Keeping Ownership on Planning

The role of the project manager is to make changes, track changes, and authorize changes to their projects. The best project managers keep everything in their head or organize in their own project paperwork. They have a clear vision of how to ensure the project’s successful completion. That is why they are capable of planning work and making decisions to change priorities. This explains the accepted best practice that only the project manager changes or updates project paperwork. The project paperwork reflects their vision of the necessary steps to successfully complete the project.

Best Practice

Although team members must be able to access the information needed to do their job, giving team members write permission to a project manager’s file invites anarchy and disaster. Changes to a project file must be orderly and must have approval of the project’s manager. The best way to accomplish this with ConceptDraw PROJECT is to have team members use the micro reports to request specific changes. Micro reports support the project manager, to keeping the vision consistent about the steps necessary to successfully finish the project.

With ConceptDraw PROJECT, successful project managers share the project file with all team members to keep them on track. Team members monitor their progress and report back to the project manager using micro reports. The project manager then updates the master file depending on assessment of the input received, and then periodically redistributes the updated files to project team members. By following this process, the reliability of the data on which decisions are made by management is of the quality, making for better decisions. Good decisions result in successful project completion.

Requirements

Nevertheless, whatever tool a project manager uses online, desktop, or server-based; giving access to others to edit project data must be avoided, because this destroys the synchronization of the project vision. This requirement is an important guideline for selecting the project management tools you use in your organization for planning. Keeping project paperwork is not collaborative; it is the professional responsibility of the project manager who has ownership of making planning decisions. Always have a realistic view of the actual project management requirements.