Project Management for Planners

Terry A. Clark

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351177757
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

This book provides practicing planners with the knowledge of how to bring real world planning projects to a successful and efficient. It applies the five process groups of project management as identified in Project Management Institute's PMBOK® Guide and put them in the language of planners.

PART
1

An Introduction to Project Management for Planners and Managers

Part 1 of Project Management for Planners includes two chapters. Chapter 1 presents an introduction and overview of project management. A brief description of the major components of project management is provided along with an explanation of why project management is so important to planners.

Chapter 2 addresses the line manager and supervisor. If a project manager is to be successful, it is critical that the internal managers, organization and procedures are supportive of the project management methodology. Chapter 2 emphasizes these points and offers managers and supervisors some hints on what they can do to create an environment that is supportive of project managers and teams.

CHAPTER
1

Introduction

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

—FROM THE MOVIE, WAG THE DOG

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

—ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

—OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Welcome

Welcome to the world of project management for planners. Many practicing planners believe that the final planning product justifies the means. If, in a planner’s mind, the public could be better served by extending the deadline for a comprehensive plan six more months, then the decision is simple: extend the deadline six more months. At times planners think, “If I could just get the Board of County Commissioners to agree to hire three more planners, then I could do the job right” and “If we could just get the new geographic information system (GIS) online before we started on the land use inventory, we could do a quality plan.”

If only, if only, if only… if only the world would just stop for a few months, I could get caught up and do the job the way it was meant to be done.

Guess what? The world doesn’t work that way. Especially now. Either staffing and budgets are getting cut with workloads increasing, or expectations are expanding much faster than the resources to get the job done. “Do more with less” has become the mantra for most public and private sector organizations.

How are we supposed to accomplish more projects in less time and with fewer resources, review more zoning changes, write more land development codes, and involve the public at all levels, while maintaining a quality of work that passes scrutiny by our elected officials, clients and taxpayers? The workplace demands placed on planners can be frustrating, debilitating and downright career-threatening. What’s a planner to do?

This book outlines a strategy that gives the planner a fighting chance at meeting these expanding—and sometimes unreasonable—expectations. That strategy is project management.

Not New

Project management is not new. It has been around for quite some time. Project management was originally developed as a way of organizing and scheduling complex military and construction projects. The processes of building a military force, and constructing bridges and highways, lent themselves well to a structured approach of identifying tasks, timeframes, deliverables and budgets. The tasks were relatively easy to identify and fit into a project management approach. They were fairly easy to sequence, estimate and schedule. The processes were fairly well structured.

Project management has since been adopted as a way of doing business by the information technology (IT) community. Even the creative process of developing new software has benefited greatly by the process-driven application of project management techniques. What was once a maddening maze of software engineers, developers and programmers is now a structured environment of clearly identified goals, schedules and responsibilities. The results show that by applying project management techniques to the IT community, efficiencies and effectiveness have been greatly improved.

It’S Not Just for Engineers Anymore

The benefits of project management are proven. Project management is an adopted way of doing business by many professions, particularly engineers. So why haven’t planners adopted the project management approach for planning projects? That is a good question and one that deserves thoughtful consideration.

Planners usually approach a project with a very clear vision of what they want to accomplish. As planners, we tend to be visionaries. As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you want to go, anyplace will do.” A project must have a visionary, and that visionary must communicate that vision to the affected community.

The majority of a planner’s time is spent on creating and delivering the vision, with much less energy—in some cases, hardly any energy at all—being spent on achieving the vision. We, as planners, tend to spend too much time in the future and not enough time in the present. That translates into blown project budgets, missed deadlines, impatient elected officials, frustrated members of the public and, sometimes, lost jobs.

Most importantly, when the planner is unable to develop a plan on time and within budget that achieves the vision, the vision gets lost. The plan, if ever completed, is put on the shelf, the public moves on to another crisis, and elected officials find and deal with the culprit.

As planners, we must become competent project managers to achieve our vision. Part of being a planner must include the skills and abilities to efficiently and effectively manage projects. The alternative is lost credibility, job frustration, shrinking budgets and staff, and the increasing inability to achieve the marvelous visions that we have developed. This is simply not acceptable.

Many of the skills that planners possess are directly applicable to project management. In fact, it is estimated that 35% of project management involves planning compared with 25% for execution (see Table 31 in Chapter 3). In other words, more time is spent by the project manager on planning the project than making it happen. That is an incredible statistic, especially for planners. The skills required to manage projects are more in line with the planning profession than any other profession, including engineering.

Kerzner (1998, p. 272) estimates that up to 90% of a project manager’s time may be spent on communication, with the rest of the time on technical issues. Planners have tremendous skills in communication; we just need to remember to apply our communication skills to the management of our projects, not to just selling the vision.

Professional Development

Planning is not the only profession that can benefit from learning and applying project management skills and techniques. Demands for increasing efficiencies and effectiveness in all work areas are growing at an extremely rapid pace. Almost all workers are being pressured to perform at higher levels. As a result, new ways of doing business are being adopted by many professions. As mentioned earlier, construction and IT professionals have used project management techniques for quite some time.

Manufacturers, architects, designers and general office workers also see the advantages of using a project management approach. Entire organizations are being reorganized to better support a project management philosophy. Traditional, top-down, hierarchical organizational structures are being turned upside down to reflect a project-driven mission.

The following story highlights the radical approach some organizations take to support a project philosophy. A young project manager at an IT company met the president of the firm on her way into the office one morning. The president said hello and asked how she was doing. Instead of the usual noncommittal greeting, the project manager said that she was having a problem in getting a project deliverable to a client due to unnecessary paperwork in the shipping department. She told the president that she could really use his help in getting that shipment out today because the client was expecting it. The president said he would call the shipping department as soon as he got to his office and asked her if there was anything else he could do to help her.

This story highlights the project-driven organization. The president and the project manager essentially reversed traditional hierarchical roles to ensure that the product got to the client on time. Getting the project deliverable to the client on time was more important than the standard corporate greeting to the president on the way into the office. The president and the project manager both recognized it and both acted to support that belief. As a result, they will have a satisfied client.

You may be thinking that the above example will never work in your office environment. Maybe that’s true and maybe it’s not. One thing is certain: if planners don’t begin to do things differently, we are going to be left on the sidelines by other professionals and organizations that can. Now is the time for us to shine as professionals and adopt a new way of doing business.

The Latest Fad?

We have all seen a lot of organizational and professional improvement fads come and go. Total quality management, reengineering and process improvement have come and gone as the latest and greatest ways of improving workplace efficiencies and productivity. While they have obviously had a positive impact at some organizations, they have not enjoyed widespread success or acceptance. These formulaic-driven approaches have suffered from a rigidity that limits their applicability. They look good on paper but, in real-world application, they just don’t hold water.

Many people agree that a project management approach can work in a variety of situations and at many levels of an organization. Construction and high-tech firms are currently using project management techniques extensively. At first blush, these two types of organizations don’t have a lot in common. One is traditionally a blue-collar environment involving physical labor and “moving dirt” projects. High-tech firms, on the other hand, employ primarily office workers who are highly creative and tend to work independently.

Project management is not just a nice theory developed by a couple of professors and put on the shelf. It is a recognized way of organizing and performing work that has proven applications in a wide variety of work situations. It has been developed by workers to meet an immediate need of increasing efficiencies while producing quality work. It has shown to be flexible and adaptable in many different kinds of organizations. It is time for planners to give project management a fair shake and determine if it fits our profession.

What is Project Management?

Project management is not a black art practiced by a few knowing witches. Although some people would like us to believe otherwise, it does not involve Harry Potter-like secret potions and equations, nor does it need to be practiced with a robe and pointed hat.

Project Management Institute (PMI) defines project management as “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.” (Project Management Institute, Inc., 2000, p. 6) Project management is a set of tools, or a technology, for producing a deliverable. Simply put, it is a method of organizing information and focusing people towards delivering a product.

Figure 1-1. The Triple Constraint

The project management process involves five process groups. Each of the process groups has a distinct purpose and is generally sequential:

1. Initiating
2. Planning
3. Executing
4. Controlling
5. Closing

The practice of project management applies the five ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part 1. An Introduction to Project Management for Planners and Managers
• Part 2. The Process of Project Management for Planners
• Part 3. Case Studies and Perspectives
• Index