Chapter 20
Ten Questions to Ask Yourself as You Plan Your Project
In This Chapter
Clarifying your project’s objective
Describing deliverables, schedules and resources
Addressing the uncertainties
When you begin a project, enthusiasm or organisational deadlines, or both, can make you want to jump in and start working on the detail immediately. However, you know you have the greatest chance of a successful outcome, including delivering the right thing, if you plan out your project before you start the actual work. Answer the ten questions in this chapter to be sure you’ve completely identified all the work your project will require.
What Are the Objectives of Your Project?
A common cause of project problems to the point of failure is unclear objectives. It’s easy enough for people to have very different ideas but use the same words so assume that everyone else agrees with them. You not only need to establish clear objectives, but also to get them agreed by the key players. You can do so by determining the following:
Exactly what is the project being asked to deliver?
What is the primary purpose of the project? Perhaps to speed up delivery to customers, comply with legal requirements, save money. The project can have more than one objective, of course, but the objectives should be compatible.
Who’ll benefit from the project?
What would happen if the project wasn’t run?
Who Do You Need to Involve?
Knowing early on who you need to involve allows you to include the right people in ...
