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SMALL COMPANIES

Managing Fast Track and Small Projects

The realities of small and fast projects often obviate the classic project management tools.  For purposes of this article, consider small and fast projects to include short-term experiments, prototypes, start-up environment projects, urgent situations, etc.   Such projects may also be geographically dispersed, further aggravating the project manager’s ability to keep the team focused.

Such projects frequently have an environment that include rapidly changing requirements, external dependencies, target dates set without regard for implementation timeframes.

This article attempts to identify mechanisms that allow the project manager of such projects to track, plan, adjust, and communicate status in an effective manner.

Tools

• Milestone lists
• Requirements docs
• Action item lists
• Risks lists
• Timelines
• Status meetings

Here are some tips

• Throw away the cumbersome tools.  You don't have the time to set up and use tools intended for large projects.  The overhead associated with many tools will just get in the way.  Work from the simple tools listed above.

• Don’t expect the plan you work on today to have relevance tomorrow.  Often, small, fast track projects are for temporary results.  Sometimes, they are prototypes that prove out a concept; be careful about using prototypes, as built, for the production version.  There are numerous traps relating to scalability, capacity, ease of maintenance, etc.

• Communicate:  check with the team and stakeholders regularly.  You cannot let small projects run untended for extended periods as you might with a longer term project.  Keep it straightforward:  neither the stakeholders, the implementation staff, nor you have the time or interest in excessive detail.

• Set major goals.  Set target timeframes.  Set major intermediate milestones.  Monitor and update weekly, or more often.

• Identify risks as you would on big projects.

• Track all action items.

• Raise issues quickly:  there simply is less recovery time on a fast track project so you must jump on problems quickly and get them addressed.

These types of projects require a different approach for success than do those that follow the more classic project life-cycle.