Today’s projects are more complex and challenging than ever, and project managers need all the help they can get to succeed amid shifting priorities, interruptions, inadequate funding, expectations of multiple stakeholders, and other obstacles.
A practical on-the-job resource for project managers in any industry, this fully revised and updated edition of “The Project Management Tool Kit” is packed with results oriented, practical templates.
Complete with checklists, examples, and clear guidance, “The Project Management Tool Kit” offers practical, use-them-now strategies for mastering any project challenge.
Good practical techniques that really work, Patrick Schmid : This kit provides a great overview on proven techniques and approaches that really work. This is exactly what project managers are looking for. It shows the “how to …” which is missing in the standards. The tools are easy to grasp, and the approach goes far beyond the pure technical and methodological stuff to the human side–which is the essential part in most projects.
Good practical techniques that really work, Patrick Schmid : This kit provides a great overview on proven techniques and approaches that really work. This is exactly what project managers are looking for. It shows the “how to …” which is missing in the standards. The tools are easy to grasp, and the approach goes far beyond the pure technical and methodological stuff to the human side–which is the essential part in most projects.
When you, as a project manager, accept responsibility for a project, you accept the schedule, timeline, deadlines, resources, and expectations set out at the start. Now you can make sure you’re asking the right questions for each project by utilizing the tools, checklists, and information available.
Now you can manage your risk project according to best practice standards. You’ll have the details and plans in place to handle whatever arises during a project’s duration-setting appropriate expectations for timelines, milestones, and deliverables. And, ensure success for each and every project with resources on:
- Ensuring you have the necessary equipment and resources available
- Properly documenting all project activities
- Identifying staff skills by roles needed
- Putting quality controls in place
- Identifying and estimating indirect costs
- Documenting and prioritizing requirements
- And much more
Start and end each project on a positive note-order your Templates and Tool Kits for Project Managers today! Instant Access HERE
Full content of The toolkit:
Project Communications:
Throughout any project it is important that a “sense of urgency” is maintained. One such method and also considered a viable process within project management is communication. This section contains communication templates ranging form Project Meeting Minutes, Monthly Reports, Weekly Reports through to concepts such as Project Newsletters, Project Marketing for the Business and IT, as well Executive Committee Reports.
- PCM01100 Project Communications Schedule – The document provides an overview of a communications schedule for a project. The success of every project relies on good communication. The document covers communication schedules relating to meetings, executive meetings, milestones, IT awareness and business awareness.
- PCM01200 Project Meeting Minutes – This template provides a structure for capturing the minutes of any project meeting during the lifecycle of the project.
- PCM01300 Monthly Project Reports – A template that helps provide a high level overview report of the project on a month by month basis.
- PCM01400 Weekly Project Reports – A detailed weekly project report that helps track the project at a micro level.
- PCM01500 Executive Committee Reports – The focus of this template is to provide an executive or steering committee with a detailed report of the overall project. It covers essential topics such as current expenditure vs.existing budget, project time scales and variances.
- PCM01600 Project Meetings:Action Items – This template provides an avenue for recording and tracking all action items that have been agreed during project meetings.
- PCM01700 Project Marketing: IT – A template that provides an awareness campaign targeting the IT department as to the necessity of the project.
- PCM01800 Project Marketing: Business – A template that provides an awareness campaign targeting the Business as to the necessity and benefits of the project.
- PCM01900 Project Newsletter – A neat little template that provides an avenue for creating a project newsletter, providing information for all project team members on the progress of various aspects of the project.
Project Risk Management:
It is important that every project identifies, analyzes, and responds to project risks. This section provides some templates for the process of risk management within a project. The templates include such things as a Project Risk Register and risk management process template.
- PRM01100 Risk Process Template – This template provides a high level overview of the concepts of risk process, and provides the user with useful information in setting up their own risk process for their project.
- PRM01200 Initial Project Risks – This template should be used to capture all the initial risks identified prior to the commencement of the project.
- PRM01300 Project Risk Register – This is an ongoing project management risk register. It provides users with a way of tracking a resolving risks.
Project Change Management:
Although essentially a project is a result of a request for change from the business, customer, user or even IT, a project will also cause it’s own change to occur in an environment. As such it is important to manage the process of change within a project. This section contains documents covering the change management process, templates for a request for change, the change schedule, change meeting minutes, change polices etc.
- PCH01100 Project Management Change Process – This document provides a high level overview of the Project Management Change process. This document easily tailored to suit any projects Change Management / Control process.
- PCH01200 Project Request for Change – This is a template for Requests For Changes. It details the most common set of information that should be being captured for a change.
- PCH01300 Project Change Management Policies – It is important to set Policies and Guidelines for your Project Management Change Management process, especially how this process interacts with other areas of project control. This document provides a structure and written words.
- PCH01400 Project Management: Change Communication Process – To be successful with a project changes it is important to have a communication plan in place. This document provides an approach and a selection of information to share as part of your communication.
- PCH01500 Project Management: Change Schedule – Part of the managing change within a project is to ensure visibility of changes to the project team and the executive committee. This is done through the Change Schedule. This template provides an example of a Change Schedule.
- PCH01600 Project Management: Change Meeting Minutes – When a Change Meeting is convened for certain types of changes, it is important to understand the process and the information that should be captured. These templates will provide a structure for this task.
Project Design:
When creating a new environment as a result of a project, a number of key design documents need to be created. This section contains key design templates covering Functional Design, Technical Design, Interface Design, Technical Architecture, As-Built documentation etc.
- PDS01100 Functional Design – Functional Design describes how the end project will function from a users perspectives. The purpose of this template is to provide a guideline for capturing and recording functional specifications.
- PDS01200 Detailed Design – The Detailed Design document describes the technical aspects of the solution, including a description of features, dependencies, assumptions and risks.
- PDS01300 Interface Design Specification – In the event that your project requires interfaces into existing or new systems, it is important to ensure that they are designed correctly. This document provides a template for capturing design requirements related to software and hardware interfaces.
- PDS01400 Technical Architecture – This template allows the capture of the technical architecture needed for the project and the solution that is being delivered by the project.
- PDS01500 As-Built Documentation – A powerful template that allows project members to record their actions when developing products as a result of the project.
Project Management:
An extremely important aspect of any project prior to change and release in an environment is the testing process. Poor testing within a project management lifecycle can have a major negative impact on the business when the product is due to go live. It is generally accepted technique to release with know errors providing that during testing suitable work arounds have been developed and the users of the new product are aware of this. In the testing process a number of documents are needed, this section provides templates for such things as Project Test Team, Test Schedule, Functional and User Acceptance Tests, Block Box Tests, Issues register etc.
- PTT01100 Project Test Process – This document provides a high level overview of the testing process. It provides information regarding testing steps and the resulting outcomes for each activity of the process.
- PTT01200 Project Test Plan – A template that provides a skeleton outline for a test plan, including functional testing and user acceptance testing.
- PTT01300 Project Test Team – A template that captures information about the test team, including a skeleton overview of roles and responsibilities.
- PTT01400 Project Test Schedule – Sufficient time needs to be given to every project for comprehensive testing. This template provides an outline for capturing a test schedule.
- PTT01500 Functional Test Template – Functional testing allows the project team to perform tests on the products that they have built. This template provides a structure for writing a functional test.
- PTT01600 User Acceptance Test Template – User Acceptance Testing allows the business community or customers the opportunity to test the product(s) that have been developed. This template provides a structure for writing a user acceptance test.
- PTT01700 Black Box Test Template – Black Box testing is a common method of test that tries to “break the product”, but not by using a standard script. This template allows testers to enter information regarding their actions when testing the product.
- PTT01800 Test Results Template – A powerful template that allows testers to capture the results of each and every test. This information will be collated into the Test Results Issues Register.
- PTT01900 Test Results Issues Register – This template collates the results of the tests in an easy to see manner. This allows the testing manager to sort and prioritize rework of project tasks to bring the product within compliance.
Project Closure:
Part of the process of project closure includes release of the product into the environment. When we are releasing into our environment there are some questions we need to ask ourselves, such as were are we going to store the original version of our product, were and how do we store copies, were do we store and manage spares etc. This section provides documents on implementation process, hardware and software stores, release schedules etc. The final aspect of any project is a review to measure the success of the project based on how well the project process was and if the deliverable of the project has made the desired difference within the business. This final aspect is covered in the Post Implementation Review template.
- PCL01100 Implementation Process – This document provides a high level overview of the concepts of implementation. It provides advice and guidance for implementation planning and releases.
- PCL01200 Hardware and Software Store – This document provides a plan for establishing and storing physical copies of your products as a result of the project.
- PCL01300 Forward Schedule of Releases – It is important to make visible to the release of new software or hardware as a result of the project. This visibility will help in the project team in minimising any potential conflicts that may arise as a result of poorly timed or scheduled releases. This template provides a structure for a Release Schedule.
- PCL01400 Post Implementation Review – This document provides a “lessons learnt” avenue. The template allows the capturing of what went well and what needs improvement by looking at the project process and all the activities involved throughout the lifecycle.
Start and end each project on a positive note-order your Templates and Tool Kits for Project Managers today!