Influence Maps
Uncovering Where the Power Lies in Your Projects
Also known as: Social Network Analysis
Many people can have influence over your projects. Some influencers are obvious and easy to spot. Others are less obvious, but are no less significant. If you fail to recognize and "manage" these influencers, you'll most-likely experience unexpected resistance to your projects, and sometimes bewildering failure. This is increasingly the case as you run large projects, and as the number of people affected by your projects increases.
People within your organization, at least, are supposed to work together openly and willingly. However, even here, your boss, your teammates, your customers, your boss's boss - even the CEO's nephew in the mailroom - can all impact you, given certain sets of circumstances.
However people outside your organization have all sorts of interests and motivations that you can't control. Here, knowing who influences who can be critical if you want to get anything done at all.
Influence Mapping
So do you understand who has influence over your projects? Do you know the nature, direction, and strength of these influences? After all, using the normal "chain of command" may not always be the best way to advance your objectives: Knowing who the real influencers are can help you determine where you should put your effort if you really want to succeed.
This is what influence mapping is all about - discovering your project's true stakeholders (not just the obvious ones) and the influence relationships between them. This helps you target the key influencers so that you can win the resources and support you need to reach your goal.
Influence maps are a natural extension of Stakeholder Analysis. Your project's success can depend on identifying its key stakeholders and then managing the various relationships between them. Stakeholders have the power to help or hurt your initiatives, so stakeholder management is an important aspect of project management. For more on this, see our Winning Support for Your Project Bite-Sized Training.
The Elements of an Influence Map
An influence map is a visual model showing the people who influence and make decisions about your project. The map helps you understand how stakeholders relate to one-another, so that you can quickly see the way in which influence flows.
Remember that even the most powerful people rarely act alone. Top executives and other people in authority rely on advisers. Find out who the advisers are, and understand how they operate. This can be vital to your project's success.
There are three main considerations when you construct an influence map:
The importance or weight of a stakeholder's overall influence (represented by the size of the circle representing that stakeholder).
The relationships between stakeholders (represented by the presence of lines or arrows between them).
The amount of influence stakeholders have over others (represented by the heaviness of the lines drawn between them).
Your completed influence map shows the stakeholders with the most influence as individuals with the largest circles. Lines (arrows) drawn to other stakeholders indicate the presence and strength of influence.
We'll use an example to illustrate.
You've proposed a new organizational structure that will encourage people to work in business units with cross-functional teams. You know this is a huge change, and you want to make sure it's well supported within the company before you try to implement it.
The most obvious stakeholders are:
CEO
Elizabeth Brown
CFO
Dennis Gordon
Director of Marketing
Pamela Enns
Director of Product Development
Jon Evans
Director of Human Resources
Wallace Houston
But are there other stakeholders as well? And who holds influence over whom?
Upon further investigation, here's what you discover:
The entire HR team will be important to the reorganization - but not just the director of HR. Francis Beaton, the newly hired change agent, will be especially important.
Elizabeth Brown has worked with Jon Evans for over 15 years, and she values Jon's input on strategic initiatives.
The board of directors is chaired by a longtime associate of Jon Evans. Like Elizabeth Brown, the board chair values Jon's opinions and has never objected to any initiative Jon has ever backed.
Wallace Houston and Dennis Gordon have a history of conflict. This is because Dennis was very late to realize HR's strategic value. Dennis still has difficulty spending money on HR projects, which he considers to be "soft" expenses. Getting Dennis's buy-in is critical if you want the financial resources needed for the change.
So when you look more closely, you can identify additional people who will have an impact on your reorganization plan. And not everyone has the same influence.
The resulting influence map looks something like this:
Drawn using SmartDraw. Click for free download.
This influence map clearly shows how important Jon Evans is to the success of your restructuring plan. It also indicates that you should spend energy on gaining support from Wallace Houston and Dennis Gordon before moving on to other executives.
Before you thought about stakeholder influences, you might have assumed that the CEO and CFO had the most influence on organization-wide change. But the influence map shows you that this is probably not for the case in this situation.
Influence is not static. It changes over time, just like the circumstances surrounding each project or decision. If you create influence maps at regular intervals, you'll chart these differences and gain a much greater appreciation for the way decisions are made. This will help you to smooth the decision making process and be more effective.
Creating an Influence Map
Follow these steps to construct an influence map.
Step One: Prepare a stakeholder analysis. This helps you identify, prioritize, and understand your key stakeholders.
Step Two: For each stakeholder, find out the following:
Whom does he or she influence, and who influences him or her?
How strong is that influence?
What is the history of each relationship? How does this impact overall influence?
What role does hierarchy play in the amount of influence?
Step Three: Map the importance of influence using the size and position of the circles. The largest circles belong to stakeholders with the most influence. Where possible, place the most influential stakeholders at the top of the page, and put less influential people lower down.
Step Four: Map the direction of influence by drawing arrows to link the stakeholders. (These may be one-way or two-way, depending on whether influence flows to the same extent in both directions).
Step Five: Map the strength of influence by using thicker lines to indicate stronger influence.
In some situations, the person who signs off projects or purchases may not actually be the most influential person in the network. For example, a Head of Purchasing might always accept the recommendations of the IT Department.
In this case, it's worth marking who has sign-off authority on your map, however, it's worth checking quite carefully that they really are as influenced by others as the others claim!
Step Six: Study the map, and identify stakeholders with the most overall influence. Form a stakeholder management plan that will allow you to communicate with, and hopefully influence, these important influencers.
Step Seven: Map these influence relationships on a regular basis. This way, you'll better understand the dynamics of decision making relating to your project.
Key Points
Influence maps are important visual models of the key people and relationships that impact a project or decision. (Don't make the mistake of thinking that hierarchy or traditional lines of authority are always the routes by which decisions are made.)
Take the time to uncover the underlying relationships and influence that key stakeholders have. With this insight, you can tap into the real sources of power and persuasion.
While this is something that people do intuitively in small projects, it's something that you'll need to do actively for larger projects. This is particularly the case in projects that involve people outside your organization.
Showing posts with label Project management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Project management. Show all posts
Stakeholder Analysis
Winning Support for your Projects
"Stakeholder management is critical to the success of every project in every organization I have ever worked with. By engaging the right people in the right way in your project, you can make a big difference to its success... and to your career."
– Rachel Thompson, Experienced Project Manager
As you become more successful in your career, the actions you take and the projects you run will affect more and more people. The more people you affect, the more likely it is that your actions will impact people who have power and influence over your projects. These people could be strong supporters of your work – or they could block it.
Stakeholder Management is an important discipline that successful people use to win support from others. It helps them ensure that their projects succeed where others fail.
There are two major elements to Stakeholder Management: Stakeholder Analysis and Stakeholder Planning. Stakeholder Analysis is the technique used to identify the key people who have to be won over. You then use Stakeholder Planning to build the support that helps you succeed.
The benefits of using a stakeholder-based approach are that:
You can use the opinions of the most powerful stakeholders to shape your projects at an early stage. Not only does this make it more likely that they will support you, their input can also improve the quality of your project.
Gaining support from powerful stakeholders can help you to win more resources – this makes it more likely that your projects will be successful.
By communicating with stakeholders early and often, you can ensure that they know what you are doing and fully understand the benefits of your project – this means they can support you actively when necessary.
You can anticipate what people's reaction to your project may be, and build into your plan the actions that will win people's support.
How to Use the Tool:
The first step in Stakeholder Analysis is to identify who your stakeholders are. The next step is to work out their power, influence and interest, so you know who you should focus on. The final step is to develop a good understanding of the most important stakeholders so that you can work out how to win their support. You record this analysis on a stakeholder map.
After you have used this tool and created a stakeholder map, you can use the stakeholder planning tool to plan how you will communicate with each stakeholder.
The steps of Stakeholder Analysis are explained below:
1. Identifying Your Stakeholders:
The first step in your stakeholder analysis is to brainstorm who your stakeholders are. As part of this, think of all the people who are affected by your work, who have influence or power over it, or have an interest in its successful or unsuccessful conclusion.
The table below shows some of the people who might be stakeholders in your job or in your projects:
Your boss Shareholders Government
Senior executives Alliance partners Trades associations
Your coworkers Suppliers The press
Your team Lenders Interest groups
Customers Analysts The public
Prospective customers Future recruits The community
Your family
Remember that although stakeholders may be both organizations and people, ultimately you can only communicate with individual people. Make sure that you identify the correct individual stakeholders within a stakeholder organization.
2. Prioritize Your Stakeholders:
You may now have a long list of people and organizations that are affected by your work. Some of these may have the power either to block or advance it. Some may be interested in what you are doing, others may not care.
Map out your stakeholders on a Power/Interest Grid on our free template as shown in figure 1, and classify them by their power over your work and by their interest in your work.
For example, your boss is likely to have high power and influence over your projects and high interest. Your family may have high interest, but are unlikely to have power over it.
Someone's position on the grid shows you the actions you have to take with them:
High power, interested people: these are the people you must fully engage with, and make the greatest efforts to satisfy.
High power, less interested people: put enough work in with these people to keep them satisfied, but not so much that they become bored with your message.
Low power, interested people: keep these people adequately informed, and talk to them to ensure that no major issues are arising. These people can often be very helpful with the detail of your project.
Low power, less interested people: again, monitor these people, but do not bore them with excessive communication.
3. Understanding your key stakeholders:
You now need to know more about your key stakeholders. You need to know how they are likely to feel about and react to your project. You also need to know how best to engage them in your project and how best to communicate with them.
Key questions that can help you understand your stakeholders are:
What financial or emotional interest do they have in the outcome of your work? Is it positive or negative?
What motivates them most of all?
What information do they want from you?
How do they want to receive information from you? What is the best way of communicating your message to them?
What is their current opinion of your work? Is it based on good information?
Who influences their opinions generally, and who influences their opinion of you? Do some of these influencers therefore become important stakeholders in their own right?
If they are not likely to be positive, what will win them around to support your project?
If you don't think you will be able to win them around, how will you manage their opposition?
Who else might be influenced by their opinions? Do these people become stakeholders in their own right?
A very good way of answering these questions is to talk to your stakeholders directly – people are often quite open about their views, and asking people's opinions is often the first step in building a successful relationship with them.
You can summarize the understanding you have gained on the stakeholder map, so that you can easily see which stakeholders are expected to be blockers or critics, and which stakeholders are likely to be advocates and supporters or your project. A good way of doing this is by color coding: showing advocates and supporters in green, blockers and critics in red, and others who are neutral in orange.
Drawn using SmartDraw. Click for free download.
Figure 2 shows an example of this - in this example, you can see that a lot of effort needs to be put into persuading Piers and Michael of the benefits of the project – Janet and Amanda also need to managed well as powerful supporters.
Example:
You can create your own example of stakeholder analysis at work - whether for your current role, a job you want to do or a new project.
Conduct a full stakeholder analysis. Ask yourself whether you are communicating as effectively as you should be with your stakeholders. What actions can you take to get more from your supporters or win over your critics?
Key points:
As the work you do and the projects you run become more important, you will affect more and more people. Some of these people have the power to undermine your projects and your position. Others may be strong supporters of your work.
Stakeholder Management is the process by which you identify your key stakeholders and win their support. Stakeholder Analysis is the first stage of this, where you identify and start to understand your most important stakeholders.
The first stage of this is brainstorm who your stakeholders are. The next step is to prioritize them by power and interest, and to plot this on a Power/Interest Grid. The final stage is to get an understanding of what motivates your stakeholders and how you need to win them around.
Winning Support for your Projects
"Stakeholder management is critical to the success of every project in every organization I have ever worked with. By engaging the right people in the right way in your project, you can make a big difference to its success... and to your career."
– Rachel Thompson, Experienced Project Manager
As you become more successful in your career, the actions you take and the projects you run will affect more and more people. The more people you affect, the more likely it is that your actions will impact people who have power and influence over your projects. These people could be strong supporters of your work – or they could block it.
Stakeholder Management is an important discipline that successful people use to win support from others. It helps them ensure that their projects succeed where others fail.
There are two major elements to Stakeholder Management: Stakeholder Analysis and Stakeholder Planning. Stakeholder Analysis is the technique used to identify the key people who have to be won over. You then use Stakeholder Planning to build the support that helps you succeed.
The benefits of using a stakeholder-based approach are that:
You can use the opinions of the most powerful stakeholders to shape your projects at an early stage. Not only does this make it more likely that they will support you, their input can also improve the quality of your project.
Gaining support from powerful stakeholders can help you to win more resources – this makes it more likely that your projects will be successful.
By communicating with stakeholders early and often, you can ensure that they know what you are doing and fully understand the benefits of your project – this means they can support you actively when necessary.
You can anticipate what people's reaction to your project may be, and build into your plan the actions that will win people's support.
How to Use the Tool:
The first step in Stakeholder Analysis is to identify who your stakeholders are. The next step is to work out their power, influence and interest, so you know who you should focus on. The final step is to develop a good understanding of the most important stakeholders so that you can work out how to win their support. You record this analysis on a stakeholder map.
After you have used this tool and created a stakeholder map, you can use the stakeholder planning tool to plan how you will communicate with each stakeholder.
The steps of Stakeholder Analysis are explained below:
1. Identifying Your Stakeholders:
The first step in your stakeholder analysis is to brainstorm who your stakeholders are. As part of this, think of all the people who are affected by your work, who have influence or power over it, or have an interest in its successful or unsuccessful conclusion.
The table below shows some of the people who might be stakeholders in your job or in your projects:
Your boss Shareholders Government
Senior executives Alliance partners Trades associations
Your coworkers Suppliers The press
Your team Lenders Interest groups
Customers Analysts The public
Prospective customers Future recruits The community
Your family
Remember that although stakeholders may be both organizations and people, ultimately you can only communicate with individual people. Make sure that you identify the correct individual stakeholders within a stakeholder organization.
2. Prioritize Your Stakeholders:
You may now have a long list of people and organizations that are affected by your work. Some of these may have the power either to block or advance it. Some may be interested in what you are doing, others may not care.
Map out your stakeholders on a Power/Interest Grid on our free template as shown in figure 1, and classify them by their power over your work and by their interest in your work.
For example, your boss is likely to have high power and influence over your projects and high interest. Your family may have high interest, but are unlikely to have power over it.
Someone's position on the grid shows you the actions you have to take with them:
High power, interested people: these are the people you must fully engage with, and make the greatest efforts to satisfy.
High power, less interested people: put enough work in with these people to keep them satisfied, but not so much that they become bored with your message.
Low power, interested people: keep these people adequately informed, and talk to them to ensure that no major issues are arising. These people can often be very helpful with the detail of your project.
Low power, less interested people: again, monitor these people, but do not bore them with excessive communication.
3. Understanding your key stakeholders:
You now need to know more about your key stakeholders. You need to know how they are likely to feel about and react to your project. You also need to know how best to engage them in your project and how best to communicate with them.
Key questions that can help you understand your stakeholders are:
What financial or emotional interest do they have in the outcome of your work? Is it positive or negative?
What motivates them most of all?
What information do they want from you?
How do they want to receive information from you? What is the best way of communicating your message to them?
What is their current opinion of your work? Is it based on good information?
Who influences their opinions generally, and who influences their opinion of you? Do some of these influencers therefore become important stakeholders in their own right?
If they are not likely to be positive, what will win them around to support your project?
If you don't think you will be able to win them around, how will you manage their opposition?
Who else might be influenced by their opinions? Do these people become stakeholders in their own right?
A very good way of answering these questions is to talk to your stakeholders directly – people are often quite open about their views, and asking people's opinions is often the first step in building a successful relationship with them.
You can summarize the understanding you have gained on the stakeholder map, so that you can easily see which stakeholders are expected to be blockers or critics, and which stakeholders are likely to be advocates and supporters or your project. A good way of doing this is by color coding: showing advocates and supporters in green, blockers and critics in red, and others who are neutral in orange.
Drawn using SmartDraw. Click for free download.
Figure 2 shows an example of this - in this example, you can see that a lot of effort needs to be put into persuading Piers and Michael of the benefits of the project – Janet and Amanda also need to managed well as powerful supporters.
Example:
You can create your own example of stakeholder analysis at work - whether for your current role, a job you want to do or a new project.
Conduct a full stakeholder analysis. Ask yourself whether you are communicating as effectively as you should be with your stakeholders. What actions can you take to get more from your supporters or win over your critics?
Key points:
As the work you do and the projects you run become more important, you will affect more and more people. Some of these people have the power to undermine your projects and your position. Others may be strong supporters of your work.
Stakeholder Management is the process by which you identify your key stakeholders and win their support. Stakeholder Analysis is the first stage of this, where you identify and start to understand your most important stakeholders.
The first stage of this is brainstorm who your stakeholders are. The next step is to prioritize them by power and interest, and to plot this on a Power/Interest Grid. The final stage is to get an understanding of what motivates your stakeholders and how you need to win them around.
Kotter's 8-Step Change Model
Implementing Change Powerfully and Successfully
Change is the only constant.
- Heraclitus, Greek philosopher
What was true more than two thousand years ago is just as true today. We live in a world where "business as usual" IS change. New initiatives, project-based working, technology improvements, staying ahead of the competition - these things come together to drive ongoing changes to the way that we work.
Whether you're considering a small change to one or two processes, or a systemwide change to an organization, it's common to feel uneasy and intimidated by the scale of the challenge.
You know that the change needs to happen, but you don't really know how to go about delivering it. Where do you start? Whom do you involve? How do you see it through to the end?
There are many theories about how to "do" change. Many originate with leadership and change management guru, John Kotter. A professor at Harvard Business School and world-renowned change expert, Kotter introduced his eight-step change process in his 1995 book, "Leading Change." We look at his eight steps for leading change below.
Step One: Create Urgency
For change to happen, it helps if the whole company really wants it. Develop a sense of urgency around the need for change. This may help you spark the initial motivation to get things moving.
This isn't simply a matter of showing people poor sales statistics or talking about increased competition. Open an honest and convincing dialogue about what's happening in the marketplace and with your competition. If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency can build and feed on itself.
What you can do:
Identify potential threats, and develop scenarios showing what could happen in the future.
Examine opportunities that should be, or could be, exploited.
Start honest discussions, and give dynamic and convincing reasons to get people talking and thinking.
Request support from customers, outside stakeholders and industry people to strengthen your argument.
Tip:
Kotter suggests that for change to be successful, 75% of a company's management needs to "buy into" the change. In other words, you have to really work hard on Step One, and spend significant time and energy building urgency, before moving onto the next steps. Don't panic and jump in too fast because you don't want to risk further short-term losses - if you act without proper preparation, you could be in for a very bumpy ride.
Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition
Convince people that change is necessary. This often takes strong leadership and visible support from key people within your organization. Managing change isn't enough - you have to lead it.
You can find effective change leaders throughout your organization - they don't necessarily follow the traditional company hierarchy. To lead change, you need to bring together a coalition, or team, of influential people whose power comes from a variety of sources, including job title, status, expertise, and political importance.
Once formed, your "change coalition" needs to work as a team, continuing to build urgency and momentum around the need for change.
What you can do:
Identify the true leaders in your organization.
Ask for an emotional commitment from these key people.
Work on team building within your change coalition.
Check your team for weak areas, and ensure that you have a good mix of people from different departments and different levels within your company.
Step Three: Create a Vision for Change
When you first start thinking about change, there will probably be many great ideas and solutions floating around. Link these concepts to an overall vision that people can grasp easily and remember.
A clear vision can help everyone understand why you're asking them to do something. When people see for themselves what you're trying to achieve, then the directives they're given tend to make more sense.
What you can do:
Determine the values that are central to the change.
Develop a short summary (one or two sentences) that captures what you "see" as the future of your organization.
Create a strategy to execute that vision.
Ensure that your change coalition can describe the vision in five minutes or less.
Practice your "vision speech" often.
Tip:
For more on creating visions, see our Mind Tools article on Mission Statements and Vision Statements.
Step Four: Communicate the Vision
What you do with your vision after you create it will determine your success. Your message will probably have strong competition from other day-to-day communications within the company, so you need to communicate it frequently and powerfully, and embed it within everything that you do.
Don't just call special meetings to communicate your vision. Instead, talk about it every chance you get. Use the vision daily to make decisions and solve problems. When you keep it fresh on everyone's minds, they'll remember it and respond to it.
It's also important to "walk the talk." What you do is far more important - and believable - than what you say. Demonstrate the kind of behavior that you want from others.
What you can do:
Talk often about your change vision.
Openly and honestly address peoples' concerns and anxieties.
Apply your vision to all aspects of operations - from training to performance reviews. Tie everything back to the vision.
Lead by example.
Step Five: Remove Obstacles
If you follow these steps and reach this point in the change process, you've been talking about your vision and building buy-in from all levels of the organization. Hopefully, your staff wants to get busy and achieve the benefits that you've been promoting.
But is anyone resisting the change? And are there processes or structures that are getting in its way?
Put in place the structure for change, and continually check for barriers to it. Removing obstacles can empower the people you need to execute your vision, and it can help the change move forward.
What you can do:
Identify, or hire, change leaders whose main roles are to deliver the change.
Look at your organizational structure, job descriptions, and performance and compensation systems to ensure they're in line with your vision.
Recognize and reward people for making change happen.
Identify people who are resisting the change, and help them see what's needed.
Take action to quickly remove barriers (human or otherwise).
Step Six: Create Short-term Wins
Nothing motivates more than success. Give your company a taste of victory early in the change process. Within a short time frame (this could be a month or a year, depending on the type of change), you'll want to have results that your staff can see. Without this, critics and negative thinkers might hurt your progress.
Create short-term targets - not just one long-term goal. You want each smaller target to be achievable, with little room for failure. Your change team may have to work very hard to come up with these targets, but each "win" that you produce can further motivate the entire staff.
What you can do:
Look for sure-fire projects that you can implement without help from any strong critics of the change.
Don't choose early targets that are expensive. You want to be able to justify the investment in each project.
Thoroughly analyze the potential pros and cons of your targets. If you don't succeed with an early goal, it can hurt your entire change initiative.
Reward the people who help you meet the targets.
Step Seven: Build on the Change
Kotter argues that many change projects fail because victory is declared too early. Real change runs deep. Quick wins are only the beginning of what needs to be done to achieve long-term change.
Launching one new product using a new system is great. But if you can launch 10 products, that means the new system is working. To reach that 10th success, you need to keep looking for improvements.
Each success provides an opportunity to build on what went right and identify what you can improve.
What you can do:
After every win, analyze what went right and what needs improving.
Set goals to continue building on the momentum you've achieved.
Learn about kaizen, the idea of continuous improvement.
Keep ideas fresh by bringing in new change agents and leaders for your change coalition.
Step Eight: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture
Finally, to make any change stick, it should become part of the core of your organization. Your corporate culture often determines what gets done, so the values behind your vision must show in day-to-day work.
Make continuous efforts to ensure that the change is seen in every aspect of your organization. This will help give that change a solid place in your organization's culture.
It's also important that your company's leaders continue to support the change. This includes existing staff and new leaders who are brought in. If you lose the support of these people, you might end up back where you started.
What you can do:
Talk about progress every chance you get. Tell success stories about the change process, and repeat other stories that you hear.
Include the change ideals and values when hiring and training new staff.
Publicly recognize key members of your original change coalition, and make sure the rest of the staff - new and old - remembers their contributions.
Create plans to replace key leaders of change as they move on. This will help ensure that their legacy is not lost or forgotten.
Tip:
This is just one of the articles on change management on Mind Tools. See also our articles on Change Management, Lewin's Change Model, using the Change Curve, the Burke-Litwin Change Model and Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Change.
Key Points
You have to work hard to change an organization successfully. When you plan carefully and build the proper foundation, implementing change can be much easier, and you'll improve the chances of success. If you're too impatient, and if you expect too many results too soon, your plans for change are more likely to fail.
Create a sense of urgency, recruit powerful change leaders, build a vision and effectively communicate it, remove obstacles, create quick wins, and build on your momentum. If you do these things, you can help make the change part of your organizational culture. That's when you can declare a true victory. then sit back and enjoy the change that you envisioned so long ago.
Implementing Change Powerfully and Successfully
Change is the only constant.
- Heraclitus, Greek philosopher
What was true more than two thousand years ago is just as true today. We live in a world where "business as usual" IS change. New initiatives, project-based working, technology improvements, staying ahead of the competition - these things come together to drive ongoing changes to the way that we work.
Whether you're considering a small change to one or two processes, or a systemwide change to an organization, it's common to feel uneasy and intimidated by the scale of the challenge.
You know that the change needs to happen, but you don't really know how to go about delivering it. Where do you start? Whom do you involve? How do you see it through to the end?
There are many theories about how to "do" change. Many originate with leadership and change management guru, John Kotter. A professor at Harvard Business School and world-renowned change expert, Kotter introduced his eight-step change process in his 1995 book, "Leading Change." We look at his eight steps for leading change below.
Step One: Create Urgency
For change to happen, it helps if the whole company really wants it. Develop a sense of urgency around the need for change. This may help you spark the initial motivation to get things moving.
This isn't simply a matter of showing people poor sales statistics or talking about increased competition. Open an honest and convincing dialogue about what's happening in the marketplace and with your competition. If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency can build and feed on itself.
What you can do:
Identify potential threats, and develop scenarios showing what could happen in the future.
Examine opportunities that should be, or could be, exploited.
Start honest discussions, and give dynamic and convincing reasons to get people talking and thinking.
Request support from customers, outside stakeholders and industry people to strengthen your argument.
Tip:
Kotter suggests that for change to be successful, 75% of a company's management needs to "buy into" the change. In other words, you have to really work hard on Step One, and spend significant time and energy building urgency, before moving onto the next steps. Don't panic and jump in too fast because you don't want to risk further short-term losses - if you act without proper preparation, you could be in for a very bumpy ride.
Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition
Convince people that change is necessary. This often takes strong leadership and visible support from key people within your organization. Managing change isn't enough - you have to lead it.
You can find effective change leaders throughout your organization - they don't necessarily follow the traditional company hierarchy. To lead change, you need to bring together a coalition, or team, of influential people whose power comes from a variety of sources, including job title, status, expertise, and political importance.
Once formed, your "change coalition" needs to work as a team, continuing to build urgency and momentum around the need for change.
What you can do:
Identify the true leaders in your organization.
Ask for an emotional commitment from these key people.
Work on team building within your change coalition.
Check your team for weak areas, and ensure that you have a good mix of people from different departments and different levels within your company.
Step Three: Create a Vision for Change
When you first start thinking about change, there will probably be many great ideas and solutions floating around. Link these concepts to an overall vision that people can grasp easily and remember.
A clear vision can help everyone understand why you're asking them to do something. When people see for themselves what you're trying to achieve, then the directives they're given tend to make more sense.
What you can do:
Determine the values that are central to the change.
Develop a short summary (one or two sentences) that captures what you "see" as the future of your organization.
Create a strategy to execute that vision.
Ensure that your change coalition can describe the vision in five minutes or less.
Practice your "vision speech" often.
Tip:
For more on creating visions, see our Mind Tools article on Mission Statements and Vision Statements.
Step Four: Communicate the Vision
What you do with your vision after you create it will determine your success. Your message will probably have strong competition from other day-to-day communications within the company, so you need to communicate it frequently and powerfully, and embed it within everything that you do.
Don't just call special meetings to communicate your vision. Instead, talk about it every chance you get. Use the vision daily to make decisions and solve problems. When you keep it fresh on everyone's minds, they'll remember it and respond to it.
It's also important to "walk the talk." What you do is far more important - and believable - than what you say. Demonstrate the kind of behavior that you want from others.
What you can do:
Talk often about your change vision.
Openly and honestly address peoples' concerns and anxieties.
Apply your vision to all aspects of operations - from training to performance reviews. Tie everything back to the vision.
Lead by example.
Step Five: Remove Obstacles
If you follow these steps and reach this point in the change process, you've been talking about your vision and building buy-in from all levels of the organization. Hopefully, your staff wants to get busy and achieve the benefits that you've been promoting.
But is anyone resisting the change? And are there processes or structures that are getting in its way?
Put in place the structure for change, and continually check for barriers to it. Removing obstacles can empower the people you need to execute your vision, and it can help the change move forward.
What you can do:
Identify, or hire, change leaders whose main roles are to deliver the change.
Look at your organizational structure, job descriptions, and performance and compensation systems to ensure they're in line with your vision.
Recognize and reward people for making change happen.
Identify people who are resisting the change, and help them see what's needed.
Take action to quickly remove barriers (human or otherwise).
Step Six: Create Short-term Wins
Nothing motivates more than success. Give your company a taste of victory early in the change process. Within a short time frame (this could be a month or a year, depending on the type of change), you'll want to have results that your staff can see. Without this, critics and negative thinkers might hurt your progress.
Create short-term targets - not just one long-term goal. You want each smaller target to be achievable, with little room for failure. Your change team may have to work very hard to come up with these targets, but each "win" that you produce can further motivate the entire staff.
What you can do:
Look for sure-fire projects that you can implement without help from any strong critics of the change.
Don't choose early targets that are expensive. You want to be able to justify the investment in each project.
Thoroughly analyze the potential pros and cons of your targets. If you don't succeed with an early goal, it can hurt your entire change initiative.
Reward the people who help you meet the targets.
Step Seven: Build on the Change
Kotter argues that many change projects fail because victory is declared too early. Real change runs deep. Quick wins are only the beginning of what needs to be done to achieve long-term change.
Launching one new product using a new system is great. But if you can launch 10 products, that means the new system is working. To reach that 10th success, you need to keep looking for improvements.
Each success provides an opportunity to build on what went right and identify what you can improve.
What you can do:
After every win, analyze what went right and what needs improving.
Set goals to continue building on the momentum you've achieved.
Learn about kaizen, the idea of continuous improvement.
Keep ideas fresh by bringing in new change agents and leaders for your change coalition.
Step Eight: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture
Finally, to make any change stick, it should become part of the core of your organization. Your corporate culture often determines what gets done, so the values behind your vision must show in day-to-day work.
Make continuous efforts to ensure that the change is seen in every aspect of your organization. This will help give that change a solid place in your organization's culture.
It's also important that your company's leaders continue to support the change. This includes existing staff and new leaders who are brought in. If you lose the support of these people, you might end up back where you started.
What you can do:
Talk about progress every chance you get. Tell success stories about the change process, and repeat other stories that you hear.
Include the change ideals and values when hiring and training new staff.
Publicly recognize key members of your original change coalition, and make sure the rest of the staff - new and old - remembers their contributions.
Create plans to replace key leaders of change as they move on. This will help ensure that their legacy is not lost or forgotten.
Tip:
This is just one of the articles on change management on Mind Tools. See also our articles on Change Management, Lewin's Change Model, using the Change Curve, the Burke-Litwin Change Model and Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Change.
Key Points
You have to work hard to change an organization successfully. When you plan carefully and build the proper foundation, implementing change can be much easier, and you'll improve the chances of success. If you're too impatient, and if you expect too many results too soon, your plans for change are more likely to fail.
Create a sense of urgency, recruit powerful change leaders, build a vision and effectively communicate it, remove obstacles, create quick wins, and build on your momentum. If you do these things, you can help make the change part of your organizational culture. That's when you can declare a true victory. then sit back and enjoy the change that you envisioned so long ago.
Planning robust, coherent, successful projects
In practice, even the best project managers can find it difficult to plan major projects without missing important activities, and without failing to spot all significant risks and issues. What's more, once you're immersed in the detail of project planning, it's hard to keep site of the big picture: What are you trying to achieve and why? What are the risks and assumptions? And how you can tell whether the project is a success once it's implemented?
The Logical Framework Approach is a useful technique for helping you do these things, thereby making your projects more robust and coherent – and more successful.
The Logical Framework Approach (LFA) was developed in the 1970s as a tool for strategic planning, using the ideas of Management by Objectives. It's a tool of choice used by development agencies and in the international donor community. Large aid organizations throughout the world use the LFA for planning, approving, evaluating and monitoring their projects. That said, this is a powerful and useful technique, and is one that richly deserves much wider application than in international development alone.
The Logical Framework Approach and the Logframe
The Logical Framework Approach elegantly weaves together top-down and bottom-up approaches to project management. It brings together the classical, top-down, "waterfall approach" for identifying the activities in a project, with a rigorous bottom-up checking process to make sure that these activity lists are comprehensive. It then reinforces this with a rigorous risks and assumptions analysis, which is again thoroughly checked. And it concludes by identifying the controls needed to monitor and manage the project through to successful conclusion.
It does this within the framework of the Logframe Matrix, shown in figure 1 below. This cross-references seven key areas of the project to ensure that the key questions are asked:
Goal - what results do we expect?
Purpose - why are we doing this?
Outputs - what are the deliverables?
Activities - what will we do to deliver the outputs?
Indicators of Achievement - how will we know we've been successful?
Means of Verification - how will we check our reported results?
Risks and Assumptions - what assumptions underlie the structure of our project and what is the risk they will not prevail?
The answers to these questions are put into a Logical Framework Matrix (Logframe) and become the output of the Logical Framework Analysis exercise. The Logframe is a four by four matrix, shown below:
Figure 1: The Logframe Matrix
Logframe Matrix
Project Summary
Indicators of
Achievement
Means of
Verification
Important Risks
and Assumptions
Goal:
Purpose:
Outputs:
Activities:
The process has significant value for any size of project. It helps identify the big picture and allows you to see how other items cascade down from it. As well, it helps flesh out the core assumptions that are used in the project development process.
Using a Logframe
Carry out the following steps in consultation with your stakeholders, after you've completed a thorough analysis of the situation. By involving stakeholders, you'll end up with a much more robust analysis of the project than you would on your own.
Step 1: Identifying Outputs and Activities (Project Summary, Column 1):
The first step is to brainstorm the outputs and activities required by the project, starting with the project goal. Do this in the Project Summary column (column 1) of the Logframe. Start by defining the Goal and Purpose of the project and, from these, identify the outputs and the activities required:
Goal: What is the "to be" state of the project? What are you trying to achieve?
Purpose: What good will you do by achieving the goal? Who are the beneficiaries? What is the underlying motivation for starting the project in the first place?
Outputs: What specific things will be delivered as a result of this project? In order for the project to be considered a success, what changes must be made, and what will the result be?
Activities: What will actually be done in order to deliver the intended outputs? The Logframe is not intended as an implementation guide, so this section is typically presented in bullet point form.
Tip:
Don't underestimate the amount of time and work needed to complete this process properly! Manage people's expectations on this, and keep them focused on the task in hand. If people lose focus, you'll miss important activities, false assumptions, and risks.
Step 2: Verify the Vertical Logic
Next, we take a bottom-up approach to checking that this list of activities will deliver the desired results - after all, it's possible that activities have been missed, or that the actual results of these activities may not be the ones wanted. This checking process is an important part of making sure that your project plan is robust.
Column one shows a hierarchy of objectives, so it is important to check that actions identified deliver the results wanted. Check the logic in column one by using an if/then test as follows. Starting with your activities, ensure that:
IF you complete the activity, THEN the outputs will occur.
You want to make sure your activities and outputs are directly linked.
IF your outputs are achieved, THEN the purpose of your project will be satisfied. Are the planned outputs closely tied to your purpose? Make sure the beneficiaries you identified in your purpose actually receive the beneficial outcome desired.
IF your purpose is satisfied, THEN the goal of the project is achieved.
Examine your purpose and goal to make sure that the purpose fully incorporates the intent within the goal.
If, in this step, you find that activities and outputs are missing or are wrong, add or adjust them appropriately. And bear in mind that if you identify issues with elements higher up in this hierarchy, you'll need to go back to Step 1 and identify appropriate outcomes and activities for those elements.
Step 3: Identify the Risks and Assumptions of your plan (Column 4)
We now cross over to the other side of the Logframe to identify risks associated with the project, and possible false assumptions that may undermine it.
There are any number of external factors that can throw projects off course. In the planning and design phase, it is prudent to identify the major assumptions you've used and the degree or risk associated with them.
For each of the points in the project's structure (Column 1), identify the assumptions you're making (which may or may not be correct), and look at the associated risks.
To define your assumptions, ask "What actions or variables must exist for the project to start and proceed as planned?" Start at the bottom and work up.
Activity Assumptions: What do you need to happen for your activities to be completed successfully? And what conditions and resources are you assuming will be in place?
Output Assumptions: What factors outside of your control must be present to achieve the outputs you need?
Purpose Assumptions: To achieve the purpose, what external factors do you need to have in place?
Goal Assumptions: What are the necessary conditions for long-term viability of the project goal?
Clarify these assumptions with stakeholders immediately, if you can. If you can't, make sure you have early activities in place within your project plan to confirm that your assumptions are correct.
Next, repeat this process looking at risks (see our article on Risk Analysis.) Make sure you plan in all of the activities needed to manage or eliminate risk, and if risk can neither be managed or eliminated, make sure that it's clearly identified so that it can be evaluated in the next step.
Step 4: Verify the Logic of the Risks and Assumptions
Once you have identified assumptions and risks, you need to check them to determine:
Whether your assumptions will link one level of the project to the next; and
Whether risks are too large.
First of all, check that your assumptions are logical using an if/and/then analysis. Start at the bottom and work up to ensure:
IF the activity is completed successfully, AND the assumptions underlying it are true, THEN the output will be delivered.
IF the output is delivered, AND the assumptions underlying it are true, THEN the purpose will be achieved.
IF the purpose is achieved, AND the assumptions underlying it are true, THEN the goal will be achieved.
Then, check some additional points related to your risk and assumption analysis:
Make sure you have identified as many assumptions and risks as possible. Have you talked to everyone involved? Have you looked at the project from all angles?
Make sure your assumptions are stated specifically and are not too vague. You can't assess risk accurately if you are working with generalities.
Do you have plans at each level to manage the risks you have identified?
If the risks you're not able to manage are too high, consider redesigning the project or, if you still can't reduce these to sensible levels, reconsider the project's viability.
Again, where this process exposes issues with your Logframe, update it appropriately.
Step 5: Determine the Indicators of Achievement and Means of Verification
When you are satisfied with the structure of the Logframe so far, and are comfortable that you can manage the risks related to your assumptions, you can move on to think about how you will monitor progress towards success.
Performance indicators are the specific measures used to monitor this progress. Here are the criteria for a good indicator of achievement:
Valid - it must measure the intended result.
Reliable - the measure must be consistently attained over time.
Sensitive - the measure should respond to changes, and should sufficiently-quickly identify if things are going wrong.
Simple - the measure should be easy to collect or perform.
Useful - it must help with decision making or provide information for future learning.
Affordable - you need to be able to afford the financial and time costs involved in taking the measurement on a regular basis.
Using these criteria, for each goal, purpose, output and activity, indicate what will be used to determine whether it was successfully achieved. Also note who will be responsible for setting these targets.
Then indicate exactly how you will verify that achievement. What sources of data will you use? How will you collect the data? How often?
Make sure that appropriate activities are in place within your plan to set up and manage these monitoring systems.
Click here for an example Logframe.
Key Points
The Logical Framework Approach is a great technique for making sure that your project plan is robust and coherent. By using it, you significantly increase the likelihood that your project will be successful.
Firstly, it provides a useful framework for working through the design of your project with key stakeholders, making sure that you can take full advantage of their knowledge, insights and experience.
Secondly, it provides a useful process for testing and checking your project plan, making sure that it contains all the necessary activities, is based on sound assumptions, and fairly weighs and manages the risks inherent within the project.
Thirdly, it helps you ensure that appropriate control measures are embedded within the project, meaning that you can quickly identify where things are going wrong, and take appropriate corrective action.
In practice, even the best project managers can find it difficult to plan major projects without missing important activities, and without failing to spot all significant risks and issues. What's more, once you're immersed in the detail of project planning, it's hard to keep site of the big picture: What are you trying to achieve and why? What are the risks and assumptions? And how you can tell whether the project is a success once it's implemented?
The Logical Framework Approach is a useful technique for helping you do these things, thereby making your projects more robust and coherent – and more successful.
The Logical Framework Approach (LFA) was developed in the 1970s as a tool for strategic planning, using the ideas of Management by Objectives. It's a tool of choice used by development agencies and in the international donor community. Large aid organizations throughout the world use the LFA for planning, approving, evaluating and monitoring their projects. That said, this is a powerful and useful technique, and is one that richly deserves much wider application than in international development alone.
The Logical Framework Approach and the Logframe
The Logical Framework Approach elegantly weaves together top-down and bottom-up approaches to project management. It brings together the classical, top-down, "waterfall approach" for identifying the activities in a project, with a rigorous bottom-up checking process to make sure that these activity lists are comprehensive. It then reinforces this with a rigorous risks and assumptions analysis, which is again thoroughly checked. And it concludes by identifying the controls needed to monitor and manage the project through to successful conclusion.
It does this within the framework of the Logframe Matrix, shown in figure 1 below. This cross-references seven key areas of the project to ensure that the key questions are asked:
Goal - what results do we expect?
Purpose - why are we doing this?
Outputs - what are the deliverables?
Activities - what will we do to deliver the outputs?
Indicators of Achievement - how will we know we've been successful?
Means of Verification - how will we check our reported results?
Risks and Assumptions - what assumptions underlie the structure of our project and what is the risk they will not prevail?
The answers to these questions are put into a Logical Framework Matrix (Logframe) and become the output of the Logical Framework Analysis exercise. The Logframe is a four by four matrix, shown below:
Figure 1: The Logframe Matrix
Logframe Matrix
Project Summary
Indicators of
Achievement
Means of
Verification
Important Risks
and Assumptions
Goal:
Purpose:
Outputs:
Activities:
The process has significant value for any size of project. It helps identify the big picture and allows you to see how other items cascade down from it. As well, it helps flesh out the core assumptions that are used in the project development process.
Using a Logframe
Carry out the following steps in consultation with your stakeholders, after you've completed a thorough analysis of the situation. By involving stakeholders, you'll end up with a much more robust analysis of the project than you would on your own.
Step 1: Identifying Outputs and Activities (Project Summary, Column 1):
The first step is to brainstorm the outputs and activities required by the project, starting with the project goal. Do this in the Project Summary column (column 1) of the Logframe. Start by defining the Goal and Purpose of the project and, from these, identify the outputs and the activities required:
Goal: What is the "to be" state of the project? What are you trying to achieve?
Purpose: What good will you do by achieving the goal? Who are the beneficiaries? What is the underlying motivation for starting the project in the first place?
Outputs: What specific things will be delivered as a result of this project? In order for the project to be considered a success, what changes must be made, and what will the result be?
Activities: What will actually be done in order to deliver the intended outputs? The Logframe is not intended as an implementation guide, so this section is typically presented in bullet point form.
Tip:
Don't underestimate the amount of time and work needed to complete this process properly! Manage people's expectations on this, and keep them focused on the task in hand. If people lose focus, you'll miss important activities, false assumptions, and risks.
Step 2: Verify the Vertical Logic
Next, we take a bottom-up approach to checking that this list of activities will deliver the desired results - after all, it's possible that activities have been missed, or that the actual results of these activities may not be the ones wanted. This checking process is an important part of making sure that your project plan is robust.
Column one shows a hierarchy of objectives, so it is important to check that actions identified deliver the results wanted. Check the logic in column one by using an if/then test as follows. Starting with your activities, ensure that:
IF you complete the activity, THEN the outputs will occur.
You want to make sure your activities and outputs are directly linked.
IF your outputs are achieved, THEN the purpose of your project will be satisfied. Are the planned outputs closely tied to your purpose? Make sure the beneficiaries you identified in your purpose actually receive the beneficial outcome desired.
IF your purpose is satisfied, THEN the goal of the project is achieved.
Examine your purpose and goal to make sure that the purpose fully incorporates the intent within the goal.
If, in this step, you find that activities and outputs are missing or are wrong, add or adjust them appropriately. And bear in mind that if you identify issues with elements higher up in this hierarchy, you'll need to go back to Step 1 and identify appropriate outcomes and activities for those elements.
Step 3: Identify the Risks and Assumptions of your plan (Column 4)
We now cross over to the other side of the Logframe to identify risks associated with the project, and possible false assumptions that may undermine it.
There are any number of external factors that can throw projects off course. In the planning and design phase, it is prudent to identify the major assumptions you've used and the degree or risk associated with them.
For each of the points in the project's structure (Column 1), identify the assumptions you're making (which may or may not be correct), and look at the associated risks.
To define your assumptions, ask "What actions or variables must exist for the project to start and proceed as planned?" Start at the bottom and work up.
Activity Assumptions: What do you need to happen for your activities to be completed successfully? And what conditions and resources are you assuming will be in place?
Output Assumptions: What factors outside of your control must be present to achieve the outputs you need?
Purpose Assumptions: To achieve the purpose, what external factors do you need to have in place?
Goal Assumptions: What are the necessary conditions for long-term viability of the project goal?
Clarify these assumptions with stakeholders immediately, if you can. If you can't, make sure you have early activities in place within your project plan to confirm that your assumptions are correct.
Next, repeat this process looking at risks (see our article on Risk Analysis.) Make sure you plan in all of the activities needed to manage or eliminate risk, and if risk can neither be managed or eliminated, make sure that it's clearly identified so that it can be evaluated in the next step.
Step 4: Verify the Logic of the Risks and Assumptions
Once you have identified assumptions and risks, you need to check them to determine:
Whether your assumptions will link one level of the project to the next; and
Whether risks are too large.
First of all, check that your assumptions are logical using an if/and/then analysis. Start at the bottom and work up to ensure:
IF the activity is completed successfully, AND the assumptions underlying it are true, THEN the output will be delivered.
IF the output is delivered, AND the assumptions underlying it are true, THEN the purpose will be achieved.
IF the purpose is achieved, AND the assumptions underlying it are true, THEN the goal will be achieved.
Then, check some additional points related to your risk and assumption analysis:
Make sure you have identified as many assumptions and risks as possible. Have you talked to everyone involved? Have you looked at the project from all angles?
Make sure your assumptions are stated specifically and are not too vague. You can't assess risk accurately if you are working with generalities.
Do you have plans at each level to manage the risks you have identified?
If the risks you're not able to manage are too high, consider redesigning the project or, if you still can't reduce these to sensible levels, reconsider the project's viability.
Again, where this process exposes issues with your Logframe, update it appropriately.
Step 5: Determine the Indicators of Achievement and Means of Verification
When you are satisfied with the structure of the Logframe so far, and are comfortable that you can manage the risks related to your assumptions, you can move on to think about how you will monitor progress towards success.
Performance indicators are the specific measures used to monitor this progress. Here are the criteria for a good indicator of achievement:
Valid - it must measure the intended result.
Reliable - the measure must be consistently attained over time.
Sensitive - the measure should respond to changes, and should sufficiently-quickly identify if things are going wrong.
Simple - the measure should be easy to collect or perform.
Useful - it must help with decision making or provide information for future learning.
Affordable - you need to be able to afford the financial and time costs involved in taking the measurement on a regular basis.
Using these criteria, for each goal, purpose, output and activity, indicate what will be used to determine whether it was successfully achieved. Also note who will be responsible for setting these targets.
Then indicate exactly how you will verify that achievement. What sources of data will you use? How will you collect the data? How often?
Make sure that appropriate activities are in place within your plan to set up and manage these monitoring systems.
Click here for an example Logframe.
Key Points
The Logical Framework Approach is a great technique for making sure that your project plan is robust and coherent. By using it, you significantly increase the likelihood that your project will be successful.
Firstly, it provides a useful framework for working through the design of your project with key stakeholders, making sure that you can take full advantage of their knowledge, insights and experience.
Secondly, it provides a useful process for testing and checking your project plan, making sure that it contains all the necessary activities, is based on sound assumptions, and fairly weighs and manages the risks inherent within the project.
Thirdly, it helps you ensure that appropriate control measures are embedded within the project, meaning that you can quickly identify where things are going wrong, and take appropriate corrective action.
Analysis
and PERT Charts
Planning and Scheduling Complex Projects
Related variants: AOA or Activity-on-Arc or Activity-on-Arrow Diagrams
Critical Path Analysis and PERT are powerful tools that help you to schedule and manage complex projects. They were developed in the 1950s to control large defense projects, and have been used routinely since then.
As with Gantt Charts, Critical Path Analysis (CPA) or the Critical Path Method (CPM) helps you to plan all tasks that must be completed as part of a project. They act as the basis both for preparation of a schedule, and of resource planning. During management of a project, they allow you to monitor achievement of project goals. They help you to see where remedial action needs to be taken to get a project back on course.
Within a project it is likely that you will display your final project plan as a Gantt Chart (using Microsoft Project or other software for projects of medium complexity or an excel spreadsheet for projects of low complexity).The benefit of using CPA within the planning process is to help you develop and test your plan to ensure that it is robust. Critical Path Analysis formally identifies tasks which must be completed on time for the whole project to be completed on time. It also identifies which tasks can be delayed if resource needs to be reallocated to catch up on missed or overrunning tasks. The disadvantage of CPA, if you use it as the technique by which your project plans are communicated and managed against, is that the relation of tasks to time is not as immediately obvious as with Gantt Charts. This can make them more difficult to understand.
A further benefit of Critical Path Analysis is that it helps you to identify the minimum length of time needed to complete a project. Where you need to run an accelerated project, it helps you to identify which project steps you should accelerate to complete the project within the available time.
How to Use the Tool:
As with Gantt Charts, the essential concept behind Critical Path Analysis is that you cannot start some activities until others are finished. These activities need to be completed in a sequence, with each stage being more-or-less completed before the next stage can begin. These are 'sequential' activities.
Other activities are not dependent on completion of any other tasks. You can do these at any time before or after a particular stage is reached. These are non-dependent or 'parallel' tasks.
Drawing a Critical Path Analysis Chart
Use the following steps to draw a CPA Chart:
Step 1. List all activities in the plan
For each activity, show the earliest start date, estimated length of time it will take, and whether it is parallel or sequential. If tasks are sequential, show which stage they depend on.
For the project example used here, you will end up with the same task list as explained in the article on Gantt Charts (we will use the same example as with Gantt Charts to compare the two techniques). The chart is repeated in Figure 1 below:
Figure 1. Task List: Planning a custom-written computer project
Task
Earliest start
Length
Type
Dependent on...
A. High level analysis
Week 0
1 week
Sequential
B. Selection of hardware platform
Week 1
1 day
Sequential
A
C. Installation and commissioning of hardware
Week 1.2
2 weeks
Parallel
B
D. Detailed analysis of core modules
Week 1
2 weeks
Sequential
A
E. Detailed analysis of supporting modules
Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
F. Programming of core modules
Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
G. Programming of supporting modules
Week 5
3 weeks
Sequential
E
H. Quality assurance of core modules
Week 5
1 week
Sequential
F
I. Quality assurance of supporting modules
Week 8
1 week
Sequential
G
J.Core module training
Week 6
1 day
Parallel
C,H
K. Development and QA of accounting reporting
Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
L. Development and QA of management reporting
Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
M. Development of Management Information System
Week 6
1 week
Sequential
L
N. Detailed training
Week 9
1 week
Sequential
I, J, K, M
Step 2. Plot the activities as a circle and arrow diagram
Critical Path Analyses are presented using circle and arrow diagrams.
In these, circles show events within the project, such as the start and finish of tasks. The number shown in the left hand half of the circle allows you to identify each one easily. Circles are sometimes known as nodes.
An arrow running between two event circles shows the activity needed to complete that task. A description of the task is written underneath the arrow. The length of the task is shown above it. By convention, all arrows run left to right. Arrows are also sometimes called arcs.
An example of a very simple diagram is shown below:
This shows the start event (circle 1), and the completion of the 'High Level Analysis' task (circle 2). The arrow between them shows the activity of carrying out the High Level Analysis. This activity should take 1 week.
Where one activity cannot start until another has been completed, we start the arrow for the dependent activity at the completion event circle of the previous activity. An example of this is shown below:
Here the activities of 'Select Hardware' and 'Core Module Analysis' cannot be started until 'High Level Analysis' has been completed. This diagram also brings out a number of other important points:
Within Critical Path Analysis, we refer to activities by the numbers in the circles at each end. For example, the task 'Core Module Analysis' would be called activity 2 to 3. 'Select Hardware' would be activity 2 to 9.
Activities are not drawn to scale. In the diagram above, activities are 1 week long, 2 weeks long, and 1 day long. Arrows in this case are all the same length.
In the example above, you can see a second number in the top, right hand quadrant of each circle. This shows the earliest start time for the following activity. It is conventional to start at 0. Here units are whole weeks.
A different case is shown below:
Here activity 6 to 7 cannot start until the other four activities (11 to 6, 5 to 6, 4 to 6, and 8 to 6) have been completed.
Click the link below for the full circle and arrow diagram for the computer project we are using as an example.
Figure 5: Full Critical Path Diagram
This shows all the activities that will take place as part of the project. Notice that each event circle also has a figure in the bottom, right hand quadrant. This shows the latest finish time that's permissible for the preceding activity if the project is to be completed in the minimum time possible. You can calculate this by starting at the last event and working backwards.The latest finish time of the preceding event and the earliest start time of the following even will be the same for circles on the critical path.
You can see that event M can start any time between weeks 6 and 8. The timing of this event is not critical. Events 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, 4 to 5, 5 to 6 and 6 to 7 must be started and completed on time if the project is to be completed in 10 weeks. This is the 'critical path' – these activities must be very closely managed to ensure that activities are completed on time. If jobs on the critical path slip, immediate action should be taken to get the project back on schedule. Otherwise completion of the whole project will slip.
'Crash Action'
You may find that you need to complete a project earlier than your Critical Path Analysis says is possible. In this case you need to re-plan your project.
You have a number of options and would need to assess the impact of each on the project’s cost, quality and time required to complete it. For example, you could increase resource available for each project activity to bring down time spent on each but the impact of some of this would be insignificant and a more efficient way of doing this would be to look only at activities on the critical path.
As an example, it may be necessary to complete the computer project in Figure 5 in 8 weeks rather than 10 weeks. In this case you could look at using two analysts in activities 2 to 3 and 3 to 4. This would shorten the project by two weeks, but may raise the project cost – doubling resources at any stage may only improve productivity by, say, 50% as additional time may need to be spent getting the team members up to speed on what is required, coordinating tasks split between them, integrating their contributions etc.
In some situations, shortening the original critical path of a project can lead to a different series of activities becoming the critical path. For example, if activity 4 to 5 were reduced to 1 week, activities 4 to 8 and 8 to 6 would come onto the critical path.
As with Gantt Charts, in practice project managers use software tools like Microsoft Project to create CPA Charts. Not only do these ease make them easier to draw, they also make modification of plans easier and provide facilities for monitoring progress against plans.
PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique)
PERT is a variation on Critical Path Analysis that takes a slightly more skeptical view of time estimates made for each project stage. To use it, estimate the shortest possible time each activity will take, the most likely length of time, and the longest time that might be taken if the activity takes longer than expected.
Use the formula below to calculate the time to use for each project stage:
shortest time + 4 x likely time + longest time
-----------------------------------------------------------
6
This helps to bias time estimates away from the unrealistically short time-scales normally assumed.
Key points:
Critical Path Analysis is an effective and powerful method of assessing:
What tasks must be carried out.
Where parallel activity can be performed.
The shortest time in which you can complete a project.
Resources needed to execute a project.
The sequence of activities, scheduling and timings involved.
Task priorities.
The most efficient way of shortening time on urgent projects.
An effective Critical Path Analysis can make the difference between success and failure on complex projects. It can be very useful for assessing the importance of problems faced during the implementation of the plan.
PERT is a variant of Critical Path Analysis that takes a more skeptical view of the time needed to complete each project stage.
and PERT Charts
Planning and Scheduling Complex Projects
Related variants: AOA or Activity-on-Arc or Activity-on-Arrow Diagrams
Critical Path Analysis and PERT are powerful tools that help you to schedule and manage complex projects. They were developed in the 1950s to control large defense projects, and have been used routinely since then.
As with Gantt Charts, Critical Path Analysis (CPA) or the Critical Path Method (CPM) helps you to plan all tasks that must be completed as part of a project. They act as the basis both for preparation of a schedule, and of resource planning. During management of a project, they allow you to monitor achievement of project goals. They help you to see where remedial action needs to be taken to get a project back on course.
Within a project it is likely that you will display your final project plan as a Gantt Chart (using Microsoft Project or other software for projects of medium complexity or an excel spreadsheet for projects of low complexity).The benefit of using CPA within the planning process is to help you develop and test your plan to ensure that it is robust. Critical Path Analysis formally identifies tasks which must be completed on time for the whole project to be completed on time. It also identifies which tasks can be delayed if resource needs to be reallocated to catch up on missed or overrunning tasks. The disadvantage of CPA, if you use it as the technique by which your project plans are communicated and managed against, is that the relation of tasks to time is not as immediately obvious as with Gantt Charts. This can make them more difficult to understand.
A further benefit of Critical Path Analysis is that it helps you to identify the minimum length of time needed to complete a project. Where you need to run an accelerated project, it helps you to identify which project steps you should accelerate to complete the project within the available time.
How to Use the Tool:
As with Gantt Charts, the essential concept behind Critical Path Analysis is that you cannot start some activities until others are finished. These activities need to be completed in a sequence, with each stage being more-or-less completed before the next stage can begin. These are 'sequential' activities.
Other activities are not dependent on completion of any other tasks. You can do these at any time before or after a particular stage is reached. These are non-dependent or 'parallel' tasks.
Drawing a Critical Path Analysis Chart
Use the following steps to draw a CPA Chart:
Step 1. List all activities in the plan
For each activity, show the earliest start date, estimated length of time it will take, and whether it is parallel or sequential. If tasks are sequential, show which stage they depend on.
For the project example used here, you will end up with the same task list as explained in the article on Gantt Charts (we will use the same example as with Gantt Charts to compare the two techniques). The chart is repeated in Figure 1 below:
Figure 1. Task List: Planning a custom-written computer project
Task
Earliest start
Length
Type
Dependent on...
A. High level analysis
Week 0
1 week
Sequential
B. Selection of hardware platform
Week 1
1 day
Sequential
A
C. Installation and commissioning of hardware
Week 1.2
2 weeks
Parallel
B
D. Detailed analysis of core modules
Week 1
2 weeks
Sequential
A
E. Detailed analysis of supporting modules
Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
F. Programming of core modules
Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
G. Programming of supporting modules
Week 5
3 weeks
Sequential
E
H. Quality assurance of core modules
Week 5
1 week
Sequential
F
I. Quality assurance of supporting modules
Week 8
1 week
Sequential
G
J.Core module training
Week 6
1 day
Parallel
C,H
K. Development and QA of accounting reporting
Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
L. Development and QA of management reporting
Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
M. Development of Management Information System
Week 6
1 week
Sequential
L
N. Detailed training
Week 9
1 week
Sequential
I, J, K, M
Step 2. Plot the activities as a circle and arrow diagram
Critical Path Analyses are presented using circle and arrow diagrams.
In these, circles show events within the project, such as the start and finish of tasks. The number shown in the left hand half of the circle allows you to identify each one easily. Circles are sometimes known as nodes.
An arrow running between two event circles shows the activity needed to complete that task. A description of the task is written underneath the arrow. The length of the task is shown above it. By convention, all arrows run left to right. Arrows are also sometimes called arcs.
An example of a very simple diagram is shown below:
This shows the start event (circle 1), and the completion of the 'High Level Analysis' task (circle 2). The arrow between them shows the activity of carrying out the High Level Analysis. This activity should take 1 week.
Where one activity cannot start until another has been completed, we start the arrow for the dependent activity at the completion event circle of the previous activity. An example of this is shown below:
Here the activities of 'Select Hardware' and 'Core Module Analysis' cannot be started until 'High Level Analysis' has been completed. This diagram also brings out a number of other important points:
Within Critical Path Analysis, we refer to activities by the numbers in the circles at each end. For example, the task 'Core Module Analysis' would be called activity 2 to 3. 'Select Hardware' would be activity 2 to 9.
Activities are not drawn to scale. In the diagram above, activities are 1 week long, 2 weeks long, and 1 day long. Arrows in this case are all the same length.
In the example above, you can see a second number in the top, right hand quadrant of each circle. This shows the earliest start time for the following activity. It is conventional to start at 0. Here units are whole weeks.
A different case is shown below:
Here activity 6 to 7 cannot start until the other four activities (11 to 6, 5 to 6, 4 to 6, and 8 to 6) have been completed.
Click the link below for the full circle and arrow diagram for the computer project we are using as an example.
Figure 5: Full Critical Path Diagram
This shows all the activities that will take place as part of the project. Notice that each event circle also has a figure in the bottom, right hand quadrant. This shows the latest finish time that's permissible for the preceding activity if the project is to be completed in the minimum time possible. You can calculate this by starting at the last event and working backwards.The latest finish time of the preceding event and the earliest start time of the following even will be the same for circles on the critical path.
You can see that event M can start any time between weeks 6 and 8. The timing of this event is not critical. Events 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, 4 to 5, 5 to 6 and 6 to 7 must be started and completed on time if the project is to be completed in 10 weeks. This is the 'critical path' – these activities must be very closely managed to ensure that activities are completed on time. If jobs on the critical path slip, immediate action should be taken to get the project back on schedule. Otherwise completion of the whole project will slip.
'Crash Action'
You may find that you need to complete a project earlier than your Critical Path Analysis says is possible. In this case you need to re-plan your project.
You have a number of options and would need to assess the impact of each on the project’s cost, quality and time required to complete it. For example, you could increase resource available for each project activity to bring down time spent on each but the impact of some of this would be insignificant and a more efficient way of doing this would be to look only at activities on the critical path.
As an example, it may be necessary to complete the computer project in Figure 5 in 8 weeks rather than 10 weeks. In this case you could look at using two analysts in activities 2 to 3 and 3 to 4. This would shorten the project by two weeks, but may raise the project cost – doubling resources at any stage may only improve productivity by, say, 50% as additional time may need to be spent getting the team members up to speed on what is required, coordinating tasks split between them, integrating their contributions etc.
In some situations, shortening the original critical path of a project can lead to a different series of activities becoming the critical path. For example, if activity 4 to 5 were reduced to 1 week, activities 4 to 8 and 8 to 6 would come onto the critical path.
As with Gantt Charts, in practice project managers use software tools like Microsoft Project to create CPA Charts. Not only do these ease make them easier to draw, they also make modification of plans easier and provide facilities for monitoring progress against plans.
PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique)
PERT is a variation on Critical Path Analysis that takes a slightly more skeptical view of time estimates made for each project stage. To use it, estimate the shortest possible time each activity will take, the most likely length of time, and the longest time that might be taken if the activity takes longer than expected.
Use the formula below to calculate the time to use for each project stage:
shortest time + 4 x likely time + longest time
-----------------------------------------------------------
6
This helps to bias time estimates away from the unrealistically short time-scales normally assumed.
Key points:
Critical Path Analysis is an effective and powerful method of assessing:
What tasks must be carried out.
Where parallel activity can be performed.
The shortest time in which you can complete a project.
Resources needed to execute a project.
The sequence of activities, scheduling and timings involved.
Task priorities.
The most efficient way of shortening time on urgent projects.
An effective Critical Path Analysis can make the difference between success and failure on complex projects. It can be very useful for assessing the importance of problems faced during the implementation of the plan.
PERT is a variant of Critical Path Analysis that takes a more skeptical view of the time needed to complete each project stage.
Planning and Scheduling Complex Projects
Gantt Charts (Gant Charts) are useful tools for analyzing and planning more complex projects. They:
Help you to plan out the tasks that need to be completed
Give you a basis for scheduling when these tasks will be carried out
Allow you to plan the allocation of resources needed to complete the project, and
Help you to work out the critical path for a project where you must complete it by a particular date.
When a project is under way, Gantt Charts help you to monitor whether the project is on schedule. If it is not, it allows you to pinpoint the remedial action necessary to put it back on schedule.
Sequential and parallel activities:
An essential concept behind project planning (and Critical Path Analysis) is that some activities are dependent on other activities being completed first. As a shallow example, it is not a good idea to start building a bridge before you have designed it!
These dependent activities need to be completed in a sequence, with each stage being more-or-less completed before the next activity can begin. We can call dependent activities 'sequential' or 'linear'.
Other activities are not dependent on completion of any other tasks. These may be done at any time before or after a particular stage is reached. These are nondependent or 'parallel' tasks.
Drawing a Gantt Chart
To draw up a Gantt diagram (Gant diagram), follow these steps:
Step 1. List all activities in the plan
For each task, show the earliest start date, estimated length of time it will take, and whether it is parallel or sequential. If tasks are sequential, show which stages they depend on.
You will end up with a task list like the one in figure 1. This example shows the task list for a custom-written computer project. We will use this same example for both this section and the section on Critical Path Analysis and PERT. This will allow you to compare the results of the two approaches.
Figure 1. Gantt Chart Example: Planning a custom-written computer project
Task
Earliest start
Length
Type
Dependent on...
A. High level analysis
Week 0
1 week
Sequential
B. Selection of hardware platform
Week 1
1 day
Sequential
A
C. Installation and commissioning of hardware
Week 1.2
2 weeks
Parallel
B
D. Detailed analysis of core modules
Week 1
2 weeks
Sequential
A
E. Detailed analysis of supporting modules
Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
F. Programming of core modules
Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
G. Programming of supporting modules
Week 5
3 weeks
Sequential
E
H. Quality assurance of core modules
Week 5
1 week
Sequential
F
I. Quality assurance of supporting modules
Week 8
1 week
Sequential
G
J. Core module training
Week 6
1 day
Parallel
C,H
K. Development and QA of accounting reporting
Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
L. Development and QA of management reporting
Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
M. Development of Management Information System
Week 6
1 week
Sequential
L
N. Detailed training
Week 9
1 week
Sequential
I, J, K, M
Step 2. Head up graph paper with the days or weeks through to task completion
Step 3. Plot the tasks onto the graph paper
Next draw up a rough draft of the Gantt Chart. Plot each task on the graph paper, showing it starting on the earliest possible date. Draw it as a bar, with the length of the bar being the length of the task. Above the task bars, mark the time taken to complete them.
Schedule them in such a way that sequential actions are carried out in the required sequence. Ensure that dependent activities do not start until the activities they depend on have been completed.
This will produce an untidy diagram like the one below:
Step 4. Presenting the analysis
The last stage in this process is to prepare a final version of the Gantt Chart. This shows how the sets of sequential activities link together, and identifies the critical path activities. At this stage you also need to check the resourcing of the various activities. While scheduling, ensure that you make best use of the resources you have available, and do not over-commit resource.
You can also use color to represent the different resource types that you need to use such as programmers, or analysts.
A redrawn version of the example project is shown below:
By drawing this example Gantt Chart, you can see that:
If all goes well, the project can be completed in 10 weeks.
If you want to complete the task as rapidly as possible, you need:
1 analyst for the first 5 weeks.
1 programmer for 5 weeks starting week 4.
1 programmer/QA expert for 3 weeks starting week 6. Note: Activities L and M have been moved back a week. This does not affect the critical path, but it does mean that a single programming/QA resource can carry out all three of activities K, L and M.
Analysis, development and testing of supporting modules are essential activities that must be completed on time.
Hardware installation and commissioning is not time-critical as long as it is completed before the Core Module Training starts.
While this section describes how to draw a Gantt Chart manually, in practice project managers use software tools like Microsoft Project to create Gantt Charts. Not only do these ease the drawing of Gantt Charts, they also make modification of plans easier and provide facilities for monitoring progress against plans, as well as generating resource histograms.
Key points:
Gantt charts are useful tools for planning and scheduling projects. They allow you to assess how long a project should take, determine the resources needed, and lay out the order in which tasks need to be carried out. They are useful in managing the dependencies between tasks.
When a project is under way, Gantt charts are useful for monitoring its progress. You can immediately see what should have been achieved at a point in time, and can therefore take remedial action to bring the project back on course. This can be essential for the successful and profitable implementation of the project.
Gantt Charts (Gant Charts) are useful tools for analyzing and planning more complex projects. They:
Help you to plan out the tasks that need to be completed
Give you a basis for scheduling when these tasks will be carried out
Allow you to plan the allocation of resources needed to complete the project, and
Help you to work out the critical path for a project where you must complete it by a particular date.
When a project is under way, Gantt Charts help you to monitor whether the project is on schedule. If it is not, it allows you to pinpoint the remedial action necessary to put it back on schedule.
Sequential and parallel activities:
An essential concept behind project planning (and Critical Path Analysis) is that some activities are dependent on other activities being completed first. As a shallow example, it is not a good idea to start building a bridge before you have designed it!
These dependent activities need to be completed in a sequence, with each stage being more-or-less completed before the next activity can begin. We can call dependent activities 'sequential' or 'linear'.
Other activities are not dependent on completion of any other tasks. These may be done at any time before or after a particular stage is reached. These are nondependent or 'parallel' tasks.
Drawing a Gantt Chart
To draw up a Gantt diagram (Gant diagram), follow these steps:
Step 1. List all activities in the plan
For each task, show the earliest start date, estimated length of time it will take, and whether it is parallel or sequential. If tasks are sequential, show which stages they depend on.
You will end up with a task list like the one in figure 1. This example shows the task list for a custom-written computer project. We will use this same example for both this section and the section on Critical Path Analysis and PERT. This will allow you to compare the results of the two approaches.
Figure 1. Gantt Chart Example: Planning a custom-written computer project
Task
Earliest start
Length
Type
Dependent on...
A. High level analysis
Week 0
1 week
Sequential
B. Selection of hardware platform
Week 1
1 day
Sequential
A
C. Installation and commissioning of hardware
Week 1.2
2 weeks
Parallel
B
D. Detailed analysis of core modules
Week 1
2 weeks
Sequential
A
E. Detailed analysis of supporting modules
Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
F. Programming of core modules
Week 3
2 weeks
Sequential
D
G. Programming of supporting modules
Week 5
3 weeks
Sequential
E
H. Quality assurance of core modules
Week 5
1 week
Sequential
F
I. Quality assurance of supporting modules
Week 8
1 week
Sequential
G
J. Core module training
Week 6
1 day
Parallel
C,H
K. Development and QA of accounting reporting
Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
L. Development and QA of management reporting
Week 5
1 week
Parallel
E
M. Development of Management Information System
Week 6
1 week
Sequential
L
N. Detailed training
Week 9
1 week
Sequential
I, J, K, M
Step 2. Head up graph paper with the days or weeks through to task completion
Step 3. Plot the tasks onto the graph paper
Next draw up a rough draft of the Gantt Chart. Plot each task on the graph paper, showing it starting on the earliest possible date. Draw it as a bar, with the length of the bar being the length of the task. Above the task bars, mark the time taken to complete them.
Schedule them in such a way that sequential actions are carried out in the required sequence. Ensure that dependent activities do not start until the activities they depend on have been completed.
This will produce an untidy diagram like the one below:
Step 4. Presenting the analysis
The last stage in this process is to prepare a final version of the Gantt Chart. This shows how the sets of sequential activities link together, and identifies the critical path activities. At this stage you also need to check the resourcing of the various activities. While scheduling, ensure that you make best use of the resources you have available, and do not over-commit resource.
You can also use color to represent the different resource types that you need to use such as programmers, or analysts.
A redrawn version of the example project is shown below:
By drawing this example Gantt Chart, you can see that:
If all goes well, the project can be completed in 10 weeks.
If you want to complete the task as rapidly as possible, you need:
1 analyst for the first 5 weeks.
1 programmer for 5 weeks starting week 4.
1 programmer/QA expert for 3 weeks starting week 6. Note: Activities L and M have been moved back a week. This does not affect the critical path, but it does mean that a single programming/QA resource can carry out all three of activities K, L and M.
Analysis, development and testing of supporting modules are essential activities that must be completed on time.
Hardware installation and commissioning is not time-critical as long as it is completed before the Core Module Training starts.
While this section describes how to draw a Gantt Chart manually, in practice project managers use software tools like Microsoft Project to create Gantt Charts. Not only do these ease the drawing of Gantt Charts, they also make modification of plans easier and provide facilities for monitoring progress against plans, as well as generating resource histograms.
Key points:
Gantt charts are useful tools for planning and scheduling projects. They allow you to assess how long a project should take, determine the resources needed, and lay out the order in which tasks need to be carried out. They are useful in managing the dependencies between tasks.
When a project is under way, Gantt charts are useful for monitoring its progress. You can immediately see what should have been achieved at a point in time, and can therefore take remedial action to bring the project back on course. This can be essential for the successful and profitable implementation of the project.
Scheduling Simple Projects
Simple projects involve only one or a few people over a short time. Typically, simple projects will have few tasks dependent on other tasks, and will be relatively simple and easy to coordinate. Examples might be coordinating delivery of resources for a workshop session, implementing a small marketing plan, or delivering a simple software enhancement.
With simple projects, tools like Gantt Charts and Critical Path Diagrams may overcomplicate project scheduling and communication. Unless project team members are trained in their use, they can often 'blind people with science', leading to poor communication and muddled projects.
How to Use the Tool:
Appropriate Timetables and Action Plans are often sufficient to coordinate and implement simple projects. These should be explained and negotiated with project staff to improve the plans and get staff understanding, input and buy-in.
It will often be enough to create a workback schedule, starting from the date by which the project must be completed, and listing all of the tasks in reverse order with due dates for each.
Whatever the size of your project, ensure that you have agreed its scope with its sponsor (the person who wants it done) before you start planning. This will help you to resist changes to its scope (known as "scope creep"), which will seriously affect your plans, once you have started working.
Key points:
Simple projects are often best run using simple Timetables and Action Plans. These should be prepared and negotiated with project staff to improve plans and get buy-in.
During the project these will contain sufficient control points and deliveries to monitor project progress and take any appropriate remedial action.
Simple projects involve only one or a few people over a short time. Typically, simple projects will have few tasks dependent on other tasks, and will be relatively simple and easy to coordinate. Examples might be coordinating delivery of resources for a workshop session, implementing a small marketing plan, or delivering a simple software enhancement.
With simple projects, tools like Gantt Charts and Critical Path Diagrams may overcomplicate project scheduling and communication. Unless project team members are trained in their use, they can often 'blind people with science', leading to poor communication and muddled projects.
How to Use the Tool:
Appropriate Timetables and Action Plans are often sufficient to coordinate and implement simple projects. These should be explained and negotiated with project staff to improve the plans and get staff understanding, input and buy-in.
It will often be enough to create a workback schedule, starting from the date by which the project must be completed, and listing all of the tasks in reverse order with due dates for each.
Whatever the size of your project, ensure that you have agreed its scope with its sponsor (the person who wants it done) before you start planning. This will help you to resist changes to its scope (known as "scope creep"), which will seriously affect your plans, once you have started working.
Key points:
Simple projects are often best run using simple Timetables and Action Plans. These should be prepared and negotiated with project staff to improve plans and get buy-in.
During the project these will contain sufficient control points and deliveries to monitor project progress and take any appropriate remedial action.
Learning to prioritize risks
Risk management is an important function in organizations today. Companies undertake increasingly complex and ambitious projects, and those projects must be executed successfully, in an uncertain and often risky environment.
As a responsible manager, you need to be aware of these risks. Does this mean that you should try to address each and every risk that your project might face? Probably not - in all but the most critical environments, this can be much too expensive, both in time and resources.
Instead, you need to prioritize risks. If you do this effectively, you can focus the majority of your time and effort on the most important risks.
The Risk Impact/Probability Chart provides a useful framework that helps you decide which risks need your attention.
How to Use the Tool
The Risk Impact/Probability Chart is based on the principle that a risk has two primary dimensions:
Probability - A risk is an event that "may" occur. The probability of it occurring can range anywhere from just above 0% to just below 100%. (Note: It can't be exactly 100%, because then it would be a certainty, not a risk. And it can't be exactly 0%, or it wouldn't be a risk.)
Impact - A risk, by its very nature, always has a negative impact. However, the size of the impact varies in terms of cost and impact on health, human life, or some other critical factor.
The chart allows you to rate potential risks on these two dimensions. The probability that a risk will occur is represented on one axis of the chart - and the impact of the risk, if it occurs, on the other.
You use these two measures to plot the risk on the chart. This gives you a quick, clear view of the priority that you need to give to each. You can then decide what resources you will allocate to managing that particular risk.
The basic form of the Risk Impact/Probability Chart is shown below.
The corners of the chart have these characteristics:
Low impact/Low probability - Risks in the bottom left corner are low level, and you can often ignore them.
Low impact/High probability - Risks in the top left corner are of moderate importance - if these things happen, you can cope with them and move on. However, you should try to reduce the likelihood that they'll occur.
High impact/Low probability - Risks in the bottom right corner are of high importance if they do occur, but they're very unlikely to happen. For these, however, you should do what you can to reduce the impact they'll have if they do occur, and you should have contingency plans in place just in case they do.
High impact/High probability - Risks towards the top right corner are of critical importance. These are your top priorities, and are risks that you must pay close attention to.
Tip 1:
It's natural to want to turn this into a two-by-two matrix. The problem here is where the lines dividing the quadrants of the matrix lie. For example - should you ignore a 49% probability risk, which will cause a 49% of maximum loss? And why, in this example, should you pay maximum attention to a risk that has a 51% probability of occurring, with a loss of 51% of maximum loss?
Tip 2:
In some industries, you need to pay close attention to even very unlikely risks, where these risks involve injury or loss of human life, for example. Make sure you pay due attention to these risks.
To use the Risk Impact/Probability Chart, print this free worksheet, and then follow these steps:
List all of the likely risks that your project faces. Make the list as comprehensive as possible.
Assess the probability of each risk occurring, and assign it a rating. For example, you could use a scale of 1 to 10. Assign a score of 1 when a risk is extremely unlikely to occur, and use a score of 10 when the risk is extremely likely to occur.
Estimate the impact on the project if the risk occurs. Again, do this for each and every risk on your list. Using your 1-10 scale, assign it a 1 for little impact and a 10 for a huge, catastrophic impact.
Map out the ratings on the Risk Impact/Probability Chart.
Develop a response to each risk, according to its position in the chart. Remember, risks in the bottom left corner can often be ignored, while those in the top right corner need a great deal of time and attention. Read Risk Analysis and Risk Management for detailed strategies on developing a risk response plan.
Key Points
To successfully implement a project, you must identify and focus your attention on middle and high-priority risks - otherwise you risk spreading your efforts too thinly, and you'll waste resources on unnecessary risk management.
With the Risk Impact/Probability Chart, you map out each risk - and its position determines its priority. High-probability/high-impact risks are the most critical, and you should put a great deal of effort into managing these. The low-probability/high-impact risks and high-probability/low-impact risks are next in priority, though you may want to adopt different strategies for each.
Low-probability/low-impact risks can often be ignored.
Risk management is an important function in organizations today. Companies undertake increasingly complex and ambitious projects, and those projects must be executed successfully, in an uncertain and often risky environment.
As a responsible manager, you need to be aware of these risks. Does this mean that you should try to address each and every risk that your project might face? Probably not - in all but the most critical environments, this can be much too expensive, both in time and resources.
Instead, you need to prioritize risks. If you do this effectively, you can focus the majority of your time and effort on the most important risks.
The Risk Impact/Probability Chart provides a useful framework that helps you decide which risks need your attention.
How to Use the Tool
The Risk Impact/Probability Chart is based on the principle that a risk has two primary dimensions:
Probability - A risk is an event that "may" occur. The probability of it occurring can range anywhere from just above 0% to just below 100%. (Note: It can't be exactly 100%, because then it would be a certainty, not a risk. And it can't be exactly 0%, or it wouldn't be a risk.)
Impact - A risk, by its very nature, always has a negative impact. However, the size of the impact varies in terms of cost and impact on health, human life, or some other critical factor.
The chart allows you to rate potential risks on these two dimensions. The probability that a risk will occur is represented on one axis of the chart - and the impact of the risk, if it occurs, on the other.
You use these two measures to plot the risk on the chart. This gives you a quick, clear view of the priority that you need to give to each. You can then decide what resources you will allocate to managing that particular risk.
The basic form of the Risk Impact/Probability Chart is shown below.
The corners of the chart have these characteristics:
Low impact/Low probability - Risks in the bottom left corner are low level, and you can often ignore them.
Low impact/High probability - Risks in the top left corner are of moderate importance - if these things happen, you can cope with them and move on. However, you should try to reduce the likelihood that they'll occur.
High impact/Low probability - Risks in the bottom right corner are of high importance if they do occur, but they're very unlikely to happen. For these, however, you should do what you can to reduce the impact they'll have if they do occur, and you should have contingency plans in place just in case they do.
High impact/High probability - Risks towards the top right corner are of critical importance. These are your top priorities, and are risks that you must pay close attention to.
Tip 1:
It's natural to want to turn this into a two-by-two matrix. The problem here is where the lines dividing the quadrants of the matrix lie. For example - should you ignore a 49% probability risk, which will cause a 49% of maximum loss? And why, in this example, should you pay maximum attention to a risk that has a 51% probability of occurring, with a loss of 51% of maximum loss?
Tip 2:
In some industries, you need to pay close attention to even very unlikely risks, where these risks involve injury or loss of human life, for example. Make sure you pay due attention to these risks.
To use the Risk Impact/Probability Chart, print this free worksheet, and then follow these steps:
List all of the likely risks that your project faces. Make the list as comprehensive as possible.
Assess the probability of each risk occurring, and assign it a rating. For example, you could use a scale of 1 to 10. Assign a score of 1 when a risk is extremely unlikely to occur, and use a score of 10 when the risk is extremely likely to occur.
Estimate the impact on the project if the risk occurs. Again, do this for each and every risk on your list. Using your 1-10 scale, assign it a 1 for little impact and a 10 for a huge, catastrophic impact.
Map out the ratings on the Risk Impact/Probability Chart.
Develop a response to each risk, according to its position in the chart. Remember, risks in the bottom left corner can often be ignored, while those in the top right corner need a great deal of time and attention. Read Risk Analysis and Risk Management for detailed strategies on developing a risk response plan.
Key Points
To successfully implement a project, you must identify and focus your attention on middle and high-priority risks - otherwise you risk spreading your efforts too thinly, and you'll waste resources on unnecessary risk management.
With the Risk Impact/Probability Chart, you map out each risk - and its position determines its priority. High-probability/high-impact risks are the most critical, and you should put a great deal of effort into managing these. The low-probability/high-impact risks and high-probability/low-impact risks are next in priority, though you may want to adopt different strategies for each.
Low-probability/low-impact risks can often be ignored.
Accurate time estimation is a skill essential to good project management. It is important to get time estimates right for two main reasons:
Time estimates drive the setting of deadlines for delivery of projects, and hence peoples' assessments of your reliability
They often determine the pricing of contracts and hence their profitability.
Usually people vastly underestimate the amount of time needed to implement projects. This is true particularly when they are not familiar with the task to be carried out.
They forget to take into account unexpected events or unscheduled high priority work. People also often simply fail to allow for the full complexity involved with a job.
This section discusses how to estimate time on small projects. Time estimates are important inputs into the other techniques used to organize and structure medium and large sized projects (Gantt charts and Critical Path Analysis). Both of these techniques reduce large projects down into a set of small projects.
How to Use the Tool:
The first stage in estimating time accurately is to fully understand what you need to achieve. This involves reviewing the task in detail so that there are no unknowns. Inevitably it is the difficult-to-understand, tricky problems that take the greatest amount of time to solve.
The best way to review the job is to list all tasks in full detail. Simple techniques such as Drill-Down are useful for this.
Once you have a detailed list of all the tasks that you must achieve, make your best guess at how long each task will take to complete.
Ensure that within your estimate you also allow time for project management, detailed project planning, liaison with outside bodies, meetings, quality assurance and any supporting documentation necessary.
Also make sure that you have allowed time for:
Other high urgency tasks to be carried out which will have priority over this one
Accidents and emergencies
Internal meetings
Holidays and sickness in essential staff
Contact with other customers, perhaps to arrange the next job
Breakdowns in equipment
Missed deliveries by suppliers
Interruptions
Quality control rejections
These factors may double (or more than double) the length of time needed to complete a project.
If the accuracy of time estimates is critical, you may find it effective to develop a systematic approach to including these factors. If possible, base this on past experience.
Key points:
You can lose a great deal of credibility by underestimating the length of time needed to implement a project. If you underestimate time, not only do you miss deadlines, you also put other project workers under unnecessary stress. Projects will become seriously unprofitable, and other tasks cannot be started.
The first step towards making good time estimates is to fully understand the problem to be solved.
You can then prepare a detailed list of tasks that must be achieved. This list should include all the administrative tasks and meetings you need to carry out as well as the work itself.
Finally, allow time for all the expected and unexpected disruptions and delays to work that will inevitably happen.
Time estimates drive the setting of deadlines for delivery of projects, and hence peoples' assessments of your reliability
They often determine the pricing of contracts and hence their profitability.
Usually people vastly underestimate the amount of time needed to implement projects. This is true particularly when they are not familiar with the task to be carried out.
They forget to take into account unexpected events or unscheduled high priority work. People also often simply fail to allow for the full complexity involved with a job.
This section discusses how to estimate time on small projects. Time estimates are important inputs into the other techniques used to organize and structure medium and large sized projects (Gantt charts and Critical Path Analysis). Both of these techniques reduce large projects down into a set of small projects.
How to Use the Tool:
The first stage in estimating time accurately is to fully understand what you need to achieve. This involves reviewing the task in detail so that there are no unknowns. Inevitably it is the difficult-to-understand, tricky problems that take the greatest amount of time to solve.
The best way to review the job is to list all tasks in full detail. Simple techniques such as Drill-Down are useful for this.
Once you have a detailed list of all the tasks that you must achieve, make your best guess at how long each task will take to complete.
Ensure that within your estimate you also allow time for project management, detailed project planning, liaison with outside bodies, meetings, quality assurance and any supporting documentation necessary.
Also make sure that you have allowed time for:
Other high urgency tasks to be carried out which will have priority over this one
Accidents and emergencies
Internal meetings
Holidays and sickness in essential staff
Contact with other customers, perhaps to arrange the next job
Breakdowns in equipment
Missed deliveries by suppliers
Interruptions
Quality control rejections
These factors may double (or more than double) the length of time needed to complete a project.
If the accuracy of time estimates is critical, you may find it effective to develop a systematic approach to including these factors. If possible, base this on past experience.
Key points:
You can lose a great deal of credibility by underestimating the length of time needed to implement a project. If you underestimate time, not only do you miss deadlines, you also put other project workers under unnecessary stress. Projects will become seriously unprofitable, and other tasks cannot be started.
The first step towards making good time estimates is to fully understand the problem to be solved.
You can then prepare a detailed list of tasks that must be achieved. This list should include all the administrative tasks and meetings you need to carry out as well as the work itself.
Finally, allow time for all the expected and unexpected disruptions and delays to work that will inevitably happen.
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