1

Planning Project Resources

A project can begin and certainly is designed to fail if there first wasn’t a plan devised to see it through, on time and within budget. The project manager’s first role is making a feasible plan that achieves the goals and objectives of the project and aligns with the organization’s overall business strategy. ​

Part of the plan is defining the project’s scope and determining what resources are available, estimating time and financial commitment, as well as how to monitor and report on the project’s progress.

2

Assembling and Leading Project Team 

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Project managers need resources to complete the project tasks, which includes skilled and experienced workers. PM's either take a leadership role with an existing team or create one.

Once a team is created, they assign them tasks and deadlines, give them the tools to collaborate and don’t get in their way by micromanaging every activity. Meet regularly, of course, and get status updates to chart their progress while reallocating resources as needed to avoid blocking team members or overburdening them.

3

Time Management

Time is always ticking towards the project deadline. While communications is key to addressing changes and make sure everyone is doing what they need to do when they need to do it, the project manager must also define, schedule and accurately estimate the task duration to develop and maintain a realistic schedule.

4

Budgeting

Nothing is going to get done without money. Figuring out what the proper funding for the project is, having that get accepted and then keeping the project within or under that figure is often what makes or breaks a project.

PM's can get stakeholders their deliverables on time, but if that cost more than the budget initially created, then the project is a failure. Making an accurate estimate is only the first part. Next, PM's must monitor the actual spend as compared to the planned budget. If those figures are off, it must be adjusted accordingly. 

5

Quality and Satisfaction

These are two major hurdles to clear. PM's want to deliver to the stakeholders what they expected or better and make sure that they’re satisfied with the results. But that doesn’t mean ignoring them to focus solely on the project. Rather, we need to be in constant communications with them, reporting on progress and being open to their feedback to keep them happy and coming back to us with future projects.

6

Manage Issues and Risk

Problems will inevitably arise in a project. That’s called an issue. PM's need to be ready for them and work towards resolving them quickly, so as they don’t take the project off-track. Then there are risks, which are potential problems, ones that have yet to occur or might not ever. Regardless, we must figure out beforehand what the risks are and set in place a plan of action if they in fact occur.

7

Monitoring Progress

To make sure a project is progressing as planned, PM's must constantly measure it and compare those metrics against the plan originally created. Therefore, PM's must have a way to collect project data, such as status reports from the team, to see if the actual progress of the project is meeting what was initially planned.

Things are going to change along the way, and we need to adjust or reallocate resources to accommodate these changes. If we are not monitoring this, then we are managing in the dark.

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And as the famous saying goes..."'What can not be measured, can not be managed'"

8

Reporting and Documentation

Reporting is one of the ways we communicate with our team and stakeholders. While teams need more detailed information, stakeholders are looking for broader data to check the project’s progress, both are essential tasks for the project manager.

All documentation, along with all paperwork, must be collected, signed off and archived by the end of a project, which provides a history that we can revisit when planning for a similar project in the future.

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Frontiers with PMP certification and vast experience of designing and managing a large number of complexed and high net worth projects can definitely add value to our client's projects.

Frontiers adopt Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Lean, Six Sigma and PMBOK based PMP tools & methodologies for each of the projects, depending upon the situations and contexts.

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