10 Things Principals Must Know About Their PMs' Projects | BCS Prosoft

The information presented in this blog post comes from a joint webcast held by Deltek and PSMJ Resources titled, “The 3 Pillars of Project Management Excellence”.

If you’re a Principal and you don’t have answers to the following 10 questions, you DO NOT have the level of oversight you need to have. This should not be confused with micromanagement. The difference being that you are properly involving yourself as a decision maker and overseeing the project as needed. If you’re a Project Manager you need to inform the Principal of all 10 of these on a regular basis to ensure that they know what’s going on with your projects.

Why is this so important? Your competitors are already asking these questions. And if you’re not careful, they could be asking these questions about your clients.

1. Is the job set up properly in the accounting system?
2. Has a PM Plan been prepared and distributed to the team?
3. Are there pending change orders that need to be formalized?
4. Has the job been billed recently?
5. Are payments current?
6. Is the job running over or under budget?  If over budget, what corrective actions are being taken?
7. Is the project on schedule?  If not, what corrective actions are being taken?
8. Are our QA requirements being followed?
9. Is the client happy?
10. Is there more work coming up with that client?

So how do you get answers to these questions without beating it out of your team? This is different for each firm of course. Smaller firms may opt for a more informal approach where larger firms with multiple offices or a large staff may need a formal method.

One way is simply taking the casual Management by Walking Around (MBWA) approach. Have informal discussions with your project managers in their offices. Bring it up when you see them by the coffee machine. Chat with them casually over lunch or wherever you can.

Another way to get this information is by scheduling and conducting formal presentations by your project managers. When presenting on the status of projects you may find it unnecessary to go over each project in detail. If this is the case you may want to select which project should be reviewed based on specific criteria:

• Projects where % Spent varies significantly from % Earned
• Projects where % Earned = % Spent
• High risk projects
• High opportunity projects
• Strategic client projects

Also keep in mind that, firms interested in conducting formal reviews needs a process in order to give the PM a chance to prepare. For example, a process for a mid-sized professional services firm with multiple locations might look something like this:

1. All PMs submit Earned Value reports to their Office Managers each month.
2. Each Office Manager in conjunction with the Regional Manager will select a day each month to conduct project reviews.  Time allocated will be 30 to 60 minutes per PM, at the discretion of the Office Manager.  Office Managers will have a schedule in place on or before November 1.
3. Office Managers will advise Regional Managers, Principals, COO and CFO which projects are scheduled for reviews each period.  Regional Managers, Principals, COO and CFO will attend at their discretion (either in person or via web).
4. Each PM must present at least one project each month. If the Office Manager is also the PM, the Assistant PM will present the project
5. Project reviews will include both PowerPoint and Excel templates (plus other clarifying management information that the PM may want to include)
6. The COO monitors the implementation of this process

The heart of the project management culture is when things happen regularly. Hold yourself and your firm accountable by developing a plan and sticking to it.