Project pipeline management for Travel industry

How to create outlook signature

what's up guys and welcome back to my channel for toll in motion a place for busy people and Dream Chasers look to achieve their goals in a more efficient way so if you're new here hello welcome my name is IRA and I do project management self-improvement and the occasional lifestyle video so please do hit that subscribe button if that's interesting content to you and to my lovely subscribers coming back for another video hello welcome I hope you're doing good let's get straight into this one alright guys so today I'm coming back with a highly requested video and that's basically just breaking down the main types of project management documentation which you need for any successful project delivery now through the whole Project Life Cycle there'll be many types of documentations you will need to either create maintain track or just have an input into but the ones that I'm going through right now in my opinion are the most important the essential ones and there's 10 of them and also I'm giving you real life templates and examples in this video so you can have a better understanding of the type of thing things that you may need to create all of these documentations can be created on either Excel or word but there are also a lot of online automated tools that can help you do it a lot faster so I'll just be getting straight into it and just to make it a bit more useful to you guys I'll be breaking down wearing the Project Life Cycle you will either create or need to input into these different documentations so I'm hoping you know you guys if you're starting on a project you just don't know where to start don't know what documents you need at different phases of the project just a video for you make sure you go share it it's going to be a good one let's get it popping first of all we're going to start off in the initiation phase and the first documentation you will come across is the business case the business case provides justification for why a project should be undertaken it helps to explain how the benefits of undergoing a project outweigh the costs and why it should be executed so of course by definition this needs to be the first documentation that you come across why even is this project project happening before we start to talk about the how we're gonna make it happen overall include the summary of all the projects objectives costs benefits basically everything that stakeholders need to be convinced to take on the project and get on board it will also weigh up alternative solutions to the problem statement that the project is trying to solve But ultimately it will conclude on why this preferred solution which is in the business case is the one that we want to take forward all right so on the screen I'm going to get up an example of a business case and once again this is something that could be made in Excel or word so it's fairly simple for all and these are kind of the main features that you can expect to see in a business case first of all you're going to have the Strategic context and that's basically just a compelling case for why we want to do this change it will include the problem statement and how we plan to overcome it by this project then the business case we'll go into the economic kind of analysis the return on investment what is based on the different options but you know why the option in The Proposal is looking the most tantalizing or why we should take that one forward of course you need a brief Financial case and this is looking at the costs and the resources that it will require from the business whether they actually have the capability to do this or whether they'll need to get additional resources Etc how much things will roughly cost at and then how much time and then lastly we're looking at the management approach so this could be everything from like roles governance structures those kind of things there trying to set the pace maybe some high level risks as well at this time we don't really know the detail of how we're going to make it happen we just kind of know all right if we do bring this to the table this may be something that we may encounter we need to take it into consideration in this justification remember the justification can't just be one-sided you know it can't just say this is the problem we have this is how we're going to fix it and it's all going to be bells and whistles no no they don't know they don't know that there's cap there's all always got to be a very balanced view let them know in that business statement okay this could go wrong however if we don't do this this is what's gonna happen and ultimately the benefits outweigh the costs and that is the justification one last thing to highlight then it is the project sponsor that is responsible and owns the business case document however the project manager and other stakeholders may have input and should really have input into that document the project manager although you do not make the business um case in some in most aspects I would say in most organizations in some they may if it's a smaller organization but generally they don't they will definitely still need to be across that business case know it inside out so that when you are delivering you are able to refer to it and make sure that your delivery is fit for purpose so also in the initiation stage as a project manager you will be asked to make something called a project Charter and for me project Charter is one of the most important content documents to a project manager I'm going to tell you why the project Charter is a form of documentation that outlines the business objectives for doing your project and once it's approved it will then initiate the project it's made in line with the business case and in many times people ask me isn't that just the same thing you said for a business case it is very very similar but in summary the best way I like to describe it is the business case is the case for why we should do the project but the project Charter is the first instance where we say how we're going to deliver the project so I'm going to get up an example of a project Charter on the screen right now and just go through some of the main elements so what you can expect to see on a project starter of course you expect to see the project name the project sponsor the project manager's name Etc the rationale for the project so that could be the problems problem statement and then also expected benefits at a very high level these things are also seen on the business case um but then going into a bit more detail we expect to see the objectives um and also the goals how we're going to measure success Etc some of the key deliverables so now we're getting a bit more in the nitty-gritty would have got with your team a little bit and understood okay fine how are we gonna get there what are the key things we need to do the key milestones and perhaps a timeline at this time it's not likely to be very detailed at all remember this is a very high level document a brief summary of the costs and resources are also expected to be in this document key stakeholders usually the decision makers or the key people on the team like the key architect key um engineer Etc a list of the key and a saying key because you know you're not meant to list out everything here I just want to see the key constraints and dependencies assumptions risks as well hopefully there are no issues at this time but if there is one already make sure you put that in also you'll be able to see the scope exactly what we're going to do and usually high level out of scope what we're not going to do in this project and then lastly a success criteria or an acceptance criteria so how do we know that the Project's done at what point at the end we can confidently say yeah we did our damn thing all right so moving to stage two in the Project Life Cycle the planning stage and in this stage the first document that you're likely to come across is your project schedule the project schedule indicates what needs to be done what resources need to be utilized and also when it's going to get done it's a timeline that highlights the start and end date and also the key Milestones that must be met in order to complete the project on time now I've already done a full comprehensive video on how to make a project schedule so make sure you go make sure you go look at that make sure you go look at that that was a decent video so I'm not going to go into too much detail but in terms of the key things that you can expect to see I'll just get up on screen now a nice little template you should really expect to see the key deliverables Milestones any dependencies between different tasks a timeline usually in a Gantt form is really helpful and then also the resources that will be carrying out that work if you're a project manager or project scheduler this will be your baby I'm telling you this now if you are in a position where you're told to put together a project schedule make it as comprehensive as possible make sure you know your what you're doing or what your team are doing every single day because every single day you're going to be expected to deliver and it's always great to have a good reference to go back to so you know exactly what is meant to be happening also in the planning stage the project manager will work with the team to come up with the project budget now the project budget is a plan that details how much you will spend on the project when and also on what this document is also very important because as a PM you are expected to manage the costs on the project and you need to be able to see what your target is and manage the spend as you go along I've also made a comprehensive video on how to make a very simple project budget so make sure you go and check that one out as well but in terms of the main elements of a project budget we're looking at what we're going to spend so this could be both resource costs and also NRE non-recoverable expenditure they'll also be either a timeline or a month by month breakdown of when you're expected to spend that money and then lastly how much money you're going to spend next up also in the planning stage you'll start to develop your risk and your issue log once again I've done a comprehensive video on this but in summary is a document that highlights all of the project risks and issues and also your plan for keeping them under control there's no point just highlighting it this is a risk this is an issue and not telling people but this is how we're gonna contain it I'm just gonna get an example up on the screen screen so you can see the key elements usually we have an identification number and also a date of Entry so we know exactly when this risk or this issue popped up a description of some kind the impact of this risk or issue if it's already happening what is going to happen how will this affect my project kind of thing the likelihood of it happening it's severity um the owner someone always needs to be assigned as the owner someone that needs to be looking on it someone that needs to be making sure that it's still relevant and then the project manager is always working with those people to keep the log updated and then of course what is most important those preventative actions those mitigations and containment actions what are we doing to control this all of this will be your risk and issue log remember guys a risk is something that may happen on your project and cause a detrimental effect but an issue is something that already causing a detrimental effect so we need to make sure we track both of them even in the same document or in a different document I advise keeping two separate documents for this all right now coming out of the planning stage and into the execution slash monitoring slash control phase I'm I'm just merging the phase three and phase four in the Project Life Cycle because really and truly you're going to be using all of these documents in this phase first up then we have the change request document and the change request document records all of the changes that have been requested since the project was baselined so if you don't know what Baseline is effectively once you've started the initiation phase and you've done your planning you get your budget you get your um schedule you get your risks and your issues and you basically say this is what I'm going to do in this time and at this cost this is the Baseline any change to what we're gonna do right needs a change request and I need to highlight this guys because that's where you get something called scope creep which can be absolutely detrimental to your project you need to be able to see when people are requesting extra things um that may change what you initially said you're going to do changes may have an impact on your timeline and may have an impact on your budget and this all needs to be assessed different organizations handle change requests in different ways but generally what will happen is someone will request a change you log it down in a document it might be a separate team that does it it might be the project manager that does it I'm just going to put up a simple example on screen now and in here effectively you'll have details about what the change is the impact of doing that change if we didn't do that change what would the the detrimental impact to the project being but then you also need to understand what the impacting parties are who needs to assess this change and also any impacts to them in terms of the time and the cost implications for doing this change I always like to make sure that the status of the change request is also noted in there so this could be ongoing pending approved or rejected and then of course there needs to be a final status at the at the bottom saying either approved or rejected not all change requests are gonna happen you know if you have a change request then someone says yeah it would be really nice to do this because it will improve user experience by two percent or 0.2 percent something something marginal but it's going to cost us two mil once you've done the assessment they might be like you know what they uses that really next up then we have the defects log and the defects log is just a simple template for logging down any defects or errors or something that is not working as it should whilst you guys are testing the solution that you're implementing so usually we do see this more in the software space where we're doing software um kind of um projects however I do Hardware projects and I have a defects log because sometimes we're testing that hardware and it's not doing what it should be doing I need to note it down I'm gonna get an example up on the screen right now just so you can see the kind of things that I would put in my defects log obviously we want a defect number a description of that defect also how how severe is that defect how much is it impacting us as of now I love to put the date it was logged just so I can measure how long it's been open and also when it needs to be completed by so a Target completion date and that's really important because some defense that's fine they're not that severe right now we have time all the way until next year or the year after to close it down but as we're getting closer to that Target completion date believe me it's no longer green it's now turning Amber it's now turning red I can use that to prioritize which of the defects that I'm triaging and fixing lastly it's also good to put how it was fixed or what Sprint if it's software roll out it's going to be fixed in um and then also if it's open or closed just something so people can know if it's still an issue if it's fixed if it is fixed where is it fixed and then we can also have great traceability next up we have the executive project status report and guys this one you need to make sure you have this one just constantly in your back pocket it's effectively a document that just highlights the most important information on your project at that given time and I'm saying executive report because it doesn't need to be detailed you usually you just want to pull it out of your pocket when someone wants a status update how's it going what are the main things going on usually execs or Pete someone um that you report into will ask for this on a weekly or monthly basis so it's always a good one to always have updated but also not so detailed so just getting one up onto the screen right now it would always have a high level overview of the current status on the project at this given time and the progress you've made since the last time key Milestones key risks key issues how the Project's doing um in terms of how much spend Etc the scope changes so if there are new change requests it's always good to highlight that there and then also how resourcing is going on at the moment just to highlight once again guys we are talking about the key we are talking about the critical don't be in this thing now every you think you got going on because not everyone cares we want to know the key bits here and it's also a tool for the project managers to take accountability of their work show their sponsor the whoever you're reporting to that we're making progress but also use it to your advantage if things are going wrong and you need to escalate this is the time to say yo you know this may be detrimental to the project I'm having a hard time here highlighted in this status report so whoever you're reporting to is able to help you usually when you're doing a status report it's for someone that you're reporting to they have more influence so they may be able to escalate it and get it done for you all right so now moving on to the closure phase of a project this is where you'll start to see the Lessons Learned log this log is used to capture and share knowledge about what has worked well on the project and what could have been done differently in the future it's really a document for the benefit of future project managers that will be taking on similar projects so they don't repeat the same mistakes that you and your team have had to go through in order to get to the end of the project so I'm going to get one up on screen right now just so I can go through some of the key aspects I usually do put a log number and a title just a brief description after that as to what the lesson was how did it come about how it was identified and by whom and basically you know how you would do it differently next time it doesn't need to be long whatsoever but like I said it really is just for the benefit of whoever's gonna pick up a similar project they can go back to this log and say okay they did this don't do that again don't do that again we save a lot of time we tame cost and it's really just um about helping out your fellow PM do not wait until project closure before you start filling in information into this log I know in most of the books it does say it comes out at this closure phase but from my experience you're going forget all the bad things because you're just constantly firefighting moving forward it's better that if you notice something's gone wrong during the project during execution phase you start to note it down you start to talk to your team yeah we ain't doing that again let's write it down so that when you do get to the closure phase you're literally just bringing your team together is there anything else we have missed out cool write it down or good and then lastly we have the project closure report and this report is basically the final documentation you will have in a project which basically says this is what I said I was gonna do but this is what I gave you are we okay to close the project basically it'll be used by various stakeholders to just assess the success of the project and I'll get an example up on the screen right now as a project manager you will be expected to put this together doesn't need to be long it just needs to be clear it just needs to have all the relevant details so a summary of what the project was the key people responsible as well will be in there your key deliverables when you said you were gonna do it this is when it was actually done it's always great to have those two bits of detail for learning in the future same with the cost as well how much you said you were going to spend versus what how much was spent at the end and then Lessons Learned could also be integrated into this success criteria also good to put on here let people know this is what we said you know was going to be the success and how we would know that this um project is successful and completed and this is what we've done a nice summary for every everyone then you'll give it to the project sponsor and they will sign it off and say Yes happy for this project to be closed and yeah that is basically it guys 10 documentations that are really essential for project delivery especially if you want it to be successful there's so many more like I've said but these ones if you are signing off a project do you really try to make sure that you have them in place so that you are able to navigate quickly and easily all right guys so that is it for this video I hope you enjoyed it I hope it was useful for you if it was useful for you please do give me a big thumbs up and make sure you subscribe to this channel because guys the new year is coming and I've had a little word to word with myself and said Ira you need to come back for some fires and next year 2023 it's going to be a great year for Content I'll be seeing you very very soon and take it