Quality assurance and quality control

CHAPTER 7 Controlling your project Aims: To introduce the skills needed to manage yourself and your project effectively as it is progressing. Learning objectives: When you have completed this chapter, you should be able to: n Control the five elements introduced in Chapter 4 in your project as it progresses. n Understand problems that can occur and be aware of ways of dealing with them. n Manage your time effectively. n Know how to use your supervisor effectively. n Work efficiently in a project team. n This chapter is relevant for both undergraduate and postgraduate projects. n Section 7.5 Working in teams can be skipped by those undertaking research degrees and those not involved with group work. 148 7.1 Introduction 149 •

7.1 Introduction

7.1.1 Overview

Although you may have proposed an interesting and worthwhile project and planned it well, once your project is underway it needs to be carefully managed and controlled or it will fall apart. You cannot assume that, having completed a detailed project plan and a solid literature survey, the project itself will be plain sailing and you can relax. You need to be aware of problems that might arise, remain motivated, manage your time effectively, make effective use of your supervisor and deal with other stakeholders appropriately. This chapter deals with these issues.

7.1.2 Getting started – project initiation

Once you’ve planned your project the focus of Chapter 4 you are ready to start work on the actual project itself the product-development activities of Figure 4.1 – called project initiation or getgo. In large industrial projects, initiation can be a major task. It might involve a launch workshop, where stakeholders are introduced, the project plan discussed and work assigned. It might involve bringing the project team together, inspiring a shared vision for the project, establishing a project office, working practices, booking rooms and other tasks. While these issues are more important in large projects, you can adopt some of these ideas for your own project. You will want to establish some working practices, a work area or working environment in your home or at your institution perhaps with a notice board on which you can pin important items – your project plan, for example – and a white board where you might note down ideas or list tasks to complete. You will want to set up an initial meeting with your supervisor and establish your relationship and rules of engagement how often you will meet, how you will communicate, what sort of things you can ask of them and so forth. If you are undertaking a project for a client, you will want to meet with them and establish your ground rules early similar to your first meeting with your supervisor, but perhaps contact and access to them might be more critical. If you are working on a group project, you will want to establish the team structure leader, secretary, etc., communica- tion links, meetings and the like. A discussion on the issues surrounding project teams is presented in Section 7.5. It is also a good idea to put together a project folder. This will contain important information such as your project plan and risk plan see Chapter 4, your PID project initiation document, contact details of other team members if you are working on a group project, etc. It is also where you might keep your references or useful papers, articles, newspapermagazine clippings and other documentation. You might also want to define some programming and report standards to adhere to. You may also want to set up a work area on your computer for example, work directories, folders for references, the report and arrange passwords and access to whatever computer resources are required. Once you have established your project in this way, you are ready to move on to actually doing the work. Controlling your project as you now progress is the focus of this chapter.