Project Planning- The Quick Start

One of the most exciting things of being a project manager is when you have a new project starting from scratch and you need to get a good understanding of what you need to do and how you are going to deliver it.

There are lots of methods that you can use, my preferred method is a very basic rapid planning tool.

Some methods suggest getting all the stakeholders together and creating the project framework as as a group. I prefer a smaller group  of the obvious key stakeholders and subject matter experts in their field to start and aim to cover off 6 key components.

• Desired Outcome
• Purpose of Project
• Stakeholders
• What do we need to do
• Constraints
• Timescales 

Desired Outcome

It may be strange but it it always good to check and document what the desired outcome of the project is, sometimes stakeholders are not sure other times they may vehemently disagree on what the project is trying to achieve.

Purpose of the Project

As with desired outcome it is is always good to clarify, the project may be designing a new product but is the purpose to generate new sales or provide a vital add on for the existing product set.

Stakeholders

Many a project has been sunk by not involving the correct stakeholder early whose backing you need or may have some vital information that could have saved you a ton of time and money. You really need to be exhaustive in this process and don't just leave it to internal stakeholders, the need to engage with third parties is also key particularly in technology projects.

What do we need to do

The obvious key part of the project, as the project manager you will be completing a detailed plan to cover every moving part of the project, but it is a good idea to get a view of what needs to be done at the very early stage, this is also good for helping the stakeholders come up with a realistic timeline for completion of the project.

Constraints

The normal project constraints of budget, resources and technology will come up, but this is a good opportunity to identify constraints which can range widely from a key person being on maternity leave to a major migration project which the whole organisation has their eyes on.

Timescales

Sometimes these will be obvious such as mandatory change when legislation requires solution to be in by X date. However in lots of business driven change this will not be obvious, and some initial debate with the stakeholders over what is desirable and practical in terms of delivery date.

This session should taken no more than an hour and you should come away with some rich data to move your project forward.   

Taking over a project

One of the biggest challenges for a project manager, is to take over a project that has been running for a while, the high likelihood is that the project won't be in the best of shape, if it was in good shape you wouldn't be asked to take it over would you!

The first thing to remember is to have no pre-conceptions on what has happened before, take time to listen to all the stakeholders, find out what has gone well on the project so far and more pertinently what is not going so well. To take a learning from Stephen Covey, seek first to understand before seeking to be understood, you may well see very quickly where the issues are, and want to make immediate changes but these can be dangerous until you understand all the moving parts of the project.

It is unlikely that the project is stand alone and will probably sit as part of a bigger programme, so you will need to ensure you understand where your project sits on the critical path and where your dependencies sit.

Once you have grasped a good understanding of what is happening on your new project, share your thoughts and findings with your steering group, they need to appreciate the current position and validate they agree and support your initial findings and thoughts.

If the project is in a red status the Steering group will be keen to understand the plan to get it on track, be careful not to commit until you have all the facts, aiming to please the steering group early can come back to bite you.

The final piece of advice in your first weeks on the project is to build up incrementally particularly if you are asking the team to do different things, you can normally find something that can make the team's life easier and this will quickly get them on board.