Lesson 6: Managing Your Project: Part 2
Step 6: Executing
The execution step is characterized by the actual carrying out of the project plan. In other words, it's where you actually do stuff in the project.
Executing the project plan is the step along your path that will use up the vast majority of your resources, and where the most risk will be found. This is where the action is. Execution of the plan involves carrying out the various activities and plans move it forward (via progressive elaboration) towards achieving its goal. Many of these activities and plans will run side-by-side; others will wait until a previous activity has completed before it can begin.
Do you remember some of the broad questions we wanted our project plan to ask? Here's a refresher:
- Who is working on the project? What are the key personnel? How will people be brought into/taken off of the project?
- How will the project be completed? What activities will take place to complete each deliverable?
- When is the project being completed? What is the schedule for each activity?
- Where will the project activities take place? What are the locations?
- What are the risks? What are the contingency plans to manage those risks?
- How much is the project going to cost? What are the costs for each resource we need (both human and nonhuman)? What is the total cost?
- What kind of quality management does the project want to perform? How will quality be monitored?
- What subcontractors does the project need? What kinds of contracts will the project use?
- How will the project communicate with its staff? With stakeholders? How frequently?
The work of a Project Manager in the execution step is therefore managing the implementation of all the answers to these questions.
As you can begin to sense, managing these plans is not one of life’s simpler tasks, but that is what makes it so energizing. As a Project Manager, you will face a number of tradeoff situations, such as: do you speed up the project and incur more cost? Do you maintain your initial quality standard and increase the scope of the project? Do you take resources from a less critical activity, and put it towards one that is more critical?
These are just examples of the myriad of decision-oriented questions that a Project Manager will made – as part of the project team – during the project.
References used in this section (these books are available for order via the Resources link above):
The Project Manager’s Desk Reference, by James P. Lewis. Chapter 2; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Chapter 13.
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, by the Project Management Institute. Chapter 4.
