My Kindle book, “Project Management for the Real World“, is now available in the Kindle Store at
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B089KRDDVN
If you like this blog, you will benefit from reading this book.
My Kindle book, “Project Management for the Real World“, is now available in the Kindle Store at
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B089KRDDVN
If you like this blog, you will benefit from reading this book.
The Project Management Institute (PMI) encourages its members to advance the profession. One of the ways to do this is by helping others increase their project management skills. The target audiences for this blog are professional PM’s early in their careers as well as those who manage projects but are not PM’s by title or trade. I will be posting every week or so, offering practical tips and tools on the full range of project management topics. I hope you will find this useful and help you advance your career.
If your company uses Microsoft Windows for your computers, chances are you also have the free version of SharePoint available to you (ask your Windows administrators). If you do, SharePoint is a wonderful tool to use to assist in Project Management and to enhance communication and collaboration on a project.
In the upcoming posts I will address the following topics:
I am not going to describe the mechanics of working with SharePoint. Microsoft has plenty of online resources and courses to help you with that. I will focus on how you can take advantage of SharePoint features and functions to assist your project management.
Note: Much more detail on Setting Up A Project SharePoint Site can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at
One way to monitor and track the status of your project is to conduct a recurring project status update meeting. For most projects, weekly will suffice. Attendees should be the work stream leaders and key contributors. These meetings should be structured and have a standard framework that the attendees know in advance so they may prepare. Like all meetings, they also should be efficient. Stay on topic and finish early if possible.
Here is a recommended framework:
For larger projects I create a form for each work stream with the structure above. I update it at the status meeting and distribute it to the work stream owners at the end of the meeting. The work stream owners update the form by end of day two business days prior to the next meeting and send it to me. This has worked very well and I highly recommend this process.
Note: Much more detail on Status Meetings can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at
Your Project Status Reports, like all communications, will vary with the audience. For large projects, your two main audiences are the Executive Steering Committee and the Project Sponsors. All status reports should have heading level information such as the Project Name and Number, a brief description, and the date and author(s) of the report.
Listed here are the elements I recommend including on the status report, with the designation “ESC” if you should include this item on the Executive Steering Committee report and “PS” for inclusion on the Project Sponsor report.
You can use MS Word, Excel or PowerPoint to format the report. Make it pleasing to the eye and uncluttered. In a future post, I will show you how to design a status report page on your SharePoint Project Site.
Note: Much more detail on Status Reporting can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at
Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Risk Health:
Your Risk Health is Green if all of these are true:
Your Risk Health is Yellow if any of these are true:
Your Risk Health is Red if any of these are true:
Note: Much more detail on creating a the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at
Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Resource Health:
Your Resource Health is Green if ALL of these are true:
Your Resource Health is Yellow if ANY of these are true:
Your Resource Health is Red if ANY of these are true:
Note: Much more detail on creating a the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at
Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Value Health:
Your Value Health is Green if ALL of these things are true:
Your Value Health is Yellow if ANY of these are true:
Your Value Health is Red if ALL of these are true:
Note: Much more detail on the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at
Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Scope Health:
Your Scope Health is Green if all of these are true:
Your Scope Health is Yellow if all of these are true:
Your Scope Health is Red if one of these is true:
Note: Much more detail on the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at
Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Budget Health:
Your Budget Health is Green if all of these are true:
Your Budget Health is Yellow if all of these are true:
Your Budget Health is Red if either of these are true:
Your budget health can turn back to Green if you obtain approval for a new budget. The new budget becomes your new baseline from which you will measure budget health.
Note: Much more detail on the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at
Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Schedule Health:
Your Schedule Health is Green if:
Your Schedule Health is Yellow if:
Your Schedule Health is Red if:
Note: Much more detail on the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at
Some years ago, a company I worked for invested in improving our Project Management practices. They engaged with IBM professional services for 6 months to guide and mentor the in-house Project Managers. The first thing the IBM consultants did was establish a baseline that would be used to measure success at the end of the engagement. This baseline was “The Project Health Scorecard” (aka “PHS”). The PHS was measured at the beginning and end of the engagement as evidence of progress in our project management practices. I am a big fan of this concept and now use it on my project dashboard for all of my projects.
The PHS is an “early warning system” for potential project trouble. In that sense it is a child of Risk Management. Because of its condense and concise nature, it is appropriate for use in Project dashboards as well Project Portfolio dashboards, where you can see the health of all active projects at once. I typically update the PHS weekly in the regular project status meetings.
The PHS contains six key measures of project management best practices. Each measure is given a status value of “green”, “yellow” or “red”. I will present each of these measures along with the guidance for status values in an upcoming six part series as follows:
Note: Much more detail on creating the Project Health Scorecard and other Project Management topics can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at