Capture your project on one page
OPPM™ - One Page Project Manager
In a search for a simple tool to effectively communicate a project’s progress and status to executive and project team stakeholders, one stands out from the rest. The One-Page Project Manager (OPPM™) by OPPM International is simple yet highly effective.
Before OPPM™
In the past, a request from an executive about a project's status would make my pulse soar, and cause me to ask myself the following questions.
What information and metrics does the executive want to see?
What is the best way to convey this information?
Do I, as project manager, know this information readily or do I have to research it?
A request for the project summary information could take two or more hours to complete, taking valuable time away from the project itself. In many cases, the project summary information ended up covering four or more pages.
After OPPM™
In 2009, I stumbled upon the book - The One Page Project Manager by Clark A. Campbell - that provided a simple 12-step process to summarize the project on one page, and never more than one page. After about an hour of reading this book, I was able to develop my first OPPM(TM) summary.
The days of rapid-pulse-inducing summary requests from an executive were over. In fact, rarely did a request come because I was so darn proud to have my project summarized in a one-page document, that I regularly communicated project status proactively.
Using OPPM™
Another cool feature of this tool is that it is highly adaptable to any project. I have used, and have seen others use this tool for the following personal and professional projects.
Renegotiation of partnership contract terms
Implementation of a central resource management function in the APAC region of a professional services firm
Software implementation project
Personal website creation
Personal move from one home to next
PhD dissertation research, writing, and defending
The beauty of this tool is its ability to summarize the objectives, major tasks, project schedule, ownership, and project costs in a format that never exceeds one page. At any given time, when an executive or other stakeholder asks about the project’s status, the PM can provide this one-page summary within moments. Simple use of stop-light (red, yellow, green) color coding captures the history of the project by showing which major tasks were on time (green), which were behind schedule (yellow), and which presented major challenges (red). All of this allows the PM to represent high-level project information on one page.
Visit www.oppmi.com to learn more about this powerful tool.
