7 Things to Do Before Starting Any Project

Everyone plans tasks in different ways, but the largest, most complicated projects have tried-and-
tested methodologies that help break processes down and ensure that stakeholders and different
departments are clear about which tasks need to be completed by whom and by what time. This
article breaks project planning down into seven key tasks that have to be completed before work
begins to give the project the best possible chance of coming in on time and on budget.

Project organisation and management is a hugely demanding task that can very often be all a
person does in their job. There are hundreds of actions and tasks that have to be performed
throughout the biggest projects, and it may well be the job of one person, with the help of certain
specific software, to manage everything so that the project is completed to a high standard, coming
in on time and on budget.

With that in mind, taking the time to prepare before the project starts is extremely important. All of
the stakeholders involved need to be aware of who is doing what, when they are supposed to have
completed it by and which resources they have been allocated to assist them. This needs to be as
clear as possible and easily trackable so adjustments can be made and expectations can continue to
be met throughout the process.

Gauge the scope of the project

The scope of the project is the first thing that has to be ascertained. What is the overall aim of the
project? What are you looking to achieve? Once you know what the scope of the project will be, a
plan can be devised. However, you should be aware that the scope can change throughout the
project as different stakeholders ask for more to be included in the final deliverable, so the system
must remain flexible.

Set the success criteria

How is the success of the project going to be defined? By the quality of the finished work? By the
amount of money it costs? By the length of time taken to complete it? Whatever the factors for
success are, they must be measurable and aligned to the objectives of the key stakeholders – in this
way, the Key Performance Indicators can be defined.

Identify major risks

Try and work out what the major risks to the project are before you begin. Where are the most likely
points that things will go wrong? If you can identify those points then you can try and limit the impact
of the problems that might arise when you reach them.

Use SMART milestones

The SMART acronym (specific, measureable, agreed, realistic, time-framed) is well-known in the
business world, and it’s one you should adopt when thinking about the milestones in your project.
Milestones, such as the completing of an important part of the project, help the process keep its
structure and keep different teams in the loop with regard to which milestones need to be completed
before they can begin certain jobs or tasks.

Milestones can be used as a focal point for the team, for the monitoring and forecasting of the entire
project and for reporting throughout. Setting them using the SMART acronym should go a long way
towards ensuring the smooth progression of the process.

Optimise allocation of resources

The resources that need to be utilised in your project could be anything from software and hardware
to human team members, and they need to be allocated equally according to their strengths and
availability. This could present an issue among those who have holiday, personal commitments or
other projects that they have to work on.

Find a solution that ensures the maximum amount of resources working on the project at the same
time. For instance, if a resource is not available at a certain time and the relevant part of the project
cannot move forward without it, concentrate on a different job or task that can be completed.

Produce Gantt chart

The Gantt chart is one of the most widely-used progress measuring tools used in projects across the
world, and the majority of project management software uses the format as standard – not bad for a
format first developed at the beginning of the 20th century. Because a Gantt chart’s horizontal bar
display allows users to see the order that tasks should be done in, the amount of time it should take
to complete them and the relevant dependencies that exist between them, it is ideal to use to track
the progress of your project.
Create a baseline

One of the last things you should do is to create a frozen snapshot of all final plans to act as your
baseline throughout the project as it is being completed. This will enable you to track actual
performance against what was expected, perform “what if” analyses and get new team members up
to speed on the project if they join it after it has started.

Introduction to project schedule

This section concerns the practical application of project management techniques in the
development, maintenance and modification of a project schedule.

This may be either paper-based, or make use of available project management software, or
any other suitable software which meets the criteria of the Outcome.

You will learn how to organise the project elements into a meaningful and structured schedule.

Next: Creating a Project Plan

Creating a Project Plan

The first step in the Project Planning phase is the creation of a Project Plan, which will be
used to monitor the progress of the project. The Project Plan lists all the tasks and activities
required to complete the project, as well as the relevant milestones, dependencies,
resources and timeframes. There are three steps involved in creating a project plan:

 Defining the Work Breakdown Structure

 Identifying the Required Resources

 Constructing a Project Schedule

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) lists the phases, activities and tasks involved in
project, along with key project milestones. You must ascertain the resources needed to carry out
each activity, then construct a Project Schedule, which describes the flow of project activities
and the timeframes involved. You should also list any assumptions and constraints.

Creating a comprehensive Project Plan is a critical step in the Project Lifecycle, as it is used to:

 Monitor and control the progress of the project

 Create the resource, financial and quality plans for the project

 Help the project manager identify any task slippage and budget overruns

 Determine whether the project activities are complete and the project is ready for closure

 Assess the success of the project after it has been closed

In the following sections we will describe how to complete these steps in more detail.

Defining the Work Breakdown Structure

The first step in producing a Project Plan is the creation of the Work Breakdown Structure
(WBS), listing all the phases, activities and tasks that make up the project.

A phase is a set of related activities that comprise a substantial portion of an overall project. You
may find it useful to draw up a table of phases:

Phase Title Phase Description Phase Sequence

List Phase titles (eg: Initiation, Planning, Describe the purpose and key Number each
Execution, Closure and Evaluation). outcomes of each Phase Phase in sequence

An activity is a set of tasks which must be undertaken to complete a portion of a project. You
may find it useful to draw up a table of activities:

Phase Title Activity Title Activity Description Activity Sequence

List the phase that the List the title of Describe the purpose and Number each Activity
Activity corresponds to. each Activity. outcomes of each Activity. in sequence.
A task is an item of work to be completed within a project. You may find it useful to draw up a
table of tasks:

Task Title Task Title Task Description Task Sequence

List the phase that the Task List the title of Describe the purpose and Number each Task
corresponds to. each Task. outcomes of each Task. in sequence.

The above phase, activity and task lists comprise the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for
the project. As well as creating the WBS, you must also specify any critical project milestones.

Milestones

A milestone is an important event within a project, such as the completion of a major

deliverable. A milestone has a duration of zero and there is no work associated with it. For
example, a milestone might occur when approval has been given for several component designs.
This event has no time allocated against it on the project schedule - it simply indicates that the
approvals have been granted.

This milestone event may be the predecessor of further activities in the progress, such as the
construction of the approved components. Milestones are planned into the project in the same
way as activities and provide a useful mechanism for checking how a project is progressing. You
may find it useful to draw up a table of milestones as follows:

Milestone Title Milestone Description Milestone Date

Enter the title of each Describe the Milestone and its Add the date on which the
Milestone. importance within the project. Milestone is likely to occur.

Identifying the Required Resources

Once you have listed all the tasks required to undertake the project, you need to identify the
resources required to complete each task, as shown in the table below:

Task Title Resource Effort

Enter the title of each Enter details of the project team Quantify the approximate amount of
Task in the project. responsible for the completion of effort (days, weeks and months)
the Task. required to complete the Task.

You now need to construct a Resource Plan, identifying all the resources needed to complete
the project, eg: labour, equipment and materials. You should also produce a schedule indicating
when each resource will be used and note any assumptions and constraints made during the
resource planning process.

Many of the resources required should already be listed in the Business Case, Terms of
Reference and Project Plan. For a small project it is sufficient to take each activity listed in the
Project Plan and assign a resource to it. This can be done using a program like Microsoft
Project.

For larger or more complex projects a full Resource Plan may be needed to ensure that the type
and amount of resources, and the schedules for their use are accurately identified. The next
section describes the creation of a Resource Plan in greater detail.

Creating a Resource Plan

The first step is to produce a detailed list of all the individual resources needed to complete the
project. Start by listing each of the major resource groups (eg: Labour, Equipment and
Materials), then list the individual components of each group.

 Labour: identify all the roles responsible for or involved with the completion of any
activity specified in the Project Plan. Remember to include any external or contract staff
that will be brought in for specific tasks.

 Equipment: identify all the equipment which will be needed to complete the project, eg:
office equipment (PCs, photocopiers, mobile phones etc.), telecommunications equipment
(cabling, switches etc.) and machinery (heavy and light machinery).

Materials: consumables (eg: photocopy paper, stationery, ink cartridges) are often needed to
complete project activities. Other materials (eg: wood, steel and concrete) may be needed to
produce physical deliverables. Draw up a detailed list of all the materials required to complete
the project. This should be as accurate as possible, since it will be used to produce the Resource
Schedule and Expense Schedule

Quantifying the Resource Requirements

Labour

Using the following table, list all the roles required to undertake the project. Identify the number
of people required to fulfil each role. Describe the responsibilities and skills needed to undertake
each role successfully. Also specify the timeframe during which the role will exist.

Role Number Responsibilities Skills Start Date End Date

List each Identify the Summarise the Summarise the Enter the Enter the
project number of people responsibilities for skills required to start date end date for
role. required for each each role. fulfill each role for the role. the role.
role.

Equipment

Use the following table to list each item of equipment required to complete the project. Quantify
the amount of each item needed. Describe the purpose and specifications of each item and
specify the timeframe for which the equipment will be required.

Item Amount Purpose Specification Start Date End Date

List each item Identify the Describe the Describe the List the date by List the date
of equipment amount of each purpose of specifications which the when the
required. item of each item. of each item. equipment is equipment
equipment needed. can be
required. released.

Material

Use the following table to list each item of material required to complete the project. Quantify the
amount of each item needed and specify the timeframe during which the materials will be
required.
Item Amount Start Date End Date

List each item of Quantify the amount of List the date by which List the date upon which
material. each item of material the material item is the use of the material
needed. needed. ends.

Constructing a Resource Schedule

You have now collected all the information required to build a detailed Resource Schedule. The
next step is to list the labour, equipment, materials and any other resources needed to undertake
the project, then identify the amount (ie: value) of each resource required during the periods it
will be needed, in the following Resource Schedule.

Resource Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total

Labour

Labour Type

Equipment

Equipment
Type

Materials

Material
Type

A detailed Resource Schedule enables a Project Manager to identify the total quantity of each
type of resource needed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Assumptions

List any assumptions made during this resource planning process, eg:

 "The scope of the project will not change."

 "Identified resources will be available upon request."
 "Approved funding will be available upon request."

Constraints
List any constraints identified during this resource planning process. For example:

 "The project team must create all of the physical deliverables within the allocated
budget."

"All work must be undertaken within normal working hours."

Constructing a Project Schedule

You can now create a detailed Project Schedule by listing all the Phases, Activities and Tasks
required to complete the project, along with the dependencies, sequencing and resources
involved. The example below treats the construction of a Project Plan as a project in its own right:

Dependencies
Dependencies are logical relationships between phases, activities or tasks that influence the way
in which a project will be undertaken. They may be internal to the project (eg: between project
activities) or external to the project (eg: between a project activity and a business activity). Four
distinct types of dependencies exist:

 Finish-to-start: the item that this activity depends on must finish before this activity can
start.

 Finish-to-finish: the item that this activity depends on must finish before this activity
can finish.

 Start-to-start: the item that this activity depends on must start before this activity can
start.

 Start-to-finish: the item that this activity depends on must start before this activity can
finish.

Identify any key dependencies in the Project Schedule, and enter them into the following table:

Activity Title Item Title Type of Dependency

Identify each activity List the item upon which this Identify the type of this Dependency
involved in the activity is dependent. (eg: Start-to-Start or Start-to-Finish).
Dependency.

Identifying the Critical Path and Critical Tasks

Critical path analysis is an important element of project planning. The critical path is the
longest-duration path through the network. The tasks that lie on the critical path cannot be
delayed without delaying the project. The critical path can be identified by determining the
following parameters for each task:

 Earliest Start Time (ES): the earliest time at which the task can start, given that any
predecessor tasks must be completed first.
  Earliest Finish Time (EF): the earliest start time for the task plus the time required to
complete the task.

 Latest Finish Time (LF): the latest time at which the task can be completed without
delaying the project.

 Latest Start Time (LS): the latest finish time minus the time required to complete the
task.

The slack time or float for a task is the time between its earliest and latest start time, or
between its earliest and latest finish time, or, to put it another way, slack is the amount of time
that a task can be delayed past its earliest start or earliest finish without delaying the project. If
the earliest and latest end times are the same, the task is critical.

The critical path is the path through the network in which none of the tasks have slack, that is,
the path for which ES=LS and EF=LF for all tasks in the path. Any delay in the critical path
delays the whole project. Note that if we wish to finish the project sooner, it is necessary to
reduce the total time required for the activities in the critical path.

Modifying a Project Schedule

Ideally, once a project schedule has been determined, it should be adhered to rigidly.
Unfortunately, this will never happen, there will always be changes required, so the important
thing is to ensure that these are managed correctly. The ability to manage and control changes
to a project schedule is a key factor in project success.

In fact, for many projects, changes are expected and may even be encouraged. The big problem
is uncontrolled change. A change in any of the critical success factors affects the other factors,
which will then affect project performance, which will in turn affect stakeholder perceptions and
satisfaction levels, eg: an expansion in project scope will increase the work of the project, which
will affect both the project costs and the project schedule.

Any time a change occurs, the project manager needs to recognise the change, evaluate the
impact of the change, communicate the change to the members of the project team and the
stakeholders and make the appropriate adjustments if the change is accepted. This mechanism is
commonly referred to as a project change control system.
 Question 3

7 tips to manage projects effectively from a project

manager
November 22, 2013

Share this

 Twitter

 Facebook

 LinkedIn

 Google+

At some point or another we all find ourselves having to do this thing called project
management. Sometimes everything goes well and other times we run into snags. But it helps to
get good advice from someone who does project management for a living.

I recently got a chance to sit down with a project manager from one of the top advertising
agencies in the world and pick his brain on the most important things to do and keep in mind
when you’re managing projects.

1. Don’t forget the human element

You’re not alone on a team. You’re managing the expectations of stakeholders, your boss, and
your team. You have to collaborate. There are a lot of tools out there you can use for
collaboration to maintain transparency. So how do you do that?
You think to yourself, I’m going to run business requirements on what the team needs and how
to collaborate. And in the end, you can find yourself presenting a “fantastic” solution to your
team, that seemingly comes through with all of the business requirements and it’s free. But then,
all of a sudden you run into limitations and your team stops using it. Communications break
down. Then it becomes more of a data repository. Everything gets buried. And the collaboration
software you picked up ends up being like the junk drawer you have in your kitchen. The lesson
here is to not just solve for business requirements, but to solve for the human element.

2. Communication is king
You need to learn how to communicate within your team. That’s the biggest thing you have to
learn overall for every project’s success. A project manager’s primary function is to
communicate and bridge the communication between all the different personalities. I read a cool
article recently that talked about the orthogonality of software development. There was an
analogy made against learning how to fly a helicopter. The idea is that there are two disparate
pieces, the rotor up top and the tail rotor. One makes it go up and down. One makes it go
sideways. These two disconnected parts are controlled by one cyclic stick. And the pilot’s job is
to control both of those disconnected parts to make the helicopter move in the right direction. A
project manager has to be that kind of pilot—to bridge the communication throughout their team.

3. Know when to use the right tool from your toolbox

You can learn Scrum. You can apply Kanban. But you have to be adaptable to the team. Once
you understand how the team works, you have to be flexible enough to adopt the tools that the
team uses as well. Take the time to familiarize yourself with all of the tools available to you to
better understand which ones to use at the right time.

4. Always ask questions, never assume

Plenty of project managers needing to get through a project think they don’t need to have a
complete level of detail. But this is where you can get into trouble. It’s a fine art. Part of being a
good project manager is having that balance of knowing when to be brief and knowing when to
ask for details, without being too pushy or overstepping boundaries.

5. Understand that there’s conflict on every project

Most conflict has a simple solution – again it goes back to communication. Sometimes people
are just difficult to work with, mostly because you or the other team member has trouble
adapting to another team member’s work style. There’s no way to avoid conflict. Here are a few
quick tips on how to deal with it:

Take the person aside and listen to them over a walk-and-talk, to the kitchen, outside, or getting
coffee.

Take the person aside and walk through a list of items you are dealing with.

The common thread is to take the person aside so it’s not confrontation—it’s less about
confronting the problem and more about addressing the cause of the problem.

6. Be the participant observer

In social anthropology, there’s this idea that understanding a culture has two parts. The first is
the empirical observation (i.e. tasks and routines that you observe and record—just plain data),
and the second is subjective observation (why, how, when). These qualities are the building
blocks of a culture. In order to understand the culture, an anthropologist will embed his or herself
in the culture—they will join the tribe and do things the tribe does—eat their food, sing their
songs as well as record ethnographies about how the culture came to be.

I’m oversimplifying the process, but the same thing works for project mangers—when you join a
team or form a team you are building a culture around the project or joining a culture. It’s like
building a mini civilization—does your team build pyramids or a coliseum? What I’m saying is
that the project manager has to understand the culture of the team and or has to help create a
culture within that team in order for a project to succeed. The culture of your team is what guides
the success of the project, and as a project manger, you have you have to understand the culture
and embed yourself in the culture, so that you can effectively lead and create structure around the
culture of the team or create structure and order for the culture. Once you understand the culture
of the team through participation and listening you will understand how to effectively insert your
project process to help the team and your project succeed.

7. A few words on project management scope

There’s a stupid saying: rule with an iron fist and a velvet glove. It’s archaic and you will get
laughed at for introducing it seven centuries later, but the principle holds. You have to hold your
ground on scope, but you have to be flexible. When you take on a project, you’re making a bet
that you are confident with. You’re betting against yourself and the team that you can get the job
done within the spread. Pete rose would be a great a project manager. The good news is that
you’re in control of the game and you’re betting against you and your team, so of course you
want to win; however, the way you win is key to your project’s success. It’s not just about
winning. It’s about being a team player while you set yourself up for success.