Project Management for Small Organisations: The Single Point of Control

In small organisations or entrepreneurial environments, roles frequently blur, demanding individuals act simultaneously as the Project Office, Project Administrator, Project Manager, and Operations Manager. For such individuals, success hinges on scaling project rigour appropriately and leveraging effective organisational tools without being overwhelmed.

The Reality of Multi-Hatted Roles

In smaller organisations, project management controls must be scaled to suit the complexity, duration, and criticality of the work. When resources are scarce and a single individual is responsible for project management functions (such as the SRO, Project Manager, and Project Assurance roles), excessive bureaucracy must be avoided.

A comprehensive project role often involves:

• Strategic Planning and Daily Operations: Managing the full project lifecycle, strategic planning, and daily operations simultaneously. This includes everything from troubleshooting technical issues to managing stakeholder expectations and adjusting staff schedules creatively.

• Data and Analysis: Functioning as an internal business analyst, continually looking at data, automating tasks, and identifying new tools.

• Compliance and Governance: Ensuring adherence to regulations, developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and managing risk.

Strategy: Prioritising the Essentials

To avoid being overwhelmed, the single-point-of-control manager must prioritise activities that maximise success while minimising avoidable failure.

1. Streamline Initiation: For short, well-defined projects where proceeding is certain, it may be appropriate to move straight from a brief start-up phase to producing the Project Initiation Document (PID), skipping the intermediate Project Brief step. The PID functions as a ‘contract’ defining how the project will be run, covering governance, timelines, resources, and cost/benefit analysis.

2. Focus on Project Control (Planning, Monitoring, Correcting): The primary goal is to establish a credible and realistic plan as a baseline. For smaller projects, risk management may be an informal process, recorded simply as part of the PID and subsequent reports. This allows the manager to focus their energy on the constant cycle of monitoring and corrective action.

Overcoming Chaos: Leveraging Digital Tools

The key to managing chaotic environments is the ability to maintain composure under pressure and employ flexible, adaptive strategies.

• Digital Organisation: The capacity to thrive in chaos comes from being organised. Digital tools can act as the "Project Office" infrastructure. Proficiency in project and operations software like Monday.com, Trello, and MS Project enables the tracking of milestones and deliverables.

• Automation for Efficiency: Automating routine tasks is critical to free up time for strategic activities. Implementing low-code solutions, such as the Microsoft Power Platform (Power Automate, Power Apps), is vital for designing automated workflows and streamlining operational processes. This directly addresses the need to be highly efficient when managing simultaneous responsibilities.

• Data Democratisation: Acting as a Data Steward involves aggregating data from disparate sources (local spreadsheets, collaboration platforms) to standardise information and build comprehensive reporting capabilities (like Power BI). This unified data environment eliminates reporting bottlenecks, enabling collaborative, data-driven decision-making, which is essential when reporting up through various roles.

At the end of the day, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, and our organisations also work in different environments, which will have access to different resources. What works for one professional might not work for the other, so the advice we all share is not necessarily applicable. But general practices stand true: manage your time well, streamline what you can, and control change and chaos. It doesn't always make sense - until it finally does. But a good project manager will be in control, even if things are going downhill. I strongly believe sometimes the sauce to our job is to simply act as a sponge - absorb all knowledge, ideas and processes - and then find a way to be a mediator and connect the dots between people, ideas, technology and the resources we have.

Finally, when a project is finally delivered, don't underestimate the value of a good review: sit down and take time to go through the documents and your data. You might be surprised what will look evident at this point in the project lifecycle, but created issues somewhere in the beginning. Analyse and learn. Then pass it on to the rest of the team. We are often too busy and start a new project right off the bat - but lessons learned are an important part of the journey, and contribute to your growth as a Project Manager, as well as the long-term success of your team and organisation as a whole.