The 'MORE' Concept

The ‘MORE’ CONCEPT 
The Very Basics of Project Management   

by Saurabh Shrivastava 

PREFACE

When you take your life as a project, you will be disciplined. When you take your life as YOUR project, you will work hard not minding the environmental condition just to make sure you complete your project. You cannot control the environment generally but you can create your own environment. Taking charge of your life is the key to Self-motivation.

I came across these lines in some personal blog and has impacted my mind, thoughts so much that I could not resist to include here as I am going to write something on Project Management.

I am introducing a concept called MORE which can be a basic guideline for any project manager in any stream. A lot of relevant stuff has already been practiced, published and preached by many experts but still I found this to be a very basic and want to summarize it as simple as possible for anyone in any level of the organization. It’s a proven concept as per my personal experiences.

FAMILIARIZE

Before that it will be worth to quickly ground our self on the basic definition of Project Management. As explained in Wikipedia -

Project management is the practice of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time

A key factor that distinguishes project management from just 'management' is that it has this final deliverable and a finite time span, unlike management which is an ongoing process. Because of this a project professional needs a wide range of skills; often technical skills, and certainly people management skills

THE ‘MORE’ Concept

The MORE model or concept is based on four pillars -

M – MASTER SCHEDULE

O – OPEN POINTS TRACKER

R – REPORT OUT

E – EXPECTATION & ESCALATION 

M – Master Schedule:

Master schedule or popularly known as Master Project Plan is the foundation of any project. Depending on the size and nature, a PM can settle down to what can be an easy option to manage. This is because in many cases even after making a detailed master project plan people find it difficult to manage it. So it is advisable to narrow down to a more manageable format like Gantt chart, An Activity or resource based work plan if the project is a low scale or Short term.

Having said that, the fact still remains true – Every PROJECT need a PLAN.

O – OPEN POINTS TRACKER:

As the number of activities or resources increase in a project, there will be many points where we need more clarity in terms of what to be done, why to be done, when to be done, who will do, what it takes to do, etc. And all these questions need time & effort to answer. So it is critical to keep a track of all OPEN items and review it till closure.

There are different formats available and been used by different people / organizations to track the open items and even one can easily design his own. But key thing to ensure is that the tracking should include the provision to answer the above questions.

R – REPORT OUT:

This is the most important tool with a PM as it can be used to achieve many benefits like –

• Keep everyone informed about the progress of the project – Sense of Engagement
• Highlight any risks, delays, support needed – Means of Escalation
• Showcase any achievements or critical milestones – Opportunities to Celebrate, Reward & Recognize individuals

E – EXPECTATION & ESCALATION:

Actually any project revolves around the 2 Es –

1.    Expectation – it is crucial for a PM to understand what is expected by the leadership, customers and project team members. Expectation varies with the leadership style. Some leader are micro managers and expect frequent update on the project whereas some are more empowering and expect minimum involvement in working level issues. The best way to manage these scenarios is by designing an appropriate report out format.

2.    Escalation – And lastly, be prepared for the Murphy to act and you may need to anchor the ship in the middle of the sea. So the immediate thing to do is inform the Captain of ship.

Things may go wrong and plans need to be altered which may need a deviation approval as it impact time and money. So a PM need to be agile and escalate critical happenings to the right level at the right time.

CONCLUSION

I believe this concept can be practiced by any individual working on big or small projects to become a successful Project Manager.

REFERENCES

• https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/what-is-project-management/
• https://www.projectmanagement.com/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management