Launch Project and Make It a Success

Any large project will have many small tasks waiting to be performed. Any small task will have many even smaller tasks in it. Breaking a project into tasks is a never ending process. I shall come back to it in the future and explain how its done and when is the best time to stop breaking up your project.

If its a relatively small project it might be that you are your own client and a sole execusioner too. If its a larger project it is highly likely that you will be working with the others. If you are a project manager, you will be expected to lead the others as well.

The body of men who work on a project’s ultimate success is called «The Team». Any leaders and followers, working long or short term, engaged in the project from day one or just subcontracted for a while to support a particular stage are all form a project team.

Managing a team that works for a company is different, more linear, than managing a project team. For starters, more often than not a project team is a one off thing. These people will work on a particular project and it is likely that they are not going to work as the same team in the future, on other projects. It is very important to establish good relationships and create good working environment within your project team from the day one. Perhaps its a good idea to meet each individual member of your team for a discussion before your project is due to begin. After all these will be the people you are going to have to trust to execute many key stages of the project. The better and sooner you get to know them the more chances you have to see your desired goal being achieved.

Perhaps another good idea is to make a list of all the people who are going to get involved in the project. This will include notes on what job everybody is doing and on what stage they will be participating. When meeting the team members try to discuss the project objectives, clarify any misinterpretations and, most importantly, explain each individual member their role in the overall team performance.

And last, but not the least — people might get ill or become victims of other difficult circumstances. This is related largely to the project’s risk assessement and will be discussed in the future in a separate post.

Every project has a somebody (a person or a body of men) who is interested in its execution. This somebody is called «the client». Different projects might have different clients: your company, other company, a group of companies, your boss or even yourself. If you use the project management strategies in everyday life this is also yourself who is interested in realising the objectives of the project.

To know and understand who is your client is important, as this is the person or company who defines the projects objectives, its criteria, outcomes and its resourses, financial resourses too. Its the client to whom you are going to be directly responsible for your planning and your actions and, ultimately, for your success or failure.

If you are your own client, it is very important to be demanding. This is difficult to achieve, but once you realise that you are succeeding and you are the one who is in charge and in control over your work and/or your life, being demanding will make you a very happy project manager indeed.