By Allan Jones
The podcast currently has 6 episodes available.
Chapter one the introduction, who will produce the business case plus lets discuss those risks
Chapter two the how much
Chapter three the what and the when
Chapter four the who
Chapter five the why are we doing this project
Lastly Chapter seven where are going to build it
In summary in this podcast
This whole episode with all the Chapters is no more than 17 minutes long
To start with here are considerations we may need to think about before we begin to produce the business case. So if you don’t need this introduction you can skip to the next chapter
Chapter one who will produce the business case and those risks again?
What are talking about here, this is the idea or problem to be solved or addressed by the organization and who will produce the business case itself?
Where did the idea come from?
One of the next questions should be what, problem is it, that the project is addressing, is this just a new idea, born from the Chief Executive or the Vice President, as they stepped out of the shower that morning?
These may include mergers and acquisitions, digital IT software developments, process improvements, purchase or the refurbishment of new buildings or new housing developments, civil engineering works etc.
The responsibility for the approval of the business case rests with the project sponsor. That’s right the project sponsor and not the project manager. The project manager may have had an input to the business case and indeed may have written several of the sections, but the overall sign off responsibility rests with the project sponsor
The business case risks
These risks are sometimes not discussed or the risks are ignored at this stage, as the risk identification process, can be perceived as a minor inconvenience. This can mean the risks are not identified until much later in the project life cycle. As the impact of a major risk, can have grave consequences for the project or the wider organization. This is because, as the project progresses the costs of any changes to the project, have a greater cost in the later project phases, this is due to the project being underway and may even have completed some of its deliverables or met some outcomes, than if the risks had been addressed at the outset of the project. In addition, the risks once identified should be assessed for there likely probability and impact. Following this the questions should be asked can these risks probability of occurrence and impact be reduced or negated
This is usually because the stakeholders have not undertaken a full risk assessment of the proposed idea or problem at the outset of the project
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Introduction to the project management online podcast series. This series is to make you more effective at what you do, as a project manager
I’m Allan and I have over 15 years project and programme management experience and 11 years of teaching project management in a University, I also was awarded an MSc in project management and I am a fellow of the APM and a fellow of the CMI and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
In this podcast, in Chapter one you will learn about the difference between project risks and issues.
Risk events and issues
Risks events according to the APM are a future event or occurrence which may or may not occur and if the risk event does occur this will have a negative impact, on the project objectives or deliverables or outcomes.
So where do risks come from?
Simplistically, risks occur due to the level of uncertainty present on our project. There have been a number of authors. who have researched this concept of uncertainty and they have concluded, that uncertainty or certainty residual uncertainty is ever present on our project. Which explains why in the middle of our project a risk seems to suddenly occur, as if appearing from nowhere when in fact the risk was as a result of uncertainty. Refer to DEmeyer, Loch and Pich in their paper titled from variation to chaos in 2002. They maintain that uncertainty is ever present on all projects and that in their view most project managers ignore or fail to recognise the uncertainty or fail to address the uncertainty on their project
A risk may present as a threat or it may present as a positive opportunity to enhance the project.
This concept of a positive opportunity, we are not generally familiar with, as traditionally risk has always been considered as bad and a negative threat. Some years ago the planning for risks, was short term and crucially only considered as a single risk event. Whereas, today we now know that some risks, impact our project and have related family of risk events or what I refer to as secondary risks, associated with them.
In years past the consideration of consequential impact was not fully understood, whereas today risk events are assessed in more detail for there consequential impact, not only on our project but also on other related projects or indeed for impact to the wider organisation or business
Whereas today, we know now project risks can and do present as opportunities
The other aspect which we need to be aware of that risks may not occur as single events, the risks tend to occur with consequential impact and as a series of related risks, that due to the fact they are related cause these consequential impacts.
What is an issue?
An issue is generally described as a risk event, that has impacted the project and we are now dealing with or an issue is usually where the project manager is about to go out of tolerance, these are referred to as an issue
How to rate risks
How to assess risks and how to integrate project risks into your project schedule
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In this podcast you will learn in Chapter 1 about project stakeholders, crucially the differences between primary and secondary stakeholders.
Chapter 2 what’s in it for them as a stakeholder
Chapter 3 How to manage project stakeholders
Chapter 4 summarise the podcast discussion on project stakeholders
Primary stakeholders are the key group of people and are those folks, I would suggest are the most important group of stakeholders, with the main stakeholder being and defined by the a number of professional bodies such as the APM, as the project sponsor. The project sponsor is the main stakeholder responsible for the business case, that is right the project sponsor is responsible for the business case and not as most people want to think the project manager. In reality, the project manager will most likely, and I certainly did do this, will need to get involved in producing a lot of the content or organising for the content to be produced
A project stakeholder can simply be defined as someone who has a direct interest in the outcome of your project. This could be the end user of an IT digital system or the office worker moving into a new building. Crucially, the primary stakeholders are the people who have the authority and power over the project itself and usually the project manager reports in to that person. I do appreciate the project manager can and sometimes does report into a steering group or oversight committee.
Other examples of interested stakeholders are the public along the route of HS2 as these people are interest ed in where the actual rail link will be The main project sponsor is identified as the one that has control of the budget or the money. This is the one person we need to go to as the project manager to obtain sign off of key project documents and provide support to the project
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Introduction to what is a project
Project are Unique – every project is different, and whilst they might be similar, or appear on the outset the same, they are different. Transient are a temporary structure to achieve planned organisation outcomes or objectives
Every project should have an agreed and clearly defined start and a defined finish. I have worked on projects where the project seems to never end and as one person stated, they were managing the issues in live operation!
The project Objectives and benefits should be defined at the outset and should intend to add stakeholder value to an organisation through the realisation of the project benefits. If the project cannot deliver the agreed business benefits, the project should be closed down early, so as not to waste the organisations resources. Clearly, at the point of early closure, you will have sunk costs in your project. Sunk costs are monies or costs you have already paid out or committed to paying for
What is a project
What is a project and how are these projects different form the business as usual activities. Projects generally have defined capital budgets, whereas operations or BAU activities, typically have operating cost or OPEX budgets.
In this context, what is a project is a single project delivered by one project manager, the definition of a project is a single project, which is often referred to in the construction industry as a PROGRAMME of works or just the programme. Whereas, to the APM, the generic definition of a programme is a number of projects, which together will deliver strategic benefit, to an organisation, please see www.apm.org.uk
Projects are temporary structures, that will exist for an agreed fixed duration to deliver business benefit. Whereas, the operational BAU world is a continuous process, whereby the same work or the same products are produced every day. For example, in manufacturing, manufacturing products such as cars, which may employ continuous improvement.
Project Time
Time is the agreed project duration of when the project will actually be completed
Project Cost
The project cost is the agreed budget, agreed with the project sponsor. This project budget is just the cost of the resources, materials and any plant, it is the build up of these elements, plus any contingency, plus a management reserve
Project cost + contingency (10%) + a management reserve (5%) = a simple budget
Project Quality
The quality is the deliverables or outcomes which have been built to the correct specification and tested, to be fit for purpose
Stakeholder value
Stakeholder value is delivering the agreed objectives, outcomes, to ensure the organisation or business realises the project business benefits. These benefits may be realised some time after the project has completed.
The primary stakeholder is what is known as the project sponsor, they agree the project objectives with the project manager
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This podcast, takes you through how to get the best out of project planning or scheduling software, by applying the base settings correctly to MS Project and then how to add people, as resources to the resource sheet
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This podcast is about adding project people as resources to project planning software, such as, MS Project, using the resource sheet and then how you view the overall project resource costs
Support the show (https://projectmanagerpodcast.online/support-the-show/)
The podcast currently has 6 episodes available.