The One-Page Project Manager for IT Projects: Communicate and Manage Any Project With A Single Sheet of Paper

Chapter 7. Managing Consultants

Until now, I've referred to the One-Page Project Manager (OPPM) solely as a communication tool. It is that, of course. But in fact, it can be used as something more—a tool to communicate and a tool to manage. I use the OPPM to manage consultants, whom we have hired for a wide variety of projects, but who are particularly common with IT projects.

Recently, we hired an international consulting firm to help us with a pricing project. We wanted to evaluate our pricing strategy to better align our prices with the value we provide our clients.

The OPPM I created for the project had three uses:

1. It communicated to upper management and other interested parties how the project was progressing, which is the traditional use of the tool;

2. It helped us manage the consultants; and

3. It was used by the consulting firm to manage us. Yes, we got some of our own medicine back when the consulting firm turned the tables and used the OPPM to help them keep us going in the proper direction. In fact, all parties benefited from using the OPPM.

The project involved two phases. The OPPM samples found in this chapter show the tool completed for the first phase and as a plan waiting to be implemented for the second phase. I chose these two phases so you could see the OPPM completed and empty.

PHASE 1: ONE-PAGE PROJECT MANAGER

Notice the two OPPMs (Figures 7.1 and Figures 7.2) are fairly standard-issue types, the sort we have seen in other chapters with a few variations. Let's look at Phase ...