A Manager’s Guide to Planning Project Right
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” — Benjamin Franklin
Planning is something you need to do from the first day itself. Everyone in a business knows that it is important for project managers to have a solid plan to make the right project decisions.
Plan the story of your project on an online planning tool. Switch to ProofHub.
It’s important for everyone to know a lot about the project before they actually start working on it, to collectively make any important project decisions ahead of time.
Why you need a project plan?
The purpose of a project plan is to introduce the team to what the project success looks like and how working together effectively can get the team and client on the same page. Just as we give a direction to our life by planning things for every event in our life: from school to college, birthday to anniversary, holidays to work and everything, a plan for your project is becoming obligatory for its success.
Steps for planning a project
The process of project planning is for managers to better understand how to carry the project out from scratch.
1. Define the scope of your project
No matter what kind of project you are working on, the first and foremost step lies in defining the scope of the project. At the beginning of the project, sit down with your team and clients to discuss the scope. Your project scope will include: name of the team members working on it, objectives, deliverables, start and end dates and milestones, stakeholder analysis and alternative approach to the working of the project.
The work that needs to be accomplished to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions.
In all, it is the story of your project that is integral to the success of your project. Get into the scope details of your project with the team.
2. Align your expectations clearly
A project manager finds it one of the most difficult tasks to set the appropriate expectations. There is nothing frustrating for a team member to find out what expectations they should be meeting, what the managers want from them. Let them clearly understand who is accountable for what and what outcome will be expected of them. Start with clear expectations after you know the story of your project.
3. Research to collect ideas
Does your team know all of the facts related to the project you are starting with? Make sure you collect all the facts about your project before you start creating a project plan. Dive into the researchers, studies, and documents that are relevant to the project. Go into the details of the project, ask relevant questions to your clients before you finalize the project. When you have completely gone through your project’s needs, you will be better aware of the client’s needs and expectations. With research, you will not only get some amazing ideas but also be able to outline potential risks. Be prepared to face the unexpected.
4. Right mindset, perfect results
When you have to work on a new project with a new approach, it becomes crucial to have the right mindset. How you put the right foot to approach a new project will bring a difference to your success. Mindset matters. The two mindset: fixed and growth decides on how you approach work. It produces action that adds up to the success of your project. Here is what you can do for the right mindset for success:
- Be mindful of your work
- Set your daily intention
- Stop procrastinating
- Look towards growth
- Choose your habits surrounding your goals
- Find inspiration and motivation
With these steps, you will be well on your way to a positive mindset.
5. Delegate! You are not alone
The next step in project planning is to delegate the work to the team. One of the best ways to make your team prepared for future projects is to delegate them to work to step outside of their comfort zone. Just be careful that the tasks do not lie completely outside the normal set of responsibilities of an individual. Map their roles and responsibilities in order to complete the task at hand and follow a carefully planned strategy.
How to delegate:
- Pick the right skills and experiences
- Choose the right direction and context
- Develop personal responsibility also
- Practice gratitude
- Don’t over-delegate
- Provide training, if required
Avoid doing everything on your own and delegate the project tasks to the team in the right direction.
6. Communicate like a pro
Without a solid line of communication, any project will surely fail. It’s like a nightmare to manage a project without being able to communicate.
Depending on the scale of a project, a project manager should communicate every information related to the project from stakeholders to the team members. Talk to them about all the topics, tasks, other tasks that are dependent on other tasks and so on to avoid any flaws in the project from the beginning. It has been said that 90% of a project manager’s time is spent communicating what is going to be done. This means you got to know how to communicate like a pro with your people.
7. Choose the right project planning software
The wide popularity of online tools for project planning has prompted businesses to complete a project within the defined period. A project plan will define your project activities well and let you have a control over your project. Today, online project planning has made it easier to plan logical activities that impact the project.
But make sure the tool you pick, helps you with:
- Organizing tasks to create timelines
- Add custom roles to work with people together
- Discussions to plan solutions
- Gantt chart to plan forward with speed
- Customize your plans with Kanban boards
8. Be in-line with the status of your project
Finally, the progress of the project is something that you need to monitor constantly on daily basis. Never underestimate the importance of checking the progress of your project. While there are several online project planning tools, that works well to keep everyone informed about progress and blockers. You can easily work collaboratively without getting into the trap of any confusion.
Execute your plan in ProofHub
So, now you are done with your project plan. Let’s execute it. ProofHub, an online project planning tool, lets you quickly and easily build a project plan whenever a new project lands up in an email. You can effortlessly get through the project while you plan what is important for you and your team related to the project. With ProofHub’s app, you can plan all your requirements to make your project life much easy. Try it out!
Final thoughts
Try to make a simple project plan. The one that you can refer back, make changes when your plan is not working for you. Your online project plan should be like a guide to your project management. That will surely give a jump-start to your project.
“Transform the way you manage your projects. Switch to ProofHub.”
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