1. Project Work for Trade Unions: Introductory Course
Irish Congress of Trade Unions

2. Course Aims By the end of the course participants will:
Understand the key characteristics of project work
Know how effective project work can assist the work of trade unions
Understand tools and techniques for effective project work
Be able to plan a project, identify and minimise risks, measure success
Introduce participants to their course book.
Ask participants to turn to Page 8 of Course book

3. Day 1
Introduction to course Kinds of Projects/Key Features of Projects Defining a Project Project Activities in Trade Unions Project Planning - Project Tasks Sequencing and scheduling

4. Key Features of Projects
Limited activities - limited by time, money, in scope Involve teams of people – often from different backgrounds, disciplines, Organisations – collaboration and communication are important Often externally funded and need administration, reporting and careful planning Frequently associated with innovation, creating new things, devising new methodologies

5. Project Definitions
“A project is a planned temporary activity, involving multiple parties, with a fixed starting date, specific goals and conditions, defined responsibilities, a budget and a fixed end date." “A project is a carefully defined set of collaborative activities using clearly defined resources (money, people, materials, energy, space, provisions, communication, etc.) to achieve the pre-determined project goals and objectives within a specified time frame."

6. Project life-cycle
Initiation – includes the original idea, possible feasibility studies, assembling a core team & gaining outline approval to move the project forward Planning & Design – includes the detailed planning & budgeting for the project, designating additional personnel, sourcing any materials or equipment etc. Execution – is when the plans are put into action & the main work on the project undertaken Completion – would normally include some kind of final review & report and the handover of any products to their eventual users Monitoring and Controlling – are processes for keeping the project on track throughout its life-cycle

7. Project Life-cycle

8. Project Activities in Trade Unions
Producing a set of training materials Organising an information campaign about environmental or health and safety issues Introducing a new service for members Producing a research report Organising an international conference or seminar Producing and delivering a new training programme Undertaking a Survey

9. Project Activities in Trade Unions
Producing a newsletter Creating a web site Moving office Organising a recruitment campaign Organising a demonstration Introducing new office software Establishing workplace learning opportunities

10. Project Tasks
Likely to have a single goal or aim which will encapsulate what the project as whole is intending to achieve. Likely to have several objectives – lower-order statements which will all contribute to the overall goal. Objectives describe the activities to be undertaken or the services to be provided to bring these changes about. They represent defined end points to be achieved by the project. The key is first to break it down into smaller parts to make it more manageable. We can do so by first breaking it down into major areas of work each with a series of key tasks.

11. Work Breakdown Structure WBS
Works Council Project
User Needs
Analysis
EWC
Research
Pilot Course
Produce
Materials
Evaluation
Dissemination
Management

12. Work Breakdown Structure 2
Works Council Project
User Needs
Analysis
EWC
Research
Pilot Course
Produce
Materials
Prepare
Programme
Identify
Content etc
Develop
Draft
Course
Final
Team of
Tutors
Arrange
Venue
Advertise &
Recruit
Deliver
Evaluation
Dissemination
Management

13. Work Breakdown Structure 3
Work package 1
Needs analysis
Work package 2
EWC Research
Work package 3
Pilot Course
Work package 4
Materials Production
Work package 5
Evaluation
Work package 6
Dissemination
Work package 7
Management
Task 3.1 Prepare programme
3.1.1 Identify objectives, target group, content, materials
3.1.2 Construct draft course plan
3.1.3 Construct final programme
Task 3.2 Assemble team of tutors
3.2.1 Identify and recruit tutors
3.2.2 Hold team planning meeting
Task 3.3 Arrange venue and facilities
Task 3.4 Advertise and recruit participants
3.4.1 Prepare publicity material
3.4.2 Distribute publicity material
3.4.3 Process applications
3.4.4 Distribute detailed course information
Task 3.5 Deliver pilot course

14. Work Breakdown Structure
Task/work package size
4/40 8/80 Own Rules
Clear and unambiguous
Be easy to allocate
Project managers must often follow rules about the size of a work package. This affects the WBS creation process. Many organisations have variations on a guideline called the 4/40 rule or the 8/80 rule. The 4/40 rule says that no work package (task) should be shorter than four hours or longer than 40 hours in duration. The 8/80 rule is the same, but with bigger limits. Under the 4/40 rule, any task estimated to take less than four hours to complete should be rolled up into a larger task, and any task estimated to take more than 40 hours should be broken down into sub-elements (sub-tasks). There are also variations on these rules that use a percentage of the total project duration to create limits on task size. The reasoning behind these rules is that tasks that are too large are not only harder to estimate accurately, but they’re also more complicated to schedule and track. If you give someone a task that you estimate will take six weeks to complete, the deadline is so far out there that it’s hard for the resource to know exactly how much she has left to do. She’s not likely to realise she’s behind until it’s too late. On the other hand, if the same task is broken down into one-week chunks, the process becomes easier. If you schedule a task to start on a Monday, you’re more likely to know if you have enough time in the week to complete it. Breaking tasks into one-week chunks also lessens the overall risk for the project. If a one-week task goes bad halfway through, you’ve only lost a few days. If a six-week task goes bad halfway through, you’re going to lose weeks of effort. The other side is that if a task is sized too small, it’s unduly hard to track and manage. You might also make your resources feel they’re being micromanaged if you give them tasks that take only an hour to complete. Rules are fine, but it’s best to find a method that works for you, your organisation, and your projects
Manageable duration

15. How long will it take? Determine the start date for the first Task
Estimate the amount of time each task will take
Scheduling works with the length of time a task occupies from start to finish – Elapsed time
Budgeting works with the amount of time actually worked – Labour time
The two may differ – a task that takes 2 months to complete may only take a total of 2 days actual labour

16. Project Tasks Youth Conference
Page 20 of Course handbook: Activity Sheet 5
 Your union has decided to organise a conference on how to involve young people in trade unions. It will take place in 6 months time.
Your group is given the task of coordinating the event.
Amongst other things, the union wants to draw on the experience of other organisations by inviting a number of guest speakers, including one from a sister organisation elsewhere in Europe.
The conference will last for two days and will aim to attract 150 delegates from around the country.
Your union is looking to attract as much publicity as possible, and is expecting the conference to generate a published report.

17. Gantt Chart
It might be useful to set out our initial impressions at this stage about sequence and timings as a simple bar chart - usually known as a Gantt Chart, after Henry L Gantt who first devised this system of task representation.

18. Work Breakdown Structure 3
Work package 1
Needs analysis
Work package 2
EWC Research
Work package 3
Pilot Course
Work package 4
Materials Production
Work package 5
Evaluation
Work package 6
Dissemination
Work package 7
Management
Task 3.1 Prepare programme
3.1.1 Identify objectives, target group, content, materials (3 weeks)
3.1.2 Construct draft course plan (3 weeks)
3.1.3 Construct final programme (1 week)
Task 3.2 Assemble team of tutors
3.2.1 Identify and recruit tutors (7 weeks)
3.2.2 Hold team planning meeting (2 days)
Task 3.3 Arrange venue and facilities (4 weeks)
Task 3.4 Advertise and recruit participants
3.4.1 Prepare publicity material (2 weeks)
3.4.2 Distribute publicity material (8 weeks)
3.4.3 Process applications (4 weeks)
3.4.4 Distribute detailed course information (4 weeks)
Task 3.5 Deliver pilot course (1 week)

19. Gantt Chart 2
When we have identified the time needed to complete each task and - most
importantly - the relationship between tasks, we can begin to construct a more
detailed Gantt chart. It will become clear that, while some tasks may run in
parallel, some are dependent for their start on certain other tasks already having been completed. With this information in hand, we can proceed to map the individual tasks onto a calendar plan. This shows this more detailed
breakdown for Workpackage 3, with the tasks listed in numerical sequence.
You may have noticed that, although the Workpackage still starts in April, it now finishes a month earlier than originally envisaged, enabling you to run the pilot course and leaving plenty of time to evaluate the work and produce a report on the project before the 12 month period is over. We’ve managed to save the time by preparing a more detailed task breakdown, and by thinking carefully about how the individual tasks relate to each other.

20. Gantt Chart 3
Here you can see the whole project, with the detailed tasks for Workpackage 3. This time we’ve traced in the relationships between the tasks, so that it’s possible to see at a glance the logical interconnections. You can also see where there might be any slack time, in case things are running late. For instance, the long horizontal line between producing the final course plan (T3.1.3) and holding the course (T3.5) indicates that it would not be disastrous if the final plan was not available until August. On the other hand, any slippage in the sequence of tasks from arranging the venue (T3.3) to sending information to the selected participants (T3.4.4) could seriously jeopardise the
project.

21. A milestone marks a significant event or achievement in a project:
Milestones
A milestone marks a significant event or achievement in a project:
The completion of an important product or deliverable
The end of a particular phase or workpackage
Milestones are used as checkpoints in the progress of a project
Good practice to have a milestone set within first 10% of your project

22. Technique is concerned with
Sequencing
the order is which tasks must be done
Dependencies
the inter-relationships between the tasks
Critical Path
the minimum length of time in which the project can be completed

23. Critical Path
Critical Path is the path through the project where, if any slippage is incurred, the final end date will also slip.
Slack, or Float, is the amount of time any task can be delayed without affecting any other tasks or the end date of the project.
The Critical Path is established by tracing a line through those tasks on the network diagram that have no slack at all. By simply adding each parallel path’s tasks together, the path requiring the most time is the critical path.

24. Steps to create Gantt Chart
List the tasks using the WBS
Establish the interrelationships (precedence)
Ask the following questions about each task
What tasks must precede this task
What tasks follow this task
What tasks can take place concurrently with this one
Identify the milestones you want to specify
Input duration for the Tasks and Milestones
Allocate Resources as required

25. Project Management Software
What are the benefits?
Can produce Gantt charts, tasks lists & resource reports
Can use both to plan a project schedule and to track progress once it’s running
Can change timing of one task and should automatically adjust timing of all linked tasks
Essential for larger scale projects with lots of tasks and big teams

26. Day 2
Teamwork/Establishing a Team Communications and Publicity Judging Success Project Costs Sources of Funding

27. Activity 7 Triangles
Objective To allow participants to experience team working To allow participants to reflect on how they approached the task as a team To encourage review, reflection and learning

28. Activity 7 Equipment
Each team will be provided with six straws Each team must use all of the straws to construct the following shapes. They can make as many different versions of each shape as they can. 1 Triangle 2 Triangles 3 Triangles 4 Triangles 5 Triangles 6 Triangles 7 Triangles 8 Triangles

29. Activity 7 Triangles   

30. Establishing a Team Objective
To understand and practice skills in identifying and organising roles and responsibilities
in a project team

31. What kind of team will you need to deliver the project?
Establishing a Team:
What kind of team will you need to deliver the project?
How many people?
What particular roles /functions?
What knowledge and skills will the team need?

32. Establishing a Team: Own organisation Involvement of others
The needs of the project should determine the composition of the team
Team members need to be assigned specific tasks i.e. ‘Assigning Resources’
Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)

33. RAM
Responsibility Assignment Matrix

34. Communications & Publicity
Objective
To understand and identify appropriate forms of internal and external communications
in project work
To prepare a simple communications plan

35. Communications and Publicity
Internal Communication (The Team)
Who needs to know what?
Person with specific responsibility for communications?
Methods used (e.g. face-to-face meetings; phone; )
Other methods – e.g. web based, central storage for documents, calendars, To-Do lists
Who will keep a record of decisions?
External communication (outside the team)

36. Communications and Publicity
The Target Group
The Stakeholders
Dissemination
“A planned process of providing information on the quality, relevance and effectiveness of the results of programmes and initiatives to key actors and stakeholders”

37. Communications and Publicity
Communication overload
Effective team meetings (clear agenda, clear decisions, everyone knows what is to be done)
Best publicity materials
Existing channels of communication
Don’t leave all publicity to end of your project (can promote at start, can promote a specific element of it as well as end result)

38. Judging Success
Objective To understand the importance of clearly specified objectives and performance criteria in project success evaluation To understand the importance of planning evaluation activities To practice defining objectives and performance criteria

39. Judging Success
A project is likely to have several objectives – lower-order statements which will all contribute to the overall goal. The objectives describe the activities to be undertaken or the services to be provided to bring these changes about. They represent defined end points to be achieved by the project.

40. Judging Success
Project team needs to know whether or not its project work is being successful. Others may need to know this (e.g. funders, partner organisations, local/regional authorities). Objectives must be clearly defined. The more precise we can be about what the work is setting out to achieve, the easier it will be to assess its success.

41. Judging Success
Objectives should be as precise as possible. Ideally, they should be SMART
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-related

42. Judging Success
Example: To produce a new quarterly newsletter on workplace safety issues to be circulated to 150 workplace representatives, starting in September 2015

43. Judging Success
Performance Criteria: What will constitute success in each case.
Thresholds that must be achieved in order for the project to be considered successful.
Qualitative and quantitative criteria.
Evidence: How we will know whether or not an objective has met the performance criteria we have established.
How will we collect the evidence? E.g. surveys, feedback forms, interview, focus group, observation etc

44. Project Costs Objective
To identify those areas of work in a project that will generate costs
To identify those costs and to categorise them

45. Project Costs Cost is a crucial element of any project
Need a finance plan/a budget i.e.
- an estimate of costs
- a plan for how the cost is to be met
Preparing a simple budget:
Identify all of the items for which we are likely to incur costs
Estimate the price of each (where practical, base this on actual price lists or quotations)
Add the sums together

46. Project Costs Activity 11 does not require a fully costed budget
Think about the principal costs that your project is likely to incur
Work through the Task List and list the costs
Group them into major categories of cost
e.g. postage, telephone, stationery, photocopying costs could be grouped together as ‘Office costs’ or ‘Overheads’
Do not go into too much detail

47. Sources of Funding Objective
To consider and identify possible sources of funding for project work in trade unions
What are the possible sources of funding for project work in trade unions?

48. Sources of Funding Trade Union Projects
Self-funding e.g. single trade union, partnership of unions
Grant funding e.g. government funding
Commercial funding e.g. sponsorship, advertising
Partial funding i.e. more than one source
Funding bodies will have own pre-determined cost categories, specific rules on acceptable costs, maximum funding levels for particular items

49. Group Project
Introduction - Activity 14 is on Day 3 To practice developing an outline plan for a project to take place in a trade union or workplace setting Participants will work in groups Project ideas - ones that could benefit your workplace or union Avoid overly ambitious or overly complex projects Group should complete all sections of the Project Outline worksheet.

50. Day 3
Anticipating and avoiding problems Group Project: Planning Group project: Presentation and feedback Taking stock and moving forward Course evaluation

51. Anticipating & Avoiding Problems
To understand potential problems that might affect project work
To develop skills in ranking risk factors
To identify ways of minimising or avoiding risks in project work

52. Managing Risks
Remember: Projects are often associated with innovation – this means there are unknown factors and so inevitably risks
All projects: you will need to give consideration to risks

53. Risks A risk is something which could:
Prevent the achievement of the project objectives
Cause financial disadvantage – additional costs or loss of money
Damage the reputation of the project organisations
Risks need to be identified, assessed and managed

54. Basics of Risk Management
Identify the risks
Analyse probability
and impact
Determine the
importance
Agree “high risk list”
Document
response plan
Accept the risk
Reduce the risk
Avoid the risk
Monitor and develop contingency plan

55. Analysing Risks

56. Risks Common risk factors include Setting unrealistic objectives
Allowing too little time
Workplan not thought through in sufficient detail
Team members ill/drop out
Team members don’t deliver
Lack of support from lead organisation
Changes in external environment
Poor leadership
Poor communication
Poor administration

57. Plan for monitoring project
Will include risk management (contingency plan)
May have to add additional tasks to project plan to minimise risks
Remember: Need to continually review and adjust any plan
Planning a project is not a purely sequential process (may need to keep repeating it, adjusting)
Good idea always to have ‘Risks’ as an item on agenda of every project team meeting

58. Group Project Activity 14: Outline Proposal for a Group
Presentations by Groups
Feedback

59. Taking Stock & Moving Forward
To review any aspects of the course that would benefit from further clarification
To consider how you can begin to use what you have learnt and how you can further develop skills in project work.
Pages 46\47 Course book
Worksheet

60. Course Evaluation
Evaluate key aspects of this course in terms of your individual experience
Discuss key aspects of this course that you thought particularly useful or enjoyable
Discuss aspects of the course that could be further strengthened or improved
Evaluation sheet