23 Tools, Techniques and Ideas for Your Project Management Toolkit

by Jim Peters, PMP

- Part 1 -

Searching for relevant project management topic for a group of Engineering students forced me to focus on the practical tools. The topic I was investigating at the time, project office implementations, was not high on the relevant list for most of the students. What I found to be most relevant for the audience was not one technique or tool but the toolkit that I had been developing adding to for many years. I had long ago realized that most project managers have a toolkit they bring to every project. While many of us like philosophize about project management we rarely share day-to-day techniques we have picked up over the years to help us survive as project managers.

In 1983, I placed the first formal tool in my project management toolkit. It was a network diagram that I used to help plan a software implementation project. It was an old technique found in some book or learned in some class but it was new to me. The change a simple technique made in my ability to communicate a complex process was amazing. The method became a standard in the organization. I learned then that the greatest project management ''philosophizing'' pales in significance to a timely technique used to solve an immediate problem.

What I delivered to the Engineering students was a list of tools, techniques, and other resources. Behind each item in my list is my story about where I found the idea and how it helped me (or would have helped me had I known about it at the right time). But more important than my toolkit was the framework for collecting and remembering the tools. Over the next few months this framework will be presented as well as a list of tools and techniques of mine that I will place into the framework.

I conclude part one with the 23 ideas that I included in my first presentation on the topic. This initial list was generated using a mind mapping exercise (on a napkin in a restaurant of course). My rule for whether something went on the list or not was whether it was a specific concept, tool or technique that had helped on a project. There is nothing special about my list, except that it is mine. The list is presented only to give an idea of some of my thoughts. The explanation of how each idea relates to project management will have to wait for a future discussion. The number I assigned to each item does not reflect significance or importance but are merely the sequence in which I listed the ideas. So I leave you with the list...

1. Diversity Game (tm)
2. Status Reports
3. Basic Project Management Work
4. Project Control Panel
5. Think Differently
6. Top Ten Risks
7. New Technology Risks
8. Team Based Risk Assessment
9. Status Meetings
10. Get the Data
11. Know Project Scheduling
12. Resource Driven Scheduling
13. Earned Value for dummies
14. Proven Methods
15. Live "Not invented here"
16. Know your team
17. Facilitate Problem Solving
18. Team Based Project Management
19. Think Deliverables
20. Standardized Processes
21. Train Project Sponsors
22. Project Communication Planning
23. Reports, reports, reports
24. Personal Best Practices

What are your favorite PM...

Ideas?

Issues?

Books?