Project Management for Dummies, 2nd UK Edition

Chapter 22

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 the technical work 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, ...