Contrary to popular belief, project management isn’t all fun and games. Anyone who’s done their time at the wheel knows that PM’s do their fair share of work that’s not exactly glamorous. In fact, they often have to fight the perception that they’re spinning their wheels while individual contributors get to move happily along creating tangible products.

We know that project managers make major strategic contributions by creating project charters, obtaining support of stakeholders, gathering requirements, coordinating team communications, and managing risks and costs. But layered underneath those activities is a set of “chores” every good project manager has to keep on top of, otherwise their projects start to get very messy. Here are some of the primary ways your project manager keeps a clean house:

1) Creating detailed work breakdown structures. 

The WBS is the foundation of every good plan. Project team members must know exactly what tasks need to be done before the work can be assigned, and estimated, and scheduled. People with short attention spans need not apply – this can take hours and requires a thorough, methodical process.

2) Verifying that tasks are estimated correctly at all times.

It’s not just the estimates at the start of the project that matter. Good project managers need to know how estimates and remaining work changes over the life of the project. So whether they take the more arduous path of collecting revised estimates from each team member and updating the plan themselves, or make things easier by having team members make their own updates in the tracking system, this chore can’t be ignored. If it is, the schedule dies and the ability to make informed decisions goes out the window.

3) Ensuring that all team members know what tasks they need to be working on.

Sounds a little like babysitting, doesn’t it? But when you’ve got multiple resources, dependencies, and concurrent projects, assignments needs to be clearly defined and prioritized. A good tool will support this process, but the PM must verify that the connections are being made and no one is sitting idle while a critical task is laying in wait. It’s resource management 101.

4) Plan clean-up and organization.

In any shared system like LiquidPlanner, regular clean-up passes should be done against the plan to keep tasks, projects, and portfolios organized and current. Is there one person who forgot to update their status last week? Has new work cropped up that needs to be reprioritized? It’s time for janitor duty – weekly plan maintenance keeps team members who log in to update from being annoyed or frustrated.

5) Regular health checks and reporting.

The two go hand in hand. Project sponsors and stakeholders want frequent, thorough, and nicely packaged reports on status, risks, and costs.  If the plan is up to date, reporting should be easy, right? Not necessarily. Many times the most important details about a project won’t be spit out automatically by a tool. Rather, the PM needs to distill the relevant information in a custom way, depending on the format requested, the context, and the audience. And in this case, looks count. Sharing a sloppily compiled update won’t cut it. The report may only be reviewed for a few minutes, but it can take much longer than that to create.

This list goes on, but you get the idea. So with all of these chores to take care of every day, why all the interest in the field of project management in the first place? Think of it like farming. The farmer’s job is anything but glamorous most of the time, but at the end of the day, she’s got a bountiful crop to show for it. Same goes for project managers – the time spent managing these details plays directly into how well they can accomplish big-picture business objectives. Those of us who’ve worked with good PMs know this to be a fact. 

So a big thanks to all you PMs out there. Our goal at LiquidPlanner is to make your lives easier with a good tool, so you can spend less time on chores and more time enjoying the fruits of your labor.

*It should be acknowledged that pretty much every job has its own chore list. We don’t mean to imply that if you’re not a project manager, you don’t have annoying things to do.

Project management is currently undergoing its own Cambrian era, the geological period some 500 million years ago in which an epic explosion in diversity and transformation took place.  Whereas just a decade ago there were only a handful of robust desktop project management applications available in the market, there are now dozens (if not hundreds) of products available on the desktop, online, and on mobile devices.

Likewise, the Web has enabled more voices to contribute to the evolution of the project management discipline. Here’s a list that the team at LP likes to follow. It’s reasonably thorough, definitely subjective, and full of people with interesting things to say.

Steve McConnell, founder of Construx and author of several groundbreaking books on software development and task estimation. Steve’s estimation book was hugely influential to the design of LiquidPlanner in terms of our approach of using ranged estimates.  Steve is one of the foremost thinkers today on the topic of software engineering and how the latest methodologies are bringing new efficiencies to light, enabling development teams to iterate faster and improve overall quality.

(Full disclosure: Steve serves on LiquidPlanner's board of advisors.) 

Bas de Baar. Based in the Netherlands, Bas is the man behind the popular Project Shrink blog which looks at project management through a humanistic lens. Bas understands that individual team members trump process and his blog digs deep into issues such as team dynamics, project leadership, and management techniques. His article, 25 Sure Fire Ways to Motivate Your Team Members should be required reading for anyone who manages a team.

 

Michael Krigsman. Michael is the author of the IT Project Failures blog, which as the name implies catalogs how and investigates why so many IT projects fall flat on their face. IT projects are unique from other projects in that they tend to have their own unique complexities (distributed teams, firm deadlines, etc.). His blog reminds me of that demotivation poster that depicts a ship sinking behind a setting sun with the caption: “Mistakes. It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.” By chronicling these IT failures, we too can (hopefully) learn from the mistakes of others.

Elizabeth Harrin. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to Elizabeth a few times since starting LiquidPlanner.  Her blog, A Girls Guide to Project Management, is a well rounded composition on virtually every facet related to project management. She also recently authored a well-reviewed book entitled Project Management in the Real World which includes more than 50 case studies drawn from a variety of industries. Her perspective as a woman in the project management discipline also informs much of her writing and provides some practical advice on how women in the field can better advance their careers.

Scott Berkun. While Scott doesn’t write about project management exclusively, the core themes that he regularly touches on are wholly relevant.  Having spent nine years as a program manager at Microsoft, he knows a thing or two about innovation and deadlines.  Scott is author of several best-selling books (including Making Things Happen), and his highly-opinionated style shows that he isn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers.  If you haven’t had a chance to see him speak, you should. Check out his classic lecture on The Myths of Innovation delivered at Carnegie Mellon.

Rick Freedman. Rick is the founder and principal consultant at Consulting Strategies. If that weren’t enough, Rick is a prolific writer who contributes regular, highly insightful columns to TechRepublic and CIO Update and has also authored several books on IT consulting best practices. Rick has made a name for himself these past few years writing about agile methodologies. His post from the beginning of this year provides some great, practical tips for transitioning to an agile methodology.

Jim Highsmith. One of the coauthors of the Agile manifesto, Jim is another leading thinker on the topic of agile project management (in fact, that’s precisely the title of his 2005 book). If anyone understands the concept of uncertainty in IT planning, it’s Jim. He recognizes that software development is a constantly moving target and that in order for traditional project management practices to succeed, they have to be highly adaptive.

Glen Alleman. In addition to serving as a Vice President for consulting firm Lewis & Fowler, Glen also authors the Herding Cats blog, which looks at project management from a variety of perspectives. As the name of his blog implies, large and complex projects often have multiple points of failure. From the mechanics of decision making and evaluating risk to estimation and scheduling, Glen brings the perspective of an experienced practitioner to bear on the quantitative aspects of project management.

Pawel Brodzinski. Pawel is another practitioner who shares his insights from the front line of software project management on the unambiguously named Software Project Management blog. Like Bas de Baar, Pawel writes mostly about the dynamics of successful teams, the qualities found in effective managers, and practical tips for software teams to build better software. Best of all, Pawel has a very candid and often funny style which makes a sometimes dry subject very entertaining.

Johanna Rothman. Johanna is the founder of Rothman Consulting Group and author of both the Managing Product Development and the Hiring Technical People blogs (as well as several books on these and other related subjects). As a consultant, Johanna also has a great deal of experience with implementing Agile methodologies and holds a number of different workshops aimed towards helping teams realize their agile ambitions.  

By no means is this a comprehensive list, but if you’re interested in staying atop the latest industry trends, be sure to keep tabs on the sites listed above. And if you’re on Twitter, here’s a list of handles:

Bas de Baar: twitter.com/projectshrink

Michael Krigsman: twitter.com/mkrigsman

Scott Berkun: twitter.com/berkun

Jim Highsmith: twitter.com/jimhighsmith

Pawel Brodzinski: twitter.com/pawelbrodzinski

Elizabeth Harrin: twitter.com/pm4girls

Johanna Rothman: twitter.com/johannarothman

About LiquidPlanner

LiquidPlanner is an online project management solution for scheduling, collaboration, and time-tracking in one easy package. We are focused on new and innovative features to meet the needs of this generation's project teams.