Basic Project Management

Let’s walk through the key steps of basic project management.

Firstly, let’s assume that you have a project in mind.  But be sure that the piece of work you want to do is a project.  A project is a temporary endeavour that delivers an outcome.  For example, building a house is a project as it has a limited duration, and delivers the outcome of a complete house.  Maintaining that house is not a project because that task will never end.  Let’s hope that your project is also something which is going to help you achieve one of your goals, and is fun too.

Now, think through all the things you need to do to complete that project, and list every task needed to complete your project.  If you are building a house that could be an extensive list, including buying land and materials, obtaining permission, building work, decorating, and landscaping.  Once you have completed all the tasks on your list, you have finished your project. (So, make sure every task is on there!)

Now, this big list of tasks is probably not very structured at this stage, so let’s structure the tasks into a more workable project plan.  

Group similar tasks together.  For example, you might group together all the tasks you need to complete to prepare the building site, or all the tasks involved in laying the building’s foundations.  

Arrange your tasks in order, e.g. you will not be building the roof until you have built walls, and the walls are in turn dependent on the foundations being in place.  There are other reasons for ordering tasks, e.g. when the right people to the job, or the dollars to pay for it become available.

Now, estimate the effort required to complete each task.  How many days or hours will be needed to finish that task?  Think about who can allocate to each task to do the work, and what their level of skill is.  Think about how much time they have available for your project, making sure that you allow for any other work they need to do.

Now you have enough information to build your plan.  Drop all of these items into a calendar.  You need to take into account all dependencies between tasks, when people are available, effort required, and how much time they can devote to your project.

With your plan in place you can identify key milestones.  These are the big targets you will reach during your project, before you reach the end, like the foundations of the house are complete, the walls are up, the roof is on, the decoration and fit-out is finished.  It is easier to aim for a milestone than the end of the whole project.

Ok, that’s the first version of your plan.  What now?

Think about how risky the project is.  What can go wrong?  How likely is this risk?  And if it does go wrong, what will you do to fix it?  This thinking gives your risk plan.  And that will help you to think about how much contingency you need to add to your plan – that’s extra time and resource which you might need to dip into if things do not go as planned.

Ok, you’re done with planning. Publish the plan to anyone who is working on it, and anyone you are doing the project for.  Let them all know what is going to happen, when it needs to happen, and when the whole thing is going to finish.

With the plan out of the way you now just need to do the work.  At this point you have stopped project planning, but the hard work of project management has only just started.   Now you need to make sure each task is completed on schedule.  This almost certainly means you will need to deal with problems.  This is the golden rule of project management – things go wrong.  You will need to fix up the problems to keep your project on track.

While you are running your project you should track your progress, regularly recording and publishing if you are working as planned.  You need to know how well (or badly) things are going, and your team will also be interested in this.  You will need to fix up those problems.  You may also need to do some re-planning if the problems you have encountered, or things you have learned mean the original plan no longer makes sense.

Project Complete?    When you get to the end of the project, celebrate and congratulate everyone involved.  Take a few moments to see what lessons you have learned from the project, and what you could you do better next time.

Now…start your next project.

Don't just do projects - manage them.

Have you ever wanted to do something but never got started?  Maybe you were going to learn a language, or learn how to paint, or write a novel,  but you just never really managed to get going.

Have you ever started something but never finished it?  Maybe you started that novel , but never got to the end.  Or maybe you were going to run a marathon but had to drop out of training because you couldn’t find the time.

Have you ever finished something but found that it was a nightmare to achieve?  Maybe something your manager asked you to do at work.  Or maybe you decided to renovate your house, or even just part of it, and it seemed to go on for ever.  There was more to it than you had anticipated.  You encountered obstacle after obstacle.  Lots of things went wrong.  You wished you had never started.

Does any of that sound familiar?

We spend a lot of time in our lives doing things which we don’t always manage effectively.  We do things which are projects, but we don’t manage them like projects.  Because we don’t manage our projects effectively we don’t complete them, or they take way too long, or they are more difficult than they need to be.  We generate hassle for ourselves, and stumble over problems we have not anticipated.  So we find the experience of doing our projects frustrating and irritating.

This site will explain principles of basic project management that you can use to manage your personal projects, or your work projects, to help you to deliver successful outcomes.