– Kicking off the planning phase
– Project Manager gets assigned
– Project goals, scope, and deliverables have to be approved
– Team members get assigned
– Sign off on the project charter
– Understand the work needed to achieve the goals
– Coordinate efforts and timelines with other teams, contractors, and vendors
– Get “buy-in” from key members of the project team
– Demonstrates to stakeholders that the team is taking care to start the project with a detailed plan
– Setting and reaching milestones and identifying tasks
– Budgeting process
– Identifying and preparing/planning for risks
– Documentation
Launching the planning phase
– Schedule
– Budget
– Risk management plan
PROJECT KICK-OFF MEETING
The first meeting in which a project team comes together to ground everyone in a shared vision, gain a shared understanding of the project’s goals and scope, and to understand each person’s individual roles withing the team.
This meeting is primarily lead by the project manager.
Who is invited to a kick-off meeting
– The project team identified in the RACI Chart in the Project Initiation phase.
– As the project sponsor
– Project stakeholders
Kick-off meeting goals:
– Establish a shared vision
– Align on scope
– Build team rapport
– Ask questions and offer insights
– Set expectations
Kick-off meeting agenda (for about an hour):
– Introductions (about 5min)
– Team member names
– Project roles
– Fun fact about each member
– Background (about 5min)
– How the project came to be
– Why the project matters
– Set a shared vision
– Goals and scope (about 10min)
– In-scope
– Out-of-scope
– Target launch date
– Milestones
– Roles (about 10min)
– What work everyone is responsible for throughout the duration of the project
– Collaboration (about 10min)
– Shared project tools and documents
– Communication expectations
– What comes next (about 10min)
– Set expectations and action items
– Questions (about 10min)
– Gain clarity on meeting topics
– Ensure the project benefits from diversity of thoughts experiences, and ideas
– Example: Ask each team member if they’re confident about the project and its plan
Best practices:
– Use a template to present this
– Send this document to all involved 1 or 2 days ahead of the meeting
– Maybe record the meeting if someone was not able to attend
– Ask a teammate to take notes on key points and action items
– After the meeting, send a follow up email that summarizes the key points and outcomes from the meeting, and any action items to the attendees.
– Invite attendees to each out if they have any additional questions
SCHEDULE
The project timeline, which includes the start date, the end date, and dates for events in between.
MILESTONES
An important point within the project schedule that indicates progress and usually signifies the completion of a deliverable or phase of the project
Setting milestones gives you a clear understanding of the amount of work your project will require.
Milestones help keep the project on track.
Milestones help uncover areas where you might need to adjust scope, timelines, or resources to meet your goals.
Reaching milestones can seriously motivate your team, and illustrate real progress to your stakeholders.
Milestones also serve as a great check-in point to highlight your progress to stakeholders.
Milestones must be completed on time and in sequential order.
If you fail to complete a deliverable tied to a specific milestone, it could set back your project schedule.
– The first step to setting a milestone is to evaluate the project as a whole.
– Once you’ve determined your milestones, the next step is to assign each one a deadline.
– To get a good sense of timing, you can connect with teammates to discuss the tasks required to reach each milestone, and get their estimates for how ling those tasks will take.
– When determining deadlines for milestones, you’ll also want to consider the needs of your stakeholders.
PROJECT TASK
An activity that needs to be accomplished withing a set period of time
Tasks are typically assigned according to a person’s role in the project.
To assign tasks between two or more team members with the same roles, take into consideration each person’s familiarity with the tasks at hand.
Consider each team member workload.
Ensure that teammates are clear on their assigned tasks.
Assigning tasks creates a sense of personal responsibility for members of the team.
Sub-tasks:
Small tasks that are required to complete a larger task.
WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE (WBS)
A tool that sorts the milestones and tasks of a project in a hierarchy, in the order they need to be completed.
Tasks are typically assigned according to a person’s role in the project.
To assign tasks between two or more team members with the same roles, take into consideration each person’s familiarity with the tasks at hand.
Consider each teammates workload.
Ensure that teammates are clear on their assign tasks.
Assigning tasks creates a sense of personal responsibility for members of the team.
All of this is done using a software like, MS Project, Asana, ClickUp, ActiveCollab, Jira, etc.
– Start a task with a verb: Choose, Build, Confirm, Send, Collect, etc.
– Assign a person
– Assign a due date for the task
– Add Description
– Add Attachments
After completing a WBS, we should have:
– A set of discrete project tasks that ladder up to each of the milestones
– Team members assigned to each task
–
BUDGET
The budget accounts for the total cost to complete the project
RISK MANAGEMENT
Searching for possible problems related to the project and planning ahead to mitigate these risks
PROJECT PLAN
Project Plan Structure:
– Tasks
– Milestones
– People
– Documentation
– Time
TIME ESTIMATION
Time estimation:
A prediction of the total amount of time required to complete a task.
This includes inactive time. The time a wall takes to paint, plus the time it takes to dry.
Effort estimation:
A prediction of the amount and difficulty of active work required to complete a task
Example, the time a wall takes to paint.
Unrealistic effort estimates happen when you’ve underestimated the amount of time it’ll take to complete a task.
Too much optimism can lead you to overlook potential risks that could set your plan behind schedule.
Your teammates will have the most realistic understanding of the amount of work required to complete a task, and will be able to provide you with the best estimate.
Asking the teammate assigned to the task for their estimate is likely to yield a more accurate estimation.
Buffer:
Extra time added to the end of a task or project to account for the unexpected slowdowns or delays in work progress.
Task Buffers:
Extra time tacked on to a specific task
Should be used primarily for tasks that are out of the project team’s control.
Should be used more sparingly for tasks within the project team’s control.
Adding a buffer to every project task could lengthen the project schedule unnecessarily.
Project Buffer:
Extra time tacked onto the end of a project.
Getting Accurate time estimate from your team:
– Soft skills: personal characteristics that help people work effectively with others.
– Soft skills for accurate estimation
– Asking the right questions
– Negotiating effectively
– Practicing empathy
Asking the right questions:
– Open-ended question: A question that cannot be answered with a “Yes” or “No”
– Example of what not to do, an closed-ended question:
– Can you complete the mock-ups in one week?
– Example:
– How long does it typically take you to mock-up a website design like this one?
– How complex is this task?
– What are the risks associated with this task?
– When do you think you could have this ready?
By asking your teammates effective and open-ended questions for their assigned tasks, you can learn how they work and what they do.
As you have more of these conversations you’ll develop a better sense of your teammates roles and their tasks and you’ll be able to rely less on your team for make accurate estimates.
Negotiating effectively:
CAPACITY PLANNING
Capacity:
The amount of work that the people or resources assigned to the project can reasonably complete in a set period of time
Capacity planning:
Refers to the act of allocating people and resources to project tasks, and determining whether or not you have the necessary resources required to complete the work on time.
Critical path:
The list of project milestones you must reach in order to meet the project goal on schedule, as well as the mandatory tasks that contribute to the completion of each milestone
Includes the bare minimum number of tasks and milestones you need to reach your project goal.
Identify which tasks can happen in parallel vs. which tasks can happen sequentially
Determine which project tasks have a fixed start date.
Determine which project tasks have an earliest start date.
Identify if a task has float (also called slack).
Float refers to the amount of time you can wait to begin a task before it impacts the project schedule and threatens the project outcome.
Tasks on the critical path should have zero float….. no room for delays!
If a task can have float, it’s not on the critical path.
GOALS
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