Establishing Appropriate Checks and Balances on a Project

In my opinion, it is important to separate some of the key review functions of a project from the actual performance/work of the project. What I mean is, for instance, for Information Technology (IT) projects, there are some critical needs that determine if the project and the activities/work being performed are up to standard. These needs are things like:

• Technical Architecture Review – to determine if the design is appropriate and takes into considerations the “Enterprise Perspective” of linking things to the big picture.
  
  
• Security Review – to determine if the appropriate security, privacy and audit controls are in place for the system to comply with internal policies, procedures and legislative or statutory requirement.
  
  
• Quality Assurance and Code Review – to determine if appropriate test cases have been conducted, if there is adequate levels of documentation and if the code written is understandable, maintainable, efficient, etc.

Suggestion: If you have a project director-project manager structure, where multiple project managers report to one director, you could place these critical functions under one PM and have him/her report to the director. Another option is to have a separate audit function within the organization/company with the technical experience to do this type of work either on-going on a project or on a periodic, for instance quarterly, basis.

Regardless of how you implement the functions, they are vital to ensuring things are done right. If you place these functions within a development team, they may lack the expertise or the information to link things more broadly; they may take shortcuts just to simplify their lives but hurt the long-term interests of the project and the organization, not necessarily out of negligence, just because it’s easier to do.

Starting Characteristics of a Good Project Manager

The subject of what makes a good project manager and his/her characteristics are documented broadly in almost every project management literature.  Also, the characteristics are numerous and the combination of attributes differs from person to person and the type of project that needs management.  However, based on my experience, there are some fundamental attributes that distinguishes a project manager that knows what he/she is doing and who can lead a project to success from one that goes through the right motions but results are limited or lacking.

First of all, it is important to note that a project manager has to be a leader, a take-charge person and a negotiator.  Read this short article on selecting or managing quality staff.

The additional attributes that makes a good project manager effective, at the onset, include:

• Ownership mentality - looking at the project as something that they need to do, being conscientious, and ensuring its success and feeling like it's their responsibility.
• What you don't want is someone who is going through the formal project management steps without much thought for what is really necessary and how success can be obtained.
• Is decisive but not stubborn - after having done his/her homework, a good project manager makes the right decisions and communicates it out.  However, should the information be incorrect or not all encompassing, he/she doesn't become defensive and try to push and instill his/her point of view regardless of opposing points of view.
• Develops a project plan - starts the project by planning.  He/she doesn't spend a ton of time doing analysis and trying to figure everything out before a plan can be completed; he/she sets up a structure and continuously modifies and improves on it over time.
• Starts with a context model - determines the scope and boundaries of a project by looking at the highest level of known information and the entities (people, organizations, systems, etc.) involved.  A context model sets in motion what is in and what is out and what are all the interactions and touch points of the main issue/project.
• Does not use jargon - works with simple, straight-forward and easily understandable information.
• For instance:  does not use phrases like "stakeholder analysis, subject matter expert assessment, etc."  Instead, emphasizes meeting with the right people to get the right information to move to the next step.
• Is knowledgeable about the key project metrics - knows what the budget total is and how much has been spent to date and knows the timeline and approaching critical milestones.

I am sure there are many other attributes, these serve as initial guidelines for me in determining who is the right person for the job at hand.