Plan the Project
Once you've settled on a project—a process you want to improve—you can outline
the goals, identify responsible team members, and create a timeline. You can formalize
the creation of the project using a Project Charter. A Project Charter lists
the title of the project, its leader, its stakeholders, its team members, as well as
its scope and goals. It also serves as a rough timeline of all the major steps in the
project.
SmartDraw provides some templates for Project Charters, but you can also create your
own using SmartDraw tables.
The Blank Project Charter SmartTemplate
Identify Key Elements - SIPOC Chart
Next, complete a SIPOC chart to identify the key elements of the project before
any work begins.
A SIPOC chart prompts you to consider the Suppliers of your process, the
Inputs to the process, a rough map of the Process,
the Outputs of the process, and the Customers
(internal or external) who receive the process outputs.
You can easily create a SIPOC chart using SmartDraw's SIPOC Analysis SmartTemplate,
or SmartDraw's table functionality in just a few minutes.
A SIPOC Analysis Chart Created with SmartDraw
Monitor Your Progress with Gantt Charts
The milestone worksheet (see below) helps provide the foundation for one of the most
useful project management diagrams—the Gantt chart. Gantt charts are
bar graphs that help plan and monitor project development or resource allocation on
a horizontal time scale.
Typically, Gantt charts indicate the duration of specific tasks, but they can also
be used to indicate the relationship between tasks, planned and actual completion
dates, cost of each task, the person or persons responsible for each task, and the
milestones in a project's development
A Gantt Chart Created with SmartDraw
To learn how to create Gantt charts in SmartDraw, read the
SmartDraw Gantt Chart Tutorial.
Other Timeline Tools
You can also use a PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) chart, an
Activity Network Diagram, CPM (Critical Path Method), or Arrow
Diagram to define the order of tasks in a project and identify bottlenecks and
critical tasks.
An Activity Network Created with SmartDraw
A PERT chart consists of a network of numbered nodes (either circles or rectangles)
representing events, tasks, or milestones in the project. These tasks are linked by
directional lines that show dependencies between tasks. Each node can list not only
the specific task but also the person or department responsible as well as an estimate
of how long the given task will take to complete.
SmartDraw provides a number of PERT chart libraries and templates to make creating
these charts a snap.
Plan Your Meetings
You can document and plan meetings using ready-made worksheets and forms provided
by SmartDraw. The documents provide an important record of attendees, ideas voiced,
and deadlines agreed upon.
SmartDraw offers this and other Meeting Form SmartTemplates
to help you be prepared for meetings.
Identify Key Players
Nothing sinks a project faster than a lack of clarity about who is responsible for
what. Right from the start, you'll want to clearly identify—and document—the
key players and their responsibilities in both the process undergoing improvement,
and in the improvement process itself.
A Resource & Task Matrix Created with SmartDraw
Resource and Task Matrix
A resource and task matrix is a great way to map department and individual
responsibilities in the project.
In the left column of the matrix, list the resources—in this case team members—and
across the top make a list of all scheduled tasks. At the intersection of each person
with each task assign a number, letter, or symbol to indicate that person's level of
responsibility for that task. A common symbol code is shown on the example, but you
could also choose a simple letter code like (L) for leader, (T) for team member, and
(S) for someone who provides supporting resources.
To draw a Resource and Task Matrix you can customize one of the existing templates in
SmartDraw or quickly draw a matrix using SmartDraw tables.
Using Org Charts
An Org Chart Created with SmartDraw
Organizational charts, or org charts, are tree diagrams that illustrate the relationships
among personnel, departments, or divisions in an organization. You can create an org
chart to visualize the hierarchy within your quality improvement team or to identify
the relationships between personnel in the process you are trying to improve.
Learn how to draw great-looking org charts in SmartDraw by reading the
SmartDraw Org Chart Tutorial.