Now the next mistake to avoid is quite different to all of the others because it's not to do with the
technical side of planning and numbers and calculating is to do with people.
And I think there's a risk that project managers don't involve their team enough.
They think well I'm the project manager I need to sit down and do this plan and I need to do it all
myself.
And that's a real shame because why not involve your team.
Your team will be more motivated if they're involved but also the project will be run better.
The plan will be better the carrying out of the project will be better if you involve the team.
So I would involve the team in pretty much every one of my 12 steps and that's just have a quick look
through the 12 steps and just see which ones you'd involve the team with.
So step one was to define the project and I think even then you know you want to involve the team and
say what do we think is going to be in scope and out of scope on this project what do we need to make
sure is is part of it.
So I would involve them even in step one probably.
Now that might just be a meeting you have with the customer.
You might evolve your team but definitely you need to talk to a few other people about what the project
is.
Then when you get to the planning clearly the listing of the tasks you want to involve the team and
have a big brainstorm of everything they can think of and you probably know more about it than the team.
But remember they will all have their own individual areas of obsession.
So they're all going to come up with little extra things you haven't thought of.
And even if between all of them they only come up with one more task than it was worth it because you've
got a better plan.
Plus you get buy in at an early stage.
So if the team are right in there at the beginning of the planning they're going to feel some ownership
of the project and that's great.
So you've definitely got to have all of the team at step 2.
Similarly estimating I would evolve the team and say how long do you think it's going to take.
What do you think is in a cost.
And one of the points about project management is that if you know this process you can plan and you
can deliver any project if you've got a good team.
So if I had to put a space rocket on Mars I could do it even though I know nothing because what I would
do is I would have a team and I would say to the team what are the tasks involved and then I would say
how long do you think these are going to take and how long are these going to cost.
And then I would say so which order should we do them in.
And I'm just a manager.
I'm just facilitating the process on time.
But that's great.
I mean that's adding value if somebody does have to bring it all together and facilitate it.
But if you involve the team on the estimating you're going to get much better estimates.
There's also a thing called the wisdom of the crowds which says that if you want to estimate something
the more people you are ask providing they obviously know what they're talking about.
The more people you ask the more accurate your estimate will be because statistically half of them will
overestimate and half will underestimate.
So if you're doing that pub game where you have to guess how many pennies are in the jar.
By all means have a guess yourself for what you should do is get 10 friends or even 50 friends to all
guess.
Just take the average of all of their estimates and you will win that prize.
That's what the wisdom of the crowd says.
Try it sometime you'll find it's true.
So the more people involved in the estimating the better.
Step Four was the network diagram with the post-its that I showed you just now.
Again involve the team.
They love it it's fun and you're going to end up with a better plan even if they've had no plan no training
at all.
They will understand what you're doing and then step five how do we speed up the plan if we're not happy
with what we've got.
Again the team will have suggestions of how we can speed it up and you really do need them to be involved
and have some buy in with that stage because they're not going to like it if you single handedly unilaterally
speed up their plan.
So involve them with that.
Then there's the drawing of the Gantt Chart.
Step Six now I think this is probably the only stage which you might have to do on your own.
You probably need to sit down and Excel and just type it into the Gantt Chart.
You might delegate it but I don't think you could really involve the team in that once you've got the
Gantt Chart.
You then look at resources you might discuss that a bit with the team of who's going to do what and
how flexible Would you be able to do this one for me.
So I perhaps would evolve the team with the resources.
The last bit of planning is risk.
I definitely would involve the team on risk.
So we would brainstorm everything that might go wrong and then we would discuss amongst ourselves how
likely how serious how could we make those things less likely.
How can we make them less serious.
So definitely you want the team for Step eight.
You also must have the team from Step Nine which is where you report the progress.
So this would be probably a monthly meeting but it might be a weekly meeting and the team would all
mate and we would all talk about how we're getting on of course what this does is a little bit of pressure
on the people who are behind schedule because they have to come to the meeting and go on letting the
side down because I haven't done my bit.
So you must have the team for Step nine for the finance.
You could just review the finance.
But again if you do that same meeting it's good for the team to understand the finance and to see what's
happening.
And if if they are overspending they need to come and say well this is what I've done.
And you might want to ask them about how they can save money on on the remainder of their tasks.
Step 11 is rescheduling what are we going to do.
We're running late.
What can we do in the second half.
I definitely will involve the team for that.
The great news is you don't have to do it all yourself.
And finally the review again I would absolutely involve the team for the review.
We all go out for a meal.
Personally I like a curry in an Indian restaurant.
But you can always go Italian pizzas if you want.
All made up have a meal.
Celebrate the fact that you finished the project.
I actually think that the project manager probably should pay for that mail as well if if they can but
whatever.
Go out celebrate the fact you're finished.
Talk about what was good about the project.
We're going to repeat next time.
What was bad that we were going to avoid next time and what could we have done even better.
And that review of course has to involve the team so you can see we need to involve the team all the
way through.
Just because you're the expert doesn't mean you have to sit on your own all lonely in an office trying
to produce a plan that will not be as good.
So involve your team.