Contents of Guide 1: How To Run Successful Projects
Forget the large consulting firms and their complex methodologies. This document contains everything you need to know to run a project successfully. Often referred to as the ‘Ladybird Book of Project Management’

Free to Workshop Participants & ETP/IP

Guide 1: How to Run Successful Projects by Fergus O'Connell
Chairman & CEO - ETP The Structured Project Management Company

What's this booklet about?

This little booklet tells you how to run a project. Large or small; involving many person-years worth of work or just a few weeks; absorbing a cast of thousands or just yourself, this booklet will tell you everything you need to do to make your project a success.

You will find nothing complicated or difficult to understand in the following pages. Contrary to what many people might have you believe, project management is not rocket science. If you apply the common sense ideas and techniques described here, your project cannot but be successful.
How is the booklet structured?

The approach presented here is described in a series of steps. There are ten of them and there is a section for each step. Within each section, we present the step first - what it is, the ideas behind it - and then we tell you how to carry out that step. Many of the steps are illustrated with an example, where this is useful.

There is a lot of additional information and assistance that you can get to help you apply this approach. A References section at the end of this booklet tells you where to look.
Overview of the project management approach

This approach is known as Structured Project Management or The Ten Steps. Of the ten steps, five are to do with building a plan for the project and the other five are to do with executing the plan.

Not all of the steps are equally important and so there is a weighting attached to each of the steps. The weightings add up to 100 and, at any time over the life of your project, you can score your project out of 100. This score is something we call a Probability of Success Indicator or PSI. The PSI tells you how likely or not your project is to succeed. Low weightings will point you at the weak areas in your project i.e. those that you must fix if your project is to succeed. The steps and weightings are as follows:

Weighting Step

PLANNING THE PROJECT

20 1 Figure out the goal of the project
20 2 Make a list of jobs
10 3 The project must have one leader
10 4 Find people to do the work
10 5 (a) Put a margin for error in the plan; (b) Manage peoples' expectations

EXECUTING THE PLAN

10 6 Use an appropriate leadership style
10 7 Know what's going on
10 8 Tell people what's going on
0 9 Repeat steps 1 through 8 until the project is over
0 10 Do a post mortem or review on the project

Table of Contents

1. Table of Contents
2. Introduction
3. Figure out the goal of the project
4. Make a list of jobs
5. The project must have one leader
6. Find people to do the work
7. (a) Put a margin for error in the plan
8. (b) Manage peoples' expectations
9. Use an appropriate leadership style
10. Know what's going on
11. Tell people what's going on
12. Repeat steps 1 through 8 until the project is over
13. Do a post mortem or review on the project
14. References

© Fergus O'Connell 2003