‘Slow down at the start to speed up later’: How to manage engineering projects

Engineering projects can have such a wide scope, it might be hard to know where to focus as a project manager – but by using structured frameworks and project management tools, you can make sure they run on time and achieve their goals.

If you are a project manager, or aspire to be one, an upcoming IMechE training course can provide you with the techniques you need. Managing Engineering Projects, next running from 17-18 March in London, will provide an overview of the principles for leading engineering projects in a multi-project, multi-task environment.

Here, course leader Mary Guerdoux-Harries gives four useful tips to help you manage engineering projects.

Set yourself up for success

In the training, we cover the approach of front-end loading. This is applied to project management but it’s an approach that is also effective in many other contexts. It’s the idea of making sure that you really spend the time at the beginning to set things up properly, get people aligned, with clear understanding of the goal and their role in achieving it. If you put this big effort in at the start, you can save significant time and effort later.

Everybody says it’s a good idea, but it’s rarely applied properly. The message here is: slow down at the beginning, to be able to speed up later. We think that by jumping in and cracking on, we're actually saving time. We're not! When things aren't set up properly, people aren't aligned like they need to be – and actually you end up losing a lot of time later, because things weren’t clear early on.

‘Communicate, communicate, communicate’

For a project manager, 80% of your time should be spent communicating. This takes all sorts of forms – it could be to your team, to sponsors or any other stakeholders in the project. But your key role, as a project manager, is communicate, communicate, communicate.

The nuts and bolts of the project are for other people to focus on. If you're not spending most of your time communicating, something is off.

Avoid ambiguity

Another thing that often means projects run over is when things aren't specified well enough, or time hasn't been taken to really narrow down and clarify the technical specification at the beginning. That's really, really important, because it drives everything else later. Make sure you avoid ambiguity.

Treat gate reviews as your friend

Projects, particularly in engineering, are typically structured with stage or gate reviews. These are the key milestones in the project, with predefined deliverables that are required.

My message is that gate reviews are your friend; they have an important role. A lot of people hate having to go through gate reviews – it's seen as this onerous and time-consuming task: "Oh my goodness, we have to have all this stuff ready, present things, organise things. How are we going to do it on time?"

A lot of time and energy goes into them, but there's a reason why they're there. It's about managing risk and giving the team the opportunity to step back and see where where they are, against a set of criteria.

Gate reviews help make sure that things are on track, that nothing has been missed, and they create the opportunity to ask essential questions about what will happen next in the project. It’s not just a tick-in-the-box exercise – or a pain in the neck. It’s essential for ensuring project success.

IMechE’s Managing Engineering Projects course runs in London from 17-18 March. Find out more and book on the IMechE training page.

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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.