, if accurate doc­u­men­ta­tion is required (for example, to report on progress and resource con­sump­tion to a third party), you should use a different method, since Kanban doesn’t offer this.

Kanban has the following benefits:

• Clear pre­sen­ta­tion of tasks, processes, and pro­cess­ing statuses
• Simple approach to keeping processes as short as possible
• Easy to un­der­stand and quick to use
• Insight into progress is mo­ti­vat­ing
• En­cour­ages in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary teamwork and self-reliant work
• More flexible than tra­di­tion­al planning formats
• Agile project man­age­ment method­ol­o­gy based on trans­paren­cy

Depending on the type of project and the working en­vi­ron­ment, the following dis­ad­van­tages are also as­so­ci­at­ed with Kanban:

• Largely limited to process flows
• Does not allow for small-scale planning
• Requires a high degree of self-dis­ci­pline from every employee
• Offers few doc­u­men­ta­tion and control options
• If tasks are not executed or their pro­cess­ing status is not updated, problems are often noticed too late

This method is based on the concept of lean man­age­ment. This is strongly result-oriented. Results should be of high quality and at the same time be achieved as ef­fi­cient­ly as possible. The motto is therefore to achieve the best results with as little effort as possible. The project managers and other parties involved therefore attach great im­por­tance to stream­lin­ing processes. Everyone tries to keep the costs as low as possible, to con­cen­trate on the necessary tasks, and to reduce the bu­reau­crat­ic effort.

In addition to cost reduction and ef­fi­cien­cy, customer ori­en­ta­tion plays a central role in this method of project man­age­ment. During the entire project, the customer’s wishes should be taken into account. However, in order to reduce costs at the same time, a con­sid­er­able amount of spe­cial­ist knowledge is required.

The task areas are not assigned to in­di­vid­ual project phases or spe­cial­ist areas, but are assigned or abandoned according to current customer needs. For example, if the customer wants to shorten the test phase for a product, the project manager cancels the cor­re­spond­ing tasks from the plan. Lean project man­age­ment is therefore based on direct agree­ments with the customer. It also relies pre­dom­i­nant­ly on in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary teams. For example, IT experts, designers, and marketing managers work side by side during software de­vel­op­ment.

Another essential feature of lean project man­age­ment is that the duration of a project is kept as short as possible. Therefore, each activity is con­tin­u­ous­ly checked for how relevant it is to the customer and the project result. If an activity turns out to be of little relevance to results, it’s pushed back in priority or com­plete­ly removed from the project plan.

Project man­age­ment using this method requires flexible action. Tasks are always rene­go­ti­at­ed and adapted to current re­quire­ments. They can therefore be quickly assigned elsewhere if an employee is too busy with a task. In order to avoid delays, tasks can be completed by other, less busy employees.

Lean project man­age­ment is also an agile method that focuses on personal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy. The project manager delegates tasks and is re­spon­si­ble for ef­fi­cien­cy and quality control, but involves all par­tic­i­pants in the decision-making process. The entire project man­age­ment follows the “bottom-up principle,” which enables flat hi­er­ar­chies and ensures that employees com­mu­ni­cate problems to their managers promptly so that suitable solutions can be found together.

Because its focus is on results and customers, the lean method is par­tic­u­lar­ly suitable for various types of service providers in the private sector. However, it is less suitable for projects that require detailed doc­u­men­ta­tion, since this takes a lot of time without sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­flu­enc­ing the result. This is the case, for example, with public service projects and projects where you have to justify how you’ve used the budget to third parties. In addition, project managers need to have a high level of expertise to achieve high ef­fi­cien­cy without losing sight of what customers want.

Lean project man­age­ment offers the following ad­van­tages:

• Ef­fi­cien­cy: Stream­lin­ing processes saves costs and other resources.
• Shortened processes: This allows rapid results and timely feedback. Since the ef­fi­cien­cy of in­di­vid­ual work steps is con­stant­ly monitored, project work in the company can be con­tin­u­ous­ly improved.
• Bottom-up principle: The fact that the solution is discussed with all employees and that the project manager acts more as a motivator and mediator than as an au­thor­i­tar­i­an leader increases the will­ing­ness of the employees to perform in most cases.
• Ef­fi­cien­cy with high-quality standards: Since customer needs are always taken into account, the quality of the service or product is never out of sight. This increases customer sat­is­fac­tion as well as that of employees who identify with the project.

However, this type of project man­age­ment has also received criticism. Here are some of the reasons it was crit­i­cized:

• The constant striving for time and cost ef­fi­cien­cy puts employees under pressure, which can lead to mo­ti­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty suffering. If the necessary resources are very tightly cal­cu­lat­ed and problems arise, bot­tle­necks can quickly occur.
• Stream­lin­ing processes with high quality re­quire­ments also requires highly competent and assertive project managers. Although employees act rel­a­tive­ly au­tonomous­ly, the project manager acts as an important con­nec­tion. If they make the wrong decision, the entire progress of the project quickly suffers.
• The strong focus on quickly visible results and current re­quire­ments means that you could lose sight of the big picture.

A project breakdown structure provides an overview of all tasks that are necessary to suc­cess­ful­ly complete a project. Large task areas are divided into smaller and smaller units and arranged according to a hi­er­ar­chi­cal principle. You can either go from viewing the plan as a whole down to a more detailed view (deductive approach), or vice versa (inductive approach). The latter procedure is more suitable for very in­no­v­a­tive projects where you can’t rely on previous ex­pe­ri­ence. The first inventory of smaller work steps should then show in practice how these can be assigned to a larger area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. The following paragraph clarifies which people or which de­part­ments are re­spon­si­ble for this area.

The upper system levels represent very complex task areas; in the case of a company planning to relocate, this could be the prepa­ra­tion and execution for a move, for example. The sub­or­di­nate sub-task level comprises sig­nif­i­cant­ly smaller task areas. In the case of an office re­lo­ca­tion, this would include packing and transport, for example. It becomes even smaller and more detailed when it comes to the level of the work packages. For example, cleaning the former office, re-reg­is­tra­tions, as­sem­bling furniture, and setting up the IT de­part­ment are smaller tasks, but they are ab­solute­ly necessary for preparing and executing a move. The main thing is that these work units can be easily handled by the in­di­vid­ual employees or work groups.

The hi­er­ar­chi­cal structure can follow different prin­ci­ples:

• Phase-oriented struc­tur­ing: The tasks are divided and arranged according to their chrono­log­i­cal sequence.
• Function-oriented struc­tur­ing: The tasks are assigned to specific or­ga­ni­za­tion­al units according to their function. For a software project, for example, a sub­di­vi­sion into de­vel­op­ment, graphic design, and PR is con­ceiv­able.
• Object-oriented struc­tur­ing: This structure is par­tic­u­lar­ly suitable for projects where work is being carried out on a product con­sist­ing of different com­po­nents. For example, it makes sense to divide a con­struc­tion project into foun­da­tion, first floor, and basement.

This project man­age­ment method­ol­o­gy works with a graphical tree structure. In this tree structure, the in­di­vid­ual units are connected to the next higher unit via a line.

In contrast to some of the methods described above, the project structure plan is also suitable for more complex projects. Since it lists all work steps, it helps to ensure that no essential component of the project is forgotten. To fa­cil­i­tate the overview of the many small task units in large projects, many work with numbering or colored markings in their work breakdown struc­tures.

The pre­sen­ta­tion of rough as well as detailed planning creates a clear and easy to un­der­stand vi­su­al­iza­tion of the project plan. This makes it easier to keep track of the project, and everyone involved can see at a glance who is entrusted with which tasks. For truly com­pre­hen­sive project planning, however, the structure plan alone is usually not suf­fi­cient.

The project structure plan offers the following benefits:

• Clear pre­sen­ta­tion of all tasks: The project structure plan vi­su­al­izes all work steps in a clear tree structure.
• Good struc­tur­ing through hi­er­ar­chi­cal arrange­ment: The sub­di­vi­sion into different levels creates order. The project structure plan displays rough and detailed planning equally well.
• Overview of priority and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties: The time structure helps to see which tasks have priority. In addition, it is easy to note down in the structure plan which employee or de­part­ment is re­spon­si­ble for which task.

Depending on the re­spec­tive project, however, there are also some dis­ad­van­tages. Sometimes the project structure plan’s strengths aren’t made the most of:

• De­creas­ing clarity in complex projects: Dividing complex and lengthy projects into many small steps can lead to giant diagrams that aren’t very man­age­able at all.
• No flex­i­bil­i­ty: Scheduled time buffers reduce risks if tasks are completed too late. However, time buffers like these cannot be rep­re­sent­ed with a project structure plan.

Can the schedule still be adhered to? Are you already behind schedule? Do you have to postpone certain deadlines or can delays be com­pen­sat­ed for by quick measures? Milestone trend analysis is used to control time processes and to answer questions like these. As a rule, each project is planned with a specific end date. It should be completed by this time so that the budget is met and the customer can see a result in time. For better planning, it is helpful to divide larger projects into several phases. This enables you to see if certain tasks are delayed.

For this purpose, so-called mile­stones are defined. For each milestone, a goal is defined and then a deadline is set for when this goal must be reached. However, there can be numerous reasons why a milestone is not completed on time, for example, a delivery bot­tle­neck or an employee being off sick. Since many areas of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty build on each other, there is a risk that in­di­vid­ual delays could jeop­ar­dize project com­ple­tion as a whole.

This method of project man­age­ment is primarily used to control how high the risk of project delays is. Ideally, when planning tasks and schedules, you should include smaller buffers for frequent dis­rup­tive factors instead of starting from the ideal course.

A milestone trend analysis enables you to identify bot­tle­necks in good time and initiate measures as early as possible in order to still guarantee every­thing is completed before the deadline. And if this is not possible, the analysis will at least ensure that you can inform those involved about delays well before the desired end of the project. After project com­ple­tion, the milestone trend analysis also fa­cil­i­tates the overall eval­u­a­tion. If delays occur, you can check where the error was in the planning and learn from it for future projects.

The milestone trend analysis generally uses process diagrams that visualize the project’s process. For each milestone, a deadline is set for when the project needs to be completed. In order to ensure that the time frame is adhered to, several report dates are also set. In this way, the par­tic­i­pants can easily see how often the project’s process is being checked and at which intervals. This can be done once a month, every two weeks, or at even shorter intervals.

A line diagram is par­tic­u­lar­ly suitable for dis­play­ing the project’s process: the reporting periods are entered on the X-axis and the milestone dates on the Y-axis. If the cor­re­spond­ing points are connected to each other, the result is a line, which shows the progress:

• Hor­i­zon­tal progress: It means that the milestone is completed on time.
• Falling line: It indicates that project stages are reached earlier. A strongly de­creas­ing progress indicates an un­nec­es­sar­i­ly large time buffer.
• Rising line: This indicates delays. If there is only a small delay, it can be com­pen­sat­ed by coun­ter­mea­sures. If there is a large decline over several reporting periods, you should correct the planned project com­ple­tion date and choose a later date.
• Zigzag line: This is what results from some deadlines being reached earlier than planned, and others later than planned. Com­ple­tion is not nec­es­sar­i­ly at risk, but a zigzag line is an in­di­ca­tion that there were in­con­sis­ten­cies either in the cal­cu­la­tion or in the work processes. You should then analyze both in more detail in order to optimize planning or processes until the next project.

You must also consider in advance how regular reports are to be made: a meeting or telephone con­fer­ence with all project par­tic­i­pants or those re­spon­si­ble for a milestone usually ensures that all are quickly informed about the status of the project. It is helpful to take stock of completed and out­stand­ing tasks. If there are delays, a problem analysis should also take place.

Milestone trend analysis is limited to a single, but very important aspect of project work: deadline mon­i­tor­ing. If a par­tic­u­lar task is not completed on time, the milestone trend analysis will im­me­di­ate­ly reveal this. In addition, this method fa­cil­i­tates the sub­se­quent eval­u­a­tion. It is equally suitable for small and large projects. However, the milestone trend analysis only works if the re­spon­si­ble employees provide realistic as­sess­ments during meetings and in their progress reports.

The ad­van­tages of milestone trend analysis are:

• Sim­plic­i­ty of the method: The analysis is easy to implement and yet extremely useful.

• Clear pre­sen­ta­tion: The line diagram shows the temporal structure well and can be in­ter­pret­ed quickly and ac­cu­rate­ly even without prior knowledge.
• Simple control and eval­u­a­tion: The milestone trend analysis not only monitors the status, but also provides valuable con­clu­sions about the workflow during post-analysis.

However, the sim­plic­i­ty and thematic con­cen­tra­tion of the milestone trend analysis are not only ad­van­tages, but also means that this method does not cover many things:

• The method is limited to a target/actual com­par­i­son of the task status, but does not take into account the extent to which task areas depend on each other.
• Sometimes problem areas only become apparent later on.

A network is also used for sched­ul­ing deadlines and sticking to them. Compared to the milestone trend analysis, however, the critical path analysis’ structure is able to map more complex time struc­tures and enables a more dynamic approach.

So-called activity nodes, which are usually displayed as boxes, form the most important element of a network. They contain in­for­ma­tion about the duration of work packages or in­di­vid­ual tasks as well as about the earliest and latest possible start and end times, as well as time buffers.

With a network like this, employees not only graph­i­cal­ly display the duration and sequence of in­di­vid­ual task areas, but also de­pen­den­cy re­la­tion­ships, time buffers, and critical project phases.

De­pen­den­cy re­la­tion­ships

The critical path analysis vi­su­al­izes logical processes and shows which tasks build on each other. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly ad­van­ta­geous if a project is dependent on the input of many employees or external service providers and requires small tasks. A critical path analysis shows preceding and sub­se­quent tasks, but the pro­cess­ing phases can also overlap. The re­spec­tive arrange­ment and arrows reflect the de­pen­den­cy re­la­tion­ship.

Time buffer

A critical path analysis also shows time reserves. A so-called total buffer makes it clear to which extent a task can be postponed without en­dan­ger­ing the latest possible start of the sub­se­quent task. The free buffer, on the other hand, indicates how much buffer remains to reach the earliest possible start. Each buffer is provided with exact times, e.g. “5 days.”

Critical path

There are project phases that must be completed quickly and do not allow any time reserves. Since their total buffer is 0 days, they represent a risk. They require special attention since a later com­ple­tion of such project phases jeop­ar­dizes the desired com­ple­tion date.

This method sim­pli­fies project man­age­ment in many ways. Because it enables detailed sched­ul­ing, it sim­pli­fies the or­ga­ni­za­tion of complex projects. However, setting buffers, start and end times, and dis­play­ing task links can be a sig­nif­i­cant effort. This requires a good knowledge of the framework con­di­tions. For this reason, the milestone trend analysis (mentioned above) may be better suited to smaller projects. In addition, the critical path analysis can quickly become unclear if many tasks are in­ter­de­pen­dent and must therefore be linked.

This method has many benefits:

• The total duration of a project can be estimated re­al­is­ti­cal­ly.
• It not only divides a project into suc­ces­sive phases, but also maps cor­re­la­tions.
• The rep­re­sen­ta­tion of buffers enables better capacity planning.
• Potential for saving time can be quickly iden­ti­fied using the free buffers.
• Employees recognize risks by the critical paths and by the fact that the entire buffer is used up.
• Thanks to the dynamic structure, processes can be better modeled.

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