My Project Checklist

Recently I have been blogging on subjects like driving change and master data management implementations. One of the type of questions I got is: Can you provide me with a simple project checklist? That can help me to avoid errors (and introduce new ones …)

Start with the Beginning…

In this blog I present you with a few points to watch out for while organizing a project. Before I present to you my personal favorite checklist, I should remark that there are many best practices around. You can Google on 'prince 2' or 'pmi', the Project Management Institute. That will give you a head start. But remember: Project administration remains a tool, and is not the goal of the project.

Here I will only deal with the project startup phase. If that is done adequately, the rest will follow smoothly. The 2 most important steps are:

1. Scoping of the expected result
   Scoping is about determining what the sought result of the project should look like, and even more important: What it is not.
2. Activity structuring and activity phasing
   Structuring demonstrates to all interested parties what independent project streams you using. In a project you want to decouple as much activities as you can. This gives you the flexibility to perform activities in parallel, so the project will be faster ready. On the other hand, to provide you with the flexibility to do activities in series if you want to: Then you will need less resources.
   It is clear that some moment in time the results of the different streams are dependent on each other. Example: The project cannot end before all streams are ended. Alternatively, you need the result of a stream as an input for another stream. Take for instance specifications. This activity, making the dependencies clear, and couple them to moments in time, is called activity phasing.

Project Definition

The purpose of the project definition phase is to make sure that we all look at the same problem as well as at the same solution.

1. Goal
   Make sure we all are trying to reach the same goal, and all use the same requirements, content and project process, to measure whether we have arrived at our destination.
2. Project approach
   Tell everybody which approach we are going to take to tackle the problem, like methodology, pathfinder, or time boxed approach.
3. Structure and phasing
   What parallel streams will we have in our project, and what phasing in time. How are they related to each other?
4. Results
   What result are we going to deliver? What characteristics identify the result?
5. Capacity
   What capacity do we need in our project? How much will it cost? How long will it take?
6. Boundary conditions and constraints
   Which boundary conditions are we aware of? What constraints do we have?
7. Relations with other projects
   Resources are scarce. Therefore, what other projects are there going on we have to compete with? Are we in some other way dependent from them?>

The Initial Business Case

A project must demonstrate in some way that it is well worth undertaking the effort. A business case is a very transparent way of doing just that.

1. Reasons
   Why do we undertake this effort? What are our rewards?
2. Assumptions
   The future is very hard to predict. In order to say anything about it we need assumptions to guide us. In that case we are able to say something sensible.
3. Cost
   What does the project cost us, when we execute it successfully?
4. Benefits
   What benefits will this project bring us, or enable us to do when it has ended successfully?

This is my checklist to successfully start a project. What do you do to make your projects successful? Share your vision and strategy with the Results2Match Community!

This blog is part of series on project management. Other issues:

1. My Project Checklist
2. Driving change: On how to drive safely!
4. The Dutch General Accounting Agency reports project execution factors
5. The ROI on a project assessment, or if you know more, you need less
6. Where did I do wrong, and mess up my project
7. 8 (Eight!) Ways To Reduce Your ICT Management Costs, But Where Is the Low Hanging Fruit

Results2Match has a strong vision on proven and successful business management solutions and result driven implementations.

This blog is written by Hans Lodder. Hans is a very experienced change management consultant and interim manager. You can contact Hans through his Results2Match email address.