Topic: Managing projects
1. Why is it important to put a strong plan into place before commencing a project?
When a project lands on your desk, we often feel the urge to jump right in and immediately get started with the project steps. However, what we find is that projects are often more complex than they may appear. Also, it is common that the scope and objectives of the project may be understood differently by the project manager, the team members, the employees in the company the leaders of the organisation. This is the reason why it is necessary to really take the time to plan out the project well before getting started with the first step. In fact, we can’t emphasis this enough – the project planning phase takes some time and needs detailed thought buy-in from all stakeholders. Put the scope of the project down on paper. Get the agreement from the senior leadership who has oversight on the project. Ensure that you understand the relation of the project objectives and how it relates to the strategy and vision of the overall organisation. Decide ahead of time as to the project monitoring tools and communication methods you will use to maintain your project and involve your team. These are all elements of a strong plan that can be thought through before the action plan begins.
2. What are the keys to successfully managing a project?
The first key to success in a project is to in fact, define what success is. I find that it is useful to bring the project team together and ask everyone, “What will be our signs of success during and after the project is completed?” This exercise can help detail objectives further and to bring out the intrinsic success factors that may align with both personal and organisational goals. The second key to success in a project is to communicate, communicate, communicate – in other words, you need to ensure that everyone who is impacted directly or indirectly in the project always knows the status of where things stand with the actions, budget, timing and issues. Communication needs to be clear and concise and targeted to the appropriate audience. The last key to success to mention is to plan for the worst, strive for the best. It is often the case that identifying and managing the risk to a project (and there are always, always risks to any project) is not identified until a problem occurs. A good project manager and a good project team will have had an exercise early on in the project to identify all the potential risks, determine preventive measures and identify any needed actions or warning signs than an issue is arising.
3. What steps can be taken if the project goes off-track?
When a project goes off the expected track (and this is very common, regardless of the best intention and the most optimal planning), the first step is to communicate this to all involved. Transparency and highlighting important issues is the job of a project manager and the team – the objective is to work together to bring the project back in-line. When working out the detailed steps, the priorities and the dependencies in the planning phase, it is useful to identify the steps that are on the “critical path”. These are the steps that are the most important and need the most intervention when the project goes off-track. The critical path refers to identifying those specific actions that have a direct impact to the end date of the project. As some steps are done in parallel, not all steps impact the end date so it is important for the project manager and the team to know which steps are more crucial and to have a risk plan in place on preventive measures.
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