Demystifying Project Management: An Introduction to 7stepPM

7-Step Project Manager

What is a project?  

Projects exist because somebody, somewhere, needs something they don’t have. And they need it bad enough to pay for it. The project manager’s (PM) job is to understand what that “Need” is and come up with a solution. The project manager then delivers that solution to the customer, and that solution is called the “Deliverable”. The following are a few examples of needs and deliverables.

An entrepreneur who lives in Manhattan realizes that there is a pent-up demand for planters that fit easily and safely on a balcony. That is the need. The deliverable becomes a clever planter that fits like a saddle over the balcony wall. (they really exist!). In a far corner of the world somebody realizes that being able to cross a nearby river every day would vastly improve the quality of life and the local economy. That is the need. The deliverable becomes a bridge. During an election, a politician needs information about the preferences of the voters. The deliverable becomes the polling data that satisfies that need. A young person wants to learn how to write smart phone apps. Her education becomes the deliverable. The list is endless. 

Most projects in the world fall into one of three categories: new product development, construction, and information technology. There are other categories, like health care, government contracting, and event planning, but those are niches compared to the big three. Think about it. Every product on every shelf in every store and on every website, is the result of a project. Everything you buy, everything you wear, everything you use is the result of a project. Somebody, somewhere had to look at a potential market, do a market analysis, do a price break-even study, design a product, design a manufacturing capability, put together an advertising and marketing program, and arrange for distribution, to get that product to you. Construction has been around since people first left caves. The first thing we did was start building roads and bridges and houses. Then came carts and factories and cities. And Information Technology (IT) is a no-brainer. The virtual world, including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and others have, in only 20-30 years, become some of the biggest companies on the planet!

This, then, begs the question of what is a project manager? The project manager’s job is to make sure that the customer’s need is satisfied. The PM takes an expressed need from the customer (a somewhat abstract, stated desire) and in return, delivers a very concrete solution, the deliverable. Broadly speaking, the project manager can be thought of as a project’s chief architect, or as one of my students once said, a project manager turns dreams into reality! She does this by making sure the customer agrees that the deliverable will satisfy the need, then works with her team to build a plan to create and deliver what the customer expects. With a plan in place, the project manager makes sure each person on the team knows what their job is and that they have the resources they need to get the work done. 

To me, this is the exciting part of being a project manager. I like being handed an incomplete problem and coming up with a solution. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle or solving a crossword puzzle! It is very satisfying to manage a complicated project through to successful completion.

Many people are intimidated by the idea of creating a “Project plan”. They don’t know where to begin, don’t know how long it should be, and they have no idea how much detail to put into a project plan. In truth, putting together a project plan is easy. You take the basic elements, like a needs analysis, a list of deliverables, a schedule and a budget, put them into a single document, and slap a cover page on it with a table of contents. The hard part is developing the needs analysis, the list of deliverables, the schedule and the budget. But those aren’t as difficult as they sound.

For more than 20 years I have managed many projects in many environments. I’ve worked in commercial, government contracting, academia, and non-profit environments. I’ve worked on projects large and small. I’ve built space shuttle crystal growth experiments, developed and installed border security systems both in the United States and in the Middle East, and worked on renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. During this time, I have discovered a common thread to managing projects. And in my nearly 10 years of teaching project management to Master’s degree students, I have honed these ideas to provide my students with very practical tools that are easy to use and can be applied across all manner of projects. I call this approach “7-Step Project Management” or 7stepPM for short.

What is 7stepPM?

7stepPM is an approach that breaks project planning and execution down to… you guessed it… 7 steps. Those steps are:

1. Establish your marching orders 
2. Define the deliverables 
3. Create an action plan 
4. Develop a budget 
5. Consider why you might fail 
6. Manage the project 
7. Deliver to the customer 

For those of you familiar with the Project Management Institute (PMI) professional society and its Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), the 7stepPM approach is PMBOK-based and follows the input/output logic of its processes. The seven steps are equivalent to:

1. Integration planning process 
2. Scope planning processes 
3. Time/Schedule planning processes 
4. Cost planning processes 
5. Risk planning processes 
6. Executing, Monitoring & Controlling process group 
7. Closing process group 

STEP ONE in any project is to conduct a needs analysis to clearly understand what your customer wants. Don’t think in terms of what you plan to do. Rather, think in terms of your customer’s problem to be solved, and what success will look like in your customer’s eyes. When your project is over, how will your customer’s life be different? For example, your customer may be a business traveler who wants an airplane that can cross the ocean in one hour so that she can conduct face-to-face business in Europe and still wake up and go back to bed at home with her family. Your mission is to deliver an airplane that will perform this task. But the airplane is not what your customer needs, your customer needs are to wake up at home, do business in Europe, and go back to bed at home. The airplane is just your opportunity to satisfy your customer’s need. Focus on the need your project is to satisfy. Understanding that need, and agreeing with the customer on what will satisfy that need, is the key to establishing your marching orders and having a happy customer at the end of the project.

STEP TWO is to figure out what will satisfy the customer’s need. In the above example, you need to deliver a fast airplane. This is your deliverable. It is what you deliver to the customer as a result of your project. There are three things you can deliver at the end of a project: you can deliver a product, like an airplane; you can deliver a service, like being an airplane pilot or an educator; and you can deliver information. Products, services and data – your deliverables will ALWAYS be one of those three. You should always define the deliverables with your customer’s need in mind.

After you have defined your deliverables, you’re ready for STEP THREE, where you need to think through all the activities it will take for you to create and deliver what your customer needs. These activities are grouped in chronological order to create an action plan, commonly called a schedule. Once you create an action plan, your planning work is nearly complete.

Once you clearly understand your deliverables, and you have an action plan in place, the next step, STEP FOUR, is rather straightforward. Knowing what work is to be done, who will do it, how long it will take, and what materials and resources it will take, you develop a budget.

With a three-pronged plan in place, i.e. deliverables, action plan, and budget, it is time for STEP FIVE, which is to look back on your plan and consider why you might fail. This exercise is known as risk management. In this step, you look at all the possible reasons your plan could go off the rails, and do your best to figure out how to avoid those pitfalls.

After all this planning, you are ready for STEP SIX, which is to pull the trigger and GO! When you are in the “manage the project” mode, you make sure everyone knows their job, has the resources they need to do their jobs, and communicate, communicate, communicate!

After your plan has been carefully and successfully executed, you are ready for STEP SEVEN, deliver to the customer and get paid.

These 7 steps will take you through any project of any size in any environment. It could be a church social, or a new rocket ship. The only difference is complexity and level of detail. I never cease to be amazed at how many projects fail due to lack of planning. People blame all sorts of reasons for their project’s failure, but if you look under the hood and pay close attention, it’s usually that a good team didn’t have a good plan. With this 7-step approach, that plan can be made available. It’s not that complicated!

-- Dr. Bill Carswell, PMP

Please use the comments feedback area below to let us know your thoughts. How do you manage projects?  Do you have any tricks and tips for success?  7stepPM readers want to know!

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