You need to have a solid understanding of how to initiate a project before you can go on to manage one. It is required of you as a project manager that you are familiar with the most effective strategies for not only planning a project but also launching it successfully.
Let’s go on to the phases I discussed at the beginning of the process.
The Investigation as well as the Organizing
An idea is required to get started on a project since everything begins with an idea. To transform the concept of the project into something that can be worked on, several important considerations need to be kept in mind. The first one of these is the stage that involves analysis and planning.
Your ultimate first objective should be to have the proposal authorised by the higher authorities in the company, although this depends on the requirements of the organisation. You will need to conduct your fair share of research to have the proposal accepted by your superiors or before beginning work on any particular project that has been assigned to you. You will be required to do an analysis of the pain points or a particular situation and think up a proposal for a project that will address the pain point or points that have been identified. You will need to have an understanding of why it is significant and how the company may benefit from having this knowledge.
For instance, and to make this scenario as simple as possible, the business wishes to improve its ability to manage the reactions they receive from the information that is published on the website. However, a comment box is not currently available for use. Instead, buyers are required to send an email directly to the organisation.
You, in your capacity as project manager, may begin the process of designing a means to transform the emails into a fruitful debate on the website or blog itself, which may lead to the assistance of other site users as well. The capacity for readers of online information to post comments has the potential to bring about improved communication and engagement with the organisation.
Who exactly will make the comment box, though? You will need to develop a spending plan to pay the programmer who is going to manage such a procedure in the amount of time that you want him or her to work.
You next present your strategy to the leader of the company or anyone else in charge. You educate them on the significance of providing a remark box as well as the reasons why a budget is required. It is necessary to be able to articulate the significance of a project to get approval for it.
You will, of course, also need to address the issue of spam comments that have been left behind, as well as some negative remarks that might be detrimental to the company’s image. As a result, as a project manager who is required to be aware of risks, you will discuss the need of having a customer support staff that is prepared to respond quickly to negative comments and to do damage control. To reiterate, you will need to devise a financial plan to account for it as well.
You will also be required to design a strategy for how the aforementioned undertaking will be finished. It is not required to go into excessive detail. If you only have the fundamentals of a plan, you should be able to get a project authorised. You need to have your goals very well defined. You also need to have a financial plan and an idea of the resources that will be necessary. The more relaxed and at ease you can make an organisation feel, the higher the likelihood that a project of yours will be authorised.
Putting together a group is also very crucial. For a project to be finished on time, the members of your team need to possess the talents that are necessary for its completion.
I can’t place enough emphasis on the significance of the planning phase. Take, for instance, the case when a customer wants an app to be developed. They have certain goals in mind for the app, and they want you to help make those goals a reality. Even though you are only in the planning stages of such a situation, you will need to start thinking about the group that you will be collaborating with.
Does the customer already have a group in mind for the project? Do they anticipate that you will make some phone calls and assemble a group of people who have the abilities necessary to manage such a project?
Additionally, you will be responsible for developing timetables that the team will adhere to. You will need to have an understanding of which responsibilities should be delegated to which members of the team. Prioritizing duties is crucial, too. You also need to have a budget to ensure that all of the resources (hardware and software) that you will need are accessible to you when you need them.
You will need to keep in mind the time length of not just the overall project, but also the specific tasks that need to be finished by what time to meet the client’s expectations for when they want the app.
When you have completed the process of analysis, you will next present your proposal to the customer to get approval. After approval, you will be able to go on to the implementation stage.
Consider the planning phase to be the foundation upon which the whole project is built. When it comes to ensuring the success of a project, the blueprint is what has to be followed.
How can you possibly anticipate that the project would go off without a hitch if the planning process is subpar? It is easy to see why companies determine the value of a project manager based on what they are capable of doing during the planning phase of the project. From the scheduling to the milestones to even having backup plans if something goes wrong, a project manager’s capabilities in this phase are incredibly important.
The Putting to End
After everything has been thought out, you are ready to move on to the phase where everything will be put into action. The phase of the project in which you do work has now arrived. You are in charge of putting up anything that would be needed for the project in any way that may be necessary.
Take, for instance, the case of a corporation that needs a new logo. You need to have gone through the resources you would require during the planning process, such as the programme that will be utilised for the logo or even the system that the designer would use. When the project enters the execution phase, that is when the actual work on the project starts.
You have reviewed the equipment and supplies that the crew will need for the actual building job, and you have established a budget based on how much those tools and materials will cost. After that, you pass everything over to the team, and they begin carrying out the strategy to get started on the project.
The staff gets to work right away, beginning with the timetables that you gave them to follow. They are also free to make use of any tools for project management that you could have suggested. You must have established the groundwork for productive communication between you and the team before moving on to the execution phase.
The Method of Continuous Monitoring
This is a highly crucial phase in which you check in on the development of the project at regular intervals, as the name suggests. If you have certain milestones planned out for a project, it will be much easier for you to track its progress as it goes along. You will be responsible for keeping an eye on everything as the manager of the project. It is essential to have a system that you can utilise to monitor everyone’s development promptly.
Consider, for instance, the postal delivery service. They provide you with a tracking number or ID that you may use to determine when a package has been sent out for delivery when it will be delivered and other relevant information. Similarly, you will need to keep an eye on the team and be aware of the projects that they are working on, the amount of progress that they have made, when they will begin working on the next assignment, and so on.
Having a monitoring method that is both effective and efficient enables you to prioritise work and gives you the ability to respond appropriately to changing circumstances if a deadline is drawing closer. You may also conceive of the monitoring stage as a preventative measure that is being taken. You may use it to convene meetings and check to see whether the team is headed in the correct direction, identify potential problems, and rapidly adjust the trajectory of the project as required.
You will need to maintain a close check on how the funds are being used, which member of the team is at what level of their job, how the overall team is going towards the milestones, whether or not the deadlines are being reached, and so on.
During this process, you will also need to check that concerns are being handled properly to maintain the flow of things. Once again, maintaining open lines of communication with the team and ensuring that everything is clear at all times is very necessary.
The Termination
Putting an end to the project is, as expected, the very last stage in the process. I have seen numerous initiatives get off to an excellent beginning. However, farther on in the process, they wind up encountering several problems as a result of ineffective project management approaches. They are never finished for some reason.
As the deadline for the project’s completion draws near, it is your responsibility as the project manager to verify that everything is in the correct sequence. Check and recheck to make sure that all of the prerequisites have been satisfied. Perhaps you were involved in the process of building a website. After that, you should get the material edited by a professional so that it is the very best it can be.
Before you proclaim a project to be done, it is a good idea to create a checklist that will assist you in determining whether or not its primary goals have been accomplished.
Again, working on projects, even if they aren’t successful in every way, will leave you with valuable experience that will help you better handle the same project or a similar one in the future.
