The First 100 Days for a Director of Project Management: Low Hanging Fruit

"Instead of keeping his mouth shut for the first 100 days, he jumped right in and started telling everyone what to do."--overheard in conversation regarding a management change

"There's a difference between playing nice and being ridiculous." --overheard in conversation regarding internal corporate politics

There is a fine line between doing too much and too little in the first days after starting a new management position. My philosophy is to show as much progress as quickly as possible without ruffling any feathers. For the first 100 days the following projects might be the lowest hanging fruit:

--Roll up my sleeves and help with the day-to-day activities
--Working with leadership, create a list of things NOT to try to change in the first couple of months
--Research client relationships, complete client audit looking at which clients are extremely happy, which are not and why.
--Schedule and carry-out one-on-one interviews with everyone I would be working with
--Create a complete list of ongoing projects
--Institute schedule and budget tracking of ongoing projects on a weekly basis
--Choose 2-3 major projects in the beginning stages to which to apply more formal project management methodologies

What I Do to Get Projects Done On Time and Under Budget

There are many project management methodologies available to the practicing or new project manager. Preparing for my PMP certification exam, I studied the intricacies of the PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge), an international standard of project management practices so broad that it applies to construction as well as software development. PMP project management includes process groups (initiating, planning, executing), knowledge areas (such as Scope, Time, and Risk Management), and processes (inputs, tools, and outputs).

As a Project Manager for a public relations agency, I used my PMP training, but with little of the formality suggested by the methodology due to time constraints. On occasion I worked on projects due in a matter of hours. By the time I had measured the risk, the project was out the door. For longer projects--a web site or flash piece with a week to a month lead time--I used the following general steps as a guideline. It never does any good to insist on any of these without flexibility in an agency:

Research (PM)
Questions (PM/Client)
Budget Approval (PM/Client)
Kick Off Meeting (Client, PM, Designer, Developer)
Project Set Up (PM)
Architecture (Client, PM, Designer, Developer)
Design (Designer)
Design Approval (PM, Client)
Development Meeting (PM, Designer, Developer)
Development (Developer)
Development Review (Client, PM, Designer, Developer)
Testing/QA (PM, Developer)
Implementation/Delivery to Production (PM, Developer)
Follow-up (Client, PM)
Archive (PM, Designer, Developer)