« What are Gantt Charts?
The Ten Commandments of Project Management »

Project Managers and Vendors: Creating a Successful Partnership - Part VI

March 24, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Communications Management, Project Stakeholder Mgmt, Information Distribution, Performance Reporting, Project Management Best Practices

Project Managers and Vendors: Creating a Successful Partnership - Part VI (#6 in the series Project Managers and Vendors: Creating a Successful Partnership)
By Linda Miller of Traveling Coaches, Inc.

Project management offices (PMOs) and project managers (PMs) are a necessity in today’s law firms, to ensure that IT projects stay on track. Anyone acting as a PM on a project requiring multiple outside vendors knows that if not managed properly, chaos can reign. Working with your own staff on a project can usually be orchestrated with ease, but throw in a vendor or two (or more) and the project can quickly get out of hand. Creating a successful partnership between vendors and your own project team is a necessity to ensure project success.

Launch the Project

Good, clear communication is vital to every person on the project team, and the PM should ensure that each team member understands the project and communication plans at the outset. Delays and problems most often result from a lack of communication (unclear project goals, understated project scope, etc.) A project kickoff meeting makes sure everyone is aligned and informed about project expectations, schedules and processes. It is important that all project team members attend the kickoff meeting so the same message is heard by all. Kickoff meetings are critical to introduce the teams, establish roles, explain the “why” of the project and clarify the definition of project success as established by the stakeholders.

Keep Everyone in the Loop

The PM should provide the project strategy manager (typically the IT director, CIO or COO) frequent condensed reports on the status of the project. The strategy manager will then communicate the project status back to the stakeholders. Use a status color code (red, yellow, green) at the top on the status report for easy reference. Red is for critical project status (needs attention), yellow is for caution (the project could be progressing to a critical state if not put back on track), and green is for progressing as planned. Even the most experienced PM may find it challenging to discuss an issue that has his or her superior worried. A written status report makes communication more concise and productive by focusing on the “pain point,” outlining how this critical issue is being handled and providing the steps required to resolve problem issues.

This article was first published in ILTA’s July, 2007 white paper titled “Project Management — Broadening Your Scope” and is reprinted here with permission. For more information about ILTA, visit their website at http://www.iltanet.org.

Linda Miller is co-owner and principal of Traveling Coaches, Inc., leading the company’s team of project managers, application specialists and document management engineers. Linda has extensive experience leading projects with law firms and consulting law firms on project management. Since 1995, Linda has served as the company’s technology partner managing all technical and project management operations. Linda is a dynamic presenter and implementer of project management, adult learning theories (training techniques) and IT management level courses. Linda holds many technical certifications in the legal industry enhancing her valuable experience as a consultant. Linda can be reached at lmiller@travelingcoaches.com.

Share this article:
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb
  • blogmarks

Related Articles

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 and is filed under Communications Management, Project Stakeholder Mgmt, Information Distribution, Performance Reporting, Project Management Best Practices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

No comments yet.

feel free to leave a comment

Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

All fields marked with " * " are required.

Project Management Categories