“Collaborative

Project Management
- A How-To Guide”

from

www.BrightWork.com
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................................................................................3

Intention of the Guide ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 3

Project Ma nagement Approa ch .............................................................................................................................................................................. 4

The Sha rePoint Assumpti on .................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

1 Initiate the Project ..........................................................................................................................................................................................5

1.1 Get the Project Approved, Sponsored and Resources Alloca ted............................................................................................................... 5

1.2 Decide the Project Management Process .................................................................................................................................................. 5

1.3 Crea te a Collabora ti ve Project Si te ............................................................................................................................................................ 7

2 Plan and Setup the Project ............................................................................................................................................................................8

2.1 Plan the Project .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 8

2.2 Des k Check the Project Plan..................................................................................................................................................................... 10

2.3 Noti fy the Team of thei r Responsibilities................................................................................................................................................. 10

3 Work on the Project .................................................................................................................................................................................... 11

4 Track and Re-Plan the Proje ct ................................................................................................................................................................... 12

4.1 Check and unders tand the project's progress ......................................................................................................................................... 12

4.2 Fi nd and Manage Exceptions (e.g. issues , risks and change reques ts) .................................................................................................... 14

4.3 Re-Plan the Project................................................................................................................................................................................... 14

5 Close the Project........................................................................................................................................................................................... 16

5.1 Close out the Project site ......................................................................................................................................................................... 16

5.2 Run Project Post-Mortem and Tra ck Lessons Lea rnt ............................................................................................................................... 17

5.3 Capture for reuse any useful modi fi cations made to the project site ..................................................................................................... 17

6 Project Management and Your Leadership Style .................................................................................................................................. 18

7 Collaborative Proje ct Management Sites ............................................................................................................................................... 20

8 Exercise - Build Your Own Project Management Approach ................................................................................................................ 21

9 Feedback ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 23

Release Date: July 15th 2010

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Introduction

We at BrightWork help many customers implement collaborative project management using Microsoft SharePoint
and as needed Microsoft Project. We find that the world of collaborative project management is fast changing and
very challenging. More initiatives than ever are now delivered as collaborative projects. Project teams are staffed
with smart Team Members, many of whom are part qualified to actually manage the project. Most project Team
Members have access to web based collaboration sites where some but often not all of the key project information
is housed. Most of these customers we work with do have some people formally trained in project management,
perhaps with models like the PMI’s PMBOK or PRINCE2, etc.. However, the vast majority are what a colleague
recently called P-MBA’s (Project Managers by accident!). I feel this is a good label as it describes the reality of what
happens in many organizations. It is not to say that these people are not successful or capable, it is however to say
that they have not been formally trained. In a lot of cases organizations do not have the budget or time.
Furthermore most organizations we work with do not have a defined process or set of standards for these new
Project Managers to follow. You might say this does not really matter – and in some case perhaps you are right. But
what if an organization wants to move people about to drive larger projects to success? Some common way of
managing projects will be useful. Similarly, what if an organization has problems delivering projects with these new
Project Managers, would it not be better to have a project management process to fix rather than a person to
blame! In these circumstances it is daunting for these new Project Managers when leading a team of smart peers
and also difficult when the project communications are so fluid and frequent.

Intention of the Guide

The intention is to deliver an easy to follow and simple to use guide for Project Managers who are not yet formally
trained in Collaborative Project Management and who may not yet have the time or budget to get trained. The
guide describes the typical stages, steps and sub-steps involved. The guide also has a section on Project
Management Leadership style. We hope the guide will be valuable for the new Project Manager. The experienced
Project Manager may wish to take this free training guide and adapt it for use when training new Project Managers.
The objective is not to have this guide replace formal project management training. We hope this guide will
encourage you as new Project Managers to take some training classes as you ponder what is involved more deeply.
The guide is simple. Some might even argue that it is too simple – but all feedback is welcome! The guide will focus
on one Project Manager managing one project with a project team. The guide will also call out the role of the Team
Members in collaboratively helping to manage the project. In summary then this guide is aimed at helping the new
Project Manager. We do hope that our advice does not go the same way as that of this US educator from over 100
years ago!

“I intended to give you some advice but now I remember how much is left over from last year unused.”

George Harris (1844-1922), US Churchman and Educator, addressing students at the start of a new academic year

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Project Management Approach

In order to successfully manage a project you need an approach. This is also called a process and sometimes a
standard, but let’s not get too formal on terminology in this guide! We will use a very simple approach to
collaborative project management using the following five stages.

1. Initiate the Project

2. Plan and Setup the Project
3. Work on the Project
4. Track and Re-plan the Project
5. Close the Project

The process of re-planning is a constant one since project plans do change a lot.

“No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength”

Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (1800 – 1891), Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army and Master Strategist

With this in mind we can depict our recommended approach to collaborative project management in a slightly
adjusted way as follows:

1. Initiate the Project

2. Plan and Setup the Project
3. Until the project is complete continuously:
 Work on the Project
 Track and Re-plan the Project
4. Close the Project

The SharePoint Assumption

The guide assumes that the Project Manager will be managing the project collaboratively with the team. It will also
assume that SharePoint (or some such collaborative tool) i s available. SharePoint has delivered a free version since
the year 2000, so the availability of SharePoint or something ‘SharePoint like’ is not too big an assumption these
days. So you might ask the question - “is this guide more about managing projects or perhaps more about managing
projects on SharePoint?”. It is about the former - “collaborative project management”. We, however, just can’t
imagine managing a project without some shared project space – hence the SharePoint project site references.

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1 Initiate the Project

This first stage is all about getting the project started. This first stage we break into the following three steps:

1. Get the Project Approved, Sponsored and Resources Allocated

2. Decide the Project Management Process
3. Create a Collaborative Project Site

1.1 Get the Project Approved, Sponsored and Resources Allocated

The first task is to ensure that you have approval to proceed with the project. You might say we should not be too
formal about this step and that you should just start the project. You might say that it is easier to ask forgiveness
than permission! In some cases you will be correct. In many cases you will have to ask permission in order to
proceed - otherwise you will not have the resources allocated that you need for the project. However, in all or the
vast majority of cases, you owe it to your colleagues and to your management to let them know that you are about
to start a new project that is consuming resources. They may have great input for you. They may have extra
resources and budget to allocate. You should exit this step with the approval to proceed and with the necessary
resources allocated. You should also exit this step with a project sponsor. This is typically the person who approves
the project and wants to see it happen. This is also the person you can turn to for help if the project hits road-
blocks. You have now taken the first step as a new Project Manager. Congratulations on having started the journey.

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” Lao-Tzu (604-531 BC), Chinese Philosopher

1.2 Decide the Project Management Process

As they say - be careful what you ask for - you just might get it! Now you have a project approved and you need to
decide how to manage the project. You need to decide how much rigor or process you will apply. You are now
deciding how much project management you will apply to the project. As depicted in the spectrum diagram below
some projects require a lighter touch and some require much more project management.

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Your organization may have guidelines or templates for certain project types which will make this step easier, as you
will be selecting an approach already defined and then perhaps tailoring it. This will naturally enough make your l ife
easier - as long as the local guidelines are sensible! By far the largest barrier to effective project management in
organizations that we have found is that some local guidance expects way too much project management. There are
two main reasons for this - the project manager does not have that much experience or the project does not deserve
this much project management. If organizations would start with less, they would end up with more in the long run.

If you do not have local guidance, then you can look at this step as selecting from these project management items
and deciding which ones you need for your project. In a very simplistic way you are selecting what project
management processes to use for your project from a list like this one:

 Project Statement / Project Definition / Project Charter

 Team and Role and Responsibility Definition
 Goals
 Change Requests
 Action / Task list
 Formal Work Breakdown Structure
 Documents / Deliverables
 Risks
 Issues
 Meeting’s, Agenda and Minutes and Actions
 Status Reports
 Contacts
 Discussions
 Decisions
 Emails
 Shared Knowledge
 Process and Procedures
 Lessons Learned

This is not meant to be "the definitive" list, but it is a good one to get you started thinking. What we are talking
about here is which project management items you will use formally and informally. For example, you might decide
to have an issues list and not manage risks formally in a list. However, this does not mean you will not naturally
carry out risk management. You may well consider and take actions to mitigate against risks in your own mind but it
will not be documented and communicated and you are certainly not committing to do so. Here you are deciding in
the main what project management you will sign up for - what you will make transparent to yourself and the project
team. In this step you are deciding what defines your management approach to the project at hand.

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1.3 Create a Collaborative Project Site

This guide assumes a collaborative project management approach. It assumes you as P roject Manager do not wish
to be the dictator. It assumes you want the Team Members and stake holders to know what has happened and what
needs to happen, so that they are empowered to help manage the project. This guide also assumes that you will
want to setup a collaborative site to share this information. There are so many free collaborative site options
available today that this is no longer a big assumption. We at BrightWork started using Lotus Notes back in 1995 for
our projects but since 2000 we have been using SharePoint. And as most of you know SharePoint also has a free
version - Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 - so you have no excuses! Get collaborative sites setup to assist
your project management approach!

Naturally enough the site you setup needs to mirror the approach to project management that you will undertake.
Below is a diagram using some of our BrightWork templates that will give you some ideas. For example, on the left
hand side you are managing a project by merely tracking the problems or issues whereas on the right hand side you
are managing everything that you can think of! Needless to say you can start out with one approach and later
modify as the project needs dictate.

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2 Plan and Setup the Project

At this stage your project is approved and you have decided how to manage the project or at least you have an
outline approach and hopefully you have a collaborative site setup. Now it is time to earn your stripes and plan and
setup your project. For the purpose of this short guide we break this second stage into the following steps:

1. Plan the Project

2. Desk Check the Project Plan
3. Notify the Team of their Responsibilities

“In all things, success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.”
Confucius (c550 – c478 BC) Chinese Philosopher

2.1 Plan the Project

The thinking in this guide is that you will typically need at least a Project Definition/Statement and a Task List (of
some sort) on most projects, hence the first two sub-steps below. Thereafter what artifacts you use to manage the
project varies considerably from project to project. What artifacts you will use should have been decided in
Initiation Stage of the project (unless of course you skipped that first stage!).

2.1.1 Compl e te the Proje ct State ment

The Project Statement is also known as the Project Profile / Project Charter / Project Definition. This document
contains the high level information about the project. This is the master project document and communicates to
one and all what the intention of the project is. In this document you will want to make very clear what the goal of
the project is. This is super critical so you know where the finish line of your projects is. Some of the information in
the document (e.g. status, scheduled finish date, etc.) gets updated through the course of the project. In many
cases, some of the information in this document is used to collate project status reports as the project progresses.

2.1.2 De fi ne and Al l ocate the Tasks

Decide on the Tasks needed to complete the project successfully or at least the tasks you know about at this stage.
You might elect to use a simple task list or maybe a Microsoft Project like WBS (work breakdown structure) that has
parent tasks with sub-tasks and dependencies between tasks (i.e. one task cannot start until the next task finishes).
At this stage you may also elect to use Microsoft Project to draw up the task list and assignments.

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If you have not yet seen Microsoft Project Desktop 2010 you should take it for the free 60 day test drive. It is
arguably the best release in the 25+ year history of the product. Apart from many easier to plan features, the
product now includes a very neat ‘synchronize to SharePoint’ capability.

2.1.3 Add the Othe r Proje ct Arti facts Ne e ded

Assuming you have created your Project Statement and set out the needed project tasks , at this point you are now
creating any extra artifacts needed to manage your project. If you are lucky enough to have local guidance you are
creating the artifacts from given templates. If you are really lucky you are creating the artifacts using templates
given in your collaborative site. Candidate artifacts will include: goals, documents, issues, risks, etc. In essence
these are the project management sub-processes for your project.

2.1.4 Assi gn the Work

Some new Project Managers tend to do more work on the project than they need to and often find it difficult to
delegate. Given that we are talking about collaborative project management, it is important to remember that the
project work can and should be delegated.

“The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them.”

Benjamin Jowett (1817 – 1893) English scholar, essayist and priest

If your project is simple and your project team is small and you just know who is available and not available, then as
you created the tasks and the artifacts in the prior two steps, you will have assigned these out to your project Team
Members.

Some organizations have a more formal definition of roles in use and in this case you will likely have assigned a
generic role to a task or an artifact in the two steps above. For example earlier you may have assigned a task to
‘Business Analyst’ and now you must figure which specific person is to be assigned. In this step you will now need to
assign a person in place of these generic roles. This can be a quick way to setup a project, where a project site
comes with a list of tasks and artifacts that have generic roles pre-assigned. In this case all you need to do is assign
the person to the role.

In other cases, where the organization is very large and people are committed to many projects, you will not know
who is free. In this scenario you will need to draft your plan to see what kind of resources you need when. Then you
will need to check on the resource availability before you make the assignment. In certain organizations you will
even need to formally request the resources you need at this stage.

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2.2 Desk Check the Project Plan

By this stage your project should be well planned but it is no harm to have a step in your approach where you stand
back and review it thoroughly. Now that you have created lots of tasks and artifacts, you should for example look at
the entire project in a Gantt (time sequenced) chart. You might also want to check the resource loading and find and
fix any over allocations due to the new work assignments. Typically once you stand back and check your project you
will find adjustments that it makes sense to make before you let the plan go live. It is also a good idea to have some
of your colleagues peer review your plan.

“If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), US poet and writer

2.3 Notify the Team of their Responsibilities

It is all very well to plan a project in detail but needless to say, you now need to let the team members know the plan
for success. The more high quality communication on your project the better. Project team members are very smart
and capable – so you as the Project Manager have the responsibility to empower them by letting them know what is
going on. Some mechanisms to do this include:

 Host a Project Kick-Off Meeting, where you introduce Team Members to the project and walk them through
the project site
 Enable your collaborative site with the facility to automatically email notify of all new work assignments
 On your collaborative site setup an easy to find “My Work” reports / dashboards
 Setup scheduled emails with nudges for upcoming or late work.
o For example on a Monday morning early have an email of the work due this week and then on a
Thursday morning have another email with work still open and due this week.

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3 Work on the Project

As you can see from the last stage, the project is now up and running and everybody (hopefully!) knows what they
are meant to do. In a collaborative project you as the Project Manager are essentially asking the team members for
three commitments as follows:

1. Find work
2. Do work
3. Update progress on work (recording any issues)

1. Find work
 Using one of the many notifications cited in the last stage (e.g. My Work reports, automated emails,
etc.), be sure to go find your work so you know what you are committed to doing for the project.
2. Do work
 Naturally enough - go do the work! In many cases the actual work products (e.g. a proposal or a
design doc) may be tracked in the collaborative project site.
3. Update progress on work (recording any issues)
 Use the datasheets or forms provided in the collaborative site to record progress on what is done or
in progress and use the project site to record any issues that need attention

It is likely that the Team Members on your projects will be involved in more than one project and will have other
work responsibilities and as such will find it hard to keep up with all the deadlines. In fact do not be surprised if
some of them are so focused on work, that they are not too worried about deadlines.

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English Humorist

As the Project Manager you will want to ensure that the Team Members understand their simple enough
responsibilities. Using this simple 3-step explanation (Find Work, Do Work, Update Work) is an easy way to
communicate expectations with the team. Making this expectation clear is something you may wish to do at the
Project Kick-Off meeting. You will probably also want to give Team Members a rhythm to follow - e.g.,

 [Monday] Review the latest plan and your personal commitments (via the dashboards or the automated
emails)
 [Everyday!] Do lots of work and make great progress!
 [Late Thursday] Everyone makes a personal progress update and on tasks and issues in the project site (if not
already done)
 [Friday at 10am] Weekly Team Meeting for 30 minutes

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4 Track and Re-Plan the Project

By now the team are working through their assignments and some tasks are likely to be ahead of schedule and some
are almost certainly falling behind. One thing you can be sure of is that the project is not running exactly to the plan
you started with. That is why it is called a plan! Allied to this, other problems or issues maybe emerging that you
had not anticipated.

“There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy“. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Irish poet, essayist and cleric

In this fourth stage we will help you understand the steps needed to track where the project is now at and then to
re-plan and then to communicate the adjusted plan back out. In brief we suggest that you follow these high level
steps at this stage of project management:

1. Check and understand the project's progress

2. Find and Manage Exceptions (e.g. issues, risks and change requests)
3. Re-Plan the project

4.1 Check and understand the project's progress

By fair means or foul you as the Project Manager need to figure where the project is at before you re -plan. You need
to find out what tasks are ahead of schedule and what tasks are falling behind. Here are three simple ways that you
may be able to get this information.

4.1.1 Vi rtual Che ck

Rather than calling everyone to get status you should be able to examine the various (project, issue, work, resource)
reports on the project site - assuming you have a collaborative project site setup. If your Team Members are
following the simple guidelines in Stage 3 of this guide, then you will have plenty of project updates to review from
the comfort of your own desk. A sample set of reports to review in the project site might be as follows:

 Project Home page to get a quick project overview

 Overdue work
 Work by assigned To
 The full task list (in a Gantt view)
 Resource utilization view
 Issue report
 Optionally check your own work!!!

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4.1.2 Indi vi dual Check

MBWA - Managing by walking about is one of the oldest forms of management. Literally walk about or phone about
and talk to the Team Members and Customers to get their take on the project status.

4.1.3 Te am Che ck

You do not want to have project meetings for the sake of meetings - so you do need to be careful with how these are
run. Here is a sample agenda that you as a new Project Manager might consider:

1. Review, discuss and resolve (in so far as possible) any open issues
o Project meetings can easily get derailed and run over time - so it is key to use the "together time" to
problem solve as a team on key issues before the project meeting time is used up. Not all issues will
be resolved at the weekly project meeting - but discussing the issues will at least open the issues for
the Team Members to think about as the week progresses.

2. Look at upcoming tasks for next week

o It is good to look at what is up next. It makes people aware and helps the team focus on the
essential work for the coming week. While the team are together it is also a good time to get the
varied inputs of Team Members on key upcoming tasks.

3. (Time Permitting) Look at tasks achieved last week or at least the highlight tasks from last week
o Most project meetings over-run in our experience! You need to be a really organized meeting
facilitator to have meetings start and finish on time. So if we know that project meetings will over-
run, even if we do not like to admit this, then we should not start the meeting with this item, as
Team Members will tend to enjoy talking about what was achieved last week, and this may eat most
of the meeting. So consider keeping this item to last in your standing agenda.

It is clearly not critical to follow this exact agenda, as you as a Project Manager will develop your own style.
However, it is important to have some sort of a standard agenda, or the meeting will not be efficient or effective.
You want meetings to be both, for your own sake as a Project Manager, but also so that the meetings give energy to
and do not take energy away from Team Members. So many meetings are a drag, the last thing you want to do is
de-motivate and de-energize your Team Members because you are running poor meetings! As a Project Manager
you want to be efficient.

“There are only two qualities in the world: efficiency and inefficiency; and only two sorts of people: the efficient and
the inefficient.” George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish writer, dramatist and critic.

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4.2 Find and Manage Exceptions (e.g. issues, risks and change requests)

Now you know where the project is at but you are not ready to re -plan just yet! At this stage there may be
outstanding exceptions to deal with. Exceptions on a project may come in many forms but i ssues, risks and change
requests are the most common. You will want to find a resolution to any open issues you can , as this will remove
road-blocks to progress and the resulting resolution may need to go on your updated plan. Similarly you will need to
look at open risks and decide if you need to plan actions to mitigate , so the risks do not take place. In some cases
the risk will have happened as you thought they might, so you will need to add contingency steps to the updated
plan. You may also have received a project change request formally or informally. In this case you need to review
this and decide what to do. Of course you may need to consult your team members and also possibly your project
sponsors to see what course they advise or authorize. Either way the result of the change request analysis may well
dictate how you re-plan your project, so best to know this before you start the re -planning in earnest. In summary
then exceptions can change the project more than you might like, so it is best to figure what to do with these
exceptions before you start into the next step, which is re-planning.

4.3 Re-Plan the Project

Some projects are so busy that the Project Manager does not have time to re -plan the project unless a specific time
is set aside to do this re-planning. Some Project Managers are natural re-planners and do it every day as the project
progresses. Styles and personalities also come into play. Some people like change and love re -planning and some
decidedly do not! Here are three sub-steps you might consider for the ‘re-plan step’ - whether you do it as you go
or at a set time every week.

4.3.1 Re -assi gn work and se nd noti fi cati ons

By this stage you now have enough information to re-plan the project. In reality you were probably making changes
as you went along - but now you need to make all the remaining changes you know about before you formally re-
publish and re-communicate the plan. As a new Project Manager it is important not to be afraid to make
adjustments to your project.

“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.”

William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), English writer, dramatist and physician.

 Project Redefinition
o The project is defined and laid out in a series of artifacts, e.g. the Project State ment, a task list, etc.
Updates to each of these will probably be implemented in the lists in the project site. On smaller
projects you will have a small amount of updates to do and on a larger project way more work of

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 course. In some ways it is as simple as walking down through the lists in the project site and making
adjustments. After all you decided in "Stage 1 - Initiate the Project" on how to manage the project.
Now you need to adjust the contents of these artifacts.
 Project re-assignments
o Now that the structure of your project is changed you may need to reassign work to different Team
Members. You may for example need to find and fix any over assignments.
 Notifications
o Check to ensure that the changes just made are getting out through the notifications mechanisms
setup earlier in "Stage 2 - Plan and Setup the Project".

4.3.2 Re port to and Work wi th the Appropri ate Stake hol de rs

Now that the changes are made you may need to report to and work with your stakeholders. Your project sponsor
will need to know what changes are afoot and it is best that the news comes directly from you, the Project Manager.
This may involve some of the following:

 Deliver Periodic Status Reports (Printed or emailed)

 Raise exceptions including Project Change Requests, Top Issues and Top Risks
 Resolve Sponsor Level Issues and apply the resolution through Re -Plan Project (if appropriate)

4.3.3 Tai l or the proje ct si te to match the e vol vi ng ne eds of the proje ct

In "Stage 1 - Initiate the Project" you decided how best to approach managing the project. As the project progresses
and naturally changes, you may decide to change how you manage the project. Maybe you decided not to manage
risks very formally and perhaps you now believe that the project is changing at a pace that is not healthy - so
perhaps you now introduce risk management. Or perhaps you initially decided to manage with issues, risks and
change requests and now that you are well started the project you realize that this was too much project
management for this project. In this case you scale back the amount of project management you use. As you
periodically re-plan the project, you will do well as a Project Manager to ensure you have the ‘just-the-right’ amount
of project management for the project in hand.

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5 Close the Project

As we were saying in the introduction section we can depict project management as follows:

1. Initiate the Project

2. Plan and Setup the Project
3. Until the project is complete, continuously:
 Work on the Project
 Track and Re-plan the Project
4. Close the Project

With this in mind much of the project is about working the project, figuring what is happening and periodically re-
planning to ensure the end goals are met. At some stage this is hopefully the case! It does require a determination
to keep going to the end as there will be difficult periods on most projects.

“There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields
the true glory.” Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) English navigator

There comes a time when the project needs to be shut down. As we know this is one of the hall marks of a project -
it has a defined start and a defined end. This is what marks a project out from processes and continuous operations.
A set of steps for orderly project close down stage follows:

1. Close out the Project site

2. Run Project Post-Mortem and Track Lessons Learnt
3. Capture any useful modifications made to the project site for use on future projects

5.1 Close out the Project site

On an administrative note, you now have a live project site for a project that is complete. At a minimum you should
mark the project closed, so that anyone who visits the site can see that the project is closed. You also want to
ensure that the project does not appear in the project reports going to senior management. It is best not to archive
and hide the site. Normally when projects are complete, it is really hard to get any information about them after a
few months. The half-life of project information is very short! The site contains great information about the project
that is typically lost when projects are closed down, so why not keep the project site around. It will also help to look
back at the project site when planning new projects.

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5.2 Run Project Post-Mortem and Track Lessons Learnt

No project ever goes perfectly. None! If you think about the approach we are advocating in this guide in the prior
stages, we suggest that you have regular tracking and re-planning steps. This is essentially a tacit admission that we
are learning as we go. So if we can learn as we go, why not as we finish! There is a tendency to take flight when the
project is over and move to the next one. However, the more you learn from the project you have just completed,
the more successful you will be with the project you are about to start. Remember this guide is primarily written for
new Project Managers who have no formal training and no formal set of experiences managing projects. With this in
mind this learning opportunity is not one to be wasted. It is also important to remember that as a Project Manager,
that we have been leader of the project. However, we are probably leading people who are at least as experienced
as we are and in some cases people who are more experienced. With this in mind it is respectful to ask these people
what they thought of the project.

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data”. The Adventures of Sherlock Homes (1892).

To do a good post mortem it is helpful to have a set of open que stions to ask. Questions naturally help the
participants reflect on the project from various angles so the quality of feedback and learning is best. A sample set
of simple and open questions include:

 What went well on this project?

 What did not go so well on this project?
 What did we not do on this project that might have helped?
 What specific actions should we take to adjust the approach to the next project we do as a team?

People are very smart, so the real task at this step is to give people the time and the space to review the project.
This step can be carried out simply enough once the time is set aside - and a set of possible mechanisms include:

 Meeting - the team meet to talk through the project in a facilitated session using the questions above
 Survey - you give people a survey in the collaborative project site you have been using
 Meeting and Survey - you do a combination of both - people answer questions in advance and then come to
thoroughly discuss the answers and make recommendations

Many Project Managers say they do not have time to do project post mortems. However, the same professionals
seem to have time to fall into the same traps and then spend time fixing the issues. A stitch in time saves nine!

5.3 Capture for reuse any useful modifications made to the project site

If the project site was modified as you went through the project, and it nearly always is, then you will want to review
the modifications and make some of these modifications to the template you use to make new project sites. This is
a very pragmatic and cheap way to improve the way you approach project management.

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6 Project Management and Your Leadership Style

Success in all endeavours is generally no accident. So it is with being a successful Project Manager, you need to work
at it.

“There are no secrets to success: don’t waste time looking for them. Success is the result of perfection, hard work,
learning from failure, loyalty to those for whom you work, and persistence”.

Colin Powell (1937- ) US military leader

As mentioned in the last stage, you as a new Project Manager are now a leader. If you are managing a project for
the first time, then it is like getting your stripes as we used say in the military. Way back in 1980, the first Army Chief
of Staff I even heard speak in person told us that the biggest management jump was from Soldier to Corporal (where
you earned your first two stripes). It was the jump from no management / leadership responsibility to some. In
2009, almost 30 years later the local university MBA class had a leadership lecture from the then Army Chief of Staff
and I was invited as a local business person (as we recruit from the business studies department of this university). I
was also invited as I am ex-Army. The lecture was one of the best I have ever heard on leadership. It was practical
and very sincere. Sadly, this great Army General and giant of a man died very recently while still in service.

It is very important to have a set of management steps to follow as in this guide, which can serve like a map for your
collaborative project management, or you will get lost and your project team will be very disappointed in you and
your project may well fail. But even if you know how to navigate the project management terrain very well, then
you will need to do so with a leadership style that works for collaborative project management. If you are a new
Project Manager then you need to think about leadership. And if you are getting your stripes for the first time, this
may be difficult for you. I believe if you are responsible for leading projects then you can learn from the vast
experience of this Army General. Here is a summary of what he had to say:

1. Leaders do the right thing. Managers do things right.

2. Leaders must be visible - must be seen to be serving with the people they lead.
3. Leaders need to encourage and support - say THANKS more often.
4. Leaders need to have an aura of control, yet be calm and confident.
5. Leaders need to create a dream - a vision - and communicate same really well.
6. Leaders need to know themselves - be self-aware - they need to practice what they preach and never bluff.
7. Leaders need to have external awareness - and should be able to express: the joy of success, the pain of
failure, and concern at slow progress. In these honest expressions leaders should empathize with people
and all such expressions should be in a calm and controlled manner.
8. Integrity is key for leaders. Keep your promises and earn respect and then keep it.
9. Example - set the standard and set it high. Lead your life and work your work.
10. Team effort is the key for greater success. Mistakes happen. Get over them, but learn from them always.

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 11. Communications is vital - listen and ask questions.
12. If you want to know what a person on your team is really like - then give them a bit of authority!
13. Always be fair, firm yet friendly - the 3 F's.
14. People are really able for lots of change and will withstand anything if everyone gets fair treatment.
15. As a new leader you now have weight; pull your weight; do not throw it around!
16. A piece of equipment may cost millions and we pay so much attention to its care and maintenance; do we
always do the same for a human being; what value do we put on humans beings?
17. Finally you if you are not the leader but a team member, you need the courage to do the right thing. Do you
as a team member have the courage to:
 take responsibility given to you
 contribute to the team
 challenge the direction
 accept the team direction
 participate in the speed of life
 take moral actions

I so wish that talk had been recorded on video as these printed words do not do justice to the energy of the ideas
given on that day. Now I know you may have seen books and talks on leadership - but if you are managing people on
projects then it is no harm to see more! Feel free to spend 15 minutes reflecting on what this wise Army general
talked about and do a self-evaluation on your own leadership style. A good leader is always open to learn from
other leaders. The above list represents a very high standard of leadership. It is way too much to achieve in short
order for most new managers. At a minimum select a few of the suggestions from this list and try to put them into
practice on your next project.

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7 Collaborative Project Management Sites

You can and should put together a collaborative site for your project, a virtual project team room. You should
consider SharePoint as the platform for your project site. There is a free version of SharePoint, so you have very
little excuses! You can and should extend SharePoint for project management. To do this you can build or buy. If
you want a plug-in for SharePoint that supports the thinking in this guide, then do review BrightWork.

BrightWork pmPoint is a SharePoint add-on for managing work and projects of varying size and type. The
combination of the varied work and project management templates, and world class SharePoint reporting
infrastructure, make pmPoint the best work and project management application for SharePoint avai lable today.

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8 Exercise - Build Your Own Project Management Approach

Now that you have got this far and read this Project Management Guide, it would be important to reflect on how
you should manage your projects. We are not for one minute suggesting that you should follow every step in
sequence as presented in this guide. However if you are new to project management then as an exercise you could
walk through the steps presented in summary here and design your own project management approach using these
steps as a starting point. Then you need to try your approach on a real project.

“What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing”. Aristotle (384 – 322 BC), Greek philosopher

(1) Initiate the Project

1. Get the Project Approved, Sponsored and Resources Allocated

2. Decide the Project Management Process
3. Create a Collaborative Project Site

(2) Plan and Setup the Project

1. Plan the Project

a. Complete the Project Statement
b. Define and Allocate the Tasks
c. Add the Other Project Artifacts Needed
d. Assign the Work
2. Desk Check the Project Plan
3. Notify the Team of their Responsibilities
a. Host a Project Kick-Off Meeting
b. Enable your collaborative site with the facility to email notify on all new work assignments
c. On your collaborative site setup an easy to find “My Work” reports / dashboards
d. Setup scheduled emails with nudges for upcoming or late work.

(3) Work on the Project

1. Find work
2. Do work
3. Update progress on work (recording any issues)

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(4) Track and Re-Plan the Project

1. Check and understand the project's progress

a. Virtual Check
b. Individual Check
c. Team Check
i. Review, discuss and resolve (in so far as possible) any open issues
ii. Look at upcoming tasks for next week
iii. (time permitting) Look at tasks achieved last week or at least the highlight tasks from last
week
2. Find and Manage Exceptions (e.g. issues, risks and change requests)
3. Re-Plan the project
a. Re-assign work and send notifications
i. Project Redefinition
ii. Project re-assignments
iii. Notifications
b. Report to and Work with the Appropriate Stakeholders
i. Deliver Periodic Status Reports (Printed or emailed)
ii. Raise exceptions including Project Change Requests, Top Issues and Top Risks
iii. Resolve Sponsor Level Issues and apply the resolution through Re -Plan Project (if
appropriate)
c. Tailor the project site to match the evolving needs of the project

(5) Close the Project

1. Close out the Project site

2. Run Project Post-Mortem and Track Lessons Learnt
3. Capture any useful modifications made to the project site for use on future projects

(6) Project Management and Leadership Style

 Using the steps in the prior section on leadership, write out the steps you are prepared to follow.

(7) Collaborative Project Management Sites

 Now that you have decided on your approach to managing projects, you can and should put together a
collaborative site for your project, a virtual project team room.

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9 Feedback

We thank you for reading the guide all the way through! As you by now know this guide is intended to help new
Project Managers or Project Managers that have not yet had the time or budget to go and get formal training. It is
provided free of charge. We hope you in some way received benefit from the guide. Please do feel free to leave
feedback on our blog, or email your feedback directly to [email protected], so we can keep improving this free
Collaborative Project Management Guide.

URL and Other References

- BrightWork … www.Brightwork.com

- Webcast Recording of this Guide … www.brightwork.com/cpm

- blog to give feedback … www.manageprojectsonsharepoint.com

- Microsoft Project Desktop 2010 … www.microsoft.com/project

- Microsoft SharePoint … www.microsoft.com/sharepoint

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