Project Management 101 - Planning

There is a lot more to getting a project completed from start to finish than meets the eye. Even with developing a small site, you will probably have to involve multiple people with interdependent jobs. Starting out by hiring a designer, writer, and programmer from the very beginning may or may not work. The possibility of something going wrong and blowing your entire budget - as if you computed a budget - is enough of a reason to properly plan a project. I am going to show you a minimalist approach to project management that while not taking up too much of your time, should help maintain your sanity.

Your project management process might be slightly different than mine. The important part is that you have a process and you know how your process works. No matter how small the project, you should go through the same process. A smaller project will most likely go through the steps much faster. Even for a project that is a couple hours long, you should go through the steps. You might not need to write them down though.

Project Definition

This is where you answer what the project is, why it came about, how you will solve it, and when you will do it. There are several important parts to define here.

Overview - This is where you define what project you want to implement, and the business reasons behind the project.

Scope - What is in scope of the project? And more importantly, what is out of scope of the project? Knowing what is out of scope, and being able to quickly communicate that to developers, designers, and other people working on the project can save a lot of time and effort in the long run.

Assumptions and Risk - Since you cannot possibly know about everything that will happen during the project, what things did you leave to assume? Why do you think it is safe to assume these items? What are the risks associated with the project? How will you manage these risks?

Approach - How will you go about the project?

Cost, Duration, and Effort estimates - This is a big part of the process if you are working for someone or with a partner/investor. This is where you estimate how much money will need to come from the company’s funds. Also, you will need to answer how much employee time will be needed, and how long the project is expected to be completed by. Be careful here, if you are too aggressive on these projections, it will make you look like an ineffective manager. If you set the budgets too high, then you are potentially setting the project up for waste. Treat every dollar as if it were your own - even if it is not.

Project Workplan

The project workplan is where you define everything that needs to happen in the project and when it needs to happen so other processes do not get disrupted. It defines deliverables and goes into a bit of detail about what constitutes a completed deliverable. You should be able to map out the entire project to this level. If you cannot safely do so then you may consider breaking the project up into multiple phases.

Project Management Procedures

This document is going to be basically the same for all projects in your company. In fact, it is common to only have one copy that just gets improved upon over time. How to change scope, how team communication will occur, how bugs will be managed and dealt with, how quality will be addressed are all things that can be in the project management procedures.

Conclusion

It is best to use actual documents for each of these items. You may be able to simply think about all these items in your head if you are doing a small project on your own. At the very minimum though, you should have at least considered each item in these documents. If you do not want to make formal documents, at least keeping note of these items should greatly contribute to your success in managing projects.