There are so many times when I have seen written or heard talk of “project success” – but “project success” cannot always be easily defined. Yes, we could trot out the usual favourites that project success means completing the project on time, on budget and on scope, but often the genuine success of highly complex projects is not always as clear cut as that.

To really achieve business value from a completed project the success criteria should not only be well-defined but also measured. The definition of success in itself is not always an easy one to make without resorting to trite statements such as ” We want the new software to make the business task of xxx (insert your own words here) more efficient” but “efficient” is not then defined, or measured.

Research from PM Perspectives suggests that formally defining success leads to projects with a better outcome and clear benefits. But just how do you define success?

The Definition of Project Success

Organisations with well-established processes for defining success use a number of different categories of success; the main ones being:

• Business Success
• Project Management Success
• Technical Success

These standard categories do include the typical “on time”, “on scope” and “on budget” factors but go beyond these to include business benefits, meeting business objectives, stakeholder satisfaction, project team satisfaction and a range of other criteria depending on the type of project. So clearly project success is not just about delivering a product or service that meets the initial requirements.

Some companies even recognise a distinction between project management success and business success but how can these differing success criteria be measured?

The Measurement of Project Success

Measuring the business benefits achieved by delivery of a project is typically performed during the post-implementation review but this is often a rushed process (if it happens at all) and does not allow for tracking benefits over a long period. It is often a low priority due to limited resources, team members moving on to new projects and little management support.

And yet measuring project success is essential knowledge that leads to improvements in delivering projects and in the value realised by those projects, as well as in project management practices across an organisation.

Of course project success may be different for different types of projects and for different types of organisations but it is clear that success is more easily attained if we define it and measure it because we can then adjust the project as necessary to achieve success.

We should recognise that the following factors contribute to success:

• Document the success criteria at the beginning of the project.
• Ensure all involved parties agree on the success criteria
• Regularly measure progress and performance against the success criteria
• Modify the project to achieve the success criteria.

Projects are increasingly becoming part of the daily business of many organisations so the need for experienced and well-trained project managers is increasing as these organisations recognise the value of project managers with a track record of delivering complex projects successfully. Many organisations will have learnt the hard way that assigning an individual who has no prior experience or training to a project manager role generally leads to an unsuccessful outcome, so will have identified the need for controlled and structured project delivery through well-defined and documented processes.

Organisations are striving to improve the success rate of their projects by employing people with the right skills and qualifications or by investing in training their existing project managers. They understand the need for professionalism in project management so the opportunities to build a lasting career in the field have expanded with the consequent emergence of professional qualifications and accreditation in internationally recognised methodologies such as PRINCE2, APM or PMP. Well-trained project managers with globally recognised credentials are more motivated to succeed and build their careers and this is reflected in the quality of the projects they deliver. A 2011 Research Report “The State of Project Management Training ” from PM Solutions revealed an average 26% improvement across eight measures of project and business performance because of project management training initiatives.

The Association for Project Management (APM) offers a range of qualifications and accreditation for project management professionals from the Introductory Certificate for first-time project managers, through to the Registered Project Professional (RPP) credential that recognises prior training, practical experience in delivering complex projects in real commercial environments, competent leadership and a commitment to continuous professional development (CPD). The RPP is awarded through the preparation of a portfolio of work and an interview assessment and was devised as part of the process for the APM to become a chartered body with the aim of raising professional standards in project management. In the future many organisations will expect their project managers to have this level of designation and project managers themselves will want to be recognised with chartered status.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) also promotes the project management profession with internationally-recognised standards and credentials. But the benefits of such qualifications are more than just professional recognition – according to a PMI Salary Survey of 35,000 project managers in 19 countries, obtaining PMP Certification leads to salaries up to 10% higher than those of similarly experienced managers without the qualification.

These types of qualifications and credentials offer recognition for experienced project managers on a par with the well-established traditional professions such as accountancy and law.  And just as chartered status in traditional professions gives a client confidence in the abilities of the professional so similar credentials in the modern profession of project management instil the same confidence in clients and employers. Project management is rapidly becoming a highly-regarded profession with an attractive a career path.

But advancing your career in project management is about more than simply acquiring the right qualifications. Qualifications have to be backed up by professional credentials that prove you have the right experience and leadership qualities and are committed to continuous professional development.

In her article “The Value of Project Management Qualifications“, Lynda Bourne notes an increasing number of individuals investing in their own project management training particularly on courses where the project manager will achieve a recognised credential that will advance their careers.

It can seem difficult to find the time in a busy working day to undertake the training or coaching necessary to achieve a recognised qualification or professional credential but, as project management becomes more and more of a recognised profession, it is essential for career advancement to find that time. Once chartered status has been awarded to the project management profession, there will be even more of a distinction between those holding recognised credentials and those who do not.

I am a great advocate of communicating face-to-face with the project team, wherever possible, throughout all stages of a project. Being able to pose a casual question at the coffee machine that might never be voiced in a formal meeting can often be enlightening – whether that question comes from the project manager or one of the team. People can come up with innovative ideas when their minds are not constrained like they tend to be in a meeting with senior executives or, heaven forbid, the client.

Face-to-face communication helps to build a motivated team – the project manager understands the team members better because they are not always talking about work; the team members can raise concerns about the  project informally before they become serious problems; and creatively and technically the team can learn from each other. This is why open plan offices work so well – they encourage the flow of ideas. Very often simply voicing a question to a particularly complex problem can help in finding a solution so communication, or more accurately conversations, aid productivity and problem-solving.

Of course, there are also downsides to open plan working – the very interruptions that help the productivity of one team member might conversely slow down the productivity of the individual who is interrupted, but on balance, for a project team as a whole there can never be too much free and open communication.

At critical stages of projects I have worked on in the past, staff who have had a particular need for peace and quiet have been able to work from home for the occasional day so that they can get through the critical stage without interruption. This has enabled them to be highly productive without undermining the benefits of regular communication, the exchange of ideas, questions answered and individuals learning from each other.

In a recent article “Agile Interruptions” by Mike Griffiths he mentions that his team now use instant messaging as a way of making a less intrusive interruption when they need to ask a question that he can chose to ignore until it suits a particular point in the flow of his work. This is a great use of instant messaging when you know who to direct a specific question at but often you may want to throw a question out into the room because you don’t know who will have the answer, or indeed of there is an answer. Conversations are a series of comments, ideas, questions – one comment might lead to a question or to an idea – advice you didn’t know you were seeking can pop up – conversations are dynamic in a way that instant messaging is not.

But, nevertheless, I take his point of this sometimes being useful – it’s instant so someone knows you are trying to attract their attention because of an issue or question, yet at the same time ignorable.

I also liked Mike’s mention of Cave areas as suggested in Ken Auer’s book for quiet places to work un-interrupted – perfect if there is no opportunity to work from home, perhaps because of security and data access issues on your particular project.

Of course a project team all working in the same open plan office in the same city and in the same country and communicating freely is an ideal situation that many of us have not had the luxury of. I’ve worked on many projects where certain members of the team are in different countries and different time zones – add to that the language and cultural barriers and that is a real challenge. These challenges can be overcome but not easily and necessitate the use of electronic forms of communication.

But, in general, and where possible all team members sharing an office or building should be encouraged to talk face-to-face with all its advantages of being able to pick up on body language and facial expressions. Use instant messaging only as an occasional tool at certain times in the project when you don’t wish to interrupt someone’s concentration. Email should be sent to those sitting nearby only when it is necessary to document questions or decisions or seek formal approvals. After all you wouldn’t phone a colleague sitting nearby to ask a question so why message or email them?

Providing a project team with the temporary opportunity to work from home or in a quiet office when they simply need to get on and produce work at a high rate is, perhaps, the best option to minimise interruptions that reduce productivity. But maintain open plan spaces as the permanent working environment to encourage learning and the flow of ideas.

One area of project management that is essential in delivering successful projects is good communication but defining good communication is sometimes hard. Social media is certainly an inherent part of communication in many people’s business and personal lives but is there a place for it in project management? Can it enhance communications or is it simply an unnecessary intrusion on the day-to-day running of a complex project?

Many projects make use of online project management tools and online repositories for project documentation to enable easy access to both the latest versions of essential documents and all previous versions whilst also being eco-friendly in limiting the number of paper copies produced.

But using the freely available social media tools is an altogether different matter and are there any real benefits over using regular email or actually speaking to someone in person. We’ve all heard of the managers who email their team with regular updates and requests when they sit at adjacent desks and this attitude does nothing to enhance communication – in fact, the opposite. Of course, you might want a written record of a request but why not talk to the team first and send the written document to confirm the details of a conversation in writing. After all good project management is not all about covering your back.

But in large corporations members of project teams are not necessarily located in the same building, country or even time zone so direct person-to-person communication is not always possible and this is where social media tools, with properly defined and controlled guidelines, can enhance communication across a disparate team.

Social media does not simply consist of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like – it also includes blogs, document repositories such as DropBox, video and podcasts – all ways of enhancing communication on projects with respect to project status, risks and concerns.

Social media in its broadest sense covers a whole range of easy-to-use and freely accessible online tools that encourage and simplify communication between a group of people with similar interests by enabling interactive conversations and the exchange of information irrespective of physical location. But the fact that these tools are freely and readily available means that they are not the ideal place for confidential information about an organisation’s projects. Their use should require clear guidelines on exactly what type of information could be shared even within an invited community of users because security issues should be paramount. However useful these sites might be they do not have the same level of security that an internal system would have – some do not have proper version control or user access controls so should not be used for communications relating to important or confidential project information.

However, a secure blog can be used to share project information, air concerns and encourage discussion and resolution of problems by everyone involved on the project in an interactive way that cannot be achieved if a team is spread across the globe. A secure blog can be set up on an internal domain with controlled access to provide all the advantages of a blog without the security issues.

A blog can also be used to display images and videos in a more secure environment than for example Flickr or YouTube whilst still benefitting from this means of communication. It can gather together links to useful external sites and documents and automatically generates an archive of posts and comments.

Where information is less sensitive or is simply for a one-time presentation, webinar or online meeting then there are other useful tools such as Scribd, MeetUp and SharePoint that are worth checking out.

So there are some social media tools that can enhance communication in a project management environment, particularly for teams that are not based in the same location but this improved communication must always be considered in the light of the security measures available and the sensitivity of the information being communicated. Ease of communication should never outweigh the security of the information being communicated.

Project Managers tend to be a different breed to other managers but many of the skills and qualities required by good managers are the same attributes required by good project managers.  Some of the common responsibilities are to communicate effectively, to motivate your team or department and to ensure the necessary processes and procedures are in place for the project or department to function.

Managers and Project Managers exist in all industries and all professions and when an individual initially gains management responsibility they will need to build up their experience and knowledge to carry out the role effectively. This is usually done through training and learning from good role models.

In a recent conversation with Jennifer King, HR Analyst at Software Advice, I discovered that she had been talking to some recently-appointed managers and an executive coach to get their advice for all new managers. These tips are excellent and essential advice for every individual new to management, whether you are managing a project or a team of retail staff or a group of sales advisors. In fact, this is not just advice for new managers but advice that all project manages should think about from time to time. There is always room for personal improvement in all of us.

So here are the tips that Jennifer obtained:

Get to know your people and what they want

Take as much time as possible in the beginning of your transition to get to know your direct reports. Talk to them about their career goals, what they want out of their current position, and how you can best support them.

Learn to see your work through others

As a manager, you’ll likely be spending most of your time in meetings, discussions with senior management, and one-on-one conversations with your team, which will leave you less time to work on your own projects. You’ll eventually begin to see your work shine through your team as you give direction and offer guidance.

Listen

The ability to listen to your team and give guidance without assuming you immediately know the right answer will be critical as you spend more one-on-one time with your employees.

Develop your own style

While it may feel easy or natural to mimic the management tactics of your previous boss, those same tactics might not work for you. Instead, think about what they did and how you can learn from them to develop your own style.

Don’t expect to “get it” at first

One of the biggest misconceptions held by first-time managers is that they’ll be good at management from the get-go. In most cases, though, new managers need training and development just like any new hire within an organization.

 
Read the full article “5 Tips for First-Time Managers, From First-Time Managers”
 

The skill I have, personally, always found to be most useful is that of listening – this is an essential aspect of proper communication that is often overlooked by project managers who are new to the profession as well as those that have many years of experience.

If you have any tips for new project managers, perhaps advice on something you had to learn the hard way, why not share it with us?

Specialist training company Parallel Project Training, based in Reading, has grown in the 3 years since it was formed to dominate the Google search engine rankings for their niche market and seen their turnover increase 10-fold in that time to nearly three-quarters of a million pounds. The company has grown successfully in a time of general economic downturn by leveraging the power and reach of the internet and by embracing new forms of connecting with potential clients through social media.

The company’s founders have seized the opportunity to use online marketing techniques and social media to promote their training courses and interact with customers in order to establish a community of professional project managers at all levels. Naturally the company uses contemporary methods of delivering their project management training such as podcasts and e-learning but their success has been underpinned by professional face-to-face training and workshops across the UK.

Paul Naybour, Business Development Director of Parallel Project Training, remarked “Project Managers are always busy so we understood the need for a flexible approach to learning and a range of study options that would suit the diverse requirements of project managers at different stages of their careers. By offering remote training solutions that can be studied at a time and place to suit the individual we have been able to help a wider group of project managers to achieve professional qualifications. This flexibility and wide range of learning materials have been a significant factor in our success but so too has the depth of experience of our trainers and, of course, the importance of good value in the current economic climate.”

Parallel’s flexible approach to delivering project management training includes tailoring courses to the particular needs of corporate clients and offering training either in-house or at its own London and Reading training centres. They offer businesses and individuals training in all of the major recognised project management methodologies including APMP, PRINCE2 and PMP and have developed a reputation for a very high pass rate of over 95% amongst its course attendees in professional project management examinations.

Parallel Project Training has expanded their offering of project management training podcasts with the recent launch of a new series of podcasts aimed at time-strapped project managers preparing for professional exams. This series is specifically designed for those wishing to gain certification from the internationally recognised Project Management Institute (PMI). The beauty of podcasts is that you can listen and learn literally anywhere you choose – in the car, train or plane; up a mountain or on a beach or just at home with only an inexpensive MP3 player.

Aimed at preparing a candidate to pass the PMP Certification exam, the podcasts cover the essential concepts of professional project management as documented in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBok©). In addition they provide hints and tips accumulated through years of experience by the professional trainers from one of the UK’s leading project management training providers, including the style of questions to expect and exam techniques.

There are three key benefits to PMP Exam Prep podcasts:

• Challenge and motivate project managers
• Support more formal methods of project management training
• Flexible learning for progress at each individual’s own pace

Paul Naybour, Business Development Director of Parallel Project Training, remarked “We have been creating podcasts for over 2 years but they were primarily aimed at the UK market for APM exams. There was a clear gap in this type of learning support for project managers looking to take the PMP exams from the American Project Management Institute and with the growth of our PMP offerings in traditional workshops and e-learning courses it was the natural next step to introduce these flexible and very effective training options”

These PMP Prep podcasts, and all other Parallel Project training podcasts, are available entirely free of charge from their website.

The not-for-profit Association for Project Management (APM) offers a range of highly-regarded qualifications for project management professionals at all stages of their careers. There is the APM Introductory Certificate for those new to project management, or playing a supporting role in corporate projects for the first time, right through to the Practitioner Qualification (APM PQ) and Registered Project Professional (RPP) credential that recognise both learning and practical experience.

Project Managers involved in major projects that might be large scale or complex (or both) are expected by many organisations to hold one of these globally-recognised accreditations. Organisations such as BAA are actively working towards all of their project managers undertaking training to obtain the APMP qualification that underpins the project management profession. This qualification is not just about the theory of project management but draws on a body of knowledge that assists an individual to implement the theory in real commercial environments.

Organisations involved in the programme management of the London Olympic Park also view the APMP qualification as a fundamental training requirement for their professional staff and consider the APM PQ and RPP as pre-requisites to be appointed to run the most critical projects.

But the benefits of such qualifications are not purely to enable individual project managers to deliver projects more consistently and successfully – an independent 2011 review by specialist recruitment agency Arras People indicated that project professionals with an APMP qualification can expect to earn up to £10,000 per annum more than similarly experienced managers without such a qualification.

Fortunately, the benefits in terms of career progression and earning capacity for those with the APMP qualification do not exclude those who initially embarked on training in other recognised methods. For example, project managers with a PRINCE2 Practitioner level accreditation can study for the APMP via a shorter training course that takes account of their previous learning and experience with the PRINCE2 method.

It is often hard to find the time out of your day-to-day responsibilities to undertake professional training but with project management becoming more and more of a recognised profession it is essential for a successful career to find that time. The APM, with the support of 50 public and private sector organisations, is working towards achieving Chartered status for the project management profession in order to raise professional standards in project management. Once Chartered status has been awarded there will be even more of a distinction between professionals holding recognised credentials and others working in the field without recognised accreditation.

Fortunately there are many training options available for those who cannot attend a traditional classroom-based training course, such as e-learning, podcasts, webinars and short workshops with backup from established communities of project management professionals.

If you have completed the APMP and experienced the benefits to your own career first-hand why not let us know your own success story to help inspire others?

Parallel Project Training credits search engine optimisation (SEO) with their growth as one of the country’s leading project management training providers. Parallel Project Training recognised early on the importance to their success of developing a strong online presence and internet authority. To this end they embarked on an SEO campaign which has helped their turnover grow ten-fold in just 3 years.

SEO is an online marketing process that targets the first page of the search engine results in Google, and other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing, for particular search terms and particular pages of a website. Parallel Project Training were determined from the outset to achieve top search engine rankings by entirely ethical methods that would reflect the ethos of their growing reputation as a professional training provider.

Search Engine Optimisation involves a series of tasks aimed at indicating to Google that a website is trusted, authoritative and provides a visitor with information relevant to their search. It is a major factor in the success of every website whether commercial, educational or informational. It allows a site to influence web-visitors’ decision-making process and their perception of the professionalism of a website because a key element to successful SEO is high-quality content, whether that is text, video or audio. It ensures consistent and sustainable high rankings that lead to high visitor numbers but, more importantly, to the right visitors – those that will convert into a lead or a sale.

These factors have helped the Parallel Project Training website evolve into an authoritative and influential site that has benefitted the company’s image and enabled them to achieve success online and in the face-to-face world of project management training.

Paul Naybour, Business Development Director of Parallel Project Training commented “When we first established the company we recognised the need for more than just traditional marketing to ensure our success in an increasingly internet-focussed business environment. As a company offering innovative training solutions such as podcasts, webinars and e-learning it was vital that we developed a strong online presence. We chose a local SEO consultancy to help make this happen who could be flexible to our changing needs as the company grew.”

Michelle Symonds, SEO Consultant, remarked “Right from the start Paul was excited about the opportunities presented to Parallel by achieving high search engine rankings. As a relatively new company when I first became involved with them, they were ideally placed to embrace a marketing strategy focussing predominantly online and evolve their website to take advantage of knowledgeable potential customers.  Paul enthusiastically follows SEO developments and together we are constantly striving for ways to improve the company’s online visibility. By developing content for Parallel that will engage and interest visitors the company is building up a formidable reputation as the place to go for the very best training and information about the world of project management.”

Parallel Project Training’s turnover, which has grown in 3 years to almost three-quarters of a million pounds, is a direct reflection of the success of their SEO strategy.

When it comes to planning a project there are well-established collections of project management knowledge based on traditional methodologies such as those from the Association for Project Management (APM) or the Project Management Institute (PMI ). Such a “Body of Knowledge” places substantial emphasis on the importance of the planning phase. The phase includes not only scheduling of tasks but also managing risk, change and quality within a project.

And yet the growth of the Agile method, particularly for IT projects, suggests that rigorous adherence to completing the planning phase before starting on any other project work can be a waste of resources and worse, force the project down a pre-determined path that might prove to be unsuitable once the project is underway and there is a clearer view of how it will progress.

Many stakeholders on projects, IT or otherwise, are keen to see some tangible results early on and yet many weeks, or even months,  into some projects the planning stage remains incomplete. In simple terms on Agile projects some planning is done, then something tangible is produced and delivered, then more planning and further deliverables and so on. Whereas in projects with a more traditional approach the planning phase is performed thoroughly and completely before any work begins on the tasks that will produce a deliverable.

But is there a conflict between the Agile approach to project planning and more traditional methods? Could, in fact, the perfect solution lie in some compromise between the two? And is the best approach more likely to be determined by the type of project and less to a rigid adherence to a defined method?

Experienced project managers have always been able to take the best of any formal approach and combine it with the best working practises and personal experiences to develop a successful approach to managing projects. And whilst they recognise the usefulness of tools and processes they also recognise the importance of the people working on a project. And do not value detailed and complete documentation above anything else or demand a rigorous adherence to the plan. The best project managers are open-minded and flexible in their approach to managing projects and tend, in practise, to take an iterative approach to a project plan rather than a more traditional waterfall or linear method, which assumes that the plan was right at the outset.

Of course, this does not mean that the business requirements should not be detailed and complete and equally so for any technical and design specifications. And the more complex a project, particularly one where different, but dependent, tasks are running in parallel, the more the need for control and well-defined processes. A certain amount of control will be inherent simply because of the existence of requirements and constraints but giving some flexibility to capable individuals in carrying out tasks can lead to a more motivated team. The combination of capable, motivated teams is very often the key to successful delivery of a task or indeed the whole project.

So maybe there is room for controlled flexibility within the constraints of a proven method such as APM or PMP and rather than using formal project management methodologies as a rigid model for planning projects they can be used as an adaptable guide to assist in the successful delivery of a project.