Have you ever defined an objective and decided on a date by which you wanted it to be achieved? Maybe you even decided on a budget and designed a plan to succeed. Well, if you have ever done something like that, you have defined a project. Planning vacations, launching new websites, moving into or out of new houses or offices, starting historical databases by measuring how you spend your time, researching your market to find out more about your clients, arranging all the details for the 80th birthday party of your grandmother — all of these are projects.
What makes a project a project is its temporal nature and the fact that its scope is limited – the team and resources are put in place to fulfill one specific objective or clearly defined set of objectives.
Project Management Best Practices can help improve your execution of any kind of project, in both personal and professional areas of your life. If you clearly define the objectives, budget, and timing for the implementation of the project, and continually measure and monitor their status as you go along, your chances of completing the project successfully, on time and within budget, increase significantly and quality will not suffer. If all members of your team (which might be your family or crew) have a clear picture of what they are supposed to do and how to organize their time to fulfill these tasks, and if you are aware of all the parties involved, either directly or indirectly, and keep them informed and/or involved, you will very likely find that you encounter far fewer obstacles and rejections and that you are able to avoid trouble as the project moves forward. If you are constantly reviewing what can, could, or might go wrong, you can avoid many pitfalls, or at least decrease the impact of risks and problems. Consistently reviewing the status of tasks helps you control what is going on, it helps you keep your “eye on the ball.”
At the very beginning of your project, lay out your ideas about the objectives, scope, timing, and budget of the result. And also clearly define how you can objectively measure whether or not the finished project is successful — in other words, define your quality requirements. When a Project Manager is appointed, he or she will be responsible for the detailed planning and coordination of the team and the management of resources to accomplish the expected results as defined. A Project Manager, on an ongoing regular basis, will give you status reports and will keep you and all other parties involved informed about what is going on and how the project is progressing.
If you don’t have a team member in your organization that has the skills or experience to fill the Project Manager role, you can always outsource it. Some virtual assistants will do coordination for projects and you can also find specialized virtual Project Managers that will take over one or multiple projects for you. Just try and go for it. It’s worth it.
Keep in mind that Project Management is not about worrying all the time, nor is it about overplanning or making your relatives annoyed. Its about coordination: everyone knows what and when they are supposed to do something, and to solve any problems as the arise (ideally before they are problems). So, a daily 10 minute checkup on what is going on, and maybe a weekly chat to all involved should keep you on track.
Let me know if you need any help!