Starting a project is always the hardest. Defining scope, resources, timelines, and coordinating with the team is always a challenge. The best projects always start with getting people on the right page and providing clear directive towards the teams goal.
This is my guide to success
1. Provide a clear and defined scope
2. Give clear milestone and activity dates to word towards
3. Acquire the right team, reward them, and give them clear responsibility
4. Allow for room of margin
5. Minimize micromanagement and hold weekly meetings
My experience as a manager has taught me that things never happen as planned and technology projects are never on time. It is easy to forecast a plan months ahead of time, but difficult to hold with all of the moving parts.
Matt many of your keys to success hit home. As I have taken this project management class, I have also had the opportunity to manage a project at work with our national sales team. I have managed smaller projects before within each region, but my first nationally. The timing with the start of this project mirrored up with our first Saturday of class where we discussed scope. I don’t think until this class I had thought about really defining the scope. Fast forward a few weeks and I now have a clear scope lined out of what we are doing and what we aren’t doing. I have set timeline line, with key partners, goals, and even metrics we are tracking for weekly progress reports. I have been able to lay this all out for management to first approve, but also understand that I have got this game plan worked out. They will also know when they will get updates of the progress and what metrics they will see.
All of the points that you made as your key pointers in managing a successful project are points that my MGT 598 team has discussed for this class project. If any of these points is not taken into consideration, a project is likely to have a hole in it that will be detrimental to the success of a project.
One of my main concerns during the beginning stages of our project was that we would not create a timeline for all of the specific tasks outlining the all of the dates/times/etc. Considering the large size of our group, it is easy to lose track of who is performing which task, which task is due by which date, etc. A timeline makes it easier to keep track of all team members’ responsibilities and their due dates. This is key to the success of any project.
Thank you for sharing, Matt.
All of your tips are quite useful!
I would simply add implementing some sort of stage gate procedures. Especially with innovative technologies, as some companies have the tendency to continue with projects because they have invested so many resources. Even worse, companies have the tendency to push projects through simply to meet deadlines. Resources are so valuable and scarce, unfortunately, they are wasted on mismanaged projects. With your tips, any future manager will surely succeed in managing a project.
Very helpful in terms of lessons learned. I think I would only add, similar to what has been discussed in other posts, the importance of having the correct sponsorship and stakeholders aligned prior to even starting the project. Form experience, I have seen a number of projects meet the 5 components you discussed, but the Steering Committee or Gate Process might not be fully engaged and the project fails in that stage. I also think in the regular scheduled meetings that risk management and financial controls should have regular bullet points to help with identifying risks to the project scope, timelines, and costs since overruns there can all cause a project to fail in the eyes of upper management.
The key points you mentioned in making a project successful are very important as they provide a clear direction to all the team members towards the goal. I completely agree with you that it is always easy to forecast plan ahead of time but it is difficult to stick to the plan and finish on a time as decided. Most of the time, I have seen that when projects are initiated and plans are finalized, there are always some hurdles that either change the direction of the plan or force you to change the plan. However, following all the key points that you mentioned in your post can certainly help in overcoming some hurdles that every project faces down the road. I will definitely keep these key points in mind when in work on my next project. Thanks!
Great post and thank you for the advice. Their appears to be a common theme across these posts and the class in general. That is the importance of having a solid plan. This plan includes useful and achievable milestones, set deliverables, and clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Having a good plan not only allows you to have a clear idea of what it is your doing and where you need to be, but also helps you get back on track when the unexpected happens.