Your 101 Guide to Project Management

Intro

What is project management?

Project management, as the name suggests, is about, well, managing projects. As a project manager, you’re a leader in executing an initiative. Project management is about ensuring your team has the tools they need to stay on track and complete a successful project. Constraints within project management fall under scope, time, and budget, and as a project manager, you need to develop a plan to help your team succeed given those constraints.

Whether you’re in the project management field or not, most professions require project management capabilities, making it a valuable skill in any industry. To help you get on the path to success, here’s our outline for conducting project management.

Tips for stellar project management

1. Define your project

When setting your sights on building a plan to execute your project, you first need to define what your project is. Identify the purpose and scope of your project by designating what your team aims to accomplish and what it does not to set your limitations and boundaries.

Then, consider your objectives and use the methodology of SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) objective setting. This helps you further define the goals of your project and ensures you stay realistic and on track. At this point, you should also identify key stakeholders in the project, i.e., groups or individuals who are invested in the outcome of your project. With a well-defined project, you can create your project charter, the official document summarizing your project’s goal, purpose, and projected requirements.

2. Set Goals

When setting your project goals, ensure they align with the goals of your organization and other departments, including marketing, legal, brand management, PR, and more. Re-evaluate your company’s motives to ensure your project aligns with the needs of your business. In the goal-setting stage, you also need to define how you plan to evaluate the success of your project through key metrics. Illustrate your success criteria to help your team evaluate whether the project meets your objectives.

3. Develop your plan

To get your project started on the right foot, you must develop a thorough operational plan. Your plan should not only include your project’s scope, timeline, resources, and risks, but a hierarchical breakdown of various tasks as well. This helps to make your project manageable and assists in assigning responsibilities and estimating the resources needed. The resources can include human, financial, and material, and identifying them early on helps you allocate what you’ll need appropriately.

Another critical aspect of project management and creating a plan is communication. Establish clear plans for communication that define how you’ll pass on information to your team members and stakeholders.

4. Create a schedule

Along with your plan, you need to create a project schedule. An estimated project schedule will help you and your team ensure they stay on track with their roles and responsibilities, as well as serve as a resource to stakeholders.

You can develop a timeline using PERT diagrams or another scheduling tool of your choice. In this stage, define task dependencies and critical paths for movement. Then, assign those tasks to team members and set deadlines for each of their share of the responsibilities. While things won’t always go as planned, a projected schedule offers a plan that you can update or make changes to as you progress through the project.

5. Execute your project

Once the proper planning is in place, you and your team can begin your project. As a project manager, you might think you can sit back and relax, but that isn’t the truth. Your role during this stage is to implement the plan and ensure your team is performing the tasks up to the standards you’ve set.

Monitor each team member’s progress as well as the overall performance of your project. Track time, costs, and quality, and ensure you’re identifying and mitigating issues as they arise. Luckily, there are a ton of project management tools on the market to help you stay on track, from Wrike to Asana and more.

6. Communicate and report

As you and your team progress through your project, it’s also your job as project manager to update your key stakeholders with your project’s status, challenges, and achievements. Provide clear progress reports using the KPIs you identified in your plan. Additionally, ensure you keep open lines of communication both internally between your team and external stakeholders.

7. Mitigate project risks and changes

Even with a perfectly laid-out plan, problems and changes arise, and it’s your responsibility to ensure these are managed throughout your project’s lifecycle. As you’re faced with project challenges, implement your risk mitigation and contingency plans as needed. Further, document and track any identified risks so you can communicate them in your project updates.

As changes are needed, you should also establish a change control process to help you evaluate and decide whether changes are warranted. Like documenting your project’s challenges, ensure you keep a thorough record of all changes that are made, assess their impact, and adjust your plan accordingly.

8. Learn from your project and celebrate your successes

Once your project is complete, it’s important to collect feedback from not only your team but also your stakeholders. Document the lessons you all learned along the way and identify what worked and what could have been improved upon so you can apply those lessons to future projects. Lastly, archive this information for future reference.

Then you can celebrate the success of your project. Remember to recognize and reward the hard work of everyone involved to help you foster a positive culture within your team.

Successful project management

Remember, project management is a dynamic process that requires you to remain flexible and adaptive to help you deal with unexpected challenges and changes that may arise during your project’s lifecycle. With a thorough plan, the right team, and adaptability throughout your project, as well as some thoughtful reflection post-completion, you’ll have the tools you need to grow in your skills as your project’s leader and help direct your team and company onto a path for success.