How to Initiate Projects Successfully

Most Projects Managers get tired at some point in their project. After all, managing people, money and time is exhausting. But if you're not at the top of your game for the whole length of the project, then your team can get stressed and timeframes can start slipping. So here are 5 tips for kick starting your project to rejuvenate it and give it a new lease of life...

Did you know that a large percentage of projects are cancelled before they even reach the detailed planning phase? The most common reason is that they have not been properly defined and scoped, and as a result, they lack the sponsorship needed to ensure their success. If they do manage to secure sponsorship, then Project Managers often find it difficult to control changes to the project scope, as they do not have a clearly defined scope statement to measure against.

For these reasons, it's critical that you initiate your projects as quickly and efficiently as possible, by taking these 6 steps:

The most critical step in the Project Lifecycle is the creation of the Project Plan. This document acts as a “yard stick” by providing the basis upon which to assess the performance of the project. In this newsletter, we will describe how to...

Create a Project Plan in 3 easy steps!

The Project Plan lists all of the activities required to complete the project as well as the milestones, dependencies, resources and timeframes involved. The following diagram depicts the 3 critical steps involved in creating a Project Plan:

To create a Project Plan, you first need to define the Work Breakdown Structure ("WBS"). The WBS lists each of the phases, activities and tasks required to undertake a project. You will then identify the resources required to carry out each activity listed. And finally, you will construct a Project Schedule which describes the flow of tasks and the timeframes involved in completing each task specified. A more detailed description of each of these steps follows: