A RAID Log, or register, is one of the essential documents in the project management steps lifecycle.

A RAID log is one of the easiest and most effective tools you can create for your project.

It is a good idea to create a RAID log at the start of each project so you can track anything impacting you now or in the future. Keep your log up-to-date through weekly reviews and team meetings. A formal review and sign-off of your RAID Log should occur at the end of each of your project management steps.

The acronym RAID stands for Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies.

Risks

Events that will have a negative impact on your project if they occur. Risk refers to the combined likelihood the event will occur and the impact on the project if it does occur. If the likelihood of the event happening and impact to the project are both high, you identify the event as a risk. The log includes a description of each risk, full analysis and a plan to manage it.

Assumptions

Any factors that you are assuming to be in place that will contribute to the successful result of your project. The log includes details of the assumption, the reason it is assumed and the action needed to confirm whether the assumption is valid.

Issues

Something that is going wrong on your project and needs to be managed. Failure to manage issues may result in a poor delivery or even failure. The log includes a description of each issue, the impact it is having, its seriousness and actions needed to contain and remove it.

Dependencies

Any event or work that are either dependent on the result of your project or your project will depend on. The log captures who you are dependent on, what they should deliver and when. It may also include who is dependent on you.
Act swiftly and decisively to deal with any risks or issues identified. Check your assumptions are valid and understand your dependencies.

You can create a simple RAID Log using a spreadsheet with one tab for each area. Use it as a primary source for your status reporting. We have a variety of project templates that you can use to monitor and manage your project.

USING A RAID LOG, WITHIN THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT STEPS FRAMEWORK, IS EASIER THAN TRYING TO KEEP ALL THIS INFORMATION IN YOUR HEAD.

The benefits of risk management in projects are huge. You can gain a lot of money if you deal with uncertain project events in a proactive manner.

Experience shows that 10 golden rules exist for implementing risk management successfully throughout the project management steps in your project.

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Consider the two project management steps scenarios below:

Deliverables

Status Reports
Issues & Risks
Changes

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More and more SME’s are realizing the benefits of project management steps.

As a company grows so do their projects. At some stage, most small or medium sized business will review their internal systems to plan project phases for the future.

In implementing new project tools or software systems it is particularly important to keep overheads to a minimum. This reduces exposure and ensures a rapid implementation plan.

IMPLEMENTING PROJECT MANAGEMENT STEPS DOES NOT HAVE TO BE LARGE AND UNWIELDY TO PUT INTO PRACTICE.

BREAKING DOWN THE PROCESS TO A KEY SET OF FUNDAMENTALS WILL HELP ENSURE LESS OBSTACLES AND A SMOOTHER TRANSITION.

This is easier if someone in the team has previous experience in implementing a project management framework or processes, the projects undertaken by the SME tend to be similar in type and activity or a short learning curve exists for products or services produced by the organization.

If it doesn’t fear not. It is easy to research and here are Project Management Steps top tips for SME’s when implementing project management processes.

As a way to fast-track the process, it is a good idea to find or recruit a project manager with experience in deploying the correct project management techniques and implementing project management processes.
The Project Manager should be able to get up to speed on the products and services over a few months while researching the processes already in place to identify the gaps.

Advocating the initiative and gaining the support of senior management in order to secure time for the resources needed, will help to avoid roadblocks and will promote adoption from the top down.

The Project Manager will involve individuals in meetings and begin the work of implementing necessary processes so you need support and approval from senior management.

Any project, including implementing new processes should begin with a work breakdown structure (WBS). The Project Manager will work out the activities required and include them in the work breakdown structure.
This will be the basis for moving forward with project planning and management: scheduling activities, resources, and relationships between various required tasks.

With the help of other employees, the Project Manager will document the requirements for each activity and the skill set of people required for the tasks.

Other details will be captured as well such as key drivers and risks which may occur.

Using the work breakdown structure and documentation, the Project Manager will now be able to create the project plan and Gantt charts to communicate the overall plan of action and timeline.

After identifying the required templates for the processes being put in place for such things as reporting, requests, presentations, statements of work, project handover, etc, a project should be selected to test the new processes.

Continuous improvement is key; once the test drive has been completed the project should be reviewed for any lessons that can be applied to future projects. This will help to stabilize processes and improve their overall success.

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Your boss has asked you to take the lead on a project in your company. Maybe you are a project manager, or maybe you are not. One thing is certain. Very few people know how to report status on a project, even when they are expert project managers. The basic problem?

Most people do not understand the perspective of a manager who is being pressed for information about a big project. Here are some basic rules of reporting status that you can use to further your reputation as someone who knows how to keep management and the project team informed and drive a project to success through the project phases.

THE MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE

If your project is important, your boss will be pressed hard to keep his superiors informed of its progress. Smart managers consume status on important projects voraciously. Excellent status reporting means that managers are fully informed of your projects health and overall direction without having to get involved themselves.

There is particular information your boss needs in order to show her boss that she is on top of things and able to run the show effectively. Provide this information in a way your boss can consume it on a regular basis, and you will fall upstairs so fast your head will spin.

Even on relatively less important projects, effective status reporting allows your boss to spend only a few seconds skimming your report to determine what sort of progress you have made.

Excellent status creates clarity from confusion and fulfills one of the important requirements in the project management steps process. Your job as the manager of a project is to take a swirling, chaotic cloud of information and distill it down into its most basic elements and then present them so that hundreds and thousands of hours of work can be understood in 30 seconds.

TO WRITE EXCELLENT STATUS ON PROGRESS WITHIN THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT STEPS LIFE-CYCLE, YOU MUST UNDERSTAND :

The three components of status.
How to write brief details.
What key data is needed by management.

THREE COMPONENTS OF STATUS IN THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT STEPS PROCESS

There are three major components to reporting project status:

Overall: We need to see the overall project health. As managers, we want to be able to detect a project in trouble. We also want to help make that determination sometimes. You might not know everything we know despite our best efforts to communicate. Your project might not be as healthy as you think it is.

Milestones: Your project has major accomplishments which must be completed by specific dates. We managers want to see which milestones are complete, which ones are in progress, and which ones are coming up next. This allows us to analyse the schedule and decide to either feel comfortable with it or challenge it.

Issues: Your project also probably has one or more obstacles to completion which have been discovered. We’d like to see brief details about each issue so that we can make a decision about whether or not to step in and help if necessary.

ORGANISING YOUR STATUS THROUGHOUT THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT STEPS PROCESS

Just as you would clean a kitchen by starting up high and working your way down ultimately to the floor, project status is best when it starts off with the highest levels of detail and works it way down to lower and lower levels.

Thus:

Overall project health comes first. If I like what I see here, I can stop reading the rest. Major milestones follow overall project health. If I don’t like the project health, or if I am in need of further details, I can read a little further and check out the scheduled dates we are driving toward and your progress on them. Issues may be holding up those dates, so when I see a problem in your project schedule, I can read further and see what it is. Really slick project managers report the issues in priority order showing the issue causing the most jeopardy to progress first.

BRIEF DETAILS

Your job is to report on the details of your project in concise, crisp status that we can consume rapidly without having to spend much effort on it. It might take you thirty minutes to write your status, but always remember that your manager does not have thirty minutes to spend reading it. Your manager realistically only has about 30 seconds to consume your status as they may have 30, 40, 100, or even exponentially more projects for which they are responsible.

“Brief Details” may seem oxymoronic to a project manager, but to a supervisor with a team of project managers, it is not. There is enormous value in a project manager who can report status without narrative. My recommendation is that you write as though you were creating an old-fashioned telegram. More information about how to do that is coming.

BRIEF DETAILS?

How can you provide details without being long-winded? It is a formidable task that most never master, but it is not impossible. Here are some suggestions, e.g. Write in bullets, not in prose. There shall be no paragraph anywhere in your status.

Click here for your FREE Project Status Report template, by SKM Project Management Steps.

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Brought To You By SKM Project Management Steps

Anyone spending a decent amount of time in project management field will sometimes have projects from time to time that experience significant difficulties.

For all the project planning, it is never possible to predict all the eventualities and therefore foreseeing all risks. Projects are by nature more risky than other business activities. It is always useful to apply a few project management techniques to aid in such situations.

1. SHOW LEADERSHIP WHEN EXECUTING DELIVERABLES DURING THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT STEPS

An oft-repeated cliché this is something that is hard to explain in terms of action. When things go wrong there is plenty of nerves in the project team and management. Project team members often struggle to think beyond their immediate problem. You will find internal executives or sponsors worrying about contractual obligations and any fallout with the customer. Showing leadership in this context is to ensure this uncertainty does not spread into a panic. The role of the project manager or project management consultant is to steer a clear course and stopping any blame game that may raise its ugly head. Now is not the time for that. Focus on why after the project.

2. Avoid the temptation to simply throw more resource in the project phases

A common reaction to a struggling project is to throw more resources at it. If the project is of high visibility and management is not able to provide subject matter expertise, they will feel they need to contribute somehow to correct it.

The commodity at their disposal is resources. Be wary of this. More cooks do not equate to a better dish. You may need to enlist some mentoring for project team members or even yourself if you are managing a project outside of your technical expertise. Always consider how much time it will take before new resources can contribute to the project. If the issue is time, you will virtually ensure a delayed delivery by adding resources. Also take into account the additional communication required to successfully integrate them.

3. Avoid sugar coating

There is a temptation to play things down as things start going wrong to avoid creating panic. I have found it easier to be transparent about progress. Late surprises will compromise the integrity of the project like no other. While your stakeholders likely be upset with you, in the long run it will get you more respect. You need to be clear with communication internally.

If you need some of your resources to be allowed uninterrupted project time, you need to give that clear sense of urgency. Otherwise, you will not get the outcome you desire. Clear does not mean antagonizing your people. You may need the same people later in the project or for a subsequent project. Do not burn bridges.

4. UNDERTAKE REVIEW OF PROGRESS THROUGH THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT STEPS

Very often when a troublesome project is completed, people are so pleased to see the back of it, no learning takes place. This is just about the worst thing you can do. You are not making sure same problems are not repeated. Wait for a reasonable period after project closure to undertake a full review of progress during executing of the deliverables through the project management steps.

While things are still raw, people are more likely to be defensive and the value you get from the exercise will be limited. When you review, structure it so everyone has the ability to come forward with what they could have done better. Start yourself to show the way. If people are forthcoming, leave it at that. Your aim should be to avoid a repeat, not to be punitive.

5. Follow up

Do not leave the review in a document and expect the next project to pick up on it. Use the information from your review to recommend training plans and process changes for the organization. Present these to someone with influence within the organisation. After some time follow up on the progress of the recommendations. Improvement takes hard work and tenacity.

This is a useful and invaluable video about the key project management steps. Enjoy!!

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