Wrap up the rest of the year with smoother well-defined projects and a toolbox of skills and resources to help you organize and bring projects to life.  Whenever you are putting a project together, it is essential to keep timelines in check, follow up, and watch out for scope creep. In this webinar, Brian Pichman will discuss different project management techniques and tools to help you not only have a successful project but more importantly, a well defined and detailed project launch.  By having a solid foundation and a few easy-to-use tools, you can significantly reduce that project management stress and be more excited for the next project you tackle!

1. Project Management Basics
Brian Pichman
Evolve Project

3. Project Management
• Wrap up the rest of the year with smoother well-defined projects and
a toolbox of skills and resources to help you organize and bring
projects to life. Whenever you are putting a project together, it is
essential to keep timelines in check, follow up, and watch out for
scope creep. In this webinar, Brian Pichman will discuss different
project management techniques and tools to help you not only have
a successful project but more importantly, a well defined and detailed
project launch. By having a solid foundation and a few easy-to-use
tools, you can significantly reduce that project management stress
and be more excited for the next project you tackle!

4. What Projects Are You Working On?

5. Agenda
• Terms
• Processes
• Tools for Success
• Certifications
A lot of the tips covered are great
ways to “gut check” a project

6. What’s makes up good Project Manager
• Well Organized
• Goal-Orientated
• Passionate About Processes
• Strong Leaders
• Effective Communicators
• Trust their team and delegate decisions

7. What If You Are A ”One Man Band”
• Keeping yourself on task is important regardless of if it’s a personal
project for yourself or you are working on the project solo
• Keeping yourself (or others) accountable is crucial to successful
project management
• Creating a schedule and sticking to it

8. Definitions
• Project
• Sequence of tasks that lead toward a singular goal; requires time, people and
resources.
• Deliverables
• Results or the outcomes of parts of the projects (plans, documents, etc.)
• Deadlines
• Each task and phase of the project has a due date. Deadlines keep a project on task
and focused
• Scope
• Involves determining and documenting a list of specific project goals, deliverables,
features, functions, tasks, deadlines, and ultimately costs. In other words, it is what
needs to be achieved and the work that must be done to deliver a project
• Scope Creep is when during a project new “ideas” or deliverables are suggested

9. https://medium.com/@nishagashmeer/project-scope-management-111b334a53a4

10. https://www.theprojectmanagementblueprint.com/blog/project-overview/scope-and-the-triple-contraints-of-quality-time-cost

12. Resource Determination
• Scheduling Phase
• Managers decide on
• How much time each activities takes
• How many people / material required
• The order in which these activities need to take place
• Assign Resources to the specific activities
• Add “Buffer” Time
• Document actual hours spent on the project while running – this can
help you benchmark for accuracy for future projects
• Also useful when you believe one resource can do a task in X amount of time,
but all the tasks are 2X amounts of time, you can quickly work to adjust the
project timeline/resources

14. Estimating Time Accurately
• Understand Requirements
• Business Requirement Analysis – Process in which you interview steak holders
document their priorities and estimate based on what they find important
• Work Break Down Structures – Hierarchy of how parts of the project are split
down into work buckets and how they funnel to the solve of the project
• GAP Analysis – Comparing actual performance with potential performance
and the needs to get to the final future state.
• Drill Down – Writing Down the problem on one side of the page and then its
components of the issue to the right of that. Other variations is the funnel
where you break the project down in stages to the smallest parts.

15. Gap Analysis
Drill Down
Work Break Down Structures

16. Making Estimates
• Once you’ve broken down the project a bit more, estimate the time for
each of the tasks and not the project as a whole
• List all of the assumptions, exclusions and constraints that are relevant –
and note the sources (people/process/things) that you will rely on
• This is important when estimates are questioned and risk areas for project delays
• People are often over optimistic when giving you timelines, and may
underestimate the time needed
• Assume that your resources will only be productive for 80 percent of the
time.
• Build in time for unexpected events such as sickness, supply problems, equipment
failure, accidents and emergencies, problem solving, and meetings.

18. Project Methodologies
• Agile
• Allows you to break projects down into separate manageable tasks, which can be
tackled in short iterations or sprints (hour or two segments)
• Agile is much more fluid and collaborative with quick production cycles and lots of
feedback and iteration
• Waterfall
• a hierarchy of sequential tasks that ends with a big product launch – works well
when all tasks are predetermined and there isn’t a lot of need of discussion
throughout the project
• Six Sigma
• Is business methodology that aims to improve processes, reduce waste and errors,
and increase customer satisfaction throughout an organization. Driven by data and
statistical analysis, Six Sigma provides a way to minimize mistakes and maximize
value in any business process
• You can get certified in this process – highly recommended. Really good toolset to
master if working with a team that is more about data and ROI

21. Not All Projects Obtain The Goal

22. Project Focuses
• For Projects Impacting Users or Employees
• Put an emphasis on the the entire experience
• This can include training, on-boarding,
announcement of the project, and so forth
• No one likes a surprise – overcommunication to
end users or impacted parties is crucial.
• Allows you to get in front of issues or the rumor mill.
• Central Location For Information
• Don’t have some files on OneDrive/Google
Drive, others on a shared drive, and others
buried in an email thread.

23. Online Collaboration - Slack

24. Slack Features
• Channels and Direct
Messages
• Allow for
Organization of
Conversation Threads
• Keep Individual &
Restricted Group
Messages Private

26. Integrations Galore!

27. Collaborate With Outside People
• Guests can:
• View message history
and access files shared
in the channel(s) they
can access
• See and direct message
or group message team
members who are in
the same channel(s)*
• See other team
members and their
profile information

28. Using Slack to Keep Track
• Emojis!

29. Using Teams/Slack
• Allows for single location of information
• Can create channels/workstreams to keep things organized.
• Run Polls if need be, coordinate meeting times, and push updates out
faster.

30. A Good Project Plan
• Answers  Project Goals and Outcomes
• SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Based)
• Identify Risks and Potential Problem Areas

31. Setting Expectations (And Sharing Them)
• Clarity of Risk and Expectations avoids disappointment
• Example: If the vendor doesn’t mean the deadline by DATE we will be delayed
by X many days.

32. Collaboration Documents – Google Drive

33. Collaboration Documents - OneDrive

34. Meeting Tips n Tricks
• “Parking Lots” – don’t get stuck in the weeds, schedule a sticky topic
between individuals outside of the meeting
• Meetings are not for communicating updates (do that in an email)
• Meetings are Discuss and Decide
• Everyone who leaves a meeting should have action items
• If they don’t – then this shouldn’t have been a meeting
• Designate a note taker and stick to an agenda
• Put these in the same location as all the other project
deliverables
Says no one ever 

35. Doodle – Pool Availability

36. AI Assistants

37. Calendly – Schedule Meetings Based On Your Availability

38. Boomerang

39. Tools for Project Management

40. Gantt Charts
• A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule
• But all the tasks, their sequence, and dependencies
• Build in due dates to help stay focused on project competition

41. Online Tools

42. Trello

43. Kanban is a concept related to lean and just-in-time (JIT)
production, where it is used as a scheduling system that
tells you what to produce, when to produce it, and how
much to produce.

44. Asana

47. Staying On Task During Projects
• Status Email (or if you REALLY need to, a meeting during tighter
timelines)
• Shift resources where they are needed such as a critical task needing
to be completed
• Understanding KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

48. Building Project Dashboards

49. Hope is NOT a Strategy
Hope Means
• I hope we can get the website
done by the weekend.
• I hope our 3D Printer works for
the 3D Printing Program
A Plan Means
• If we have to launch by the
weekend, feature A, B, and Z
may not be included.
• If our printer doesn’t work, we
can borrow one from someone.
Every project needs a plan. - Every Plan-A needs a Plan-B, with the resources ready if needed. Hoping you
will not need a Plan-B is not the same as having a Plan-B

51. End Of Project
• Collect and Archive all documents
• Measure:
• Was the time line accurate (over estimate / under estimate)
• You’ll want this information for future similar projects
• Did the project accomplish what it was set to solve
• Survey success
• Where people happy, and if not, why?
• Was there surprises – and how could we avoid them next time?
• Why didn’t we discover this during the planning phase.
• Thank everyone 

52. Other Tips For Roadblocks
• Someone is unresponsive
• Ask if there is another resource on their team you can work with
• If you have a tight deadline, you may need to assess whether or not
the resource is a critical part and what can be done to diminish
impact
• Plan for everything – sometimes its best to spend more time in the
planning a project to ensure risks are identified.

53. Certifications
• PMP: Project Management Professional ($500) - The PMP is the most
important industry-recognized certification for project managers.
• If you have a secondary degree with 7,500 hours leading and directing projects
• If you have a four-year degree, then 4,500 hours leading and directing projects.
• 35 hours of project management education
• CAPM: Certified Associate in Project Management ($300) - It
demonstrates your understanding of the fundamental knowledge,
terminology, and processes of effective project management
• A secondary degree (high school diploma, associate’s degree or the global
equivalent) and 1,500 hours of project experience
• Or 23 hours of project management education by the time you sit for the exam.
• CPMP: Certified Project Management Practitioner ($200) - course for
anyone who wants to get hands-on experience in project management

54. Questions?
• Email: BPichman@evolveproject.org
• Twitter: @Bpichman
• www.evolveproject.org