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.

If you read my previous post you must have pretty good idea of what a project is. Perhaps you’ve watched some projects develop around you and you recognize some of them that you might want to take on. Now it is time to to find out what exactly project management is.

Project management means a leadership over a certain job that runs according to a certain plan from beginning to end. The objective of such leadership is to make sure the desired goals are reached, the required standards and deadlines are met and the budget and resources are not overspent.
As project management is a rather complicated structure I have decided to break it down into several key stages. Each one of them will be examined in the next posts. For now I am just going to list them and tie them to some examples for better understanding.

Defining your objectives and outcome.
Before you begin you will have to decide, what it is you want to achieve. The better perspective you have on your final goal, the easier it will be for you to find the shortest route to its execution. It is a bit like driving an automobile: if you don’t exactly know where you are going, it’s likely you won’t arrive to your destination in the near future if at all.

Planning your project, deciding your deadlines and resources.
Say you made a firm decision about the outcome: your aim is to drive to the neighboring town and see the town hall. Now you need to sit down and go over the details: your route, how long it’s going to take you to get there, how long the road is and how much petrol you might need. If its going to be quite far you might want to choose a place to stop for a night and perhaps to book a room in advance. You may want to look into the available alternative options for example, taking the train or bus.
Remember: whatever the desired outcome of your project is, if your planning is sound it will make it easier for you to meet your deadlines on time and in high quality.

Organizing your team.
If you are traveling with a group and you are the team leader you will have to decide what the responsibilities of other team members should be. It is also your job to see and make sure that the others know what they are doing. You’ll also be in charge of their performance and ultimately of whatever outcomes it might bring. It can be tricky especially if you don’t know your team yet. Trust me, a situation like this takes place more often than not.

Work management – solving problems as you go.
It seldom happens in real life that everything runs as smoothly as it was planned on paper. However, as a project leader you want to try and oversee every particular stage of your project’s development in order to deal with any problem that might arise right there and then. If you can catch the problem quick enough, you might be able to deal with it before it effects/undermines the project. Such planning for possible problems and their solutions is called risk management.

Finishing off your project.
This includes your actions after the job is done and your objectives are met. It’s more like tidying up after yourself: it’s making finishing touches, making conclusions, writing down some notes for your future projects, where your experience might help you along the way.

Mikhail Chigorin, famous Russian chess-player once said that “even a poor plan is better than none”. We can say that even a poor project management is better than no management.
Start using the project management tactics now and you will be surprised at the positive results they might bring.