Project Management Basics - Part 1 [THE ULTIMATE STARTER PACK]

what's up guys and welcome back to my channel patrol in motion a place where busy people and dream chasers look to achieve their goals in a more efficient way so if you are new here welcome on board my name is eric and i do project management lifestyle and also self-improvement videos so make sure you hit that subscribe button because this video is going to be in two parts and you do not want to miss the other half this video is for you guys that have been requesting this for a very long time and i'm sorry

guys you know life's been busy but i've taken time to finally sit down structure it quite well so let's get into it today i'm going to be giving you a kind of a starter pack into project management going through project management basics so this video is kind of really targeted at someone that's perhaps looking to get into project management or maybe you already got an entry-level job and you're just about to start in the next couple weeks even if you know nothing about project management or you're just kind of interested in it in this video

i'm really hoping to just cover the main themes of project management basically the bare bones the bare minimum you need to know to get going just so you're able to keep up with the lingo understand what's going on the structure of it all and also hopefully it will equip you for where you want to go in the future just a quick disclaimer guys i'm not project management teacher or instructor i do not do that on my day-to-day i do not do that in my spare time but i am a project manager with four years experience

so i'm hoping to provide a different perspective when i started project management i if you didn't already know i was straight out of uni and in as much as i did research here and there i realized there just wasn't anything that was super simple for me to understand the absolute basics i'm really hoping i can offer a little bit different from the other videos on youtube make it a little bit more relatable add examples etc like i said guys this video is going to be in two parts part a ie today's video is going to

be concentrating on the project aspect of project management and then the next video is going to be concentrating on the management aspect of project management so if you kind of understand what a project is and and all of those basics there you'll then be able to understand what i need to do to manage it in this video i'm gonna cover what is a project the five phases of project management ie the project life cycle how long projects are usually run for and then lastly just having a quick look at project constraints in the next video

i'm going to be looking at what is project management the key components of project management and ultimately what a project manager is responsible for skills required to be a project manager and then briefly touching on project management terms methodologies and also documentation so you don't want to miss that guys and make sure you subscribe and let's get into this video so first of all what is a project because if you understand what a project is then it'll make it easier to be able to manage that right and there are different definitions for what a project

is but i don't want to over complicate this guys so i'm going to break down a couple of definitions and i'll give you my own definition too so first of all i've got a definition here from the pmi which is the project management institute and it says a project is any temporary endeavor with a definite beginning and an end prince2 which is a project management methodology and we'll get into a little bit of that later on defines projects as a temporary organization that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according

to a business case and we'll talk about what a business case is a little bit later as well so ultimately the key things to take down and to really note down of what a project is is it needs to be temporary or over a period of time there needs to be a start and an end that is really really key and that's what kind of separates a project from a business as usual task or something that keeps an operation continuously going projects are really just there to do something bim and then at the end create

some kind of value or some kind of desired outcome if i had to define it myself i'll put it as a series of tasks over a period of time a temporary period of time that creates a desired outcome at the end that's it right it doesn't need to be more technical than that there are different types of projects because the value at the end can also differ but ultimately that's it and that's why for example if you have a diy project at home it's something that's going to happen over a period of time there's a

series of tasks you need to do to be able to create that desired outcome and that's a project so it doesn't always even have to be corporate but ultimately that's what a project is but we are going to talk a little bit more culprit-based a little bit more workplace based because ultimately that's where you'll see a lot of project managers so taking that in and and really formalizing what a project is let's look at the five phases of a project which is also known as the project life cycle the first stage then is the initiation

stage at the initiation stage we start the project this is the stage in which the project really starts to be conceptualized it starts with an idea usually brought by a stakeholder it could be by the business it could be by a client and it's usually an idea that is coming from an existing problem for example if i work for ticketmaster and i've noticed that every time um beyonce comes and does a content people want to buy tickets um at 9am when tickets released the whole um website crashes because the influx of traffic is just too

much i need to fix that i might bring the idea oh guys perhaps if we create a waiting room this would fix that problem hmm should we make a project or it could be from something completely out of nothing someone's just got a brand new idea that's just like let's just create something new and that's the kind of projects that i deliver currently i i create products from absolutely nothing or it could be from something that's existing that you want to do an upgrade etc so someone could say uh let's make a new car that

uses air to drive wouldn't that be nice anyway technology who knows what can happen in the future basically during the initiation stage we start to look at ideas after that then a business case document is usually created and the purpose of that business case document is to provide justification for doing the project a group of people key stakeholders etc would um come together and start to look at how much is this gonna cost how long is it gonna take do we have the resources to do this what is the cost benefit analysis is the amount

of resources i'm gonna use to do this project worth the output at the end right and all of that information is gathered into this business case document lots of people like the project managers maybe compliance teams maybe marketing department advertising department will all input into this business case document so we have basically a justification for why this should go ahead and once all of those bits and pieces are put together the business case is put together it's then presented to the business or the budget holder whoever's gonna supply the shimanes because nothing in this world

is free period once we have that we give it to them and they read it way up and say okay cool happy to kick this off or actually for the money and you know time resources i don't think it's worth it something really key at this stage is that everything is really high level when i say high level i mean not in detail just very vague so costs for example they're very rough estimates time line etc is very rough just something really quick for us to just be able to conceptualize this idea and have an

idea of you know with the idea will bring the value we really think it's going to bring versus the cost it's going to bring once the business or the budget holder has approved that business case then fantastic then we kick off another document called the statement of work and in this document we start to define requirements we start to define scope which is basically everything that we expect to be delivered in this project we start to weigh up and bring out the key risks and dependencies in the project and write them down so people get

an idea of you know what we are expected to get at the end another really really really key thing that we start to get in the statement of work is an acceptance criteria and basically that is where we can finally say okay at the end of this project this is how i know we have ended without defining that end a project isn't really a project because it's kind of like okay we've done everything we think we need to do but have we have we have we what is the end point that really needs to be

defined it's usually defined by a go live face i.e a phase that the product goes into the market or a system turns on but not always so that's very very important to define in that phase the next phase of a project is called the planning stage and by far in my opinion this is the most important crucial critical phase for project manager if you get this phase right you do it superbly you talk to the right people in theory your job is easy like it should just be swimming all the way from the beginning to

the end of the project so during this phase we turn everything that's high level not and very vague into something that is very low level very detailed during this phase as it already kind of says it is where we create plans lots and lots of plans we start to identify timelines tasks costs we start to prioritize those requirements what really needs to be delivered first what might we want to do later really start to strategize so we can get the most out of this project there are four main plans that we create and i'm just

going to quickly go through them the first one is the delivery plan or the deployment plan and in this plan we basically break down each day or each week what is going to happen to me to be able to get from beginning to the end what is the responsibility of everyone in the team from the beginning to the end what tasks do i need to do each day to get to the beginning of the end and i start to detail them in this plan i also start to think hmm who do i need or who

am i dependent on also known as a dependency in order for someone else to do something i start to detail that and ultimately that will create a timeline from the beginning to the end of the plan which is really really detailed some plans um are very very long so it's really good to understand okay during this two-month period what's going on rather than expecting something to happen at the end of that two months but nothing's happened because you know no one's really known what's supposed to happen each day the next plan is the communication plan

and this really helps to ensure the success of the project it really just defines what information needs to be shared to who and when and how frequently throughout the project so for example if i need to give a status report to some people when does it need to be given and it's stuff like that if i need to give an update of a particular um task that that that's been completed when do i need to give that and to who and when that is very very key to make sure that everyone is in the loop

everyone knows what's going on and everyone knows what needs to happen the resource plan identifies the resources i.e the people it sounds a bit rude at first i feel like don't call me a resource but that's just the technical term for people working on the project so don't feel like you're being rude that's what we all say so it identifies the resources or the people you need to work on the project how long you need them for so that you can go and tell human resources by the way i need to get this person in

for two months in july to do this particular task and we can think ahead and plan to make sure that they're there when you need them and then lastly the quality plan or the test plan really is there to qualify what you are creating along the way ie is what i'm creating at the end really fit for purpose is it of the quality i need it to be and these are the tests that i'm going to do in order to be able to determine if it is during the planning stage there will also be a

special emphasis on risk and risk management here you'll create your risk log or basically just a register of all the different risks all the kind of things that could go wrong in the project and you'll be able to start prioritizing them and also creating a contingency or mitigation plan in case those risks become issues and are actualized the next phase after that is then execution phase guys and this is where all your planning all of that hard work putting down details talking to this person that person that person we get to work during the execution

phase this is the time that you know if there are cracks in your planning it will show and that's why if you do good planning your execution will also be good during the execution phase you start to set up your meetings with your different stakeholders with your team members it could be a daily stand-up something that you have every day just so really really quick update so people know what's going on during this phase you also set up your reporting lines you might have something called a dsg where you report to the directors or the

esg where you don't report to the executives to let them know what's going on you'll set up all of those kind of meetings at this point also you also ask for resources you know you ask for monies you know to be given to you because yes they would have really put it aside but you know now i need to spend it this is where the action happens and also where you start to implement the steps of your delivery plan this is well the magic happens guys it is by far the most exciting part for me

if i've done a good plan unfortunately if your planning stage isn't very good lots of unexpected things can happen even if your planning stage is very good unexpected things can happen and you need to start just doing is issue resolution but once again if you do a good planning stage your execution stage becomes a lot easier along the execution phase is also the controlling and managing stage so this is stage four but it's actually done usually simultaneously to the um execution phase during this phase then is where you really need to like keep on top

of what's going i call it the tracking phase really just tracking what's going on as you're spending money are you overspending you underspending it's really important that you manage really closely what's going out of your budget so that you know at the end of the day you know you still got money my first boss always told me do not eat your dinner at breakfast and what he meant by that is what you've said you're gonna spend in june don't spend it in january because then you're gonna get to june and you're hungry and you're gonna

thanks for more food or more money in this example and guess what your client ain't going to be happy with that so this part of the phase of project management or a project should i say is so important so you don't overspend on things also this is a phase that you start to set up your kpis which are key performance indicators how do you know that the project's doing well you'll start to continuously look back at your business case to make sure that it still stands you know if you put a justification that it's gonna

you know produce this much value after three months of doing the project then you look at your kpis is it producing this much value if it's not you might want to review do i still want to do this project maybe we underestimated the value that it's going to bring or maybe it's just going to come a bit further down either way this is time to start really evaluating whether your business case still holds whether it's worth still doing the project at the end of the day no one likes their project being cut but if at

the end you've done a project that's not fit for purpose guess what you haven't really done a good job as a project manager and you should have flagged it up earlier with you know the other stakeholders to say i mean i know what we said at the beginning book you know push comes to shove this thing is trash i think we should just cut our losses hard conversations to have but if you track it you control it you manage it well you'll be able to identify it early the last phase then is closure and this

is where you can nearly just begin to just breathe a little bit because you are coming to the end during this phase you then set a date for when you're gonna say all right on this day the project's gonna be ending against your acceptance criteria that you set in the initiation phase so usually it's a go live date like i said before and that's the date that you know things are going to be mass produced or it could be the date that things are going to be physically in the store or it could be for

example using the ticket um master example the day in which the waiting room forum is now um live online that could be the end date so during the closure you'll you'll be able to say guys this is the date that we're gonna do this and at that point the project is over ah guys all i'm gonna say is when you get to that stage the amount of fulfillment the amount of happiness because you look back at the stress that you are through and you at least know that it's come to an end you did that

your team did that and it's a really really really proud accomplishment during this phase then you'll also make sure that all your deliverables have been done like i said according to the acceptance criteria you go live and then also at that point you start to look at how you're going to pass this on to the business as usual team or sometimes they're referred to as in life team and those are the people that will then look after this new service or new product that you have delivered ongoing and making sure that customers are happy with

it and all of that at that point there's a clear division between you project side and service side right the project is over it's now transferred to the ongoing service and you go as a project manager to go pick up your next project so it's really really good time for project managers in my opinion during this phase also you usually do something called a closure document which basically just documents all the things you've delivered against what you said you were going to deliver against the requirements and against the deliverables and making sure that everyone is

happy with that and then lastly you'll create something called a lessons learned log and essentially this is just a list of the lessons that you learned in the project you and your main stakeholders your team anyone that was involved can have input in this and i very much um advise you do this just to sit down doesn't usually take long but you write down all the things we could have done better how we should can avoid making this happen in the future and the idea of this is when someone in the company does something similar

they won't have to make the same mistakes that you had to painfully make to get the project done you avoid all of that and next time it could be a lot more agile so those are the five phases of a project guys and as you can see there's a lot that goes on from the beginning to the end compared to you know just the simple definition i gave at the beginning of this video depending on the complexity of the project you might not need to do as many of these steps or depending on what project

it is the methodology to deliver that project might slightly you know spasm away from this cycle but generally no matter what methodology you use the kind of framework here is how most projects are delivered so the next thing i want to touch on is how long do projects usually run for and the simple answer to that is it could be as short as a week it could be as long as 10 years literally but as long as it's got a defined endpoint that is what's important i've delivered projects as short as two months before it's

just a quick upgrade i needed like one resource and it cost like 30 grand or 15 grand i blew through that in a day it doesn't necessarily have to be long and if you're starting up in project management i would really encourage you to like take on smaller projects understand the framework behind it before you know you're thrown into the deep end of multi-million pound projects because that's where you know a lot more people are involved more complex projects generally take a little bit longer to complete so that could be something between two two years

and five years generally and that's where there's a large impact on it it's going out to a lot of people so there's a lot more things that need to be covered and a lot more resources that need to be on board a lot more departments that need to be consulted and a lot more budget how much do projects usually cost like i said it can be as wide as 10 grand to hundreds of millions of pounds that's like billions the kind of budgets i'm dealing with right at the moment are multi-million pound budget so as

you can imagine it's a lot of money using to be making things happen and that's why generally companies want someone with a bit of experience that can show that they can do something before they give them all that monies and it's a lot of money sometimes it's a lot of money if you want to get into project management i've already done a nice video on how you can get into project management with no experience make sure you go check that out hopefully it'll be a nice little step for you to start dabbling your toes in

the world of project management so to round up guys i just want to touch on project constraints and really these are the things that kind of wrap around a project what are they constrained by what is every project got inside it that might make it a little bit difficult to deliver and that's the main reason why project managers are brought in to manage these things so that the project is successful the four constraints are scope schedule resources and stakeholders skype being what is in it what are my main deliverables what am i expected to deliver

at the end of the project against what i'm not meant to deliver at all schedule is how long is it expected to take how long is the timeline am i on track for what i meant to do stakeholders are the people that are involved in some way shape or form impacted by the project i'm delivering are they being communicated to are they knowing what's going to happen next do they know what is expected of them and resources those are your team your main squad is the main people that are really the bread and butter of

that project without those people the project's not happening remember as a project manager you don't physically do the work you don't have the technical ability to do the work if you're a little bit technical it could help you you know resolve some issues a bit faster but really you rely on such a good team to get the job done so you've also got to make sure that you're in constant communication with them and that they are also doing what's expected of them alright guys so that is it for part one of this video i hope

you've enjoyed it please make sure you subscribe and also hit that bell notification so you know when part two comes out part two like i said will focus on the management aspect of project management project management we've talked about the project now it's just the management side to talk about make sure you drop a comment down below if you enjoyed this video you found it useful i will be doing more in-depth sessions on specific bits of projects and go into more details but i really just wanted this to be a holistic video giving you the

necessary building blocks to start working on so i hope it's helpful and i'll see you in part two