Project Management Steps

What are the steps and skills needed to bring a small project in on time and within budget?
 

hen managing small projects you don’t need all the power, formality and strict discipline you get with tools and techniques aimed at large projects. You just need a handful of common sense project management steps that you use faithfully to make sure your project is successful. Here they are:

1. Taking control of the project  
2. Creating a Project Communication Plan  
3. Defining the Project Scope  
4. Determining the Required Results  
5. Defining the Workload  
6. Planning for Risk   
7. Allocating resources  
8. Scheduling costs and tasks  
9. Tracking unsatisfactoy results  
10. Tracking project status  
11. Taking corrective action  
12. Communicating Progress  
13. Closing the project 

Follow these steps and you'll bring your project in on time and within budget. In personal projects you may not need all the steps and they may not be as formal as they would be in a business project. The articles that follow this one will expand on the steps above and will give you an idea of their importance and how to perform them. Along with the procedures listed above, there are three management skills  you'll need for managing your small project successfully.

• Managing the scope 
• managing the team 
• managing risk and change 

Managing the scope will insure that the project does not go beyond its boundaries and that you stay within the budgeted requirements. In many projects a syndrome develops called scope creep where small changes are added to the project as a result of suggestions from customers or ideas of participants or other causes. These small changes can add up to a significant drain on the overall project budget or schedule. You'll need to watch for these and either eliminate them or make sure their impact is known and the project budget is adjusted accordingly. If you ignore these issues, you'll be at serious risk of managing a runaway project.

Managing the team will insure that project resources are being used effectively, that project costs are being spent appropriately, and that the quality of work and deliverables is high enough to meet project requirements and customer expectations.  You'll need to check status and progress frequently. Resolve problems by taking corrective action, making adjustments, and making assignment and schedule changes promptly as needed. If you ignore these issues you run the risk of managing a project that may complete on time or within budget, but that produces sub-par deliverables and fails to live up to expectations.

Managing risk and change will insure that the project is able to handle changing requirements and problems as they occur. Most project managers would agree that projects seem to attract problems that have to be dealt with if the project is to be successful. You should try to anticipate problems that will occur -- a process known as risk assessment, and to develop a risk mitigation plan to be sure that problems that happen don't torpedo the project. Project managers further agree that many projects will meet with valid changes in requirements that must be absorbed if the project is to be successful. You'll want to have a change management process in place for reworking project costs and schedules to handle change and revise the budget for costs and schedule.

Upcoming articles will discuss these management skills along with the project management steps listed above regarding how they apply to the business of managing small projects.

Click for more on: Project Management Steps

- Jake Alexander 

next article: How to Manage a Personal Project