Enabling decision-making

You can help team members feel empowered from the start of your project by making the decision-making process collaborative. For example, state the goals of specific deliverables and elicit input from your team on how to achieve those goals. You may have an idea of how you would like certain tasks to be accomplished, but your team members may have more creative or efficient approaches. Empowering your team to express their opinions and make their own decisions allows you to focus on the overarching management tasks and prioritize them in order of importance. Additionally, when you allow team members to have a voice in decisions, it helps foster an environment of responsibility, accountability, and team closeness. 

Communicating and escalating

Project management requires clearly communicating project goals and expectations, team member roles and responsibilities, and constructive feedback. Knowing how to effectively communicate and when to escalate issues to management is key to keeping you, your team, and your organization on the path to success. When escalation is required, try to approach management with both the problem and the potential solution or suggestions. This will show that you’re taking initiative as a project manager. 

Strong organizational skills

If you demonstrate that it is important for you, as a leader, to stay organized through efficient tracking and communications, your team will follow suit. One way to do this is by utilizing the abundance of organizational tools available, such as:

• Planning and scheduling software (templates, workflows, calendars)

• Collaboration tools (email, collaboration software, dashboards)

• Documentation (files, plans, spreadsheets)

• Quality assurance tools (evaluations, productivity trackers, reports)

You may need to experiment with different organizational approaches to determine what works best for you and your team.

Flexibility

All project managers need the ability to adapt and overcome changes and challenges. Let’s further explore why flexibility is such a critical project management skill and discuss how it can help prepare your team for change, mitigate risks, and handle ambiguity. 

Flexible planning

Change is inevitable, and the more flexible you are as a project manager, the more successful you will be throughout your career. These flexible planning strategies can help you manage your project during times of unpredictability: 

• Assess external constraints. When planning your project, take external events into account, such as national holidays and team member vacations and sick leave. Leaving extra time in the schedule for these inevitable events up front can help minimize the impact to your project.

• Plan for risks and challenges. If you consider the risks that may occur, you may be able to find solutions for them in advance. For example, what if someone on your team gets sick or decides to quit? Are you able to replace them within the company? If not, can you hire an independent contractor? Come up with a list of people who may be able to join your team if one of your team members becomes unavailable. You can also assess risks by looking at historical data. Review your past projects and examine the challenges you faced. Then evaluate if similar challenges could occur in this project and prepare accordingly. We will discuss risk management at length later in this program.

• Calculate “float” in your schedule. Float, or slack, refers to the amount of time you can wait to begin a task before it impacts the project schedule and threatens the project outcome. Identifying float in your schedule can help with resource management, scheduling, and keeping your project on track. You will learn more about calculating float in a later course, when we discuss creating a critical path for your project tasks.

Handling ambiguity

Ambiguity can be a big challenge in managing projects. Project managers often face ambiguity in goals, requirements, schedules, vision, or other areas related to the project. Your team will look to you to lead during times of ambiguity and change, and flexibility is especially important during these instances. Here are some different ways to help your team deal with ambiguity: 

• Keep calm. In uncertain times, handling ambiguity with grace and poise will help inspire the members of your team to do the same. 

• Express empathy. As a project manager, it is important to try to understand what your team is thinking and feeling, especially during times of ambiguity. Let your team members know that you care about the challenges they are facing and are there to support them.

• Communicate what you know clearly. Define the aspects of the project that are confirmed and will not change. This helps your team get a better sense of what to expect, regardless of any aspects of the project that are still unknown or changing.

• Make decisions and stick to them. Try not to second-guess your decisions in front of your team since this can lead to greater uncertainty. If you need to change course, clearly explain why you have chosen to do so to your team. 

• Trust the expertise of your team. Increase clarity by having everyone on your team discuss what they already know or believe to be true about components of your project, such as what is involved in specific tasks or resources needed, based on their areas of expertise. Then, discuss what you still don’t know and brainstorm ways to gather more information.

Key takeaway

As a project manager, having the flexibility and ability to handle ambiguity in a rapidly-changing business setting gives you an advantage. Mastering these competencies, along with enabling decision-making, effective communication skills, and strong organizational skills, will allow you to innovate and grow as a project manager and leader.

The project life cycle is the path for your project from start to finish. Each project phase builds toward the subsequent phase and helps to create a structure for the project. To recap, the main phases of the project life cycle are: initiating the project, making a plan, executing and completing tasks, and closing the project.

The project life cycle

Initiate the project

In this phase, ask questions to help set the foundation for the project, such as:

• Who are the stakeholders?

• What are the client’s or customer’s goals?

• What is the purpose and mission of the project?

• What are the measurable objectives for the team?

• What is the project trying to improve? 

• When does this project need to be completed? 

• What skills and resources will the project require? 

• What will the project cost? What are the benefits?

Make a plan

In this phase, make a plan to get your project from start to finish. 

• Create a detailed project plan. What are the major milestones? What tasks or deliverables make up each milestone?  

• Build out the schedule so you can properly manage the resources, budget, materials, and timeline. Here, you will create an itemized budget.

Execute the project

In this phase, put all of your hard work from the first two phases into action.

• Monitor your project team as they complete project tasks. 

• Break down any barriers that would slow or stop the team from completing tasks. 

• Help keep the team aware of schedule and deliverable expectations.

• Address weaknesses in your process or examine places where your team may need additional training to meet the project’s goals.

• Adapt to changes in the project as they arise.

Close the project

In this phase, close out the project.

• Identify that your team has completed all of the requested outcomes. 

• Release your team so they can support other projects within the company.

• Take time with your team to celebrate your successes!

• Pass off all remaining deliverables and get stakeholder approval.

• Document the lessons you and your team learned during the project.

• Reflect on ways to improve in the future.

Key takeaway

Each phase of the project life cycle has its own significance and reason for existing. By following the project life cycle, you’re ensuring that you are:

• Capturing the expectations of your customer

• Setting your project up for success with a plan

• Executing project tasks and addressing any issues that arise

• Closing out your project to capture any lessons learned

Lean

Lean methodology is often referred to as Lean Manufacturing because it originated in the manufacturing world. The main principle in Lean methodology is the removal of waste within an operation. By optimizing process steps and eliminating waste, only value is added at each phase of production.  

Today, the Lean Manufacturing methodology recognizes eight types of waste within an operation: defects, excess processing, overproduction, waiting, inventory, transportation, motion, and non-utilized talent. In the manufacturing industry, these types of waste are often attributed to issues such as: 

• Lack of proper documentation

• Lack of process standards

• Not understanding the customers’ needs

• Lack of effective communication

• Lack of process control

• Inefficient process design

• Failures of management

These same issues create waste in project management. 

Implement Lean project management when you want to use limited resources, reduce waste, and streamline processes to gain maximum benefits. 

You can achieve this by using the pillars of the Lean 5S quality tool. The term 5S refers to the five pillars that are required for good housekeeping: sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain. Implementing the 5S method means cleaning up and organizing the workplace to achieve the smallest amount of wasted time and material. The 5S method includes these five steps: 

1. Sort: Remove all items not needed for current production operations and leave only the bare essentials. 

2. Set in order: Arrange needed items so that they are easy to use. Label items so that anyone can find them or put them away. 

3. Shine: Keep everything in the correct place. Clean your workspace every day.

4. Standardize: Perform the process in the same way every time. 

5. Sustain: Make a habit of maintaining correct procedures and instill this discipline in your team.

Within the Lean methodology, 5S helps you boost performance.

The final concept of Lean uses a Kanban scheduling system to manage production. The Kanban scheduling system, or Kanban board, is a visualization tool that enables you to optimize the flow of your team’s work. It gives the team a visual display to identify what needs to be done and when. The Kanban board uses cards that are moved from left to right to show progress and help your team coordinate the work. 

Kanban boards and 5S are core methods of the Lean methodology. They can help you successfully manage your project. Now let’s analyze the Six Sigma method and learn when is the best time to use it. 

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a methodology used to reduce variations by ensuring that quality processes are followed every time. The term “Six Sigma” originates from statistics and generally means that items or processes should have 99.9996% quality.

The seven key principles of Six Sigma are:

1. Always focus on the customer.

2. Identify and understand how the work gets done. Understand how work really happens.

3. Make your processes flow smoothly.

4. Reduce waste and concentrate on value.

5. Stop defects by removing variation.

6. Involve and collaborate with your team.

7. Approach improvement activity in a systematic way.

Use this methodology to find aspects of the product or process that are measurable like time, cost, or quantity. Then inspect that measurable item and reject any products that do not meet the Six Sigma standard. Any process that created unacceptable products has to be improved upon.  

Now that you understand both Lean and Six Sigma, let's see how they come together to improve the performance of your project!

Lean Six Sigma 

After both Lean and Six Sigma were put into practice, it was discovered that the two methodologies could be combined to increase benefits. The tools used in Lean, such as Kanban boards and 5S, build quality in processes from the beginning. Products developed using Lean methods are then inspected or tested using Six Sigma standards. The products that do not meet these standards are rejected. 

The largest difference between these methodologies is that Lean streamlines processes while Six Sigma reduces variation in products by building in quality from the beginning and inspecting products to ensure quality standards are met. You may find that one of these two methods—or using them both together—can improve the efficiency of your projects. 

Popular project management approaches

Below is a brief recap of some of the project management approaches you’ve been introduced to so far:

Waterfall is a traditional methodology in which tasks and phases are completed in a linear, sequential manner, and each stage of the project must be completed before the next begins. The project manager is responsible for prioritizing and assigning tasks to team members. In Waterfall, the criteria used to measure quality is clearly defined at the beginning of the project.

Agile involves short phases of collaborative, iterative work with frequent testing and regularly-implemented improvements. Some phases and tasks happen at the same time as others. In Agile projects, teams share responsibility for managing their own work. Scrum and Kanban are examples of Agile frameworks, which are specific development approaches based on the Agile philosophy.

Scrum is an Agile framework that focuses on developing, delivering, and sustaining complex projects and products through collaboration, accountability, and an iterative process. Work is completed by small, cross-functional teams led by a Scrum Master and is divided into short Sprints with a set list of deliverables.

Kanban is a tool used in both Agile and Lean approaches that provides visual feedback about the status of the work in progress through the use of Kanban boards or charts. With Kanban, project managers use sticky notes or note cards on a physical or digital Kanban board to represent the team’s tasks with categories like “To do,” “In progress,” and “Done.”

Lean uses the 5S quality tool to eliminate eight areas of waste, save money, improve quality, and streamline processes. Lean’s principles state that you can do more with less by addressing dysfunctions that create waste. Lean implements a Kanban scheduling system to manage production.

Six Sigma involves reducing variations by ensuring that quality processes are followed every time. The Six Sigma method follows a process-improvement approach called DMAIC, which stands for define, measure, analyze, improve, and control.

Lean Six Sigma is a combination of Lean and Six Sigma approaches. It is often used in projects that aim to save money, improve quality, and move through processes quickly. Lean Six Sigma is also ideal for solving complex or high-risk problems. The 5S organization framework, the DMAIC process, and the use of Kanban boards are all components of this approach.

Despite their differences, all of these project management methodologies require communication and collaboration among various teams and aim to deliver projects on time and within budget. 

Selecting a project management approach

With so many methodologies available, there are many options that would work well for your project. Since projects and the organizations in which you will execute them vary greatly, the approach you choose to implement for each project will vary. At Google, we often use a hybrid of approaches and frameworks to efficiently meet the project goal! All approaches can be combined with others, depending on the needs of your project. 

Choosing an approach that works best for the project, the organization, and the team takes time and practice. You’ll learn more about how to choose a project management approach throughout this certificate program. In the meantime, take a look at how this article breaks down common methodologies and when (or when not) to use them: Which project management methodologies should you use?

Understanding the differences in Classic and Matrix organizational structures can help you ask questions during a job interview to fully understand the role and responsibilities you are considering. This will also help you understand which skills will be most important for you to have if you get the position. 

Once you are hired into a role, knowing a company’s organizational structure can help you identify key points of communication and key stakeholders. It can also help you navigate within the organization when you need support or need to determine who has authority in a certain situation. Let’s examine the characteristics of each of these organizational structures in greater depth so you can identify the type of structure an organization has and how to navigate it as a project manager. 

Classic organizational structures

The Classic organizational structure is a top-down hierarchy system, where a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has direct authority over several department managers. The department manager has direct authority over several other sections of employees. This system requires communication both up and down the ladder. In a Classic structure, authority comes from the top and filters to the bottom. Frequent reporting of project status updates may be required to pass up through management levels to keep higher leaders informed. 

Classic organizations are also referred to as functional organizations because the organization is divided into departments based on function. Each department is led by a functional manager, and employees are grouped according to the functions of their role. For example, the main function of Friendly Skies Airlines, an airline company, is to fly airplanes. There are typically departments logically arranged to fulfill other important company functions, such as Marketing, Human Resources, and Strategy. Employees usually have a specialty within the organization and may not work within other areas during normal everyday operations. 

Managing a project in a Classic organization

Friendly Skies Airlines has a Classic organizational structure, as indicated by its reporting or “org” chart.

Imagine that the Friendly Skies Airlines Board of Directors approves an initiative to retrofit existing airplanes to carry more passengers. The CEO sponsors a project team to redesign the airplanes. The project will be led by a project manager from the Engineering and Innovation department and will require representatives from Finance, Marketing, Strategy, and Operations, along with several other team members from the Design department, to successfully complete the project. 

The project team will typically remain in their reporting lines but act as their own assembled team. They do not fall under any of the existing functional departments. In the Classic organizational structure, the project builds from already existing departments to form teams.

If you are a project manager in this type of structure, you may need to consult with functional managers to understand your resources and the capacity of each teammate, as well as to familiarize yourself with each function’s internal processes and approval structure. Your authority may be slightly limited due to competing priorities, approval chains, and other complexities, but setting expectations up front will enable you to navigate the organization and execute your project successfully.

Matrix organizational structures

The Matrix structure differs from the Classic structure in that the employees have two or more managers. In Matrix structures, you still have people above you, but you also have people in adjacent departments with whom you will need to communicate on your work progress. Functional areas tend to cross paths more frequently, and depending on the nature of the work, the responsible manager for each area has the most authority. 

As a project manager in a Matrix organization, a team will essentially have at least two chains of command, or managers. You can think of the project manager as being a temporary manager while assigned to the team. The functional manager is consistent regardless of the project a project manager is supporting. The visual below illustrates what the Friendly Skies Airlines would look like if it had a Matrix organizational structure.

Managing a project in a Matrix organization

Imagine that Friendly Skies Airlines is organized in a Matrix structure. Their Product Excellence team develops a new amenity kit for long-haul flights. They ask the Project Manager to help gather marketing materials that present research data about how this product fulfills passenger desires. The Project Manager is working on behalf of the Product Excellence team, but they are able to work in partnership with the Marketing team to create these materials.  

You can read more about an overview of Matrix organizations in this PMI article.

Key takeaway

In both Classic and Matrix organizations, project managers must clearly define roles and responsibilities in order to work effectively. However, within most Matrix organizations, some project managers or department leads may have the same level of authority as the functional managers and operate more directly.

What is a PMO?

A Project Management Office, or PMO, is a group within an organization that defines, sets, and helps maintain project management standards and processes throughout that organization. It often acts as a coordinated center for all of the organization’s projects, helping them run more smoothly and efficiently.

An organization’s project managers may operate within the PMO itself or within other departments. At Google, for example, there are project managers who work in a PMO focused on operational excellence, but there are numerous project and program managers in other departments throughout the organization, as well.

What are the functions of a PMO?

PMOs offer guidance and support to their organization’s project managers. They share best practices, project statuses, and direction for all of the organization’s projects while often taking on strategic projects themselves. The main functions of a PMO include:

Strategic planning and governance

This is the most important function of a PMO. This involves defining project criteria, selecting projects according to the organization’s business goals, and then providing a business case for those projects to management. 

Best practices

PMOs help implement best practices and processes within their organization. They also share lessons learned from previous successful projects. They help ensure consistency among their organization’s projects by providing guidance about processes, tools, and metrics.

Common project culture 

PMOs help set common project culture practices by training employees about optimal approaches and best practices. This helps keep project management practices consistent and efficient across the entire organization. 

Resource management

PMOs are often responsible for managing and allocating resources—such as people and equipment—across projects throughout the organization based on budget, priorities, schedules, and more. They also help define the roles and responsibilities needed on any given project. PMOs provide training, mentoring, and coaching to all employees, but project managers in particular. 

Creation of project documentation, archives, and tools

PMOs invest in and provide templates, tools, and software to help manage projects. They also play an important role in maintaining their organization’s project history. Once a project closes, they archive all of the documents created during the project for future reference and to capture lessons learned.

Key takeaway

To recap, the key purposes of a PMO include: strategic planning and governance, implementing project management best practices, establishing common project culture, resource management, and creating project documentation, archives, and tools. PMOs support their organizations in managing large numbers of projects and help keep all employees working in the same direction towards the organization’s goals

Organizational culture can be thought of as a company's personality. A company’s organizational culture can help drive its internal and external success. When a company’s culture is aligned with its corporate strategy and goals, the level at which it can perform is impressive. When researching a company for a possible new job, understanding the company’s culture can help you decide if it is a good fit for you and your priorities. Also, understanding a company's culture as a project manager can help you make informed choices about when you want your actions and decisions to fit within the culture or when you might choose to intentionally push back against the culture to affect change or create improvements. Let’s explore an example of a positive organizational culture and how a project manager fits into that culture.

The Family Java culture 

The Family Java coffeehouse has over 2,000 stores worldwide. The Family Java’s culture is closely linked to their strategy and capabilities—this is what they feel sets them apart from other coffee shops. The company has invested in a relationship-driven, employees-first approach. Their culture establishes that the employees are what makes the company unique. This helps foster a warm, comfortable, and calm environment for both employees and customers. Because The Family Java’s organizational culture has cultivated employees who genuinely care about the company and their jobs, those employees create the same environment for their customers to enjoy. 

The Family Java’s mission and values speak to this approach directly:

Mission

• To provide a welcoming environment where our employees become our family and our guests become our friends

Values

• To create a place where everyone is welcome

• To always give our best and hold ourselves accountable for the results

• To treat others with respect and kindness

The Family Java has worked hard to be able to create the structure to put their mission and values into practice daily. They practice these values, all while achieving new levels in sales and growth. For example, The Family Java believes in expressing their employees-first value by spending more on employee healthcare than on coffee beans! Each employee is crucial to the success of the company and their ability to fulfill their mission and adhere to their values. In turn, the company makes their employees feel valued by offering substantial training, education scholarships, assistance with daycare, and growth within the company.

The Family Java is able to capitalize on the critical link between culture and strategic goals to achieve optimal performance. When evaluating their organizational culture, the company focuses on their positive attributes and adapts to what works and has proven to be beneficial. By taking the time to perfect what the company does well, The Family Java has created a culture that drives out negativity, empowers employees to be their best selves, and aligns with their strategic goals.

A project manager’s relationship to organizational culture 

Learning the company’s values

Avi was excited to begin his role as a project manager at The Family Java. He had asked questions about the organization’s culture during his job interview and was told about the company’s people-first approach. Avi’s previous company prioritized profitability over teamwork and mentorship. While his previous company was very successful, it was difficult for Avi to engage meaningfully in his work because the culture was so focused on financial results rather than on their employees’ job satisfaction. Avi felt like The Family Java’s approach better aligned with his own values.

Clarifying the company’s expectations

Avi’s manager at The Family Java said that his role would involve a substantial emphasis on team building and keeping morale high. When he began, Avi asked his manager to clarify the time investment expected by the company in order to accomplish team- and morale-building goals. He also asked for suggestions and guidance based on what had been done at the company in the past. If Avi had made incorrect assumptions about the company’s culture and tried to manage projects with his previous company’s culture in mind, he might have emphasized speed over collaboration and communication. Avi now knew that he would need to carefully balance expectations related to The Family Java’s culture with the project workload in order to meet project timelines and achieve the desired outcome.

Applying organizational culture to a project

Before beginning his first project, Avi planned a team lunch to get to know everyone at The Family Java. Then, he scheduled one-on-one meetings with each of his team members to learn more about their working style and professional goals. He also asked how he could help support and remove any barriers for them. One of Avi’s team members, Miguel, said that he needed to start his workday early because he picked his children up from school at 3:00. After hearing this, Avi avoided scheduling team meetings in the late afternoon. Another team member, Elisa, told Avi that she preferred face-to-face or phone conversations to email since she felt like she communicated better verbally. When Avi needed to discuss something with Elisa, he made sure that he talked with her in person as much as possible. Avi continued to check in with all of his team members regularly as the project progressed. He also scheduled weekly “Coffee Chats” with his team, since he had learned that this was company tradition. Avi’s efforts to align his project management style to The Family Java’s organizational culture were noticed by executives and stakeholders, and he was given a lot of support in getting the resources he needed.

Key takeaway

The culture of each organization you encounter will be different and can change over time. Like Avi, it is worth your time as a project manager to learn about your company's culture because it directly relates to your projects’ success.

Change management is the process of delivering your completed project and getting other people in the organization to adopt it. In this reading, we will discuss strategies for approaching change management as a project manager.

Your project’s success depends on the adoption and acceptance of your project—whether that entails the launch of a new external tool or a process that will change operations at a production facility. In both cases, the greatest impact of the change will be on the people who use and interact with the product or process that is changing. 

For example, if your website’s user interface changes, the major impact of that change affects the user. The user must learn how the website has been reorganized and adapt to the new way to navigate it. If part of the website’s interface update includes a new brand logo, the major impact of that change impacts your organization’s employees. They must be made aware of the new logo and measures must be taken to ensure that all company communications include the new logo, not the old one.

You can help ensure your project’s success by embracing changes as they come and by convincing the wider audience, whether that is the end user or members of the organization, to embrace changes, too. When you implement a careful approach to change management, you can address issues that might occur in the later stages of your project.

Integrating project management and change management

Change management is a major undertaking and a project in and of itself. When it comes to change management, you may not always be responsible for leading and planning the entire end-to-end process. There will be times when your manager, a team member, or another senior leader might be responsible for taking on that transition and successfully implementing the changes. However, although you may not be the one directly leading the change, there are still ways in which you can support and participate in the successful adoption of your project. 

As a project manager, you can think of change management as necessary for the successful outcome of your project. Both change management and project management aim to increase the likelihood of project success. They also incorporate tools and processes to accomplish that goal. The most effective way to achieve a project goal is to integrate project management and change management, and it is your responsibility as a project manager to do so. 

When you are thinking about change management as it relates to your project, begin by asking yourself the following questions:

• How will the organization react to change?

• Which influencers can affect change?

• What are the best means of communication? 

• What change management practices will lead to the successful implementation of my project? 

The answers to these questions will help you prepare for a variety of possible scenarios and allow you to craft solutions to effectively support the adoption of your project. 

Let’s look at some best practices for approaching change management on your projects:

Be proactive. Proactive and inclusive change management planning can help keep any potentially impacted stakeholders aware of the upcoming changes.

• Incorporate change management into your project management steps. For example, you can schedule time during team meetings or create a feedback document to ensure that your team members know there is a place to voice their suggestions and concerns. 

• You can also plan steps towards the end of your project to introduce the deliverable to stakeholders in the form of demonstrations, question and answer forums, or marketing videos. You can factor all of these decisions into your plan so that any potential changes are less likely to impact your timeline. If these steps have not been built into your plan, you can escalate and stress the importance of a change management plan to your stakeholders. 

Communicate about upcoming changes. Communication should occur regularly among impacted stakeholders, the change management team, and the project team. Check in and communicate throughout the project about how the changes will provide a better experience for end users of the project deliverables. In this way, you support the process by providing everyone with the information they need to feel prepared to adjust to changes once the project is ready to launch. 

Follow a consistent process. Following a clear change management process helps maintain consistency each time there is a change. The change management process should be established and documented early on in your project to guide how the project will handle change. Your organization may also have an overarching change management plan that can be adopted for your project. This may include when the promotion of the change should happen, when training should occur, when the launch or release will occur, and corresponding steps for each phase of the process. 

Practice empathy. Changes are inevitable, but we are often resistant to them. By being empathetic to the challenges and anxiety change can bring, you can support the process in subtle ways. 

Use tools. Incorporating tools to assist in the adoption of a change can be very helpful. Here are a few examples you can use on your next project:

• Feedback mechanisms, such as surveys, can capture input from stakeholders.

• Flowcharts can visualize the project's development process.

• Culture mapping can illustrate the company's culture and how the company's values, norms, and employees behavior may be affected by the change.

As the project manager, you are responsible for successfully delivering projects. As you hone the skill set you acquire throughout this program, you will find that change management is essential to your projects’ success.

For more on how to participate in the change management process, check out the following resources:

• Change Management at the Project Level

• Change Management Framework

Governance in business is the management framework within which decisions are made and accountability and responsibility are determined. In simple terms, governance is understanding who is in charge. In this reading, we will discuss corporate governance and project governance. It is important to learn how corporate and project governance are related since you may have to speak about governance in an interview. Additionally, you will need to understand how your project relates to the governance structure of the organization.

Corporate governance

Each organization is governed by its own set of standards and practices that direct and control its actions. Those standards and practices are called corporate governance, and they will influence your projects. Corporate governance is the framework by which an organization achieves its goals and objectives. Corporate governance is also a way to balance the requirements of the various corporate entities, such as stakeholders, management, and customers. Corporate governance affects every part of an organization, including action plans, internal and external controls, and performance measurements.

Governance and change management go hand-in-hand. Think back to the previous videos on change management. To successfully implement change management, it is essential that you understand the structure and culture of the organization. Effective governance in change management provides clearly defined roles and responsibilities during change. This enables the people within the organization to have a precise understanding of who makes decisions and of the relationship between those managing and participating in the change management process. 

Another example of governance within an organization is the creation and use of steering committees. Steering committees decide on the priorities of an organization and manage the general course of its operations. The steering committee essentially acts as an advisory board or council to help the project manager and the company make and approve strategic decisions that affect both the company and the project. 

Project governance

As a project manager, you will be responsible for project governance. Project governance is the framework for how project decisions are made. Project governance helps keep projects running smoothly, on time, and within budget. Project governance involves all the key elements that make a project successful. It tells you what activities an organization does and who is responsible for those activities. Project governance covers policies, regulations, functions, processes, procedures, and responsibilities. 

How project and corporate governance intersect

Project governance needs to be tailored to your organization's specific needs. These needs will influence how you implement and monitor the governance framework on your project. Project governance concerns those areas of corporate governance that are specifically related to project activities. Effective project governance ensures that an organization’s projects are aligned to the organization’s larger objectives, are delivered efficiently, and are sustainable. This includes:

• Considering the long- and short-term interests of your organization

• Making thoughtful decisions about which projects to take on and avoiding projects if you do not have sufficient resources

• Providing timely, relevant, and reliable information to the board of directors and other major stakeholders 

• Eliciting the input and buy-in of senior managers since they are the decision-makers 

• During the initiation phase, prioritizing clear, reachable, and sustainable goals in order to reduce confusion and conflict

• During the planning phase, assigning ownership and accountability to an experienced team to deliver, monitor, and control the process 

• During the execution phase, learning from mistakes and adapting to new or improved knowledge

Corporate governance can involve clearing many hurdles before making decisions. These decisions can influence not only a single project, but the entire corporation. 

At the same time, corporate governance can help support project governance, as it provides oversight on compliance and mitigating risk and offers guidance and direction for project managers. Good corporate governance can also help project managers secure resources, get issues addressed, avoid delays in decision-making, get buy-in from stakeholders, and achieve visibility for projects on the executive level.

Key takeaway

You should think about an organization’s culture and structure when you are interviewing for a new role and as you begin a new role or project. You should consider an organization’s governance processes and practices in the same way. This will help you understand how decisions are made, who is responsible for what, and what are the potential issues and areas of concern. 

A cost-benefit analysis is the process of adding up the expected value of a project—the benefits—and comparing them to the dollar costs. In this reading, we will discuss the benefits of conducting a cost-benefit analysis, guiding questions to help you and your stakeholders conduct one, and how to calculate return on investment (ROI).

The benefits of a cost-benefit analysis

A cost-benefit analysis can minimize risks and maximize gains for projects and organizations. It can help you communicate clearly with stakeholders and executives and keep your project on track. Because this type of analysis uses objective data, it can help reduce biases and keep stakeholder self-interest from influencing decisions. 

Comparing a project’s benefits to its costs can help you make a strong business case to stakeholders and leadership and ensure your organization pursues the most profitable or useful projects. Organizations use cost-benefit analysis to reduce waste and invest their resources responsibly.

Guiding questions for a cost-benefit analysis

When you’re pursuing a project, the benefits should outweigh the costs. It’s important for you and your stakeholders to consider questions like the ones that follow early on, while you prepare the proposal.

To determine the benefits of a project, you might ask:

• What value will this project create? 

• How much money could this project save our organization? 

• How much money will it bring in from existing customers?

• How much time will it save? 

• How will it improve the customer experience?

And to determine the costs of a project, consider questions such as:

• How much time will people have to spend on this project?

• What are the one-time costs?

• Are there any ongoing costs?

• What about long-term costs? 

You might also consider questions about intangible benefits. These are gains that are not quantifiable, such as:

• Customer satisfaction. Will the project increase customer retention, causing them to spend more on the company’s products or services? 

• Employee satisfaction. Is the project likely to improve employee morale, reducing turnover? 

• Employee productivity. Will the project reduce employee’s overtime hours, saving the company money?

• Brand perception. Is the project likely to improve the company’s brand perception and recognition, attracting more customers or providing a competitive advantage?

You can also flip these questions to consider intangible costs. These are costs that are not quantifiable. For example, might the project put customer retention, employee satisfaction, or brand perception at risk?

When assigning values to tangible or intangible costs and benefits, you can reference similar past projects, conduct industry research, or consult with experts.

Calculating costs and benefits

The process of calculating costs and benefits is also called calculating return on investment, or ROI. There are many ways to determine a project’s ROI, but the easiest way is to compare the upfront and ongoing costs to its benefits over time.

One common ROI formula is: (G - C ) / C = ROI

In this formula, G represents the financial gains you expect from the project, and C represents the upfront and ongoing costs of your investment in the project.

For example, imagine your project costs $6,000 up front plus $25 per month for 12 months. Twenty-five dollars for 12 months equals $300 per year, meaning your total cost is $6,300. You estimate that the project will bring in $10,000 in revenue over the course of that year. That leaves you with:

• G = $10,000

• C = $6,300

Now, using the formula above, you plug in the amounts as follows:

• ($10,000 - $6,300) ÷ $6,300 = ROI

Then you proceed with the calculation:

• First, inside the parentheses:  10,000 - 6,300 = $3,700

• Next, $3,700 ÷ $6,300 = 0.5873

• Finally, 0.5873  x 100 = 58.7%

The ROI comes to 0.587, or 58.7%. Given a strong ROI tends to be anything above 10%, you find 58.7% to be a strong ROI, so you decide to pursue the project.

Key takeaway

Performing a cost-benefit analysis can help you and your stakeholders determine if it makes sense to take on a new project by evaluating if its benefits outweigh its costs. When conducting cost-benefit analyses for your prospective projects, you can use the guiding questions and ROI formula provided in this reading as a reference. 

To learn more about performing a cost-benefit analysis, check out these articles:

• Cost Benefit Analysis for Projects – A Step-by-Step Guide

• Cost Benefit or Benefit Cost Analysis

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals are very helpful for ensuring project success. As you start your career in project management, you may not directly set the project goals, but you should be able to clarify and understand them. SMART goals help you see the full scope of a goal, determine its feasibility, and clearly define project success in concrete terms. 

Let’s recap what we discussed in the previous video by taking a look at a breakdown of the criteria for SMART goals below: 

• Specific: The objective has no ambiguity for the project team to misinterpret. 

• Measurable: Metrics help the project team determine when the objective is met.

• Attainable: The project team agrees the objective is realistic.

• Relevant: The goal fits the organization’s strategic plan and supports the project charter.

• Time-bound: The project team documents a date to achieve the goal.

You may see variations on what each letter in the “SMART” acronym stands for. (For example, you may see “actionable” or “achievable” instead of “attainable” or “realistic” instead of “relevant.”) However, the general intent of each of these terms—to make sure the goal is within reach—is always similar.

Focusing on the "M" in SMART

Let’s take a moment to zoom in on the M in SMART, which stands for measurable. Having measurable goals allows you to assess the success of your project based on quantifiable or tangible metrics, such as dollar amounts, number of outputs, quantities, etc. Measurable goals are important because they leave little room for confusion around expectations from stakeholders. 

Not every metric will have value, so you will have to determine which metrics make sense for the project. For example, measuring how many meetings the software engineers on your project attend on a weekly basis may not be the most valuable metric for a productivity goal. Alternatively, you might measure other aspects of the engineers’ productivity, such as a particular number of features created per engineer or a specific number of issues flagged per day.

Defining a SMART goal

Let’s explore an example related to making a personal goal measurable. Imagine you are looking to make a career change, and you set a goal to complete a Google Career Certificate. You can measure the success of this goal because after completing the entire program, you will receive a certificate—a tangible outcome.

Now, let’s determine how to make the remaining elements of this goal SMART. In this example, your specific goal is to attain a Google Career Certificate. You can make this goal attainable by deciding that you will complete one course per month. This goal is relevant because it supports your desire to make a career change. Finally, you can make this goal time-bound by deciding that you will complete the program within six months.

After defining each of these components, your SMART goal then becomes: Obtain a Google Career Certificate by taking one course per month within the next six months.

Key takeaway

Determining metrics can be extremely helpful in capturing statuses, successes, delays, and more in a project. As a project manager, identifying meaningful metrics can help move the project toward its goal. Additionally, by defining each element of a project goal to make it SMART, you can determine what success means for that goal and how to achieve it. 

What are OKRs?

OKR stands for objectives and key results. They combine a goal and a metric to determine a measurable outcome.

Objectives: Defines what needs to be achieved; describes a desired outcome.

Key results: The measurable outcomes that objectively define when the objective has been met

Company-wide OKRs are used to set an ultimate goal for an entire organization, whole team, or department. Project-level OKRs describe the focused results each group will need to achieve in order to support the organization.

OKRs and project management

As a project manager, OKRs can help you expand upon project goals and further clarify the deliverables you’ll need from the project to accomplish those goals. Project-level OKRs help establish the appropriate scope for your team so that you can say “no” to requests that may get in the way of them meeting their objectives. You can also create and use project-level OKRs to help motivate your team since OKRs are intended to challenge you to push past what’s easily achievable. 

Creating OKRs for your project

Set your objectives

Project objectives should be aspirational, aligned with organizational goals, action-oriented, concrete, and significant. Consider the vision you and your stakeholders have for your project and determine what you want the project team to accomplish in 3–6 months.

Examples:

• Build the most secure data security software 

• Continuously improve web analytics and conversions

• Provide a top-performing service

• Make a universally-available app

• Increase market reach

• Achieve top sales among competitors in the region

Strong objectives meet the following criteria. They are:

• Aspirational

• Aligned with organizational goals

• Action-oriented

• Concrete

• Significant

To help shape each objective, ask yourself and your team:

• Does the objective help in achieving the project’s overall goals?

• Does the objective align with company and departmental OKRs?

• Is the objective inspiring and motivational?

• Will achieving the objective make a significant impact?

Develop key results

Next, add 2–3 key results for each objective. Key results should be time-bound. They can be used to indicate the amount of progress to achieve within a shorter period or to define whether you’ve met your objective at the end of the project. They should also challenge you and your team to stretch yourselves to achieve more.

Examples:

• X% new signups within first quarter post launch

• Increase advertiser spend by X% within the first two quarters of the year

• New feature adoption is at least X% by the end of the year

• Maximum 2 critical bugs are reported monthly by customers per Sprint

• Maintain newsletter unsubscribe rate at X% this calendar year

Strong key results meet the following criteria:

• Results-oriented—not a task

• Measurable and verifiable

• Specific and time-bound

• Aggressive yet realistic

To help shape your key results, ask yourself and your team the following:

• What does success mean?

• What metrics would prove that we’ve successfully achieved the objective?

OKR development best practices

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when writing OKRs:

• Think of your objectives as being motivational and inspiring and your key results as being tactical and specific. The objective describes what you want to do and the key results describe how you’ll know you did it. 

• As a general rule, try to develop around 2–-3  key results for each objective.

• Be sure to document your OKRs and link to them in your project plan.

OKRs versus SMART goals

Earlier in this lesson, you learned how to craft SMART goals for your project. While SMART goals and OKRs have some similarities, there are key differences, as well. The following article describes how SMART goals and OKRs are similar, how they differ, and when you might want to use one or the other:  Understanding the Unique Utility of OKRs vs. SMART Goals

To learn more how OKRs work to help project managers define and create measurable project goals and deliverables, check out the following resources:

• Google’s OKR playbook

• Planning company goals

• OKRs and SMART goals: What's the difference?

• OKRs and KPIs: What They Are and How They Work Together

• How OKR and project management work together

• OKR Examples

• OKR TED Talk video (John Doerr, the founder of OKRs, explains why the secret to success is setting the right goals.)

Let’s focus here on how to identify vital elements of a project’s scope and examine the right questions to ask in order to define it. 

Asking scope-defining questions

Imagine that while working in a restaurant management group, your manager calls and asks you to “update the dining space,” then quickly hangs up the phone without providing further instruction. In this initial handoff from the manager, you are missing a lot of information. How do you even know what to ask?

Let’s quickly recap the concept of scope. The scope provides the boundaries for your project. You define the scope to help identify necessary resources, resource costs, and a schedule for the project. 

In the situation we just described, here are some questions you might ask your manager in order to get the information you need to define the scope of the project:

Stakeholders

• How did you arrive at the decision to update the dining space?

• Did the request originate from the restaurant owner, customers, or other stakeholders?

• Who will approve the scope for the project?

Goals

• What is the reason for updating the dining space?

• What isn't working in the current dining space?

• What is the end goal of this project?

Deliverables

• Which dining space is being updated?

• What exactly needs to be updated?

• Does the dining space need a remodel?

Resources

• What materials, equipment, and people will be needed?

• Will we need to hire contractors?

• Will we need to attain a floor plan and building permits?

Budget

• What is the budget for this project? Is it fixed or flexible?

Schedule

• How much time do we have to complete the project?

• When does the project need to be completed?

Flexibility

• How much flexibility is there?

• What is the highest priority: hitting the deadline, sticking to the budget, or making sure the result meets all the quality targets?

Key takeaway

Taking the time to ask questions and ensure that you understand the scope of the project will help reduce expenses, rework, frustration, and confusion. Make sure you understand the who, what, when, where, why, and how as it applies to the scope. If you are missing any of that information, focus your questions on those elements. The initiation phase of the project sets the foundation for the project, so ensuring that you understand the scope and expectations during this stage is essential. 

Scope management best practices

The scope of a project can get out of control quickly—so quickly that you may not even notice it. Scope creep is when a project’s work starts to grow beyond what was originally agreed upon during the initiation phase. Scope creep can put stress on you, your team, and your organization, and it can put your project at risk. The effects of scope creep can hinder every aspect of the project, from the schedule to the budget to the resources, and ultimately, its overall success. 

Here are some best practices for scope management and controlling scope creep: 

• Define your project’s requirements. Communicate with your stakeholders or customers to find out exactly what they want from the project and document those requirements during the initiation phase. 

• Set a clear project schedule. Time and task management are essential for sticking to your project’s scope. Your schedule should outline all of your project’s requirements and the tasks that are necessary to achieve them.

• Determine what is out of scope. Make sure your stakeholders, customers, and project team understand when proposed changes are out of scope. Come to a clear agreement about the potential impacts to the project and document your agreement. 

• Provide alternatives. Suggest alternative solutions to your customer or stakeholder. You can also help them consider how their proposed changes might create additional risks. Perform a cost-benefit analysis, if necessary.

• Set up a change control process. During the course of your project, some changes are inevitable. Determine the process for how each change will be defined, reviewed, and approved (or rejected) before you add it to your project plan. Make sure your project team is aware of this process.

• Learn how to say no. Sometimes you will have to say no to proposed changes. Saying no to a key stakeholder or customer can be uncomfortable, but it can be necessary to protect your project’s scope and its overall quality. If you are asked to take on additional tasks, explain how they will interfere with the budget, timeline, and/or resources defined in your initial project requirements. 

• Collect costs for out-of-scope work. If out-of-scope work is required, be sure to document all costs incurred. That includes costs for work indirectly impacted by the increased scope. Be sure to indicate what the charges are for. 

Key takeaway

You can only avoid scope creep if everyone involved in the project understands and agrees on responsibilities, boundaries, and timelines. Avoiding scope creep also requires clear communication, expectation management, and a well-defined path to your desired outcome. Following the strategies discussed here can help you proactively manage scope creep before it creeps into your project! 

Project managers may refer to the triple constraint model to manage scope and control scope creep. It can serve as a valuable tool to help you negotiate priorities and consider trade-offs.

For further reading on utilizing the triple constraint model in real-life scenarios as a project manager and how the triple constraint model has evolved over time, we recommend checking out this article: A Project Management Triple Constraint Example & Guide.

You will often hear companies celebrating the launch of a new product, service, or initiative, and it is important to remember that even when your project is out in the world, your work isn’t complete. When working on a project, the goal isn’t simply to launch it, but to land it. Landings occur once your project achieves a measure of success. As project managers, landings are what we strive for and what we celebrate. They are the ultimate reward for all of our efforts. 

Launching vs. landing a project

In project management, a project “launching” means you have delivered the final results of the project to the client or user. You can’t solely base project success on when the client accepts the project, though. Your work on a project won’t be complete until you “land” it by thoroughly measuring the results. This is when the success criteria and the metrics you defined initially when setting SMART goals will come in handy.  

Teams should be clear on what they are trying to accomplish, beyond just launching something to users. Will your project increase retention? Will your project speed up a product feature? Depending on the product and situation, the answers will differ, but it is important that your team aligns and works toward the same measurable goal. 

Launch first, land later

Let’s consider an example: imagine you are a project manager for an eco-friendly organization. Your organization asks you to create a training program for middle school students in your county to teach them about the impacts of recycling. The county's goal is to increase recycling by 20% over the next five years. You gather your team and start developing the learning content to build out this training program. It takes you and your team one year to complete the research, development, and production of this training. When you hand over the training to the school district, you are launching the project. In order to know your project actually landed at the intended goal, you need to check back in periodically over the next five years to see if the training program is on target to produce a 20% increase in recycling in the county.  

Launch and forget

A common mistake of many project teams is to “launch and forget” the results. This happens when a project manager delivers the project to the client and the client accepts the project delivery, but the project manager doesn’t assess if the project deliverables satisfy the customer or user. In the example above, if you didn’t check back periodically over five years to assess the results, you would have only launched—but not landed—the project. Launching and landings work in tandem to ensure true success. 

A project landing shouldn’t create more hurdles. If done correctly, a landing creates greater alignment within the teams on the end results you all desire, and it gives everybody on the team better visibility on how to achieve success. 

Key takeaway

Launching your project to the client can be a very big moment for you. You handed over the project to your client and now you can take a step back and breathe. But make sure you land your project, as well. Look over your notes, talk with your team, meet with the client, and remember to return to your intended deliverables and metrics to help you measure success.

Recall that SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound and help keep a project on track for success. 

We can also determine the success of a project by the quality of the product, the ability to fulfill the needs of your customers, and the need to meet the expectations of your stakeholders. For this reading, we will discuss these particular success criteria, the metrics we use to track them, and how and why we communicate our findings.  

Product quality 

The product, or final result, of a project has its own set of attributes that define success. The product attributes that are necessary for the product’s success include completeness in features, quality of features, unit cost, usability, etc. The extent that a product is complete will contribute to the product’s success. This can apply to any project in which you deliver a product or tangible outcome at the end. To keep us on track for success, we can create a list of product requirements to ensure that you do not miss anything. For example, if the project produces word processing software, you need basic features like text entry, formatting, saving, and printing. Since you require each feature to have a functional word processor by today’s standards, you include these features on your checklist. 

To measure the success of a product, consider including these metrics on your checklist: 

• Track if you implemented the product’s priority requirements

• Track and assess the product’s number of technical issues or defects

• Measure the percentage of features you delivered or released at the end of the project

What is important to the customers or stakeholders

We have to pay attention to product metrics, but we also have to be mindful of stakeholder and customer additional expectations for features and objectives. In the word processor example, a stakeholder may want to add an additional functionality to easily create tables in a document with text. Additionally, a strategic goal of the organization could be to create word processor software with more collaborative ability than the word processors currently on the market. Each component is necessary in order to meet customer and stakeholder expectations. Think about what needs the project satisfies for your stakeholders or customers. These strategic goals tie back to the business case and the reason you initiated the project in the first place. Often, you can measure the fulfillment of strategic goals via user or customer metrics. Metrics to consider include:

• Evaluating user engagement with the product 

• Measuring stakeholder and customer satisfaction via surveys

• Tracking user adoption of the product by using sales data

Document, align, and communicate success

Understanding where we are and where we are going helps the project team determine if they are on track. As you learned in the video on this topic, you need to get clarity from stakeholders on the project requirements and expectations. There are many people involved with any project, and success will look different for each of them. You want to ask questions, such as: Who ultimately says whether or not the project is successful? What criteria will be measured to determine success? What is the success of this project based on? It is best practice to get the key stakeholders or the steering committee to review and approve your success criteria. This becomes a mutual agreement on how all parties define the success of the project.

Key takeaway

Remember, all projects encounter change. All parties must have continuous access and alignment to the success criteria agreed upon to avoid scope creep (uncontrolled change of the project’s scope) or failed expectations at the end of the project. It’s important to document success criteria upfront and continue to report on it throughout the project. You can make a copy of this document to help you get alignment.

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

You have learned that OKRs—Objectives and Key Results--combine a goal and a metric to determine a measurable outcome. Setting OKRs is a technique that can help project teams define, communicate, and measure shared success criteria.

Objectives: Defines what needs to be achieved; describes a desired outcome.

Key results: The measurable outcomes that objectively define when the objective has been met

Communicating and tracking OKRs

Conducting regular check-ins and actively tracking progress with your team can help ensure that objectives are being met and that any issues are resolved as soon as possible.

Share your OKRs with your team. Once you’ve created OKRs for your project, it’s important to communicate them to your team so that everyone knows how to focus and align their efforts. You can do this by sharing a digital document, presenting them in a meeting, or adding them to an internal website. OKRs can help your project team stick to its goals, monitor which are falling short, and be continuously motivated to meet project objectives. 

Assign owners. Assign an owner to every key result so that everybody knows who’s responsible for what. This helps add clarity and increases accountability.

Measuring progress

Measuring your OKRs is an important part of tracking and sharing your progress. One shortcut to determining the status of a project is to score or grade your OKRs. While scores or grades don’t provide a complete assessment of a project’s success, they’re helpful tools for determining how close you came to achieving your objectives. You can then share your OKR scores with project stakeholders and team members as part of your overall project updates.

Determine how you will score your OKRs. OKRs can be scored in different ways. You can score based on a percentage of the objective completed, the completion of certain milestones, or a scale of 1 to 10, for example. You can also use a “traffic light” scoring approach, where red means you didn’t make any progress, yellow means you made some progress, and green means you completed your objective.

The simplest approach to scoring OKRs is the “yes/no” method, with “yes” meaning you achieved your objective and “no” meaning you didn’t. Using this approach, a key result such as “Launch a new widget marketing campaign” might be graded a 1 or 0 depending on whether it was launched (1) or not (0). 

A more advanced scoring approach is to grade your key results on a scale. With this method, if a key result was to “Launch six new features” and only three new features were launched, the OKR might be graded 0.5. Generally, if the KR helped you achieve the objective, your OKR should receive a higher score; if it didn't, your OKR should receive a lower score. 

At Google, OKRs are usually graded on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0, with 1.0 meaning the objective was fully achieved. Each individual key result is graded and then the grades are averaged to determine the score for that OKR.

Set your scoring expectations. With Google’s 0.0–1.0 scale, the expectation is to set ambitious OKRs and aim to achieve an average of at least 0.6 to 0.7 across all OKRs. For OKRs graded according to percentage achieved, the sweet spot is somewhere in the 60–70% range. Scoring lower may mean the team is not achieving what it could be. Scoring higher may mean the aspirational goals are not being set high enough.

Schedule checkpoints. It’s important to regularly communicate the status of project OKRs with your team and senior managers. For example, it can be helpful to have monthly check-ins on the progress of OKRs to give both individuals and your team a sense of where they are. Typically, at the end of the quarter, you’ll grade each of your OKRs to evaluate how well the team did to achieve its goals.

Key takeaway

OKRs can help you define and measure your project’s success criteria. In order for OKRs to be used to effectively meet your project’s success criteria, it’s important to share them with your team, assign owners to each key result to ensure accountability, measure your OKRs’ progress by scoring them, and track your OKRs’ progress by scheduling regular check-ins with your team.

To help you get started practicing writing your own OKRs, check out the templates below. To use the templates, click the links below and select “Use Template.”

• OKR Scorecard Template Doc

• OKR Scorecard Template Sheet

Too big, too small, or just right?

Once you lay the foundation for your project by outlining your goals and expectations, it is time to build your dream team! Though before we can build our dream team, we need to figure out how many people we need. This number will largely depend on the size of the project itself. Complex projects with large divisions of work will usually require larger project teams. Simple projects with straightforward expectations may only require a few people on the project team. As a project manager, it is your job to help find the right balance based on what is needed.

The right skills and abilities to fill the role

Multiple roles exist in every project. On smaller teams, multiple roles may be filled by one person. To meet the needs of more specialized projects, project managers might require people who have the necessary technical skills. Technical skills are the skills specific to the task that needs to be performed. For example, on the Office Green project, necessary technical skills may include indoor landscaping design for the layout of the plants within the offices and floral design of plant arranging.  

Technical skills are highly valued, but they are not the only skills that are important for high functioning teams. Interpersonal skills, also known as people skills or soft skills, such as patience and conflict mediation, can help team members. This allows the team to blend their technical expertise with collaborative skills in order to get the job done. When a team applies their interpersonal skills, they can minimize team-related issues. 

Problem-solving skills are a must for all team members, especially when it comes to large, complex projects. As a project manager, you will not be able to solve every problem for your team. At some point, they will need to use their own judgment to problem-solve and get the work done. 

An underrated skill set for project team members are leadership skills. Strong leadership skills help team members navigate organizational boundaries and effectively communicate with stakeholders to generate buy-in. 

Who is available?

In projects, the availability of your team is always a big concern. This is especially true in Matrix organizations, where team members have multiple bosses. It is not uncommon to pull a team member onto another project before your project is complete. In a perfect world, you only pick those who can stay on the project for its entire life cycle. You may find that you don’t get to pick certain members of your team at all, which is called a pre-assignment. In these cases, the sponsor assigns team members to your project.

Keep in mind that you need to value diversity early on when building your team. On diverse teams, everyone is able to use their unique professional and personal experiences to contribute to a more successful project. Diversity is best leveraged when it is acknowledged and highlighted as an asset. Many people avoid discussing their differences, but if you encourage those conversations, you will find a richer understanding and greater creativity that comes from people working together across identity differences. To do this effectively, it is important to dedicate time early on in the team building process to develop trust between team members. Team members who understand one another are more likely to trust each other and feel safe sharing different points of view or offer a competing perspective. This will also allow them to more easily offer constructive feedback or be supportive if the team dynamics face challenges at any point.

What motivates them?

Be sure to take note of the motivation level of your team members and the impact it may have on your project. Just because a person is pre-assigned to a project, doesn’t necessarily mean they have low interest in it, but a person who proactively volunteered for it may have additional motivation to do the work.

As a project manager, it is your responsibility to engage your team and keep them motivated. This is where your influence as a leader is required to keep the team engaged and ready to overcome any obstacles that may appear. Engaging in a respectful manner and maintaining a positive outlook with your team during times of adversity are simple ways to keep your team motivated.  

Key takeaway 

In summary, team size, skills, availability, and motivation are the building blocks to creating your very own dream team. Always keep in mind that a project manager does not just select dream teams, they create dream teams through collaboration under great leadership. This is the leadership that you will provide as a project manager. 

The project manager

Although all team members are responsible for their individual parts of the project, the project manager is responsible for the overall success of the team, and ultimately, the project as a whole. A project manager understands that paying close attention to team dynamics is essential to successfully completing a project, and they use team-building techniques, motivation, influencing, decision-making, and coaching skills, to keep their teams strong. 

Project managers integrate all project work by developing the project management plan, directing the work, documenting reports, controlling change, and monitoring quality. 

In addition, project managers are responsible for balancing the scope, schedule, and cost of a project by managing engagement with stakeholders. When managing engagement with stakeholders, project managers rely on strong communication skills, political and cultural awareness, negotiation, trust-building, and conflict management skills.

Stakeholders

Have you ever heard the phrase “the stakes are high"? When we talk about “stakes,” we are referring to the important parts of a business, situation, or project that might be at risk if something goes wrong. To hold stake in a business, situation, or project means you are invested in its success. There will often be several parties that will hold stake in the outcome of a project. Each group’s level of investment will differ based on how the outcome of the project may impact them. Stakeholders are often divided into two groups: primary stakeholders, also known as key stakeholders, and secondary stakeholders. A primary stakeholder is directly affected by the outcome of the project, while a secondary stakeholder is indirectly affected by the outcome of the project. 

Primary stakeholders usually include team members, senior leaders, and customers. For example, imagine that you are a project manager for a construction company that is commissioned to build out a new event space for a local catering company. On this project, the owners of the catering company would be primary stakeholders since they are paying for the project.

Another primary stakeholder could be the CEO of your construction company. If the CEO likes to be directly involved with projects for local businesses like the catering company, that would make them a primary stakeholder. 

An example of a secondary stakeholder might be the project’s point of contact in legal. While the project outcome might not affect them directly, the project itself would impact their work when they process the contract. Each project will have a different set of stakeholders, which is why it’s important for the project manager to know who they are, what they need, and how to communicate with them.

Project team members 

Every successful team needs strong leadership and membership, and project management is no exception! Project team members are also considered primary stakeholders, since they play a crucial role in getting the job done. Your team members will vary depending on the type, complexity, and size of the project. It’s important to consider these variables as you select your project team and begin to work with them. Remember that choosing teammates with the right technical skills and interpersonal skills will be valuable as you work to meet your project goals. If you are not able to select your project team, be sure to champion diversity and build trust to create harmony within the team. 

Sponsor

The project sponsor is another primary stakeholder. A sponsor initiates the project and is responsible for presenting a business case for its existence, signing the project charter, and releasing resources to the project manager. The sponsor is very important to the project, so it’s critical to communicate with them frequently throughout all project phases. In our construction company example, the CEO could also be the project sponsor.

Key takeaway 

Although the roles involved in each project will vary, all projects will include a project manager and primary stakeholders who are directly impacted by the project’s outcome, such as team members, senior leaders, the customer, and the project sponsor. Secondary stakeholders, whose work less directly impacts the project, may also play a role. Keep these roles in mind as we take a closer look at the importance of stakeholders.

Conducting a stakeholder analysis 

Stakeholders are an essential part of any project. A project manager’s ability to balance stakeholder requirements, get their buy-in, and understand when and how to involve them is key to successfully fulfilling a project.  

It is key to keep stakeholders organized in order to understand when and how to involve them at the right time. In an earlier video, we introduced the stakeholder analysis, a useful tool that project managers use to understand stakeholders’ needs and help minimize hiccups during your project life cycle. 

Let’s review the key steps in the stakeholder analysis:

1. Make a list of all the stakeholders the project impacts. When generating this list, ask yourself: Who is invested in the project? Who is impacted by this project? Who contributes to this project? 

2. Determine the level of interest and influence for each stakeholder—this step helps you determine who your key stakeholders are. The higher the level of interest and influence, the more important it will be to prioritize their needs throughout the project. 

3. Assess stakeholders’ ability to participate and then find ways to involve them. Various types of projects will yield various types of stakeholders—some will be active stakeholders with more opinions and touchpoints and others will be passive stakeholders, preferring only high-level updates and not involved in the day-to-day. That said, just because a stakeholder does not participate as often as others does not mean they are not important. There are lots of factors that will play a role in determining a stakeholder’s ability to participate in a project, like physical distance from the project and their existing workload.

Pro tip: You might want to form a steering committee during some projects. A steering committee is a collection of key stakeholders who have a high level of power and interest in a project. A steering committee can influence multiple departments within the organization, which means that they have the potential to release a greater number of resources to the project manager.  

Visualizing your analysis

A power grid shows stakeholder interest in the project versus their influence over the project. This four-quadrant tool helps project managers evaluate how to manage their stakeholders. It is used to determine the appropriate level of engagement required by the project team needed to gain the stakeholders’ trust and buy-in. The upper half of the grid represents higher influence, and the lower half of the grid represents lower influence. Meanwhile, the left half of the grid represents lower interest, and the right half of the grid represents higher interest. With that in mind, you'll find the upper left quadrant to be labeled "meets their needs," the upper right quadrant "manage closely," the bottom left quadrant is labeled "monitor," and the bottom right quadrant is labeled "show consideration." 

Take the time at the start of the project to establish your stakeholder approach. List the stakeholders and then place them into the appropriate places on the grid. Being able to visualize their placement will help you manage communications and expectations. Having a quick reference tool to drive your communication actions will also allow you to have the ability to spend more time doing other tasks on your project.

To break it down further, here is the meaning of each quadrant:

Quadrant 1: High Influence, High Interest (Upper Right)

Stakeholders in this quadrant have a significant influence on the project and are highly interested in its outcome. They can greatly impact project decisions and success. Examples might include project sponsors, key executives, or regulatory authorities. Responses for this quadrant include:

1. Engagement and Involvement:

   • Keep these stakeholders well-informed and engaged throughout the project lifecycle.

   • Involve them in decision-making processes, seeking their input and feedback.

   • Address their concerns promptly and effectively.

2. Regular Communication:

   • Schedule regular meetings or updates to keep them informed about project progress and any issues.

   • Tailor communication to their preferences and needs to ensure they remain supportive and engaged.

Quadrant 2: High Influence, Low Interest (Upper Left)

Stakeholders in this quadrant have high influence but may not be deeply interested in the day-to-day project details. They might include senior managers who need to be informed but may not be actively engaged. Responses for this quadrant include:

1. Executive Summaries:

   • Provide high-level summaries of project progress and key decisions for their review.

   • Focus on the impact of the project on organizational goals and objectives.

2. Periodic Updates:

   • Provide periodic briefings or updates to ensure they are informed of major milestones and critical project changes.

Quadrant 3: Low Influence, High Interest (Bottom Right)

Stakeholders in this quadrant have a high interest in the project but relatively low influence on its outcome. They are typically looking for updates and information about the project. Responses for this quadrant include:

1. Regular Updates:

   • Communicate project progress, risks, and updates to keep them engaged and informed.

   • Address their queries and concerns promptly to maintain their interest.

2. Stakeholder Feedback:

   • Seek their feedback on project plans, progress, and outcomes to ensure their perspective is considered.

Quadrant 4: Low Influence, Low Interest (Bottom Left)

Stakeholders in this quadrant have low influence on the project and limited interest in its details. They might include lower-level employees or departments not directly impacted by the project. Responses for this quadrant include:

1. General Communication:

   • Share general updates about the project's overall progress without overwhelming them with details.

   • Address any specific questions they may have, but avoid unnecessary inundation with project-related information.

2. Minimal Engagement:

   • Maintain a basic level of communication and engagement to keep them aware of the project without distracting them from their regular responsibilities.

By understanding the influence and interest of stakeholders using a four-quadrant power grid, project managers can tailor their communication and engagement strategies to effectively manage stakeholder relationships throughout a project life cycle.

Pro tip: While these tools help organize information, they do not necessarily make the difference between successful and unsuccessful stakeholder engagement. What will make for successful stakeholder engagement is the project manager’s ability to know their stakeholders’ motivations and inspirations. This takes time, interpersonal skills, and insight into the organization’s internal political workings. Remember, each project is different, and your project may need tweaks along the way as you grow as a project manager. Making necessary changes means you are doing something right. Just make sure to check in and ensure that you are well on track, engaging your stakeholders successfully, and delivering on your project!

Generating stakeholder buy-in 

Once you organize and assess your stakeholders, it is time to start making some decisions on whose buy-in is absolutely necessary for success, whose requirements deserve the most attention, and what level of communication each stakeholder will require.

Gaining key stakeholder buy-in is essential to ensuring that your project is not deprioritized or deprived of resources. 

Tips for gaining key stakeholder buy-in include: 

• Clearly mapping the work of the project to the goals of the stakeholder.

• Describing how the project aligns with the goals of the stakeholder's department or team.

• Listening to feedback from the stakeholder and finding ways to incorporate their feedback into the project's charter where appropriate.

Manage your stakeholders’ expectations by presenting a realistic view of your team’s abilities. Do not over-promise and under-deliver! 

Optional reading

This article, titled Roll Call: We Asked the Project Management Community: What Steps Do You Take To Identify and Prioritize All Stakeholders at the Start of a Project?, describes additional strategies for identifying stakeholders to further increase your understanding.

A RACI chart can be an extremely effective way to define project roles, give direction to each team member and stakeholder, and ensure work gets done efficiently. Having a RACI chart available throughout the duration of your project as a quick visual can be invaluable. In this reading, we will cover the function of a RACI chart and its components and explore how project managers use RACI charts to define and document project roles and responsibilities. 

Elements of a RACI chart

A RACI chart creates clear roles and gives direction to each team member and stakeholder. Over your career, you may hear a RACI chart referred to as a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM), RACI diagram, or RACI matrix. The ultimate goal of this chart is to clarify each person’s role on your project. 

First, let’s break down each of the roles people can be assigned:

R: Responsible: who gets the work done

A: Accountable: who makes sure the work is done

C: Consulted: who gives input or feedback on work

I: Informed: who needs to know the outcome

Note that RACI charts can be organized in different ways,  depending on personal preference, number of tasks being assigned, and number of people involved. In the previous video, we showed you one RACI chart format. The template below shows another way a typical RACI chart might be organized.

Let’s further examine each of the roles and how to determine which team member should be assigned to which role.

Responsible

Individuals who are assigned the “responsible” role for a task are the ones who are actually doing the work to complete the task. Every task needs at least one responsible party. It’s a best practice to try to limit the number of team members assigned to a task’s  responsible role, but in some cases, you may have more than one. 

A couple of questions to ask yourself when determining which person or people should be placed in the responsible role for a given task are:

• What department does the work fall under?

• Who will perform the work?

It is helpful to evaluate the people on your team to determine the role that suits them. Remember that you may need to list roles rather than names, if some people take on more than one role. 

Let’s dig deeper into our example with Office Green. Our task is to develop price points for the project, and the Financial Analyst will complete the work for this task. Therefore, we will list “Financial Analyst” in the responsible role for this task in the RACI chart.

Accountable

The “accountable” person is responsible for making sure the task gets done. It is important to have only one individual accountable for each task. This helps clarify ownership of the task. The accountable person ultimately has the authority to approve the deliverable of the responsible party. 

In order to determine who should be tagged as the accountable team member, consider:

• Who will delegate the task to be completed?

• Who will review the work to determine if the task is complete?

You may encounter a situation where the responsible party is also accountable, but where possible, it is helpful to separate these roles. Ensuring that accountability is not shared ensures that there is no confusion on who the ownership belongs to.

Continuing with our Office Green example, you have assigned the “accountable” role to the Head of Finance. The Head of Finance has to make sure the project stays in budget and makes a profit, so they have the ultimate authority over the price points for the product. Therefore, they will need to approve the Financial Analyst’s work on the task. 

Consulted

Team members or stakeholders who are placed in the “consulted” role have useful information to help complete the task. There is no maximum or minimum number of people who can be assigned a “consulted” role, but it’s important that each person has a reason for being there.

Here are a few ways you can help identify who is appropriate for the role:

• Who will the task impact?

• Who will have input or feedback for the responsible person to help the work be completed?

• Who are the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the task?

The consulted people will be in frequent, two-way communication with the responsible party, so it is key to make sure that the right people are in this role to help accomplish the task efficiently and correctly.

Back to the project at Office Green, we’ve got a “responsible” Financial Analyst and an “accountable” Head of Finance. Who else would need to provide input on the product’s price points? Whose decisions and feedback will directly affect the task? The Director of Product will need to be consulted on the matter, as they oversee all product offerings. This person will have information about potential changes to the product and how these changes might affect price points.

Informed

Individuals who are identified as needing to be “informed” need to know the final decisions that were made and when a task is completed. It is common to have many people assigned to this category and for some team members to be informed on most tasks. Team members or stakeholders here will not be asked for feedback, so it is key to make sure people who are in this group only require status updates and do not need to provide any direct feedback for the completion of the effort. 

Key questions to ask yourself in order to ensure that you have appropriately captured individuals in the “informed” role are:

• Who cares about this task’s completion?

• Who will be affected by the outcome?

Now that you’ve determined who is responsible, accountable, and consulted on the Office Green project task, it is time to determine who needs to be informed about the task. Your Financial Analyst has set the price points with input from the Director of Product, and the Head of Finance has approved. You will now need to inform the Sales Team about the final price points, as they will need this information to sell the product. 

Pro tip: You could end up with a large number of team members and stakeholders who are placed in the “informed” role. If so, make sure that you have a plan to keep them informed that is not labor-intensive. Something as easy as view-only access to your project plan or meeting notes could prevent you from having to create separate communications along the way.  

Key takeaway

The RACI chart is a valuable tool. It can help you define and document project roles and responsibilities, give direction to each team member and stakeholder, and ensure work gets done efficiently. A RACI chart can also help you analyze and balance the workload of your team. While it may take many revisions to make sure that your team members and stakeholders are being placed into the right roles in your RACI chart, doing this work up front helps save time and prevent miscommunications later on. 

Definition and structure

Determining who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed on your projects allows you to keep control of the stakeholders roles on your project. 

Workload balance 

Are there too many tasks assigned to one stakeholder? When you complete your chart, it is a good idea to go back through and tally the number of Rs assigned to each stakeholder. This can help you identify potentially overloading one team member with work. Using a RACI chart to determine responsibility for tasks can help mitigate single points of failure (known as creating silos, where the knowledge and responsibility for a task falls on one person) and allow you, as the project manager, to delegate tasks and avoid burnout. Maintaining workload balance is a critical part of project management. It is easy to fall into the pattern of relying on your top performers to keep the project moving forward. But this isn’t always healthy for the project or your team. If you find that you don’t have the right people to assign responsibilities to, take a step back and evaluate your team. 

Put your RACI into practice

Once you have created your RACI chart, it is time to put it into practice. You will first need to share your RACI chart with your sponsors and stakeholders to get buy-in and sign-off. When you get stakeholder buy-in, you will be able to set clear expectations for your team and ensure that everyone is aligned on their responsibilities. 

You can document your team and stakeholders’ acknowledgment of these expectations through the project charter, meeting notes, and in the RACI chart itself. Think back to a time when you were expected to do something you did not agree with, or weren’t clear on. That disagreement or lack of clarity made it difficult to do your best work, right? Getting buy-in and continually checking in with your stakeholders and your team is the way to avoid this potential pitfall! 

As you take the time to ensure that each task has an owner identified with the appropriate level of engagement, you are streamlining your communication and decision-making process over the life cycle of your project. 

When should you use a RACI chart?

If you are wondering if you should use a RACI chart on your project, it is a good idea to evaluate the complexity of the effort. For example, if you have a very small project team with a small number of stakeholders, clearly defined roles, and a short timeline, introducing a RACI chart could possibly slow down the project. However, larger projects, or even projects that involve a large number of stakeholders, could greatly benefit from a RACI chart. It is always a good idea to work through the creation of a RACI chart and evaluate the outcome. Even if you do not end up using the RACI chart, you will have a better understanding of the project, and your effort will contribute to your project management experience overall.

Sometimes the factors that lead to project failure are out of your control. The technology to complete the project is unavailable, for example, or a stakeholder decides to drastically change the goals of the project. However, there are factors that can lead to failure that are more in your control, such as being unable to complete the project deliverables within the agreed upon time or being unable to fulfill the stakeholder’s vision for the project.

In this reading, we will explore a few key reasons why projects fail and examine how missteps during the initiation phase can lead to project failure. 

Unclear expectations 

You may remember the questions you need to answer at the start of the initiation phase of the project, including: 

• What is the end goal? 

• What are the expected deliverables and schedule? 

• What is the budget? 

• Who are the stakeholders? 

Not taking the time at the beginning of a project to ask essential questions, document decisions, and understand the true scope of the project may lead to failure. After all, without directions, you can never reach your destination. 

Unrealistic expectations

We all like to impress our managers, but sometimes, we accidentally agree to unrealistic expectations and set our projects up for failure from the start. For example, if a project is expected to take two weeks due to the level of detail and effort required but we try to complete it in one week, we will not have the resources available to meet the consolidated schedule. This will likely result in quality issues. It’s important to understand the requirements of a project before agreeing to any deadlines. As a best practice, don't commit to firm dates when initiating the project to avoid setting unrealistic expectations. You will have more information and will be able to better manage expectations in the planning phase.

Miscommunication

Clear communication is key. If information is not communicated in a timely manner, does not include pertinent information (risks, decisions made, scope changes, etc.), or is not sent to the correct stakeholders, then you may be setting yourself up for failure. Conducting a stakeholder analysis and then utilizing a RACI chart to understand which stakeholders should be kept informed or consulted is a great start to creating an effective communication strategy.

As a project manager, you do not necessarily have to cater to everyone’s unique communication styles, but you do have to set expectations about how communication will occur. As you are kicking off a project, make sure you take some time to understand the communication needs of your team and stakeholders. Some people dislike emails and would prefer to have a phone conversation, some prefer to have communication in writing, and some prefer face-to-face meetings. A strong communication system incorporates all of these methods. Set expectations for your communication approach early so that you, your team members, and your stakeholders have a clear understanding of how you will all communicate.

Lack of resources

Resources include your team members, budget, and materials. Unfortunately, without proper planning, your resources can quickly be over-tasked or depleted. Sometimes project managers don’t account for the fact that team members are juggling multiple tasks and may not be able to devote the time necessary to complete all of their assigned tasks correctly and on time. Or, project managers may not realize that a specific skill set is required to complete certain tasks. Ensuring that the right team members are available at the right time is crucial.

Another common error is to incorrectly calculate your project expenses. For example, imagine you have a project budget of $10,000. If your project requires $10,000 for materials and you also have to ship and install those materials, then you will not have enough money to complete your project. Clarify your resource needs and confirm their availability with leadership up front to avoid delays or issues further along in the project. 

Scope creep 

The scope provides an overarching framework of what is and is not included in the project’s work and deliverables. Defining the scope in the initiation phase helps identify the resources needed, the cost associated with those resources, and the schedule required to complete the work. Sometimes projects fail because the scope of the project grows and impacts to the scope are not captured. 

For example, imagine that you are given a project that originally includes three deliverables. During the course of the project, a stakeholder requests that two additional deliverables be included, but no changes are made to the schedule, budget, or team members to reflect the impact of the increased number of deliverables. As a project manager, when deliverables change, you have to make sure that you are capturing the potential impact of those changes to the schedule, budget, and quality. This is why it is so important to make sure that everything is documented in the initiation phase. Have a plan for how to handle scope creep if it occurs, and clarify who has the authority to approve scope changes.

Key takeaway 

Taking the time to clarify expectations—particularly around communication methods, resources available, and scope—during the initiation phase will increase the chances of your project’s success. Even if you follow these best practices, you may still encounter failure. Remember that in every failure, there is the opportunity to learn, grow, and do better the next time.

For additional reading on lessons that can be learned from projects that have failed, check out this article: Seven Lessons to Learn from a Failed Project

A project charter clearly defines the project and outlines the necessary details for the project to reach its goals. A well-documented project charter can be a project manager’s secret weapon to success. In this reading, we will go over the function, key elements, and significance of a project charter and learn how to create one. 

The charter is the formal way that the project’s goals, values, benefits, and details are captured. You can think of the charter as the compass for your project since you will use it throughout the life cycle of the project. Many stakeholders will look to your project charter to ensure that you are indeed aligned with strategic goals and set up for achieving the desired end goal. Since the project charter carries so much importance, it is important to incorporate the right amount of detail while omitting miscellaneous elements.

As with any of your project documents, it is a good idea to collaborate with your team and stakeholders early and often. Developing the project charter in collaboration with both groups can help you make sure that your project charter addresses your key stakeholders’ most important concerns and keeps your team aligned. Be sure to use the business case—the reason for initiating the project—as the guiding direction to your project charter. Project charters can vary from organization to organization and from project to project. It is key for a project manager to identify the best type of charter for the project in order to capture the relevant information and set your project up for success. 

Project charters will vary but usually include some combination of the following key information:

• introduction/project summary

• goals/objectives 

• business case/benefits and costs

• project team

• scope

• success criteria

• major requirements or key deliverables

• budget

• schedule/timeline or milestones

• constraints and assumptions

• risks

• OKRs

• approvals

You will likely use many different project charter formats throughout your project management career. One example is a condensed, simplified document, like the one you'll learn about in the upcoming video and the one linked in the activities. A short and simple project charter can be used on smaller projects that are not very complex. 

For more complex projects, you may link to additional analysis or documents. You can house these items in the appendix. 

Your organization may have a unique template for you to use, or you may have the flexibility to leverage one you come across in your career. As your project progresses, you may also encounter revisions to your project charter—and that is okay. Remember, it is a living document; let it grow with your project, and review and revisit it often to ensure you are aligned. 

Project management tools and processes are always evolving. In this reading, we will discuss the importance of choosing the right tools for a project and the implications of introducing new tools to your team. 

As a project manager, it is important to be open to implementing new tools that may be beneficial to a project's outcome. You will experience change in lots of forms throughout your project’s life cycle, and navigating change is essential. But if you choose to implement a tool that your team is unfamiliar with—especially if you decide to roll it out midway through a project—your team may be hesitant. People embrace change differently, particularly if the change will directly impact their routine and the way they work. Simply put: Change can be met with resistance.

Before you introduce a new tool to your team, you should be sure that this change is actually going to benefit the project, and ensure that those involved in your project understand the benefits of this change. Demonstrating to your teammates and stakeholders that you understand the tool and have evaluated its competency will help build trust, especially if this new tool is replacing an existing tool. Taking the time to introduce the new tool to your team members will also demonstrate that you have the best interest of the team in mind—not just the success of the project. 

Here are some important considerations and keys to successfully introducing new tools:

• Discuss the tool early and often, if possible. The team should not feel blindsided by a new change. Make sure they know the change is coming as early as possible. This will help them prepare for an introduction or migration to the new tool.

• Ask for feedback from key stakeholders. You could get great feedback on features that you may have overlooked by asking for their expertise. You can solicit this feedback by requesting their input about functionality or have them list features in order of priority. The key is to create an opportunity for stakeholders to provide their feedback and allow you to incorporate their feedback into next steps.

• Involve the key stakeholders in demonstrations as you get closer to making the final decision on the project tracking tool. You will be able to leverage key stakeholders' acceptance by letting them test the product or sign up for a trial run. It is also important to make sure that the tool is actually going to meet the mark and provide a meaningful change for the project. You may want to pull in key users from your team to test and familiarize themselves with the tool prior to rolling it out. This will allow the team to get on board with your plans or discuss their concerns beforehand. This will also highlight in-house experts for future training, assistance, and implementation.

• Ensure the tool is fully functional before the team is introduced to it. Whenever possible, hold off from introducing the tool if it still has any issues. Make sure the tool is accessible for all users. Keep in mind, your team members may resist a tool that doesn’t live up to how it is supposed to function. This will impact implementation and acceptance fairly significantly, so put your best tool forward!

• Set up training for the tool as needed before you ask the team to actually use it. Everyone has different levels of comfort with different tools. It is your job as the project manager to ensure that each team members’ needs are addressed. Setting up training also helps create positive first impressions, which will lead to higher productivity and quicker, more successful implementation and acceptance.

Remember, some pushback is normal, but successful project managers should take the steps to prepare and mitigate any friction for their team when possible. 

Pro tip: If time allows, plan for a period of transition if you are replacing an existing tool. It is common to allow both tools to operate during this period. You will need to “sunset,” or retire, the existing tool eventually, but allowing for a period of transition between using the old tool and the new tool can help stakeholders and team members feel more at ease and give them time to gain familiarity with the new tool. Be prepared for productivity to be impacted as the team transitions from one tool to another.

A kick-off meeting is the first meeting among the project team, stakeholders, and the project sponsor at the start of a new project or new project phase. The purpose of a kick-off meeting is to ground everyone in a shared vision, ensure they understand the project’s goals and scope, and make sure that they are all on the same page about their roles and responsibilities on the project. The kick-off meeting is critical to a project’s overall success. It gets the team together to align on goals and visions for the project and sets the project up for success.

This reading will provide you with some tips for running an effective kick-off meeting. 

Kick-off meeting best practices

• Set the right time. Choose a meeting time that works for everyone. Be mindful of time zone differences. 

• Set the right length. Choose an appropriate meeting length—no more than one hour. You don’t want to waste people’s time, but you also don’t want to run out of time. Kick-off meetings work best when you first share key information and then spend any additional time on questions and team building.

• Invite the right people. Be strategic about including the appropriate people. The goal is to invite attendees who play a role in the development and execution of the project, such as all team members, stakeholders, and the project sponsor. You don’t want to leave anyone out, but you also don’t want to invite people who shouldn’t be there.

• Designate a notetaker. The discussion that takes place during the meeting is important. It is critical that you document any feedback, changes, or questions asked by attendees. If you are leading the meeting, designate someone else to take notes before the meeting starts. You can also use tools like Chorus Notetaker, Google Keep, Google Docs, or Microsoft OneNote.  

• Set the agenda. To recap what we discussed in the video, a kick-off meeting agenda should generally include: introductions, the project background and purpose, project goals and scope, roles and responsibilities, the collaboration process and project tools, what comes next (expectations and action items), and time for questions and discussion.

• Share the agenda. Prior to the meeting, share the agenda with attendees via email and identify speakers for each topic. By sending the agenda in advance, everyone will have an idea of what to expect, time to prepare for anything they may need to present or discuss, and time to generate questions or ideas.

• Stick to the agenda. During meetings, discussions can sometimes go off topic or take longer than expected. As a project manager, it is your job to keep the meeting on track by redirecting discussions to the items on the agenda. 

• Follow up after the meeting. After the meeting, make sure to send out a meeting summary featuring the meeting notes and any action items.

In this reading, we will explore best practices for setting milestones. But first, let’s revisit the definitions of tasks and milestones. 

• A project task is an activity that needs to be accomplished within a set period of time and is assigned to one or more individuals for completion. The work of a project is broken down into many different project tasks. 

• A project milestone is an important point within the project schedule that usually signifies the completion of a major deliverable. Milestones are significant checkpoints in your project, and keeping track of them helps ensure that your project is on schedule to meet its goals.

Set tasks to identify milestones

Setting tasks can help you clearly define milestones. You can do this in two ways:

1. Top-down scheduling: In this approach, the project manager lays out the higher-level milestones, then works to break down the effort into project tasks. The project manager works with their team to ensure that all tasks are captured.

2. Bottom-up scheduling: In this approach, the project manager looks at all of the individual tasks that need to be completed and then rolls those tasks into manageable chunks that lead to a milestone. 

Most projects have many tasks that lead to milestones. For instance, if your milestone is to receive approval on the first draft of an article that you are writing, you might complete tasks such as “develop outline,” “write first draft,” and “send to the editor.” Then, you may have another set of tasks to achieve before reaching the milestone of revising the article. Milestones serve as check-in points along your project to make sure that you are headed in the right direction toward the end goal. Milestones also make projects more manageable.

Integrate milestones into your project schedule

There is not a consistent number of milestones in every project. Some projects will have a few milestones, while others may have dozens. Rather than aiming to hit a certain number of milestones, try to set milestones for the most important events in your project. Review your project schedule and identify important moments or checkpoints. In other words, pinpoint where in your project you will achieve major goals and make those points your milestones. 

Milestone-setting pitfalls

Here are some things to avoid when setting milestones: 

• Don’t set too many milestones. When there are too many milestones, their importance is downplayed. And, if milestones are too small or too specific, you may end up with too many, making the project look much bigger than it really is to your team and stakeholders.  

• Don’t mistake tasks for milestones. Remember that milestones should represent moments in time, and in order to map out how you will get to those moments, you need to assign smaller tasks to each milestone.

• Don’t list your milestones and tasks separately. Make sure that tasks and milestones can be visualized together in one place, such as a project plan. This will help ensure that you are hitting your deadlines and milestones. 

Key takeaways

Your approach to setting milestones may differ from project to project, but most projects will have at least one milestone and several smaller tasks associated with each milestone. Setting clearly-defined, distinct tasks, and milestones, integrating them into your project schedule, and using a tool that visualizes them together will help organize your project and drive it forward. 

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a deliverable-oriented breakdown of a project into smaller components. It’s a tool that sorts the milestones and tasks of a project into a hierarchy, in the order they need to be completed. 

A thorough WBS gives you a visual representation of a project and the tasks required to deliver each milestone. It makes it easier to understand all of the essential project tasks, such as estimating costs, developing a schedule, assigning roles and responsibilities, and tracking progress. Think of each piece of information as part of the overall project puzzle—you can’t successfully navigate through the tasks without understanding how they all fit together. For instance, many smaller tasks may ladder up to a larger task or milestone.

Steps to build a WBS

As a reminder, here are three main steps to follow when creating a WBS: 

• Start with the high-level, overarching project picture. Brainstorm with your team to list the major deliverables and milestones. Example: Imagine you are planning a company event. Your major milestones might include categories like “secure venue,”  “finalize guest logistics,” and “establish agenda.”

• Identify the tasks that need to be performed in order to meet those milestones. Example: You could break a milestone like “secure venue” down into tasks like “research venues,” “tour and decorate space,” “make down payment,” and so on. 

• Examine those tasks and break them down further into sub-tasks. Example: You could break down a task like “tour and decorate space” further into sub-tasks like “organize decorating committee,” “purchase decorations,” “assign decorating responsibilities,” and so on. 

Further reading

For further learning on best practices for developing a WBS, check out this article:

• How to Create a Work Breakdown Structure and Why You Should

Every project plan is a living artifact that serves as your team’s roadmap throughout the project. We have covered some common elements of project plans, including tasks, milestones, people, documentation, and time. Let’s look at how these elements intersect with other important components to create a comprehensive plan for your project. 

How project plan components are connected

You have learned that at the center of the project plan is the project schedule, which helps you estimate the amount of time it will take to complete the project and provides the team with a way to track the project’s progress against your goals. In addition to the schedule, you should also include the following components in your project plan: 

• Scope and goals

• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

• Budget 

• Management plans

Project scope and goals

Both the project scope and goals will be captured initially in your project charter, the document that clearly defines the key details of your project. You can link your project charter in your project plan. Having details about the project’s scope and goals easily accessible can help remind your team of the objectives they are trying to accomplish and if anything is asked of them that goes beyond what was initially agreed upon in order to achieve those objectives. 

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

As a reminder, a Work Breakdown Structure is a tool that sorts the milestones and tasks of a project in a hierarchy, in the order they need to be completed.  The WBS is key to your project plan since it breaks the work down into more manageable pieces. In your project plan, the tasks should be visible in one place with clear descriptions, owners, and due dates. This will allow you and your team to understand who is responsible for which tasks and when each task is supposed to be completed. Your project plan should also contain detailed milestones and statuses related to these tasks, which will help you and your team members visualize project progress. 

In addition to the WBS, further documentation—such as a RACI chart—will help define roles and responsibilities and would be useful to add to your project plan. Keeping this documentation stored or linked in one place is a best practice for transparency and effective communication.

Budget

Throughout the life cycle of your project, the budget will need to be managed and monitored. The project budget is often linked to the project plan because it is heavily dependent on key elements of the project. Linking these components allows for smoother management and visibility. 

Depending on the size of your project and your organization, you may not be the primary person responsible for managing the project budget. For instance, if your project is at a large organization and the funds are managed by another department, you may not have as much autonomy or insight into all of the budget elements. As a result, you may not be able to monitor the budget closely. If someone in another department is managing the budget, make sure to have regular check-ins with them to ensure that you are aware of how you are tracking.

Management plans

Management plans—such as the change management plan, risk management plan, and communication plan—are all integral to keeping a project organized and on track and should be linked in your project plan. These plans will be discussed in detail in the coming lessons of this course. 

Key takeaway

Project scope and goals, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), the budget, and management plans are all important components of your project plan. They help define how basic project plan elements—including tasks, milestones, people, documentation, and time—will be structured and utilized in your project. However, no two project plans will be the same. At Google, we work with a variety of different tools and templates to create and manage project plans. It is important to know your end goals and what is essential to you and your team in order to pull the relevant pieces of the project together.

It is human nature to underestimate the amount of time and effort it takes to complete a task—from anything as simple as walking the dog to something as complex as completing a project. People generally want to remain hopeful about a positive outcome, and this is a great quality to have as a person. But as a project manager, this kind of optimism can also be a deficiency, especially during the planning phase of a project. Let’s examine a theory known as the planning fallacy to better understand how to set yourself up for success in the planning phase. 

The planning fallacy and optimism bias

The idea of the planning fallacy was first introduced in a 1977 paper written by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two foundational figures in the field of behavioral economics. The planning fallacy describes our tendency to underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task, as well as the costs and risks associated with that task, due to optimism bias. Optimism bias is when a person believes that they are less likely to experience a negative event. For example, when you are planning to walk your dog in between meetings, you might think that you can do it faster than you actually can. Optimism bias is what tells you that you are going to be able to walk your dog without being late for your next meeting. If you don’t consider things that might affect the time it will take you to walk your dog—the weather, the chance of them running into another dog and wanting to play, or the fact that they frequently get distracted while sniffing around—you might be late for your next meeting, or you might miss it altogether! 

The planning fallacy can happen to anyone, regardless of whether or not they have experience completing similar tasks. Whether this is your first time walking your dog or your hundredth, you still have to consider the different factors that can affect how long it will take you to complete the walk. This same principle applies in project management. You may be brand new to this kind of project or you may have managed tons of similar projects before; either way, you still need to be careful not to underestimate the time it will take to complete each task on this particular project. As a project manager, you should aim to balance being aware of the planning fallacy with keeping an optimistic attitude about the project, even as things change. Be optimistically realistic: Push for the best outcomes while planning for the proper time it may take to accomplish each task.

Avoiding the planning fallacy: A case study

Think about the planning fallacy in relation to yourself as a project manager. If you have planned massive efforts in your project plan with an optimism bias, this planning fallacy could have a major impact on your project execution. You could set your team up for failure by not giving them enough time to complete their tasks, causing work to have to be redone or missing opportunities to execute the project more efficiently.

Let’s examine how this happens. David is a project manager responsible for a home construction project. Let’s check out his Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): 

Image of a WBS diagram with tasks and milestones for building a house. Project title 1.0 House project. Milestone 1.1 Foundation, 1.2 Construction, and 1.2 Finishing. There are tasks underneath each milestone: 1.1.1 Blueprint, 1.1.2 Labor to dig, 1.2.1 Order materials, 1.2.2 Labor to build structure, 1.2.3 Labor to build roof. 1.3.1 Plumbing, 1.3.2 Electrical, 1.3.3 Pain, 1.3.4 Landscaping

Working through his plan, David knows that certain things need to happen for the house to be completed. He has to order materials, the materials have to be delivered, the contractor has to actually build the house, and there needs to be time for completing finishing touches and adjustments. The time estimations for those major tasks might break down like this:

Task Estimated Duration

Foundation 2 weeks

Construction 4 weeks

Adjustments 4 weeks

After creating a WBS and a time estimation chart, David estimates that the construction project will take a total of ten weeks. This sounds perfect because it meets his delivery requirement. If David is unaware of the planning fallacy, he may think his plan is solid and that his team is on their way to building the house within the target timeline!

Fortunately, David is mindful of the planning fallacy. He examines the time estimates more carefully. He considers risks like weather delays or crew members calling out sick, which could set the project’s completion date back. He meets with his team members and other stakeholders to help him uncover other possible risks that could affect the project timeline. After carefully gathering information, he adjusts the time estimates, adding task buffers to some of the project tasks to account for the potential risks.

Key takeaways

Being on the lookout for “what-ifs” is a key project management skill. Considering situations that could affect whether or not the project is completed on time can help you overcome the planning fallacy. Also, you will always have a project team in your corner, so make sure you use them as resources to help uncover possible risks. Remember to be “optimistically realistic” and push for the best outcome while still planning for the proper time to accomplish each task.

The critical path refers to the list of required project milestones you must reach to complete the project schedule, as well as the mandatory tasks that contribute to the completion of each milestone. You can think of the critical path as a framework that tells you, the project manager, where you are, where you are headed, and when you will get there. 

Why the critical path is critical

The critical path helps you determine the essential tasks that need to be completed on your project to meet your end goal and how long each task will take. The critical path also provides a quick reference for critical tasks by revealing which tasks will impact your project completion date negatively if their scheduled finish dates are late or missed. A critical path can help you define the resources you need, your project baselines, and any flexibility you have in the schedule. 

How to create a critical path

Each project you work on will be different, but there are some general steps for creating a critical path that are applicable to most projects.

Step 1: Capture all tasks 

When you first start working on your project schedule, you will capture all of the tasks associated with the completion of the effort. Remember to use the key planning documents you have created to get you to this point, such as your work breakdown structure (WBS). The main goal in this step is to make sure that you aren’t missing a key piece of work that is required to complete your project. When creating a critical path, focus on the essential, “need to do” tasks, rather than the “nice to do” tasks that aren’t essential for the completion of the project. Here is an example of critical tasks for building the structure of a house:

Step 2: Set dependencies 

Now that you have captured all of your critical tasks in list form, arrange those tasks in order of completion by identifying dependencies. To determine dependencies, figure out which tasks must be completed before other tasks can start. For example, you can’t paint the outside of a house before the house is built, so the task of framing the walls must come before the task of painting them. Identifying dependencies is key to a successful project schedule. 

To figure out dependencies for each task, ask:

• Which task needs to take place before this task?

• Which task can be finished at the same time as this task?

• Which task needs to happen right after this task?

Once you have answered these questions, you can list these dependencies next to your list of tasks

Step 3: Create a network diagram

One common way to visualize the critical path is by creating a network diagram. Network diagrams, like the example below, sequence tasks in the order in which they need to be completed, based on their dependencies. These diagrams help visualize:

• The path of the work from the start of the project (excavation) to the end of the project (flooring)

• Which tasks can be performed in parallel (e.g., HVAC and plumbing) and in sequence (e.g., plumbing then insulation)

• Which non-essential tasks are NOT on the critical path

Step 4: Make time estimates

After determining tasks and dependencies, consult key stakeholders to get accurate time estimates for each task. This is a crucial step in determining your critical path. If your time estimates are significantly off, it may cause the length of your critical path to change. Time estimates can be reviewed and updated throughout the project, as necessary. 

Step 5: Find the critical path 

Now that you have your estimated durations for each task, add that information to your network diagram:

If you add up the durations for all of your “essential” tasks and calculate the longest possible path, you can determine your critical path. In your calculation, only include the tasks that, if they go unfinished, will impact the project’s finish date. In this example, if the “non-essential” tasks—like landscaping and driveway pavement—are not completed, the house structure completion date will not be impacted. 

You can also calculate the critical path using two common approaches: the forward pass and the backward pass. These techniques are useful if you are asked to identify the earliest and latest start dates (the earliest and latest dates on which you can begin working on a task) or the slack (the amount of time that task can be delayed past its earliest start date without delaying the project).

• The forward pass refers to when you start at the beginning of your project task list and add up the duration of the tasks on the critical path to the end of your project. When using this approach, start with the first task you have identified that needs to be completed before anything else can start. 

• The backward pass is the opposite—start with the final task or milestone and move backwards through your schedule to determine the shortest path to completion. When there is a hard deadline, working backwards can help you determine which tasks are actually critical. You may be able to cut some tasks—or complete them later—in order to meet your deadline.  

You can read more about each of these concepts and critical path calculation methods in the following articles:

• How to Use the Critical Path Method for Complete Beginners

• Critical Path Method: A Project Management Essential

Project plans are critical because they are used to capture the scope and time it takes to complete a project. The project plan is essentially the project’s blueprint—it lays out all of the activities and milestones that your team needs to achieve in order to successfully complete the project. Project plans come in various shapes, sizes, and forms. Depending on the project you are managing, the template you use may vary, and some companies even have standard templates they require their project managers to use. 

In the previous videos, you learned about various tools and techniques to create a project plan. But how do you know which tools and techniques to use and when? As a general rule, it is best to use a spreadsheet for a simple project and project management software for a more complex project. Regardless of what tool you use, be sure to include this key information: 

• Task ID numbers or task names: You might end up with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of tasks in a project. Assigning a task ID or name makes it easy to find and reference a task when communicating with team members and stakeholders. 

• Task durations: A task duration is the amount of time you estimate that task should take. Adding task durations to your project plan helps you organize and prioritize the tasks in the project to help ensure you hit your goal on time. 

• Start and finish dates: Including start and finish dates for each task helps you track whether you are progressing on time or not. 

• Who is responsible for what: Including each team member’s role and responsibilities helps promote clarity and efficiency. As a best practice, assign an owner to each task, as well.

Using a spreadsheet to build a project plan

Spreadsheets are an excellent tool to use for project plans, particularly for projects that are less complex and that have a clear assignment of tasks. Spreadsheets can require a lot of manual input of information, but as a project manager, you may find that you like the control that spreadsheets provide. Spreadsheets are also customizable, so you can tailor them to your project’s needs. 

The graphic below shows what a project plan for a website launch might look like in a simple spreadsheet.

Pro tip: It is important to incorporate your Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) numbers into your project plan. In this example, the ID numbers directly relate to the WBS numbers, which is a helpful way to maintain consistency. 

Spreadsheet templates

It is helpful to try online tutorials so that you can get used to the different functionalities and user interfaces of each tool. We have included links to some project plan templates below:

Smartsheet: Project Plan Templates for Microsoft Word

Smartsheet: Project Plan Templates for Google Sheets

Google Project Plan Timeline Template

Microsoft Gantt Chart Template

Work management tools

There are many work management tool options available for you to utilize when planning your project. We covered some of these in previous videos, but as a refresher, it is important to keep in mind that every company, project manager, and customer has a work management tool preference. You may come across tools like Smartsheet, Asana, Jira, Trello, and many more. These tools allow for collaboration and communication at a task level. 

Key takeaway

The tool you use to create your project plan should help you collect and track project details, manage your schedule, and visualize how your project is progressing. A clear, thorough, and organized project plan can help create the recipe for project management success.

Kanban boards are a visual tool used to manage tasks and workflows. Kanban boards can be created on whiteboards, magnetic boards, poster boards, computer programs, and more. Tasks associated with the project are written on cards. These cards are placed in columns, which represent the progress made. 

Although Kanban boards are useful for all kinds of projects, they are typically most suitable for project teams working in an Agile project management approach. You may remember that Agile project management is an iterative approach to managing projects that focuses on continuous releases and incorporates customer feedback with every iteration. Once you become a project manager and have created your project plan, you can decide whether a Kanban board is right for your project. 

Purposes of a Kanban board

Kanban boards are used to:

• Give a quick visual understanding of work details and provide critical task information.

• Facilitate handoffs between stakeholders, such as between development and testing resources or between team members who work on related tasks.

• Help with capturing metrics and improving workflows.

Using a Kanban board

Before creating a board, it is best practice to gather the necessary information and lay out key elements, such as tasks, status, dates, and durations. That information is useful when building your board. 

Let’s turn our focus to an example of a Kanban board below. Each colored rectangle is associated with a task. The tasks are represented horizontally across the effort timeline. Each column represents where the task is in relation to its completion. So as a task is started, it will move from to do, to in progress. When the project is almost ready to be released or complete, it will move to testing, and when it is tested and approved, it will move to done. Note that this is just one example of a Kanban board, and depending on the tool you use—such as software or a physical board—you can customize your board using various columns and cards. The board can also have rows for resources (team or person), to help visualize who is actively working on what.

Creating cards

Cards will vary in style—you can even use sticky notes on a whiteboard—but most cards will contain a few key details about the task that they represent. When using physical cards, teams often use both sides. Here is what both sides of the card should include:

Front

• Title and unique identifier: Make sure you have a quick reference for tasks and ID numbers.

• Description of work: Briefly describe the task to be accomplished. Remember that this is intended to be captured on something no larger than an index card.

• Estimation of effort: Estimate the amount of work it will take to complete the task. For example, you can write “small,” “medium,” or “large” to indicate the level of effort you think that task will involve. 

• Who is assigned to the task: Indicate who is responsible for completing the task; ideally, one person per card.

Back 

• Start date: Include the start date of the task for use in metrics, tracking, and ensuring that your time estimate is accurate.

• Blocked days: Indicate which days your task may be halted. A task can become blocked if it can’t continue to be worked on. For example, if you were supposed to receive a deliverable and it hasn’t been delivered yet, then your day may be blocked for this particular task.

• Finish date: As with any plan, it is important to track when the task is supposed to be finished. This allows you to ensure that your project is still on track to reach the end goal.

Kanban board software

If you opt to use a software tool rather than a physical board, you have a few options. Asana and Trello are both great software tools to use if you are looking to introduce Kanban to your project. There are many options, so take the time to evaluate which is best for you and your project.

A project budget is the estimated monetary resources needed to achieve a project's goals and objectives. In previous lessons, we covered a wide range of information related to project budgets. Let’s recap to make sure you have the information and tools you need to create and manage your project’s budget.

Budgets are typically created in the initiation and planning phases of your project. As with any other project management document, you need to continue to review and control the budget throughout the life cycle of your project. Your budget is more than just how much it will cost to complete the project—it is a helpful tool to reference when communicating with stakeholders and can double as a tracker for your project’s progress. Budgets also help control your costs and act as the baseline for the financial portion of the project. 

Project budgeting best practices

Here are a few tips to consider when creating your project budget:

• Reference historical data: Your project may be similar to a previous project your organization has worked on. It is important to review how that project’s budget was handled, find out what went well, and learn from any previous mistakes.

• Utilize your team, mentors, or manager: Get into the habit of asking for your team to double check your work to give you additional sets of eyes on your documents.

• Time-phase your budget: Time-phased budgeting allows you to allocate costs for project tasks over the projected timeline in which those expenses are planned to take place. By looking at your tasks against a timeline, you can track and compare planned versus actual costs over time and manage changes to your budget as necessary.

• Check, check, and double check: Make sure that your budget is accurate and error-free. Your budget will likely require approval from another department, such as finance or senior management, so do your best to ensure that it is as straightforward to understand as possible and that all of your calculations are correct.

Categorize different types of costs

There are different types of costs that your project will incur. For example, you may need to account for both direct costs and indirect costs in your project budget. Categorize these different types of costs in your budget so that you can ensure you are meeting the requirements of your organization and customer. 

Direct costs

These are costs for items that are necessary in order to complete your project. These costs can include:

• Wages and salaries of employees and contractors 

• Materials costs

• Equipment rental costs

• Software licenses 

• Project-related travel and transportation costs

• Staff training

Indirect costs

These are costs for items which do not directly lead to the completion of your project but are still essential for the project team to do their work. They are also referred to as overhead costs. These costs can include:

• Administrative costs

• Utilities

• Insurance 

• General office equipment 

• Security

Develop a baseline budget

A baseline budget is an estimate of project costs that you start with at the beginning of your project. Once you have created a budget for your project and gotten it approved, you should publish this baseline and use it to compare against actual performance progress. This will give you insight into how your project budget is doing and allow you to make informed adjustments.

It is important to continually monitor your project budget and make changes if necessary. Be aware that budget updates can require the same approvals as your initial budget. Also, you should “re-baseline” your budget if you make significant changes. Re-baselining refers to when you update or modify a project's baseline as a result of any approved change to the schedule, cost, or deliverable content. For example, if you have a significant change in your project scope, your budget will likely be impacted. In this instance, you would need to re-baseline in order to adhere to a realistic budget.

Perform a reserve analysis

A reserve analysis will help you account for any buffer funds you may need. First, review all potential risks to your project and determine if you need to add buffer funds, also referred to as a contingency budget. These funds are necessary because new costs that you did not expect are likely to happen throughout the project.

You may also want to account for cost of quality in your overall project budget. The cost of quality refers to all of the costs that are incurred to deliver a quality product or service, which can extend beyond material resources. This includes addressing issues with products, processes, or tasks, along with internal and external failure costs. One example would be having to redesign a product or service due to defects. A defect could mean refunds to customers, time and money required to create a new product or service, and multiple other potential costs affecting the client.

Key takeaways

Budgeting in the project management world is a complex process involving many different parties and documentation, but following the best practices described in this reading can help break it down. Remember to use historical data and time-phasing, and reach out to your team for support. Make sure you are capturing all of the components of your budget, including direct and indirect costs. Finally, be sure to baseline your budget so you know where your money is being used and when. These tips can help set you up for budget management success.

Effective budgeting can set you up for success as a project manager. This reading will discuss some of the most common budgeting challenges you may encounter as a project manager and how to manage them.

Challenge 1: Budget pre-allocation

You may encounter situations where your budget is already set before you even start the project. This is known as budget pre-allocation. Some organizations follow strict budgeting cycles, which can lead to cost estimations taking place before the scope of the project is completely defined.  

If you are given a pre-allocated budget, it is important to work with your customer to set expectations on scope and deliverables within the allocated budget. To deliver a great product within your allocated budget will require detailed planning.

A pre-allocated budget should also be routinely monitored to ensure the amounts you have budgeted are sufficient to meet your costs. Be sure to carefully track all expenses in your budget. Regularly match these expenses against your pre-allocated budget to ensure you have sufficient funds for the remainder of your project.

Part of that planning includes making sure that you are tracking fixed and time- and materials-based expenses. Fixed contracts are usually paid for when certain milestones are reached. Time and materials contracts are usually paid for monthly, based on the hours worked and other fees associated with the work, such as travel and meal expenses. 

Challenge 2: Inaccurately calculating TCO

Another budgeting pitfall you should try to avoid is underestimating the total cost of ownership (TCO) for project resources. TCO takes into account multiple elements that contribute to the cost of an item. It factors in the expenses associated with a product or service over its lifetime, rather than just upfront costs. 

Let’s relate TCO to something more common, like owning a vehicle. Let’s say you buy a vehicle for a certain price, but then you also pay for things related to the vehicle, such as license fees, registration fees, and maintenance. If you add all of this up, you have your TCO for that vehicle. So now that you know what your TCO is, you may consider those fees before you buy your next vehicle. For example, you might opt for a vehicle with fewer maintenance requirements than one that requires more frequent service, since you know that will save you money overall. 

The same concept applies to budgeting on a project. If you have a service requirement for a software technology that your team is using, for example, then it is important to budget for the costs of maintenance for that service. Additional types of costs you may need to account for when calculating TCO include warranties, supplies, required add-on costs, and upgrade costs.

Challenge 3: Scope creep

Scope creep is when changes, growth, and other factors affect the project’s scope at any point after the project begins. Scope creep causes additional work that wasn’t planned for, so scope creep can also impact your budget. 

There are several factors that can lead to scope creep, such as: 

• A vague Statement of Work (SoW)

• Conversations and agreements about the project that aren’t officially documented

• Unattainable timeframes and deadlines

• Last-minute asks from priority stakeholders

Addressing these factors as you plan your project can help prevent scope creep from impacting your budget.

Key takeaway

There can be many challenges to face when planning and managing a budget. Budget pre-allocation, underestimating the TCO of project resources, and scope creep are some of the most common. As you continue your career as a project manager, awareness of these challenges can help you avoid and overcome them.

Cash flow

Cash flow is the inflow and outflow of cash on your project. As a project manager, this is important to understand because you need funding (cash into your project) to keep your project running. 

Cash that comes into your project allows you to maintain and compensate resources and pay invoices for materials or outside services. In some cases, a project may start out with all of the cash it will receive until the end. If this is the case, it is important to monitor your outflow to ensure that you have enough funding to complete the project.

Monitoring cash flow allows you to have a reference point for your project’s health. For example, if the cash flow coming into your project is lower than your outflow, you will need to adjust your budget. Planning and tracking the cash flow for your project is a key component of budget management.

CAPEX and OPEX

Organizations have a number of different types of expenses, from the wages they pay their employees to the cost of materials for their products. These expenses can be organized into different categories. Two of the most common are CAPEX (capital expenses) and OPEX (operating expenses).

• CAPEX (capital expenses) are an organization's major, long-term, upfront expenses, such as buildings, equipment, and vehicles. They are generally for assets that the company will own and keep. The company incurs these expenses because they believe they will create a benefit for the company in the future. 

• OPEX (operating expenses) are the short-term expenses that are required for the day-to-day tasks involved in running the company, such as wages, rent, and utilities. They are often recurring.  

You may need to account for both OPEX and CAPEX on your projects. For example, a major software acquisition as part of an IT project could be treated by your organization as a capital expense. The monthly wages paid to a contractor to help deploy the software would be an operating expense. It’s a good idea to talk to your finance or accounting department when you start working on your project budget to see how they determine the difference between OPEX and CAPEX. This will guide you in properly allocating capital and operating expenses for your projects.

Contingency reserves

Sometimes, a project hits a snag and incurs additional expenses. One way to prepare for unplanned costs is by using contingency reserves. Contingency reserves are funds added to the estimated project cost to cover identified risks. These are also referred to as buffers.

To determine the amount of your contingency reserves, you will need to go through the risk management process and identify the risks that are most likely to occur. We will go into more detail on risk management later in the course, but it is important to understand that risks to your project can have an impact on your budget.

Contingency reserves can also be used to cover areas where actual costs turn out to be higher than estimated costs. For example, you may estimate a certain amount for labor costs, but if a contracted worker on your team gets a raise, then the actual costs will be higher than you estimated. 

Management reserves

While contingency reserves are used to cover the costs of identified risks, management reserves are used to cover the costs of unidentified risks. For example, if you were managing a construction project and a meteor hit your machinery, you could use management reserves to cover the costs of the damage. 

Contingency reserves are an estimated amount, whereas management reserves are generally a percentage of the total cost of the project. To determine a project’s management reserves, you can estimate a percentage of the budget to set aside. This estimate is typically between 5–10%, but the amount is based on the complexity of the project. A project with a more complex scope may require higher management reserves. Note that the project manager will generally need approval from the project sponsor in order to use management reserves.

Procurement means obtaining all of the materials, services, and supplies required to complete the project. You have just learned about the procurement process in project management. To recap, there are five steps in the typical procurement process:

1. Initiating: planning what you need to meet your project goals

2. Selecting: deciding which suppliers and vendors to use

3. Contract writing: developing, reviewing, and signing contracts

4. Controlling: making payments and maintaining and ensuring quality

5. Completing: measuring your success

During each step of the procurement process, there are some tips that can help you save time and money while ensuring your project’s success. 

Tips for initiating 

While planning your project, figure out which materials, resources, and supplies you will need to get the job done. During this step, you will decide which items will be internally procured and which items will be externally outsourced. Once you’ve decided which items you need to outsource, compare each of those items specifications, components, quality measurements, standards, and characteristics with your project’s requirements. You may find that some of the items have features you don’t need. If you can identify those unnecessary features, you will know exactly what you want and don’t want in an item, possibly reducing your total cost. 

Tips for selecting 

Now that you have outlined what you need for your project, you need to determine vendors to source these items. Research and assess various vendors and suppliers, and try to find out if your preferred vendors have a reputation for delivering quality work on time. After you’ve identified your preferred vendors and suppliers, interview them to learn more about their products and services. If possible, make site visits to see exactly how each vendor runs their business in person. 

Tips for contract writing

Contract writing requires excellent attention to detail, so pay close attention to the inclusions and exclusions in the vendor’s offer. There may be some items included in the vendor’s price that you can provide in-house at low or no additional cost. For example, the vendor’s offer may include charges for storing materials, using certain equipment, or labor. These are all things that you may be able to provide from your organization’s resources, so you can opt to save costs with the vendor on those items by using in-house materials and resources. 

Sometimes, the vendor may write the contract. In this case, checking carefully for clarity and accuracy ensures that you know exactly what you are getting from the vendor. Whether the contract is written by you or by the vendor, you will almost always want to consult with a legal and compliance team to ensure that everything in the contract is ethical and legal.

Tips for controlling

The procurement process isn’t over when the contracts are signed. The next step is to ensure that the work is being done according to the terms of the contract. You will need to periodically review the performance and quality of each vendor. When communicating with vendors, remain professional but firm to ensure that all project requirements are being fulfilled and that all major milestones are being met on time and at cost. 

Building and maintaining a good relationship with your vendors benefits the team and the overall project. This relationship will make it easier to make adjustments and contract revisions if the need arises. Taking certain measures, like conducting regular check-in meetings, will ensure that the work is being completed according to plan. 

Tips for completing

In the completing step of the procurement process, you will measure the success of your procurements. Ask yourself:

• Were the materials created good quality? 

• Were there any issues with labor contracts? 

• How were your relationships with vendors? 

During this step, it is also important to document any lessons learned. It is likely that you will be involved in another project similar to this one in the future. Take notes about how the procurement process went so you can use this information on a future project. 

Key takeaways

Procurement is an ongoing process that can be repeated during the life cycle of a project. You may initiate the procurement process several times over if you need additional deliverables. To do so, you will likely evaluate your current vendors—or select new ones if necessary. If you change vendors or contract terms, you will have to write new contracts. It is important to periodically review the quality of each vendor during the controlling phase and, once everything is finished, document the lessons you learned during the completion phase. 

Understanding ethical traps 

An ethical trap is an ethical dilemma that causes us to make a certain decision without regard for our ethical principles. You may face ethical traps throughout the course of a project. However, ethics can be of particular concern when it comes to procurement. As you have learned, project managers must take precautions to ensure that they and their suppliers are following ethical principles during the procurement process. 

Common ethical traps

Sometimes, potential ethical issues can be overlooked or can be considered the necessary cost of doing business. This is a dangerous line of thinking since these types of assumptions can put your project, company, and career at risk. To review what we discussed in the video, a few of the most common ethical traps that exist when conducting procurements are corruption and bribery, sole-supplier sourcing, and interactions with state-owned agencies.

Corruption and bribery   

You may be confronted with different types of corruption when going through the procurement process. One form of corruption is when a vendor seeks to reduce the competition for a contract during the bidding process. A company may attempt to bribe members within the organization to sway their decision into a favorable outcome for the vendor. Bribes may include things like money, gifts, tickets to events, and more. Another type of corruption scheme is to offer a certain percentage of an awarded contract—also known as a kickback—to an official who can ensure that their company wins the bid.

Sole-supplier sourcing   

In some situations, having a vendor who a company is already familiar with smooths the procurement process and works well for both parties. Ethical issues arise when other vendors aren’t even allowed to bid for contracts for which they are similarly qualified. With sole-supplier sourcing, vendors may reach out to buyers before a bid is even requested. When the buyer’s organization decides to work with that vendor based on their previously-established relationship, that limits competition before the bidding has even begun. When this happens, companies and the public miss out on the advantages of competition, such as reasonable pricing, product quality standards, or speedy delivery options. 

Interactions with state-owned entities

There are some instances in which government agencies require an organization to adhere to stricter ethical standards than they might have otherwise. Governmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for example, keep businesses within legal and ethical standards. If you are unfamiliar with any governmental restrictions that may affect your industry, organization, or project, you could unintentionally fall into an ethical trap.

Avoiding ethical traps   

Here are some guidelines that will help you avoid falling into ethical traps when it comes to procurement:

Understand the legal requirements for your procurements.

Every country has regulations to adhere to when conducting business in that country. Be sure to research the legal and ethical requirements based on your project and procurement needs, and if your organization has a legal team, make sure to lean on them for support and advice.

Stick to your ethical codes.

Honesty, responsibility, respect, and fairness are the values that underpin ethical behavior in the project management profession. The Project Management Institute’s (PMI) code of ethics provides detailed guidelines to help ensure you maintain ethical conduct in your projects. 

Test your ethics.

When you face an ethical dilemma, ask yourself questions in each of the following categories:

• Shame: Would you be ashamed if someone knew what you did?

• Community: Would you want your friends to know the decision you made? 

• Legal: Would you face legal action if you took this action? 

• Situation: Would your actions be justified in this situation?

• Consequence: Would a negative outcome be worth your actions? 

Key takeaway

Making a decision when facing an ethical dilemma can be challenging. But learning the legal requirements for your procurements, sticking to a professional code of ethics, and testing yourself on the ethics of your decision making can help you avoid ethical traps and conduct your procurements honestly, responsibly, and fairly. 

Risk management is the process of identifying and evaluating potential risks and issues that could impact your project. Risk management is an ongoing practice throughout the life cycle of your project. It typically involves some variation of these five steps:

1. Identify the risk.

2. Analyze the risk.

3. Evaluate the risk.

4. Treat the risk. 

5. Monitor and control the risk.

Let’s break these down:

1. Identify the risk. The first phase of the risk management process is to identify and define potential project risks with your team. After all, you can only manage risks if you know what they are. 

2. Analyze the risk. After identifying the risks, determine their likelihood and potential impact to your project. Serious risks with a high probability of occurring pose the greatest threat.

3. Evaluate the risk. Next, use the results of your risk analysis to determine which risks to prioritize.

4. Treat the risk. During this phase, make a plan for how to treat and manage each risk. You might choose to ignore minor risks, but serious risks need detailed mitigation plans.

5. Monitor and control the risk. Finally, assign team members to monitor, track, and mitigate risks if the need arises.

In the upcoming videos and activities, you will learn about each of these phases in more detail and use tools and templates to navigate the risk management process. 

When you think about risks, it is likely that you automatically think of potential negative events. But when identifying risks, it is important to also consider the good things that could happen, which are considered opportunities. An opportunity is a potential positive outcome of a risk. It is important to recognize opportunities and to capitalize on them as they appear so you can reach your project goals faster, more cheaply, or with less effort. Some examples of opportunities include: 

• Completing a milestone ahead of schedule

• Discounted materials 

• Availability of additional resources (people, investments, equipment) 

How to recognize an opportunity

An opportunity is a potential positive outcome that may bring additional value to a project. You can use the same tools and techniques that you use in risk management—identify, analyze, evaluate, treat, and control—to add potential opportunities to your risk management plan. You need to know what to do if things go wrong, but you should also make plans to seize opportunities. By using techniques such as brainstorming and drawing on project history or prior experience, you can identify potential opportunities and outline how you will take advantage of them if they occur.

As a project manager, you should always be on the lookout for potential opportunities when developing your risk management plan. Review the following article for further information on using risk management strategies to identify and take advantage of opportunities that may occur during your projects: The Risk Management Process in Project Management

Fishbone diagrams—also known as Ishikawa diagrams or cause-and-effect diagrams—were developed by Japanese organizational theorist Kaoru Ishikawa in the 1960s to measure quality control processes in the shipbuilding industry. Fishbone diagrams are a visual way to look at cause and effect. They are called fishbone diagrams because they have a similar shape to a fish skeleton. 

Fishbone diagrams help the team to brainstorm potential causes of a problem or risk and sort them into useful categories. These categories show the areas that you should focus on to mitigate that risk. Fishbone diagrams are also very helpful in finding the root cause of a problem. A root cause is the initial cause of a situation that introduces a problem or risk. The purpose of using fishbone diagrams in risk management is to identify the root cause of a potential problem for a project or program.  

Case study: Using a fishbone diagram to identify causes of risks  

Miguel is a project manager at Office Supply Inc. He is in the planning phase for an upcoming summer promotion project, which will include free delivery of products. Unfortunately, in the past, the company has had trouble delivering its products to downtown office buildings on time. Miguel builds a fishbone diagram to see if he can identify some of the possible causes of this problem in order to mitigate this risk on the current project. He follows these steps to build his diagram:

Step 1) Define the problem 

First, Miguel clearly defines what the problem entails. In this case, Miguel states the problem as “trouble delivering products to downtown office buildings on time.” Then he adds the problem to the head of his fishbone diagram. 

Step 2) Identify the categories 

In this step, Miguel thinks of the types of categories that could be causing the problem. These categories will change depending on the type of problem or industry. Some common examples of categories include “people,” “technology,” “materials,” “transportation,” “money,” “time,” “environment,” and “procedures.” 

For the delivery problem at Office Supply Inc., Miguel lists the categories “people,” “technology,” “materials,” “transportation,” and “environment” at the top and bottom of the lists to the left of the problem in his fishbone diagram.

Fishbone diagram with the categories and problem filled out listed in the reading. Categories include “people,” “technology,” “materials,” “transportation,” “money,” “time,” “environment,” and “procedures.”

Step 3) Brainstorm the causes 

Now that Miguel has identified possible categories that relate to the risk, he brainstorms areas of concern within each category. He reaches out to his team for help in identifying these possible causes. Then, Miguel fills in the lists with some of the causes that could be related to each category.

Pro tip: Brainstorming should be a judgment-free zone. Encourage the flow of information related to the categories and try not to rule things out. When dealing with human factors, steer clear of naming individuals; instead, focus solely on behaviors.

Fishbone diagram with the categories, possible causes, and problem filled out listed in the reading. New causes for "people" include lack of training, distractions, lack of people. For "technology" include overcomplicated and outdated. For "materials" include fragile packaging and lack of forklifts. For "transportation" includes trucks too small, trucks too big, and lack of trucks. For "environment" includes city traffic, busy elevators, and long distances.

Step 4) Analyze the causes

Now that Miguel has discovered several possible causes for the delivery problems to downtown offices, he analyzes those causes. He needs to identify the root cause of the existing problem so he can figure out how to mitigate it for the current project.

Note that one cause of a problem isn’t necessarily the root cause. For example, Miguel has identified that a lack of forklifts is a problem. Having more forklifts would allow the company to get the products on and off of the trucks more quickly. However, after calculating the amount of time it takes to unload and load the products, Miguel realizes that adding more forklifts won’t significantly reduce the amount of time to get the products from the warehouse to downtown offices. Therefore, this is one cause of the problem, but it is not the root cause.

On the other hand, Miguel has noticed that there is no set schedule for sending out deliveries. Since the problem only exists in the city instead of in the suburban areas, he realizes that traffic must also be playing a role in the late deliveries. Therefore, changing the schedule so that the delivery times are before the city’s rush hour may help fix the problem.       

Pro tip: Fishbone diagrams are tools that can be useful during any phase of the project. When you use them in risk planning, you are trying to identify the possible causes of a problem that may or may not occur. When you use them in the execution phase, you are trying to find the root cause of an issue that has already occurred. 

Key takeaway

Identifying risks and measuring their potential impact on a project can be a complex task. You can help visualize these issues by creating fishbone diagrams. To recap, the steps to create a fishbone diagram are:

• Define the problem

• Identify the categories

• Brainstorm the causes

• Analyze the causes

Once you’ve developed a fishbone diagram to help find a problem’s root cause and measure its potential impact on the project, you can then move on to determining how to mitigate the risk. 

Single point of failure risks

Once you have identified your risks and ranked them, give special attention to the risks that could have a catastrophic effect on your team’s ability to complete the project. A single point of failure is a risk that, if it were to materialize, could cause a significant amount of disruption to your project and could even shut it down. You should plan for these risks early on in the project. 

For example, a lot of projects use subject matter experts (SMEs)—team members with a deep understanding of a particular job, process, department, function, technology, machine, material, or type of equipment. SMEs are involved to advise you throughout the project life cycle. Having only one SME familiar with a critical system on your team is an example of a single point of failure risk. This SME will only offer one perspective, and if they are the only person advising on the system, there is no one to offer another perspective. 

Case study: Using mitigation strategies to manage single point of failure risks

Let’s imagine that Office Green uses plant seeds from a company in South America for the majority of its offerings. The plants produced by these seeds are in high demand by Office Green’s customers. However, the local government on the suppliers’ end just announced that it would be imposing a new tax on the exporting of seeds and produce. As a result, the price of the seeds suddenly becomes so high that it is difficult for the company to supply the seeds to Office Green, putting the project at risk of not having these seeds available to purchase.

Let’s look at how these four risk mitigation strategies can be used for managing single point of failure risks in the Office Green example:

Avoid  

This strategy seeks to sidestep—or avoid—the situation as a whole. In the Office Green example, the team could avoid this risk entirely by considering using another seed that is widely available in several locations.

Minimize  

Mitigating a risk involves trying to minimize the catastrophic effects that it could have on the project. The key to minimizing risk starts with realizing that the risk exists. That is why you will usually hear mitigation strategies referred to as workarounds. What if the Office Green team decided to use both the original South American supplier and another supplier from a neighboring country? More than likely, the change in taxation and regulation wouldn’t affect both companies, and this would provide Office Green some flexibility without having to completely eliminate their preferred supplier.

Transfer 

The strategy of transferring shifts the responsibility of handling the risk to someone else. The Office Green team could find a supplier in North America that uses the seeds from several other South American countries and purchase the seeds from them instead. This transfers the ownership of South American regulatory risks and costs to that supplier.

Accept 

Lastly, you can accept the risk as the normal cost of doing business. Active acceptance of risk usually means setting aside extra funds to pay your way out of trouble. Passive acceptance of risk is the “do nothing” approach. While passive acceptance may be reasonable for smaller risks, it is not recommended for most single point of failure risks. It is also important to be proactive and mitigate risks ahead of time whenever possible, as this may save you from having to accept risks. In the Office Green scenario, the project manager could schedule a meeting with project stakeholders to discuss the increase in South American taxes and how it could impact the project cost. Then, they might decide to actively accept the risk by setting aside additional funds to source the seeds from another supplier, if necessary, or to passively accept the risk of not receiving the seeds at all this season.

Key takeaway

If you have strategies you can rely on for avoiding, minimizing, transferring, and accepting project risks—including single point of failure risks—you will be in a better position to protect your project from the possible impact of these risks.

Types of dependencies  

Dependencies are a relationship between two project tasks in which the completion or the initiation of one is reliant on the completion or initiation of the other. Let’s explore four common types of dependencies:

Finish to Start (FS)

In this type of relationship between two tasks, Task A must be completed before Task B can start. This is the most common dependency in project management. It follows the natural progression from one task to another.

Example: Imagine you are getting ready to have some friends over for dinner. You can’t start putting on your shoes (Task B) until you’ve finished putting on your socks (Task A). 

Task A: Finish putting on your socks. →Task B: Start putting on your shoes.

Finish to Finish (FF)

In this model, Task A must finish before Task B can finish. (This type of dependency is not common.)

Example: Earlier in the day, you baked a cake. You can’t finish decorating the cake (Task B) until you finish making the icing (Task A).

Task A: Finish making the icing. →Task B: Finish decorating the cake.

Start to Start (SS)

In this model, Task B can’t begin until Task A begins. This means Tasks A and B start at the same time and run in parallel.

Example:  You need to take the train home after work. You can’t get on the train (Task B) until you pay for the train ride (Task A).  

Task A: Start by paying for your train ride. →Task B: Start going home by boarding the train.

Start to Finish (SF)

In this model, Task A must begin before Task B can be completed.

Example:   One of your friends calls to tell you he’ll be late. He can’t finish his shift (Task B) and leave work until his coworker arrives to start her shift (Task A). 

Task A: Your friend’s coworker starts her shift. →Task B: Your friend finishes his shift.

Dependency graphs

As a project manager, you will use these dependencies to visually represent the flow of work during your project. Let’s examine how to use a dependency graph with an everyday example.

Imagine you are making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids who will be coming to your dinner, and you want to use dependency relationships to map your activities on a graph. 

Activity A: Gather Materials. Relationship: After starting the project

Activity B: Put jelly on a piece of bread. Relationship: After A

Activity C: Put peanut butter on a piece of bread. Relationship: After A

Activity D: Put both pieces of bread together. Relationship: After B and C

Activity E: Serve to kids. Relationship: After activity D

Let’s break each task down to create your dependency graph:

1. When you start your sandwiches, you need to gather your materials: bread, knife, jelly, peanut butter, plates, and napkins (Task A). 

2. At this point, you can put jelly on one piece of bread (Task B) and peanut butter on the other piece of bread (Task C). 

3. Now you need to put both pieces of bread together (Task D).

4. Finally, you can put the sandwich on a plate and serve it (Task E).

Key takeaways

There are four types of task dependencies:

• Finish to Start

• Finish to Finish

• Start to Start

• Start to Finish

A dependency graph can help you visualize these different dependencies and the flow of the work that needs to be done on a project. They can also help you identify any risk associated with them.

As a project manager, you are central to that communication, which is an ongoing process throughout the life cycle of a project. A good project manager must be effective in communicating with all stakeholders and team members through various mediums.

As the project manager, it is important to develop a communication plan for the duration of your project. Good communication helps your project run smoothly, leads to better outcomes, and supports a healthy team culture. You can use these four tips to foster effective communication within your team:

Graphic of four tips for effective communication that are listed in reading: 1. Recognize and understand individual differences  2. Brainstorm and craft the appropriate message 3. Deliver your message 4. Obtain feedback and incorporate that feedback going forward

Recognize and understand individual differences

You can encourage open, inclusive communication by:

• Not making assumptions about your audience’s backgrounds, identities, or experiences. 

• Being mindful of your own biases.

• Using appropriate, professional, and neutral language.

• Including, respecting, and being curious about diverse points of view.

As the project manager, you will undoubtedly work with a diverse group of team members and stakeholders on each project. You will need to understand each team member’s background, experiences, perspectives, and biases—as well as your own—to  communicate effectively. 

Brainstorm and craft the appropriate message

Communicate the right message by thinking about your intended audience. With whom are you communicating? In your communications, always be clear about your reasons for reaching out:

• What channels can your audience use to contact you or the team? 

• Are you conveying information?

• Are you asking for input?

• Are you clarifying an issue?

• Are you resolving a problem?

Some team members may require detailed information, while others may only need an overview of the situation. No matter your audience, you should be sure to identify the purpose of the message, state the information or request clearly and concisely, and stay on topic. 

Deliver your message

As you craft your message, think about which methods are available and appropriate for communicating with various members of your team, whether that is in person, in a video conference, over the phone, via email, or in a meeting. Choosing the right method is especially important if you have team members or stakeholders in different regions and time zones. Also, be sure to:

• Avoid including any sensitive or potentially private information. 

• Assume everyone at the company will receive the communication.

Obtain feedback and incorporate that feedback going forward

Communication doesn’t end when you deliver your message, so be sure to follow up with your audience by:

• Checking to make sure your message was clear.

• Asking them for feedback.

• Encouraging open communication.

• Responding to questions quickly.

In this final step, you will obtain feedback from your audience to ensure that your message was received as you intended. 

Key takeaways

You now have the steps to communicate effectively as a project manager! You have learned how to foster open, inclusive communication by recognizing and understanding individual differences among your team members. You know how to craft and deliver an appropriate message and the importance of obtaining and addressing feedback. Most importantly, make sure your communications are clear, honest, relevant, and frequent. Following these guidelines will set you up for successful communication throughout your projects.

Tips for creating your communication plan 

Identify, identify, identify

Before you begin creating the plan, answer these questions to ensure that you have all of the relevant information:

• Project stakeholders: Have you created a RACI chart or stakeholder map of all your stakeholders? Who is your audience? Who will need to be informed at different points during the project life cycle? 

• Communication frequency and method: When and how often should you check in with your stakeholders? What methods of communication do they prefer? How much detail does each stakeholder need? 

• Goals: What is the goal of your communication? Do you need a response? Are you trying to encourage engagement or simply providing an update? 

• Barriers: Are there any time zone limitations? Language barriers? Do some stakeholders require time to reply or respond (e.g., an executive)? Are there any privacy or internet access issues? 

Document and develop

Choose a tool or template to document all of your communication needs, and begin developing your plan. Once you understand the basic elements (stakeholders, communication methods, goals, and barriers), it’s time to work out the details! Here are some tips:

Add a column for notes. 

• Project management is not one-size-fits-all, and there are a lot of pieces that need to be tracked. For instance, if you are reaching out to a senior leader or executive, do you need to copy anyone else on the email? If a stakeholder is out of office or unavailable on certain dates, do you have a backup plan? Add notes to set reminders and any additional relevant details.

Use formatting to highlight any key details in the plan. 

• Is there a launch announcement or an urgent decision needed for the project to move forward? Highlight these pivotal elements in a different font color or size to stress their importance.

Ensure that the team can access your document. 

• Share the plan with your team. Allowing your team to review the document ensures that they are aware of the plan and gives them a chance to offer feedback. Sharing the document also serves as an extra check to make sure you aren’t missing any crucial pieces.

Test your plan. 

• If you are sending a team-wide email or link, send a test email to yourself or a colleague. If you are planning a virtual presentation, be sure to test the visual, audio, and other technical aspects in advance. That way, you can minimize any technical problems.  

Check in

Once your communication plan is out in the world, check in with your audience about the effectiveness of your plan. Scheduling routine check-ins will help you understand what is and is not working so you can improve your plan. You want to ensure that your communication plan gets the right information to the right stakeholders at the right time. Additionally, make sure to double check that key stakeholders have not changed over time. 

Evaluate where you may be over- or under-sharing information or missing stakeholders. You can do this through:

• Anonymous survey forms 

• Polls or open feedback sessions during team meetings

• One-on-one conversations and check-ins with key stakeholders

Keep these tips in mind as you build your next communication plan and you will be set for communication success!

This reading will explore and compare these popular tracking methods in more detail so you can feel more confident choosing the best method for your projects.

Gantt charts

The Gantt chart is one of the most popular tracking methods and can be used for all types of projects. Gantt charts typically live in your project plan and are updated as the project progresses.

Gantt charts are useful for:

• Helping a team stay on schedule

• Projects with lots of tasks, dependencies, and milestones

• Projects with large teams, because ownership and responsibilities are explicitly laid out visually

Asana, one of the work management software tools featured in this certification, has useful resources for getting started with Gantt charts. Practice working with Gantt charts on your own with a free Asana trial or by downloading a free Gantt chart template from Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. 

Want to learn more? Check out these resources:

Asana help article: New to Gantt charts? Start here.

Roadmaps

Roadmaps are another common tracking method. Like Gantt charts, Roadmaps also track both individual and project progress toward milestones. However, Roadmaps are best suited for tracking big milestones in your project. 

Roadmaps are useful for:

• High-level tracking of large milestones. Roadmaps outline the project as a whole and provide an overall snapshot of key points—just like an actual roadmap contains points of interest and mile markers. 

• Illustrating to your team or key stakeholders how a project should evolve over time

Roadmaps can be built using different tools. You can create a Roadmap in a document (like this example). 

Smartsheet has useful resources for getting started with Roadmaps. Practice working with Roadmaps on your own with a free Smartsheet trial or by downloading this Roadmap template created with Google Sheets.

Want to learn more? Check out these resources:

Smartsheet help article: Everything you need to know about Project Roadmaps

Free Product Roadmap templates from Smartsheet

Burndown charts

Burndown charts are typically used by Agile Scrum teams. Burndown charts reveal how quickly your team is working by displaying how much work is left and how much time remains to complete the work. The main uses of a Burndown chart are to keep the project team on top of targeted completion dates and make them aware of scope creep if it occurs. The chart should be displayed so everyone can see it and needs to be updated regularly in order to be effective.

Burndown charts are useful for:

• Projects that require a detailed review of tasks

• Projects where finishing on time is the top priority

*Note: If you'd like to learn about Agile and Scrum, which are popular project management approaches, check out Course 5 of this certificate, Agile Project Management.

A Burndown chart helps you, as a project manager, understand how your team works and what influences their ability to complete tasks on time. This way, you can address issues right away, before they become major problems. They also help you plan more efficiently for the next project by identifying potential problem areas.

Jira is a work management software tool that has useful resources for getting started with Burndown charts. Practice working with Burndown charts on your own with a free Jira trial or by downloading this Burndown chart template created with Google Sheets.

Want to learn more? Check out these resources:

Jira help article: Learn how to use burndown charts in Jira software

ProjectManager.com article: Burndown Chart: What Is It & How Do I Use It?

This reading will cover project status reports and how you can use them to track and communicate common project elements in a snapshot.

Key components of a project status report

A project status report gives an overview of all of the project’s common elements and summarizes them in a snapshot. It is an efficient communication tool to convey the latest status in one place for the team and stakeholders.

Most status reports contain the following components:

• Project name: The project name should be specific to the purpose of the project so that the overall goal of the project can be understood at-a-glance. 

Date: You will create project status reports many times during the course of a project’s implementation phase. Reports can be created weekly or monthly—it all depends on the stakeholders’ needs and pace of the project. Adding the date to each status report acts as a reference point for your audience and also creates a history log of the project’s status over time. 

Summary: The summary condenses the project’s goals, schedule, highlights, and lowlights in one central place for easy stakeholder visibility. Usually, the summary section will be followed by, or grouped with, the timeline summary and the overall project status.

• 
  

• Status: As you can imagine, status is a crucial piece. The status of the project illustrates your actual progress versus your planned progress. In project management, a common way to depict this is through RAG (red, amber, green), or Red-Yellow-Green, status reporting. RAG follows a traffic light pattern to indicate progress and status. Red indicates that there are issues that need resolution and that the project may be delayed or go significantly over budget. Amber/Yellow means that there are potential issues with schedule or budget, but that the issues can likely be resolved with corrective actions. And green means the schedule and budget are doing fine and that the project is on track. You can use RAG to indicate the overall project status, as well as milestone status. Every project team and stakeholder may have a slightly different perspective on what the colors mean and how urgent it is to escalate issues when they see an amber/yellow or red status, so it’s important to make sure everyone understands what the different color statuses mean for your project.

• Milestones and tasks: A summary of the project’s major milestones thus far and current tasks helps the team and stakeholders easily visualize the progress of those elements. In a project plan, you will typically depict the tasks and milestones as ‘not started,’ ‘in progress’ or ‘completed’ at an item-by-item level. But, in the project status report, it is common to summarize these items into two categories to better communicate the status. You’ll use key accomplishments to detail what has happened, and upcoming to detail what big milestones you will accomplish next.

• Issues: The issues include your project's current roadblocks and potential risks. Status reports are an important opportunity to set expectations with your stakeholders. If your project status is red or amber, you can flag what is preventing you from being where you planned to be. You can also use this opportunity to state your plan to get the project back to green, and ask for any resources or help you may need to do so. You will learn more about communicating big risks and issues in the upcoming videos.

Project status report types 

With those key elements in mind, you can format your report in a variety of ways depending on your audience and what you need to communicate. 

If you need to share a status report with your team for a project that contains multiple layers of complexity, it may be best to format the report in a spreadsheet in order to keep track of all the moving parts. 

If you simply need to communicate updates to senior stakeholders, your status report may be best formatted as a slideshow, like the one below, containing only an overview of the most key points.

Key takeaways

To recap, project status reports are a powerful tool to:

• Improve and simplify communication across the team.

• Keep everyone, including key stakeholders, informed.

• Request more resources and support (if needed).

• Create structure and transparency by recording the project status in a centralized place.

Go to next ite

In this reading, we’ll review the four main concepts of quality management we discussed in the previous video: quality standards, quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control.

• Quality standards provide requirements, specifications, or guidelines that can be used to ensure that products, processes, or services are fit for achieving the desired outcome. These standards must be met in order for the product, process, or service to be considered successful by the organization and the customer. You will set quality standards with your team and your customer at the beginning of your project. Well-defined standards lead to less rework and schedule delays throughout your project.

• Quality planning involves the actions of you or your team to establish and conduct a process for identifying and determining exactly which standards of quality are relevant to the project as a whole and how to satisfy them. During this process, you'll plan the procedures to achieve the quality standards for your project.

• Quality assurance, or QA, is a review process that evaluates whether the project is moving toward delivering a high-quality service or product. It includes regular audits to confirm that everything is going to plan and that the necessary procedures are being followed. Quality assurance helps you make sure that you and your customers are getting the exact product you contracted for.

• Quality control, or QC, involves monitoring project results and delivery to determine if they are meeting desired results. It includes the techniques that are used to ensure quality standards are maintained when a problem is identified. Quality control is a subset of quality assurance activities. While QA seeks to prevent defects before they occur, QC aims to identify defects after they have happened and also entails taking corrective action to resolve these issues.

Additional reading

To learn more about these concepts, check out these articles: 

• What Are Quality Standards?

• What Is a Quality Plan? 

• Quality Assurance & Quality Control

This reading will focus on why conducting user acceptance testing (UAT) is essential to the successful launch of any product, service, or software. We will also discuss some best practices for effective UAT and how to manage the feedback you receive. 

The goals of UAT

To recap, UAT is testing that helps a business make sure that a product, service, or process works for its users. The main objectives of UAT are to:

• Demonstrate that the product, service, or process is behaving in expected ways in real-world scenarios. 

• Show that the product, service, or process is working as intended.

• Identify issues that need to be addressed before project completion.

UAT simulates real-world conditions, so when the feature works as intended during the testing process, you can be more confident that your product, service, or process will work properly once it is launched. It allows a project team to gather detailed information about how users interact with a product, service, or process. UAT helps the team answer such questions as: Do users recognize its purpose and uses? How do they interact with it? How much time do users take to interact with it? Do they notice all of its features? Is the product, service, or process accessible to everyone? UAT also allows the project team to record information about how users feel about their experience with a product, service, or process. Through testing, the team can learn about the emotions it evokes, identities it conveys, appeal it holds, and so on.

Best practices for effective UAT

In order to achieve these goals, UAT needs to be conducted thoughtfully. These best practices can help you administer effective UAT: 

Define and write down your acceptance criteria. 

• Acceptance criteria are pre-established standards or requirements that a product, service, or process must meet. Write down these requirements for each item that you intend to test. For example, if your project is to create a new employee handbook for your small business, you may set acceptance criteria that the handbook must be a digital PDF that is accessible on mobile devices and desktop.

Create the test cases for each item that you are testing. 

• A test case is a sequence of steps and its expected results. It usually consists of a series of actions that the user can perform to find out if the product, service, or process behaved the way it was supposed to. Continuing with the employee handbook example, you could create a test case process in which the user would click to download the PDF of the handbook on their mobile device or desktop to ensure that they could access it without issues.

Select your users carefully. 

• It is important to choose users who will actually be the end users of the product, service, or process. 

Write the UAT scripts based on user stories. 

• These scripts will be delivered to the users during the testing process. A user story is an informal, general explanation of a feature written from the perspective of the end user. In our employee handbook example, a user story might be: As a new employee, I want to be able to use the handbook to easily locate the vacation policy and share it with my team via email. 

Communicate with users and let them know what to expect. 

• If you can prepare users ahead of time, there will be fewer questions, issues, or delays during the testing process.

Prepare the testing environment for UAT. 

• Ensure that the users have proper credentials and access, and try out these credentials ahead of time to ensure they work. 

Provide a step-by-step plan to help guide users through the testing process. 

• It will be helpful for users to have some clear, easy-to-follow instructions that will help focus their attention on the right places. You can create this plan in a digital document or spreadsheet and share with them ahead of time. 

Compile notes in a single document and record any issues that are discovered. 

• You can create a digital spreadsheet or document that corresponds to your plan. It can have designated areas to track issues for each item that is tested, including the users’ opinions on the severity of each issue. This will help you prioritize fixes. 

Managing UAT feedback

Users provide feedback after performing UAT. This feedback might include positive comments, bug reports, and change requests. As the project manager, you can address the different types of feedback as follows:

• Bugs or issues: Users might report technical issues, also known as bugs, or other types of issues after performing UAT. You can track and monitor these issues in a spreadsheet or equivalent system and prioritize which issues to fix. For instance, critical issues, such as not being able to access, download, or search the employee handbook, need to be prioritized over non-critical issues, such as feedback on the cover art of the handbook. 

• Change requests: Sometimes the user might suggest minor changes to the product, service, or process after UAT. These types of requests or changes should also be managed and prioritized. Depending on the type and volume of the requests, you may want to share this data with your primary stakeholders, and you may also need to adjust your project timeline to implement these new requests. 

Key takeaway

User acceptance testing is a powerful tool to ensure that your project outcome is desirable and successful. Be sure to leave time in the schedule for proper testing and issue resolution.

Go to next item

There are many types of project data you can use to determine your team’s progress and efficiency, evaluate the success of your project, and inform project decisions. While you don't need to be a data expert, knowing how to measure, track, and evaluate the right kind of data will help you deliver the most value and impact. 

This reading will recap some of the common types of data from the previous video and introduce a few more key data points that can help you manage projects and work with stakeholders. This reading will also introduce a few ways to interpret the data so that you can reduce risks and make the right decisions about your teams and projects.

The benefits of analyzing data in project management

As a project manager, you can use data daily to make better decisions, solve problems, improve performance and processes, and understand your users. 

For example, if you have data on customer buying patterns, you can identify your best-selling products, and you'll be able to make smarter decisions when placing new product orders with your suppliers. This data will also help you better understand your users and their preferences so you can improve your product offerings and performance. 

You can also use project team data to help you refine your processes. For example, if your team is experiencing an issue, analyzing data from your project tracker about the number of tasks completed, escalations, or internal process problems can help you find the source. This will allow you to make an informed decision about where to focus your efforts to improve processes.

Through critical analysis, application, and execution, data becomes a powerful tool to guide any project in the right direction.

Data, metrics, and analytics

Three images: Numbers grouped in a circle to represent data; a graph with rulers lining the x and y axis to represent metrics; two people working on a puzzle to represent analytics.

Data is information. It’s the numbers and feedback available to you about different aspects of your project. Metrics are how you measure your data. They define the important or specific information (data) you need to know about your project, such as productivity, quality, or engagement. Once you determine your project's metrics, you analyze the data according to those metrics to find patterns and answer questions about your project. This process is called analytics: using data to answer questions, discover relationships, and predict unknown outcomes. 

When analyzing data, ask: What do the metrics mean to you? How do you want to use the metrics you've chosen? Can you find patterns to make predictions about your project? Can you find ways to improve—or optimize—certain aspects of your project? What lessons can you draw from your project's data?

The next few sections are some common categories of metrics used in project management and a brief explanation of what they are and how they're useful to a project. Keep in mind that your use of different metrics isn’t limited to these categories. All of your project data is interrelated. The same metric can also provide different information when applied to different aspects of your project.

Productivity metrics

Productivity metrics typically measure progress and output over time. They allow you to track—or predict—the effectiveness and efficiency of your project team. 

To track your team's productivity over time, analyze the number of tasks or milestones completed in a given time frame. Ask questions like, what percentage of tasks are completed on time, and how long do they usually take? Or, if tasks were not completed on time, how much longer than anticipated did it take to complete all the tasks?

On-time completion rates can help illustrate to clients and stakeholders how the project is progressing and when they can expect certain deliverables to be ready. If your project's completion rates are high, it means you're doing a good job of meeting your completion goals. If the rates are low, it means you're missing deadlines. Analyzing data can help you make decisions about things like improving or implementing new processes, or re-evaluating how you estimate project scope, complexity, and timeline.

Calculating duration (how long something takes) can be useful for setting and evaluating tasks and milestones and determining if you'll meet project deadlines. Tracking task duration can improve the accuracy of estimating a project's timeline. This data is broken down into hours, days, weeks, months, and sometimes years. 

You can also analyze current information to predict future outcomes and make projections (or forecasts) about productivity trends, project durations, costs, performance or quality. This kind of data empowers you to proactively manage your project and its resources and measure the accuracy of your projections over time. For example, analyzing your team's overall performance or velocity can answer questions such as, is the team completing its tasks and milestones? What percentage of tasks is the team finishing on time?

Predicting the future may be impossible, but building a better understanding of it and refining your method for making projections is achievable and valuable.

Quality metrics

Quality metrics relate to achieving acceptable outcomes and can include metrics such as number of changes, issues, and cost variance, all of which affect quality.

Changes refer to differences in any aspect of the project from what was originally planned or required. Issues are problems that may affect task completion—and often result in a change. Track the number of changes and issues to identify patterns, refine processes, and share information about the project with stakeholders.

Cost or budget variance is the difference between the actual amount of money spent on a project and the amount that was budgeted for the project. Over time, this data can help you understand how well you're estimating budgets for your projects. A low variance means you've estimated your project budget accurately. A high variance means you should reevaluate your estimation process. You could be under- or over-estimating costs for your budget, or you may not be tracking expenses effectively.

Happiness and satisfaction

Project managers at Google use a sub-set of metrics called happiness metrics that also relate to quality. These are metrics that relate to different aspects of the user's overall satisfaction with a product or service, like visual appeal, how likely they are to recommend, and ease of use. Happiness metrics can generally be captured with a well-designed survey or by tracking revenue generated, customer retention, or product returns. 

Customer satisfaction scores reflect user attitudes, satisfaction, or perceived ease of use. These scores measure how well the project delivered what it set out to do and how well it satisfies customer and stakeholder needs. Customer satisfaction scores generally represent a combined metric—the sum of several different happiness metrics. For example, on a satisfaction survey, a customer might separately rate a product's appearance as 6/10, ease of use as 7/10, and likeness to recommend or use again as 8/10. The overall customer satisfaction score would then be 7/10. 

You will need to determine what scores are acceptable for your project by discussing with stakeholders what the most important aspects of the project are. 

Adoption and engagement

Another set of metrics related to quality are adoption and engagement. Adoption refers to whether or not a product, service or process is accepted and used. Engagement refers to the degree to which it is used—the frequency of use, amount of time spent using it, and the range of use. It might help to think of these in terms of throwing a party: your adoption metrics would reveal to you whether or not people accepted the invitation and showed up. The engagement metrics would tell you how active they were at the party—whether they participated in activities or interacted with other attendees, if they invited their friends to come with them, and how long they stayed. 

Adoption metrics for a product or service release, like an app, software program, delivery service, or gym membership, would be similar to the party example. However, they can be a bit more complex if you need to track metrics for more than one thing, like whether users make additional purchases or sign up for premium features. 

Each project will need to define its own set of successful adoption metrics, such as:

• Conversion rates

• Time to value (TTV)

• Onboarding completion rates

• Frequency of purchases

• Providing feedback (rating the product or service)

• Completing a profile

Engagement metrics tell you to what degree a product, service, or process is being used. They reveal the frequency and type of customer interaction and participation over time. Engagement metrics might include the daily usage rate of a design feature or tracking orders and customer interactions. 

As a project manager, you're not only concerned with the end user's level of engagement. It's just as important to monitor stakeholder and team member engagement as well. Measuring stakeholder participation by tracking the frequency of communication, responses to emails or updates, attendance at meetings, or level of input can give you a sense of whether or not stakeholders are finding value in the project. A lack of meaningful engagement could put your project at risk. Stakeholders may not be aware of changes or the overall progress of the project, and therefore the final outcome of the project may not meet their expectations. Measuring team member engagement is vital to the success of your project because the more engaged they are, the more productive they are, and the more likely they are to produce high-quality results. 

Ideally, you want your adoption and engagement metrics to increase or to at least meet the goal metrics that were established with stakeholders earlier in the project.  If there is no increase, or the metrics drop, then your rates are low and therefore not as successful. Check out the resources below for a more in-depth understanding of how and why to measure adoption and engagement.

Key takeaway

Data, metrics and analytics are all important to the success of your project. You'll need to have some familiarity with how to collect and measure data, and how to use the data to tell you about different aspects of your project. Depending on the project and its unique goals, some metrics will be more important than others. It's your job to make sure you understand which metrics your stakeholders are most interested in and what elements impact your team's ability to deliver quality results on time and within budget.

Want to learn more? Check out the following resources:

A Comprehensive Guide To Project Management Metrics

Data-Driven Project Management: The 4 Most Important Data Points to Look At

Project Analytics: Benefits, Challenges and First Steps

Project Analytics to Improve Project and Portfolio Decision Making

Project Management Metrics

Productivity Metrics: Why They’re Important & 4 Examples

Data ethics

As a project manager, data collection and analysis will be a key part of your projects. As you’ve learned, you’ll collect data from a variety of sources, including focus groups, interviews and questionnaires. The data you collect will usually hold PII (personally identifiable information)—information that could be used to directly identify, contact, or locate an individual. A lot of times, you will also need to report on the data you collect to stakeholders, customers, and your project team. Collecting, analyzing, and sharing this data in an ethical way is extremely important for maintaining the integrity of your organization, your projects, and your position.

Data ethics is the study and evaluation of moral challenges related to data collection and analysis. This includes generating, recording, curating, processing, sharing, and using data in order to come up with ethical solutions.

Businesses apply data ethics practices so they can:

• Comply with regulations

• Show that they are trustworthy

• Ensure fair and reasonable data usage

• Minimize biases

• Develop a positive public perception

Data ethics is rooted in several principles. In this reading, we will focus on two of these principles: data privacy and data bias.

Data privacy

Data privacy is a key part of data ethics. Data privacy deals with the proper handling of data. This includes the purpose of data collection and processing, privacy preferences, the way organizations manage personal data, and the rights of individuals. It focuses on making sure the ways we collect, process, share, archive, and delete data are all in accordance with the law.

As a project manager, it is your responsibility to protect the data you collect. You can help ensure the privacy of data collected from users, stakeholders, and others for your projects by:

• Increasing data privacy awareness. Make sure every member of your project team—plus the vendors, contractors, and other stakeholders from outside of your company—are made aware of your organization's data security and privacy protocols.

• Using security tools. Free security tools, like encrypted storage solutions and password managers, can decrease your project’s vulnerability to a data breach. In a lot of applications, like ones that are part of Google Workspace and Microsoft OneDrive, privacy settings can be adjusted to only give access to specific individuals.

• Anonymizing data. Data anonymization refers to one or more techniques such as blanking, hashing, or masking personal and identifying information to protect the identities of people included in the data. This helps protect individuals’ personal information by keeping them anonymous. Once the information has been anonymized, it can then be used and shared freely. Types of data that should be anonymized include names, telephone numbers, social security numbers, email addresses, photographs, and account numbers.

Data bias

Another important data ethics practice is making sure that the data you collect does not indicate any biases. Data bias is a type of error that tends to skew results in a certain direction. Maybe the questions on your survey had a particular slant to influence answers, or maybe your sample group was not fully representative of the population you want to study. Bias can also happen if a sample group lacks inclusivity. For example, if your sample does not include people with disabilities. The way you collect data can also bias a dataset. Say you give people only a short time to answer questions, this can lead to rushed responses. When people are rushed, they tend to make more mistakes, which can affect the quality of their data and create biased outcomes. As a project manager, you have to think about bias and fairness from the moment you start collecting data to the time you present your conclusions. 

Types of biases

There are different types of biases to keep in mind when setting up your data collection processes. Here are four of the most common types of biases that could impact your data:

• Sampling bias is when a sample is not representative of the population as a whole. For example, maybe your sample did not include people above the age of 65. Or maybe you excluded people from certain socioeconomic groups.

• Observer bias is the tendency for different people to observe things differently. For example, stakeholders from different parts of the world might view the same data differently and draw different conclusions from it. 

• Interpretation bias is the tendency to always interpret situations that don’t have obvious answers in a strictly positive or negative way, when, in fact there is more than one way to understand the data. Data that does not provide an obvious set of conclusions makes some people feel anxious, which can lead to interpretation bias. For example, a team member might interpret inconclusive survey results negatively, while other team members might be able to think more carefully and assess the data from different angles. 

• Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms pre-existing beliefs. For example, you might ask only specific stakeholders for feedback on parts of your project because you know they are the most likely to have the same perspective as you.

Each of these types of bias affect the way you collect and make sense of the data, so it is important to be aware of them when setting up your data collection processes. 

Key takeaway

According to the Project Management Institute’s Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct, “Ethics is about making the best possible decisions concerning people, resources, and the environment. Ethical choices diminish risk, advance positive results, increase trust, determine long term success, and build reputations. Leadership is absolutely dependent on ethical choices."

A key way you can show your leadership skills is by exercising sound judgment when it comes to data ethics. In order to tell a project’s data-informed story to stakeholders, project team members, and others in an ethical way, you have to make sure you think about both privacy and bias-related concerns in how you conduct, analyze, and share that data.

There are six main steps involved in data analysis: Ask, prepare, process, analyze, share and act. Let’s break these down one by one. 

During the Ask phase, ask key questions to help frame your analysis, starting with: What is the problem? When defining the problem, look at the current state of the business and identify how it is different from the ideal state. Usually, there is an obstacle in the way or something wrong that needs to be fixed.  At this stage, you want to be as specific as possible. You also want to stay focused on the problem itself, not just the symptoms. For example, imagine you are doing data analysis for a gym that is losing memberships. You could ask: Why do we keep losing members? But a better and more specific question would be: What factors are negatively impacting the member experience? That way, when you set off to do your research, you know exactly what to look for. 

Another part of the Ask stage is identifying your stakeholders and understanding their expectations. There can be lots of stakeholders on a project, and each of them can make decisions, influence actions, and weigh in on strategies. Each stakeholder will also have specific goals they want to meet. It is pretty common for a stakeholder to come to you with a problem that needs solving. But before you begin your analysis, you need to be clear about what they are asking of you. For example, if your manager assigns you a project related to analyzing the gym’s business risk, it would be a good idea to confirm whether they want you to analyze all types of risks that could affect the gym or just risks related to weather or seasonal trends.

After you have a clear direction, it is time to move to the Prepare stage. This is where you collect and store the data you will use for the upcoming analysis process. 

Let’s turn back to our gym membership example. To collect data on the member experience, you decide to send surveys to the gym’s members asking for feedback about their experience. To make sure you get specific answers, you ask them to offer feedback in three distinct categories: upkeep of the facility, customer service, and membership cost. You also leave room for them to write in a response. When you get the member surveys back, it is important that you have an organized system for tracking and filing them.  

This stage is when it is time to Process your data. In this step, you will “clean” your data, which means you will enter your data into a spreadsheet, or another tool of your choice, and eliminate any inconsistencies and inaccuracies that can get in the way of results.  While collecting data, be sure to get rid of any duplicate responses or biased data. This helps you know that any decisions made from the analysis are based on facts and that they are fair and unbiased. For example, if you noticed duplicate responses from a single gym member when sorting through the surveys, you would need to get rid of the copies to be sure your data set is accurate.  

During this stage, it is also important to check the data you prepared to make sure it is complete and correct and that there are no typos or other errors. 

Now it is time to Analyze. In this stage, you take a close look at your data to draw conclusions, make predictions, and decide on next steps. Here, you will transform and organize the data in a way that highlights the full scope of the results so you can figure out what it all means. You can create visualizations using charts and graphs to determine if there are any trends or patterns within the data or any need for additional research. 

In our gym membership example, let’s say you notice 50% of the members wrote in an additional response on the survey citing that the equipment is outdated. The survey also showed that 75% of the responses cited  “expensive membership fees.” When looking at the 50% of responses citing “outdated equipment” and 75% of responses citing “expensive membership fees” side by side on a graph, you may be able to deduce that these responses inform one another. Members feel like the experience just isn’t worth the price. You might conclude that the gym should invest in new equipment if they want to keep members and add value to the membership fee. 

Once you have asked questions to figure out the problem—then prepared, processed, and analyzed the data—it is time to Share your findings. In this stage, you use data visualization to organize your data in a format that is clear and digestible for your audience. When sharing, you can offer the insights you gained during your analysis to help stakeholders make effective, data-driven decisions for solving the problem. 

And finally, you are ready to Act! In the final stage of your data analysis, the business takes all of the insights you have provided and puts them into action to solve the original business problem. 

Conducting a data analysis is an essential process for understanding a business’ needs and challenges and determining effective solutions. These six foundational steps—ask, prepare, process, analyze, share, and act—will help set you up for success!

In this reading, we will go over a variety of charts and graphs you can use to visually represent data. 

Visualizing your data

Before translating your data into a chart or graph, you should be clear on what you want to show your audience. Figure out what data you want to use and why. You might want to inform your audience about a new trend or a valuable piece of information, or show relationships between data sets. Or maybe you need to compare values, understand the composition of something, or analyze trends and behaviors over set periods of time. 

The type of data you have, and the information you want to show or understand, will help you figure out the right data visualization to use. Let's go over some scenarios and discuss which charts and graphs would be best for each.  

Show relationships

A scatter plot, sometimes referred to as a scatter chart or scatter graph, uses dots to represent values for two different variables. The position of each dot on the horizontal and vertical axis indicates values for an individual data point. Scatter plots will sometimes have a line drawn across its center. This line is known as the trend line and highlights the direction the points are trending towards. 

Scatter plots show the relationship between data sets, and can help us understand the impact of one factor on another. For example, the scatterplot below shows the relationship between the life expectancy of people living in a country and how happy those people are. The first variable, the happiness score, is reflected on the vertical axis —also called the y-axis. The second variable, life expectancy, is on the horizontal axis —also called the x-axis. By looking at this scatterplot, we can tell that as a person’s happiness score increases, so does their life expectancy.

Scatter plot best practices: 

• Start the y-axis at 0 to represent data accurately.

Comparing values

Bar graphs use size contrast to compare two or more values. In the example below, the time of day is compared to someone’s level of motivation throughout the whole work day. By comparing this data, we can tell that this person’s motivation is low at the beginning of the work day, and gets higher and higher by the end. Bar graphs are also a great way to clarify trends and identify patterns. 

Bar graph best practices:

• Use consistent colors throughout the chart

• Use accent colors to highlight important data points or changes over time

• Use horizontal labels so it is easier to read 

Demonstrating composition 

Now let’s check out another visualization you will probably recognize—the pie chart. Pie charts show us the composition of something. In other words, how much each part of something makes up the whole. The pie chart below shows us all the activities that make up someone’s day. Half of it is spent working, which is shown by the amount of space that the blue section takes up. From a quick glance at this pie chart, you can easily tell which activities make up a good chunk of the day and which ones take up less time.

Pie chart best practices: 

• Avoid including too many categories so it is easy to compare slices

• Make sure that the slice values add up to 100%

• Order slices according to their size

Analyzing trends and behaviors  

Tracking trends can help us understand shifts or changes in our data. Line graphs are a great tool for visually showing change over time, but they can be paired with other factors, too. In the line graph below, we are using two lines to compare the popularity of cats and dogs over a period of time. Because the graph is using two different line colors, we can instantly tell that dogs are more popular than cats. We will talk more about using colors and patterns to make visualizations more accessible to audiences later, too. Even as the lines move up and down, there is a general trend upwards, and the line for dogs always stays higher than the line for cats.

Line graph best practices:

• To avoid clutter, don't show more than four categories.

• Organize highly variable data at the top of the chart to make it easy to read

Scatterplots, bar graphs, pie charts, and line graphs are common data visualizations you will use throughout your career as a project manager. To practice creating these charts, check out this step-by-step overview for creating charts using Google Sheets or this resource for Microsoft Excel. 

At various points throughout a project, you will likely be required to deliver a presentation to team members, key stakeholders, senior leaders, or customers. Use the following tips and best practices to help you prepare an effective presentation.

Preparation 

Get clear on your goals and the purpose of your presentation.

Be clear and specific about what you want to get out of the meeting, then frame the discussion with that goal in mind. For instance, “We need two engineers who have worked in this industry before,” instead of “We need more resources.” 

Seek input and set expectations.

Ask your manager or check with stakeholders regarding your presentation goals. Get their input and feedback ahead of time.

• If you were invited to present, make sure you understand in advance exactly what the requestor is hoping to gain from your presentation.

Create a delivery plan.

Identify a headline for each slide, which is the one-sentence main point that you are trying to illustrate with that slide.

• Create a couple of supporting points that add interest to the headline, such as anecdotes, charts, data, etc.

• Build in signposts. These are ways to clue the audience in to where you are going and what to expect with your presentation.

• Limit the number of slides in the main presentation. At the same time, consider creating backup slides for potential challenges, difficult questions, trade-offs, or alternative solutions. You can hide these backup slides at the end of your presentation if you don’t need them, or add them into your presentation if you do.

Be mindful of your audience’s time.

Invite only participants who need to be there.

• Send the presentation ahead of time, if possible.

Develop a strategy for making your presentation memorable.

Use stories and repeat key points. 

• Start with a strong intro. Spend extra prep time on the beginning. The beginning is when your nerves are typically the highest, and delivering the introduction successfully can help you quickly gain confidence.

Practice

Guide your audience through your presentation.

Help them notice what you notice, and transition between slides by using phrases like “Building on this point . . .” or “As I mentioned before . . .”

Do a mock presentation with your team.

If there will be more than one presenter, coordinate what each person will cover and how you will manage handoffs.

• Practice a question-and-answer (Q&A) session, anticipating the kinds of questions your participants might ask so you are prepared with a quick and confident response. In addition, practice what you will say if you are asked a question that you don’t know the answer to.

• Be prepared to run the whole meeting yourself. If a co-presenter fails to show up, are you prepared to step in?

Schedule time to practice.

• Once you’ve outlined what you want to say, practice it—ideally in front of a mirror—or record yourself. This may help you identify awkward phrasing that could be improved and other issues.

Be prepared for surprises.

Show that you can adapt and that you know your subject matter. 

• If time runs short, can you quickly summarize the key points?

• Can you pivot the content according to what is most important to your audience?

Presentation and pace

Get right to the point.

Identify what problem you are solving and state it up front.

• Tell the audience why you are in the room with them and what you will be covering.

• Lay down the ground rules. For example, how do you want to handle questions and comments? Will you take them throughout your presentation or afterwards?

Check your pace.

Be mindful of clues from your audience and adjust accordingly.

Follow up

• If appropriate, send a follow up email with summary notes, action items, and time frames.

• Debrief with your manager or key audience members on what they heard from the presentation.  Ask them what went well and what could have gone better.

• Review next steps.

Project managers build teams that meet project goals in many different ways, from delegating responsibility and prioritizing tasks to promoting trust and psychological safety. 

But there is another skill great project managers have that we will cover in this reading: the ability to provide air cover to protect their team. Air cover refers to support for and protection of a team in the face of out-of-scope requests or criticism from leadership. 

What is air cover?

A lot of what we have covered throughout this program has focused on leading and managing a project team. Much of project management involves overseeing the work of others, but it also involves managing the needs and expectations of those above you. Those people are your stakeholders, project sponsors, and other leaders within your organization. 

Though the needs and requests of your stakeholders are crucial to the project’s success, there may come a time when you will need to prioritize the needs of your team over the wants of your stakeholders. This is called providing “air cover” for your team, and it is an important part of managing a project. The ability to effectively provide air cover requires a trusting relationship between a project manager and their stakeholders. In this relationship, the project manager aims to demonstrate their abilities to lead a team and communicate effectively. 

There is some risk involved in providing air cover. Sometimes a project manager provides air cover and the project team is still unable to deliver on the goals of the project. In this case, stakeholders may question the project manager’s ability to complete projects successfully. So, when preparing to defend your team against out-of-scope requests, be sure that you are confident in your team’s progress toward the project goal.

Providing air cover: A case study

Imagine, for example, that you are a project manager for a brand of coffee sold in supermarkets throughout your region. You and your team have been tasked with launching three new flavors of ground coffee: vanilla, hazelnut, and mocha. 

However, well into the execution phase, your project sponsor sets a meeting with you to make an out-of-scope request: They would like to add a caramel-flavored coffee to the product lineup. Your team is already at maximum capacity preparing to launch the agreed-upon flavors, and a fourth flavor would add an unreasonable amount of work and stress to your very busy team.

Let’s discuss how you might provide air cover for your team in a situation like this one.

Saying “No” without explicitly saying “No”

One way to provide air cover to your team is to say “no” to your sponsor’s request without explicitly saying “no.” 

There are a few ways to do this:

• You can gently push back with a polite explanation that their request won’t be possible to complete under the current constraints—the scope, time, and/or cost—of the project. 

• You can politely offer to get back to the stakeholder with your response. This gives you time to better understand the request and to consult with trusted team members to lay out the benefits and costs of this request. And, if you are lucky, this might even give the stakeholder the opportunity to reconsider their request or forget about it entirely.

Whether you choose to push back immediately or get back to your stakeholder with your response, it is crucial to offer alternative solutions. Maybe the project timeline can expand to accommodate the request. Or maybe you and your team have a strong relationship with another team at the organization that can help fulfill  the request. Whatever the alternative, brainstorming other options can help soften the blow and provide stakeholders with new ideas.

For example, you consider telling your sponsor that the current project timeline will only allow for the launch of three new coffee flavors, and that the launch of a fourth flavor would only be possible by pushing the launch date back by two months. If you were to respond to your sponsor in this way, you would be both gently refusing their request and offering them an alternative that could work for your team.

While a simple “no” response might frustrate the person making the request, gentle pushback paired with alternative options can protect your team from new work while preserving your professional relationship with stakeholders. If your stakeholders trust your leadership abilities and perspective, then they will be more likely to accept your pushback and alternative solutions.

Intervening from behind the scenes

Another way project managers provide air cover for their teams is to master the challenge of  delicately intervening from behind the scenes when a stakeholder is making unrealistic requests or offering unreasonable critiques. 

Continuing with our coffee company example, you know how hard your team has been working to launch the new products. To avoid causing the extra stress that might come with the knowledge that the stakeholder wants to increase their workload, you avoid sharing this request with your entire project team.

This doesn’t mean you need to come up with a solution all by yourself, however. Instead of calling a team meeting to discuss the stakeholder’s request for a new flavor, you consult with only two trusted members of your team to help brainstorm solutions. One of these team members mentions that they know two new flavors are slated to be added to the fall product lineup in six months, and that perhaps the caramel flavor could be launched then instead of with the current group. This would give your team more time to work on developing the product while still fulfilling the stakeholder’s request. 

Ultimately, you bring the suggestions of adding the flavor to the fall product lineup or pushing back the launch date of the current lineup to the project sponsor, and they accept your solution to launch the new flavor in the fall.

Managing the expectations of your stakeholder while looping in relevant teammates on a need-to-know basis was essential here. This allowed your team to focus on their work without the possibility of an increased workload or an unnecessary distraction.

Key takeaway

Providing air cover for your team takes practice. It requires a careful balance of the needs of your stakeholders and the needs of your project team. As you become more experienced in leading projects, you will develop a stronger sense of how to manage nuanced situations like these and provide the air cover your team needs to do their best work. 

Ethical leadership is a form of leadership that promotes and values honesty, justice, respect, community, and integrity. As the leader of a project team, you will be expected to help your team succeed by leading with ethics. Building respect and trust with the teams you work with—from individuals to external partners to project stakeholders—begins with practicing ethical conduct. 

In this reading, you’ll gain an understanding of a common framework for ethical decision-making that can help you ensure your actions align with the ethical standards of your organization.

Ethics within your organization

Ethics can be defined as the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group. However, there is no single, universally-accepted grouping of ethical standards—these definitions differ based on the culture and community at your company. In the working world, ethical standards may differ based on profession, industry, and organization. Usually, an organization will have its own code of conduct which specifies the standards to which it holds its employees accountable. 

Here at Google, our code of conduct makes clear the expectations that we have for our employees and board members. It is possible that the organizations you will join throughout your career will have codes of conduct, too.  

Part of the challenge of leading with ethics is ensuring that your actions align with the ethical standards of your community, both within your organization and beyond it. In your role as a project manager, a clear framework for ethical decision-making can help guide you to make positive decisions throughout your project.

A common framework for ethical decision-making

The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University developed the following framework as a helpful guide for ethical decision-making. 

Recognize an ethical issue

According to this framework, you can begin to question the ethics of an issue by asking yourself questions about the nature of the issue. Could your decision negatively impact another person or group of people? Does the issue go beyond what is legal or efficient? From there, you can proceed onto fact gathering.

• Example: A vendor you have worked with in the past sends you a generous holiday gift shortly before you are about to select a vendor for a particular task in your project. If you accept the gift, would others be negatively impacted? To determine the answer to this question, get more facts.

Get the facts

Decide what you should do about the issue, and seek answers as needed. Consult with the right people to consider all of the options available to you.

• Example: Continuing with the example above, you should check to see if your company has ethics guidelines regarding accepting gifts from external parties. If not, consult with your HR representative about the matter.

Evaluate alternative actions

You can evaluate alternative actions by asking yourself the following questions:

• “Which option will produce the most good and do the least harm?”

• “Which option best respects the rights of all who have a stake?” 

• “Which option treats people equally or proportionally?”

• “Which option best serves the community as a whole, not just some members?”

• “Which option leads me to act as the sort of person I want to be?”

Note that your answers to these questions are subjective, and you may want to elicit the opinion of others before deciding on an alternative action.

• Example: In the case of the vendor gift example, the answer to the question “Which option treats people equally or proportionally?” might be “decline the gift,” given that accepting it might influence your decision about who to award the contract to.

Make a decision and test it

Once you have chosen an option, test it by imagining the reaction to your choice from a person whose opinion you value. 

• Example: Once you have decided to decline the gift, discuss your decision with your manager, HR representative, or a trusted colleague.

Act and reflect on the outcome

Consider how to carry out your decision with thoughtfulness and care, and after you act, consider the results of your decision.

• Example: Respectfully decline the vendor’s gift, noting your reason (for example, your company’s ethical guidelines state that employees are not permitted to accept gifts valued at more than $20 from vendors or contractors).

Key takeaway 

A framework like this one can help you feel better-equipped to make ethical decisions regarding your project and team, which is a central component of ethical leadership.

Like so much of project management, ethical leadership takes diligence and practice, and it is crucial to build this skill. As you become more comfortable leading project teams, you will strengthen your ability to make decisions that you can feel good about. Gaining trust and respect from the people you work with can make it easier to influence without authority. If those around you trust your decision-making, they may be more likely to try to help you achieve project goals, even if you aren’t their direct manager. 

Introductions in literature are important. Think of the opening lines of a good book—they help set the tone for what the reader can expect going forward. Introductions are important in project management too, especially when you are hoping to influence a stakeholder to consider and approve a new plan or idea. 

In this reading, we will help you apply techniques you can use to influence others. We will take you through the steps of creating a strong influencing statement that opens the conversation and sets you up for success with your audience.

What is influencing?

First, let’s review what it means to influence another person. Influencing is the ability to alter another person’s thinking or behaviors. If you have ever tried to persuade another person to understand your point of view, then you know that influencing is easier said than done.

Conger’s four steps

In his article, The Necessary Art of Persuasion, Jay A. Conger identified four steps to effectively influence another person to consider new ideas. 

As you learned earlier, those steps are: 

1. Establish credibility

2. Frame for common ground

3. Provide evidence

4. Connect emotionally 

Throughout your career in project management, there will be times when you will need to influence someone to consider an idea, approve a plan, or complete a project task. Conger’s four steps provide a useful framework for thoughtfully approaching conversations that are important to project success and influencing stakeholders. Let’s explore each step further before applying them to an influencing statement:

1. Establish credibility

When trying to persuade another person to listen to you, it helps to establish credibility. Ask yourself, why should this person listen to you? According to Conger, it is best to draw credibility from both expertise and relationships. 

You can build credibility by showing a level of expertise on the topic at hand. It also helps to have “a history of sound judgement.” If you find that you lack expertise on a subject, don’t worry! You can work to increase your knowledge through education or research, or you can even ask an expert for help.

You can also build credibility through strong relationships with your audience and others around you. Conger found that influential leaders tend to show their trustworthiness and willingness to do right by their colleagues over time, and in turn, people are more likely to listen to them.

2. Frame for common ground

The next step in effectively persuading people is to frame for common ground. You can do this by making a case for how your idea would benefit your audience, and you can determine how your ideas will benefit your audience by gaining a strong understanding of them and what they value. Pay close attention to what matters to your audience by listening carefully and gathering information during meetings and conversations. Then frame your ideas based on your audience’s needs and interests. 

3. Provide evidence

The third step is to provide evidence that supports your ideas. As Conger notes, though numbers are important, the best persuaders pair numbers with vivid language. They share stories, examples, and metaphors to help influence their audiences. Using vivid language can help bring your figures to life and draw stakeholders’ interest to your proposal.

4. Connect emotionally

The fourth step is to connect emotionally with your audience. In this step, you illustrate that you are emotionally invested in the idea that you are presenting. But crucially, Conger notes, you must also do your best to determine and match the emotional state of your audience.

Applying Conger’s steps to an influencing statement

Conger’s four steps—establish credibility, frame for common ground, provide evidence, and connect emotionally—are meant to be applied throughout important conversations with those whom you aim to influence. But to set yourself up for success during these conversations, you can apply the four steps to the influencing statement that sets the stage for your idea. 

Let’s discuss how Conger’s four steps come together in the following example: 

Carmen is a project manager at a small marketing agency. She would like to convince a human resources director at her organization to approve a new process for onboarding new graphic design employees.

Though the company has an existing onboarding process, this process is the same for all new hires, regardless of role. As a project manager working in the human resources department, she learns that it is hard for newly-hired graphic designers to onboard since there are only a few people who hold graphic design roles at the company. Carmen identifies that there is a lack of information available for new graphic design hires to turn to for learning about procedures and software specific to their role. 

Carmen would like to propose that all new graphic design hires receive a digital welcome packet containing guidelines for installing software, processes to be aware of, and other design-specific onboarding documents. Carmen developed a similar process in her role at a previous company, and it received a positive response from employees. She thinks a similar process will work for her new organization too, so she sets up time with her director to present her idea.

To influence her director to approve the new process, Carmen opens her presentation with a strong influencing statement:

I’d like to propose a new onboarding process for graphic design hires. 

(Provide evidence) In reviewing our new hire surveys, 80% of recent graphic design hires have assigned a negative rating to our onboarding process. When I followed up  with respondents, I learned that our graphic designers lack access to relevant information that could help them acclimate to our organization faster. To address this issue, I would like to create a digital welcome packet containing design-specific onboarding documentation.

(Frame for common ground) I have met with leaders on the graphic design team to discuss this idea, and they agreed that a design-specific onboarding process might help increase the productivity of new hires, since a better onboarding process would enable them to be better prepared to take on projects in their first few weeks on the job.

(Establish credibility) In my previous role, I designed a similar, role-specific onboarding process, which increased our new hire satisfaction rates by 60%. I think a new process could benefit employees here, as well.

(Connect emotionally) It can be overwhelming to join a new company. A smoother, more personalized onboarding experience might help set the tone for the kind of support new graphic design hires can expect from our team. 

Key takeaway

In this influencing statement, the project manager:

• Provided evidence from company surveys to set the stage for her proposal.

• Framed for common ground by noting how a new onboarding process might increase employee productivity.

• Established credibility by outlining her previous experience with launching similar processes.

• Connected emotionally by encouraging her audience to reflect on past experiences they may have endured as a new hire. 

By opening with a strong influencing statement, you can set yourself up for a successful conversation that is more likely to persuade your audience and achieve your goals.

You may have attended a few meetings that you did not think were the best use of your time. Frequent and unproductive meetings tend to have a negative impact on individual and team productivity and well-being. In this reading, you will learn best practices for ensuring productivity before, during and after meetings.

Plenty of things can make meetings unproductive, but an internal study at Google revealed that productive meetings have three elements in common:

1. Active participation from attendees

2. A clear and concise agenda that is followed throughout

3. The correct attendees (meaning the participants can contribute to achieving the meeting’s goal)

Follow this checklist to help achieve these aims and facilitate more productive meetings for you and your project team:

Before the meeting

• Prepare an agenda that states the purpose and goals of the meeting, and share the agenda with participants.

• Only invite people who need to be there and who can help reach the goals of the meeting. Make participants’ roles and responsibilities for the meeting clear. Add non-essential participants as optional to the meeting invitation.

• If you are working with people in different time zones, share the time zone burden by alternating recurring meeting times.

• Evaluate the need for the meeting and cancel if it isn’t necessary. Consider whether the meeting content can be covered via email. 

• Schedule shorter meetings. Meetings tend to expand to the time allotted to them, so try to get more done in a shorter amount of time.

• Set aside time to prepare for the meeting. Read the necessary materials, review the agenda, and come ready to participate. 

During the meeting

• At the beginning of the meeting, clearly state the meeting goals. Stick to the agenda throughout the meeting to avoid getting derailed. For recurring meetings, review the action items from the previous meeting to ensure accountability. 

• Encourage participants to put phones and laptops away during meetings and silence notifications, if possible.

• Practice and demonstrate active listening. Respond verbally (e.g., “That makes sense. Tell us more.”) and non-verbally (through head nodding and eye contact) to show engagement.  

• Encourage participation and give everyone a chance to speak, including remote participants. Ask open-ended questions like, “What does everyone think?” instead of “Does everyone agree?”

• Help everyone relax and feel more comfortable by starting meetings with open-ended, personal questions like, “How was your weekend?”

• Capture key points, action items, and decisions from the meeting, and assign action items to the appropriate meeting participants.

After the meeting

• Recap key decisions, action items, timelines, and notes and send out to participants.

• Schedule necessary follow-up meetings with relevant context.

• Assess the need for and frequency of recurring meetings. Schedule meetings less frequently, if possible.

Pro Tip: If you are new to the company or team, find out about and try to apply their typical meeting practices before making any major changes.

Key takeaway

Productive meetings generally require active participation from attendees, a clear and concise agenda that is followed throughout, and the correct attendees. Following the best practices for before, during, and after meetings described here can help you have more productive meetings. When less time is needed for meetings because meetings are more productive, more time can be devoted to project tasks.