Management in Design

Management in Design

by Doug Berube

I think the best way to start a dialog about project management and designing the processes is to reflect on a project where I was the project manager. This anecdotal account will be a good summary of the process and the interaction with stakeholders.

A construction project has very specific procedures because most projects are awarded by the bidding process. The projects are also guided by a specification document and these procedures must be followed, as it becomes part of the contract documents. The specifications identify stakeholders by responsibility and this group becomes the construction team. This particular construction manager issued the contracts and scheduled a meeting to start the construction process. The agenda for the first meeting was to set up dates for progress meetings, coordination meetings, and scheduling meetings. The first priority is to complete a project schedule.

The scheduling meetings were very challenging because there are different skill levels between the stakeholders. All scheduling information from the stakeholders was required to be in the form of the critical path method with milestones as stated in the specs. On larger projects, the number of scheduling meetings can drag on for months because the process turns into negotiations between stakeholders, as they did. This process of building a construction schedule is also an opportunity to identify who is going to be a real contributor and who may be an anchor.

Once the schedule was complete and the construction started, the most critical process for a project manager starts. The critical process is risk management. Tracking the progress on the schedule and monitoring schedule creep could not be any more vital to the success of the project and stakeholders. A project manager has to monitor the deliveries and manpower loading of their own company; they have to monitor all the other stakeholders to verify that all deliveries and manpower loading were being met. Now, the second critical skill to implement is communication. Communicating with all stakeholders was used from the very being of the project. Stakeholder truthfulness is an important path to success. It is not necessarily bad if someone gets in trouble on the project if it is caught soon enough and the stakeholders are truthful from the start. A recovery schedule and plan signed off by all stakeholders can always be implemented and the project put back on track. Unfortunately truthfulness was not used by all stakeholders and the project became a disaster.  

The management toolkit must be designed to the type of project that needs to be managed. The proper management design foundation is communication; this will assure truthfulness and that will allow the ability to influence the cause and effects that might creep the schedule. Project managers should design a management plan that will fit their personality and the traits of the project which will help reduce stress and to increase the comfort of the project. But, all stakeholders have to be truthful and are 100% committed to the success of the project, which is their success.