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Project Management Steps For Success
July 25, 2011 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices
Project Management Steps For Success
By Gregory Katkin
Following are the project management steps that, if followed by the project manager, may lead to a successful project.
Define the scope of the project
Defining the project scope is the first key activity in getting a project up and running. The scope outlines exactly what the project will deliver as its final outcome and, in some cases, also includes some specifics of what will not be included, too. The project scope needs to be agreed by those for whom the project is being run, whether that is an external (or internal) client or your senior managers.
Identify resources & build your team
Delivering your project will, most likely, involve a mixture of people, each with their own specific skills and expertise and equipment. These resources will have to be managed within a set budget. It is your responsibility, as the project manager, to identify the resources you will need and, once they are allocated, to manage them through to completion. Bring the team together as early as possible in the project’s lifecycle and make sure they fully understand the project’s scope and their responsibility in delivering.
Identify the key tasks needed to deliver the project goal
A number of key activities will come together to allow you to achieve the project goals. You need to identify early in the project lifecycle what those key activities are and these will form the basis of your initial project plan. Involve your project team in the process of identifying the key tasks in order to be sure that you have the input of everyone involved and you don’t risk missing key tasks.
Create a detailed project plan
The key activities give you a high-level view of the route to completing the project. These high-level activities need to be decomposed into smaller tasks or units of work to which team members and resources can be allocated. At this point, you need to be thinking about the timeline for the project as a whole and how long these tasks will take. Again, use the expertise of your team members to help you estimate accurate figures. Make sure, when looking at allocations of resources to tasks and dates for completion, that you keep your budget in mind.
When creating the detailed plan, you’ll also need to show any dependencies that exist between tasks. The most common one is the finish-to-start dependency where an earlier task must finish completely before the later one, to which it is linked, can start.
Track your project
Once your project plan is created and the team have begun working on the tasks, you can track the progress. As you go, it is likely that things won’t run to your original plan. Creating a baseline of your plan allows you to record actual values and compare them against your original thinking.
Communicate with everyone!
Communication is a theme that needs to run throughout the lifecycle of your project and should include both the good and the bad news. People are far more receptive to coping with changes to your project schedule, budget over-runs and delays if they are kept informed at the earliest possible moment.
Gregory Katkin, an expert in small business development, simultaneously runs promana.net and manages another local small business as well.
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Hi,
Good one :) PM in simple and very powerful words :)