SULE PROJECT AND PLANNING CONSULTANT NETWORK

BOSCARD (Terms of Reference) When looking to gain support and approval for your next project, it might be worth thinking BOSCARD. The BOSCARD is a strategic planning tool used to provide the terms-of-reference for new projects. It is thought to have originated with consulting company Cap Gemini in the 1980s. The acronym stands for background, objectives, scope, constraints, assumptions, risks and deliverables. These headings are commonly found in terms-of-reference and project initiation documents. Background Provide background information that includes the reasons for creating the project and mentions the key stakeholders who will benefit from the project result. Objectives Describe the project goals and link each of them with related, SMART  project objectives. Scope Provide a high-level description of the features and functions that characterise the product, service, or result the project is meant to deliver. Constraints Identify the specific constraints or restricti...

The project plan is one of the most important and useful documents in your toolkit, and should be referred to and updated throughout the project lifecycle. Its initial purpose is to kick-start the project by convincing the decision makers (usually the people who control the funds e.g. the Project Board or Steering Committee) that the project is viable and will meet their needs and timeframes, budgets, expectations. If the project plan is poorly written or contains insufficient detail, the project may not even get past this first decision gate and may never actually get off the ground. Many viable projects have floundered at this stage due to poor planning and communication. On the flip side, if you can deliver a great project plan, it establishes your credibility as a project manager, starts the project on a sound footing, and provides the team with a mandate for action and a clear direction to follow. Don't confuse a project plan with a project schedule. A schedule is merely ...

Advanced Project Management Reports August 12, 2013 Last week, by 3pm on Friday, most of my team members had sent me their status reports for the week. Some people will always need chasing up for that kind of information, but I thought it was pretty good that my team are now in the habit of sending over their updates before I ask for them. I use the status information from each of them to combine into my weekly status report, which I send to the whole project team, the business stakeholders and my project sponsor. Not everything that the team members tell me makes it into the status report – I pick and choose the most interesting and relevant bits for the wider audience, but as a project manager it’s good to know everything myself. And the report practically writes itself as all I have to do is copy and paste the sections that I want to share with everyone. You probably do something similar. Status reports are the most common type of project report. But there are other r...

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April 3, 2017 “There’s a meeting of the directors on Tuesday, can you come along and talk about your project?” Your heart sinks. That’s a huge responsibility and a lot of pressure. While it’s great that the company directors are interested in your project, doing a presentation in front of them is going to be highly stressful. “Can you do 10 minutes on your project at the next Town Hall meeting?” Oh no. That means standing up in front of 300 people. How can you possibly do a presentation that will be interesting to all of them? If you haven’t come across these requests from senior managers yet, you will! Both these scenarios are common on projects, especially projects that introduce a new product or involve organizational change. But don’t feel overwhelmed. Giving presentations may feel scary, but you can plan and prepare for them just like any other meeting. Tip #1: Get It In The Diary You can’t just expect people to turn up – they need  to know that there is an im...

Success in project management hinges on the creation of a comprehensive and accurate project budget. Find out what to include in your budget and download a free example of a project budget template. What is the Goal of a Project Budget? One of the key elements of any  project proposal  is the project budget. It is a pivotal tool that will be used by several different groups involved in the project. The project manager will use this budget to determine whether the project is on track; project personnel will use it as a guideline to fulfill certain project milestones; and the client will use it to determine the success of the effort. But the task of creating a budget for a new project may be a bit daunting- especially if the project manager has had little or no experience coordinating projects. Some expenses, such as salaries, utilities, rent, or equipment costs, may seem pretty straight forward. But there are many contingencies and unknowns that may affect how and w...

People like to talk about work, don’t they? Whether you meet someone for the first time in a bar, at a party or at the bus stop they are likely you what you do a living. The problem is that project manager is such a vague description to most people that they don’t know what it really involves. Some of them might press you for more details but others might smile and change the subject onto the weather or the price of beans. If you want to get across what your job is about (and why wouldn’t you?) then it is worth thinking about how you can describe it in a language which non project people can understand. Here are a few of the ways I have tried to do it in the past, although not all of them have been successful. I Design Processes This is a pretty safe way to describe the project manager role, even though it only tells part of the story. Everyone knows what a process is and the idea of someone designing them shouldn’t be too much for most of them to grasp. Possibly the main prob...

5 Ways to Gather Project Requirements 27 June, 2013 All projects start with requirements – after all, you have to know what it is you are about to deliver before you can start work. But how do you get those requirements? You may be lucky and find that you are asked to work on a project where the requirements are already clearly defined. Perhaps the business needs make the requirements really straightforward, or perhaps a business analyst has already gathered them and prepared the project scope information. On the other hand, you may be handed a vague brief and asked to finalize the project scope yourself. In that case, you will have to work with all the key stakeholders to identify the important elements of project scope and prepare the project requirements. You can do this with your team members as they will probably have their own ideas of what needs to be included in the scope of the project. However you go about it, you need some techniques in order to be able to captu...

5 Terms Every Project Manager Should Know June 26, 2013 Have you ever sat in a meeting and wondered what on earth was going on? When you are new to project management it can be difficult to get your head around all the new terminology, as, let’s face it, project management has a language all to itself. The jargon can make you feel as if you’ll never make any progress, and what’s worse is that you won’t find it easy to get your hands on a glossary of terms. Many project managers who have been working in the field for a long time have forgotten that once upon a time they didn’t know what any of these words meant either! Here we try to demystify 5 of the most common project management terms – things you’ll hear every day when you are a project manager. 1. Baseline A baseline is a snapshot in time. It’s usually used to refer to a  project plan , so it captures the plan at any given moment. Baselines are important because project plans usually change, so what you think ...

How to Update Your Project Management Skills June 26, 2013 When I first took a project management course I had no idea that things would change. I naively thought that what I learned in those 5 days would be good enough to see me through my career as a project manager. I was wrong! We all have to update our skills, both in new project management techniques and also to ensure that we are growing professionally and being the best we can be. What are you doing to keep your skills fresh? Here are 7 ways to update your project management skills. 1. Take a Course The most obvious way to update your skills is to attend a training course. Many employers have an annual training budget, so ask your manager if you can attend a course this year. Be specific, as you may have more success getting them to agree if you present them with a well-researched justification for the course you want to attend instead of just generally asking if you can have some training and expecting them to...