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  • Chapters
    • Introduction
    • The Stages of a Project
    • Chapter 1. Sponsorship and Leadership
    • Chapter 2. Defining the Objectives and Benefits
    • Chapter 3. Planning the Project
    • Chapter 4. Ensuring the Project is a Manageable Size
    • Chapter 5. Defining the Budget
    • Chapter 6. Managing the Risks
    • Chapter 7. Getting the Right Project Manager
    • Chapter 8. Getting Customer Representation
    • Chapter 9. Defining Roles & Responsibilities
    • Chapter 10. Getting the Right Resources
    • Chapter 11. Monitoring and Reporting Progress
    • Chapter 12. Communicating Progress
    • Chapter 13. Consultation and Leadership
    • Chapter 14. Getting Realistic User Requirements
    • Chapter 15. Defining Your Approach
    • Chapter 16. Conducting Structured Testing
    • Chapter 17. Creating an Implementation Plan
    • Chapter 18. Conducting a Post Implementation Review
    • Chapter 19. Realising the Benefits
    • Chapter 20. Learning the Lessons
    • Chapter 21. Celebrating Success
    • Checklist
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  • 21 Ways to Excel at Project Management

Consultation & Leadership

Question 13: Are you achieving the right balance of consultation and leadership?

Good Practice: There should be widespread consultation with many parties during all project stages. However, control of the project should ultimately be by a small, dedicated core project team focused on achieving a concrete result. This approach will ensure that when making difficult decisions, they get made clearly, forcefully and quickly.

Engage in lots of consultation but do not have too much democracy. Supposing you want to achieve tangible business results in a realistic timeframe. In that case, a small team operating on Stalinist principles is more likely to succeed than large committees acting as talking shops. This management style is especially applicable to regional, cross-regional and global projects.

Four business people in a bright meeting room discussing data on a computer screen

Common Mistakes

  • Making a decision and then starting a debate.
  • Not getting an absolute agreement and then having to revisit the issue.
  • Failing to stay goal focussed.

The Romans did not build a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

Anon

During the design and build stages, the project manager should answer questions 14 to 17.

Consultation & Leadership

Question 13: Are you achieving the right balance of consultation and leadership?

14
Getting Realistic User Requirements

Question 14: Are the user requirements realistic?

15
Defining Your Approach

Question 15: Have you based your development on an iterative prototyping approach?

16
Conducting Structured Testing

Question 16: Have you conducted structured testing?

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